Couponing week one:

Today we adventured out to Meijer to do our weekly grocery shopping. I ended up with two grocery orders.

Order one consisted of the following:

2 pks Huggies diapers
regular price: 9.97
sale price: 8.97
final price: 6.72 each after coupons
received a $4.00 CAT OYNO coupon

2 pks Huggies wipes
regular price: 5.99
sale price: 5.49
final price: 4.86 each after coupons

5 boxes of Betty Crocker fruit snacks
regular price: 2.22, 2.22, 1.88, 1.88, 1.88
sale price: No sale
final price: 1.53 each after coupons
received a $3.50 CAT OYNO coupon

5 Breakstone Cottage Cheese doublers
regular price: 1.00
sale price: no sale
final price 1.00 each
received a $5.00 CAT OYNO coupon

Total before coupons and sale prices:
$48.92
Total after coupons and sale prices:
$37.59
Amount Saved:
$10.65
Received:
$12.50 CAT OYNO (coupons good for money off your next order)



Order number two:
The second order consisted of all my 'regular' grocery items as well as a few extra things that I was able to get for really cheap.
Here are the really good deals:

-Buy two milks get a 1/2 gallon of chocolate milk free (with coupon) valued @ 2.79

-Italian sausage
reg $3.89
final price $2.15

-(2) Quaker Oats 18oz.
reg. $3.28 each
final price $.98 cents for both! could have been free but couldn't get the extra coupon to print!

-(3) Goldfish crackers
reg.$2.19
final price $1.00

-(2)Starkist Tuna pouch
reg $1.89
final price $.04 cents each!

-(2)Aunt Jemima Syrup
reg $3.48 each
final price .99 cents each!

- 2 pk Gerber pjs
reg $9.99
final price $5.99

-(4) Delmonte canned Fruit
reg. $1.49 (2) and $1.36
Final price $.49 cents each

-(4) Cereals (Frosted Flakes-2, Corn Pops, Apple Jacks)
eg. $2.69, $3.39, $2.95
final price $1.75 each

I obviously bought more than what was listed above. Those were just the good deals I got. I used the $12.50 CAT's that I got from my first order on my second order. My Final Totals were:

Total before coupons and sale prices:
$86.59
Total after coupons and sale prices:
$42.52
Amount Saved:
$44.07

The two orders combined I paid the following:
Total before coupons and sals prices:
$134.83
Total after coupons and sale prices:
$80.11
Total Amount Saved:
$54.72

I do have to say this is the most I have saved using coupons ever! And I am happy to be saving it. I hope in the future I can learn new tricks and save even more but I am proud of myself for getting this far. I have always 'clipped coupons' but never to this extent and its nice to see that the 2 hours I put into this with finding all the coupons is worth it! I would also like to thank Rosaria who checked us out at Meijer, she was very helpful and friendly and didn't mind the coupons at all! There were even a couple that I had items for and they were not working so she did the adjustment thing and made the computer take them! YEAH! Oh here is one last picture for fun...
Yes that right, thats my grocery list! YIKES! What a mess! Yet I still survived! WooHoo!

Savings of the week...

I think I am going to start adding some different things to my blog besides family updates and such. Today I will start of by sharing some of my great deals that I have gotten over the last two days.

Friday we make the trek up to Muskegon to the Lakes Mall to visit the motherhood maternity store. I was looking online at some of their sale items and was going to buy online but I don't really like to return stuff so we decided to make the trip. I was looking to get a dress or two for a few upcoming weddings that we have as well as some nursing bras. I was lucky enough to find 2 new dresses, 2 long sleeve t-shirts, 1 sweater, 1 pair corduroy pants, and 3 bras. I was really excited to finally find some dresses to wear and other warm clothes for the winter. I spent $175 dollars which seems like a lot but I saved $112 dollars which is also a lot. Plus, Motherhood has good quality clothing that will last for all the rest of my pregnancy's and I will be able to use them over and over again.
While at the mall we also stopped in at The Childrens Place. I've been looking for some pj's for E and they have their monster sale going on. I found 2 pairs of pj's and 1 red and white stripped sweater for him. The pj's were on sale for 6.99 and the sweater was only $5 bucks! Which is really cheap for childrens place. I dont know how much I saved there at the moment. but I know it was a lot!

Saturday (today) mom and I went over to Carters to look for a b-day present for her neighbors son who will be 1. Of course you can't go into that store and not buy anything. So once again I was looking for p'js and found some along with a lot of other stuff. I bought a baby present for a friend, a spring jacket, 2 sets of pj''s, 1 pair of fleece pants, and a shirt for E. The original prices for everything before taxes came to a total of $125 dollars! That is so much money! But they had a lot of sales/clearance with an additional 30% off and then I had a coupon for 25% off your total purchase so I was able to get all those items for a grand total, after taxes for only $18.88! Now thats a great deal!

It's the holiday season...

Our Christmas Tree

This year we went with the Coffeys to the Leber Tree Farm and loved the selection they had. We had gone there the first year we were married and hadn't been back since because we tried out different places. So we went there this year and you take a tractor wagon back to the trees pick out your tree load it back up on the wagon, hop on and ride back up to the barn. Elijah LOVED the tractor and riding on the wagon. We decided to check out the balsum fir trees this year and we loved them. They have soft needles so you don't get all poked when you decorate it and they hold the needles better so they don't fall off as quick and won't hurt to step on! It has a really nice color as well. Elijah had a lot of fun walking through all the trees helping to pick one out. There were so many good trees to choose from. They were all trimmed so nice and hardly any had huge gaping holes!

Here are some pictures from our adventure:

Elijah and Grandpa standing by the tractor.

Elijah helping Daddy cut down our Christmas tree!

After Dale and Joy dropped our tree off Elijah got really excited and ran around it squealing with happiness! He was so excited even though I'm sure he didn't really know what was going on. lol

Time to open up the tree. Elijah helps Daddy take off the netting...we did it nice and slow so he didn't get slapped in the face with branches. Notice its not hurting him to touch it! It's such a nice soft tree!

Our finished, decorated tree. No other decorations were up yet at this point. They are slowly going up this week. I will post more pictures of them when I get the time to take a picture! LOL

Opps! A little behind...

...but i have a good excuse this time! I have been super busy plus I have been super sick with morning sickness! After battling it for a while I ask my doc for something to help and he put me on unisom and B6 which might have worked a little better if it hadn't knocked me out. When ever I took it all I wanted to do and could do was sleep which isn't that great when you have a 14 month old at home and have to drive a half hour to school twice a week...no falling asleep while driving for me thank you! So after trying that out for a while he put me on a new Rx and it really helps with the nausea which is great. I can actually make it through the day with out barfing my guts out! So things are going much better for me this time around because of the new medicines I'm on.

Elijah is doing good as well. He is a very active and injury prone little boy. If you are around him much you will know he is constantly getting hurt. We visited the ER a couple of times, once for a smashed finger in a door, no broken bones which was good, and the second time because he fell while walking and bit his lip, and a major blood vessel in that lip! After about 8 hours of bleeding and multiple blood soaked bibs, rags, towels, and blankets we thought that would be the good thing to take him in. After being looked over by the nurse, Physicians assistant and then the actual doctor that came to the conclusion that they didn't know what would work. They suggested we could wait another hour to see if it would stop( it had already bled 8 hours) or they could put in a stitch but they were not even sure if that would work. So after mommy and daddy were kicked out to the waiting room they three (nurse, pa and dr.) all held him down, which is a challenge in itself) and inserted 2 stitches into his lip which worked! We were glad it did! And the doctor (who we really liked) was glad that it worked to. They gave him a little stuffed teddy bear with a rattle for him for being such a good little guy! He is still very active and gets into and onto everything and gets hurt a lot but i guess thats all a part of who he is!

Picture time!

This was after we carved pumpkins. He loved taking the lid on and off and looking inside. However he HaTeD the carving part. He would cry if we tried to get him to touch the guts or if we put it near him. It was to funny!

Our little froggy! I got this costume at a garage sale in the spring and it fit Elijah perfectly! It was so stinken adorable. This was at the Smith Grandparents house on the front porch. He is quite the poser sometimes!

This picture was walking into our church for their fall festival. They had a lot of fun games, a couple which E could do but he got a ton of candy and enjoyed playing there!

These are a little out of order but oh-well! E, NyNy and Linin (as E calls them) sitting in Grandmas rocker Halloween morning waiting for their orange breakfast. And last our new little Coffey bean! At our 10 and 14 week check ups the doc couldn't pick up the heart beat so he sent us in for an early ultrasound. We (the u/s tech) found a heart beat of 163 and showed us our sqwirmy little bean. We are NOT finding out what we are having!

Big Brother!

David and I are proud to announce that Elijah is going to be a big brother!

Our Flower Garden

ELijahs first time playing in the sprinkler!

Our Flower Garden in the front of our apartment

Snap Dragon!

Walk Walk Walk!

Here is a video of Elijah walking...it was taken right after he first started. He is now walking all over the place and usually walks, not really crawling anymore unless he needs to chase his older cousins!

Happy 3rd Anniversary David!

Our First Anniversary

Our Second Anniversary

Almost our third anniversary

Sweet Victory!

David, Elijah and I spent the last two weekends out in Hasting at family camp. During one of the last services we sang Victory in Jesus and it really touched my heart. Its an older song but it sure is powerful. Here are the lyrics:

I HEARD AN OLD,
OLD STORY
HOW A SAVIOUR CAME
FROM GLORY
HOW HE GAVE HIS LIFE
ON CALVARY
TO SAVE SOMEONE LIKE ME

I HEARD ABOUT
HIS GROANING,
OF HIS PRECIOUS BLOOD'S
ATONING
THEN I REPENTED
OF MY SIN
AND WON THE VICTORY

OH, VICTORY IN JESUS,
MY SAVIOUR FOREVER
HE SOUGHT ME
AND HE BOUGHT ME
WITH HIS REDEEMING BLOOD

HE LOVED ME
ERE I KNEW HIM
AND ALL MY LOVE
IS DUE HIM
HE PLUNGED ME TO VICTORY
BENEATH THE
CLEANSING FLOOD

I HEARD ABOUT HIS
HEALING,
OF HIS CLEANSING POW'R
REVEALING
HOW HE MADE THE LAME
TO WALK AGAIN
AND CAUSED THE
BLIND TO SEE

AND THEN I CRIED
"DEAR JESUS,
COME AND HEAL
MY BROKEN SPIRIT"
AND SOMEHOW JESUS
CAME AND BROUGHT
TO ME THE VICTORY

OH, VICTORY IN JESUS,
MY SAVIOUR FOREVER

A little behind!

So its been a while since I last blogged so I thought I better do some updating on here! We have been quite busy at the Coffey household experiencing new things. Elijah and I go to the library every week and get new books. He loves to listen to them. Eli is enrolled in the summer reading program and this week he finished the first level and got a cute little pirate ducky (He picked it out of the bin!)

.

We also went to the zoo a couple of weeks ago and Elijah LOVED looking at all the animals. I don't think he quite understands the whole animal thing but he loved looking at everything.

We also went camping for the first time and stayed in our tent. It fits our queen size air mattress and Elijah's pack and play perfectly in it with a little extra room to spare.

Elijah also had his first trip to Family Camp out at Hastings Winding Creek Campground. That was a lot of fun and he got to play a lot with his Coffey Cousin's! (Xavier learned to ride his bike with out training wheels!) Elijah has also accomplished something new...taking steps! He has taken five at the most during a try! He is getting there. Soon he will be walking. One of his favorite things to do is once he gets up to the standing position is clap...another new thing he learned... he does it every time, its so cute! David has been picking black raspberries, and tonight he is picking some blueberries..YUM!

We have taken Elijah down to the farmers marker in Holland on Saturdays and Wednesdays and that is a lot of fun. He loves looking at everything and I enjoy the fresh cut flowers for my kitchen counter. :)