Saturday, July 31, 2010

Publix Trip 7/31


We made a family trip this morning to publix and did quite good! So here are the totals:

Spent: $44.03

Saved: $110.40


Pretty awesome if I don't say so myself! Freebies this week included:

4 Boboli pizza Crusts

4 Boboli pizza sauce

4 Cole's breads

2 Sundown vitamins

4 Softsoap hand soaps

2 Yoplait (4 packs) yogurt

1 Pampers refill wipes


Other good deals include:

Pillsbury biscuits: $1 each (ok, so not the best deal i have ever gotten, but we have been wanting some)

Kelloggs Poptarts: .75 cents per box (4)

Cookie Crisps and Lucky Charms (2 boxes of each)--$1 per box

Pampers Diapers (Huge box)--so I messed up on this deal, thought the box was $20, but didnt pay attention, and it was $30, but had coupons to make it $26.50, and I am thinking i have heard of a rebate I can send it for it too.

So all in all, we had a good trip today! I know it's been a while since I have had one of these updates, life has been busy! Hope everyone has a good weekend! We are excited about heading to the lake tomorrow and will catch some pics hopefully to post soon!

Thursday, July 29, 2010

Happy Anniversary to the love of my life :)

Four years ago today, I married the hottest, most incredible, sweet guy there is. Sorry ladies, hate to tell you that I got the best, but I did. Michael, I am so blessed to have you as my husband. I love you so much and appreciate how much you love me and Sarah Kate. I am excited to see where the Lord will take us the next four years and the next 40. You are so kind and caring even when you are dealing with a whiny wife. I love you so much :)

Enough mush right? Well just for fun here is a recap of our day four years ago, just in case some of you might have missed this incredible day:

I started my day off with bridesmaids and mothers and friends at a prayer breakfast where we spent time in prayer together (and a few happy tears and laughter too). I got to the church incredibly early (I believe 11:00) to get started curling my hair (for those that know me, my hair does not like to curl). We saw each other for the first time at about 3:00. I remember walking to the doors to go into the church with such butterflies in my stomach. Michael was at the front of the church where he would be standing for the ceremony and I walked to him and then he turned around to see me. It was a beautiful moment just the two of us. After pics we went to our own rooms to wait for the ceremony. There was a huge rainstorm that came through right before it was supposed to start and I remember our coordinator coming in and saying we were gonna wait to start because people were still running in (late from the weather). I remember telling her, as long as Michael was here, I was ready, who cared if there was anyone else there, as long as me and him were there :). My two brothers walked me down the aisle. As they got ready to open the doors for me to walk down the aisle, my older bro squeezed my arm and whispered in my ear that him and my twin bro had a bet going that I would be crying before we got the the front of the church, He said he really wanted to win. And of course, I was in tears as we got to the front as the preacher started to pray to begin the ceremony. I remember Johnny squeezing my arm at that point and I laughed slightly to myself. Ooh, and before I came in, one fun thing we had planned, were four of my ballet students danced to "Come thou Fount". I loved that. We exchanged rings and vows, quick kiss and then announced. As we headed out after being announced, You can here me on the video giggling. I was so excited :). Did I mention too, that on the video, you can hear how horrible our violinist was. Wow, she was bad. If only I had know Connie Skellie (An amazing violinists and now friend of mine). We then headed to the reception at a country club. Took some pics over there with the bridal party, grabbed some bites and then we announced and had our first dance to "L-O-V-E" by Frank Sinatra. Michael then danced with his mama and I danced with my brother to I can't remember what song? Our reception was a blast. The food was great and everyone danced, a lot! I think we had the Alabama fight song played by our dj (per requests) 3 or 4 times. Michael's cake was Alabama themed, with a houndstooth hat (made out of cake and fondant). My cake was classic (or i thought so). It was a round, 4 tier. I loved how it looked. One funny memory from the reception: we had 2 wedding crashers. Two guys came, signed our book, ate our food, danced with just about every bridesmaid and even the grandmothers. My photographer got 2 pics of them and I am so glad :). I remember someone asking at some point do you know them? or are they friends with michael? and right around that time, they left. We found it hilarious. To end the night, we left in a limo with rose petals thrown. We went to Atlanta that night (the limo took us there) and finally got to our hotel there at almost 5 in the morning. Our driver did not take good directions, so we spent our wedding night, driving up and down the streets of atlanta lost. We spent 2 nights (or I guess 1 and a half) and left Monday morning for Mexico where we spent our honeymoon. Whew, are you tired of going down memory lane with me? We have such great memories from both the wedding and our honeymoon! The last four years have been pretty awesome, we have had some great times and some hard times. I know there will be both great and hard times ahead of us and I can't wait to share them with this guy I get to call my husband. I love you babe :)








Sunday, July 25, 2010

Are you paying too much???

As we have made our move to the new house, we are going through our list of who we need to update with our new address. We contacted our current car insurance company and were going to let them know of our new address and they were going to let us know of our new rate since we had moved. That sparked a thought, that "hey, we should call around and see if we are still getting the best price". We havent called around since we got married (4 years). At that time, we found the best price and have stuck with the same company.

We decided last night to get online and get some online quotes to compare rates. Low and behold, we have found that we are paying too much!!! So far, we have found one other company that will save us over $80 a month!!!! that is crazy. Why have we not called before now?

So, with this new discovery for us, I feel the need to encourage others, have you checked around lately? It is something we all should do more often and it won't take that much time, but will save us so much! I was excited and felt the need to share and maybe someone else will read this and find some savings too!

Finally, I must close this post with a cute pic of my princess :) She wore a dress that I wore when I was her age this morning to church. She looked like a little doll (at least to me she did). Hope yall enjoy!

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Crafty "New" Rug

If I haven't mentioned it before, we have moved into a house with incredible orange carpet. Don't be jealous. I know most of you do not have to pleasure to call your carpet orange, but we now do :) So during our move, we originally left a carpet remnant at our old house, not thinking we would have anything to do with it or any need for it. Then, I got to thinking. I told Michael as we went back to our old house for our final walk through to grab the remnant and I would come up with a way to use it in Sarah kate's room. I knew it would be pricey to get the carpet bound, but knew with a little research, I could find a way to bind it myself. Blogs are lovely things. It took no time to find a creative way to turn a boring remnant into a cute rug to match any room. So here is what I decided to do. I went to the fabric store, found 1 yard of cute, heavy duty fabric and went to work. I cut the fabric into 8 inch wide strips and sewed them into 1 really long strip. Then I hemmed one side (the side that would be on top). I then got out the ole hot glue gun and heated it up. I glued the hemmed side of the fabric to the top of the carpet (making about a 3 inch border). I set some heavy things on top of the fabric while it dried. After going all the way around, I then let it dry, then turned it over to glue down the other side of the fabric (not hemmed side) to the bottom.


I plan to get some ribbon to add around the border, but for now, I think it turned out cute! Sarah Kate acts like it is a stage to dance on in the middle of the room when we are playing music and it covers some of the crazy orange carpet that doesn't exactly match her pink kitchen. All in all the project costs about $10 for the fabric. I already had the glue and thread, so no costs there.


I love how it turned out and hope this might inspire someone else too :) I know plenty of us have carpet remnants around our house!




Camp Cornerstone week!

Well, we have had a crazy week! It is camp cornerstone week at our church and Sarah kate has been having a blast (I admit I have too :)). I have been helping with the 4 and 5's group and Sarah Kate is with her friends in the 2 and 3's. She has done so well. I thought if she ran into me during the day she would end up tagging along with me, but she has pleasently surprised me. She saw me pass by in the hallway today and just waved and said "Hey mama!" and kept playing in her class :) She is beginning to look like such a big girl to me. My group has been so awesome too! We are learning to be Soldiers of God's army and how to arm ourselves with the Word of God against the devils schemes. Not only a lesson these children need to hear, but one that I need to hear too. I have been meaning to get a picture all week, but of course, being the good mother that I am, I have not. Sarah Kate loves the singing time and music and has been dancing in the gym with all the big kids. It is so fun to watch her without a care in the world, dance to the music. Oh, to be a child again. One day in heaven, I can picture me and Sarah Kate dancing at the feet of Jesus. Maybe I can catch a pic tomorrow, but for now, you will have to see how we look as soon as we leave camp and head straight home for naps!

Monday, July 19, 2010

Dishwasher Detergent finally perfected!


So I have been trying to figure out homemade dishwasher detergent for a month now. I had decided to give it a try after running out of store bought and already having things on hand to make it (since I had made laundry detergent). My first attempt was a flop. All of my dishes came out foggy and I was completely disappointed, but determined to figure it out, since I knew it would be so much cheaper to do the homemade. So I got online and researched and came up with a new recipe that was a combination of ideas I had found on other blogs and such. My first recipe I will share first (remember this one didn't work for me):

1 cup borax
1 cup washing soda
2 packs koolaid lemonade packets
*you use 1 Tbsp. in each compartment--so 2 Tbsp. total each wash.

I discovered after my own research that the compartment door to the main wash cycle was not openning at the right time, possibly due to the detergent getting wet during the pre-wash and turning into a paste-like mix that made the door stick. I found 2 solutions to this online, and decided to go for this new recipe:

1 cup borax
1 cup washing soda
2 packs koolaid packets (all like before recipe)
2 Tbsp. salt--this is suposedly helpful in getting rid of the clouding
*I use 1 Tbsp. in the pre-wash part and do not put it in the main wash part. I open the door at the rinse cycle and add in 1/2-1 cup vinegar to the tub (again to get rid of cloudyness).


So far, this recipe has worked best for me and is SO SO much cheaper than the electrosol packs I was buying before (even with coupons).


For fun, my mother-in-law, came up with a cute idea during the unpacking at our new house to store the detergent in a mason jar on the window seal over my sink. *Thanks, Theresa! It looks cute and is easily acessible.


Hope someone finds this idea useful! just thought I would share :)

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Settling in

We are finally getting somewhat settled in to our new house. Sarah Kate is loving her new yard to play in and begs daily to go pick blueberries from our sweet neighbors yard. The moving process went well, but of course there had to be some crazy things to go along with it. Here is a short list of things we should remember from this move:

1. Phones that sit in water tend to not work afterward.
2. Don't put your keys anywhere except for your purse, they are sure to get lost and be lost at the most inconvenient times.
3. If it is going to be a crazy day anyway, go ahead and decide to get 4 new tires and an alignment on your car (since we realized the morning of the move that my car was showing steel on the tires).
4. Refridgerators are larger these days compared to the 70's. Therefore they might be a bit of a bugger to fit through doorways--but We are so thankful for our family and friends sacrificing all their strength to lift our fridge over the rails of our back deck to get our fridge in our kitchen--which then the fridge still did not fit in the built in spot--therefore we will have a fridge sticking out in the middle of our kitchen :)
5. Hot water is a lovely thing. Since this could not be appreciated at our new house till Tues., we got to appreciate it elsewhere (well, Michael took cold showers, but i refused--esp. since we have such lovely friends offer their showers).

Well, that is a short list of things we enjoyed during this move. Overall, the move went fast, we were so thankful for our friends and family coming to help clean, move, and unpack our boxes. Sarah kate has transitioned so well too, which I am so glad! She loves her purple room, that coordinates so well with the orange carpet I might add. The first night we went to put sk to bed, we realized her ceiling was covered with glow in the dark stars. She loves it!

I am going to miss the downstairs room Michael and his dad built. I loved how the fireplace turned out! This mantle was from an antique store that we found after a long hunt (It was out of an old house).



This is Sarah Kate the first morning in our new house. We were getting ready for church and she decided to put on make-up like mommy. She got into my lip balm and covered her nose with it. She had been crying cause daddy wouldn't give her more. Goofy Kid :)

Saturday, July 10, 2010

Move Day

well, it's early and I am up before everyone of course. We officially move into the "new" house today. If you haven't seen our new digs, you should come check them out. We are really excited about it, esp. the yard for sarah kate. she is loving it already. It helps make the transition easier out of the old house when there is so many fun things about where we are going. i will hopefully get some pics today and post them later, just thought i would do a quicky blog while i wait for everyone to get up. i get asked a lot, am i sad to leave our first house? truthfully, maybe a little, but God has given me such a peace about it and such an excitement to see how he has openned the door at this rental house that I am okay leaving this house. I am so amazed at God's provision through this. We have had some great memories here and I have loved many things about this house, that I am sure I will end up missing (like a microwave and a normal shade of tan carpet), but overall, I am excited. It might be too that I am too tired to even think about whether i am sad or not. Moving is a lot of work, and we still have a ways to go.
And, on a side mushy note, my husband is pretty much the best there is out there. He has been so sweet during this process. He loves me and Sarah Kate so much and it is reflected so much in how he cares for us. We are truly blessed with a pretty amazing man of God. I don't think I could make this move it is wasn't for him. Well, actually, I know I couldn't. Not for physical strength, but for the support he has shown me and his love. Well, I off to finish packing last minute stuff. I will hopefully post more later on the move!

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

4th of July and day after with daddy!

We had a great 4th with family this weekend! Sarah Kate had a blast to say the least. Here's some pics we took from that day and on Monday, daddy was off so we decided to check out Gardendale's splash pad that we had heard about and relax some before the big move this weekend!