Mommin' It Up!

February 11, 2013February 10, 2013

The Rapson House…Where Together Counts!

If you’ve read this blog for awhile you know that I’m an “everything in moderation” kind of girl. I begrudgingly exercise in a way I can tolerate (Pilates! You will never find me doing anything called “Insanity” or that involves dancing, mmkay?) because I need to, and because well…I want to have a little wiggle room to give myself a treat (read: nice sugary soda!) once in awhile. That’s why the few things I’ve done so far in 2013 to clean up some of my favorite treats (coffee creamer and chocolate syrup) with make-at-home recipes has been so beneficial. It’s helping me with my energy balance – calories in, calories out. Being active and applying moderation is really working for me in 2013 – and that’s why I was so excited when Together Counts asked me to be an ambassador for their organization this year! Because this year, Bobby and I are trying harder than ever to be active with our kiddos so that energy balance will be a natural part of our lives. And as you can see, we love being active together!

snowfight — We even got active in the winter this year!

I first heard of Together Countswhen Emily and I went to the Mom 2.0 Summit conference last year. We got our rear ends out of bed EARLY to do beach side yoga with Together Counts and it was awesome!

Bonus points if you can correctly identify Emily and me in this picture!

So, what exactly IS Together Counts? It’s an initiative of the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation that encourages families to eat meals together and be active together, while providing corresponding tools and resources to teachers and school nurses to help teach kiddos how to have a healthy, active lifestyle. I’m SUPER-EXCITED to be working with them! i really encourage you to check out their website for great resources, including activity sheets, and also to follow them on Facebook and Twitter.

In the coming months I’ll be posting on the Together Counts blog about a variety of subjects and I’m really looking forward to it! (I’ll be sure to let you know when to heard over there and check out my posts.) Now that three out of five of us in the family are eating gluten-free, (not to mention Jonah’s oat allergy) and I’m working with my big kids on eating what I cook instead of their own special little “I’m a picky eater” meal – I’m going to have a lot of family meal material! And who knows what new ways we’ll come up with to stay active together? It’s going to be a great year in our house that’s for sure. I can’t wait to see what 2013 has in store for the five of us.

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I am being compensated for my role as a Together Counts Ambassador. All opinions about the program are my own.

February 8, 2013

Don’t trip on your lip

We have had kind of a rough week this week. Sophie was sick and missed school Monday and Tuesday (after being off Thursday and Friday last week for teacher in-service, of course), and by yesterday Jonah had caught her cold and is now coughing his head off in full-force. Sads. :/ But the real trauma came on Wednesday afternoon, Sophie’s first day back to school in a week. I had just arrived home from a doctor’s appointment for my variety of unsettling aches and pains (a CAT scan reveals I’m not dying – yay!) when my phone rang at 2:10.

“Mrs. Rapson? This is the school nurse. I’ve got Sophie in the clinic here. She tripped and fell on the way in from recess and has a pretty bad fat lip. I wanted to warn you so you won’t be alarmed.”

Sophie gets out of school at 2:45, so at that point there was no way I could’ve gotten to her before the carpool mom did, so after the nurse reassured me that she was fine and a “trooper”, I waited for her to get home. I expected a girl with a dramatic story and a puffy lip. I did NOT expect THIS:

OhmahGOSH!!! My poor baby! I couldn’t believe how bad it was. I couldn’t believe it didn’t need stitches (the nurse assured me it did not.) I couldn’t believe all her teeth were intact. Praise the Lord, her teeth and gums were fine.

So. We iced it as much as she could stand Wednesday night, and put her to bed confident it would look much better in the morning.

Except it did NOT look better in the morning. I was pretty freaked! I decided to keep her home from school…again…so we could ice it, disinfect it, and just keep an eye on it. I checked her gums and teeth again just to be sure everything was still intact. I couldn’t believe how bad it still looked!

Fortunately, after lots of ice, cold drinks, and food cut up into tiny bits, it did improve. This morning she was all ready for school, looking like this:

sophielip2 — No, she’s not a hipster. That’s a bruise, not a mustache.

She was really excited to get back to her friends! And to be wearing this season’s hot new shade of lip gloss, “Neosporin Spring”.

I guess maybe this injury was well-timed…I’ve been blazing through season 4 of “Toddlers and Tiaras” on Netflix and the idea of a full-glitz Sophie was starting to get appealing. Oh well, I guess the fake teeth, hair piece, and spray tan will have to wait until her lip heals!

February 6, 2013

Et tu, Kroger?

Last week Kroger made an announcement that pretty well ticked me off, left me feeling betrayed, and definitely took the wind out of my sails.

Oh, ALSO, Kroger? It made me even more determined to shop at ALDI! I was already shopping there 50% of the time, and that percentage is definitely going up. This makes me sad because my kids’ school get 4% back when I shop at Kroger. But we’ve gotta do what we’ve gotta do for our family to make ends meet.

So what did Kroger do? They took away double coupons. Savings Lifestyle has all the details here. Double coupons are going bye-bye as of March 1.

I am totally shocked by this because Kroger has had double coupons as long as I can remember. They certainly had them when my mom grocery shopped there when I was a child. So let’s say 30 years minimum.

I know this sounds crazy, but I feel totally BETRAYED! Stores are just taking away all our ways to save one by one…I’m fairly depressed about it.

So. I’m guessing I’ll be going to 75% ALDI by the end of March. Now I love ALDI, but when Kroger has a Mega-Event where you can get great sale prices with coupons, you can’t beat it. I will really miss that.

Ooh, even writing this post is making me SO MAD!!! I’m not an extreme couponer and I’m not trying to cheat anyone. I’m just trying to surviiiiiiiiiiiiiiiive, people. UGH.

Since there was a Mega-Event last week, I decided to take my anger out on the Mega-Event. On the first transaction, I got 6 Capri Sun (yes, MORE Capri Sun!) The price after the sale was $2 each, so $12 worth of Capri Sun. I had two $1 off 3 coupons, so that brought my total down to $10. Then, I got back a $4 off my next order coupon for buying them. WHEEE! That makes is $6 for 6 Capri Suns. I did have several other coupons on that transaction that DOUBLED, saving me a total of 33%. Then I took my $4 off coupon and a couple others and bought 1o more mega-event items for a total of $10.07, saving 62% on that transaction.

It was a good last hurrah. But dang I’m SAD! And MAD! And slightly discouraged. What do you say about Kroger’s new policy? They say they are lowering prices all over the store and giving more fuel rewards to make up for it, but somehow I doubt that will make a difference. It certainly isn’t getting me excited.