August Days

We have enjoyed this summer. On Wednesdays, I babysit my neighbors kids: Austin, who just turned 3 and Brooklyn who is turning 1 on September 11th. While Brooklyn sleeps, we get to go outside and have fun in the sun. Now I'm stuck thinking of what to do while she sleeps in the morning when it gets cold outside. Here's a fun story about this picture- I asked Austin if he wanted an otter pop and he replied, "yeah". A few moments passed and you could tell he was thinking really hard. He looked up and said, "What's a water pop?" :) Needless to say, he liked "water" pops!

Gigi loves "Soes", or at least that's how she says it. It's "Soes, soes, soes" all day long!


Magnetic letters = fun for hours

Self-feeding at mealtime = fun for hours, or at least 30 minutes or so

She just started doing this thing where she tenses up everything until she starts to shake and pulls her shoulders up as high as she can and pulls her neck back. We laughed so much at her the first time, she just kept doing it. Here's a picture of her doing it. You can't really tell, but she is very rigid in this picture.

Last weekend we made it up to Richmond to visit with the Taylor's North and visit Paige's grave. Thanks to Aaron and Teresa for entertaining us, making us dinner and roasting smores with us.

WJ Pool Excursion

While Gma Ann was babysitting Ashton and Brice a couple of weeks ago, it worked out that Gigi and I could join them on a visit to the WJ swimming pool. I think Gigi enjoyed the pool most. Brice just wanted to hang out with her "wubbie" blanket and Ashton's fun was had but it was short-lived. Well, at least we got some cute pictures!

Ashton yelled "take a picture of me" so I did.

Brice and Gma Ann with wubbie. This was about the most fun Brice had.

Oh wait, no this was the most fun Brice had. And you can tell that she was not concerned with getting tan. Gigi made a fun game of trying the get Brice uncovered from the blanket. Brice was not amused by this game.

Action shot! Ashton loves having his picture taken. He'd always run up to see every picture I took of him.

Princess Brice. She's such a little cutie.

Gigi with one too many animal crackers in her mouth.

Ashton was funny; he heard me and Ann talking about different people "getting" (meaning genetically inheriting) tan skin, like Gigi, and he started laying out in the sun. Then after a couple minutes he asked us "do I look tan?" Next time you see Ashton, make sure to tell him how tan he's looking!

Wrapping up July

Since today is the last day of August, if I post today, I can at least say I'm posting once a month, right? Anyway, I thought I should put some fun pictures up to show our summer fun! Speaking of fun, let's start with our Jones Family Reunion 2010 at Island Park. This year's theme was "Western". Our little family. Gigi was a happier baby this time around and actually slept ok even through all the noise.

Crazy Cooper! He's a little acrobat.

Delicious steak - seriously, you can't find better anywhere. It was so good and not overcooked.

Gigi's first bike ride with the help of Doug. She rode it all the way up the driveway and loved it.

The annual crawdad capture.

Gigi's favorite thing to do, run away from us down the driveway.

We ended the reunion with a smile!

I love that we've had birds living in our bird house in our front yard for the last two summers. Here's a picture where you can see one of the baby birds peeking out.

Gigi is not afraid of heights. She scales this 3-step ladder with ease. She climbed up a 10-ft slide at an elementary school playground while my mom was babysitting her.

I turn around for one minute and she's inside the mop bucket screaming like a banshee and clapping her hands.

And then she made herself comfortable.

It was one of those messes that was well worth the cleanup time though... don't ya think?

Bargain shopping trip

Wow! Has it really been that long since I last blogged... time flies during the summer. Maybe I'll blog more now that its (single tear) almost over. Anyway, if you wonder how I spent alot of the time, I'll tell you...

I’ve never blogged about my shopping obsession but I’ve thought about doing it several times. I’m home sick today so I might as well. In case you don’t know, I’m obsessed… with bargains. It’s an addiction and I truly love it. It is obviously very telling about my lifestyle and the fact that I’ve never dealt with drugs or anything like that. To me, there is nothing like the high I feel after getting something for a fabulous deal. In fact, it’s really difficult for me to believe that people actually do pay retail for groceries. I have a hard time paying retail for anything! I frequent several different deal websites including grocerysmarts.com, freebies2deals.com, utahdealdiva.com, coupons4utah.com, and hip2save.com. I also receive daily deal emails from amazon.com, groupon.com and screamincoupons.com. Yes I do spend a good amount of time on my deal-seeking lifestyle and I understand it’s not for everyone, but it’s worth every minute to me because I enjoy it. Besides, its time better spent than watching TV or doing something else equally unproductive.

I must say that I do have my limits. I’ve realized that for me, the best deals are usually found at Rite Aid and Smith’s and so, each week I will usually visit these two stores. I am not one of those people who will spend a whole day running around to 5 different stores to just get the bargains at those stores. I can pass up a sweet deal when it’s just not “in the cards” for me because I’ve come to realize that another sweet deal is just around the corner.

So here’s where I get to brag about my most recent deals:
I shopped at Rite Aid today and here’s what I got:
1 20 ct. Tampax tampons $2.99
1 Pampers Cruisers size 3 jumbo pack $8.99
1 Pampers 72 ct. thickcare wipes $3.69
1 Tide HE Detergent 50 oz. $5.99
1 Men’s Nivea hair/body wash $3.00
1 Listerine Zero Mouthwash 500 mL $3.99 (side note: as a hygienist, I’m very excited about this new product from Listerine – it doesn’t contain Alcohol, which is a causative agent for oral cancer, but still contains the essential oils that make Listerine a great product to begin with.)
1 Boudreaux’s Buttpaste $3.99
2 Pepsi Max 20 oz. $1.49 each
1 Nivea lipcare $2.99
Subtotal: $38.61
Here are the coupons I used:
$5 off $25 purchase at RiteAid
$3 off Boudreaux’s buttpaste (Rite Aid coupon)
BOGO free Pepsi Max (I used one Rite Aid coupon and one Manufacturer’s coupon making them both free)
$1 Rite Aid coupon off Listerine
$2 coupon off Listerine Zero (both coupons make Listerine free)
$1 off Tampax
$1 off Nivea for Men
$2 off Boudreaux’s buttpaste (Manufacturer’s coupons, in addition to coupon above, I made $1 on this)
$3.50 off pamper’s wipes
$3 off Pamper’s diapers
$1 off Tide
Which brings the total out of pocket to : $13.13 (plus tax), a great deal but that’s not the end of it…
I received the following “up rewards”, which are coupons for a dollar amount that can be used on any non-Rx purchase. Essentially cash at Rite Aid.
$2 from Pampers
$1 from Listerine
$1 from Tide
$2 from Nivea Body
$1 from Nivea Lip
Brings our subtotal down to $6.13
I will receive the following Single Check Rebates from Rite Aid in the form of a check to be cashed at my bank at the end of the current Rebate period:
$1 from Tampax
$1.99 from Nivea Lip
Bringing my total for everything down to: $3.14! What the what?!
I will also mention that I didn’t really pay anything out of pocket because I just transferred a prescription there and received a $25 gift card for doing so. Wahoo!
Plus, I have a P & G (Proctor and Gamble) rebate for $110 in P&G coupons for $50 spent in P & G products. This transaction will add $21.66 towards that rebate. I actually only need $15 more to reach my $50 total and the rebate period goes from 8/20/2010 – 12/31/2010 so I’m thinking it won’t be a problem! I’m sure the $110 in coupons will go towards more free (or very close to it) stuff! Now can you see why I get so excited about this? And these kinds of deals aren't once in awhile. They can be found EVERY week!

P.S. If you've ever thought about couponing, right now, like immediately, is the time to get a newspaper subscription (Fri-Sun), you can get a whole year for $19.99 to either the Salt Lake Tribune or Deseret News. That kind of a deal is really unheard of. You can get up to 8 copies of either paper too! CRAZY! (I only get 2, and for our family that is plenty, altough there are times I think man, I wish I had another copy of that coupon but I really don't need it, ya know?) The regular rate is $64 for a year. But this offer is only around for like another week so jump on it if you're interested. I'm not being paid by anyone to post this by the way, I just wanted to share with my friends and anyone who might happen upon this blog. You can get this deal through utahdealdiva.com or freebies2deals.com. Just go to their links for newspaper subscription deals. I've dealt with Jessica from utahdealdiva.com and she's great!