April, 2008 | The Angel Forever

Monthly Archives April 2008

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Turtles, Dinos & Bears. . . oh my!

Posted on April 25, 2008 10:23 am by TheAngelForever

A week ago now we were finishing up the final preparations for Passover. Is it over yet?!?! Sunday evening can not come quick enough. Ahhhhh, I feel much better. Thanks for letting me vent.

Anyway, back to Friday. JL stayed home to finish things here and I took the two boys to a birthday party. Laura’s son Isaac turned 4 and invited NHL to go to Build A Bear Workshop with them and then to lunch. Thanks to Laura for being flexible and moving it off of the little monkey’s real Birthday (Saturday) because of Passover.

Prior to this NHL and I had never really seen how the Build a Bear thing works. This is the view of the store when you walk in.

Thanks to the overwhelming amount of choices for two four year olds, Laura decided to give them three stuffed friends to select from. There was a bear, a dog and a dinosaur (triceratops to be exact). Care to guess what the two boys selected?

Both Isaac and NHL selected the dinosaur and were on their way to making their new friend. Here are some photos of the events. After Isaac stuffed his dino it was NHL’s turn. Here are some photos of the dino getting some fluff.

Once this was done NHL had to pick out a heart for his new buddy. Once he selected it he had to give it a kiss, make a wish and put it inside to be sewn into his dino pal.

Next it was time to clean off the dino. A dino must be clean before getting dressed and heading out into the world you know. The actual thing is a pedal that controls air to help get fuzzies off your stuffed friend.

When both dinos were clean we tried (note the tried) to get a photo of the two boys and their dinos together. Good luck with two overly excited four year olds!

It did not work at all. Thanks to this they continued to get a shirt for their friends. Naked dinos were not acceptable thanks to Isaac’s Nana (thanks Mrs. D!!!!). Both dinos were dressed stylishly in a dinosaur t-shirt and super cool dinosaur slippers (they even had shades on them).

Of course having a dino is really great, but he needed an official name. Next up we went to the computer to give them a name and register them. NHL immediately called his Trike . This was in honor of Trike from Harry and his Bucket Full of Dinosaurs (great books and show). In addition to this the boys were allowed to get their big dinosaurs a little dino friend. NHL named that one Shane in honor of The Upside Down Show.

During this entire time JSL was being really good. He refused to nap, but watched carefully. There was so much going on he loved it!

Before heading to lunch we tried one last time to get a photo of the two boys. This is what happened.

From here we walked our dino friends to Pizza Uno for lunch.

As soon as we sat down JSL grabbed the menu and knew what he wanted to order!

Lunch was delicious and we had a great afternoon. Thanks again to Laura, Doug, Isaac and especially Mom D!

Categories:
birthday friends fun interesting jsl nhl photos

Wordless Wednesday – No Table Manners

Posted on April 23, 2008 7:17 am by TheAngelForever

What ya lookin' at Mommy?

**Be sure to go over the photos for a small Flickr caption.

Categories:
interesting jsl Wordless Wednesday

Seder part deux – 2008

Posted on April 22, 2008 10:39 am by TheAngelForever

Since we have two little boys JL is pretty flexible about start times for our seders. We definitely put that into play for the second night. We started the seder at about 4:30 so both of the boys could participate. In addition to this, we were very casual. Since it was so warm out the boys and I were wearing shorts.

The table looked a little different for the second night. Once again Mom helped it to look beautiful.

The only one not at the table for the seder was Whiskers, my parents cockatoo. She was included in food and items to keep her happy though.

Whiskers - not at the seder table

NHL had a lot of fun dipping his greens into salt water. After a while the salt water was just for NHL. Apparently he missed the memo that we do not double dip (or however many times he actually did it).

JSL had a lot of fun bonking heads and playing with papa. This game continued on for quite some time. They had a blast with this and then the "Uh, oh" game where JSL drops everything on the ground and says "Uh, oh" waiting for it to get picked back up.

Soon the little guy was very tired. He would not settle for me.

Luckily Nana’s rocking him did the trick. When we got to dinner I put the sleepy little guy onto a blanket and he missed the meal. When he woke up he had lots to catch up on.

Meanwhile NHL was busy eating a lemon . . . something he requested and actually enjoyed. I love the face he made in the middle photo.

A boy and his lemon

JL helped NHL to read the Four Questions. While doing this he also used the finger puppets. Remind me please. . . . who is the child?

Later on it was time to use the horseradish again. This is the evil stuff that brought tears to many eyes at our table. The stuff was strong and almost like homemade.

While some eyes were teary from the horseradish others did this . . .

With all of the excitement even NHL wanted to try it out. Against my advice JL made him a sandwich on matzoh with mainly charoset and a dot of horseradish. We all knew when he hit the dot. Poor kiddo!

Although it is hard to see this is Papa’s reaction along with Aunt T carefully putting a tiny amount onto her matzoh.

One part of the seder was done differently the second night. We down played the mystery of Elijah. Saturday night NHL woke up several times with nightmares from someone coming to get him and was quite hysterical. With much prodding he finally told us that it was Elijah and he was scared. We carefully explained that he only came to the seder and was nothing to be scared about. It must have worked since the nightmares did not happen after the second night.

Once again we had a wonderful seder. The best part we were packed up and heading home with more leftovers and the boys were in bed at a very reasonable hour. Thanks again to my parents, Aunt T and JL for making this Passover so special.

Categories:
family fun holidays laughs photos weekend

Happy Passover – 2008 Seder 1

Posted on April 21, 2008 8:17 am by TheAngelForever

As I sit down here to type, both of the Passover Seders are over and done with. Although it was a lot of work for JL, Mom, Dad, and I to do both of them at my parent’s house, it was well worth it. Thank you again Mom and Dad for working with us to make it happen.

We started the morning off getting something out to eat before we started cooking. Then we realized that we needed a few quick things at the store for the Seder. We stopped at a store for a new peeler and some sneakers for NHL. We did not realize his current ones were getting snug on him. We bought a pair of more plain ones and the following that he loved.

Then we went to the grocery store for a quick stop and back to our house. At home we packed up more Passover items and then went to my parents to work on the meal for the evening. We made a lot of food including charoset, brisket (thanks to Mimi and Aunt T), sweet and sour chicken, oven roasted sweet potatoes (JSL’s favorite) and cauliflower. In addition to this we had matzoh ball soup, hard boiled eggs, dried fruit (thanks Aunt T), strawberries, and some brownies, cookies and jelly candy. Here take a look:

The seder plate and table looked really great thanks to my mother getting everything so pretty. This is what the table looked like before we sat down.

And the seder plate is here:

Just before the seder both of the boys fell asleep. They were exhausted so we let them sleep while we talked and finished preparing everything. We were in no real rush. Our seder was the four of us, my parents and Aunt T. See how quiet they were:

NHL and JSL finally woke up and were ready to head to the table. NHL was thrilled to see he had a special setting. At his spot were the 4 Question finger puppets all ready to go.

Then it was time to put the matzoh bib on JSL. What do you think his reaction was? Here it is:

Eventually he warmed up to it and was amused by the kippah we put on him.

Thank goodness for the naps. It really helped the boys to be patient while we did the seder before the meal part.

We had a really nice first seder. I think JSL enjoyed his first Passover experience . . . especially the sweet potatoes and all of the attention from everyone. He ate some matzoh, but eventually realized it was not anything he loved and started to toss it. NHL was into participating this year and really wanted to help us read the haggadah. . . probably next year he will be able to do it.

Seder 2 also went smoothly thanks to lots of yummy leftovers and two new additions to the meal. More on this later.

P.S. A special thanks to JL for being flexible and working your butt off to kosher everything for the seders.

Categories:
family food glorious food holidays jsl nhl photos weekend yummy

My CVS deals (week of 4/13)

Posted on April 20, 2008 10:10 am by TheAngelForever

Sunday we did all of the CVS shopping for the week. Hubby actually came to see what I was up to and watched the boys. We stopped at the CVS near our house and got JL his own card and I made two transactions. There were a few complications – some ECBs did not print so I had to call corporate about it. I will explain those below.

These are the items that I was able to get at our first trip to CVS last Sunday. I did them in two transactions and spent no money.

Transaction #1:

The M&M’s were BOGO this week. In addition to this, there was an ECB special for $3 back if you bought two bags. With the price of $3.29 a bag they would be .15 a bag after the ECBs. Pretty amazing price and good time to stock up for upcoming birthday parties. Unfortunately the ECBs did not print out at the end of the transaction. The cashier told me to call corporate. I then saw the manager who looked at the ECB sign and the BOGO and told me that I should get them. She agreed that one deal does not trump another. She thanked me for not yelling at her and told me to stop back if I did not get the ECBs.

10 Bags of M&M (limit 5 deals) BOGO $3.29 each = $16.45 without tax –> $10 used in ECBs and $5 off 15 coupon and then $1.57 from the cash returned from a previous transaction. No new out of pocket.

Again I was owed $15 in ECBs. I called CVS about this on Monday and the woman told me that she would call if there was a problem receiving the money. No call in almost a week, so I should have those ECBs when I go back to CVS after the Passover seders.

Transaction #2

2 Aveeno Soothing Bath Treatment $5.69 each

1 Aveeno Diaper rash cream $6.99

Total without tax was $18.37 –> $5 off 15 coupon and then and two Aveeno coupons for $2.50 total. Next I used a $5 ECB which left my total at $5.98. I used the cash still left over from the other day (leaving me with change now) and left.

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Later on we were out by another CVS. I told JL that I wanted to go in to see if they had any of the Soft Soap goodies that nobody else has had. They did not of course, but I was able to get a few other things. I had to put money in this time thanks to not having the ECBs from the M&M transaction earlier, but it was well worth it.

Transaction #3

2 CVS Rapid Release Pain Reliever $3.99 each (these are giving $3.99 ECBs for the month and have been hard to find)

1 Aveeno Soothing Relief Creamy Wash $5.69 (to finish another ECB monthly deal – Spend $25 on Aveeno get $10 ECB)

2 CVS Toddler Wipes for fillers at $1.49 each (needed to get to $10 in CVS products for one coupon and $15 for another)

Total without tax was $16.65 –> $3.00 off coupon when you spend 10 on CVS products and $5 off 15 coupon. My out of pocket was $8.70. In addition to this I received ECBs for $7.98 and $10

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So even with the goof on the M&M transaction (assuming I do get those $15 printed next time I go in) I only spent $8.70 and received $32.98 in ECBs . . . not too shabby!

For more CVS deals please stop by Money Saving Mom for some wonderful ideas.