I LOVE FREE STUFF!!

I started couponing a few months ago and I'm HOOKED! It's extremely entertaining to get screaming deals, AND I've taken a serious chunk out of our monthly grocery budget, at least 1/3 so far. I'm working on getting the budget down to 1/2 of what we've been spending for years AND we have more food and goods in our pantry than we have maybe ever AND we get to try all new kinds of foods and products. And it's only been a few months.

In fact, it's so entertaining that I wanted to take a picture of a bunch of free stuff I've scored lately.

Yes, ALL THIS STUFF WAS FREE!!

Here's another picture of free stuff I took a week or two ago...

And, yes. That's good stuff...like my favorite razors I determined I was too poor to buy.

This isn't even everything, of course, since we ate and used many items that never made it to the photo session.

It is work to get all the deals, but I just don't mind it cause it's fun, and I love free stuff.

Halloween

Halloween was fun this year! We enjoyed the traditional Holland & Hart party, then the ward party, then lots of visiting with family.

And LOTS of candy!!

Tyson & Zach were Jim Halpert and Dwight Schrute from the office.

Dwight

Jim

I was Flo, the progressive lady.

We all won prizes at my work party!

(actually, I win every year, but I still get excited

and yes,

I know I'm a huge nerd!)

Quirky Kids

One of Zachary's quirks is going off on his own and rolling up in a blanket. Not for nap time (never!), just to chill.

Tyson's main quirk is the compulsion to put things in a row, a stack, or some kind of order (not that he's orderly by any means)

Trains/Cars classified by color

Don't know the classification on this one, but in his head it was great.

Usually it's with toys, but he'll mix in whatever other things are laying around, like the shoes in these "tracks"

Miscellaneous

Soakin wet and loving it!

They're really Mr. Potato Head's mustaches, but we just can't help ourselves

Days of '47 Float Preview.

Yeah, he'll never know we're right here in the pool.

When Mom & Dad want to watch their own movie, we get extra special treatment.

Still smiling despite the injury

4th of July trip to Island Park

We enjoyed our annual trip to Island Park this weekend with Paul's family. This year we stayed in a cabin instead of camping, which was really nice.

The highlight for the boys was throwing rocks in the river.

It was great having a cabin so close to the river!

The only life jacket that fit him...

Tyson's Track Meet

Tyson was a lucky contestant in the annual

Tiny Tots track meet at East High today.

He ran the 100M...

The 400M walk...

The Long Jump...

And the 80M Hurdles...

I don't think he realized this was a race. He wanted to jump those hurdles so dang bad, so when it was finally his turn, he took his sweet time.

Disneyland!

Yes, this is a long post, but I finally have something fun to put on here, so...ya know.

Yay for last-minute trips, especially ones to Disneyland! By transporting cars to and from California for my brother's dealership, we were able to make the trip on our minuscule budget and have loads of fun.

First we visited cousins Laney and Cali in San Jose (after a quick car-switch in Sacramento) So yes, we did go the long way - via I-80 and back through Vegas, but thanks to our couch-potato kids, watching movie after movie in the car made for a pleasant drive.

San Jose has the coolest parks. We even rode a real-live train there. Tyson was ecstatic to visit his cousin Laney (and play with all her toys).

Then we joined Christie & Matt at Disneyland - and Kellie even flew in for the first day.

Tyson was a bit freaked by the dark rides, so we tried to avoid them. But when you're a die-hard Buzz Lightyear fan, you've got to make some exceptions.

According to Tyson the 3 best things at Disneyland (and in life) are:

1. Trains

2. Cars

3. Rocketships

Tyson kept insisting we ride the caterpillar - a 30-second jaunt around some plants and gigantic pieces of food. It must have been the plants, cause food sure doesn't do it for him (if you've ever seen us try to get him to eat a meal, you know what I mean)!

The Pixar parade at California Adventure was a special highlight!

The new 3D (well, new to us) Toy Story ride/game was a blast! We even waited 35-40 minutes twice for it (our longest wait for sure).

Lightning McQueen is one of the things that really got Tyson excited to go to Disneyland. The prospects of seeing a life-size McQueen blew his mind.

It's so nice to have family there to help with your kids! Zach had a special attachment to Matt the whole time (sorry Matt, but this was great for us!)