Double Coupon Day at Rainbow!!

Why have I never taken advantage of this before??? I must just be foolish. Every Wednesday is "double coupon day" at Rainbow Foods. Here's how it works...

Your total grocery bill must be at least $25 after sales and store coupons. Then they will double up to five coupons. The coupons can only be for $1 or less, but if you have five $1 coupons that they double, that's $10 off your bill! Plus you can still use countless other coupons of course, they just only will double five of them.

So I went to the store last night and I think it was the highlight of my day! My total came to $32.21 before coupons....after coupons it was $19.79.

These were the absolutely ridiculous deals:
--2 cans of Progresso Soup - Rainbow paid me $.20 to take them
--Crest toothpaste - Rainbow paid me $.61 to take this off their hands
--Pepperidge Farm texas toast - regularly $2.65, I paid $.50

From now on I'm always shopping on Wednesday!!

Menu Planning Monday (a day late)

I like to plan out our menu at least one week in advance. Usually just weeknight dinners, and then for the weekend I plan lunches and dinners.

I love scouring the grocery store ads each week to look for the best deals, then plan out our menu based on that and what we already have on hand. However, sometimes in my excitement about great deals, I end up keeping our cupboards full to the brim. So this month I have decided I am going to take inventory of what's in our freezer and cupboards, and see how many meals I can make with very little additional grocery shopping.

Here is our menu for the rest of this week:

T- chicken garlic pizza
W- leftover pork, potatos and carrots
Th- mexican lasagna, salad
F- roasted chicken, garlic mashed potatos, peas
Sa lunch- chicken salad pitas, fruit
Sa dinner- fresh ocean perch, rice, veggie
Su lunch- waffles, eggs
Su dinner- spaghetti w/homemade meatballs, garlic bread

In order to accomplish this menu I will need to buy tomatos, green onions, celery, rice and garlic bread. I also need sugar because I used the last of it to make muffins this morning. And I need tortillas for the mexican lasagna, but I think I'm going to try my hand at making those tomorrow!

So that's my plan for the week. I'm excited!

Ode to a kitchen gadget

Instant meat thermometer,

I love you!! You make my life so much easier. No more opening the oven repeatedly to see if the meat is done. No more taking the meat out of the oven and then asking Jeremy if it's done because I just don't trust my judgment when it comes to meat. No more cutting our poor meat in half to see if it looks like it's done, then putting it back in the oven "just to be safe," then of course cutting it in half again to see if it's done. No more asking Jeremy repeatedly as we eat, "Are you sure this is cooked enough?"

Now I simply put the probe in the meat, set the desired temperature, and go about my other business until the alarm sounds, telling me, "Fret not. Your meat is cooked to a safe internal temperature!"

What did I ever do without you? I love you.

Grammie came to visit!

This past weekend Jeremy's mom came to visit us. It was such a treat having her here! The weekend was short, but Clara soaked up as much Grammie time as she could.

Jeremy introduced Judy to Guitar Hero!

And Clara had a front row seat to the rock show!

Last snuggles on Sunday morning :(

Thanks for coming to visit, Grammie! Come again anytime!

Four months old!

I can hardly believe our baby is four months old already! At four months she enjoys playing with toys, sucking on her fingers, watching TV (we try not to let this happen much), talking to her friends the TV and the bedroom light, rolling from her tummy to her back, smiling, laughing, eating rice cereal, taking baths, and keeping mommy and daddy guessing as to the best method for getting her to go to sleep. We've come to love her so, so much!