easter and ridge updates...and do coupons really work?

This is going to be a good hodge podge of stuff.  You're welcome.

First off: Ridge.  The line removal was a great success so far...He got to take a bath for the first time in two years! 

He is doing great, and tomorrow it will be 6 weeks since his last blood transfusion.  He has never gone this long without transfusions, without being on steroids.   His labs have been the same for about the last 4 weeks.  We are still super careful about illness and I am still paranoid about it all because I do fear that if he gets sick, we will be back in the hospital.  We haven't been in the hospital since January! Praise Jesus!

Easter this year-- surprisingly, even with us being in the hospital so much one and two years ago, Ridge has always been home to go to church on Easter, every Easter of his life (which is only 3 Easters :) ).  We are not "Christmas/Easter" only church goers by nature-- we love going to our church. We don't get to go as much as we'd love to go, bc I try to keep in the loop as to what kind of sickies are going around and we sometimes just have to avoid public stuff bc of that.  But we went to church- we were late, but we were there!- on Easter. My boys all looked spiffy.

Then, for the first time that I can remember, all four of us went to my mom and dad's for Easter lunch.  My Mamaw was there. We got us a 4 generation picture here, folks:

Ridge doesn't have chiclet teeth- that's a laffy taffy.  And that is, in fact, my dad, and his goatee.


The day before Easter, Ridge turned 2.  He had an Elmo cake. He liked it. 

Good thing he was able to take a bath that night.

He also got to color Easter Eggs with the older child.

All broken Easter eggs were courtesy of the Ridger himself.

So...what else?  Well we made some homemade laundry soap yesterday.  It is "he" friendly and economical to boot.  I buy laundry bar soap online from www.goatmilkstuff.com, but you can buy other brands cheaper at your local grocer (sometimes).  You can pretty much make a batch of this (5 gallons is 2x concentrated, so it actually makes 10 gallons) for around $4!  Recipe here: http://www.duggarfamily.com/recipes.html.  For top loaders, it makes around 200 loads worth, for front loaders, I think it's closer to 700 loads worth. Ridiculous!  I hadn't ever made the liquid, but before we got our "he" machine, I always made the powder and loved it.  Now we have the soap dispenser compartment, so the powder doesn't go through as well. 

And finally, I blogged about couponing a few weeks ago.  If you are friends with me on FB, you know I'm crazy about this hobby....but since some of you who read this probably don't have a FB, or don't know me in real life, or for whatever reason we aren't FB buds, here are some pics:

This was my grocery trip this morning, to Homeland.  Homeland is expensive.  They have great sales, especially if you coupon.  The above cost me about $22 today.  I saved $49.62.  I only bought things that were on sale AND i had coupons for.  (except the eggs and milk)

This is my trip to Walgreen's yesterday.  I spent $3.70.  We usually cloth diaper, but you can't beat $3.70 for all that.  I had coupons, there was a sale on some of it, and I had a Register Reward (it is a receipt that some items give at checkout-- it works like a credit or giftcard towards your next purchase).

This is a trip to United, in my parents' town.  Spent $9.04, Saved a little over $15.  These items were all on sale or clearance, except for the zest and the beans, and I had coupons for everything, except the beans.

This was at Walgreen's in my parents' town. I spent $24 (yuck) and saved $26.

 

This is at CVS.  I spent around $11. I saved about $21 (drugstores are other places that are ridiculous if you don't shop sales and with coupons.  but usually they have rewards bucks back which work like credits towards your next purchase.  nothing in this picture had any extra bucks back, though :) ).

So...yep, for us, couponing has become a way of life, and saves us a ton of money.