The last month!
This past month has flown by and I didn't realize it had been so long since I had blogged until I logged on tonight to write this one. We've been pretty busy, I guess!
We've had mostly pretty weather here, although it is bordering on being sweaty hot. I know that almost everyone who reads this blog (all four of you) are in North Louisiana, so you may not realize it, but South Louisiana temperatures can actually be 5 degrees warmer than North Louisiana. You wouldn't think just a couple of hundred miles would make that much of a difference, but it does and although we were here for the hot part of last summer, we still aren't looking forward to it. (Although I know no one in Louisiana ever looks forward to the summer heat!)
Juliette's last day of preschool was at the end of April and they had a special end-of-year program and picnic for the parents on the last Friday of April. The theme was "Learning the Ragin' Cajun Way" (Ragin Cajuns is UL's mascot.) The teachers went through each college of the university and had different activities for them to do based on a course from each of the colleges. For instance, for the College of Engineering they had to build something out of blocks. For the College of Business, they were given play money and were allowed to "shop" in a play store. For the College of Science, they went bird watching. For the College of Liberal Arts, they paired items that rhymed. For the College of Arts, they directed parents in playing musical instruments. (UL separates their arts and liberal arts colleges, unlike other universities.) For the College of Education, they did an obstacle course (like you would do in P.E.) and there were a few more activities too. After the kids finished all the activities, they sang some songs for us and then each of them got a little certificate showing they completed either their junior year (3 yr olds) or senior year (4 yr olds) of preschool. After that, we had an indoor picnic...although technically, we just ate picnic food, since we didn't sit on the floor or anything like that!
Looking for birds!
This is Elias, one of the little boys in Juliette's "junior" class who she always talks about. When we got there that morning and saw Elias he blew her a kiss and came and hugged her. The teachers told me that they are always holding hands.
If you look closely, you can see that the kids are all sitting on colored squares. This is what they use at preschool everyday for when they need them to sit and do circle time. They sat them all on these for their songs because it wasn't really a formal thing (more like them showing us how they do songs in circle time) and I imagine they wanted them to behave and stay in one s
The Junior Class!
Just a couple of random photos that I thought were cute!Above: Juliette brushing her teeth while sporting her little towel wrap.
Below: She didn't want to take her towel wrap off and she wanted to help me do dishes, so here she is. This was the last thing she washed. (I had to rewash everything as I was rinsing it because she's not strong enough or coordinated enough to get them completely clean, but I don't think she noticed what I was doing.)
Juliette and I spent Mother's Day at my parents' house, while Matt was at home grading finals.
Usually I have no problem getting Juliette to pose or smile for pictures, but she was not wanting to participate that morning. We tried again after church but didn't have any luck then either. She had just gotten out of the bathtub in the picture above.
Me and my mom! See those red walls? She painted her dining room red and I LOVE it! Of course, I'm certain they will never, ever, ever paint anything that dark of a color ever again because they had a ton of problems getting it to not streak and there are layers upon layers of primer as well as red paint on those walls! When Juliette first saw them, she asked mom where they bought them at!Matt and Juliette will be home for the next couple of weeks until school starts back on the 7th. Juliette will be going to the campus daycare all day, every day and I think she's going to really enjoy it. Once preschool starts back in the fall, she'll go to the daycare at lunch time, so I'm glad she is getting to go full-time this summer so she'll get to know everyone and the routine before she starts going half-time.
Well, that is all from here for now. I have two videos I want to share with you guys, so check back later to see if I've got them up. I was having problems earlier, so I couldn't post them.
1 comments
Melissa -
ReplyDeleteI can't figure out how to contact you through your blog so I hope its ok that I'm leaving a comment on this post!
We (Shanna and I - the blondes) are new to this whole blogging thing and can't figure out how to easily reply to your comment so I will just post another comment and also send this same comment to your blog since your name is linked. Here's a quick explanation as to how I'm up that high in RR's and ECB's:
At CVS I usually buy EVERYTHING that is free after ECB's. If you follow this rule you will usually only spend a chunk out of pocket the very first time you start at CVS since you will have no ECB's to begin with. Also, I only pay with ECB's when I'm buying things that will give me more ECB's. This is called "rolling" your ECB's in the coupon world (same for Walgreen's), and pretty much guarantees that you will always have a stockpile of ECB's. At CVS, since you have a shopper's card, there are limits on how many of each ECB item you can get, and I try to maximize this each week. On this specific trip, I made $15.99 in ECB's last week, so was able to use them all on this transaction, but left with $16,99 in ECB's, so nothing really changed. I think this is the key to CVS (rolling ECB's). Let me know if this makes sense or not. Also, I LOVE using www.southernsavers.com to determine my list each week. She has a feature where you can choose which items you want to buy, and then you can create a printable shopping list containing all the items, along with coupons that you will need for your trip. It really helps with organization and she does several other stores besides CVS (Walgreen's included).
Walgreen's is similar in that I like to roll RR's, but the nice difference is that there is no shopper's card which means they can't track how much you buy of each item. However, you can only do one of each item that gives RR's per transaction. So if I wanted to buy 2 razors and 2 toothpastes (assuming both are giving RR's) I'd have to do 2 transactions, with 1 razor and 1 toothpaste each. If I tried to do it all at once I would only receive 1 RR for the razor and 1 RR for the toothpaste. Another important thing at Walgreen's: After I do that first transaction with the razor and toothpaste, I could not use the razor RR to pay for another razor and still get a new RR. Same with the toothpaste - I can't use the first toothpaste RR to pay for the second one and expect another RR. Basically that is Walgreen's only way of controlling things. But, I could buy 1 toothpaste, and then use that RR to pay for the razor, and get another RR for the razor. That is a great example of rolling RR's. At Walgreen's, if I'm in love with the deal, I may go back and do it several times (usually I buy 4 Sunday papers a week). Sometimes though, if you go to cosmetics, or if you just get a really nice cashier, they may be fine with you doing several transactions so you don't have to come back during the week.
So I just realized this comment is getting super long so I better stop for now. Forgive me if I've told you things you already know. Feel free to contact us if you have more questions, and thanks for commenting!
frugalblondes(at)gmail(dot)com
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