Walgreens Deals & Last Weekend's Pictures

Walgreens has about $60 of freebies this month. Plus for tomorrow only, they have a $10 off of $40 coupon for in store use. Use it towards your freebies - in the end it's like $10 free :)

Click here for your coupon!

Pictures from last week's family reunion. Natalie apparently has a Chinese cousin who lives in Houston. From what I understand, I am connected to her mom by our great great great grandfather, Dr Shields (actually there might be 4 greats in there, I have to check the chart). That makes her like what...my 142nd cousin? :)

Having fun on swings :)

Running around like a maniac.



Lovin on Bobo.
Sleeping with all her babies and her blue shoe.

We are all sick and will lay low for the weekend. I hope to work on the house this weekend assuming I can stand without puking!

101 Days

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Fairest of the Fair

Nope, I didn't enter her...but I might next year! I can see it now, frilly dress, shiny shoes. She'd walk up to the mic and announce to the crowd... I POOPED!

We went to the fair today for a whole 90 minutes! It was free admission if you got there between 10-11. We had to pay $3 for parking, $6 for crappy corndogs and $5 for skeeball, but really, that is a bargain when it comes to fair stuff!

I've not been to the fair since I was like 9. A lot has changed. I know a big part of it is being ruined with places like Disney. It was dirty and stinky!

Scooter rode three rides and I hung on the edge of the gate and waved like a maniac. She gave me her standard "who are you? why are you so stupid?" look. I get that a lot.


I am rather fond of this picture, it was taken before the ride started. She did NOT like this one!


She really liked this ride. It didn't do anything but go in circles!

Check out her seat mate, isn't he cute? Weighed more than Natalie too!

Stinky sheep.

Curious cow! This place was like a mine field. They had the cows situated so you walked through two rows of them with their butts facing you. Yikes!
A little bit of cow snuggling.

Bye for now!

I need ideas for fundraising

Natalie's preschool is a not for profit. They run right on the edge of their budget because it is a small center, just 24 kids. They don't have huge classrooms of 4 year olds that many schools have (you are allowed to have a lot of kids per adult in a 4 year old room) and that hurts them money wise.

Now you know how cheap frugal I can be. I can see some room for improvement in their spending but it there isn't a lot to trim.

So I have have started fund raising for them with local businesses. Since they are not for profit and have a magic number people can give then stuff then write it off.

So far I've hit up one of our three Walmarts and I'll be getting a gift card in Sept. For how much, I don't know! I will do the other two next week. I figure with coupons off of Ebay and price matching, I'll be able to stretch my Walmart purchases pretty well!

I also plan to hit up some local grocery stores for breakfast and snack foods.

Does anyone have ideas on how we could raise more money without be annoying - like selling crap from a catalog? Anyone want to give me a bunch of money? lol

Walgreens Deals

I've not posted deals in a long time. I knew Walgreens had plastic cultery on sale this week so I picked up an Easysaver book too. This month you can get free after rebate...
a bottle of Organic shampoo or conditioner
a bottle of 2-1 pert plus
a container of jane mineral makeup (which sucks) or one of the fluffy brushes (much better)
a water pitcher filter
a 4 pack of light bulbs
a 2 pack of space bags (ideal for travel to China!)
a big vacume space bag (all my stores are out of stock of this blah! It is the type you use your vacume cleaner atttachment on)
and they have $4 off a small appliance.

I got the water pitcher (the kind with the filter doohickey) for $10 with a $4 rebate. I got the replacement filter too. These are going to my Mom for one of her little Christmas presents, her water is very hard. My brother will get the lightbulbs and maybe the pert if I don't like it. My Mom will get the make up brush too. The organic shampoo smells great! It's mine! :) I'll use the travel bags for the Dec cruise too.

I like Walgreens rebates because I can enter them online. It is low stress, only one set of freebies a month (unlike CVS which is high stress, too many deals too little time!).

Some Walgreens also have their beach type stuff 75% off. I got a pair of cheap flops for 50 cents and two fancier pair for $2 each. The baby got a floating ring for $3something.

With the $5 off of $20 coupons and the $5 register reward Dad had, we walked out with bags of stuff for $7 after all the rebates. Yipppeee!

Weekend Update

Eventually I'll manage to write more than one post a week. Not a whole lot has happened this week. We are still sort of camping here. I haven't been to my house in a week (I have other people feeding the cats). Tomorrow I hope to go and clean up big time and pack up some things to bring here to store.

Let's see today I woke up at 5 to go to the Tree Street yard sales again. They moved the date a week back and no one was there. Only half the houses participated too. I am thinking I'll go back next weekend when people think it is going to happen and see how many new houses are there!

Bought lots of stuff, mostly for the baby. Here is a rundown of the loot (have to take pictures and talk about cheap stuff every so often or they'll kick me out of the frugal club hehe). Here is the baby loot (all in like new condition - don't you love that phrase?):


gymboree turtleneck in teal and a floatie vest bathing suit sort of thing - 25 cents each
additions to our panda family - 50 cents each

Nemo dress to go over her nemo bathing suit as a cover up - $1

Starter jacket for the fall - GO VOLS! - $2

I thought this was cute for the next 4th of July - $2

A wrap around boutiquish type creation. Double sided with ricrak trim, weird but cute. - $1
Old Navy denim jacket - $1
Gymboree lual skirt and hat - $2. Old Navy hula girl shorts, 50 cents.

Old navy bathing suit and swimmy shoes (with tags) - $1 each(I know they don't match but there aren't a lot of options in TN for beach shoes).

Light pink long sleeved top for next winter - 50 cents. Halloween shirt for this year - 50 cents
Beach tshirt for now - 50 cents. St Patty's Day shirt for next year - 50 cents
Shorts for next summer - 75 cents. 2 lovies, $1 each (now she didn't really need these, I just wanted them. I wanted to buy them new while I was waiting and didn't so this gives me my fix).

A pink poodle costume for halloween this year. - $2

Overalls for this year - $1

And here are the fabric remnants I love to buy every year with the intentions of making pillows. The interior design sorority type girls sell them, 10 for $2, I got 30!

My mostly solids for the backs. Chenille, tweeds and velvets :)

And all the patterns. A wild mix but in real like they sort of go together.

(the middle piece has fur on it!)


(I like the top one a lot, there is a solid that matches it perfectly, they were next to each other in the sample book)

(the bottom one is really nice in person too, a nice texture)


Ok, so looking over them again, maybe they don't all go? :)

I also found Bobo's cousin, TanBo. Tanbo is same fabric but he is a bear that is standing up. Oh, and he is tan :) She went nuts when she saw it, so now many we'll be able to take one around town without the fear of loosing the only Bo. I halfway thought about trying to dye him in beet juice tonight when he comes out of the wash to make him pink!

So we come back today and the baby is starting to get whiny. I get her home and fed and she throws a plate on my foot and it breaks (the plate, not my foot, but it does hurt) so she got a time out. I then hear I POOPED (her new thing). I go in, she hadn't just pooped, she had taken off her diaper and dumped in her crib and smeared poop from nose to toes. And she peed in the corner. Is my kid the only one out there that plays in her poop? Good grief!

This is from a couple of days ago. She is very fond of her "mocs" and wears them almost 24/7.

And this is from earlier in the week. She leaned over her crib and pulled a bunch of her clothes into the crib to sleep with them.
Her pointy teeth on top are coming in. That will give her 6 on top and just three on the bottom. I am not sure where that 4th bottom tooth is??

Ok I think that is it for now - bye!

Weekend Update

She puts on her own shoes now...only about 10% of the time does she get them on the right feet :)


Natalie spent the night Friday at her Nana's house. This was the third time she had done it, the first time it just had to be done, there was too much going on with funeral type stuff. Now she goes just to go. She has a little white cottage style toddler bed in one of the bedrooms and a nice selection of her toys there. She bangs on the piano and throws food...she has a grand old time!

So on Saturday we went to look at a house. I liked the house a lot, my Dad hated it. It was 2150SF with 4 bedrooms and 2.5 baths. It has a small kitchen and a nook (which I would make into a big kitchen) and the 4th bedroom would be better as a den (because then you could use the den next to the kitchen as a dining room). It had hardwood in the living room, all 4 bedrooms and the hall. There was tile in the bathrooms and the master bath was totally redone in a spa style that I like. BUT the rest of the house needed work. In my book, it was a fixer. BUT it was 30K less than all the other listings and all the SF was on one level (I hate it when people half a$$ finish a basement and count that as a real part of a house). They were really bad painters, every surface needed paint. The half bath needed a new sink. The windows were not old at all but were badly painted and needed to be striped. So ya, it was a fixer upper sort of, I mean there would be a lot of people who would just move in as it. BUT for 15K the den/dining/kitchen/nook corridor would have new hardwood (instead of carpet and tile) and there would be new kitchen cabinets. Every baseboard would be replaced with tall ones, and quarter round would be added. I'd put in crown in most of the rooms. I'd paint every surface. Then it would be a great house. But my Dad can't get past a green roof. :sigh:
That afternoon I went to my little house. It is crazy the things you notice after being away for so long. I do not miss the messy trees that shower my house with the fuzzy stick things. I do not miss the neighbors. I do miss my outdoor cats (one lives with the neighbor now :( ). I played with Wookie (who will get to come to the condo in about a week, we have a flea issue from that last batch of kittens I gave away) and I cleaned and cleaned and cleaned. I went through lots of stuff, tossed some, organized more and was just really surprised how little I planned to keep!

Sunday morning we went to a troop rally meeting at our local grocer. There is a group of people running one mile for each fallen soldier and they were running in our part of TN heading into Abington. They had a support van and uhaul that would follow the runners and the runner switch out every so often (I hope, Abington is like 40-50 miles away). They were a really nice group of people.




The a teenage kid plowed into a woman right in front of us. They weren't hurt but she was upset. I would be too.


We also went to the grocer and I had a grand old time. They marked down a lot of produce (cherries, tomatoes, pears and granny smith apples) that were not in yucky mark down condition. I also got 4 pounds (21!) amish chicken legs at 79 cents a pound. I cooked all of them at lunch, we had them today, tonight, tomorrow..well you get the idea.

Her shirt is a good summary of our day...we had sundeas at McDonalds, she stole cherries from me while I pitted them for cobbler and managed to find every speck of dirt from the playground (she didn't want to leave!). Oh ya, there is coke coke on there too or COOOOKE COOOOOKE! (add a nice high pitched whine there) where so stole my can and dumped it on herself. Oh ya, she ate spagetti for dinner too, forgot the bib. So do you think it will come clean? lol

Bargains :)

I've not bought much in the last few weeks. One, I am trying to use up what Dad and I already have stockpiled. Two, I've not had a lot of opportunity. Weekends are spent cleaning and organizing now, not much time is left for fun stuff like TJ Maxx!

I went to the church's rummage sale a couple of weeks ago and scored a pony! I got there late and out in the rain was Natalie's favorite pony from daycare #1. I don't think they make them anymore, so I was pretty happy. It lost some of it's stickers because of the rain, but it rocks just dandy. $2 - woohoo!

The second good deal was yesterday. We have a local consignment shop that has weird clothes. They either have brand new high end stuff or ratty nasty walmart clothes with stains. They were running a special on summer stuff, half off. I got a like new baby gap denim dress and a like new baby gap white crinkle with crochetted accents type dress. They are both adorable on her. The denim one was marked down to $5. I normally don't spend that on used clothes but this did look brand new. The white dress was $6, same reasons as before. I also got scooter a cute pink button up carters shirt for $1.50. So all in all, a good deal but boy did I have to dig through junk to find it!

I guess that is it for now. Here is the baby on her pony from this morning, she is wearing the denim dress too :)