Two Firsts

Maybe I should have done a ten on Tuesday afterall. I was thinking I didn't have enough to say, but I'm still sitting here and have been uploading pictures all night. haha Oh well. Anyhow, here are two very cool "firsts" for you.

One:

Mr. Matthew desired, made and ATE "Ants on a Log" ... we were talking about celery. I needed some to buy some to make a recipe and Matthew was telling me that the Wonder Pets eat celery. I told him he was right and started asking him if he'd like to be a Wonder Pet too and eat some celery... His answer was "sure, but only if we do ants on a log." If we do what? He said " you know, with the peanut butter and the raisin ants". Well you better believe, I went to the pantry and pulled out those items. He helped put his own ants on, declaring that he needed five. One for each family member. And then proceeded to announce who he was eating as he bit off each raisin ant one by one, eating that celery along with it. He'd never had celery before. I was so super proud of this kiddo. We sure are making progress.




Two:

Mr. Micah found the Bumbo chair. It looks awfuly pink in this picture, but I assure all those who know me and pink that this chair is in fact purple. Micah does okay in the chair for two to five minutes at a time and then he's had enough. But that's okay, he'll learn to like it. (I hope!)

first stone mountain trip of the year

One thing that we've enjoyed doing since living in this area, is going to Stone Mountain. And sadly, we haven't really taken full advantage of the park, but we do love to go to the laser show. Not much beats free entertainment. We go with our picnic dinner and sit on the lawn in a shady (preferably) spot for hours waiting for the laser show spectacular to begin. This is really becoming a tradition for us to go a couple times each summer. We watch the train go around the mountain several times, play ball, blow bubbles, take walks, enjoy the company of each other without the tv in the background. The kids are bound to make a friend or two with other little kids roaming. This trip involved watching the cutest little Asian girl I've ever seen, she was probably a little younger than Mark and was so stinkin' cute running circles around her family's picnic spot. And, the boys befriended a little boy next to us who had a bubble gun blower--way better than the little wands we brought. It's just such a sense of community there. There is nothing like the longing that comes over me watching the laser show either. It's so fun. It tells such a sweet Georgian story and even though I'm a transplant to this state, I sure do feel rooted here sometimes. I have seen the show now more than half a dozen times, and yet I'm flooded with emotions each time we go. When the GT symbol is flashed up there, I hoot and cheer, feeling a sense of pride swell up in me for my husband. And when "Georgia on my Mind" is played I feel a sense of longing for home. When "I go to the Rock" and "The Devil Came Down to Georgia" are played, I feel amazed at how awesome our God is. But, when Elvis starts to sing, "Glory Glory Halleluiah," I tear up every time. When Maria Carey starts to sing "Hero" and all the pictures of all the American Heroes play, I do more than tear up. I'm glad they left those parts in, even though they did greatly ad and improve the show this year. This show is such a tribute to our state and our country and I'm proud to be an American!

Strawberies 2011 take two

We went strawberry picking for the second time of the season today. Man it is HARDER if you wait this long to go. The berries are scarce. But we had a good time and went with friends Nancy and her son Jonathan. It was Jonathan's first berry picking adventure and he did great. Matthew wasn't so into it this time, since you had to do more hunting for those berries. Mark.... well you know Mark, he was all about eating all of the ones he could find. Oh and Micah slept through this adventure. I was able to get enough strawberries today to make another batch of jam later in the year!

What is real?

These are my notes from this past Sunday's sermon...
The text is 1st John 5:1-5
We've been in 1st John now for many weeks. (months?) and I've really gotten out so much from these teachings. It's been good to break down verse by verse by verse.

What is Real?

If God is real, then the most important thing in my life is to KNOW Him. And to know that you know Him.

Truths: loving God and loving people. We're called to love God and love people. This has been a theme throughout 1st John.

vs. 3 "we show our love of God when we keep His commandments and His commandments are not burdensome." and by this (vs 2) we know we love the children of God (people). ....How you know that you love God is NOT what you say or how you feel, it is shown IF you keep His commandments. ... What is a burden? It's heavy. It weighs you down. It's a struggle to carry. It's a struggle to get through. It's difficult. So, how can we keep His commandments without the burden? They are hard to keep, aren't they? ... well There is nothing more burdensome than a life of sin. SIN is initially welcoming. It's freeing. Look what I can do! Who cares the consequences, I'm doing what I want, when I want. ... but soon "it" will be heavy. it is difficult to live in sin. Living in sin will suck the life out of you.

Jody gave an example of a hampster in a cage. Living the good life. And yet every day, he's in the corner of his cage, clawing away as fast as he can, trying to escape. What he doesn't know is that outside the cage, sitting down and watching, waiting patiently, hoping for the hampster to be victorious in his escaping, is a cat. Waiting. Wanting to capture that hampster. ... The enemy patiently waits to take your life away once you "find freedom" in this world. Like wise, there is nothing more liberating than righteousness. A life of walking with God has no burdens in it. We don't have to shoulder anything heavy any more, if we'll just offer it to Christ to take for us. THIS is freeddom. This is joy. Over the long haul, His commands are liberating, they aren't burdensome.

vs 4. Where there is a real relationship with God there IS victorious living. and it is not about you-- it is all about God. The same faith that brought you to Christ is the same faith to exercise your life in Christ, hence victorious Christian living! This is the victory that overcome the world.... our FAITH be/c with Jesus Christ, in Him alone, we CAN have LIFE!


...

Remember that when Christ came and was asked what is the most important commandment. He said, "to love God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself" Loving God. Loving people. Loving God and Loving People. Sure, there is a long list of "don't's and do's." but bottom line is that IF we are Loving God and Loving People then we are trying to live by the longer list at the end of the day.

Right now I'm focusing on "love is not rude". I've taped up a sign in the kitchen that says

Love is a verb.
Love has action.
LOVE IS NOT RUDE.

(for more about love is a verb, click here to see an earlier post)

I want to live by God's commandments and keep them. I want to bind scripture in my heart so that I may not sin against Him. I want to love my children and my husband and show them the love of Christ through me. I want to be a good steward of the money we have and not covet what my neighbor has. I want to be a gentle listener and slow to anger. The more that I seek God and love Him, the easier these things become.

sweet Micah

Just some good ones of the little one recently.

Nail polish score!!!

Normally, I completely overlook the beauty sales. I just don't even really go there. I am not a girly-girl. I rarely wear make up and don't "treat" my skin or anything like that, so I let those sales blow past me. However, my untrained beauty eyes sure spotted a ROCKIN' DEAL at CVS this week. Thank you so much to Jenny on Southernsavers for posting it as a beginner deal. I wouldn't have even noticed it otherwise. I paid total $2.80 for these 6 lovely nail polish bottles shown below. TOTAL! And it gets sweeter. Not only did I pay $2.80 total, I also have a $4.00ECB at the end of the day! SWEET DEAL.

I had five coupons and the deal was a limit of six bottles. So, I paid 1.29 on the first bottle. Got a 4ECB in exchange. Paid 30 cents on bottle number two. Got a 4ECB in exchange. Rinse and repeat all the way to bottle six. Total spent after 6 transactions $2.80. ECB left standing: $4.00. Total cost of all nail polish: -$1.20 SAY WHAT?!?!? How cool was that deal? I was playing a nice little game with the cashier-- who by the way was super nice about said game-- he scanned my card, scanned the next nail polish, scanned the coupon, scanned the ECB and chuckled as he said "that will be 30 cents" each time. Lovely. Lovely.

Which color should adorn my toes first?!



I also hit up Publix and Rite Aid but the deals weren't quite as colorful to post about. Spent 12, saved 17.50 at RA. Spent 74, saved 81 at Publix! (awesome coffee deal this week at publix I thought)

Hello Readers: Couponing!

The coupon posts are drawing out comments from readers I didn't know I had. Hello to Stevies Savings and Bryana! Welcome! Comment away all! Anyone else want to post about the coupon show or your own thoughts on couponing, I'd love to read them. Scroll a little down to see where we're posting about!

This blog is mostly for updates on my family and day to day life, which totally includes COUPONING!

Thank you Grandma

I finally got all my pictures off my computer with the graduation pictures to upload to facebook and youtube and what not... I realized I hadn't made a post about Grandma's visit. Jamie's mom came up to visit us the first week of May. She was a big help and lovely to have the extra hands on Micah so I could do some housework and run errands and such without carting all three around. I'm very glad she came and that couple of days really flew by quickly. It was a nice visit.

Matthew's first graduation

It would be sad to overlook Matthew's graduation from Preschool on here. I'm so so proud of him. He did awesome Thursday night at his celebration. I loved watching him sing and preform on stage. He's such a little character. His eyes talked to me the whole night. To protect the children in his class, I've hid their faces with him, but I couldn't resist posting a few pictures from the night! In addition to watching him that night, I also had the honor of singing to the students during the ceremony. It was very neat. You can see that here on youtube if you're interested. Never mind the crying baby at the start, that's just Micah. hehe




Thus ends a season in Matthew's life. I can't believe this journey is over and another is only beginning. It's wonderful to know that Mark and some day Micah will be able to make their way through the preschool. I'm glad to know that that chapter of my life isn't over yet because there are some wonderful kind Christian women I am honored to know at the school.

Matthew, I'm so proud of you. You did a great job! And Kindergarten is what is awaiting you now!

coupon thoughts, a bit calmer

I want to come again with some couponing thoughts, but maybe not in such a heated manner... I think this coupon show just has me really worked up and truly for no reason. But I wanted to mention that while I still do think the show is WACKY and it does make me NUTS, I also think there is GOOD to couponing. And if you want a nice, realistic example, please hop on over to the Coupon Goddess's website. Never once have I ever thought "She's NUTS!" I'm usually amazed at her purchases and love her down to earth real vibe that she gives in her writing. She has four kids to raise and doesn't have 1000 bottles of anything just to look at and think "wow, that's pretty". She uses what she buys, she's thrifty in other ways besides just "what's on sale" and she's just fun. I really wish she would be on the crazy coupon show and show these idiots how to do it without ethical issues or hoarding problems, but instead, I'll just be thankful for her blog as a source of entrainment and adventure. You can go to it here, if you haven't ever been before.

There. Those are my coupon thoughts for today.

couponing thoughts / the extreme couponing show

There is a really good article HERE posted by a friend on her blog that actually takes you to a different blog. It's an article about shelf clearing and ethics and thoughts about the couponing "craze" that has started recently. READ it. Read every word. I was nodding along the whole way.

I was at dinner with friends Tuesday night for a Moms Club event and I was really proud of my gift for the gift exchange. I had four items in there. The most I spent on any one item was 24 cents. The receiver of my gift was like "Oh my! This is way more than the cost we were supposed to use" and while the RETAIL value was higher than the price to spend, the cost I SPENT out of pocket wasn't, so I thought nothing of it. I hope she liked the gift--- not the point....

That started a conversation about the new couponing show, Extreme Couponing or Couponers or whatever it's called. I think I surprised a few of the gals around me (Sorry!!!!) be/c I was SOOO vocal about it. I can honestly say that I've watched each episode this season (I was oblivious to the existence of the show last season) and I am very vocal about how I think it's CRAP. That show is CRAP. NO ONE. I mean NO ONE needs 400 items of any one thing. ( I have 9 free waters in a bin) No one needs a room just for toothpaste. ( I have a bin in the bathroom closet) No one needs a room just for storing inserts. ( I use a storage tub under my desk) No one needs a WALL of toilet paper. (I think I have 3 or 4 packs currently) No one needs 1000 boxes of cereal. (I have 45 currently) No one needs 1000 deodorants (I have 6 I think) .... This show makes me so mad. They dump out containers and containers into their shopping carts, they completely clear shelves of one item at a time like that's normal. Each show shows the next person purchasing 100 of this item or 100 of that item or 300 or 500... and there are many watching this show that will think "oh that's how you do it." NO! no no no. ... I will say if you are SPENDING MONEY to get your coupons, besides just buying the paper, is it worth it? So what you bought 400 of something, just be/c you can! Some woman was talking about how she had nothing to feed her family of five. So she bought 93 bags of croutons. REALLY?! "Hey kids! Croutons are what's for dinner!" (I have 5 bags right now).

Another thing that makes me crazy about this show is aside from one girl (who had 18 transactions in her planning-- like that's realistic) aside from her... every other person on this show is OVERWEIGHT. And I am sorry, but COME. ON. When you're showing how you can buy cake mix (I have 4 boxes) and sports drinks and chips (one guy was counting his chips and had like 44 bags of chips ((I think I have 5 or 6)) and proud of his chip collection) and processed dinners and frozen pizza and and and... NO WONDER you are overweight! You're stockpiling JUNK! SURE! I think it's great to see a good deal, get a couple and have it. I really like stocking up on condiments like dressings and barbeque sauce be/c we'll use them in meal planning. I like stocking up on pasta and red sauce, be/c we'll eat pasta once a week. I like stocking up on fish sticks for the kids (one time I got 6 bags at once) but I don't agree with shopping like a hoarder. If you've been reading my blog for any length of time, you know I do have a stockpiling plan currently. I would like to have enough food to support my family 6 months to a year if we were without financial income. If the world collapses and Jamie's job is gone, I want to know that my family will survive for a time where we don't have to worry about making dinner tomorrow be/c we can go to the storage room, and prepare a meal from what's there. I think that this extreme couponers show focuses on the hoarding aspect. Sure, some donate. And that's wonderful, but really, it makes me nuts. These people talk about how they like to get more stuff to get more stuff...

Jamie said something that rings true... it's like a video game. They are wanting to see if they can beat the last score and be the best. I LOVE making deals, don't get me wrong. I get excited when I do awesome deals and get three bottles of juice normally priced at 3.58 each and get all three for 2.99 total. That's cool. I like getting things for free and am proud of the things I can get for free but I am not on mission to better my last "score" or to see just how much I can fill my newly built shelves with.

Those are my thoughts. If you are interested in couponing, please don't watch this show and think that is the only way to coupon. Be/c it isn't. I get four papers a week. So thta's four inserts. So at most I usually can buy four items at a time (hold that thought), not four hundred items at a time.

One thing I truly like about where my couponing is lately is my coupon group. I'm part of a small coupon group where we all share what coupons we're looking for and we swap. It's really neat. I think it's a great way to acquire more coupons without buying them. It allows me to buy more than just the four items I'd be able to do with my papers alone. I don't get coupons from them for everything I want but it's fun when I get any at all. And I love sending off the ones I don't use so that others can get more deals too. Again though, remember that we do this on a SMALL scale. Not a massive one. I do not think I want to be labeled as an extreme couponer, but I sure am proud of the deals I do make. I think about couponing like part of my job. I don't have any income coming in to this house. So it's my job to make dang sure I do the best with what goes out.


EDIT NOTE:::

I hadn't watched this week's episode before I posted this. I watched it last night. I will take back my comment about each featured person being overweight be/c the two gals on this week's episode were both definitely not overweight. This at least made me happy. The show however, still makes me nuts.

10 on Tuesday

1. How did this happen? Micah is two months old today? Life continues to spiral away from me some time. Now is one of those times. When the pediatrician's office called to confirm Micah's two month appointment, I sort of sat there on the phone thinking, "Huh. Really?" How is he two months old already? But look at this face!! He's so stinkin' cute. I can't stand it some times. My blondie with blue eyes. He's so pretty. I just took this tonight, so it's accurate. Two months and bright eyed.

2. You see that child there, in the next picture?
The one holding his baby brother...

Yah, we just signed him up for Kindergarten.... I have such mixed feelings about this. I know he's ready to go. But given our food history, it's hard to release him into the wild, I mean... let him go off to "big" school by himself and do lunch every day and and and... He's ready for it though. He keeps asking if it's August yet. HOW do I have a Kindergartner?


3. Speaking of food issues... Matthew has done really good lately. I was so concerned that bringing a baby home into the mix of things would really hinder or make us back track and truly, that hasn't happened. Matthew's done a great job lately of trying new things and eating the foods we've already established. We do have bad moments, but they aren't all bad. The biggest thing is being able to make a sandwich for lunch. AND he doesn't seem to mind what kind of jelly/jam we use with it. Which is neat. I was STUCK on grape jelly as a kid and I'm happy to report that I now like other kinds.


4. With our picked strawberries, I'm really tickled proud to say that I actually made my very own strawberry jam (with the help of a sweet friend, thank you L) and I'm so pleased. It turned out really well. I plan to give a few jars away, but it's really nice to have something on the shelf that I MADE for my family to eat. And with the amount of pbjs I see in my future for school lunches, these jars will be eaten up. I'm hoping to go picking again just for the objective to make batches of jam.


5. I have made a post about Mother's Day in years past but this year do you know what... I didn't have Jamie take a picture with me and Micah. OOOPS. I will say though that his dedication day was Sunday and I have some pictures of this. They aren't great but that's okay. The important thing is that we stood with our church family and pledged to raise Micah in the eyes of the Lord, training him up to know his heavenly Father as best we can.

Here's Micah getting his diaper changed before the
dedication at church. Look at him as if to say
"Here fine. Here I am. Do you have to keep taking pictures of me?"

Please notice the cute bear pjs. Sigh. Mommy forgot the dedication outfit at home. Good job Mommy. Honestly, I know it doesn't matter in the long haul and it was fitting that his pjs the night before were bear ones. Our little Micah Bear.

The whole family after he'd been dedicated.

And here's what it looks like after such a long and busy day....

6. Family night--- Mother's Day night, we put in the movie Tangled and popped pop corn and shared in really our first ever "family movie night". And you know what? It was fun. Sure we had to stop the movie 4 times for Micah's fussiness and once for Matthew to potty... Mark wanted to eat Matthew's popcorn and and Matthew didn't handle that very well, but all in all it was fun. We enjoyed the movie together and it was nice just being a family.


7. My first "girl cake"...

Here's Kate's version of Tinkerbell. You could tell that, right?

8. ChuckEcheese AKA KIDS VILLE. We went to this very fun place for one of my friend's daughter's birthday party on Friday night last week and wow. there were kids EVERYWHERE. But the boys had a ton of fun. Micah was passed around and survived a bottle out in public instead of me nursing. Matthew found a little independence running around all over. Mark really had a blast with the games. He didn't care (or maybe understand) about the tickets, he just wanted to play the games and ride the car rides. I loved watching them have so much fun.







9. Have I mentioned on here lately how much I love my stockpile room now? Well I do. I love it. I actually went out there and organized a little more today after Mark and I took a publix run spending less than half of what we saved. Coupons rock. I had my first "How do you do that?" conversation with a person behind me at Kroger yesterday. That was cool. I spent 30 something and saved 79 with their Mega Deal event this week. Free is so fun.


10. I'm blanking on a ten so here's just another picture for you...

all three of my boys