Random Ramblings

I need to blog. I just don't think I have much to say lately. Life is just in autopilot right now. That's certainly not a bad thing.

Robbie finished his baseball season finally. With so much rain, the games had to be postponed and postponed. He's playing in the All Star Game tonight. I hope they give him a good chance to play. He also got to go to baseball camp last week. That was a good thing for him. I think it helped to realize he can always get better.

We're busy trying to put in a new kitchen. We got the old kitchen from the Ronald McDonald House in Camden. The cabinets are pretty nasty from really never being cleaned for 11 years. Hundreds of people have used that kitchen and it shows. We've been busy scrubbing and washing trying to make them look like we actually want them in the house.

I painted the kitchen a really pretty green. I think the name of the paint is Winter Hedge or something. It's a hunter green color. We got new flooring from Lumber Liquidators. It's a "hand shaved" look dark teak patterned snap together floor. It's very pretty so far. The white cabinets should look nice in it.

We really weren't prepared to redo the kitchen even though we knew when we'd have to pick them up from RM House. Thermafoil coating on the face of the doors is pulling away from the wood on the doors so we'll have to get new doors. This may not be a bad thing cuz I'll be able to get the style I actually like. We just don't have a sink. I can manage without countertops and even cabinets but not having a sink is starting to get on my nerves.

We've been eating out a lot. That starts to wear thin after a while.

The best part of the new kitchen is that I will have an UNDER THE COUNTER dishwasher. I haven't had that luxury in about 11 years. I am so excited!!! More excited than all of the new storage space I'll have. YAY!!!!

I'll post pictures of the progress and final product once I have a final product.

easter 2009

Joey loses a tooth!

My boy lost his first tooth today.  It really doesn't seem possible that he's that old.  I want my little boy back!!!

This is right before he lost it.  He looks happy but he was so nervous.  That tooth was barely hanging there by a breath.  I reached in with a tissue and before he knew it, I pulled it right out without any resistance.  I'm sure that poor boy thought he was going to have a baby with all the worry that was on his face.  

The process is complete.  One little boy with one little tooth.  They other tooth is about a 1/4 of the way up.  I'm sure there will be many more to come.

I want my little boy back!!!

Opening Day!

Robbie started baseball again.  Opening Day was on April 4, 2009.  He's playing on the Astros this year.  Orange, Black and White are the colors.  I think they look rather smart.  All the other teams are a single color and white.  We get three colors.  

They played the Yankees for their first game.  Robbie was actually on the Yankees last year.  

He started off the day playing third base.  I think he did a pretty good job.

He's a cute little thing, isn't he?

He struggled a little bit with batting but that's ok.  This was just the first game of the season.  Robbie's a good ball player.  He needs to improve his batting but he has an ability to be very aware of what is going on around him during the game.  
This picture was of him jumping out the way of a wild pitch.  Of course, nearly every pitch in Little League is a wild pitch.
Robbie did get himself on base. (He walked)  He was able to steal second and then his teammate Dalton hit a double which got Robbie home.

I like this picture too.  He just looks happy to be playing ball.

Robbie got to try his hand at pitching as the closer.  He did a pretty dang good job.  In fact, he made the winning play of the game along with the first base player.  I was just so proud of him.  He was aware of his surroundings and did what needed to be done.  I was also happy to see his skill level rising to meet the challenge.
This is a picture of Robbie's team lining up to shake hands with the LOSERS!!!  I'm a great mom huh?  Don't judge.

Pasta pasta pasta....and God

Most everyone who reads this knows that I'm quite obsessed with food storage and home production skills.  If you didn't know, you'll for sure know after this post. :)

I have six children and a husband.  That's eight people to feed on a regular basis.  One of the things I've noticed is that the older they get, the more they eat.  HA! So, I am having to adjust my food storage accordingly.  We eat at least three pounds of spaghetti noodles when having spaghetti.  We'll eat usually two pounds of other types of noodles.  This will very little leftovers.

Pasta has become increasingly more expensive over the years.  But, usually I have been able to get Barilla pasta for about .09/box with coupons.  This only happens about once every two years or so.  The last time I got pasta was about 1 1/2 years ago.  I got over 100 boxes of pasta for .09/box using coupons. I still actually have a couple boxes of orzo and pastina from that pasta run.

But, for the last few months I've been having to buy pasta like everyone else...full price or a minimal sale.  

I realized about a week ago that in order to have a three month's supply of pasta I would need to have at minimum 36 boxes of pasta.  That really isn't enough but it would get us through if I were careful.  So, I decided that I needed to go ahead and just bite the bullet and start buying pasta a little at a time to work up to the 36 boxes.  I had a few at home but not like the 100 boxes from earlier.

In this process, I said a little prayer asking the Lord to please bless me with good sales on pasta.  I checked the sales circulars with hope and faith (really), but nothing.  No worries, maybe next week.

Upon opening the coupon inserts this last weekend, I found a coupon for .50/1 Barilla pasta.  Do you know what that means here in NJ?  That means that with double coupons that coupon would double to $1/1 box of Barilla pasta.  Oh my.  It was if the flood gates opened on me.

I've never really had a hard time finding coupons online in the past.  But, this time seemed to be a bit more challenging.  I had to work with my limited amount of patience, but yesterday it all paid off.  

I found a coupon clipping "business" and ordered 30 of these coupons (max order) and 10 of the inserts in which these coupons were found plus an extra coupon off the whole wheat kind of pasta.  That's 50 coupons total.

Yesterday these coupons arrived.  I went over to Pathmark and found that they had a sale on it for 4/$5.  Making each box after coupon .25.  Not bad.  I can only use 4 like coupons at a time at the Pathmark.  

I needed to run to ACME for some other stuff.  Once there I picked up their sales flyer and just about peed myself.  I had forgotten that they had Barilla pasta 10/$10.  Do you know that that means?  I got 46 boxes of pasta for FREE.  

For the day, I got $262 worth of groceries for $35.  Oh my goodness.

I am overwhelmed and quite unable to express my awe at God.  Most will say that it was just coincidence that this all happened.  That's fine.  But, I KNOW, that our loving Father did it.  He knew that I would work hard to find the coupons and to go every day if need be to gather those boxes of pasta.  He trusted me.  And I trusted Him.  I knew He would bless me with the sales I needed to add to my food storage.  That really doesn't express my true feelings.  I don't even know how to do it justice.  I was willing to pay for the pasta and only asked for decent sales.  But, He went beyond that and gave me more than what I asked for.  I am so thankful.

BTW, I got a raincheck for 20 more boxes of FREE pasta.  I have 76 more coupons headed my direction as well.  Within the next week or so, I'll have a year's supply of pasta.  How great is that?

April Fool's Day!

Leah seems to have been playing April Fool's Day jokes on me all day.

Below you will find a picture of her in a self-induced Triaminic stupor.  Yes, that's right.  Lucy came downstairs this morning while I was doing laundry and told me that Leah had gotten into the medicine.  I hurry upstairs to find nearly half the bottle of grape-flavored Nighttime Cold & Cough Triaminic GONE!

I called poison control.  He did the math for her age and weight and said she should be fine.  If she started with tremors and hallucinations, I needed to RUSH her to the ER.  Great!

Well, thankfully nothing like that happened.  She climbed up in the rocking chair and watched tv for a bit.

Oh, but she wasn't done.

A few hours later, I came up the stairs and smelled something burning.  Leah had put a small piece of bread in the toaster and it was about a split second from bursting into flames.  Disaster averted!  Thank goodness!

A little later, Robbie came and told me that Leah had made a mess in the bathroom.  I rolled my eyes.  She was into there soaking wet with hand soap ALL OVER the dang bathroom.  Water and soap.  And she was still in quite a daze from the overdose earlier in the day.  You'll see that in the picture below.
Finally, Joey came to me and said, Leah was playing the brown sugar and the white sugar.  GEESH!!!  Actually, she had gotten into the cinnamon and sugar shaker and it was everywhere.  This was evidently BEFORE the soap/water incident which is why she was covered in soap/water because she was washing all of the cinnamon and sugar off.

I can't wait for this child to go to sleep tonight.  She has worn me out!  

So funny

Yesterday, I went to the First Round of the NCAA Tournament in Philadelphia. I took Jessie with me and we got to BYU get tromped by Texas A&M.

That's the first part of the story. I had been talking about Brigham Young University here and there throughout the week in preparation for the game.

Last night the phone rings and Lucy checked caller ID for me. It came up "Brigham Young.." (the rest was too long to fit) They are calling for their yearly fund raising.

Lucy reads the name out loud and without missing a beat exclaims, "You know him?!" That just made me laugh out loud. So, cute!