Monday, February 21, 2011

Amazon Mom: How to Save a TON of Money

I am a huge Amazon.com shopper! I love the convenience of it, I love the selection and I love that it gets delivered right to my door.

Recently Amazon started a new program called Amazon Mom. It is a free program to sign up for and with it you can save a ton of money. They start by giving you a Amazon Prime membership free for three months, this allows you to get free two-day shipping on all purchases on Amazon. Then for every month that you spend $25 on baby things they give you an additional month of Prime free, up to one full year.

By signing up for Amazon Mom you receive an automatic 15% off your purchase of most baby products (diapers, wipes...). They also offer a Subscribe and Save feature where you sign up to have a box of diapers (or whatever you want) shipped every month (or two, three...) and they will give you another 15% off of your purchase.  You can also start and stop the Subscribe and Save at any time.  I have been known to buy a bag of Pull-Ups with the deal one day and cancel the subscription until I needed another bag.

So in the end you can save 30% off of each box of diapers, have it delivered in two days to your door and never have to think about buying diapers again.

I used to wait to buy diapers until I had the best coupons and the best sales and then I would buy lots, now I can get an even better deal and I can get it anytime I want. Here are a few examples that you can buy to get an idea of the savings, I used size 3 diapers as that is the size that my kids stay in the longest.

  • Huggies Little Movers - 128 Count - $33.59/case or $0.26/diaper, with the subscribe and save the cost is $25.19/case or $0.19/diaper
  • Luvs Premium - 204 Count - $34.54/case or $0.17/diaper, with the subscribe and save the cost is $24.18/case or $0.12/diaper
  • Pampers Baby Dry - 204 Count - $40.88/case or $0.20/diaper, with the subscribe and save the cost is $28.62/case or $0.14/diaper
  • Huggies Snug & Dry - 156 Count - $31.91/case or $0.20/diaper, with the subscribe and save the cost is $22.34/case or $0.14/diaper
  • Pampers Cruisers Dry Max - 160 Count - $39.75/case or $0.25/diaper, with the subscribe and save the cost is $27.82/case or $0.17/diaper
This is just a small list of what you can get.  They have Pull-Ups, wipes, and other brands for the same kind of deals as well.  I have kids with very sensitive skin and I am limited in what types of diapers and wipes I can use, in fact I am currently using the most expensive one listed (Huggies Little Movers) as they do not irritate my kids, and I love getting the best deal possible.

One last thing, if you happen to scubscribe to any baby magazines and have seen the coupons in their for Amazon mom, you can stack those coupons onto these deals and get the diapers even cheaper. 

I hope this helps, if you have any questions, let me know!

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Happy 3rd Birthday Arabella

I am a little late with this but my beautiful Arabella turned 3 at the end of January. She is a fun kid and brings a great deal of joy to our family.

  • She is the one that causes the most drama, but also can give the best cuddles.
  • She is the one obsessed with clothes, shoes, makeup and all things girly.
  • She is the one who loves to watch Mythbusters with her dad, and will beg all day to be able to do so.
  • She is the one who will beg all day for her sisters to be home and play with her, but will boss them around all day and get mad when they wont play her way.
  • She is the one who loves Johnny so much and can't wait to play with him.
  • She is Arabella Kylie Wammack, and she is wonderful!
Arabella had a Tangled party and loves all things with Rapunzel on them! 

    Here she is modeling her Tangled shirt.
    I love the impish grin here.  She is just waiting to cause trouble.
    Long distance doesn't keep us away from families on our birthdays.
    With a little bit of help she blew out all of her candles.
    Her Tangled birthday cake.
    Gotta love licking the frosting off!
    Bella loves to be Super Bella and tie her blankies around her neck and run around saving the day.  As such I asked a friend to make a cape for her so she could be Super Bella, and she loves it!  She puts on her cape and takes care of the world.
    Opening presents, so much fun!
    Her very own Tangled doll, she was so excited for that.
    In the end Annika picked out Bella's favorite present.  Annika picked out a Pillow Pet for her birthday and the other kids have really wanted once since then, so Annika decided to buy one for Bella.  Bella loves it so much and will not sleep without it.  I love the look on her face, pure JOY!

    Tuesday, February 1, 2011

    January Books

    I am sad that I didn't stay up with my reading log last year.  I got busy, then forgot, and then was so far behind that I never did it again.  So here's to doing a better job this year.  I really like keeping track of what I read, it's fun to be able to look back and see exactly when I read something and what my feelings were about it then.

    I am Number Four
    Pittacus Lore
    448 pages
    I loved this book.  I bought it because it sounded interesting, then I saw that they were making a movie of it and the preview looked great.  I went ahead and started reading it then and really enjoyed it.  The book is about a teenager who lives here on Earth and does his best to blend in.  He is however from the planet Lorien that has been destroyed by the Mogadorians.  The Loric people develop legacies (powers) when they are adolescents.  Nine children and their helpers were sent to Earth to grow and develop their legacies and hopefully be able to protect themselves until they can return to Lorien and revive the planet.

    I am not doing the story enough justice, it was really good and if you are up for a great story, give it a shot.


    Hunger: A Gone Novel
    Michael Grant
    608
    This is the second novel in the Gone series.  The kids in the town are faced with the ever growing problem of the hunger and the lack of resourses.  They are also still fighting with the Coats kids and the darkness.

    The story was very engaging and I really felt like I was in the town with them.  The author has done a great job and I am looking forward to the series continuing.

    Matched
    Ally Condie
    384
    This was another excellent book this month.  This is a typical distopian  world story set in the not too distant future.  Here all people are matched with someone who will be their perfect match, both to produce great DNA and to create a happy life together.  Our protagonist is given her match of someone that she will do great with, but she is then given a breif glimpse of someone else and she wonders what would happen with the other boy.

    Pathfinder
    Orson Scott Card
    672
    Card is a masterful storyteller and has once again woven a tale of wonder, exploration and fun.  This is the story of Rigg who is able to see the paths that everyone has ever taken.  When his father dies he is given the task of finding his sister, that he didn't know he had, and finding out who he is.  The story is great and my detail leaves too much out, but know that the story is worth reading.  It does start out a bit slow, but once you are in the story it is hard to put it down.

    The Confession
    John Grisham 
    432
    Grisham is also a wonderful story teller and can really get the reader to care about the characters and the story that he is presenting.  This book is very good and the story is very engaging.  If you are a fan of legal thrillers, this will not disappoint.

    With that said however, I had one major problem with this book.  The story is of a girl who was presumably murdered and the wrongful conviction of another boy.  The murder takes place in the fall of 1998, now I remember 1998 very well.  They characters were seniors in high school then, just as I was.  What bothered me about the story was the use of cell phones and texting.  In '98 a regular middle class kid did not have a cell phone.  I cannot think of anyone that I knew that had a cell phone then.  We did all have pagers, but not phones.  Also texting, while it was available in '98 it was not used by many as it was still very expensive and not widely available.  Now I know this is just fiction, but when a story wants you to believe it, the author has to get the little things right in order for you to accept everything else.  I love a good sci-fi story and can accept any manner of space travel, teleportation, wormholes, etc., but if the author messes up the simple details it can ruin a story.  This is not to say that the story was ruined, but it did take me out of the story every time the phone and texting records were used as a basis.

    The Friday Night Knitting Club
    384
    Kate Jacobs

    I have mixed feelings about this book.  While the story was interesting and the idea of how women form friendships was intriguing, I cannot recommended this book.  The language in it was very crude.  

    Witch & Wizard
    336
    James Patterson
    This is the first book in a series about two kids who discover themselves to be a witch and a wizard in the New Order, only the New Order has declared them evil and they must be destroyed.  The story was a bit slow, but it was a good book overall.

    Behemoth
    200 (partial)
    Scott Westerfield

    This is the second in Westerfields steam punk series.  The book is good, and while I enjoy reading it while I am reading it, I have no desire to pick it up when I am not reading it.  The story still centers on Alek and Devyn and Alek's need to be kept safe and to escape and Devyn to keep her secret.

    Total Pages for January: 3464
    Total for 2011: 3464