This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of Freschetta. All opinions are 100% mine.

One of  my fave things about blogging- besides all the awesome friends I’ve made- has been the opportunity to try out products, review them and share my thoughts with y’all. I was lucky enough to receive coupons for FREE Freschetta Pizza.  I am ALWAYS up for an easy meal and you can’t get much easier than a frozen pizza. Add the word “FREE” and I’m all over it. I went to the store and got the new Roasted Garlic and Spinach Freschetta FlatBread pizza and also a 5-cheese pizza. I baked them and Oh.my.gosh. Y’all- that Roasted Garlic and Spinach is to.die.for. Sei, my man, just kept going on and on about how good it was. He was stoked because usually we just eat cheese pizza, but since I had a few coupons for FREE pizzas I wanted to try a few different ones. The 5-cheese was awesome as well. My kids ate it up in a heartbeat!

These pizzas don’t taste like cheapy, frozen pizzas. They taste like delivery. But even without a FREE coupon I will purchase Freschetta again because they are reasonably priced to being with. I can’t believe I had never tried them before!! Sei is so excited we both agree on a frozen pizza! No more boring cheese for us.

So, you need to go and try Freschetta Pizza. The Flatbread is great, but so is the Naturally Rising and Brick Oven. We tried one of each of those as well. And hey- I’m even gonna help save you some money. You can get a $1 off a Freschetta pizza coupon just by clicking HERE. So, what are you waiting for?!??!?

My sweet Tristan was born 15 years ago today. He was this tiny 6.3 lb. conehead baby and now he’s 180 lbs., almost 5’10″,  squatting 335 lb.  CRA.ZEE.  Happy birthday Tdog!! You are awesome and I’m so proud of you!!

Friday was my dad’s birthday and this Friday is Isabel’s 11th. So… we went to PAR.TAY at Chuck E. Cheese.

I was in charge of the cake for the party. So… the cake lady at Kroger now thinks I’m insane.

TOP OF BOX

CAKE

Napoleon Dynamite pretty much rules…

Duke won. If I had made a bracket I would have at least picked the overall winner. But I never, in a million years, would have expected Butler to even be in the Final 4!! They played awesome and seriously, if my Duke wasn’t the team they were playing I would have totally been cheering for Butler. I have nothing but respect for them.

Yesterday I got all this, 12 pack of Charmin, 3 12 packs Dr. Pepper, 3 packs Stride gum, 2 Oral B toothbruses, 1 Colgate Total, The Chipmunks Squeakquel dvd, 5 packs of batteries, 2 bottles Head and Shoulders, 2 bottles Smart Rinse mouthwash, 2 bottles Dawn and 2 bottles of Cascade dishwasher soap:

Please note the dvd alone costs $24.99. I got all of this for less than $22. I know others would have done better, but I was stoked. Yay for saving money.

OH! And today I got to do some paralegal type stuff for my friend who is a lawyer. I am stoked for the opportunity. I get to start helping her as needed. Sei said now I’m gonna be like the cool chick off “The Good Wife” that does all the dirty work. I love that show- have y’all seen it?

Speaking of shows… YVONNE, did you watch “24″!?!?! Were you trippin’ the whole 2 hours too, or what?? I was yellin at the tv like a maniac!! That is all.

I’ve still been pluggin’ along, trying to figure out the whole coupon thing. I think I do ok, although I know the hardcore couponers save a lot more than me. I try to plan out my visits to CVS and Walgreens because those are the easiest to me. Like yesterday I went to CVS and got 1 Crest pro health toothpaste, 1 Colgate Total toothpaste, 2 boxes of Frosted Mini Wheats, 6 bags of Easter Candy (the good stuff like Hersheys and Reeses!) and a gallon of milk for about $5 out of pocket. I also left with $4 in Extra Care Bucks, so really I only spent about $1. YAY! I was stoked to pay $0 for the cereal and only 24 cents for a big tube of Colgate toothpaste. How cool is that to bust out with a quarter to pay for a transaction?  I’m still learning how to work it at the grocery store. Some times it’s a no brainer, deals just fall into my lap. Other times I have to work harder for it. Yesterday I got a bag of rice for $.09 and a men’s Gillette deodorant and Gillette body wash for $.34. I was stoked about that. BTW, if you need any men’s deodorant my house is the place to come. I have about 15 sticks under my bathroom sink…

Anyway… on one of my shopping trips to Walgreens I ended up with two boxes 3-in-1 Purex detergent for like $2. I wasn’t sure what I’d think about it. I mean, I’m not real picky about my detergent because basically I do a ton of laundry for our big family and I do it on a small budget. Usually, however, Purex was the best deal anyway. Although the 3-in-1 is a little more expensive. That makes sense though since it’s detergent, softener and anti-static all in one. Sorry, I’m rambling… My point was that I now have tried the Purex 3-in-1 and I LOVE IT. LOVE it.  It smells good, it washes great and then I get to just throw the sheet in with the wet clothes into the dryer. It’s awesome. And it’s safe for all types of machines- including front loaders.  Anyway… I think I love it and will be getting it more often. I love how I don’t have to worry about dryer sheets or anything. If you want to try it out you can go HERE and get a free sample.

This weekend is Career Conference for Mary Kay. I am excited to learn more, grow, become closer to the girls in my area, etc…  I am really enjoying being a MK Lady. I’m not all hardcore, Caddy driving… yet. But I am making money and having fun while doing it. YAY! If you’d like to learn more about what I do let me know!

• Today I bought 2 Sure for Men deodorants, 2 Gillette men’s deodorants, 2 Gillette Body Washes, 1 Gillette Fusion Shaving Gel, 6 cans of Progresso Soup and 1 Secret Deodorant for $8 with my handy coupons. The body washes were $5.99 regularly so that tells you right there how much I saved. Woo hoo! I am stoked. I also got 9 steaks for $13.  Not too shabby, yo! I think I’m kinda starting to get the hang of this couponing stuff. YAY!!
• Today Alec and I competed in the DSRL. You know- the Double Stuf Racing League. We are rad. Here’s the video:

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

• I will be posting another giveaway tomorrow or Monday.
• Tonite I’ll be watching “Too Many Babies?” on Discovery Health. It’s starring Ethan and Casey Jones. I cheered with Casey in jr. high and went to jr. and high school with both of them. You may remember I posted about them a lot during the pregnancy and birth… In January 2009 they had quintuplets- 4 girls and a boy. I’m excited to see the show. You can read more about them at Joneslife.net. I have their button in the sidebar “Joneslife Quintuplet Invasion.”

I’ve been slowly trying to learn the art of couponing. I’m not super awesome like my friend, Brit. She has been patiently showing me the ropes. She can go in the grocery store with her binder of coupons and walk out with $200 in food for under $20. I’m not that good. I have retrained myself in how I think. Before I would look at coupons and say, “I can get the generic waaaay cheaper than that  product…” But I’ve since learned to wait for sales then use the coupon or coupons and WOW, the amount I have been saving is crazy to me!! Today I got all this for $36 including tax. If you look closely there’s 6 boxes of cereal and a $9 men’s razor, it’s not cheap stuff. It was $102 worth off stuff for $36- less than a dollar a product. I was feeling pretty cool. Last Saturday I got 8 boxes of cereal for $8. Not bad YO!

Last nite was my big date with Sei to the Lakers/Mavs game. 1st off we scored our dinner at a Mexican restaurant for free. The waitress never explained why it took so long, but I don’t think she ever put the order in the computer. Anyway… we got it for free. Then we scored free parking right on the roadside by a $15 parking lot. It was funny because people would pass it up because there was a NO Parking sign. But if you looked at it, it said “No Parking from 4 to 6pm.” Yes!! But right around the 3rd quarter my dad called to let us know that Alec was burning up and couldn’t swallow or breathe very well. So, we rushed home and met my brother (who was babysitting) and Alec at the instacare place. It was 9:45pm. After blood work, chest xrays and a nebulizer treatment, we left a little after 11pm. His mono is back and in full swing, and he has bronchitis and pharyngitis. I mean, yes, he will continue to have flare ups of his mono, but he was only diagnosed a month ago and my ex decided to take the kids to Great Wolf Lodge to swim for 2 days this past weekend. Um, DUH. I can’t help but think this episode had something to do with that since Alec has been sick since early Monday morning… So anyway… we left early but the Mavs won 101-96.

Can I get a HELL YEAH!!??

So, now that all the court stuff is over for the most part, Sei and I really felt our family needed some recuperation time. But we have no money to go somewhere. So, I asked for suggestions of a cheap getaway on Facebook. I was thinking San Antonio or something. What we ended up with is 3 nites at a lake house away from reality for $75 in Mary Kay products. You can’t beat that!! Thanks again P!! You’re awesome!!! I’ll post pics and more about the lake house after our trip. I don’t want stalkers finding us. haha

The new year is coming and I’ve made several goals. I’m losing this muffin top first of all and I’m saving money. We had a tough year this year so we have to find different ways to save money. We are going to be getting rid of our home phone because we never use it and also changing the level of service we have on our television.  I’m also learning not only to clip coupons but how to do “couponing” where you end up getting a ton of stuff for next to nothing! We switched our car insurance this past year from Allstate to Geico and saved hundreds of dollars, so that was awesome. Another thing we’ve started doing is buying our bread in bulk from the Mrs. Baird’s Outlet. It’s around a dollar a loaf plus they throw in a few free things like my beloved powder donuts that I will not be eating after January 1. haha

I am super excited about learning to coupon. My friend did a presentation at church and actually had a table full of products. She asked us to guess how much it would cost retail and how much we think she paid.   The products cost around $65 retail. She paid…. 16 cents. Yes- 16 CENTS. Insane!! I can’t wait to learn more. Do any of you coupon or have fun money saving ideas??