Great Deals at The Children's Place

My kid always has a lot of clothes.  He doesn't have to wear uniforms to school, so he loves to wear different clothes that express him, in a variety of styles.  And it seems like laundry is one of the first things that we get behind on when things get busy, so I always make sure he has plenty of jeans (in North Dakota, jeans are necessary every single month of the year, even in the summer), and lots of shirts in all different styles.

Today we were going through his clothes, and decided he needed more jeans in the next size up.  His size eights are currently the perfect length, so I'm sure that within the next 2-3 months they will be too short.  We buy almost all of his clothes at Old Navy or the Children's Place, so we decided to look for sales online at both of those places, since I knew there were lots of back to school sales going on right now.  We ended up deciding on the childrensplace.com.

Right now there is a coupon for 25% off a purchase of $50 or more, or 15% off a smaller purchase.  Plus when you spend $40, you get a coupon for $20 off a $40 purchase good from September 10-September 22.  Jeans are on sale for $10 each,  graphic tees start at $5, and licensed tees are $10 each.

I just finished his school clothes shopping.  I spent $84.46, including tax.  That means I get 2 $20 off a $40 purchase coupons.  For that $84.46 I ended up buying 4 pairs of jeans, 3 long sleeve shirts, 7 short sleeve shirts, and a lunch box.  Elliott is excited about the new clothes.

Fun At Legoland Discovery Center

One of the first places we went on vacation was the Legoland Discover Center in Kansas City, MO.  Kansas City is close to three hours away from my parents' house, so originally we had planned on doing a few things there, and spending one night.  My guys didn't really have anything else that they wanted to do, though, so we changed our plans a bit and drove up just to spend a few hours at Legoland Discovery Center.

Elliott is really into Lego right now. For the last two years, the majority of what he asks for for his birthday and Christmas have been different Lego sets.  He also spends a lot of his allowance on them as well.  So he was really excited to get to go.  We told him ahead of time that it wouldn't be as big or as cool as the actual Legoland in California that two of his friends went to last summer, but it would still be fun. And he did have a lot of fun.

We paid an extra $4 for the Activity Pack when we first walked in.  It had some fun facts, and a few different activities for the kids to do.   The best part for Elliott was collecting stamps at each of the different activity centers, though.  It helped us ensure that we actually made it to all the different centers as well.  And at the end of our trip he was able to show it to the girl at the register and get a button, which he thought was pretty cool.

In the first room we went into there was a place to see how much you weighed in Lego blocks, but it was broken, and said everyone weighed the same amount, so that was kind of disappointing.  Elliott was still able to see how tall he was in Lego bricks, though.

There were several different places where you could play with the Legos to create different things.  Elliott's favorite was the one where you could build race cars and then race them against other people.  Elliott built several race cars, and won a bunch of races.

One of my favorite places was the Mini Land.  They had a bunch of different scenes built from Lego blocks.  Since we were at the one in Kansas City they had a great Wizard of Oz area.  Elliott really liked the movie Oz, so he wanted to spend a lot of time looking at that one.

 The house actually spun around, which Elliott thought was the coolest thing ever.

Elliott's favorite part of the whole day was seeing the movie, though.  We saw a Legends of Chima movie in 4D and Elliott loved it, especially when the bubbles came out.  He even went so far as to say it was his favorite movie he had seen for at least a month (and we go to the movies nearly every weekend when there is something playing that is appropriate for him).

There were some rides to ride as well, but I didn't get any good pictures.  I just had my cell phone, and the pictures just aren't good when someone is moving.  Elliott did have a lot of fun on the rides, though, especially Kingdom Quest.

Getting Ready to Go Back to School

We have been having more internet problems at home for the last week or so.  Yesterday the problems seemed to finally go away, so hopefully we are done.  I had planned on getting some blog posts up yesterday, but then I got too busy with other stuff and forgot. Oh well.  I do have some vacation posts that I have finished writing, and just need to put up, so I will put at least one of them up today.  Elliott and I are planning on going to the park today, though, so I am not sure when that will be.  He starts back to school in two weeks!  I am certainly not ready for school to start back up, but I think he is.  Two of his friends have been at our house a lot this summer, but he hasn't seen any of the rest of them, aside from one of them stopping by to sell us cookie dough and then dropping it off. 

I have spent the morning filling out forms from his school, and making sure we have everything on his school list.  It is crazy how many forms we have to fill out, since he is still in the same school.  And we don't even have to fill out any of the free lunch or reduced cost forms.  We have nine forms as it is.

As you can see, we decided to send Elliott to public school this year, at least to start with.  I am still not positive it is the best choice, but for now we are going to see how it works.  His teacher apparently already doesn't like him, and he doesn't like her either (he says she is mean to him and two of his friends at recess).  So I am not really comfortable with the idea of sending him to someone ALL day who already has a problem with him.  We'll just have to see how it goes, though.  Maybe she will like him better this year.

Moving Day For My Sister

Well, I had definitely planned on having at least one vacation post up by now, but obviously things haven't worked that way for me.  Tuesday and Wednesday our internet connection was awful.  It was in and out all day long.  I tried doing some stuff online, but was quickly too frustrated to finish.  The good thing?  I got some stuff done around my house that I've been needing to do, but kept putting off. :)

Yesterday I spent the day helping my sister move.  She has been looking for a place of her own for a while, but rentals are really expensive around here right now.  She found an affordable one bedroom house in the town that Elliott goes to school in (which is also the town where her primary job is), so we got her most of the way moved yesterday.  The location seems decent, and she really has a lot of room, considering it's a one bedroom.  The bedroom is kind of small, but she has a large kitchen, a large laundry room, and an area when you walk in the front door that is big enough for a decent size office.

Elliott was sad that she was moving at first, but then he decided he liked her new house.  He even spent the night there with her last night "just in case she got scared."  Haha.  He has already informed us that he will be spending the night with her once a week, so he can sleep a little later in the morning, since she's right down the road from his school. :)

Home Again

We got back to North Dakota on Saturday night. We had a great vacation, and got to see many family members we hadn't seen for several years.  We didn't get to do everything we would have liked to do, but that's the way it usually works. :)  We were able to do a lot of the things that we wanted to do, including several days at Silver Dollar City, a trip to the Precious Moments chapel, a visit to the original Bass Pro Shop, and a day in Kansas City at the Lego Land Discovery Center.  There are just way too many things to do in the Springfield/Branson area to get to everything we wanted.

I didn't spend much time at all online while I was away, so I plan on spending some time today catching up on what I missed from my friends, before I start writing posts about different parts of my vacation.  I probably won't comment on that much that my friends posted, but I will definitely be reading the stuff over the next few days. 

I hope everyone is having a great summer!

Vacation

Well, my family and I are in Missouri now.  Last week we were so busy with getting ready for vacation, doctor appointments, and some more decluttering and cleaning projects, that I didn't even realize I never wrote even one blog post.

Carl, Elliott, Snoopie and I left our house on Monday morning and arrived at my parents house last night.  We left Trixie and Minnie home with my sister.  Everyone seems to think it's funny that my dogs took separate vacations this year. :)  Trixie went on vacation with Darla last month, and stayed at our sister, Bonnie's house.  This month Trixie stayed home, and Snoopie got to visit Missouri, and is staying at my parents' house with us, only she has to stay outside.  Elliott is actually outside playing with her right now.

We have a lot of stuff planned for while we are here.  There is so much more stuff to do in the area here than what we have in North Dakota.  Tomorrow we are going to Kansas City for the day.  Next week we will be spending several days in Branson.  And at some point we will be visiting the Laura Ingalls Wilder home/museum in Mansfield, along with another day spent in Carthage at the Precious Moments Chapel, and Diamond at the George Washington Carver museum.   In between all that, there will be picnics with extended family, visits to see my MIL (she lives about 2 hours from my parents), and lots of fun times spent with my parents, and my siblings that live nearby!  My husband's sister will even be here for a few days the last week we are here.  So as you can see, I probably won't be around much until I get back to my house, at the end of the month! :)

Weekly Grocery Spending June 14-20

Meals are starting to get interesting at my house now.  Our upright freezer will most likely be completely emptied this weekend, so we can defrost it.  The chest freezer is still over half full, though, so we are nowhere near done with our emptying them out challenge.


Last week we went to the commissary once and spent $10.99, and to Walmart and spent $14.84 on groceries.  This included yogurt, milk, fresh produce, and peanut butter.


We spent $25.83 on groceries this week.

Our weekly budget is $100 per week for our family of three adults, one child, two dogs, and a cat.

Our total spent on groceries for 2013 so far is $1899.90.  

 We are 24.5 weeks into the year, and our budget is $100 per week, so we are currently  $550.10 under our budget for the year.

Parents Are So Annoying!

We have had a pretty busy summer so far. It has included lots of time with friends as well.  Yesterday Elliott had one of his best friends over to play.  They were playing in the backyard, and I don't think either of them heard me come back outside.  The very first thing I heard was "That's too bad.  Parents can be so annoying!"  I thought it was pretty funny.  They were taking about Elliott getting grounded from watching PG 13 movies and any cartoons with violence in them, after implying he was going to try one of the moves.

The conversation continued, and included comments about parents not understanding about cool things.  And then my kid said "Sometimes my mom is cool, but sometimes she forgets what life was like when she was young and stuff was fun." haha

My Husband's Most Exciting Father's Day Present

When my husband and I were talking about what he wanted for Father's Day, he decided to look around on Amazon.  A lot of times he gets new tools for Father's Day, but he finally couldn't think of any that he needed (his tool collection is probably worth more than any of our cars!).  He didn't end up finding anything he wanted that day, but then later that week, he was on Amazon again, and came across this:



This is his favorite Disney movie of all time, and Elliott hasn't seen it.  Carl can't wait to share it with him.  It's just too bad that he won't get it until it's released in August.  Haha.  The price is pretty good right now, though, and it has a preorder price guarantee, so I guess we bought it at a good time.

We did end up giving him a few other things as well, though.  He got an Itunes giftcard, and movies that Elliott picked out for him at Walmart (Tooth Fairy 1 and 2 for them to watch together, and Looper and Water World for Daddy to watch without him).

Lots of Summer Reading

Elliott has been out of school for three weeks now.  We have been working on school stuff for a little while everyday, and playing outside every day as well.  We've also taken several small local trips.  But Elliott has still had plenty of time for reading.  He's still reading a lot of the same series that he's told you guys about before (Nate the Great, Black Lagoon, Stink and Judy Moody, etc), but he does have one series to share with you guys today that he hasn't yet.




Elliott started reading Jigsaw Jones (by James Preller) at school this past year, but until last week, I had never read one.  He checked one out from the library on base, though, and we read it together.  Elliott likes detective stories, so he loves it that Jigsaw Jones is a kid detective.  He thinks he is funny, and he likes his friends as well.  He thinks it's crazy that Jigsaw has a large family (3 or 4 brothers and a sister).

Elliott thinks Jigsaw Jones is probably most appealing to grades 1-4.  The lexile measure is 450, which is approximately an end of second grade/early third grade reading level.




We are also currently rereading the Little House on the Prairie books by Laura Ingalls Wilder together.  Elliott is really enjoying the books this time around, and almost always asks for another chapter when I'm done for the night.  We are rereading them right now, and plan on visiting at least one of the places that Laura Ingalls Wilder lived this summer.  This is probably one of our favorite sets of older books to read together.

He thinks that they are going to be most appealing to kindergarten through 4th or 5th grader for listening, but for reading on their own, he thinks about third gradeand up, because they are so long.

Weekly Grocery Spending June 7-13

This week we are still working on clearing our our freezers.  We actually didn't go to the grocery store at all this week.  Instead of the normal fresh veggies, we have been eating frozen vegetables, and trying to clear them out.  That means we will be in for a few expensive shopping trips later in the year, but we wanted to make sure and use what we have before it goes bad.  So this week all we bought was water (we have a water cooler that we use for all of our drinking water) and a loaf of bread.


We spent $8.43 on groceries this week.

Our weekly budget is $100 per week for our family of three adults, one child, two dogs, and a cat.

Our total spent on groceries for 2013 so far is $1874.07.  

 We are 23.5 weeks into the year, and our budget is $100 per week, so we are currently  $475.93 under our budget for the year.

Wordless Wednesday:The Danish Windmill

We went to the Scandinavian Heritage Park in Minot over the weekend.  Elliott loved the Danish Windmill and had to have his picture taken with it.

Weekly Grocery Spending May 31-June 6

We're trying to clear out our freezers right now, so we can defrost them. So we had another great week this week, as far as saving money.  My husband went to the commissary twice this week. Both times it was mainly for produce, although he did end up picking up a few more things as well.  The first time he spent $11.84 and the second time he spend $20.29.

Our weekly total this week was $32.13

Our weekly budget is $100 per week for our family of three adults, one child, two dogs, and a cat.

Our total spent on groceries for 2013 so far is $1865.64.  

 We are 22.5 weeks into the year, and our budget is $100 per week, so we are currently  $384.36 under our budget for the year.

Summer Reading Programs

Have you signed your kids up for any summer reading programs yet this year?  Elliott is so excited about the one on base this year.  There was a kickoff party on Saturday, but we missed it because we were busy with other stuff.  We were able to make it to the library on base a few hours later, though, and get signed up.  They still had t shirts, pencils and bracelets available, so Elliott was excited to still get those things.  This year the t shirt has the llama from the Llama Llama (Mad at Mama, Red Pajama, Misses Mama, etc) books by Anna Dewdney.  Those were some of Elliott's early favorite books, and ones he still hasn't given up yet, even though he is way beyond them in most ways now.

One nice thing about the program on base, is that they encourage parents to participate as well.  I think that part of the reason that Elliott likes reading so much is because he watches me read, too.  He's excited that we got matching shirts (although he won't want to wear them at the same time out in public, I'm sure).  And he wants to have a competition to see who can finish the 36 hours the fastest.  He also wants to  see who reads more books during that time, and said he would only count chapter books.

He gets an incentive prize if he reads for at least six hours I think, and also gets his name entered into a drawing for a big prize for every six hours he reads.  Then if he reads a total of 36 hours, he gets a bigger prize.  He read for about 40 minutes later in the day on Saturday, and then for over an hour yesterday.  He's already read for more than 90 minutes today, so he is well on his way to his first prize. 

We did the summer reading program on base last year as well, but we were on vacation when it ended, so he didn't end up getting the end prize.  Last year we were went on two different vacations, though, so it was a really busy summer, and we didn't do a great job of keeping track of his reading the whole time, so he was a little bit short, when we went on the second vacation.  This year we are only going on vacation to see my parents, and he will end up reading a bunch there I'm sure.  He thinks he might even be able to finish the 36 hours before we leave for Missouri next month, so we shall see.

Weekly Grocery Spending May 24-30

It was another fairly cheap week at our house as far as groceries go.  There were a few things we needed, but the list was small enough that I just spent my husband to get the stuff, instead of going myself.  That was apparently a mistake, since he ended up with several things that weren't on the list, but we still stayed well under budget.  He ended up spending  $64.42, but he did get everything that was on the list, so I can't complain too much. :)

Our weekly total this week was $64.42.

Our weekly budget is $100 per week for our family of three adults, one child, two dogs, and a cat.

Our total spent on groceries for 2013 so far is $1833.51.  

We are 21.5 weeks into the year, and our budget is $100 per week, so we are currently  $316.49 under our budget for the year.

Weekly Grocery Spending May 17-23

Since I wasn't online much for a while, I didn't get any of my grocery spending posts up.  Since I use these to keep track of things for myself, as well, as to hold me accountable, I thought I better go ahead and put them up, even though I'm late.  I did keep good track of stuff, I just hadn't posted it yet, so I'm fairly certain my numbers are right.

After the shopping trip we made the week before, it's no surprise that we didn't need much the following week.  My husband ended up going to the commissary for fresh produce and spending $6.83 one day.  That was all we spend that week.

Our weekly total this week was $6.83

Our weekly budget is $100 per week for our family of three adults, one child, two dogs, and a cat.

Our total spent on groceries for 2013 so far is $1769.09.  

We are 20.5 weeks into the year, and our budget is $100 per week, so we are currently  $280.91 under our budget for the year.

I'm Back

I knew it had been a long time since I had posted on here, but I guess I didn't realize it had been almost three weeks!  I wish I could say it was because we had been doing something fabulous, like a vacation or something, but it wasn't. 

We've been having a lot of internet issues lately, but it seems to be fixed now.  At least I'm really hoping so!  In addition to having several posts I want to get done this week, I also miss "seeing" some of my blogging friends, so I want to see what they have been up to over the last few weeks.

Elliott has been out of school for over a week now.  We've had fun.  It's been raining A LOT, but we've taken advantage of all the sunny days we've had.  We've been to the zoo, and the park twice.  We've also been to a few good yard sales (well, some of them were the weekend before school ended, but still since I last blogged), and found LOTS of good books for Elliott's summer reading for $.25-.50 each.  We've even found some good stuff to use for his school work.

We have been working on school work this week and last week as well.  He's really enjoying it.  He has done 2 science experiments already, and is also still excited to be learning how to write in cursive, and how to speak Japanese. :)  He actually asks to read his Life of Fred book (math) when we aren't working on math.  Since we are still only about halfway through the first book, it's all been review so far, but he's loving the story format.  We have been working on math otherwise, too, and learned to carry and borrow last week, but that's not nearly as fun as Fred. :)

Elliott told me this week that he doesn't think he wants to go to public school for second grade, because it's more fun to do school at home, and decide for himself if he wants to do extra work.  We've decided to not make a decision until we've been doing school at home for at least a month, though.  I want to make sure I can actually teach him new stuff in a way that will be easy for him to go with.

Weekly Grocery Spending May 10-16

This week was a pretty expensive week for groceries at our house.  My husband was with us this time, and it seems that we ALWAYS spend more when he is with us.  Over the weekend we spent $238.96 at the commissary!  Our cart was overflowing, though, and we had to pick up several more expensive items, including  a bunch of meat, laundry detergent, and fabric softener.

In addition to that trip, my husband made two other trips to the commissary last Friday, and then yesterday.  He just bought produce and tea the first time, so he spent $7.60.  Then yesterday he bought produce, bread, and an ingredient that I forgot we needed for something on our menu plan, and spent $18.92.

Our weekly total this week was $265.48.

Our weekly budget is $100 per week for our family of three adults, one child, two dogs, and a cat.

Our total spent on groceries for 2013 so far is $1762.26.  

We are 19.5 weeks into the year, and our budget is $100 per week, so we are currently  $187.74 under our budget for the year.

I don't anticipate doing all that much grocery shopping for the next 2-3 weeks.  Our freezers are pretty full, so it will mainly be for dairy and produce for a while I think.  But then again, Elliott gets out of school next week, so I guess it depends on how many extra kids we have around at snack and meal times! :)

Going to the Zoo

Many of you guys know that Minot had a devastating flood in 2011, and recovery has been an ongoing thing since then.  Our zoo is located right on the river that flooded, so it's repair work has been rather extensive.  They knew the flood was coming and got the animals out, but some of the structures were total losses, or very nearly so.  The zoo was closed last summer and almost the entire summer before as well.  But I'm happy to announce that it opened back up last Saturday, albeit without all the animals.  :)  We should be getting the rest back over the next few weeks, though.

Saturday, May4th was opening day, and it was pretty crazy.  We went for an hour or two, to support the zoo, and see what animals were back.   We went ahead and bought our season tickets and are really looking forward to going to the zoo quite a few times this summer.

The bears have always been favorites of ours.  We think they are funny and cute.  There used to be a food dispenser so you could throw them some food, but it's not up now.  Maybe it will be back next time.

The petting zoo area is another one of our favorite areas.  I didn't get very many good pictures over there on this trip, but I thought that this one, and the one below, with the donkey were both okay.  I'm not sure if I've ever posted pictures of my husband before, but that's him. :)  And of course that's Elliott, although you can't see his head in either of these shots.

Some of the other animals that were already back included the wolves, bobcat, warthogs, kangaroos, and various birds. Most of the big animals aren't back yet, and neither are the penguins (one of my husband's favorites).

Eight Fantastic Years: The Story of Us

My husband and I met in late October or early November 2003.  We were both dating other people at the time, and he was getting ready to leave for basic training.  I honestly didn't give him another thought for several months.  At this point we weren't even really friends after all.

Then in August he came home from tech school and asked me to hang out with him, literally the day after my boyfriend and I broke up.  I agreed to go out with Carl, just to get out of my house.  We ended up going out three times that week.  I still didn't think it would develop into anything.  I had just gotten out of a relationship that was long distance most of the time.  But my husband was persistent, and called me frequently after getting to North Dakota.  Within a month of our first date, we were on the phone every day, often for several hours at a time.  I lived with my parents, and they had unlimited nationwide long distance on the house phone, and I used that most of the time.  I still managed to burn through all my roll over minutes on my cell phone within a few months, and then all the ones on my sister's cell before we got married as well.

Carl came home for Christmas in 2004, and we met each other's families.  We spent Christmas morning with my parents and siblings, and then had lunch with my extended family, before heading to his Grandma's house for a surprise appearance at their Christmas gathering (his sister was the only one in his family that he had told he was coming home).  By the time he went back to North Dakota, we were engaged.

In February I visited North Dakota for the first time, on a long weekend (President's Day), and got to know the base that would be my future home.  The next time we saw each other was when he came home in May for our wedding.

When we got married I was 22 and he was 20.  People thought we were crazy and rushing.  But we both knew that we belonged together, so why wait?

We've been married for 8 years today, and while it hasn't always been easy, we're still happy together and in love.  We've both grown up a lot over the last 8 years, but we've done it together, instead of apart.

We've made it through a lot of things over these eight years, too.  I immediately moved 1100 miles to my husband's first (and still current) duty station.  We've been through a deployment, extensive training elsewhere, many weeks where he works so many hours that he literally goes straight to bed when he gets home, and only gets up with enough time to get ready to do it all again.  We got pregnant right away with our wonderful little boy, and have dealt with secondary infertility in the years since. My husband has lot his last two living grandparents, and we've dealt with several crises in his family.  We've dealt with health issues, both in ourselves and our families.  We've said goodbye to pets that were family members.

But the good definitely outweighs the bad.  Our only child is the best that we could have asked for.  We've added pets to make our family complete, and they are wonderful as well (my Trixie was actually the first present that my husband gave me after we got married).  We bought a house in 2007.  I've watched my husband become a confident leader, and push himself to go above and beyond, instead of just doing what is expected.  I've cheered him on as he  received his CCAF (associate's degree), and started toward his bachelor's in Mechanical Engineering.  He volunteers in our community, both as an EMT and a firefighter.  He's a wonderful husband and a good dad.  He would actually rather go to the zoo with Elliott and me, than out with his friends.  He enjoys lazy weekends at home with us, or at the park, or where ever we happen to be.  I couldn't ask for a better person to have in my life. I'm his biggest fan, and I thank God every day for bringing us together, even though our dating relationship was far from conventional.