Looking for Great Deals

Well Colin told me I've been lax in my blog writing lately. It's been a busy week. A field trip on Monday. Tuesday I recuperated from the field trip and worked on straightening the house and took Ian to baseball practice. Wednesday was AWANA. Ian finished his book!!! His second book (which is basically like his third book because he has to do the first book twice). This one was pretty hard, so I added a little incentive to keep him moving. I told him that because this book was hard work, that if he kept at it with a good attitude and finished the book I would buy him a $5 Lego set. Last week I told him if he worked hard and finished a week early, I'd bump up the price to a $10 Lego set. He finished a week early, so on Friday we planned to go Lego shopping (but I'm starting to get ahead of myself, let me tell you about Thursday).
Thursday I cooked and cleaned all day as we were having company over for dinner. We had invited our Pastor and his wife over for dinner. So I made homemade French bread. I decided to make it in the bread machine to allow myself to multi-task. So while the bread was getting going in the bread machine, I started making the German chocolate cake for our dessert. I had just started making the cake when I smelled smoke. I turned around and saw some smoke coming out of my bread machine. I thought 'oh, no! That's what I get for trying to make a regular recipe in a bread machine.'
I thought maybe the ratios were wrong for the bread machine. I tried to push stop, but that didn't work, so I unplugged it and pulled out the bread pan to see why it was smoking. I guess there was a little flour on the heating element, so I dusted that off, put the bread pan back in and selected French bread this time instead of dough and it worked fine. It turned out to be the best French bread I've ever tasted and that's not me bragging, it's a great recipe!
I made Baked Spaghetti for our main course and since I was running behind, Colin picked up salad at the store for me.
We had a great time! Dinner was good, the conversation was good, although I had a hard time getting a word in between Colin and Ian! Ian must have been trying to show off because he talked in a ridiculous goofy voice most of the evening.
We played Farkle and I won. I didn't try to, but it's one of those games that you never know who's going to win until they do!
Friday was homeschool baseball for Ian. I am so thankful for that class. I almost didn't sign him up, but I don't think his baseball skills would be improving at all if we hadn't put him in that class, even though he's in Little League here in our town. Something about the way they teach homeschool baseball really clicks for Ian. After baseball and a little visiting with Ian's grandma we headed over to Costco to turn over our entire paycheck....um, I mean we gassed up the van. Ian and I shared lunch at Panda Express. Yum yum! Then, it was time to Lego shop, so we headed to ShopKo. Ian tried to tell me that they didn't have a very good selection of Legos compared to Toys R US, but I knew better. ShopKo is where most of his Christmas and birthday Legos came from! He agreed with me after he saw the Lego aisle there. He wanted all the Lego sets, but he finally decided on a set that is Indiana Jones. Not that he's ever seen the movies, he's got a few years to go before he's old enough for that, but Colin has the same set and Ian has been very envious of it for a while!
Friday was also grocery shopping day. I haven't figured up how much I saved, although I did get my cereal for .14 cents a box at Target. Can't beat that!
Saturday, Ian had a ballgame. It was kind of cold, so I took blankets.
Today is Mother's Day. Happy Mother's Day! We celebrated with Colin's grandma and his parents and other relatives. It was a beautiful afternoon/evening. The kids played outside and had lots of fun! After we left Grandma Betty's we went over to Albertson's to get a good deal on cereal. They had been out of the cereal on Friday. The deal was 10 boxes for $20, but if you bought 10 boxes you got $10 back, making them $1 a box and then I had coupons, too. So I bought 8 boxes of cereal and 2 boxes of granola bars (they were in the deal, too) for under $5. Not bad, eh? I paid fifty cents or less (probably a little less) per box. Now that's a deal!