I ♥ Faces week #25 "Wedding Bells"

This week's theme at I ♥ Faces is
"Wedding Bells"
Please go on over and check out the entries
I am sure there are going to be a lot of
FABULOUS pictures this week,

Why not participate yourself?

I promise it will make you want

to be a better photographer.

(click on this button to go to their page)

I took this picture of my friends
Amanda and Caleb at, of course,

their WEDDING.
I was a bridesmaid and caught this picture
between the "real pictures"
being taken by their photographer.

*
This is the Amanda I

know

&

love!

Success

I just had an incredibly successful trip to CVS...

at least I think so.

*

I went with a plan.

Armed with 16.25 dollars in coupons

and 17 dollars in extra care bucks from a previous trip.

The plan was to

buy a 20.00 clean and clear acne treatment ($5 coupon)

two boxes of cherrios (2 coupons equaling $2)

two packages of oreos

a gallon of milk (.75coupon)

two sticks of deodorant (1 coupon for 2.50)

two coppertone sunscreen things (2 coupons equaling $6)

total

=56.00

-10 off 50 coupon

-16.25 coupons

- 17 in extra care bucks

= 13.76 oop

got 21 extra care bucks back

The next transaction was for the alli weight loss starter pack

The cost is 59.99

- 10 off 50

- 10 manufacturer

- 21 extra care bucks from before

= about 20

so mom was able to get this starter system for a great price!

it is all very exciting.

so to put it into perspective

everything in the picture above

cost out of pocket

only 1/2 of what the alli system would've cost.

That I think is a SUCCESS.

everything ended up costing 70% off.

can I get a WOOT! WOOT!

*

Now onto a second success of the weekend. The past couple of weeks living in the land of coupons I have been slowing building up stock of toiletries and food that can be donated to our local food pantry. Last night I sat down with my big red basket and took out the things to be donated. I came up with a pretty good amount I think for my first attempt at this. By the time this week is over there will be a few more things added to this picture but you get the idea. I hope that this picture can encourage you to do the little you can from what you've been given.

What do you do with the overflow from your bargain deals? Any ideas are great, anything to get our brains thinking in new and innovative ways to make a difference, to be Jesus...even when we don't have the extra time and God KNOWS we don't have the extra money.

Here's hoping you have a great rest of the weekend. I believe the rest of mine is going to be good.

my birthday/your giveaway

In a week I will be 28
yep 28...
I love my birthday!
It is July 1st as close to exactly in
the middle of the year as you can get.
In honor of my BIG day I'm having a giveway.
You can win something like this...


is what's up for grabs.
(these were from my last two contests)
A coustom matte made by me for any picture you choose.
*
Just leave a comment with a good birthday memory.
*
A winner will be choosen
(by the random website)
Thursday July 2nd.
*
Good Luck!
*
One of my good birthday memories is when I turned 25. I came home for a visit and a friend took me out for the day.

When we got home there were signs in the yard telling me Happy Birthday,

and when I got into the house my whole family and
a fewfriends were there to celebrate with me.


(Shhh, don't tell but I knew they were planning it,
it was fun to see how excited my friend was thinking
she was hiding it from me that afternoon (he, he) )

Tuesday activities

Today Amanda and I had a 'date'
we went to lunch at McDonalds
then
I surprised her with a mini photo shoot
at the
Picture Me Portrait Studio
in Wal-Mart.

I told her on Sunday that I had a surprise but I won't tell her what we were going to do, I just said look nice like your going on a date with your husband. She was very excited when I told her at lunch what we were doing, I am so glad to have a friend I can be a dork with :)
I had a coupon for
1 8x10
2 5x7's
8 wallet and
16 mini
photos for 4.99 + 5.00 for an extra person
it was fun, we were silly, the picture we ended up picking was one where we are making a funny face but it looks really good. It won't be here for 2 weeks so we will wait in anticipation.
Seriously what better entertainment for 10.69 can you do? and we get pictures.

*

Before I moved back home 6 months ago myself, my roommate, and two co-workers got professional pictures from olan mills taken, it was a special with a lot of pictures (even an 11x13 that I LOVE) for 12.00 and I will never regret getting them done. Here is how that one turned out (the pose of us looking up was my idea, the lady that was shooting had us lay down with our heads in the middle and I was thinking...HELLO do you not see that we are all large chested, we did it and it did NOT work)

Here are some pictures I took while we were waiting for our 'consultation' to pick the picture.

They aren't great or very flattering but definitely capture the mood of the moment, fun & silly

After our 'date' I went to our local recycling center.

The picture above is from google images but it resembles what ours looks like, you can go and see if any magazines someone left you would like to read and also there are like four bins for newspaper.

*

On some of the blogs I read that at cvs the 28 count always infinity pads are ringing up 4.99 even though it says 10.49 and that there had been a 4.00 off coupon in the Sunday paper a few weeks ago. After 10-15 min of looking around I found one of the P&G inserts from that paper with the golden ticket. I felt weird but hey I saved like 9 dollars so I'm not too proud. I also found some other good coupons. The place is clean (not sparkling) I think I will go back, I could believe how many current Sunday papers that were there already.

*

I also made phone calls I'd been putting off and cleaned the house, it feels GOOOOOOOOOOD.

Productive day I think.

one of my favorite breakfast foods

Wonderful Bowl of Soggy Bran Flakes

Pour yourself a big bowl of bran flakes,

and drown it in milk

let it sit until the flakes are nice and soggy

then drain the milk

after most of the milk is drained

add the desired amount of sugar

and enjoy!

I don't know why but I really, really like this.

I don't like oatmeal but I like this.

Go figure!

Hey Baby!

Welcome
Cole Hughs (thats his middle name)
Into the world

So chubby

9lbs 10oz
22 inches
Born
6-20-09
@ 10:23 p.m.

This is kenzie (his big sister)

seeing him for the first time.

(photos from jeri ann's sister)
I am blessed to be an auntie again

&

can't wait until

I am able to make the 11hr road trip to

love on him and his sister.

the new family

I ♥ Faces week #24 "Let's hear it for the boys"

I ♥ Faces weekly challenge time! This week is named ''Let's hear it for the boys''
Please click on the button below to;

check out all the entries and maybe participate yourself.
My entry for kids category

This little one goes to my church, the picture was taken at vacation bible school he is so darn cute!

My entry for adults category

Josh was in charge of the outside activites for vacation bible school and in this picture he had just had a tub of water poured over him for the 3rd or 4th time that day. What a good sport!

Observations

Observations
*
I am becoming entirely TOO comfortable

with going into stores in my pajamas.
*
It is almost never a bad idea to apologize.
*
Planning suprises is fun!
*
I heart...

air conditioning,

snuggling with my dog,

and getting pedicures

(it has been TOO long since I've had one of those.)
*
Mug shots ALWAYS make the jailee look broke-down!

Heros

This week at work I have watched the first season of HEROS.
Surprisingly I really, really like it.
The Japanese man Hiro, is HILARIOUS! he does a great job as an actor
The large cast makes it engaging without becoming weary.
Watching HEROS has lead me a very important life question.
If I were a hero what power would I posses?
I had 2 thoughts
#1. I'd like to be invisible. It would be interesting to be privy to he happens behind closed doors. That thought lasted about two seconds, until I remembered that there is definite bliss associated with ignorance.
#2. Final answer, I would want to fly. Freedom would be mine. Lunch in India, vacation on the Easter islands, winter with the citizens of Bhutan in the Himalayan mountains.
Yeah that sounds nice!
~
If you were a tree...I mean if you could choose a super power what would be your choice?

Thoughts...random

Things I've learned the 6 months I've been blogging.
* it is a great way to discover things about yourself
* it is fun, and a good way to document life's little things
* while I find it exciting to have 12 followers and write as if I have things to share, I can't do it for that reason
* what you write is not always what others read. I have had a couple (one, a few months ago, very hurtful) misinterpretations of things written.
~
Late last I checked my blog reading list and a friend had written a blog post about being
"Beware of Bargain Hunter's High "
~
Her post happened to be written the same day I wrote this post about my great adventures in couponing the last couple of weeks.
My base reaction
was to make it all about me. She wrote this post just for me, she thinks I'm irresponsible and impulsive, and she wants to tell me I'm over the top without really saying it.
Then
I pulled up my post and looked at it. Everything I bought we will use, it will last us a long time. A few weeks ago I came home with three 12 roll packs of toilet paper and an 8 pack of paper towels. It cost 22 and I got 10ecb back (so $12 for 36 rolls of toilet paper and 8 rolls of paper towels), since then we haven't had to spend anything for toilet paper and today we still have a 12 rolls left!
The Extra Care Bucks I get I use to print photos for scrapbooking, get chocolate when the craving comes, get a magazine that looks interesting, or buy a funny card for a friend and some stamps to send that card. These are wants I get to have because I find "the deals", without them ("the deals") I wouldn't have the "little pleasures".
Plans for anything I got free that we won't use is to donate them to a local food pantry. My whole idea is that I might not have the money to donate and make a significant difference, but I can do what I can, tangibly, to give from our meager overflow.
Then
I stopped and called out my paranoia (Satan) and thought about who I know my friend to be: a loving christian woman, who would not write a post simply to admonish me, she may not have even read my post from yesterday morning, and if she did she may have already had the idea for the beware post before yesterday. Whatever the case, I learned from that 45 min of self examination, and that is what matters.
Anyway,
there is my metamorphosis from drama to reality.
The success? That I went through the steps of the process very quickly. Its all about recovery and purpose. Walk/live like you know where your going even if you don't (wink, wink)

Homemade Coupon Book

So

The accordion coupon thing I had was NOT working for me.

I decided to make one from an old photo album I had

here is the front

This is the table of contents

so we can quickly find what we need

just some pages showing

how I labeled the page numbers and categories

the great thing is that the photo album is 2ring binder like

and I can reorganize the pages when I want

This is showing the compartments for

Walgreens, CVS, and Kmart

so I can put the coupons, ECB, and RR I need

here, I made some scrap paper

so that I can have it when the need arises

I've only been using this for the past couple of days but I can already tell how great this is going to work out for me. the orange band keeps it closed and makes sure the coupons won't come out.

what are the ways that you organize your coupons? any tips?

Breakfast

Tuesday
These friends came over for lunch

They are Jared (the one with the hat)

he has been one of my closest friends since I was 13
Mindy, Jared's twin brother's wife
Josh Jared's twin didn't come

he had driven 15 hours the day before

and slept in (can't blame that)
Kyle who is married to Jared's sister
And
Jayme, Jared's sister and my good friend. She graduated high school when I was in 8th grade so haven't gotten to spend a lot of physical time with her but we have been writing to each other for YEARS and have gotten close through many miles.

I hope to visit her and Kyle in Portugal one day. Until then I will mail, e-mail, and support from this side of the ocean.
~
Breakfast was good. I made scrambled eggs and waffles, set out some fruit, and little donuts.
There is nothing like enjoying the company of friends you love but don't get to see often.

last two weeks shopping FUN!

CVS
Prilosec 42count used 3mq and got 5ecb
Osteo bi flex b1g1 used 12mq
4 pro deodorant got 16 ecb
2 advanced toothpaste used 2mq got 4ecb
These two are from a rain check of deals they had a couple of weeks ago.
2 packages of peanut butter m&ms
2 bags of lindt milk chocolate used 2 $1mq
1 bag of gummi worms got 5ecb
Quatro razor used 4mq got 4ecb
Toothpaste used .50mq got 2ecb
2 boxes of kotex used 1.50/2mq got 2ecb
Loreal mascara on clearence used 1mq
Loreal lip gloss on clearence used 1mq
Hostess donuts
Sunday paper
Pictures developed from internet order
toothbrushes got 2ecb
bandaids
mouthwash got 2ecb
4 packages of cleansing clothes got 20ecb
WALGREENS
Body wash got 3rr
Body wash got 3rr
Body wash got 3rr
2 packages of chips ahoy got 3rr
3 boxes of envelops used 1.87 store q
3 boxes of kleenex used .50mq and 1.50 store q
8 cans of ragu used 4mq and got 8rr
Almay eye make-up remover pads
Skintimate used 1mq
Total oop $70 dollars it would have cost 70 just to get the prilosec and osteo bi flex for mom she would have gotten, so the rest is gravy :)
Rewards earned and used $53
Rewards left $27
Coupons used $31
B1G1 $22
$10 off $50 purchase
Saved $148


I also went to K-mart last week and got their double coupon deal.
I did four transactions
All together oop was 90 dollars
I used over 160 dollars in coupons (amount after doubled)
I used about 50 coupons

The BEST DEAL was on command hooks


They were on clearance
Big ones for 3.50 full price 14.50 each
Smaller ones for 3.00 full price 11.50 each

I had command coupons and used 5 worth 2.50 off each and 3 worth 1.00 each doubled to equal 6.00 off so I got 8 command metal hooks worth 101 dollars for 7 dollars!!! (i have been wanting these hooks for a long time but I thought they were crazy expensive, I am so glad I went back to look at the picture hooky things I got 2 packages of medium velcro hooky normally 7 for 1 dollar, I had 2 1.50 off coupons for this doubled equaled 6 dollars. If you have never tried these hooks I would they work amazingly and you don't have to put a nail in the wall if a picture needs moved...NO HOLE!

I also got a ton of cleaning and personal (shampoo, deodorant, razor ect...) supplies, dog and cat treats, cat litter pads and pellets, soda, food, and glade plug in things ect, ect...

All and all I think I've had a great week, I got to fulfill my desire to shop while saving money, and getting things we will use.