1000 Boxes of Cookies

Way back in January when it was still cold outside, my girls hit the streets selling Girl Scout cookies. Pretty sure I told you that story already. When my girls sell cookies, we split the orders up so everyone gets some, but one girl (and we rotate every year) gets the most. This year it was Scout.

Officially she sold 1062 boxes of cookies! That means that she was invited to a special party only for girls who sold at least 1000 boxes, and that party was tonight. My sweetie and I had to go to a reception for his company (because he is awesome!) so Teach agreed to take her to the party.

It was a red carpet affair and they wore their fancy clothes. They danced and ate strawberry crepes. They also made sequined masks and drank sparkling cider out of plastic goblets. That was Scout's favorite part. In fact she loved the cider so much that as she was heading out the door, they gave her an entire bottle to take home!

Teach took some awesome pics for you with her cell phone. Scout was as bubbly as the cider bottle all the way home. And you know what? When she got here, she opened her bottle, and shared her special drink with everyone.

In our house, we follow the Girl Scout Law, and she was definitely "a sister to every girl scout..." and boy scout... and tagalong...

Friday Freebies: JCP Clearance

If you stopped by my blog last week, you know I had a fantastic mail day. I don’t want to brag or anything, but Bossy, Teach, Baby Doll and I took a bunch of those coupons and headed over to JC Penney. Ok, maybe I do want to brag…we took my $25.00 worth of coupons, plus the coupons in the ad, and I headed out the door with two huge bags full of clothes! Here are the final results:

Baby Doll – yellow t-shirt, green jacket, flowered stretch pants, yellow/pink sleeper
Curly – blue printed t-shirt
Scout – four pairs of socks, 2 pairs of pink leggings, 1 pair of pink yoga pants, 2 printed t-shirts
Sport – 5 printed t-shirts
Crafty – 2 black pairs of yoga pants, a pair of jeans, a pair of stretch pants
Prima Donna – 4 printed t-shirts, black ruffled skirt
Princess – 1 pair of pink sweats, 1 pair of blue yoga pants and 1 pair of black yoga pants
I also bought Taco 2 printed t-shirts for his birthday.

I walked out the door with all of this stuff for about $65.00. I love shopping clearance deals and we pick up things now for back-to-school in the fall. I know we might be a bit behind the trends this way, but most styles don’t change that much and we just look for basic things like tees and jeans that are always classics. Most stores are clearancing right now; preparing for the summer looks. That means you can buy coats and jackets, long-sleeved shirts, and warmer things for practically nothing (at JCP they are 80% off).

A couple of weeks ago we bought a half dozen beautiful Dockers sweaters for my sweetie at 90% off. They cost me less than $4.00 each. I even bought my Baby Doll a swimsuit at Target for $5.00. It was last season’s style, but I’m pretty sure she doesn’t care. Maybe I should ask her…

Friday Freebies: Mailbox Jackpot!

I was in the Marketplace the other day (Editor's Note: As in Smith's Marketplace or The-Store-Formerly-Known-as-Fred-Meyer.) and they had a bunch of stuff on clearance. After sifting through piles of crap I found a nice fishing pole for my sweetie for Father’s Day. When I got home we were unloading the van and I handed the fishing pole to 2-year-old Curly. "What is it?" he asked. "It’s a fishing pole," I announced. He turned it over and over in his little hands. Finally, he asked, "How do you turn it on?"

**********************

Do you ever go to the mail and just wish you hadn’t bothered? For me it can be so depressing…full of bills and junk mail. Most days the Smith’s ad is the best thing going. Today the Dog Walker took Teach to work and on his way back in he grabbed the mail. He brought in a small package, a bunch of envelopes, and the obligatory junk magazines that promptly made their way to the recycle bin.

I was talking to my sweetie on the phone when I started opening the envelopes. The first one contained a rebate on his diabetes test strips for $6.11. Wahoo! I love "found" money. I saw another envelope with the same address so I opened it next. It contained another rebate from the Freestyle company, $50.00 this time. The kids caught wind of the fact that I had a package and they hovered around until I finally opened it. They were disappointed that it wasn’t the Tangled movie they had been waiting for, but I was excited about the free Tide samples and coupons Bossy ordered for me.
 
The next flyer was the one from my bank with the information I needed for my free $25.00 gift card I had been waiting for since Christmas. I couldn’t remember a mail day this good! The next envelope I opened had a $22.00 coupon for a free Fisher Price toy from the lead paint recall over two years ago and the envelope after that had a $22.00 rebate for the same thing! By now my sweetie was way passed impressed. "This sounds like a blog topic!" he said.

Think Scout would like this?

 I laughed as I slid my finger through the next flyer. I couldn’t believe it when I pulled out a JC Penney $15.00 off of $15.00 gift card. The next one was also a JC Penney envelope with my $10.00 rewards card. That’s $25.00 in free stuff from JCP! Bossy found a $10.00 off of $25.00 coupon for you link to print here. Next to Kohls, JCP is my favorite place to buy clothes for the kids. One of my kids (who shall remain nameless) wears the Girls Plus sizes and they are hard to find in cute trendy styles except at JCP.

The last thing I opened had the Staples logo on it. It turned out to be my $25.00 rebate card for the box of paper I bought last month. If you’re counting, folks, that’s almost $200.00 in free stuff and although I guess I knew most of it was coming, it was still a wonderful surprise to get it all at once. I hope you have a day that turned out as good as mine…and now I’m going shopping…see ya’!

Friday Freebies: Video Games

When my sweetie and I were first married we were dirt poor. We had nothing, no car, no phone, and no money. We were enrolled at the university and we couldn’t even afford to buy our books. After two weeks of classes and still no financial aid check, I called my grandma and begged her to borrow me $200.00 so I could buy the books we needed before we flunked out of school. Grandma knew we were struggling, but I think that’s the first time she understood how much. So she helped us any way she could. Her favorite way was to give us coupons and rebate offers. 

These rebate offers usually had all the proofs of purchase attached with a paperclip and sometimes a stamped envelope. I know, she could have simply purchased the required items and then sent them in for us, but she wanted us to learn how to help ourselves. During those first years of our marriage nearly every store on the Wasatch Front doubled coupons at least one day a week. Grandma would often leave her home and travel a couple of hours to visit and help us learn how to be good shoppers. She was a product of the Great Depression and she knew the value of a dollar. For a time we became like those extreme coupon shoppers, but out of necessity, not just for the adrenaline rush. 

She helped us so much during those starving-student days and they were skills that stayed with me. I still use coupons as often as I can and I love a good rebate. So when Bossy found out about the ones on Langers juice, I just had to share. Now finish reading my blog first, then head on over to their website at www.langers.com . They always have offers on their home page. You don’t need cash register tapes, just the UPCs. They currently have ten active offers listed (the GI Joe link leads no where). We sent for our first Wii game a couple of months ago. I was surprised when it was shipped to us in less than a week. With 12 UPCs and $2.99 in shipping we received Raving Rabbids Travel in Time Wii game ($50.00 in the stores!). 

 That got me excited so we sent for two more, the Astro Boy Wii game (12 UPCs and $4.99 s&h) and the Megamind Wii game for 10 UPCs and totally free! For that one you can choose Nintendo DS if you’d rather. Teach is on a Biggest Loser program that just started for her work so I ordered a Yoga DVD for her (3 UPCs and $3.99 s&h). She has used it a couple of times (ok, she only got through the first 20 minutes before she was complaining about how sore she was…) but she says it is lots of fun. Now I’m saving up to get the Top Spin 4 game (12 UPCs and $2.99 s&h). It’s available for the Wii, the PS3, and the XBOX 360. We need to buy a lot more apple juice!

Friday Freebies: Disney Movie Rewards

This past year we decided to finish most of the rest of our basement. We had a pretty big space that was under our family room. About the time we got most of the electrical work done we realized that my dad was looking for a new place to stay. So we squeezed what little space we had for storage and managed a small room for him. We also built a stage, but that’s another story. More than anything, my sweetie wanted a projector. More than anything, I wanted carpet. So we compromised and we have carpet AND a big screen.

My sweetie’s favorite thing to do (ok, his second favorite thing to do) is watch a good movie. With kids so many different ages, it’s hard to find something appropriate for everyone. That’s why we trust our great friend, Walt Disney, to provide entertainment. We have dozens of movies with the Disney logo. So somewhere I heard about the Disney Movie Rewards club.

I’m really not big into entering every code on every box or package of everything I buy at the store. I’d much rather blog than sit around typing in random codes with no hope of winning anything. When I first looked into signing up I was skeptical, but the Disney Movie Rewards club is different. Any Disney movie you buy has a slip of paper inside with a code. Each of these codes is worth a certain number of points and those points can be directly redeemed for anything in their rewards club. Most movies are worth 100 points unless they are blue-rays and then they are usually 125 points. You can also earn rewards by seeing a movie in the theater.

Rewards begin right away and they are so easy to redeem. The first thing I saw that I knew I had to order was a Mad Hatter clock. It had a cool picture from the movie, but that was not the best part. The numbers and the hands run backwards! The Drama Queen loves weird stuff like that. It was well worth 1550 points. All I had to do was "click" and the clock was on its way. It came within a couple of weeks so the wait wasn’t bad either. The next thing I ordered was a Walt Disney baseball cap.

The Dog Walker loves all things Disney so he was absolutely thrilled. It cost me 700 points. The last thing I ordered just last week, a Tangled Thermal Lunch Box for 675 points. The Princess will be so excited! Unlike some programs, there are plenty of rewards to choose from. Right now there are 273 possibilities. There are also tons of movie choices, some as low as 550 points. I definitely recommend signing up. After we got the clock, I sent my kids on a treasure hunt through every Disney movie in the house to see if they could find any more codes. They did! Lots of them and the program took them all, even if they said they were expired. Check it out at www.disneymovierewards.com

Friday Freebies: Half-Price Pizza

Several years ago we made a trip to San Francisco. It was our first major trip with the kids and they were so excited! We stayed the first night in Reno where somebody nicely backed into our van and drove off without letting anyone know. Then we drove through the mountains and finally down into California. We stayed in the suburbs of San Francisco in Burlingame where we found some fun activities like the PEZ Museum and just down the street we found a little café that sold the most amazing crepes! 

 We spent most of our time in San Francisco proper, visiting Fisherman’s Wharf, Ghirardelli Square, and the Aquarium of the Bay. (Don’t forget to buy your City Passes!) Each time we drove down into the city, we looked for the huge statue of the Bow and Arrow. That was how we got our bearings and knew where we were. 

One night we decided to go downtown and find a place to eat. My sweetie was driving and somehow we missed the turn and we could not find the Bow and Arrow anywhere! We drove around and around and it got later and later. The kids were tired and hungry. We were panicked and lost but of course we couldn’t tell them that. Suddenly I spotted a pizza place on my side if the road. "Here we are!" I said loudly. The kids perked right up. "Mountain Mike’s?" my sweetie prompted. I nodded my head vigorously. "Yup! Put on your shoes, it’s time to eat." He eased our oversized van into the parking lot. It was pretty late so we easily found a nice pull-through. As we unloaded the kids we had no idea what we were getting in to. 

I’d never heard of Mt. Mike’s and I had no idea of quality or price. I did know I was tired of driving around and my sweetie never objected to pizza. The prices were reasonable by California standards and we all enjoyed some of the best pizza we had ever tasted. We did eventually make it back to the hotel without ever finding the Bow and Arrow. Flash forward to about six months ago. We discovered that they actually built a couple of Mountain Mike’s in our valley!  **editor's note: I told Mom a month ago the Mountain Mike's by our house went out of business.  There is now only one in our valley**

They have a huge 20" pizza that would never fit in my fridge, but it doesn’t have to because the kids devour it in about 10 minutes. Unfortunately, we don’t go out for pizza very often because of the price. Then one day my son mentioned that he and a friend had tried out the buffet and thought it was amazing. So we started watching for a good coupon. When we finally found one we headed down there on a Monday for lunch. After we ordered our pizza, we saw a huge sign that read, "Half Price Pizza – All Day Monday. Dine in Only." That has become one of our favorite places to take the kids. I can get a huge 20" pizza for $12.50. It only takes 3 of those to feed our rather large family including the grandkids and like I said before, the pizza is some of the best we have ever tasted! Give it a try and let us know what you think.

Friday Freebies: Cheap Vacations

We have a big van that we use for church and vacations. It has 12 seats and a large cargo area in the back. We stuff that clear full of bags and coolers and pillows, chips and cookies and bread. We always tailgate on every vacation. It’s a great way to save lots of money on the road. 

One of my favorite places on the planet is Disneyland. We made our first trip there in 2007. My sweetie was doing some extra consulting work and we had saved up enough for a whole week in sunny California. We wanted this to be the trip of a lifetime for our kids since we wouldn’t likely be able to afford another one for at least a decade. We headed out on a hot August day. Our first stop was the San Diego Zoo. The kids enjoyed seeing the animals for the most part, except that the giraffes don’t seem to have any sense at all. It was definitely a hot day, but I don’t care how thirsty I am, the urine from another creature would not be my idea of an acceptable drink. Unfortunately, the giraffe didn’t see it that way. Maybe he thought it was a hose. My kids were totally appalled. 



It was a little crazy, but our schedule forced us to visit SeaWorld that same afternoon. Even though they were a little tired from all the walking at the zoo, the kids loved the Shamu show and were excited to see the dolphins next. We got great seats and were right on the edge of the "splash zone." My little Scout was only two years old and she was so excited about everything. She stood up on her seat so she could see better but her foot slipped and she tumbled out of my reach and down the metal benches. I scooped her up, but it was too late, the blood poured from beneath her lower lip. I grabbed a SeaWorld bucket hat and applied pressure to get the bleeding to stop, but it was pretty obvious that she was going to need stitches. Great…here we were in an unknown city, on a weekend, and who knew what kind of insurance hassles we’d have to deal with.

I remembered seeing the first aid station on our way into the park and I headed there. My sweetie and oldest daughters rounded up the other kids and tried to keep them occupied (he only lost Crafty, so I guess that wasn’t too bad…fortunately she was located within about 10 minutes by a kind grandmotherly-type who helped her find her family). We arrived at the aid station only to find that other than a piece of clean gauze and an address, they were no help at all. They pointed out the row of taxis waiting out front, and with Scout clutched tightly in my arms, I headed for the first one in line. Pressing the gauze firmly to her still bleeding chin, I gave them the address. Can you believe this guy actually drove me in circles first, running up the tab while my two-year-old bled on his seat? What should have been a two-minute cab ride actually cost me $20.00! 

The clinic patched her up and we headed back to SeaWorld. It was nearly closing time and we were able to make only one quick stop to see the sea cows; we missed the rest of the park. Other than that, our vacation was magical and surprisingly affordable.  As always, I'm the ultimate cheapskate, so before we left I started looking for discounts to make the cost of taking ten of us to Disneyland just a little cheaper.   *Editor's Note: Bossy and her family stayed at home to take care of the dog and 6-month-old Burrito.*

We had used City Passes on a trip to San Francisco, so that is where I started. City Pass makes little booklets full of coupons for various cities and I was excited to find that they made one for Southern California. The prices have gone up a little since we used them in 2007, but they are still an excellent way for families to see the sites. An adult book costs $276.00 dollars and includes a three-day park hopper pass for Disneyland and Disney California Adventure Park. It also includes admission to Universal Studios Hollywood, SeaWorld, and the San Diego Zoo. A child pass includes the same but only costs $229.00.

I purchased tickets for everyone on-line. I recommend Hotwire for your hotels and when you want to go out to eat, check the back of your phone book in your room. Many of them have coupons for random restaurants. You can also check with the front desk for coupons and other deals. I’ve even been known to bring coupons from our newspapers at home on vacation. Usually other states will honor these prices if you present the coupon. Leave me a comment and let me hear your other ideas for saving money on vacation.

Friday Freebies: Haircuts

I started cutting my sweetie’s hair before we were married and I’m happy to say that no one has cut his hair since. He seems very happy with my services, but my kids…not so much. When Bossy was little she actually wanted a mullet. (Although she is in denial about this fact and says she remembers something about the Gym Rat spitting gum in her hair?)  Billy Ray Cyrus was in his heyday and both boys and girls wanted to copy that style. 

Billy Ray and Bossy

Once when the Gym Rat was about 8 years old I tried to get the shaved look on the back of his neck without a razor. What a disaster! He went to school that day (of course, he couldn’t see the back of his neck) and he came home in tears. Some of the kids had laughed at his goofy haircut. So even on our very tight budget, I scraped up some grocery money and took him somewhere to get it fixed. 

My girls were laughing about a Family Home Evening we had when Bossy was about 15 where I "taught" the kids to cut each other’s hair. I’m not recommending this activity unless you have plenty of money to take them all to the salon to get them fixed. Oh yeah, and make sure it’s summer so they don’t have school the next day. (Actually it wasn’t that bad…my kids were very careful because they knew that they were next in line.) So they all breathed a sigh of relief when we started getting these amazingly cool e-mails from the Supercuts training studio every couple of weeks. They invite us over for free haircuts! By now you know me well enough to know that I have a hard time turning down anything that’s free. 

So every couple of months I gather up the kids and we drive for about 20 minutes and then entertain ourselves in the waiting room until it is time for us to get that free makeover. We have been attending this class for about ten years now and we are hardly ever disappointed with the results. It seems that Supercuts retrains every new stylist that joins their company even if they have 20 years in the business, and they do these classes all over the US. 

One Thursday night, Princess and Prima Donna were playing quietly in their room. Princess was about six and Prima Donna around four. The fact that they were so quiet should have given me a clue, but I was helping the older kids with homework and completely oblivious. Eventually the two girls presented themselves. Princess was carrying a pair of scissors, and Prima Donna was sporting a new haircut. She was totally chopped! I don’t think a single hair on her head was longer than an inch and a half. Not that they were uniform by any stretch. I tried not to come unglued but I was losing it fast. The only thing that kept me sane at all was the fact that we had already planned to attend free haircuts the following day. 

When we showed up at the studio, Melissa, the lady in charge, started laughing. "Who did it?" she chuckled. Our very quiet and shy Princess was not about to confess, but she did blush a nice shade of pink. "We’ll do our best, but no promises," Melissa added. "This is going to take months to grow out." Princess watched rather anxiously as they carefully trimmed Prima Donna’s hair to a more uniform length. They didn’t want to take off much because she was nearly bald in some places already. Prima Donna took it all in stride…what was a little hair? It would grow back. After they had finished shaping her hair into an extremely short pixie cut, I did something that was either totally brilliant or extremely mean; I’m still not sure which. I had them put Princess in the chair and give her the exact same haircut.

Masks added to protect the "innocent."

Friday Freebie: Build and Grow

I have to tell you that I love Saturdays! The kids are out of school, my sweetie is usually not working, and sometimes (depending on the sport or dance schedule) we have a little time together. One of my favorite ways to use that free time is to hang out at our local home improvement stores and make a fun free wood project with my kids. 

 The first Saturday of the month is the kids’ class at Home Depot. You have to sign up several weeks before, and at our Home Depot they hang the sign up sheets near the returns desk. They usually recommend 3^rd – 5^th graders, but they have always let all my kids participate as long as I put their names on the list. So you show up on the day of the class. They give you a free apron, goggles (nobody actually wears these over their eyes, but they make a nice necklace!), and your kit. 

$2 at homedepot.com

You know those orange Home Depot project buckets? They tip those over and they become your table and chairs. They cover some with sheets of plywood and they set out hammers that are just right for the little ones. I’m a little too tall for the bucket chairs, so my legs always go to sleep but the kids don’t seem to mind. We usually take up a whole table by the time the grandkids show up and 2 kids/adult seems to be a good ratio for us. Just be careful which kids you offer to hold the nails for! When Scout was little she smashed my finger several times before I got smart and started putting her next to my sweetie. 

The wood pieces have predrilled holes for the nails and that makes them very kid-friendly.  The instructions are usually easy to follow with pictures of each step, but sometimes the kids don’t pay any attention and they end up nailing in a piece upside down or backwards or both. Then my sweetie spends the next ten minutes trying to pry those thin pieces of wood apart without breaking anything. I’ve taken to asking the assistants if there are any "tricks to this one" before we start. They usually laugh and admit where they screwed up their first kit attempt. 

 

In February we made these cute little heart shelves. The kits take about 20 minutes, although the time we made birdhouses we were there for over an hour! (Those darn slanted roof pieces were almost impossible to line up, but I don’t think the birds care if they live in a Dr. Suess house.) Since we couldn’t think of any reason we wanted to keep seven of these little shelves, we took them home and spray-painted them pink. My sweetie did the red accents on them and then we had the kids give them to their teachers for Valentine’s Day. The teachers loved them! They were unique and calorie-free. 

Lowe’s offers two classes each month on the first and third Saturdays. Their signups are all on-line at www.lowesbuildandgrow.com We attend nearly every class and Wendy, the cute girl in charge of handing out the kits, knows each of our kids by their first names! In February we made these Valentine’s Day music boxes with the heart-shaped top. My dancer girls were excited because the music boxes actually played Swan Lake! On the third week of February they offered these fun pull-back cars.  Their classes are pretty much the same as the Home Depot ones and when the kids are finished and show off their projects they are awarded a patch at Lowe’s and a pin at Home Depot.  

In December Lowe's offered three classes, one each Saturday and each class gave us a different piece of a train!  These pieces were designed to hook together.  So after the third and final class we gathered around the kitchen table and let the kids paint them.  Now they all have their own little Christmas trains.  All of these classes are free, but it is difficult to sign up right before the class. The night before we go to a class I usually get on-line and sign up for next month’s class. They do have a limited number of kits. Try one out and let us know what you think! Or leave us a comment if you have been to one. Our contest for March starts next week! Check back for more details.

Friday Freebies: Coupon Night

 
I am still so new to this blogging thing that I have to call Bossy every time I need to understand the rules.  She would love it if I would spend hours every day promoting various blogs and reading examples from others.  I prefer the writing part and I truly don't have time to spend more than a few minutes a day while Baby Doll is nursing, Curly is climbing on my back and kicking my chair, and Scout is pestering me for just one more book. 
 
That said, I have read some of the blogs she forwards to me and one of my favorites is "The Meanest Mom."  I want to be more like her when I grow up.  Today Bossy forwarded me a contest on her blog I couldn't say no to. The Meanest Mom, Walgreens, and BlogHer are teaming up and one lucky reader of her blog will win a $100 gift card to Walgreens. 

Since there are about 100 Walgreens in a 2-mile radius of my home, I've had plenty of opportunity to shop there.  I love their rebate program where you can go in and buy some weird thing you've never tried before and then get all of your money back.  Check out her contest here.  Be sure to tell her twelvemakesadozen sent you.  

Don't forget to enter in my giveaway.  I have enjoyed reading your emails and comments.  Don't forget to enable your email on your blogger account or leave an email in your comment so I can contact you if you win!  Submissions close TODAY Friday, Feb. 25th the winner will be contacted on the 27th.   Onto the Freebie Friday:

We love to eat out! To us, it means no dishes and no clean-up. The only problem is that it’s expensive! Although I haven’t come up with a cost-free method of eating out every night and twice a day on weekends, I have figured out a way we can eat out about once a month with very little cost. It’s called Coupon Night, and my kids think it’s great (mostly because we usually get at least two desserts). In most of our public schools, teachers give out lots of coupons. Our kids have received coupons for kids’ meals, chicken sandwiches, frozen yogurt, ice cream cones, cookies, movies, water-parks, and plenty of other things. We also cut out coupons from the local newspapers for free candy bars, buy 1 get 1 free dinners at fast food places, and other things that we can share. Then we find a night on our busy calendar when most of us are home, and we map out our strategy. 

It is important to plan our stops so that we actually have a meal before we get any desserts. We also want to make sure that everyone gets a share of our collective booty. Sometimes we have to supplement our coupons with a few dollars, but we try to keep our cash outlay at less than $10.00 for the night not counting gas. I have a large manila envelope on my desk where we stash all of these coupons until the chosen day. First, we gas up the van and get our free car wash. We’ve got to look good, even if we are being cheap! We might start at Fat Jacks pizza where three of our kids had earned free small pizzas. After getting their pizzas we head to Chick Fil A where we pick up four free chicken sandwiches and then stop in at Sonic and grab some buy 1 get 1 free hamburgers. We share and munch on our way to Smith’s. 

At Smith’s, we usually stop at the bakery and get free cookies. Then we grab a cart for a few more goodies. I have a couple of buy 1, get 1 free coupons for two-liter bottles of soda pop, so we pick up several kinds for later. On our way out of Smith’s, we head over to Menchis and everyone gets a frozen yogurt (free, with coupons, of course). We stop by the RedBox on our way home and pick up a couple of free movies. After we arrive at our house, we pour everyone a free soda, pop in one of our free movies, and sit back to relax and digest with no dishes, no clean-up, and no financial guilt.

Speaking of free food check this out: http://www.chick-fil-a.com/FreeFryDay.html 

Friday Freebies: Local Library

I am constantly on the lookout for free (or nearly free) activities for my family. We thought it would be fun to make Friday our Friday Freebies and share one good cheap idea of things you can do with your family.  I told you already about Cow Appreciation Day, but the month of July seems like forever away with the super cold weather we’ve been having. This kind of weather just makes me want to curl up with a cup of hot chocolate and a good book. Not that I’ve read a real grownup book in over a year…but kid books are fun too. 

I can’t remember not loving to read. My mom was a reader and my dad was a teacher, so books were a huge part of my life. My mom always had a stack of romance novels in the bathroom. I felt funny about removing them since I never knew which one she was reading at that exact moment. Her favorite bookmark was three squares of unused toilet paper, but there were often several books stacked on the edge of the tub that had her trademark. There were many days when I monopolized our only bathroom for hours at a time. By then one of my seven siblings was often pounding on the door, doing the potty dance while I was trying to stand up because my feet had fallen asleep from sitting so long. And we won’t even talk about the ring…. 

My dad drove the Bookmobile every summer to all the small towns in our state. It was a travelling library in a bus. When we checked out books, we took a box the size of an orange crate and filled it so full we could hardly carry it home. I specifically remember one time when I was about 10. I had checked out nearly 100 chapter books, you know, Ramona the Brave, Little House on the Prairie, The Boxcar Children…stuff like that. I spread them out on my floor side by side like a carpet and I started reading them one after another. I spent many sunny summer days with a good book. My favorite place to read was on our roof. I would climb out of my bedroom window with a pillow and 2 or 3 books and just shut myself off from the world for a few hours. After I was married, my mom went to work as a librarian. 

So Teach was in the library the other day and she ran across the Beehive Bingo Reading program. When you have blackout, you get one of the Beehive Award Nominee books for FREE! My kids also love to read so this one was perfect for them. We checked out a huge stack of books and Bossy brought her kids over and we had our own storytime. 

The library has all kinds of fun programs going on all the time. We attended a magic show one evening, and one of my all time favorites was held for the release of one of the Harry Potter books. They had a band that played Harry Potter songs and the county library system put on a free outdoor concert. People dressed up like the characters from the book and danced and sang along. The kids loved it! Our library also has a summer reading program where you can sign up for small prizes and coupons throughout the summer and then redeem your calendar for a free book. They also hold storytime for the little ones. So next time you are feeling particularly cheap but you want something fun, head to the library. It’s way more than just books.

Yard-sales

First let me say that I have always hated yard sales. I hope that doesn’t alienate anybody, but I would rather go to a store and find a good deal on something that is new and most importantly, not used. Only once in all the 27 years I’ve been married have I broken down and agreed to let someone sort through all of our old junk and give us pennies on the dollar for things we don’t want and they don’t need. I would much rather donate my stuff to Deseret Industries or some other charity than be subjected to that kind of humiliation. 

That said, my kids (and unfortunately my husband) love a good yard sale! They drive around in the summer without me just so they can stop at one if they have the intense desire to dig through boxes of old shoes and faded camping equipment. It was just such a sunny summer day about ten years ago that they happened upon a huge yard sale and an amazingly good deal. The Gym Rat was about 13 years old and he burst into the house yelling, "They’re having a yard sale!" When he saw me he quickly amended it to, "The neighbors are having a moving sale!" That started a chain reaction with the kids. They were practically bubbling over with excitement. Me? Not so much. So Dad came to the rescue…"OK. I’ll walk them over for a few minutes." I’m not sure which was worse, taking them myself or actually letting my sweetie loose at a close neighbor’s yard sale. But before I could think of a reasonable objection, they were out the door and down the street. 

Within fifteen minutes they were back with a few miscellaneous treasures including some rather sad-looking stuffed animals and the proverbial frame backpack. I breathed a sigh of relief. That couldn’t have caused TOO much damage to my checking account. Then my sweetie came in. From his hang-dog look, I knew he wanted to talk. "OK, what do you want to buy?" I asked cautiously. He laughed. "You know me pretty well…" "How much?" I prompted. "Well," he began, "It’s worth about $2500.00." This couldn’t be good. "…and they want $700.00 for it." I choked on nothing. "What is it?" I asked, trying to sound normal. "A go-cart!" There was nothing I wanted less than a go-cart at that very minute, well, maybe a root canal…but I could tell from the look in his eye that he really wanted to claim his prize. So what could I do? I handed him the checkbook. It didn’t take him long to drag his treasure back to the house and then, of course, they had to drive it. None of them had a driver’s license, but it was only a little go-cart, so how much damage could it do? 

Bossy and Teach climbed on and drove it carefully down the street. Until they were out of sight, that is. The next thing I knew, they were trudging back up the sidewalk. "Mom, we dinged up the go-cart," Bossy admitted. "Were you hurt?" I asked frantically. "No, but we put a little dent in Mr. Jones’ truck." I grabbed my sweetie and we walked the long walk to the Jones’s house. The little dent turned out to be not so little, but it was in an old beater truck that he didn’t use much. Three hundred dollars later that great yard sale find wasn’t such a good deal any more. It’s no wonder I hate yard sales.

Cow Appreciation Day

Have you ever heard of Cow Appreciation Day? Neither had I until a couple of years ago. We don’t eat out very often for obvious reasons. There are a lot of us and even McDonalds dollar menu costs about $30.00 for a lunch that won’t keep them full until suppertime. So we weren’t that excited when we heard that they were building a new Chick Fil A in our hometown.

I had no idea how often we’d enjoy their yummy chicken sandwiches and at very reasonable prices, sometimes even free! Chick Fil A is very supportive of the schools by handing out coupons at various activities, often for free sandwiches or ice cream, but nothing is as good as Cow Appreciation Day.

It falls the second Friday of July (this year it is on the 8^th). When Bossy first told me about it, I thought she was crazy, but like her, I just can’t pass up the thought of a free meal even if it means I have to make a fool of myself. If you show up at the Chick Fil A dressed as a cow on the appointed day, you get a free meal! If they think your costume is only a partial cow (like a hat), they will give you just a sandwich instead of a sandwich, fries, and a drink. The first year we participated in this ritual, we got white t-shirts and I sewed black spots on them. Then we taped white spots to dark pants and headed to Chick Fil A. We were winners! We all received free food and a great time playing their carnival-type games and jumping in the bounce house.

Last year we decided this was something we wanted to be involved with each and every year it was offered, so I headed to the fabric store. When I got to Hancock Fabrics, I knew just what I was looking for, black and white cow print in something heavy enough for shorts. I was so excited to find exactly that on the clearance rack! I paid $1.15/yard for enough fabric to make shorts for just about everyone. With the cow shorts done, I needed to find something to give us a complete outfit. I had purchased some white painter’s caps several years ago from the Oriental Trading Company. With a black sharpie, we turned them into cow hats. All that was left was a white t-shirt and some black felt spots. (The shirts from the previous year had all frayed out.) Bossy came over and took the scraps of fabric home.  She returned with cow-tails some with yarn for hair for everyone.  We looked amazing! Or should I say "amooozing"! And if you start early, you can visit one Chick Fil A for lunch and a different one for dinner. It really makes me appreciate cows, coupons, and Chick Fil A.