Walgreens Trip

$145.00 worth-$51.00 spent

Alright, I have a lot of blogging to catch up on for the month of February, but couldn't let this one pass by because you still have 3 days left to do this.

I had not ventured into the Walgreens sales yet, but today was very exciting. I learned how to "stack" coupons there and finally got some FREE items out of it. I could never figure out how all these savvy coupon people got free stuff. Well, now I know. I will run it down for you. First off if you want to start coupon shopping, you must get the Sunday paper. I was buying it out of the machines for $1.50 each week. There was a man in Albertsons who I signed up with last Saturday for the LA times for the Thursday-Sunday editions. Just to get the Sunday paper!! But, it was $39.00 for the whole year!! And, he gave me a $10 gift card to Albertsons for signing up so it was $29.00 for the year basically!! The other thing you need to know is that Walgreens coupons that I mention are in a pamphlet up front by their weekly ads and are called the Walgreens Easy Saver catalog. There are a ton of coupons in there and some of them go with the weekly sales. You can use as many of these as you want. RR stands for Register Rewards, basically free Walgreens $$ that you get for purchasing certain products.

MC=Manufacturers coupon

BOGO=Buy one Get one Free

WAGS=Walgreens

Here we go:

5 Huggies Diaper packs $10 each Sale-$5.00 coupons from Coupons.com=$25.00

(You can only print 2 Huggies coupons from your computer at coupons.com. Found another place you can print more, not sure what the limit is because I am done http://www.redplum.com/offers/1011414-topdeal.html)

Lightdays 2/$6 (A little higher than Walmart, but when you are saving this much money on other stuff you dont' want to go to Walmart for one item)

Gilette Razor=$8.99-$4 MC plus $4 RR=$.99

Glade Sense and Spray $7.99 sale - $4 WAGS plus BOGO=$4 for 2 (I messed this up, if I would have had the MC from the paper I would have gotten both for FREE)

AJAX=$.79 WAGS ad coupon

Skintimate Shave Gel -$1.99 and $1 RR=$.99

7 Garnier Shampoo, conditioner, gel, etc -These were on sale for $.99 then in the Walgreens Easy saver they had $2 off coupons and I had MC $1 off that I stacked with them, so they were free. All 7 of the Garnier items=FREE

Easter Candy=2/$4

Easter Bunnies-$1.29

Kanka Mouth Medicine $6.99
Batteries-$6.99 (Mail in rebate for $3.99)

So when you add it all up it won't add up for you. This is higher than my $51.00 total. (You have to keep in mind the RR's that I used.)I did 3 transactions. This is because when you spent $25.00 in items listed on the back of the ad, you got $10.00 WAGS RR's. So I did this twice, but never really spent $25.00 because I had $15.00 off in diaper coupons for each transaction. So it's $25.00 before your coupons. The register then spits out your RR's. So I did this twice. Then on my third transaction the total was $33.00 and I used my $26.00 WAGS RR's and spent $7.19. Adding up all my receipts it was $144.00 and I paid $51.00.

I have read that once they are out of stock it's unlikely that they restock before the sale is over. So hopefully when I get these deals from now on I can let you know earlier.

The time in store took about an hour. However, it was my first time in this store using their ads, I had a baby in the bjorn strapped to my chest and a 2 year old in the cart trying to climb in and out. And, my coupon holder opened and spilled all over the floor. That part was a nightmare. So hopefully I can continue to get better so that I can share my experiences.

There are better people out there though and these are the places I got all this great info. (Although it started with my fabulous sister in law Jessica calling me yesterday and explaining the diaper thing to me. Three phone calls later with continued questions I finally got it :)

This girl is fabulous and I haven't had a moment to check out the blogs listed on the right of hers.

http://www.coupongeek.net/

And she shared this site for weekly Walgreens strategies:

http://www.southernsavers.com/2009/03/walgreens-weekly-ad-38-314/

There is actually a section of this page called "working Walgreens." Basically legally stealing from them. There is a weekly deal where you actually make $3!!

I can't wait to get better at this. I am jealous of the girls that get to leave the kids with their parents or hubbies. It will be so much easier without the kids tagging along! Once you get good at this system and comfortable with a store getting these deals can take about 30 minutes. I am comfortable with Albertsons and their deals now and it takes about that even with kids.

By the way, the $.99 Kids Activity Book that I told you about was not available at my store or my friends in Idaho so we missed out on the extra $1 off coupons for the diapers. This only made a $5 difference for me though, it was OK.

Just a note about something I learned-you can't use your RR's for tax. So if you get your bill down to basically free and the rest is tax, you have to pay the tax with $$ not your RR coupons.

Happy Shopping!!

January Calendar Blocks

Now that January is over I have finally completed my Calendar Blocks. I found these on www.pebblesinmypocket.com. It looks like they are going to have them every month. I got February and will hopefully get them done this week. I will post those also. The dimensions for the blocks are 3.5 x 2 and 1.5 x 1.5. January block paper is 1 and 1/8 x 3 and 1/8 The papers on the side of the little blocks are 1 and 1/4 x 1 and 1/4. I used mod podge to put the paper down and then went over it to help it stick firmly. The numbers on the first block are 0, 5, 1, 3, 2 and 4. Second Block 0, 1, 7, 6/9 (you only use one as they will work as both), 2, and 8. Good Luck, ask me any questions you need to. Shannon said that Lowe's still cuts wood.

Ward Christmas Party

Ok, I know it's ridiculously late to be posting pictures of our Ward Christmas party, but it's for my journaling purposes.

Our friend Leanne was nice enough to set up a backdrop and her lighting and take professional pictures of families at the Christmas party. She has a successful business and has done some amazing pictures for families that we know. Would you believe this was taken in the Primary room? The theme was pajama breakfast and Trent has been asked why he wasn't in his pajamas. His reply was that this was nothing that you would want to see. TMI maybe? I figure not in my circle of friends :)

Nathan is of course in the I like Santa, but not up close phase so I had to be with him in order to get him in the picture.

The guy in charge of activities dresses up like Buddy the Elf, and yes, he sounds and acts exactly like him when he is in character. The kids love it. Tyler thinks that Elf the movie is so funny. His friend Ryan apparantly goes around saying, "Son of a Nutcracker!!"

Hansen Family Pictures

Taken by Desiree-November 2008

You can probably tell that it was very difficult with 3 boys, they didn't give us much to work with:)

A conversation with Tyler

Tyler: Mom, we have a boy in our class named Nathan like my brother.

Mom: Yes, I've seen him before.

Tyler: Have you seen his dad before?

Mom: Probably.

Tyler: He must eat a lot because he is big.

Mom: What do you mean big, like tall?

Tyler: No, he has a big belly like Santa. Remember how we sang He's too fat for the chimney?

Mom: Yeah

Tyler: Nathan's dad is like that he would be too fat to fit down the chimney.

Mom: (Laughing) Well, we shouldn't say that at school, not to Nathan or his dad ok?

Tyler: Ok, but he really is big.

I have to address Katherine's comment on here because it really is true!! I was complaining about this a few weeks ago. One day I went to pick him up and the teacher motioned me up to the door and said she needed to talk to me. She told me that Tyler had said that one of the parents picking up a student was fat. I was baffled as to how he knew this word. Trent and I don't use it or talk about people this way so we figured one of the kids at school had said it or something. Well, a few weeks later I learned that they were singing this song called, "He's too fat for the chimney," about Santa Claus. It finally clicked. Here they taught these 5-year-olds this song and Tyler had not been introduced to the word fat yet. How was he to know that he couldn't use this word outloud to describe people as a fact when they hadn't talked to them about this word other than teaching it to them in a funny little song? I had NO problem with the song, but if they don't want these kids going around using the word to describe people shouldn't there have been a discussion that it wasn't appropriate to use this word other than in this funny little song? There, there's my rant about a contradictory teaching in the schools. So yes, Katherine, you are absolutely right, it is ALL the school's fault in this situation!! :)

Nathan's tooth

Ok, finally Nathan's tooth. So New Year's Day brought on a lot of sadness for me for my little baby Nate. We were at Neil and Shelly's house (Trent's dad and stepmom) and they have tile in their kitchen and 3 tile steps that lead down to the tile in a family room. Shelly and I were standing inches from Nathan with our backs turned when all of a sudden he was face down at the bottom of the stairs. We have NO idea if he tripped on his feet, pajama pants, or just simply the second stair. I picked him up immediately to a mouthful of blood and at first just thought that it was his lips. Upon further inspection Trent found out that his top left tooth was hanging by one root. He did his best to shove it back into place and hope that it would grab on. My sister in law Jessica's cousin who is a dentist came over and said that was the right thing to do and we just had to wait. So I took Nathan to the dentist after we got back and without looking at it she said that they don't save baby teeth and that it needed to be extracted immediately. She took an X-Ray and said that he had broken a root. She wanted to do it that day, but I wanted a second opinion and some pictures. So Trent called one of our old dentists and he said that we did the right thing by shoving it up there and we should wait it out. So we did and unfortunately it started to get infected. So we started him on antibiotics until she had an appointment open on Monday. I wasn't able to get professional pictures done unfortunately with all the drama we have had this weekend, but I did get a few snapshots.

Before

After

After Extraction

Our Hospital Visit

It seems like since New Year's Day hit we have had a lot of things going on in our little family. New Year's Day Nathan knocked his front tooth out of his head. (More on that later) Last Tuesday I took Nate and Cael to see Dr. Gifford because they were both very sick. They both had the starts of croupy cough and crappy breathing. Nathan had an ear infection and started antibiotics. They both got an injection to the leg of a medicine that was supposed to open their airways and help them breathe better. He explained that when kids are still little their lungs are very soft. He said that when they get sick like this their lungs sort of collapse and close the airway off so they need help getting it back open again. So this injection was supposed to help them both. Nathan got a little better, but even today still has a cough. Friday I took Cael back because he had just gotten worse. The Dr. ordered a home nebulizer to be delivered Friday night. He said not to worry it would be late at night before they got to it. So we waited until 11 p.m. I finally called the company who told me that they had no order for our home. He said that he could deliver it, but that I would have to give him a credit card number and sign a paper saying that if it wasn't covered being directly ordered from me instead of the doctor that we would pay it. It was $350.00!! I was in tears I was so frustrated. I tried our insurance company and of course they had no answers for me. So at 9 a.m. when urgent care opened I called in. Luckily our doctor, Dr. Gifford was the physician on call. I don't know how we got so lucky, but Heavenly Father was watching out for us. We went in and when he tested Cael's oxygen levels they were 90% and they are supposed to be 100%. He told us that he would have to be admitted to the hospital. I was supposed to go to a baby shower for Kiersten about an hour after he first told us so I called a friend to have her let Kiersten know why I would not be there. From there on we checked into the hospital and I was busy there for the next 2 days. Tests (tested negative for RSV, pneumonia and flu A and B, doctor says he had a common cold like older people would get, but a little baby just can't take it), blood draws, the IV insert (which took 5 tries, for anyone who has ever had an IV put in you know that this was difficult to watch) breathing treatments, oxygen, holding and rocking because he was so uncomfortable. Trying to sleep in a chair myself because the bed that was in there was off limits to parents. (At 2 a.m the first night I said forget it and used the bed. The next night I had the same nurse and she didn't say anything so I just used it again. I was SO lucky, no other rooms had a patient bed in them, they were all cribs. I also did not get a roommate which is unheard of. About midnight the second night a nurse came in and said they might move someone in, but again we were being watched over. I was praying so hard at that point that they would not do that because I was SO tired.) The first night I got 4 hours of sleep between feeding and people coming in to do the breathing treatments. Sunday his breathing improved somewhat, but he still needed continued breathing treatments and observation. He had to endure more blood draws that day and by 3 p.m. was so exhausted that he could not sleep. He cried and was just to tired to go to sleep or eat until 8 p.m. It was so difficult to feed him with all those tubes and wires that he had a hard time and was refusing. We finally gave him a bottle around 8 and he was able to get full and relax until about 2 a.m. We were up then and again at 4 a.m. and then he slept until 7 a.m. Dr. Gifford greeted us that morning (Monday) and gave us the good news that he could be released. I had not been out of that room in 2 days so this was good news. The whole time all of this was going on our kids were not allowed to be there so they stayed a few hours here and there with my friend Debbie. They ended up staying the night there Sunday night because Trent had a training that the district has paid a lot of money for on Monday. There are 5 trainings in this course and if he would have missed the first one he could not do the rest of them. So the boys had their first ever friend sleepover and Debbie took Tyler to school. So Cael is home now and doing better. He still has a horrendous little cough and I have to do the breathing treatments every 4 hours, but he looks better and he is able to rest better with no cords attached an no one constantly poking at him.

Our Great Dr. Gifford

(Notice Tyler hiding under the counter? He said he couldn't be in the picture because he wasn't sick:) Silly kid.

Free parent plate at each meal, but I had to ask myself if it was really worth it :)

So many grateful feelings came from this experience. On the way to the hospital I was telling Trent that I can't imagine living years back when parents had to watch their children suffer through these things and many watched them die because they could not get to a doctor or a hospital for the proper treatment. This was not a serious situation, but if we did not have the proper care and transportation like many in this world have not, it could have been so much worse. I am so grateful to live in a time where the doctors have advanced education, good medicine and we have good hospitals to care for our children. So grateful that Trent has a job in which we have excellent health insurance where we could spend a stressful time in a hospital without worrying how we were going to pay for it. We are so blessed, this is such a huge thing.

So grateful to have good new friends that helped us through this time with our children and with a ride to the hospital so that Trent could get my car to me. So grateful that our little Cael is starting to feel better and breathe better.