The weekend started with the boys in their fort.  My mom built it for them

Proof Codi ate chicken

AND LIKED IT

Realizing they drilled in the wrong spot AGAIN

Brandon helped them drill

He was really good at it, he also learned to hammer nails

Codi drilled too!

Our first ride on the tire swing

Let’s not discuss my lack of tan mmmkay

The almost finished product.  There is still more crap to add

The other side.  That is called a Turbo slide. 

The men who made it all possible

Aren’t they all silly

Ready to go down the turbo slide

That thing scares the shit out of me

Catch me papa

brandon is already a pro turbo slider

Give dad a couple beers and he is a pro too!

Here comes Codi

My mom spent the weekend weeding my garden and planting veggies.  She got me basil, thyme, oregano, pumpkins, onions, cilantro, more chives, potatoes, and more.  She also cleaned my roses up all pretty.  I bbq’d dinner!

My husband got an awesome tan line!

We topped the last two weekends off with some popsicles and a wagon ride

Brandon is thrilled with the warm weather

Jump!

My dancing fool

I’ve never been too good at following the rules of parenting.  My kids have always eaten the wrong things.  Case in point, my dad fed Brandon Krispy Kreme when he was three months.  Codi has eaten chocolate, dirt, and other things babies shouldn’t. On Sunday Brandon had 4 different kinds of popcicles, because it was Sunday and we were working outside and WHO DOESN’T LOVE POPSICLE?

As I mentioned before I’m watching my bestest friend Katie’s baby.  Dylan is a tank.  Seriously this kid is huge.  He loves food.  Of course me being "cool aunt Shannon" you would have to expect that Dylan has eaten some no no’s while in my care.  Most recently today he had cocoa crispies that Codi so kindly shared.  Here is the funny part.  Dylan’s dad is a worry wart.  He’s not down with the baby Cheeto’s I give Dylan.  I promised Katie to never tell her husband about the time Dylan might have hypothetically had a push pop.  And today when I was trying to get a cute picture of Dylan and he started eating dirt…well you can imagine that isn’t going to go over well.  

I am careful to cover my bases well.  Cheeto’s are fine because they will be the same color as sweet potato poop.  Cookies blend in nicely with chicken baby food poop.  However, there was one time, I was not so careful.  One time while Dylan and I were playing outside I let him play with a tree.  He tore off a branch and it would have taken the jaws of life to get it from him so I let him keep it.  I’m thankful Katie was the one changing his diaper the next morning, because if her husband had gotten the diaper with a perfectly in tact leaf in it….I WOULD HAVE BEEN TOTALLY CAUGHT.

So.  Note to self.  From now on, when I am cool aunt Shannon and give Dylan forbidden foods….make sure his parents won’t find it in his diaper.

 

 

Also, maybe don’t have photgraphical evidence of the dirt eating incident!

Okay I have to go now, Dylan and I have some ice cream sandwiches to tend to.

I’M KIDDING KATIE…I COULD NEVER EXPLAIN THE CHOCOLATE IN HIS DIAPER!

I’ve come to conclude after picking up cocoa crispies off the floor for the 17th time this morning (no exaggeration) and sweeping up toast crumbs and banana mush twice this morning that in MY HEAVEN THERE WILL BE NO GODDAMN FUCKING CRUMBS!

None!  Floors will always be spotless.  So clean you could eat off them.  Only you would never have to eat off them because no food would ever touch them.  Floors would have a built in cleaning mechanism.  As soon as food fell POOF it would just vanish into the magic heaven recycle bin.

Sunday night I vacuumed.  I have hardwood but I often vacuum because one of my OCD things is that floors must not only be clean but the edges, under furniture, in corners, etc.  So I use my little hose attachment on my Dyson and suck everything up.  Anyway.  Sunday I vacuumed.  So you can imagine that yesterday only ONE day later when I vacuumed again and found a half full canister of shit how annoyed I was.  How on earth do these guys do it?  How are kids so fucking messy?  It is like exude crumbs and spills from their pores.  Anyway I got everything all vacuumed while dinner was cooking and wouldn’t you know right after dinner I had to get my little hand broom and sweep all the shit under the table because 30% of what Brandon eats jumps on the floor magically some how.  I swept under him and moved to the other side of the table.  Put the broom away and turned to see that Brandon had just mutilated a brownie in the very spot I had just cleaned.

I think I developed a nervous twitch in the moment.  I got everything good and cleaned one last time.  While they were in the bath (Rob was watching them) I lugged the vacuum upstairs and cleaned the entire upstairs floor.  I left it up there because I got Codi dressed after that and then put him to bed. 

So you can imagine that this morning when I watch Codi leave a trail of cocoa crispies every where, and then leave a second trail where I just cleaned, and Brandon is dismantling toast on to my floor and mush bananas are some how magically falling on the floor (because Brandon swears he isn’t doing it) how annoyed I am.  The broom is fine for small messes but not trails of cocoa crispies.  The vacuum is way up there and my sanity is way past okay.  In my heaven I wouldn’t even need a Dyson because there would be no goddamn fucking messes on the floor.

What will be in your heaven?

I have a great post coming up about where I’ve been since Easter.  I’ve been building a park in my back yard.  However, what I want to talk about right now is function. 

I’ve discovered that some people just plain function differently.  My husband and I for example are polar opposites.  So are our children.  My husband can wake up at any time of the morning and be nice.  He can be happy.  He can solve a problem.  Ask him to do that at midnight though, and you should probably just pack your bags and leave.  Seriously, when our kids are sick, and they are up coughing at night, it’s smarter just to call out for mommy, because daddy has no sympathy for sick kids at 1AM.  However, if you try and ask me something in the morning, expect a response similar to a fire breathing dragon.  It’s best just to shut the fuck up in the morning.  It isn’t a sleep issue either.  I can sleep till 11 in the afternoon but for that first hour, WATCH YOUR BACK.  

To put it blunt, as I told my therapist recently, I’M AN ASSHOLE IN THE MORNING! A big one too.  HUGE!  I need coffee, and some food, and at least 20 minutes to meditate on my morning.  So you can imagine when I’m home alone with the two boys in the morning and Brandon takes 42 minutes to take off his T-shirt, well, he and I don’t get along. 

I guess it is good my husband and I are opposites that way.  There is always one of us who can function.  One of us who can be sane enough to not rip your goddamn head off during the wrong time of day.  Our kids are the same.  Brandon wakes up and is like WOOHOO LET’S GET THE PARTY STARTED (which makes my head hurt) and Codi opens one eye, looks at the world, rolls over shuts it and goes back to sleep for a while.  Even after he does that he still has to wake up, stretch, be quiet and peaceful and just look around before he can start his day.  I’m telling you, Brandon needs to hurry up and learn that Codi is the wrong person to try and hug in the morning, just ask the bruise on his head from where Codi kicked him this morning because Brandon had the audacity to kiss him hello.  

I’m amused.  It feels as if we had one kid for each of us.  Brandon and Rob hang out together so well, Codi and I we can hang out for hours.  Try and reverse that and chaos ensues.  When Brandon and I try and spend an hour alone in the morning it’s as if the planets disalign and the whole fucking universe explodes.  My husband comes home to find us both at our wits end and in need of some chocolate.  The same can be said for my husband and Codi.  

I find it interesting how different people can be.  I always assumed that if you were with someone long enough you became similar.  I assumed your kids would be just like you.  I never realized that while one may be the other might not, because he’s busy being just like your husband who is nothing like you.

Tell me.  Are there qualities in you and your spouse, or you and your kids that are different?  Really different?  Have they changed to become similar or stayed the same? 

I can tell you after a kagillion years of being friends with Ginger, she is still late  everywhere and I’m still early everywhere.  Katie is always well put together and showered and I’m always standing there wondering if I put on deodorant today.  My husband is always going to be sweet in the morning and I’m always going to want to take a baseball bat to his head because he asked me how I slept.  And lord have mercy on his soul if there is no coffee downstairs when I get there.

Brandon: "Codi you’re a silly munchkin."

 

Wonder where he learned that word, how cute!

Last night Brandon was eating dinner midway through he declared he was full.  As he was getting down he looked at us and said,

"Can I have a snack now?"

Rob and I laughed and explained if he was full he woudn’t have room for a snack. His response was,

"No I’m just full of dinner, I’m not full of snack though."

We asked him what he wanted and he replied,

"Marshmallows & chocolate."

So we told him if he ate his dinner he could have a snack.  He got back in his chair and finished eating.  When I saw he only had about three bites left I went in the kitchen and grabbed cocoa crispies, marshmallows, chocolate chips, marshmallow fluff and sprinkles.  I was gonna create me some SNACK!  Not long after Brandon walks in the kitchen.  I was so proud of him for finishing his dinner.  But then I look down and see he is about to throw his napkin away.  This struck me as odd because in three years he has never ever thrown away his napkin.  Put his bowl in the sink, YES, throw away a napkin NO! Here is what happened next.

Me: (noticing his napkin is also in a super tight little ball "Brandon whats in your napkin?"

Brandon: "Nut ting"

Me: Brandon let me see it"

Brandon" NO (runs)

Me: "Brandon let me see whats in there"

So I chase him, pry the napkin out of his hand and open it up to reveal his last two bites.

That little stinker was really going to throw his damn dinner away in his napkin.  Now.  I know my husband says he did this when he was little.  I never did, so I honestly don’t know how you learn that.  Now I am curious to find out where exactly he learned that, or did he really just sit there and think, "gee I’m just going to hide this taco in my napkin and mom will never know?"

 

KIDS!

I stopped writing about my store savings for a while.  I did this because I felt like I was only regurgitating what I had been told, rather then what I knew.  It’s been a few months now and I have a better handle on things.  When I started the envelope system I started it budgeting $100.00 per week on groceries.  This did not work.  Here is why.  Lets take a four week month for example, I’ll break down in weeks about what I would buy.

Week 1: Chicken, ground beef, vegetables, eggs, milk, cheese, tortillas

Week 2: Chicken, beef, pasta stuff, milk, veggies, laundry stuff

Week 3: Chicken, pork, ground beef, milk, veggies

Week 4: Beef, veggies, milk, eggs, bacon, veggies, snacks

 

Here is the problem with that.  I was buying meat weekly.  That was hard when meat wasn’t on sale, and harder if I needed meat and laundry soap in the same week.  Then, the next week if meat was on sale, or I budgeted meals particularly well and I had leftover money I found that I was spending it on frivolous grocery items rather then necessities.  So, rather then storing the left over money that week I would buy junk food, or other non necessity items. 

So what I’ve been doing from now on is a big $200.00 grocery trip followed by three $40-$60.00 fill in trips.  It is working so nice.  The first week I spend hunting down sales on meat and other items.  I drive to 3 or 4 stores to get meat on sale and stock up.  I also try and plan this around other coupons or sales.  For instance one week looked like this:

Safeway: $150.00 in groceries.  However I transferred a prescription so I got a $35.00 gift card. Then with my club card and coupons I saved an additional $40.00 making the total cash out of pocked for $150.00 in groceries only $80.00!!!

Albertsons: Pork ribs & tenderloin on sale.  I got 3 large packs of ribs and 4 tenderloins for $40.00.  I also picked up avocados, tomatoes, and onions on sale.

On that trip I stocked up on orange juice, butter, veggies, rices, cereal, oreos, shampoo, and more.  Since I had so much money left over I was able to go to Raleys and take advantage of their tri-tip sale.  Tri-tip for $2.99 a pound.  17 Tri-tips later I was happy but not done.  I still had a little money left over so I headed to Smiths.  I have a Smiths (Kroger) card and each time I shop I get coupons.  The week before I had gotten a coupon for Always pads, Cottonelle toilet paper, free tissue, and frozen veggies and foods.  So I went online and scoured the Internet for additional coupons.  I found one for Cottonelle, and Always.  I got toilet paper for about $4.00 for a giant 12 pack and pads for free.  Plus I got a free package of Kleenex ultra soft tissues.  However while I was there I noticed that chicken was on sale.  I got packs of chicken thighs for $1.65 each, so I grabbed five.  

That week was a great week for groceries.  With tax money I purchased a food saver so all of my meat was frozen nice and tight and safe.

The next two weeks I only had to fill in.  A few fresh veggies, milk and eggs.

The fourth week I found chicken on sale again so I grabbed five more packs.  I don’t care if I have $5.00 in my grocery budget, if meat is on sale I will find the money in another envelope and stock up, it’s just smart.

This week I had $43.00 total for groceries.  Here is what I had on my list:

• Red wine vinegar
• olive oil
• pam
• balsamic vinegar
• spam (shut up my husband needs it)
• eggs
• milk
• garlic
• spinach
• syrup
• tomatoes
• lettuce
• hair gel
• bubble bath

Here is what I walked out with

• Kroger brand organic olive oil spray
• eggs
• milk
• garlic
• tomatoes
• spinach
• apples (3)
• onions (2)
• asparagus
• lettuce
• hair gel
• bubble bath
• bananas
• spam (only 1)

I spent $41.00.  Heres how.  Last weeks Smiths coupons included a free Organic fresh Naturally preferred salad item.  I chose to get a free spinach for $3.29.  I knew that if I purchased the cooking spray I could hold off on the $11-$18.00 bottle of olive oil until my large budget shopping week.  I could easily make meals with out vinegar for this week.  I purchased the lettuce that was on sale this week.  Instead of Johnsons bubble bath I went with a Kroger brand night time one that actually smelled yummier then the Johnsons.  I picked a hair gel on sale.  I grabbed only one can of spam instead of 3 and left it on the list to remind me to buy it again the week I do a big trip.  I grabbed only a couple tomatoes.  Onions were on sale so I grabbed two.  Asparagus was on sale for $1.99 a pound which is excellent so I grabbed two bundles.  I got the bananas because Codi saw them and wanted them and if he wants something he gets it since he never eats.  I got the apples rather then the syrup because I knew I had a gazillion boxes of cereal at home so that would suffice for breakfast and apples would be a good snack.  

I think the best part of stocking up meat wise is that I now know I can go at least 3 weeks or more with out purchasing meat.  This makes me relax so much more knowing that I have wiggle room with my grocery budget now. 

I also now keep a coupon book.  It is a small notebook with a pocket in front.  In the pocket is envelopes for each store.  That way when I go to Smiths I automatically put my Smiths coupons in there.  Then on a sheet of paper labeled Smiths I put what coupon is in there and it’s expiration date.  In front of the envelopes are manufacturer coupons paper clipped together.  I have about 10 Huggies coupons right now.  They are paper clipped in order of earliest expiration to the one farthest away.  I also list those on a sheet of paper.  When I do my large shopping trip now I make lists based on each store, and put marks next to what I have a manufacturer coupon for so I can keep an eye out for sales.  Every Wednesday I search the store circulars for coupons.  Sunday I check the paper.  Weekly if there is something I really need I go online.  For instance I need laundry soap this week so I went to Gain’s website and found a coupon.  I often visit Walmarts free section and ask for samples because samples always come with coupons.  I don’t put more then an hour a week into couponing but sure saves me money.

To recap here is what I’ve learned.

• Don’t be afraid to adjust your budget.  If it isn’t working find out why and redo it. 
• Be open to adjusting your grocery list.  If you see something on sale like meat or veggies figure out how you can adjust your list to accommodate that.
• COUPONS ARE YOUR FRIEND
• Go store brand on things that don’t matter (hair gel, bubble bath, etc)
• Don’t skimp on important things, no matter how much money you save single ply shitty toilet paper is never going to feel good when you wipe your ass!
• Stock up on meat, but that doesn’t mean use it all right away.  I still buy meat.  That way I have some saved for weeks I am short money.  If I end up needing toilet paper, laundry soap, and diapers in the same week you bet your ass I have no money left for meat, I’m relieved knowing I have my little stock pile!
• Menu plan.  I can’t tell you how important this is.
• Buy cheap sides.  You can get really far with a bag of brown rice and a bag of potatoes.  The possibilities are endless!
• Make your own.  I made fresh blueberry cranberry muffins today and I didn’t spend a dime, it was all stuff on hand.  Purchasing muffins or muffin mix would have cost me so much more then just making it from scratch, don’t be afraid to cook!

Tell me.  What have you learned lately?  Have you saved money shopping?  Do you have any great tips?

CODI ATE CHICKEN NUGGETS & GOLDFISH CRACKERS!