Welcome 2009!

Boy, it's taken me forever to get these photos uploaded & posted! Either I fell asleep at the computer, the Internet server was down or I was just plain too tired or too busy. Yikes!

We had a fun New Year's celebration. As has been our tradition for the past several years we had a home celebration. We love this and it works very well for us especially since we still have little ones. Plus as you probably guessed by now we much prefer the relaxing, family fun verses crowds & big time events. Anywhoo, we had another little buffet. The rule is the kids can pretty much eat as much as they want, when they want. We don't have a meal but rather graze through the evening. We also bring out the board games, card games & puzzles. Sometimes we watch a movie too. This year we had a new game to play thanks to the fabulous sales. It was a classic charades but made for kids. It was a big hit! Even Bugs loved acting out the words with help from Daddy.

Our Feast

Shrimp, celery, carrots, 2 different cheeses, crackers, quesidillas (homemade!), kielbasa, mozzarella puffs, chips, BBQ wings, & something else I can't remember. Oh, and Hawaiian Punch, Root Beer, Cran-Raspberry Juice & water to drink.

GAMES!


Charades begin!

A dog chasing her tail. =)

Acting out a game of checkers.

Daddy helps Bugsy.

Karate!

Driving?

Sweet Pea's team watches her closely.

How do I do that?

The star!

Of course he had to take time to shake his groove thing. Lol!

Having fun!

Daddy was a ham!

Boo did very well once she warmed up.

Love it!

Next was a board game. Daddy played with the youngest 3 while S.P. & I played a round of Battleship.

Then Boo & Elvis moved onto Candy Land.

Daddy & Bugs played their own version of Chinese Checkers.

Daddy & Sweet Pea started to play Jenga but then Bugs wanted to play. His version is to knock all the blocks down to win. LOL!

Boo wanted to play Battleship with Mommy so we jumped in.

A family favorite........TWISTER!

Me & my boy.

Mommy sat out this year & just took pictures. And of course LAUGHED & LAUGHED!

Starting to get twisted.

Tied in knots.

We were going to watch a movie but determined it was too late in the evening. Everyone was wearing down. I remembered that we had received our CBD order in the mail earlier that day & thought this might be the perfect time to open it up. The kids heartily agreed.

I had ordered their special books late this year but it worked out really well after all. Now we had something special to open up on New Year's! I had also ordered a couple of family devotionals and some fun extras that were on clearance.

For Family Reading Time

Elvis had mentioned a time or two that he would like to see this movie. When I saw the book the movie was based on for under $5 on the CBD website I thought it would be a fantastic family keepsake for our home library. It is a hardback copy too! P.S. So far we are loving it!

Elvis' "special book" for his collection.

Sweet Pea's special book turned out to be backordered. It is a devotional just for her. It arrived the following week. Yay! She was happy with her new atlas for school & CD. The CD was a splurge at 49 cents. *wink*

Boo Bear's devotional DID arrive and she also received a CD. She listened to hers for a week straight!

Bugs was really into his new book. It is filled with all kinds of trucks, cars, trains, planes, etc!

This ended up being a really nice way to wind down the evening.

Cudding with Sassy.

Daddy read us all a few chapters from our new book "Despereaux" & a family devotional.

We decided to call it an early night and celebrated the New Year back in Eastern Time (Massachusettes time) instead of Tennessee time. We found a channel broadcasting the ball dropping in Times Square. Here are Dave & 3 of the 4 welcoming in the New Year.

Dancing to the music on t.v. as 2009 begins!

After that it was bedtime for all. Welcome 2009!

More Frugal Finds

Yesterday I took the kids out for a treat. They had all worked very hard on the house Monday getting it ready for another showing. I had a coupon for Old Country Buffet & since Elvis has been begging to go there I chose this for lunch. The rest of the kids love it there too & I like that the price is all inclusive. My coupon was for either an adult lunch for $5.99 ($2 savings) or 2 kids eating free with the purchase of a full priced adult. I chose Door #2. I thought that it would be Elvis & Boo that would receive the discount. I was happy with that as they price by the year (53 cents per year of age) and Elvis is 6 & Boo 9. I also thought I would be paying the full adult price for Sweet Pea as she is now 12. Well, to my surprise the lady charged me for one adult meal (me), one 6 year old (Elvis) & one 2 year old ( Bugs). It came to $12.69! That's cheaper than it would cost for us all to eat at McDonald's! In fact, it came out to $2.54 per person and that included a an all-you-can-eat full meal, several drinks, salad & dessert. Wow! I wanted to happy dance right there in the front of the restaurant. Even with the tip it was cheaper than McD's. Hooray!

After the treat out we went to our local Price Chopper to shop some of the sales. I used to do the majority of my shopping there but since Price Rite came to town I do my main shopping there. I was flabbergasted to find out last month that most of my staples cost twice as much at PC than they do at PR!!!!!! That is why I know only shop the sales there. And they have to be great sales too. Even with those higher every day prices PC is still the lowest priced full service chain grocery store in our area. That says something about the rising cost of groceries, doesn't it? =P I left the store with a savings of $83! A 76% savings! Another happy dance. =)

Today I'm going to try out the rebate program at Rite Aid. I have heard great things about the CVS ECB program (a rebate program for $ you can spend only in CVS). I'm going to try that in the near future but Rite Aid has much better deals this week. I may even be able to get some items for free! I'll let you know how it goes.