Park Play and Easter Fun

We went to a really fun park yesterday with some good neighborhood friends. The park is called Ryan's Place (or Ryan's Park, I can't remember for sure). It's in a town just south of Logan called River Heights. It's a great place with lots of activities for little and bigger kids alike. The weather was really nice and it was the last day of spring break so it was crowded, but the kids had fun.

We also had a great time on Easter Sunday. We went down to Ogden to attend church with Nana and saw the whole extended Wright family (those who live in Utah, anyway) for Easter dinner and Nana's Annual Easter Egg Hunt. We had a wonderful day catching up with cousins and enjoying the weather.

Eggs-celent!

Sadly, I'm not what you might call a crafty mom. Part of it is lack of interest - I just can't get very excited about doing crafty things (which is why Tessa's baby book is only about halfway done and yes, I'm aware that she's almost 3). Part of it, I'm convinced, is that I had two boys before having a girl. The boys weren't interested in crafty things at all - no coloring, no stickers, no play dough, no painting, no nothing. They were all about developing their gross motor skills. Tessa is more of a crafty girl; I'm sure I don't challenge her enough in this area. She will literally sit and paste stickers in a spiral notebook that she calls her "scrapbook" for an hour at a time if I let her. We've discovered that this works wonders for getting us through church, even though we may go bankrupt from buying all the stickers that she uses. Buying stock in Hobby Lobby right now might not be a bad idea.

Today, however, the kids were all gung-ho to dye and decorate Easter eggs. Last night I hard-boiled a dozen eggs (only 99 cents) and this afternoon we got down to business. I actually bought the decorating kit before last Easter but we never got around to dyeing the eggs, so I pulled it out today. They each got to decorate 4 eggs. They enjoyed the actual dyeing process - with all the dipping and such it was kind of messy, after all. But once the eggs dried and we were ready to decorate with stickers and egg jackets, the boys lost interest. "I think the color is enough decoration", Henry said after half-heartedly pasting a tiny football sticker on an egg. "Yeah, mine look good too", parroted William. And off they went to play outside. Tessa lasted a little longer, but she lost interest as well. Sigh. At least we tried. Maybe next year we'll attempt a tree made of plastic eggs or something equally ambitious. We must pace ourselves, after all.

Anyway, here are the results of our attempts at craftiness:

As a postscript, here is what Henry decided to do to his Easter Basket:

Why, you may ask, would he write, in permanent marker, on the front of the cute little Easter basket that he has had since he was very, very small? He was worried that the Easter Bunny wouldn't be able to tell the difference between his and William's baskets since they were identical. Apparently the small letter H that I put on the handle of his wasn't enough. And of course, in the interest of thoroughness, he wrote a big, fat William on the front of his brother's basket. But the funniest thing was that, when confronted with my obvious displeasure over this development, he replied, "Well, you know, Mom, bunnies aren't the smartest animals."

I'll let you fill in your favorite response to that little gem at your leisure. There are too many good ones to choose from.

Hopscotch and High Heels

Tessa was looking quite lovely today in her flowered shirt accessorized by a purple flower in her hair. Normally her footwear is comprised of whatever colored socks she chooses and her Disney princess-themed sneakers. This afternoon, apparently, she was in a color-coordinating kind of mood so she took off her tennis shoes and donned her purple Ariel dress-up shoes. Since she happened to choose her purple socks this morning, she was all matchy-matchy when she went outside to play. She loves to play hopscotch, so we ended up with the following:

Bracketology III - The Final Tally

As expected, Jay won the family bracket competition. He had both Michigan State and UNC in the title game and he correctly chose UNC as the NCAA Champion. Luckily, I came in second, as I beat Henry by a whopping 3 points. Henry took his third place finish well - his exact words were, "not bad for my first bracket." There's always next year.

But the really exciting news is that Jay won his office pool. I won't say how much money he won, but let's just say it's enough to buy a few things that we want to buy before we head to Southern California this summer. He could have won more, actually, but he split the entrance fee with a coworker and so he splits the winnings with him as well.

What's kind of funny about the whole thing is that Henry was asking him last night what he was going to win. Jay certainly wasn't going to tell him money, since the whole office pool thing is a somewhat gray area in regards to gambling, so he said, "I get a big congratulations and some pats on the back." Henry didn't buy this for a second, so Jay said, "people buy me a lot of soda." I'm not sure he believed that explanation either, but it was time for bed so he dropped the subject and seemed to forget about it today. So if you are keeping track, just yesterday Jay participated in gambling (depending on how hard core you are about the definition of gambling - obviously we go by the liberal definition) and lying (but does it count as lying if you just don't want to deal with an explanation of office pools to your 7 going on 25 year old son? Perhaps not). Maybe he can make up for those shortcomings by doing some good deeds - like putting all the kids to bed tonight.

So March Madness is over for another year. I think I'll be sitting next year out - I don't think my fragile ego could take another loss to Jay, much less a loss to Henry. They can duke it out for family supremacy on their own.

Bargain Hunting

I've become an avid couponer. It's like a game to me. A game with a learning curve, sure, but a game. I like finding bargains for my family. Since I'm the one that spends the vast majority of the money in our household, I try hard to find good deals. And I'm getting pretty good at it, if I do say so myself.

I used to think, like a lot of people, that buying in bulk is cheaper. So I'd load up on stuff at Sam's Club every week (since we sadly do not have a Costco here in Cache Valley). Now I can easily skip a week or two at Sam's Club since I've become better at bargain shopping.

There are a few tricks to bargain shopping. First, you can't be brand loyal. For some things you can, but you have to be willing to buy the cheapest brand of shampoo or toothpaste to get the really good deals. Just the other week, I bought 14 bottles of shampoo for less than 30 cents each and a bunch of toothpaste for less than 25 cents a tube. I easily have gotten a years supply of those things (and more) just by bargain hunting.

Second, you have to save all your coupons. Save all the inserts you get in the paper on Sunday and get multiple subscriptions to increase the number of coupons that you get. We get two Sunday papers and I'm toying with the idea of getting more, just for the coupons. I have coupon inserts from back in January that I've used recently.

Third, you have to match your coupon usage with store sales to really maximize your deals. For example, don't use a toothpaste coupon for 75 cents off two tubes if you are paying full price. Wait until that brand of toothpaste goes on sale and then use the coupon to get money off the sale price. That's how I ended up with my cheap toothpaste.

There are tons of websites around to help you find great bargains. I like grocerysmarts.com for matching up my grocery store ads with available coupons. Another good website is pinchingyourpennies.com, which I believe you can link to from Grocery Smarts. I like that these websites classify the deals as 3, 4 or 5 star deals to help you know if it's worth stocking up on an item at that price.

There are also a lot of blogs out there for bargain hunters. I've found so much good information on other people's personal blogs. They are good to share information about the great deals that they've found.

Our church encourages families to build a three month supply of food that your family eats regularly and more as you can. Couponing and bargain hunting has allowed me to do just that at good prices that haven't been a strain on our bank account. I still have some things that I'd like to have a better "stash" of, but we are well on our way. And it feels really good.

Of course I'm aware that there are lots of people around that are couponing experts. So if you are one of those people who basically pays $0 out of pocket for toiletries, don't rain on my parade. I'm not there yet, but don't worry - I will be.

Oh, Deer

Hyde Park is a fun place to live. It is a few miles north of Logan, Utah and is a small town of somewhere around 3700 people, but it doesn't feel like you are in the middle of nowhere, probably because you aren't. Logan is a college town (home of Utah State University) with a lot of amenities (restaurants, book stores, theaters, etc). We've really enjoyed living here for the past 6 1/2 years.

One interesting thing about Hyde Park is that many people in town retain their rights to house larger animals, like horses or sheep or cows. Our cul-de-sac runs right up to a large field and the owners have horses, so in the summer the kids can feed the horses apples and carrots. It's not unusual to see people riding their horses along city streets. And around the corner we have neighbors with sheep, goats and chickens. If we walk around the block, we see lots of animals.

Being so close to the mountains, we also see deer every so often. The last few days, however, we've had several sightings of a group of about 12 deer just walking around town. Tessa and I saw them yesterday crossing a street by our house, but William missed it because he was in preschool. Today he got his chance. We were driving home from Sam's Club (I told you we had amenities, although sadly there isn't a Target in Cache Valley) and we saw this little herd of deer just hanging out in a random yard. The kids were so excited so we pulled over to watch them. Then we decided to run home for our camera and get a few pictures. We found them walking up the road once we got our camera, but then the camera decided it needed new batteries. So we ran back home (I told you, it's a small town), got new batteries, and drove back around town looking for the deer. Poor deer probably thought we were stalkers, which I guess we were. But we were able to get a few shots.

April Fools!

I wish it were a joke.

Are you tired of me posting pictures of all the new snow? And then complaining about it? I know I am. Every day Jay and I wake up, check weather.com, sigh heavily, and say, "One day it will stop snowing." And it will. Maybe July?