I Heart CVS

CVS, oh, how I love thee. :)



Look at all the stuff I got this week. Woohoo! I messed up and spent a bit more than I should have because I bought the wrong item, but oh well, I still did great!

I got all of this stuff for $6.73 TOTAL!!! Plus I have 15 in CVS Bucks to use for next time. Yippee! I had a bit of a problem checking out because the guy dropped some of my bucks, 5 of the bucks didn't print out, etc. So I was a bit frazzled. Then when I got home and looked at it all, I realized that I bought the wrong item so I paid more and didn't receive any extra bucks for it. THe good thing is, is that it is an item Avery needed for school anyway, so I am just going to keep it and take the loss. I guess I should pay CVS something. :)

Here is what I got today:
2 boxes of Kashi Cereal
1 box of Kashi granola bars (My family LOVES Kashi and I buy this stuff every month on my regular grocery trip. I got all 3 items for $.50 after coupons and ECB!
1 Index card holder (Sam needs for school)Free after ECB
1 Box of Push pins (needed for home) Free after ECB
1 Colgate Toothbrush (I needed this since AJ stole my extra one!) $.48 after coupon and ECB
1 Nexxus Shampoo ( I have been dying to try this, but it is always so expensive!) $3.99 after coupon and ECB. I know, still a lot, but now I brought it down to the price I normally spend for shampoo.
1 Pencil pocket (this is the item I messed up, but Avery needed for school)
2 bottles of Arm and Hammer Detergent (we use this regularly)$1.50 each after coupons and ECB
2 bottles of Herbal Essence Mousse (I use this every day)$.49 each after coupons
1 Package of sticky notes (school need)Free after ECB
2 packages of pencils (school need) Free after ECB

I should have only spent like $2 out of pocket this time, but with my mistake I spent $6 something. Oh well! I would have spent $60 on all of this stuff!

80% Savings Today

Today at CVS I spent $7.37 out of pocket and got $20 in CVS Bucks to use for next time. Yea! I have most of the school supplies for this year, and best of all it has mostly been perfectly FREE!

Science and Art

I took the kids to the cool Science Museum in Nashville yesterday. They loved it. They had a lot of fun and we stayed for 3 hours, probably could have stayed more, but I was bored, plus we were hungry. :)Here are some fun pics.




Sam's masterpiece





I'm holding the world in my hands! ;)It's pretty hard to get the right angle to make these kind of pictures work.

Avery was so scared to go down this pole. I think he got my fear of heights. Grreeeaaat. Anyway, Kinley was doing it, and he really wanted to, but he would get freaked out. He FINALLY did it, and went over and over and over and over...


Sam got to be an astronaut. It was hard work pulling himself up, but he got almost all the way. He loved this part!




Today I had to go to the yearly subbing orientation. Ugh! It's so boring in the first place because we have to watch these dumb videos and fill out paperwork, but today topped the cake. We would have been done way early, but then she asked if anyone had questions. Well, seriously, these people have no brain! They asked the MOST COMMON SENSE questions. Anyway, it took them so long that we were LATE getting out. ARGH. I was meeting someone right after, and had to get home because the kids had a babysitter. We finally just stood up in the middle of someone's lame question, so they would get the hint. The good news is that the kids had a new babysitter and they loved her, so yea!

AJ has been gone all week at camp with the scouts. He come's home tomorrow. The kids and I were bored and were trying to figure out something to do, so we did an art project for him. This should be a nice surprise. :)






In another news, pneumonia and sinus infection still here. I am doing some better and the medicine isn't kicking my butt anymore, but I still can't breathe and I think I should be doing better than this. Pneumonia=stupid

Sam's "Party" + Pneumonia

Yesterday we had Sam's party. Like I said in the last post he decided he didn't want a real party, that he just wanted his best friend and best cousin (and siblings, of course) to come. We went bowling, went to Walmart to pick our birthday presents, went to eat pizza, and then came home and played until late. He had a great day.

In other news, I have 3 infections right now. Really?! 3! How many does a girl need. Argh! I ended up spending all afternoon at the doctor's office and at the hospital on Thursday. I have pneumonia, a sinus infection, and a bladder infection. For real, it's summer! WHY???? I pretty much have to take a small pharmacy of medicines. I have an antibiotic, a STRONG dose of steroids, for a LONG time, an inhaler that shoots powder into my lungs, a nasal spray, singulair to help my lungs, and I think something else. We spent an hour at the office and then spent more than an hour at the hospital getting a chest x-ray and stuff. This was after taking Sam for a follow up visit earlier in the day for all his rash stuff. The kids were good though. Thank Goodness. What makes it worse if that Sam just happened to be out of all his medicines at the same time as I needed all these new ones. Over $500 worth of medicine we needed. YIKES!!! Our insurance makes us pay out of pocket and then they reimburse us, but it is several weeks later. I sort of freaked out, and we ended up looking online and I found 2 coupons. One for the inhaler, which made it FREE, a $280 savings! Then I found one for Sam's Singulair, which was a $110 savings! WHEW!! Have I mentioned I LOVE coupons! We still had to spend a lot but we saved so much, so it helped a ton. I was doing okay with the pneumonia. I didn't even really feel sick, I just had a terrible cough and couldn't breath. It's the medicines that are killing me now. I would rather be sick than take all of these medicines. The inhaler gives me an instant headache. The heavy dose of steroids make my stomach hurt terribly and today I started shaking so bad and my muscles all tensed up really tight. I pretty much feel like dying right now, all because of the stuff that is supposed to make me better. It's kicking my butt. Sigh.

Anyway, here are some pics of our fun party day.





Silly Kids

Best Friends

Sam excited after a Spare.

Little Kids watching the ball go down teh lane. Cute!

Happy Birthday, Sam!

9 Years old! I can't believe it! Geez! That's big. Sam's birthday was Monday. This was the first year he decided not to have a party. Instead, he wanted his best friend and his best cousin to spend the day with him just doing something fun. :) So to make it a bit more fun, we surprised him by having a little family party. The boys were upstairs playing. I had wrapped all of his presents from us and made him brownies ( he likes that better than cake). We called Avery downstairs, lit his candles, and then called Sam down. As soon as he got down we started singing "Happy Birthday!" He was so surprised and excited. It was funny. I couldn't get any good pictures because he was jumping around so much. LOL! Anyway, he blew out his candles, opened his presents (mostly all Transformers) and then we ate his "cake". He loved it! The next day Julie and her kids came up for a short, surprise visit, and Taylor had come over to play before that. He has had a good week. Today we went to a fun kids place that we have only been to one other time. Later this week will be his "party" with his 2 best friends. Here are some "party" pics.







Sam is such a sweet boy. I love seeing him get older and more responsible, but at the same time it makes me sad. How can my little boy be this big already? He is calm and quiet, and just has a sweet disposition. He loves using his imagination and acting things out. So far he is still a little boy. He wants to play with toys still, isn't in to all the techno gadgets, and is happy just being a kid. Whew! He is super smart. He loves to read and always has a book. He loves the magical, mystery books. He especially loves series and is always looking for a new group of books to read. He is ready for 4th grade, but is enjoying having this break. He is learning that things take practice and he won't just automatically be able to do something and get it perfect the first time. This is a harder concept for him to handle. He likes being right the first time. I wonder where he gets that from. ;) He loves Avery and can't imagine not having a brother. They play together well, although the fighting was getting a wee bit bad a few weeks ago. I fixed that quickly though. :) He loves Transformers and pretty much any action figure. He loves the computer and plays on it pretty often.

He learned to write in cursive this year. He learned multiplication (one of the things he has to practice) and he is swimming really well. He wishes he was better at sports, but is it hard for him with all of his breathing problems. Swimming is definitely his thing though! He is just really maturing and growing. He is one of the most responsible kids I know.

He is very compassionate, especially when it comes to animals and bugs. He loves going outside and catching bugs or finding hurt bugs and helping them. At recess he was always the one exploring, finding hurt creatures and rescuing them. He rarely gets in trouble and asks me frequently why people choose to do bad things. He doesn't get it. Good! We have been talking a lot lately about more grown up things like drugs, smoking, driving, etc. Being a teenager is one of our favorite subjects, and he swears he is still going to use his manners and not be rude. I hope so! He is a good listener and usually fixes himself after the first warning.

He is our quiet, caring, steady boy. We never have to worry about him, and always know he is doing the right thing. He loves his family and watches out for our well-being all the time. He is the peacemaker and wants everyone to be happy, although he does have a bit of a temper at times. We are working on that. We are always having people comment on how good and polite he is. Everyone knows his name and he is the popular kid that everyone knows. He is our calm and cool kiddo.

Happy Birthday, Sam Sweeney! We Love you Lots!!!

CVS Savings- Made Money Today!

Woohoo! I did great this week at CVS! They ended up paying me for shopping there this week. :)

Here is how much I would have spent this week. $45.65

This is what I got:
3 packages of Sunflower Seeds (we go through these like crazy)
2 bottles Dawn Antibacterial Dish Detergent (we were completely out)
2 bottles Head and Shoulders 2 in 1 shampoo
2 bottles Listerine
2 packages of tape- FREE after Extra bucks
2 packages of mechanical pencils
1 pencil sharpener- FREE after Extra Bucks
2 tubes of Colgate Total Toothpaste- $.16 after coupon and extra bucks
1 gallon of milk (we were out)

Here is what happened. I bought all of this stuff and ended up paying $2.92 out of pocket after using my CVS Extra Bucks ($23) (remember this is like cash in CVS).

When I got home I realized they charged me wrong for the toothpaste and didn't give me my Extra Bucks for next time.

I went back to the store. They refunded me $3.83 plus gave me my extra bucks. This means I made $.91 in cash today! PLUS I have $11 in Extra bucks to use my next trip.

Woohoo! This is all stuff we use regularly and I won't have to buy it on my monthly grocery trip. Yippee!

July Fun

Party Time! We went to a friend's house tonight to play and do fireworks. It was fun! I have lots of pics and I am really excited about my fireworks pictures. I probably won't post them all here, but look at the rest on facebook. I sort of like the pictures better than seeing the actual, real fireworks in the sky! LOL! By the way, I started school on Wednesday, and I already passed my first class! Yippee! The rest probably won't go as quick, especially math, but at least one is out of the way, and I hope to test out of several more. OK, so on to the pics!