Tuesday, March 17, 2009

My Spirtual Child

Dave has been making use of his electric guitar a lot lately in our worship services on Sundays. I'm really proud of him because he's doing an amazing job learning the songs and making them sound really good and also doing it in a worshipful way. With him practicing so much at home and listening to the songs in the car when we drive, Micah has learned all the songs as well. It's adorable how he loves to sing all these worship songs. He has his own name for each of them . His favorites are: "Then Sings My Soul" (How Great Thou Art by Paul Baloche), "Hojanna" (Hosanna by Hillsong), "Halleluia" (Holy is our God by Starfield), "Oh Praise the One Who" (Jesus Paid it All by Kristian Stanfill), and "At the Cross" (Sweetly Broken by Jeremy Riddle).

I've also been listening to a CD in my car with hymns that have been redone and Micah loves some of the songs. It took me little while to figure out which ones he was meaning. He especially loves "Hoorise" (Arise my soul arise). The other one that I just figured out yesterday was "That thumb my got chew" which is .... can you guess? No? And Can It Be! Of course! You know the line that says "That Thou my God shoulds't die for me"? He took the first 5 words of that line and that's what he calls the song.

He loves to read his Toddler Bible at night and always asks to read the "Light" (In the beginning), the story of the Rainbow (Noah and the Flood) and then the "Owwies" which is Moses and the Plagues. Also, his prayers at night are SO cute. Dave is usually the one to put Micah to bed and he's been telling me everything Micah is thankful for, but I've gotten to experience it first hand lately because Dave's been out a couple nights in a row. Micah is still always first and foremost thankful for his 2 best buddies Ty Ty and Brady, but then he goes into being thankful for Mario kitty cat, grandma and grandpa, mommy and daddy, Daddy's computer, Mommy's computer, the TV Remote and the TV, the headboard for his bed, etc, etc. I wish I could remember everything, but at least there's a few.

The Grocery Game

One of my friends talked me into trying out "The Grocery Game". I was a little reluctant at first because 1. You have to clip coupons; 2. You have to pay attention to prices; and 3. To have it work the best for me I'd probably have to switch grocery stores. I hate switching stores. I have 2 stores that I most often buy my groceries from and I am used to them, I know where to find things, and I mostly like the selections they have. Albertsons is the store I should switch to because they have the best coupon policy - they accept coupons from every other store as well as their own. It's right next to the other store I normally shop at, so it's not out of my way, but I don't like the store as well.

Anyway, the idea behind The Grocery Game is that it combines sales/club member prices at your local grocery store with manufacturers coupons that you get in the Sunday paper in order to get the best use of the coupon and the biggest amount of savings. It works best if you can spend a lot at first to stock up on everything. I haven't completely stock-piled everything, but for the first three weeks of using the grocery game I have saved a ton of money!

The first time I went grocery shopping I saved $33 on my $101 bill - So I only spent $68! Another bill came to $140 before all the sales and coupons, and I ended up saving about $65. Just yesterday when I went shopping I saved $88 on about $200, so I spent $114. I think I'll keep using it. I just don't want to get sucked in to using coupons or buying things I wouldn't normally buy because it's such a good deal.

There's a $1 trial for 4 weeks - and even my Canadians friends can punch in your postal code to see which stores are available in your area. After the 4 week trial, it's $10 for every 8 weeks. You get a list with all the sales items and where to find the coupons you could use. I've never clipped coupons before, but I'm getting a system going and I am enjoying it so far because we can spend a lot on groceries each month and to cut down on the cost in any way helps! It's also helped me to figure out meals and make a plan based on what is on sale. If you are interested in trying it out you can refer to me (cheri at mplx dot com) when it asks for the email of the person who referred you.