I'm Ba-ack!

Whew...it's been awhile eh? Wow has life changed since my last post. Let me give you the low down: We welcomed Toby Braeden Fenn into the world on May 31, 2011. He is a beautiful, healthy baby and at 2 1/2 months is sleeping through the night. Thank God for small victories....actually in this case I'll say it's a big one. Mama likes her sleep. Taryn is 3 1/2 and she is turning into such an amazing little girl. But I'm not going to sugar coat it. Whoever says the twos are terrible are terribly mistaken. The threes, my friends, are in fact much more terrible. With that said, when Taryn isn't being terrible she makes me laugh and I feel such a sense of pride when I look at her (cheesy as that may sound). There have been a couple of hairy moments since bringing her brother home.....like when my husband came out of the bathroom to find her choking him. Is that normal by the way? So she's tried to kill him already...God willing she will not succeed. Let's just say going to the bathroom these days is not what it used to be. So, now that you're all caught up.....I have to share my latest grocery shopping victory. At Cub yesterday I spent $90 and saved $64....but I actually saved much more than that because they don't add the savings from sales into the total you saved on the receipt (which is maddening) and every item I bought was on sale in addition to the coupons. They only calculate the store and manufacturer coupons into the total saved. So, for example, the certain General Mills cereals were on sale for $1.99. That is a savings in and of itself of $1.76 a box. I had 8 $.50 off coupons which brings it to $1.49 a box.....which is a savings of $2.26 per box. So it drives me crazy that they don't add the $1.76 into the total saved because I feel like the receipt is the official result. Oh well...it was still a good deal. So according to the receipt I saved 42%...which is fabulous. I'm not quite to the extreme couponing level yet but I'm working on it. My theory is I can't feed my family with 200 tubes of toothpaste and 50 bottles of hot sauce anyway. Have you ever watched that show on TLC about extreme couponers? Awesome that they can get $1000 worth of stuff for $12.50 or whatever but let's be realistic about it people! I don't have 40 hours a week to dedicate to coupons. And the things they buy sometimes are ridiculous. So I like to think of myself as a practical couponer. I will share my grocery list going forward...if anyone is interested. Well, gotta go for now. Taryn is being very quiet and when I asked her what she's doing she replied, "I'm not doin' nuffin'". Oh she's doing something.