Happy New Year!

From our family to yours:

We had a rather uneventful 2010—no new babies, no moves, no major illnesses or injury. That's not to say we haven't been busy. With four kids and a husband who travels frequently, that's a given. Here are some highlights of our year--

Barry is still working in the dirt track racing industry. He's done a lot of video taping and editing and produced his first DVD of the Como Modified Racing Series.

Jenny holds down the fort when Barry's gone. I deal in all things domestic, from laundry, dishes, and cooking, to getting kids off to school and keeping Remy and Ollie occupied during the day.

Jackson is in sixth grade and has started to be more involved in activities. He played baseball during the summer, started playing trumpet, is on the School Patrol, and is now playing basketball.

Raina is in first grade and is reading a lot of books. She's also been visited by the tooth fairy eight times this year.

Remy is 3 ½ and has seemed to grow up a lot this year. His latest obsession is with all things Super Hero.

Ollie turned two on Christmas Eve. He's starting to talk a lot and repeat what we say. He always makes us laugh.

We're thankful for a healthy, growing family, and hope this finds you to be happy and healthy as well.

Triple Coupons Week Three

Pamida had one more week of triple coupons on Sun/Mon Nov. 21-22. I picked up Jackson, who had spent the day with my sister Melisa and her family in Duluth, and we did a little bargain shopping.
I saved 91% on my triple coupon items. I bought yarn and drinking glasses on sale without a coupon. The following items were a great deal after triple coupons (price after coupons):
Angel Soft toilet paper--$2.97
Jello No Bake cheesecake--$0.50 each
Butter Kernal canned veggies--$0.13 each
Reach toothbrushes--$0.29 each
Carmex--$0.59
The following items were free after triple coupons:
20 oz. Coke and king size Reese's
Ziploc containers
Werthers
Kotex
Kiwi shoelaces
Colgate toothpaste
Price for all before triple coupons (not including yarn or glasses): $40.89
Price after triple coupons: $3.68

More Pamida Triple Coupons

Pamida had a second week of triple coupons on Sunday and Monday. I was going grocery shopping on Monday anyway, so Ollie and Remy went with me to Pamida to see what deals we could find. The following items would have been $16.60 without coupons and were $1.86 after coupons, a savings of 89%:

(Price is after triple coupons)
Hall's Refresh--$0.04 each
Softsoap--FREE
Tic Tacs--$0.75 overage
Cover Girl eye shadow--$0.49
Cappuccino mix--$1.85

Pamida is having one more Sunday/Monday of triple coupons coming up on November 21/22.

Super Heroes

Remy's latest obsession is super heroes, like Captain America, Spiderman, Batman and Incredible Hulk (known as "Green Death"). They even watched us make applesauce the other day.

Pamida Triple Coupons

Pamida is offering triple coupons for Sunday and Monday, November 7 and 8. Here are the deals I found:My total for all the items above, before the cashier started ringing in my coupons, was just over $100. When all coupons had been entered, my total was $28.67. I bought a glass 9 x 13 pan ($4.98) and bread pan ($1.98) since mine had broken. I also bought Raina and Remy (who were shopping with me) some stickers for a total of $2.97. I saved about 82%.

These items were good deals (price listed is after triple coupons):

Sunsweet Prunes--$0.89
Arm & Hammer laundry detergent--$1.50
Windex wipes--$0.49
Pledge wipes--$1.79 (Barry likes these for cleaning his computer equipment)
Pampers--$7.00
Reach toothbrushes--$0.29 each
Arm & Hammer toothpaste--$1.49 (I looked at the wrong item/price--I wouldn't have bought this)
Cover Girl eye shadows--$0.29 each

These items were free/almost free or gave overage:

Garnier Fructis shampoo--FREE
Quaker Oats--$0.21 over
Rubbermaid Easy Find Lid containers--$0.21 over for each
Crest toothpaste--$0.50 over for each
Oral B toothbrushes--$0.25 each
Kiwi shoelaces--$1.71 over
Duracell batteries--FREE

Pumpkin Time

We declared the Friday before Halloween to be Pumpkin Day. We started the day off with pumpkin pancakes, using chocolate chips for the faces.

Then we went to pick out our pumpkins. Barry and the kids picked out six BIG pumpkins this year.

We made pumpkin dump cake.
Everyone helped clean the guts out of their pumpkin. Barry is the resident carver in our family, so while we were waiting for him to carve we got out the silly faces.

There's definitely not room in the house for six BIG pumpkins, so they went out on the front step.

We always toast the seeds from our pumpkins, and had a lot this year. (I soak in water to clean, drain, pat dry, melt about a tablespoon of butter on a sheet pan, add a single layer of seeds, sprinkle with seasoning salt and bake at 325 until crispy.)

For Halloween, we had candy corn veggies, swamp monster meatloat and ghostly potatoes. My parents were up visiting, and it was fun to spend a holiday with them.

Finally, here are my little "pumpkins" ready to go trick or treating:

Season's Greetings

Halloween is over and retailers nationwide are already switching gears and getting ready for the holidays. I'm not ready yet to put up the tree, decorate the house, or bake our favorite Christmas cookies, but I am thinking about our family's Christmas card.

In the past, I've used Shutterfly to make photo cards to send out to friends and family, like this photo from Christmas 2009. I picked this design for the traditional Christmas colors and the word joy that not only reflects the joy in my kids' faces, but the joy we feel at Christmas remembering the birth of Jesus.

Shutterfly has new card designs for 2010 with colors and styles to fit everyone's personal taste, from traditional red and green to hip and modern blue and brown. You can include one picture of your entire family, or if you can't get all the kids to cooperate in one photo, pick the best individual picture for each family member.

Matching address labels are also available to coordinate with your card.

Ready to order? Shutterfly is offering 20% off holiday cards. Have fun picking out the perfect on for your family!

Disclosure: Shutterfly is offering 50 free cards for this post. All opinions are mine only.