Nadia and Mr. Bear would like to wish you a wonderful 4th of July!
Our family is grateful for the service of our armed forces now and throughout history for providing the freedom that we enjoy living here in America.
$18.51
$18.51 is what I paid for 18 jumbo packs of diapers today. Walgreen’s is having a MONSTER coupon deal on coupons. This is almost as good as the CVS diaper deal of 2005. Nadia is on her last pack of those diapers and I was looking at having to pay FULL PRICE for diapers 😉 **Since we brought Nadia home I have spent about $125 on diapers because I needed 1’s and 2’s for her when we got home and I didn’t get any of those sizes in 2005 since we didn’t know what age Nadia would be. And when we have gone on trips and run out we have just paid full price.**
Some laugh at my couponing, but it’s in areas like this that it pays off. Say I had to pay $10 a jumbo pack at Target. I just saved $160 on diapers. That’s 660 diapers for .02 each. What did it take?
- 90 minutes
- 4 stops
- 2 coupon books from Walgreen’s
- 15 miles on the car driving from store to store. (Can you believe there are so many Walgreen’s so close to each other?)
I save us at least $2000 a year using coupons for items we would buy anyway. I also am able to stockpile a lot to share with charitable organizations like Pregnancy Lifeline. So don’t knock the coupons until you try ’em.
20 months today and Sprinkler Fun
Nadia is 20 months today and we did our usual height/weight check. She weighs 20 lbs 13 oz and is 32″ tall. Since last month she has gained 2 oz and grown .75″. So she stays in the 3% for weight and 50% for height. Clothing wise that has her in 18 month dresses, shirts and rompers, but 12 month onesies and bottoms (skirts & shorts). Then she has an assortment of 9 month outfits that fit her perfectly. Kohls had capri pants and skorts on clearance for $1 this week and even the 6-9 month size were too big – I pulled them up and they fell right down 🙂
These photos are from last week. I turned the sprinkler on in the front yard and Nadia walked right into it to check things out. Mike grabbed his camera and got some awesome shots! The first one is of her doing what I call “the sneaky walk”.
VBS 2008
Last week was VBS at our church and it was the smoothest one yet. But that doesn’t change that it felt like the week was filled with mania! I was responsible for the Mission Moments each day for the children. This year the boys raised money for the persecuted church and the girls for New Day Foster Home in Beijing. Then on Wednesday I was responsible for teaching the children the Bible story. I was playing the storyteller Rahab from Joshua in the Old Testament. The kids in both lessons were very attentive and my costume was a little wild with lots of make-up because of her old job. I just told the kids that I used to be a “very bad woman” and went from there. They had lots of questions at the end of each lesson that were really good and showed me that they had been paying attention which was nice. Here’s the outfit:
Nadia was in the younger toddler room all week and did great, but it made for really long days for her. Then in the afternoon she had swim lessons. So on Friday Mike went to work late so that she could stay home, rest and have her nap at the normal time. Poor thing was just beat after all her activity, but so was I! Click on the photo below to see the album:
A’Jani and his little brother joined us at VBS each day, and on Thursday we all had lunch at Wendy’s.
And here are the other 2 videos I put together for New Day Foster Home. I used them for the mission moment and told New Day they can use them however they see fit.