It's been a while since I posted about couponing, so I figured I'd do a bragging post about the deals I found for Ethan's Christmas gifts. Last year, I was very proud to have gotten him just over $100 of gifts for less than $10. This year, I paid more out of pocket, but I got him about $120 worth of gifts for just over $25. So let's break the deals down in general terms:
- Toy from Barnes & Noble: Retailed for $34 but used 40% off coupon on top of 10% membership discount
- Book from Barnes & Noble: Retailed for $9 but used 50% off coupon on top of 10% membership discount
- Book from Cokesbury: Retailed for $8 and used $10 coupon to buy it plus two reusable shopping bags, totally free!
- Six toys from SmartMomma, a local baby goods store: Retailed for about $70 but all toys were 20% off during Black Friday weekend. Plus we went on Small Business Saturday and registered two separate AmEx cards, doing two separate transactions, for a total of $50 in credit on our next statements. Total cost? $5.60.
In addition, I used a LivingSocial voucher for Whole Foods to get treats for his stocking totally free (since the groceries I was buying anyway used up the paid value of the voucher).
So we were able to fill the space under the tree and his stocking for less than the retail cost of the first toy we bought him. I'm pretty pleased with myself, especially since I didn't expect to do as well as last year since I had less time to research deals due to school.
Edited to add: As an added bonus, I made $30 in November by filling out a TV diary sent to me by a survey company, so that alone took care of all our Christmas shopping for Ethan costs! Not too shabby!
Did anyone else find any good holiday deals they want to brag about?
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
First Day of Break
To celebrate my first day of winter break, Ethan and I didn't leave the house today except to go for a walk around the neighborhood. We just enjoyed cuddling up together, playing, crafting, and cooking. After Ethan woke up from his morning nap, I made my first Pinterest craft: A Christmas card wreath. I'm not as happy as I thought I would be with how it turned out, but at least the Christmas cards we receive are now out of the reach of little hands.
Ethan decided he wanted to nurse basically non-stop from about 11:30 to 1:30, so we just did a lot of cuddling and playing between nursing mini-sessions. During his afternoon nap, I fixed myself lunch, cleaned the kitchen and dining room, did some laundry and general tidying, and then just relaxed. I sat down on the couch when I expected him to wake up any minute, and he surprised me by sleeping an extra 45 minutes! Not that I'm complaining about having some down time =)
After nursing and a snack, Ethan played while I fixed this for dinner, along with some brown rice. I also fixed tomorrow night's dinner, since it has to marinate overnight and then can just go in the oven with the leftover brown rice as a side. Which means tomorrow night, all I have left to fix is a veggie.
It was the perfect balance of relaxation and productivity. And I look forward to many more days like it in the coming weeks!
Ethan decided he wanted to nurse basically non-stop from about 11:30 to 1:30, so we just did a lot of cuddling and playing between nursing mini-sessions. During his afternoon nap, I fixed myself lunch, cleaned the kitchen and dining room, did some laundry and general tidying, and then just relaxed. I sat down on the couch when I expected him to wake up any minute, and he surprised me by sleeping an extra 45 minutes! Not that I'm complaining about having some down time =)
After nursing and a snack, Ethan played while I fixed this for dinner, along with some brown rice. I also fixed tomorrow night's dinner, since it has to marinate overnight and then can just go in the oven with the leftover brown rice as a side. Which means tomorrow night, all I have left to fix is a veggie.
It was the perfect balance of relaxation and productivity. And I look forward to many more days like it in the coming weeks!
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Fifteen Months
Dear Ethan,
To be blunt, it's been a much better month! There has been much less screaming, less illness, and a lot more fun! And it all traces back to one thing: Communication! This month has shown huge strides in your ability to let us know what you want. From signing to talking, your vocabulary exploded this month. You sign every time for "more" (which basically means "I want" now), "eat," "hungry," "drink," "nurse," and "outside," and you're picking up signs readily now, which means I need to study up to add more to your repertoire. You're also talking a lot more. Almost daily, you say "Mama," "Dada," "Bye-bye," "Kitty," and "Book." This month you've also added "Doggy," "On," "Off," "Hi," "Belly," and "Bellybutton" to your common words. The last one is my favorite because it's always accompanied with you lifting up your shirt and pointing to it! It's so much fun to listen to you talk to us, and I know it makes you happier to be able to tell us what you want.
Unfortunately, you still don't often know what you want to eat. I've almost given up on getting you to eat balanced meals in favor of just finding something you'll eat. As a result, while you get a lot of fruit, some yogurt, some vegetables, and some meat each week, a big portion of your diet comes in the form of cereal, organic "goldfish," and organic graham cracker snacks. I still can't figure out why you won't eat any meat I cook but will eat certain meats from restaurants. Surely my cooking isn't THAT bad! Hopefully we'll get past this picky toddler phase quickly, as it's starting to test my patience.
You're still taking two naps a day, though each one is down to about 1.25 hours. I miss those 2+ hour naps, but maybe we'll get them back once you finally decide to drop down to one nap a day. I never thought I'd want you to sleep less, but when all of your little friends dropped their morning nap months ago, it makes it really hard to schedule any play dates!
And we finally have time for play dates since today marked the end of the semester for Mommy! That means almost a month (and maybe more than a month depending on whether or not my Monday class is making up for MLK) of no school work, no classes, nothing to distract me from playtime with my little munchkin! That doesn't mean the next month won't be busy, though! We've got Christmas, then a trip to Atlanta, which means a lot of family time and seeing relatives who haven't seen you since you were 3 months old! My how you've changed since then! And I know that by the time I'm writing another letter to you, you will have changed even more. But what will never change is just how much we love you and how precious you are.
Love,
Mommy
To be blunt, it's been a much better month! There has been much less screaming, less illness, and a lot more fun! And it all traces back to one thing: Communication! This month has shown huge strides in your ability to let us know what you want. From signing to talking, your vocabulary exploded this month. You sign every time for "more" (which basically means "I want" now), "eat," "hungry," "drink," "nurse," and "outside," and you're picking up signs readily now, which means I need to study up to add more to your repertoire. You're also talking a lot more. Almost daily, you say "Mama," "Dada," "Bye-bye," "Kitty," and "Book." This month you've also added "Doggy," "On," "Off," "Hi," "Belly," and "Bellybutton" to your common words. The last one is my favorite because it's always accompanied with you lifting up your shirt and pointing to it! It's so much fun to listen to you talk to us, and I know it makes you happier to be able to tell us what you want.
Unfortunately, you still don't often know what you want to eat. I've almost given up on getting you to eat balanced meals in favor of just finding something you'll eat. As a result, while you get a lot of fruit, some yogurt, some vegetables, and some meat each week, a big portion of your diet comes in the form of cereal, organic "goldfish," and organic graham cracker snacks. I still can't figure out why you won't eat any meat I cook but will eat certain meats from restaurants. Surely my cooking isn't THAT bad! Hopefully we'll get past this picky toddler phase quickly, as it's starting to test my patience.
You're still taking two naps a day, though each one is down to about 1.25 hours. I miss those 2+ hour naps, but maybe we'll get them back once you finally decide to drop down to one nap a day. I never thought I'd want you to sleep less, but when all of your little friends dropped their morning nap months ago, it makes it really hard to schedule any play dates!
And we finally have time for play dates since today marked the end of the semester for Mommy! That means almost a month (and maybe more than a month depending on whether or not my Monday class is making up for MLK) of no school work, no classes, nothing to distract me from playtime with my little munchkin! That doesn't mean the next month won't be busy, though! We've got Christmas, then a trip to Atlanta, which means a lot of family time and seeing relatives who haven't seen you since you were 3 months old! My how you've changed since then! And I know that by the time I'm writing another letter to you, you will have changed even more. But what will never change is just how much we love you and how precious you are.
Love,
Mommy
Monday, December 12, 2011
The Santa Menace
We never took Ethan to see Santa last year. He was only 3 months old, and it just seemed like a waste of time and money to go to the mall. By the time I found out about the free pictures with Santa in our little town, the dates had already passed. So this year, I knew I wanted to go see the downtown Santa. On Dec. 3rd, we headed out before Ethan's morning nap, only to find out later that Santa wouldn't arrive for a couple more hours. Determined to see Santa that weekend, we ventured out to the mall the following night. Unfortunately, the lowest picture price was $27 and personal cameras were prohibited, so we quickly changed our minds. Ethan and I stood off to the side and watched other kids greet Santa, though, and Ethan was entranced by the lights and decorations. We wandered the mall for a little while, and when we passed by Santa again, the line had disappeared, so we decided to go ahead and see him, even if we didn't end up getting any pictures.
As we waited for Santa to finish up with the one kid already in his lap, Ethan grinned and laughed for the girl taking pictures. She even commented, "Oh, you're going to be easy!" We approached the Santa throne, sat Ethan on his lap, and almost immediately were greeted with "WAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!" There was no screaming or struggling to get away. He just sat there, pouty lip extended, wailing (it was absolutely adorable, actually). I tried to sit with him, but if Santa so much as looked at him, he started crying again. Ethan + Santa =/= BFFs.
Despite this less than successful introduction to Santa, we planned on going to see the downtown Santa this past weekend, since we could at least get some pictures, and maybe this Santa would be nicer (mall Santa was a bit of a jerk). This is the result:
This time it was full-on screaming and struggling to get away. He calmed down a little bit for the family picture, but he's still one unhappy baby.
Mother-of-the-year confession? I laugh my ass off every time I look at these pictures. Sure he's probably been traumatized, but these pictures are blackmail gold for the teen years!
As we waited for Santa to finish up with the one kid already in his lap, Ethan grinned and laughed for the girl taking pictures. She even commented, "Oh, you're going to be easy!" We approached the Santa throne, sat Ethan on his lap, and almost immediately were greeted with "WAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!" There was no screaming or struggling to get away. He just sat there, pouty lip extended, wailing (it was absolutely adorable, actually). I tried to sit with him, but if Santa so much as looked at him, he started crying again. Ethan + Santa =/= BFFs.
Despite this less than successful introduction to Santa, we planned on going to see the downtown Santa this past weekend, since we could at least get some pictures, and maybe this Santa would be nicer (mall Santa was a bit of a jerk). This is the result:
This time it was full-on screaming and struggling to get away. He calmed down a little bit for the family picture, but he's still one unhappy baby.
Mother-of-the-year confession? I laugh my ass off every time I look at these pictures. Sure he's probably been traumatized, but these pictures are blackmail gold for the teen years!
Sunday, December 4, 2011
The Grass Is Always Greener...
I remember when Ethan was younger, I longed for him to be just a bit older. Then, I figured, he could entertain himself and wouldn't need such constant attention. Once he's one, surely I'll be able to get more done. HA! Hahahahahahahaha!!!
True, he can entertain himself, but what I didn't realize is that his form of entertainment is finding new ways to try to break his neck or choke on small objects. Whereas at 4 months, I could sit him on a quilt with a toy and work on a paper, now the only way I can get any school work done is if he's asleep or being watched by someone else. Otherwise, every other sentence would be stopped by having to track him down, either because of a loud crash or because he's just too quiet... and, as you other moms know, the latter is by far worse 90% of the time!
I try to console myself by saying surely in a few months or at most a year he'll have developed some sense of right and wrong, safe and unsafe. But in the back of my mind I know that age will only bring more mischief to get into...
On a more positive note, yesterday I capped off my week of productivity by writing one of my final projects, basically start to finish. I'd gotten a slight start on it earlier in the week (like a page), but after Ethan's post-morning-nap nursing, he went off with Daddy to run errands, and I got to work. 5 hours later, stopping only to nurse, eat a quick lunch, and get him down for a nap, I had 30 pages! And after Ethan went to bed last night, I did a final revision before sending it off. It's amazing what you can get done with 6 hours of basically baby-free time! Now I just have one more final project (for my pass/fail class) and a final exam to cram for, and I'm done until January!
True, he can entertain himself, but what I didn't realize is that his form of entertainment is finding new ways to try to break his neck or choke on small objects. Whereas at 4 months, I could sit him on a quilt with a toy and work on a paper, now the only way I can get any school work done is if he's asleep or being watched by someone else. Otherwise, every other sentence would be stopped by having to track him down, either because of a loud crash or because he's just too quiet... and, as you other moms know, the latter is by far worse 90% of the time!
I try to console myself by saying surely in a few months or at most a year he'll have developed some sense of right and wrong, safe and unsafe. But in the back of my mind I know that age will only bring more mischief to get into...
On a more positive note, yesterday I capped off my week of productivity by writing one of my final projects, basically start to finish. I'd gotten a slight start on it earlier in the week (like a page), but after Ethan's post-morning-nap nursing, he went off with Daddy to run errands, and I got to work. 5 hours later, stopping only to nurse, eat a quick lunch, and get him down for a nap, I had 30 pages! And after Ethan went to bed last night, I did a final revision before sending it off. It's amazing what you can get done with 6 hours of basically baby-free time! Now I just have one more final project (for my pass/fail class) and a final exam to cram for, and I'm done until January!
Friday, December 2, 2011
My Definition of Productivity
I'm not sure that this definition of "productivity" would fly for a non-SAHM-to-a-toddler-while-also-in-grad-school, but this week cannot be described as anything other than productive, in my opinion. First a brief catch-up from the past couple of weeks:
Just after getting over the stomach virus, Ethan caught my cold. It wasn't TOO bad, and it was over after a few days. On the 20th, I was leading worship at church, so Ethan was going to sit with his daddy the whole time. As I kissed him goodbye, I noticed that his nose was running, but I figured it must be allergies or something random like that because SURELY my kid wasn't getting another cold, less than two days after I packed up the humidifier from the last one. By that evening, he was completely stopped up and had a fever. So I spent the night with him in the guest room, trying to get him to sleep as his fever soared to 103.3 at its highest. Not fun. But thankfully he only had 36 hours of fever, and that was the only all-nighter for me. I did come down with his cold, complete with fever, a couple of days later, but we were both feeling better in time for Thanksgiving, for which I cooked a complete feast, even though it was just the three of us. Ethan flattered me by putting his toddler pickiness aside long enough to try a bite of everything:
So between caring for a sick toddler, being sick myself, and preparing for Thanksgiving, blogging was about the furthest thing from my mind. I have posts in my head for toddler breastfeeding, a photo tutorial on making longies from a thrift store sweater, and other fun things, but for now, back to the original topic of this post.
In the past week, I have:
- Gone to my last week of class for the semester
- Started one of my final projects
- Deep cleaned the refrigerator, which included taking EVERYTHING out, scrubbing all the shelves and drawers, washing the walls, etc.
- Semi-deep cleaned the dishwasher, which included scrubbing everywhere that food could build-up (but not taking the shelves out because they get cleaned every time it runs) and running a vinegar cycle
- All of my usual weekly cleaning
- All of my usual laundry, including diapers every other day and including my monthly diaper stripping routine
- Preparing dinner each night according to my weekly meal plan (a new habit I'm trying to get in to avoid last-minute-dinner-headaches)
- Fixing a few extra meals for the freezer
- Going to student health for my yearly physical
- Going to the dentist for my (12-months overdue...) semi-annual cleaning
- Researching and purchasing a chest freezer since our side-by-side is overflowing with frozen produce from the CSA, meat from stocking up when it's on sale, freezer meals both made and purchased, and my breastmilk stash
Again, this may not seem like much, but imagine doing all of this while watching a toddler who just this week discovered he can climb on bookcases, take DVDs out of cases and try to eat them, climb on coffee tables, climb out of play pens (are we sensing a climbing trend here?), and who throws a screaming tantrum any time you try to stop him from doing any of these activities. Then add hour-long meals and snacks since he also decided he doesn't want to eat ANYTHING you offer him the first 100 times. Then see how much you get done and what you consider to count as productivity =)
It's been a good week. Now I just need to hammer out these final projects and study for a final, and then I can "relax." But that's a definition for another day.
Just after getting over the stomach virus, Ethan caught my cold. It wasn't TOO bad, and it was over after a few days. On the 20th, I was leading worship at church, so Ethan was going to sit with his daddy the whole time. As I kissed him goodbye, I noticed that his nose was running, but I figured it must be allergies or something random like that because SURELY my kid wasn't getting another cold, less than two days after I packed up the humidifier from the last one. By that evening, he was completely stopped up and had a fever. So I spent the night with him in the guest room, trying to get him to sleep as his fever soared to 103.3 at its highest. Not fun. But thankfully he only had 36 hours of fever, and that was the only all-nighter for me. I did come down with his cold, complete with fever, a couple of days later, but we were both feeling better in time for Thanksgiving, for which I cooked a complete feast, even though it was just the three of us. Ethan flattered me by putting his toddler pickiness aside long enough to try a bite of everything:
So between caring for a sick toddler, being sick myself, and preparing for Thanksgiving, blogging was about the furthest thing from my mind. I have posts in my head for toddler breastfeeding, a photo tutorial on making longies from a thrift store sweater, and other fun things, but for now, back to the original topic of this post.
In the past week, I have:
- Gone to my last week of class for the semester
- Started one of my final projects
- Deep cleaned the refrigerator, which included taking EVERYTHING out, scrubbing all the shelves and drawers, washing the walls, etc.
- Semi-deep cleaned the dishwasher, which included scrubbing everywhere that food could build-up (but not taking the shelves out because they get cleaned every time it runs) and running a vinegar cycle
- All of my usual weekly cleaning
- All of my usual laundry, including diapers every other day and including my monthly diaper stripping routine
- Preparing dinner each night according to my weekly meal plan (a new habit I'm trying to get in to avoid last-minute-dinner-headaches)
- Fixing a few extra meals for the freezer
- Going to student health for my yearly physical
- Going to the dentist for my (12-months overdue...) semi-annual cleaning
- Researching and purchasing a chest freezer since our side-by-side is overflowing with frozen produce from the CSA, meat from stocking up when it's on sale, freezer meals both made and purchased, and my breastmilk stash
Again, this may not seem like much, but imagine doing all of this while watching a toddler who just this week discovered he can climb on bookcases, take DVDs out of cases and try to eat them, climb on coffee tables, climb out of play pens (are we sensing a climbing trend here?), and who throws a screaming tantrum any time you try to stop him from doing any of these activities. Then add hour-long meals and snacks since he also decided he doesn't want to eat ANYTHING you offer him the first 100 times. Then see how much you get done and what you consider to count as productivity =)
It's been a good week. Now I just need to hammer out these final projects and study for a final, and then I can "relax." But that's a definition for another day.
Thursday, December 1, 2011
To Tide You Over...
It's been a busy couple of weeks between toddler colds, final papers, and day-to-day stuff, so the blog has been neglected once again. So until I have time for a real update, enjoy this video I shot this morning:
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