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Sam’s club “click - n - pull”. Order by 5 today pick it up tomorrow.
Shop online and then go to the store to pick it up.
You only have to wait for them to get the stuff out of the freezer and then you walk away. You can pay while you wait for them to get the food.

You won’t get to see the kids light up when they see the sample ladies while shopping; however, you won’t have any melt downs either.
And this is for no extra fee.

You can do this online or you can call and describe the products to one of the managers if it isn’t shown online and they can still pull the products for you!!

Maybe your club does this as well, It’s worth it!
Although this may have sounded like an advertisement, it is a wonderful thing that I need to remember to do more. We almost always get the same things and I could have them do the work for me so I can get home sooner on shopping day.

I recently went to See Rachael Ray at our local Williams-Sonoma.
We arrived an hour after she started signing books and if I were to do it again I would wait another hour.
We were in line a total of 1 1/2 hours, but the people who came 1 hour later were only 15 minutes behind us.

So what do you do with a 4 year old when you have to stay in line for more than 15 minutes? PLAN
I find myself in lines all the time, but I am usually not prepared. This day I knew I could be in line for a long time so I had a backpac full of stuff. My daughter likes to write, color and read, so I brought coloring paper, new markers and books. My DD wrote and colored for about 1 hour and then played with another girl in line. If we were to be in line longer, I had more books and play toys for her.

In all, I loved the 1 on 1 time I had with my daughter. It required to me to watch my daughter for the whole time. Although I am with my daughter almost all her waking hours, I never really watch her. It was a joy to be forced to do nothing but interact and watch her, and only her. I can’t wait to do this with my other kids to see how they are when they are by themselves with mommy.

For about the last month I have been watching Rachael Ray with my children before we have dinner at night. Her meals look easy enough to make and are somewhat nutritious. The greatest fun in watching her has been my oldest saying Yum-o at foods she normally turns her nose up to and #2 saying “Rachael Ray” while she sits still to watch the program. This program is now taped on our MYTH box and is frequently requested as a program to watch.

So when I heard that RR was coming to town, I decided to extended birthday surprises, and take my daughter to see Rachael Ray at our local Williams-Sonoma.
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God’s gift to us on the first Christmas was a relationship built on love.

Ever think of giving Presence for Christmas.

This is my focus for this advent season. I want to give my family presence. This is what will be remembered the most and creates the best traditions.

Our Church was promoting this from:
http://www.RethinkingChristmas.com/
&
http://www.adventconspiracy.org/

What are you conspiring to do this Advent?

You can get a free8X11 photo book from Snapfish.com until Friday Nov 14, 2008 thanks to Oprah
Use the following link
http://www.snapfish.com/freebook2008
You have until Nov 16, 2008 to send in the photos to make the book

Shutterfly.com also has a promo until Nov 17, 2008 for a free 8X8 photo book. Enter code REWARD4YOU in your shopping cart.
This promo may be linked up to people receiving e-mail messages, so I’m not sure if it is for everyone.

Every year at JCP at about the 3rd Monday in July and the 3rd Monday in January children’s clothing is clearance down. Markdowns are determined by the store and not corporate. So you could go to another mall and they haven’t marked down the clothing yet, or they may not mark the clothing down as much.

–>

My 1 ½ year old held the longest potty strike, but is now willing to use the potty on a regular basis while she is awake. Although she generally has a wet or messy diaper after naps and waking in the morning, while awake she has been initiating using the toilet consistently for the past week. In the end she is potty trained at about the same age as her older sister and before baby #3 is born. Now, if we can only convince her to use the potty for her BMs. I’m working on her sister to convince her of this (I’m slowly realizing the power older sibling has on motivating a younger sibling to do and learn stuff.)

–>

I was just thinking back to when my oldest started sleeping in her bed without the side and how big of messes she made. She emptied her dresser about every day for about 2 months and then would crawl into bed 2 or 3 hours later and collapse.

I was thinking this because our second hasn’t been making big messes. She picks a few toys and plays with them for 15 minutes to an hour and then collapses on the floor. Yesterday she fell asleep looking at a picture album of her best friend.

Today our oldest emptied 2 drawers and now she gets to pick up her big messes. I asked her why she did this and she said because she was angry about not finding the top to her marker. So we talked about being angry. I also asked her if she was having fun emptying the drawers and she admitted that she was having fun (gleeful bliss as she tossed the things up in the air.

I tried to get her to clean up the mess for a few hours. I let her take a nap and then tried to get her to go back to pick it up. I tried everything to motivate her; however NOTHING worked. So I finally did something I told myself I would never do. I called my husband to talk to her. She talked to him for about 30 seconds and then ran into the room and started throwing stuff into the drawers. I went behind her to help as I told her I would help as long as she started to pick up. We were done in less than 10 minutes with everything mostly sorted and folded in the correct drawer.

I’m always amazed at how easy it is for Daddy to motivate my daughter. I first noticed it when she was about 1 1/2, but he still has a better time getting her to do things around the house without much complaining. It try his same tactics, but am not usually as successful.

End of June and the month of July brings some great clearance prices to IKEA.
Every year IKEA comes out with a new catalog where the prices are effective at the beginning of July. The store redesigns their floor model rooms and main display areas. They try to have them done before July 4th. This means that all that stuff is put into the ASIS area where you can find some really great deals. As well, they clearance out anything that hasn’t made it into the new catalog on the floor where you can find some great deals.

Last year we were shopping for a new cabinet in July and we were able to purchase our cabinet doors for $1.00 each. Before the sale they cost about $120 each. We were putting the cabinet in the basement, so the design didn’t matter and it turned out I really liked the doors. We also picked up a few other things to make out cabinets cost less from the ASIS area.

The displays at IKEA change every 4 months in a minor way with the seasons. The items are placed into the ASIS areas so you can get some great deals on a good product… if you need the stuff.

When my husband and I moved a few months we were told we moved over 14000 lbs of stuff. Not only was this 4000 lbs more than we were quoted, but we had already moved 2 van loads of stuff and over 3 van loads that were brought to Salvation Army. We even had to rent a bigger house to keep all the stuff in.

We are determined to reduce our stuff. We are in the process of selling off more stuff and trying to be mindful of what we bring in. Our main goal in our stuff reduction is to have a smaller home so we can pay less rent, but our end result should make us more conscious of what we buy and save us some money in what we

So watch out Craig’s list here we come. Watch out bank account you’re about to grow. Watch out advertising world, we’re teaching our kids, and ourself about how to look through marketing to see what we really need.

Here’s an online movie of the Story of stuff http://www.storyofstuff.com/. It is very biased on being over consumers; however, it does have some good views that make you go Hummmm on our over consumption.