CVS Deals and the Littlest Reindeer

Can you believe I got all of this for just $2.99?!!! Here's what I got:

(2) 2 packs of Magic Erasers
(2) Revlon Color Stay Eyeliners
(2) Revlon Color Stay Eye Shadow Quads
(2) 4 packs of Scunci No Slip Headbands
(1) Maybelline Mineral Power Foundation
(1) Silk Drops Hair Serum
(1) Complete Saline

Not too shabby, huh?

It was a nice quiet weekend around here. All in anticipation of the upcoming week. I got done some of my Thanksgiving dinner shopping and baked a couple of pumpkin pies. Tomorrow Munchkin and I will finish up our shopping at Walmart after we drop Curly Girl off at school.

Here's a pic of Munchkin getting ready for the holidays:

Christmas 2008 Pictures

I took the girls to get their pictures done in their Christmas dresses last night. They had a great time hamming it up for the camera. The promise of a lollipop and some muffins at My Favorite Muffing helped too.

When we were done we stopped off at the food court for our muffins. As I was sitting there I thought about how many times I've gone to the mall with my Mom and sister and shared a muffin and some tea in the food court. It made me feel so happy to be sitting there with my own daughters just hanging out. I can just picture us when they're teenagers doing the same thing.

Anyway, here's some of their pictures. I think they turned out pretty good!

Christmas 2007

They sure have grown in just 1 year!

Our Thanksgiving Menu

Curly Girl's preschool Thanksgiving Feast 2007

With just 1 week until Thanksgiving I've finally gotten around to figuring out what I'm making for Thanksgiving dinner. Here's what we're having:

Turkey: Of course! I usually brine mine overnight. It makes the juiciest, tastiest turkey around!

Sage Stuffing: My Mom makes the best stuffing and every year I try to duplicate it.

Gravy: I finally mastered the art of making a good gravy!

Cranberry-Apricot Sauce: A great recipe that I started making almost 10 years ago. Here's the recipe.

Easy Corn Casserole: Another great recipe! I love this!

Streuseled Sweet Potato Casserole: The best sweet potatoes in the world!

Green Beans Almondine

Glazed Carrots

Crescent Rolls

Pumpkin Pie

Apple Pie

My SIL and her family and my MIL will be having dinner with us at our home and then afterwards we'll be heading over to my parents' home for dessert.

I really miss the days when I used to have all of my brothers and my sister and my parents together on Thanksgiving. I know that once you start to have your own families that things change but this time of year makes me feel really melancholy for those days when we'd all hang out at my parents' house looking at old photo albums and remembering things we used to do.

Wordless Wednesday: Getting Ready for the Holidays

See more Wordless Wednesday over at 5 Minutes for Mom!

With Much Appreciation

I wanted to thank Donna over at Frugal Mom Blog for the awesome Inkubook giveaway that she hosted. I was one of the lucky 5 winners of a free photo book.

I was able to finally get a photo book done of all of the things that we did this fall as a family. The next one I plan will be for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.

Be sure to check out Donna yourself!

CVS, Walgreens and the Return of the Squirrel Thief

Munchkin and I got some great deals at CVS and Walgreens today. I thought I'd show them on here because my sister is always saying that she just doesn't know how to do it. So here's what I did:

Walgreens:

3 Cans of Butterball Chicken Broth @ .79 each
3 Cans of Ocean Spray Cranberry Sauce @ $1.69 each
2 Boxes of Lipton Tea Bags @ $4.79 each
1 Puffs @ $1.79
1 Disney Game Set (Christmas present for Curly Girl) $9.99

Coupons & Walgreens savings:

Broth: $1.20
Tea Bags: $5.60 (addt'l coupons for $1.35)
Puffs: .80
Game: $4.00
Cranberry Sauce: $2.70

TOTAL OOP: $13.57

CVS:
1st Transaction:

4 8pks Duracell Batteries
Loreal Advanced Revitalift
Loreal Age Perfect Moisturizer

minus $13.50 in coupons
minus $15.99 in Revitalift raincheck
minus $6 in ECB's
minus $14.87 on gift card

TOTAL: $13.96 OOP

2nd Transaction:

2 Pledge
2 Boxes Quaker Oatmeal
1 Fig Newtons
1 Nutter Butters
1 Vaseline Clinical Moisturizer
2 Kleenex
1 La Looks Hair Gel

minus $5.90 in coupons and $15.99 in ECB's used

TOTAL OOP: $4.38

And I still have $18 in ECB's to use next time!
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oh, remember that crazy squirrel that looted my porch decorations? Well, Hubby caught him having a chat with one of our cats on Saturday morning.


Apparently he was asking the cat to bring some more food out for him.

Sorry for the blurry shot, Hubby doesn't really know how to work the camera yet.

Holiday Traditions

Christmas 2006

Christmas 2007

Growing up my family always had a lot of traditions during the holidays. Decorating the house with my Dad, all 6 of us being home with the Christmas music playing and decorating the Christmas tree and piling into the car and driving around looking at Christmas lights.

After having kids of my own I wanted to add some new traditions to the holiday season with them. When Curly Girl was 16 months old I started making a gingerbread house with her each Christmas. I can't find my picture from Christmas 2005 but you can see above our last two attempts.

It's something that she remembers all year long and she talks about a lot. We're planning on doing this year's gingerbread house on Thanksgiving weekend. This time Munchkin gets to join in.

I hope that this is something that the girls will continue to do when they have kids of their own.

Check out Candid Carrie for some other traditions!

Look Out Donald Trump!

Apparently Munchkin is going to be a comedian. She's really been coming up with some funny stuff lately.

The other day the mailman, who just happens to be our neighbor, was delivering our mail. He always gives the kids the mail and a treat to the dog and chats for a bit. After talking for a couple of minutes to the girls he turned to leave when Munchkin yells out:

"Mr. Tom! YOU'RE FIRED!!"

Seems that she's found the Donald Trump doll that Hubby has and now it's her favorite thing to say. So she's either going to be a comedian or one heck of a business person! Or maybe the next Apprentice.

Knock Knock

Curly Girl's been into the whole knock-knock joke phase for a while now. However, they usually go like this:

CG: Knock! Knock!

Me: Who's there?

CG: Banana!

Me: Banana who?

CG: Banana apple orange going for a walk, ha ha ha!

See? Not really getting it just yet.

The other day Munchkin decided to give it a try.

M: Mommy! Knock knock?

Me: Who's there?

M: (Throws her hands up in the air and looks serious) I DON'T KNOW!

She said it so seriously that I busted up laughing. Maybe we have some hope for a good joke in this house after all.

Wordless Wednesday: Somebody's NOT Happy

Check out 5 Minutes for Mom for more Wordless Wednesday!

Wordless Wednesday: Backpackin'

Not That I Think You Need A Reminder But...

Get out there and VOTE today!

Someone's Been Stealing Our Decorations

Hmm....What could my cats be looking at? Could it be the one responsible for stripping all of my Indian corn and nibbling on our jack o'lanterns? Let's just see...
Well, what do we have here? Looks like the mystery is solved. This little guy has been marauding our porch and stealing all of our decorations in preparation for winter.He's literally about two feet from the front door and obviously isn't the slightest bit worried about 2 kids, 4 cats, 1 pitbull and 1 mama watching him pillage our decorations.

"What are you lookin' at?"

"Yeah, that's right. I'm eatin' your stuff."

"What're you goin' to do about it?"

A little fun with leaves!

What a relaxing weekend. After the Halloween night festivities we finally had a weekend where we just stayed home and puttered around the house. I got some things done that I've been wanting to do. I took down my Halloween decorations and put up a few Thanksgiving things. I even cleaned out some too-small clothes from the girls' closets. I even got to have lunch with my Mom all by myself.

Hubby and the girls did the first raking of the leaves too. We usually have to rake our yard of leaves at least 3 time before the end of November. We're surrounded by big old trees and I think every leaf in the neighborhood blows into our yard.

The kids don't mind though. Here's what they decided to do with our abundance of fall leaves:

We thought we lost Daddy at one point

Have nice day and don't forget to VOTE tomorrow!