I Can Do It!

It is my goal to be one of those moms who uses coupons and slashes her grocery bill in half! This week I clipped coupons as usual. I normally do this while at my moms house on Sunday while we are all sitting around talking and so its not any wasted time. People are big on clipping coupons being time consuming. I am also strict on sticking with items that I would have bought anyway and not buying something just because there is a coupon. I went to the grocery to get the weeks needed items. I really can't wait till Joe is home more often and I can cook dinner because I feel like I save a lot of money, but because i hardly ever cook I don't plan a menu I just keep easy non-perishables and veggies around to whip up a nice meal (i.e enchiladas, tacos, spaghetti, chicken & rice, soup etc) Anyway I thought that I should announce that I went to Kroger today and saved $31.12 (26%) with my coupons and shoppers card! Here is what I don't get about the shoppers card, do they just jack up the price so that they can say they have it on sale with the shoppers card? Because who in their right mind wouldn't have a shoppers card? Anyway to let you know, I had 3 different coupons for Yogurt and Progresso soup and they accepted all of them! I used to think that you could only use one coupon per item! Not so, I saved a ton there! Kroger will round any coupon under .50 up to .50 and they will round any coupon over .50 to $1.00!! My bill was under $100.00 (always a goal of mine) and I even bought ridiculously expensive lotion for Annie's eczema and a big box of Tide! So get those scissors out girls and happy clipping!

Here is a good school idea for you moms who were sharing ideas. Practice cutting on the dotted line, clip any coupon of a product that you have seen mommy buy before! :o)

Life

Yesterday at work I did my first ever unassisted delivery! I probably should have been more prepared for it, maybe I was just prepared enough, I will never know. All I know is it was her 5th baby, she was going natural and not making a sound, she made a sound and I checked her, she was 8-9cm and still at 0 station. Now, to my credit, I did call out for help at this time and one dear nurse friend showed up to help me. Within 2 minuets, one tribal yell from dear patient, a panic call for the resident by me on the call button and 2 more nurses running in, there was a beautiful 6lb little boy born into my one and a half gloved hands!

Now to more serious matters, while I was at work Annie Girl has decided to cry... the whole time... She cried off and on this morning while in the nursery during women's bible study also! Its kind of upsetting because she is such a goodnatured baby. And I do leave her at some point multiple times during the week either with family or in the playroom at the gym. So why all of the sudden is she crying?

FYI I treated myself to a Mediterranean Veggie sandwich today from Panera. YUM, I had never had one of these before however people I love have said how good they are, so I decided to try!

I will leave you with this picture of my big girl, I forgot to add it yesterday. I loved how her little feet were sticking up in the air with her socks that matched her outfit.

A Very Busy Day

Can you guess from this picture of dust bunnies on the stairs what I did today? How do those get there?! I mean what do they expect sweeping more than once a month?!

After going to the gym and laying Annie down for a 3 hour afternoon nap (!) I tackled the bunny invasion. I cleaned for hours on end and accomplished getting the salty boot tracks mopped off of the hardwood floors downstairs. Most of the laundry done (yes I am still a get it all done in one day girl). I dusted, fluffed, swept and mopped until it was time to leave for Joe's BB Game. Once we were back home and husband was fed it was 10:30 and there was the mop and bucket in the bathroom which had yet to be touched. So I pulled back my sleeves and gave the bathroom a quick but thorough scrub. It was very nice to wake up to a bleach smelling bathroom! I have to work today and I am going to start women's bible study tomorrow at church. So I am SO happy to have the house clean before I am gone doing other things. The only room left to conqure is the office and it is even more frightening than the dust bunny invasion.... the paper stack invasion!!!

A good little girl playing while I finished up cleaning... although she wasn't very happy to accommodate, she kept yelling at me. :o(

Snow Fun

Yesterday I went to Krissy's house because I have yet to play in all of this snow and I needed to satisfy my desire to sled! She has just the right size hills at her house, you know not too extreme where you can sled down with children but still manage to make it back up with a two year old who can barely move in all their snow gear. I thought I was going to wet myself a couple of times once when Kris, Dory, Me & JP all loaded onto the sled and it wouldn't budge! And again when JP and Kris walked down this steep hill (following animal tracks in the snow of course) and then they couldn't get back up. At one point Kris fell and pulled JP down with her and he face planted in the snow! He thought it was great fun as he yells "Persevere Mommy!" when they were attempting for the 4th time to climb the hill.
Here are just a few pictures for your enjoyment of the babies & the kids enjoying Hot Cocoa after freezing cold fun in the snow!These two babies are the exact same length and weight although they are 5 weeks apart. I think Annie Girl carries it all in her cheeks and Anella has it all in her thighs!

Happy to have chocolate
Seriously working on getting the fluff into her mouth with each drink

My Weekend

Friday nightJoes BB team played in the state tournament in Richmond Ky. They set a new record for the lowest scoring game in state tournament 36-37. They were up with 9 seconds left and scored, however the ball was then turned over and with 5(?) seconds left the other team scored and won :o( I have never been a sports person before, I don't "do" sports. I found out why, its too stressful! I either don't care about what is going on or who wins, as in with professional sports, or I am so stressed that my heart cannot take it. I was literally shaking after the game was over, I had to sit down and regroup because I couldnt support myself let alone hold my child who was of course in her cheerleading uniform!Go CCS!!!

Then after working very, very hard to unload the tickets to see Wicked that my wonderful husband bought me for Christmas, we ended up going to see it ourselves. I didn't want to go because it was going to be too confusing to try to get Annie to my mom and get to Louisville to see the play. But I am SO glad that we did all the confusingness :o) Joe and I got up early Saturday morning, drove home from Richmond showered and primped, dropped Annie Girl off with my Mom and drove to Louisville and back! The play was even more amazing than I could have imagined! Joe said it was good however not as good as State Semifinals :o)
I have always loved the Wizard of Oz and I was hoping that the play would tie in well and that it wouldn't be to modern like so many things on Broadway are. I hate it when like the wizard is a black woman and the monkeys are all aisian migets and dorothy is jewish. I HATE it! The Wizard is a man and Dorothy is just a farm girl from Kansas! Anyway... They did a wonderful job tying the two stories together and the only dumb part is that Elpheba (the bad witch) goes to the emerald city to save the animals of OZ!! But it was not a very important part, so I choose to overlook it :o) It was funny and the music is AAAAMAAAAZIIIING!! Unfortunatly I have no pictures of Wicked to share with you.

Sunday was the super bowl and I let my husband dictate what food would be served. We had friends come down from Dayton to join us for the fun and we spent the whole day together. I have really been wanting to try my hand at making soft pretzels lately and I saw Alton Brown make them on the Food Network so I tried his recipie. It was so easy and Delicious! I was worried they wouldn't tase like real soft pretzles but they did! Here is his recipie

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups warm (110 to 115 degrees F) water
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 teaspoons kosher salt
• 1 package active dry yeast
• 22 ounces all-purpose flour, approximately 4 1/2 cups
• 2 ounces unsalted butter, melted
• Vegetable oil, for pan
• 10 cups water
• 2/3 cup baking soda
• 1 large egg yolk beaten with 1 tablespoon water
• Pretzel salt

Directions

Combine the water, sugar and kosher salt in the bowl of a stand mixer and sprinkle the yeast on top. Allow to sit for 5 minutes or until the mixture begins to foam. Add the flour and butter and, using the dough hook attachment, mix on low speed until well combined. Change to medium speed and knead until the dough is smooth and pulls away from the side of the bowl, approximately 4 to 5 minutes. Remove the dough from the bowl, clean the bowl and then oil it well with vegetable oil. Return the dough to the bowl, cover with plastic wrap and sit in a warm place for approximately 50 to 55 minutes or until the dough has doubled in size.

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F. Line 2 half-sheet pans with parchment paper and lightly brush with the vegetable oil. Set aside.

Bring the 10 cups of water and the baking soda to a rolling boil in an 8-quart saucepan or roasting pan.

In the meantime, turn the dough out onto a slightly oiled work surface and divide into 8 equal pieces. Roll out each piece of dough into a 24-inch rope. Make a U-shape with the rope, holding the ends of the rope, cross them over each other and press onto the bottom of the U in order to form the shape of a pretzel. Place onto the parchment-lined half sheet pan.

Place the pretzels into the boiling water, 1 by 1, for 30 seconds. Remove them from the water using a large flat spatula. Return to the half sheet pan, brush the top of each pretzel with the beaten egg yolk and water mixture and sprinkle with the pretzel salt. Bake until dark golden brown in color, approximately 12 to 14 minutes. Transfer to a cooling rack for at least 5 minutes before serving.

I tried to put cinnamon & sugar on some, however the cinnamon burned because of the high temp of the oven so I would reccomend baking them plain and then rolling them in cinnamon and sugar afterwards. Also a note to those who didn't know: Wax paper and Parchment paper are not interchangeable!! Wax paper will stick to your food, ruin your baking sheet and nearly catch on fire when used improperly!!

WICKED TICKETS

I am selling 2 tickets for Wicked playing in Louisville's beautiful Whitney Hall Saturday the 31st at 2:00pm. Joe and I were going to go but his basketball team won regionals and we are headed to state tournaments tomorrow. Please let me know ASAP if you would like them. You would be doing me a huge favor by using them for me! Tell your friends and family! Call me anytime day or night between now (11:00pm) and tomorrow night and I will work on getting them to you.

Oh the Snow

I love snow more than words can explain. I never watch the news when it snows or listen to grumpy people whine about it either. I get that it backs up traffic and makes roads slick, you have to shovel your drive which is work you may not want to do. However I love it all, driving in it, shoveling it, playing in it, and simply watching it! I was up at 3:30 am Tuesday and I sat in the hallway and just watched it fall for a while.
I was sad this morning because I didn't have anyone to share it with. Annie was a good companion for gazing at it from the window


However she did not appreciate going out in it :o(


And apparently when you lay a screaming baby down in the snow they automatically make a snow angel!