Riding the Tractor at Grandpa Jobe's Farm

Decorating Granna's Tree

Traditions and Memories!

Fall Leaves at BeeBee's

Spring Park

Indian Zeke

Zeke's Class dressed up as Indians for the Thanksgiving Feast. Isn't he so adorable?

Decorating the Boys' tree

We are always traveling the weekend of Thanksgiving, so we have started letting the boys decorate their tree for upstairs the weekend before Thanksgiving. They had so much fun this year!

Tagging Our Christmas Tree

We went out to the Christmas Tree Farm this weekend so we could go ahead and tag our tree. Then when we go back out in December we will have the one we really want!

Athletes!

Noah showing off his Cross Country Medal and Eli showing off his soccer medal! I am so glad my kids like to be active! I know how important it is for the health.

Cross Country Meet

Noah's ran his first Cross Country meet on 11/7. He ran a 4k, which is 1.8 miles. He was the first boy, running it at 14 minutes and 18 seconds!

American Village Field Trip!

This was a very cool field trip where we learned about the Pilgrims, their voyage to America and how the Indian helped them upon their arrival!

Zeke Got to Bring Nemo Home

Zeke is in the Fish Class at school. His class mascot is Nemo. Mrs. Belinda just started sending Nemo home with each of the kids for a weekend. Zeke was first! It was very exciting!

Halloween!

We had a Spiderman and Mario & Luigi!

Shopping Trips

Well, looking over the ads and the reviews at Southern Savers there was very little to really make me want to hassle with CVS and Wags this week. However, I had ECBs and RRs expiring this week so I needed to go and at least use those!

I went to WAGS first. There was a $5 off $25 purchase in the paper this week. It has to be $25 after coupons. Here is what I got:

2 Cottonelle TP 12 packs with in-ad Q - $5.99
- $1 man Q
Total $4.99 each
Jiffy mix (Tony loves cornbread from Jiffy Mix!) with in-ad Q $.50 each
Barber Milk 1% (Aldi doesn't carry 1%, I get 2% from Aldi for the kids) - $2.88
Craisins $3.00 (This was a big bag and a favorite snack around here!)
Walgreen's Honey 32 oz with in-ad coupon $3.99 (this price beats Aldi!)
Jello 2 mixes with in-ad Q $.50 each
- minus $.50/2 Q - making it $.25 each
Pudding 2 mixes with in-ad q -$.25 each
20 ct tissue paper (for gift wrapping) with in-ad q $.39
Sharpie $.99
2 dozen eggs $.99 each

After the $5 off $25 coupon and my RR of $7, $2, and $7 my total was $6.25 (with tax) Not too bad! Unfortunately, none of the items I bought had RR for next week. I wanted to purchase the Bayer meter with a $5 RR, but my store was out (not surprising!)

CVS:

I had $10 of ECB and a $2 off Huggies wipes that I wanted to use. I decided to get chocolate candy and put it up for Christmas b/c I could also earn $5 ECB. I wanted to pair it with a Rimmel Mascara deal so I could use a Q to give me $4 ECB for spending $20. However, my CVS does not carry Rimmel. So I got the candy and then decided to get me some hairbands to hold my hair back. (I ran this morning and with my new short haircut a ponytail is not doable, so I thought this would help keep my hair from flopping into my eyes.)

2 Ghiradellhi bars $2.00 each

3 hershey's kisses and 1 miniatures $3.00 each

- $1/1 kisses and $1/2 kisses

Get back $5 ECB

Huggies wipes $3.49

- $2 off Huggies wipes CVS Q

Scunci headbands turned out to be B1G1 50% so I bought 2 packs, total for 2 $8.48

Then as I was heading to the front I stopped to look in a clearance buggy. Here is what I found!:

4 Jack Link beef jerky $.25 per bag

4 Dove creme de menthe chocolates $.25 per bag

used a $1 off 2 bag Q making them all FREE

1 Special K Bliss granola bar $.50

used a $.75 q, reduced to $.50 to make is FREE

2 Peach Rings (great big huge bags) marked down to $1

Total out of pocket (including tax) $20.14

I now have quite a bit of candy to use for Christmas and plenty of hairbands. I also received $9 ECB to use on my next trip! If I had left off the headbands (as they are really not groceries or household items, just something I wanted) my total would have been $10.89.

Haircut!

I've been trying to hold off long enough that I would enough hair to donate to Locks of Love, but I was finally ready!

I really love my hair short! And these 2 ponytails will go to a good cause!

I've been trying to hold off long enough to have enough hair to send to Locks of Love! Finally did it!

Cross Country Meet

Noah ran a 3k today (this is strictly based on his age.) He won first for his age division! Time was 14 minutes 18 seconds.

He received a gold medal and was so excited!

My Jogging Adventures

I started jogging in January, mainly to lose a little weight, and to get in better shape and just be healthier. When I first started, I could only jog a few driveways and then I'd walk to rest. Each workout I'd jog more and walk less.


I decided to do a 5k in May. I was so excited and working hard to get ready for it. As I "trained" more, I developed Plantar Faschitis. The pain was so awful that I struggled to even walk around for school! I started icing my foot and doing some stretches for it and managed to run the race in May, but at a disappointing time of over 34 minutes. You can read about that here. I finally learned how to deal with the PF by icing my foot after each workout and doing the stretches. It still gives me trouble sometimes but it is manageable.


Then one day I was returning home from a workout and my road was totally dug out only 1 block from my house! I couldn't get home! It was time for me to wake up Noah and Eli for school and there isn't really another good way to get home without it being about 1.5 miles! I didn't have time for that so I went down into the woods and found a tree that the workers had cut but not cleared that was crossing the huge gaping hole. I carefully "shimmied" across it..... dumb move! I got home but I hurt my leg and had to rest for 3 weeks due to the pain. ANother huge setback!


Then as fall approached the mornings were darker but I was determined to get back at it....so my first morning back at it at 5:30 in the morning I fell....I don't know what I fell on but I fell, twisted my ankle and banged up my knee. I felt ok and I couldn't really see my injury so I finished my 3 mile jog. When I got home there was blood all the way down my leg and covering my shoe! By mid-morning there was a golf ball size knot on the side of my ankle. My ankle never hurt to walk on but it was tender to the touch..... ANOTHER 3 weeks off and LOTS of ice!


Now that we changed from Daylight Savings time, the mornings are brighter but I've been limiting to my workouts to Monday and Friday morning after I drop Zeke off at school since I don't teach school on these days. It's plenty light outside and not too cold. It prevents me from getting many errands done, but I want to do the workouts AND be safe!


I finally feel like I'm getting somewhere. While I had built up to 4 miles, I have still been REALLY slow. My main goal right now is to finish a 5k in 30 minutes. So I decided to work on that distance and work on increasing my speed. Today I ran 3 miles in under 31 minutes! I'm almost to my goal and so excited! For a lifelong non-athlete, I'm pleased with my progress. I've never played sports and the only exercise I've ever done faithfully was aerobics in highschool.