Collecting Ribbons and Coupons

This evening Big Sis and I went back to the fair to collect her artwork and ribbons. She earned a whopping $4.50. We haven't yet talked about what she'll do with her winnings. Perhaps we'll just put it in the bank. Or, perhaps, she could use it to pay me to clean the toy room. Yeah, there's a story that goes with that statement :)

This afternoon, I asked Big Sis if she'd help put toys away in the toy room while I folded and put away her clothes. I gave her the option of earning 50 cents if she did it herself, having me help her and earning nothing, or paying me 50 cents to clean the toy room. She got out her coins and we counted her money. She decided she would be happy to pay me to clean. I told her we should talk to Cool Daddy-O about her decision and see what he thought.

After discussing all the options again, Big Sis decided that she would rather clean the room on her own and make some money. She worked for awhile and made nice progress. Finally, she decided she needed a break. She became engrossed in a TV program and said she'd finish later. I decided to reward her and give her half the money since she had completed much of her task. She said she'd do the rest tomorrow.

Here's a close-up of the collage that won Best of Show in her age group.

The other highlight of our day was a family effort. One of the local gas stations offers a free newspaper with the purchase of gasoline. There was a coupon that I wanted multiples of. So, we took both cars to 2 gas stations, where we each purchased the amount that qualifies for a free paper. I went to a 3rd gas station and squeezed in some more gas in my car and got a 5th paper. What was this coupon? It's a buy 1 get 1 free coupon for the hair color I use. Since I have so much hair, my hair stylist uses 2 boxes to color my hair...and I color it every 6 weeks. Each box costs between $7.50 and $8.70 depending where I buy it. So, we figured we saved about $40 in hair color expense, or looking at it another way...it makes the gas much cheaper.

Yesterday I had a great afternoon. I was able to spend a couple hours hanging out at Target. We needed to get a second car seat for the second car. I'll be taking the primary kid hauling car to Iowa City on Friday and Cool Daddy-O will need to drive the girls around town for various activities. The new booster seat has 2 cup holders. The old one doesn't have any. Big Sis is willing to share her extra cup holder with Lil Sis. What could be better?