Halloween Disappointed Kids Come On Vegas

All day Brendan and Logan could not wait to put on their costumes to go Trick or Treating. I told them as soon as my husband aka Dad got home they could change. They were just so excited about Halloween. Then I started readin online how many towns across the Northeast cancelled Halloween, boy wouldn't my kids be upset about that. That's like canceling Christmas to some kids. I can remember being young and my parents spending weeks making me the perfect costume. Imagine how upset those parents are.

So finally they finished all their school work for the day and their dad came home. Emily wanted to be dropped off at a friends house a half hour away. I was just like no way. Then I realized we were missing a member of the family. Dylan was going to a Halloween party. Everyone was getting ready to leave just as the phone rings. It's Dylan and he needs to get picked up right away. I was thinking this is rediculus, this holiday is mainly for Brendan and Logan not the oldest kids.

So my husband was off for and hours drive to pick up Dylan. I had my 22 year old TJ start taking them around the neighborhood before it got dark.

The weather was great, nice and warm. Meghan, my 15 year old daughter who has a vision impairment fell while going door to door and cut open her toe, luckily it wasn't bad enough for stitches but it sure was bleeding.

As soon as my husband got home he picked up Logan brought him home as he was tired. The kids were all very discouraged as they had been down several streets and most homes had their lights out and even those that did have lights on we're not answering so even to get even a small amount of candy took a great amount of effort.

At our house Logan sat in front of the door for about an hour waiting for any Trick or Treaters but no one ever came.

I am just wondering if this trend is just in my neighborhood or elsewhere too?

Let me know!

TLC Extreme Couponing Guests Making Couponers Look Bad

Last nights TLC Extreme Couponing featured their youngest participant ever. He was a high school student who from what I got from the show was saving items for college. He had the usual laundry detergent, deodorant and body soap. They this is when it got interesting. He laughed about having this huge supply of maxi pads and not knowing what the wings were for. Then he showcased a mammoth supply of baby formula and bragging how it was free.

My question is why isn't he donating this to a local food pantry. There are thousands and thousands of needy families across the United States who have problems feeding their infants. Food pantries have a hard time keeping stock of baby formula and its not like he can keep them for when he has kids there are short expiration dates. He makes it look as though extreme couponers are hoarders. This is what gives us couponers who are just trying to save money a bad name.

Now you may not know this but I am an extreme couponer. You will not be in line behind me with a $700 transaction because the reality of the regular couponer is that they do not have transactions that large. I just started couponing about a month ago. You would not believe what I have accomplished in that short period of time. Going into couponing I did not expect some peoples reactions to be so strong. Some people will come up to me asking advice others will sneer their nose up and will say "oh you are one of those coupon people". When I was shopping at a local grocery store, I was told of a new coupon policy. I was trying to use 6 of the Free Dr. Pepper 10 coupons and was told that I could only use 5 at a time. I asked about this "new" policy and was told that it was because the of the Extreme Coupon show because people "like me" will buy hundreds of the product and will clear the shelves leaving nothing for everyone else. First, I only had six and second aren't the stores in business to have their shelves cleared isn't that a good thing can't they just order more? Well you know what I mean. They went on to say "you people" hoard and don't even use your merchandise we are saving it for people who use it.

Yes, I have a stockpile, a very small one so far that consists of 5 different kids of cereal, maybe 5 boxes of each; 10 boxes of pasta; 6 jars of pasta sauce; 10 tubes of toothpaste; 6 shampoos; 3 conditioners; 10 Snack Packs of Chips; 20 bottles of soda; fruit snacks; 8 boxes of granola bars; 20 boxes of Hamburger Helper and 4 mens/ladies deodorant. For a family of 11 that is a small stockpile. It may be small but I am already saving money. Week one I save like $30, weeks two through three around $50-80 and this week I decided to shop from my stockpile as we needed all our money for a trip we are taking this weekend. So this week I spent $65 on our groceries down from $250 a week. Quite a savings, eh? I am not in couponing to hoard merchandise that I will not use. One week I got a bunch of razors that I brought in to a local food pantry. That is what most couponers do. They either buy extra for food pantries or they just buy what they need. We are not hoarders.

Come on fellow couponers let's stick together and put out the good word about what we are really about.

The Worst Halloween Candy to Give Out

With Halloween knocking on our door I am already dreading the candy interrogation that my husband and I have at the end of the festivities. This is how my day will go.

First since Brendan and Logan are now home schooled I will have a little party for them. We will make mummy hot dogs for lunch, cup cakes and play a few games after all their work for the day is complete. See I am so mean. Maybe I should have them march around the yard in their costumes to make up for them missing their school parade.

When Tim, and the rest of the kids get home from school, they will hang around for a bit and then get dressed for the first part of the night that I hate. We will go door to door to door. I hate this part for two reasons. First, I feel like we are begging for food. Now we are asking for candy. Tomorrow we will be asking for boxes of cereal and milk. I also have a hard time walking even short distances because of my back trouble so even though I hate the concept of Trick or Treating after I am dropped off at home I feel as though I am missing their fun. My husband will continue Trick or Treating with them door to door to door. He will go with them dropping off one child at a time as they get tired. By around 830pm, the entire gang will be home. They will get undressed and the candy interrogation will begin.

The candy interrogation works one bag at a time. We dump the bag out on the table and begin by getting rid of all the hard candy. I might sound like a nut but I have this fear that one of my children are going to choke to death on a piece of hard candy so I just do not let them have it. I have that same fear with bone in chicken, but that's a different story. So hard candy is very bad to give out to children on Halloween because of the high choking possibility. Next, we remove all candy with a twist wrapper. This would include candy such as Tootsie Rolls, Smarties, you know what I am talking about. Does that sound crazy to you? I remove this candy because there is no way to tell if it has been tampered with, and I certainly not gonna take any chances. Sure I got extra kids but I want to keep them all, well on most days anyway.

So when out shopping for candy but candy that has a sealed package and don't buy hard candy! Till next time, Adios! I gotta go Extreme Coupon is coming on and I love that show.

Save - Mother Earth & Grocery Bill

Well with all the saving going on in the world with Extreme Couponing on TLC, I decided that with so many kids that I had to give it a try. After all who am I not to try something new especially if it involves saving money. I have $250 per week budgeted to feed our family. That may sound like quite a bit but it does not buy much except the basics. This means cookies only once a week, and ice cream maybe once a month and only if on sale. So I did some research and found out that to be an effective couponer you should be getting one set of inserts, the coupons found in the paper, for each member of your family. This number rises if you have teens. Well since I have 6 teens I should be getting many more than the 11 recommended copies. Since I didn't want to waste any money in the beginning I only started with 10 copies of the paper for the first two weeks. I went home and cut and cut and cut. I enlisted the help of my husband and older kids and we all cut. I discovered quickly that stacking them very carefully would get the coupons cut out much quicker. By the 3rd week I was getting 15 copies of the coupons.

So I joined the most popular blogs I could find, my favorite being Krazy Coupon Lady and right from the first week started getting free stuff. By the 2nd week I discovered Couponmom.com which actually tells you how much you are saving by percentage. I learned that the grocery stores work on a 12 week cycle and if something is 65 or 70% or higher off the regular price that you should buy how much your family needs for a 3 month period because that is how long it will take for the item to be that price again.

So we are at the end of 4 weeks and I have a small stockpile built. We have 20 boxes of cereal, 15 boxes of toothpaste (all free), 9 shampoo, 4 conditioner, 30 hamburger helper .........

This week we are going on a trip for wrestling so we need all the money we have for the trip. So I decided to shop from my stockpile for meals and you wouldn't believe how much our food is for this week - $65. That's right and we are only having hamburger helper twice.

So I decided to carry this money saving venture over to our utilities. Everyone including my children want to save the planet but never want to save us money, so they could not see through my motives. So I found some information on saving the planet online. So we had a family meeting two weeks ago and told everyone that we wanted to do our part in saving water for the planet and saving electricity too. So we asked the girls to turn off the water in the shower while waiting for their conditioner, and asked the boys to shorten their shower by 2 minutes. Everyone started off by timing their normal shower. Well it is already paying off. We got our first monthly gas bill and it is $25 less, yeah!!! Let's hope the electric and water bill has dropped too.

Does an Early Bedtime Mean Skinny Kids?

According to an Australian study, sending your kids to bed early means more than a peaceful night. It also means skinny kids. They studied 2,900 children and found that the ones who went to bed late and woke up late were more likely to become obese. Those that went to be early and got up early were skinnier. Imagine that especially since they had the same amount of sleep. So now when your kids fight you about their bedtime just tell them you are helping them stay fit.

My kids fight me every day. They use every excuse in the book. They have to use the bathroom, even though they have one in their room. They have to use the one in our room. Now this is a funny story. My son Logan, who is now 7, comes in every night to ask to use out bathroom this is because for some reason when you lift the toilet seat in the boys bathroom it tends to slam down suddenly he is afraid that is will chop off an important body part. So to calm him down especially when he is really jumping around we say okay. After all we do want grandkids at some point in the future.

Assassin Falls in Love with Target

It's the modern day fairy tale. In Brazil a wife realizes that her husband is cheating on her so she hires a hit man to kill off the vixen. The assassin goes to complete the task rides in on his dark horse, or whatever is appropriate in Brazil and takes one look at the vixen falling madly in love with her. It is love at first sight. He tells the vixen about the dark plan. 


The two decides to fake her death. They use two bottles of Ketchup, I am sure it was Heinz after all when you are faking a death you have to use the best. The assassin takes pictures of the "dead" vixen laying very still and sends them to his employer. 


Everything seems perfect except for the the two lovebirds did not have their heads screwed on straight. They forgot that in a love triangle like this that they were supposed to leave the area. Instead, they were caught by the wife kissing. 


The wife goes to the police and tells them the assassin stole her money. I am sure the conversation went something like this. 
"Officer, my husband was cheating on me so I hired a hit man. I paid him lots of money and he did not kill the vixen. So he stole from me."


All three in the love triangle are facing various charges even the vixen, luckily for her they are all out on bail so they have time to conjure up another plan. They can also continue on with their fairytale. Wow, won't they have a story to tell their kids. 

Does E = Mc2 ?

A European study is now testing the foundation of physics and that famous equation E=mc2 that we have all had drilled into our heads since the beginning of time or should I say Physics. Well now these scientists have found a particle that they believe is faster than the speed of light. Naturally, other scientific labs are stepping up to the plate to test their results to see if they get the same answers. 


I never imagined in my lifetime that anyone would question the greatness of Einstein. My children have been told that famous equation by my husband and I and by their teachers and now they plus the rest of the world may find out that what we were taught was wrong, wow wouldn't that be a shock. 


Well hold onto your seats and watch for updates. 

Falling Satellite & Tree Climbing Goats

Tonight and tomorrow you better grab your hard hats and be on your guard as there is the slight possibility that 26 pieces of steel and titanium could enter the Earth's atmosphere and strike the ground. These are pieces of the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite. But don't panic everything will be okay it always is with these things, on to happier news. 


Did you know that there are goats that can climb trees? Well there are and they climb them to eat these special berries call Argan berries. This isn't where the story ends. The droppings, yes droppings from these goats are used in cosmetics and for cooking. In cooking it is used to make an oil, you know like vegetable oil, so it can actually be consumed. So when you dine out you can ask them to hold the goat poop. 


I have another post with exciting news for today so read on. 

What Can You Eat These Days? Risk of Stroke, Heart Attack

Talk about bringing me down. Well today I learned that I better choose a new drink of choice. That is because a new study showed that drinkers of diet soda have a 60% higher risk of having a stroke. That's right all my fellow Diet Sierra Mist drinkers. It is time for water or lemonade.

It is not just my beverage that I have to change. Apparently I have to stop going out to eat that is at the Cheesecake Factory, Applebea's and at Chili's anyway, my favorite restaurants. Men's Health just put out suggestions of food you should avoid and for very good reasons. My favorite appetizer in the world the Sampler at Appleabea's. It has a pants ripping 166 grams of fat and 2,430 calories, enough for two days, and who goes there just for the appetizer, everyone eats a meal afterwards.

The Cheesecake Factory needs to do some better meal planning because they managed to make the list three times. It turns out thats no surprise as only 4% or 8 out of their 200 meals are healthy to eat, according to Men's Health. Twenty-six of their meals have 1,000 or more calories. Now we know restaurants like to stay ahead with better taste but the way they are going they are going to kill off all their patrons, come on now Cheesecake Factory, jump on the band wagon give us some tasty healthy meals.

When looking for a nice veggie sandwich don't go to Quiznos as doing so will turn you into Santa Claus. Here you will get a sandwich with a whopping 1,090 calories and 61 grams of fat in a veggie sandwich. Stop playing games no one eating a veggie sandwich is doing so to eat over 1,000 calories.

When starting out the day drive right by Burger King if you are planning on getting the Ultimate Breakfast Platter. This platter may sound like the perfect start to the day with its eggs, potatoes, sausage, biscuit, pancakes and diabetic dreamy syrup to wash it down. It comes with 1,310 calories and 72 grams of fat. Well at least you get your money's worth.

Now when you have had the ultimate in stressful days, get rid of the stress with a Fudge Brownie 31 Degrees from Baskin - Robbins. You just can't eat the rest of the day because it packs 1,900 calories and 80 grams of fat.

So what's a mom of nine to do on a really busy day when take out has to be the answer. Well I can only say one thing. Thank god Cains wasn't on the list.

Oh and speaking of fast food restaurants did you hear about those new ketchup packets that Heinz designed. They hold three times the ketchup. This means one thing, three times less ketchup packets laying around the backseat of my mini van.

Keep reading for the latest news that families would like to know about. Until tomorrow.

I'm Back.

Tim's Birthday

Yesterday was my husband's birthday. It was hectic, like every day is with 9 kids. We ran around getting his gifts and his cake. I decided to get him a watch the women at the jewelry counter in JC Penney's were rude I believe it was just because I was standing there with kids. I guess they thought cause I had kids I couldn't possibly have had enough money to purchase a watch from the counter, not that it was even that much. She takes it out and says " You know it is $89" I was like "Yeah, that's fine, I'll take it" she just said " Ok" This was after being ignored for about 15 minutes. I know you may be sitting there thinking why didn't you just go elsewhere. Well I didn't because I had my heart set on this particular watch.

My day had actually begun early in the morning. With this awful gastroparesis. I was sick all morning. Tim had one wish for his birthday, a real egg roll. I know it sounds funny, but it is actually a hard thing to find in Vegas unless you know where to get it. We have been to 3 chinese restaurants that actually had spring rolls not egg rolls. So I started calling places which was almost comical. They would start off with "Take out or Delivery" I was like "Actually I have a question about egg rolls........" I am sure when I finally found NY Chinese they though I was nuts. I described the dimensions of a real egg roll and confirmed that it was a pork egg roll. We ended up getting chinese for everyone so that came close to the national debt, lol.

By the time everything was said and done we ended up eating around 9 and had ice cream around 10. I was exhausted. I felt bad for Tim because he ended up doing the clean up himself, the kids were not to helpful. Of course they helped put away the left overs but that was about it.

Today, I have been sick all day. My back has also been killing me. I have been in bed all day till I decided to get up to write this note. Brendan and Logan are home sick today, of course Logan I think became sick because he heard how sick Brendan was, you know one of those sicknesses. Well hope all my readers are safe and well, till tomorrow. Take care.