Funny Eism

We just got back from a 2 week trip to Utah/Idaho so there is plenty of stories and pictures to share, but that will take quite a while to do. Until then, here is something funny E said today.

E was in the van with these really big headphones that came with our van for the DVD player. He thinks that whenever he has those on that you can't hear him talking. So he had the headphones on and this is what he said:

"Jesus! Jesus! Heavenly Father! You have a customer down here! His name is Ethan John!"

Then he lowered his voice to pretend like he was Heavenly Father and said..."Oh, Ethan John? He's a good boy, I really like him"

I started CRACKING UP! A customer down here??! Where does he come up with these things?!

Cherry Icee

I took the boys to Target yesterday and let E get an Icee. By the time I got home, Max was totally asleep in his car seat so I decided to unload the car while he was still sleeping. By the time I got around to the other side of the van, I hear E say, "don't come over here." Which means that E did something wrong and will probably be in big trouble. I take one look at Max and find out why. E had blown cherry icee all over his sleeping brother's face! I had to take Max in, wake him up, and wipe him down (his least favorite thing ever). I wiped and wiped and the stupid stuff does not come off. Max seriously looks like he has leprosy! There are little red dots and splotches all over his face and it doesn't matter what I do, they're permanently on his head! I don't think "How to get cherry icee stain off your child's forehead" is in the "Mother Handbook."

Blast from the Past

It's amazing how in the past 2 months I have reconnected and visited several very dear friends and from very different times in my life. It was only fitting that one of my best friends from high school called me up and let me know that she would be in DALLAS!!! I was so excited! I haven't seen her since the summer after we graduated which is 8 year ago!!! Now I have to do a little background so you can know and love Liz just as much as I do. We all ran around as a trio: me, Liz, and Tiff. We were all on Student Council together, Liz was the executive board president, Tiff was Senior Class President, and I was Senior Class Treasurer. Always good times planning and attending school events and so many memories like pool club, mountain dew slushies, Liz being Winter Coronation queen, football games, midnight madness, Queen Bee, Spanish Class with Senora Teen, stuco meetings in Mr. English's room, all the plays, dances. I could go on and on. Anyway...Here are some fun pictures of us. This first picture was Homecoming when we decided to all go together since we were all dating guys away at college at the time. We went together and picked out matching outfits and had a great time.

This next picture is all of us ready for Prom. Our school colors were Black and Gold so it's kind of funny that we ended up wearing our school colors. Don't worry, we actually took dates to this dance. Tiff arranged for an 18 passenger van for a bunch of us to go together. Her dad drove us all there and he even wore one of those tuxedo t-shirts, hilarious!

This was graduation night June 2001. Such a great night and a great summer that year! I couldn't have asked for better friends!!! Then we were all off to different colleges, Liz went to Luther and is now a teacher, Tiff went to BGSU and is also a teacher, and I went off to BYU and I'm a nurse.

Anyway...back to our visit. I only got to spend the morning with Liz, but it was so much fun! I have to say that there was an empty place since Tiff wasn't there. I miss you TIFF!!!! I picked Liz up and brought her back the house so she could hang out with me and the boys. E just LOVED her! He was so excited to meet her and then the fact that she brought him presents was just icing on the cake. She brought him these awesome chocolate rocks that E thought were the coolest things ever and also a dinosaur cookie mix. He has been begging me to make them.



It was way too short and I was so sad to see her go, but we're already planning on meeting up again when she comes back in January or next summer. Her husband just graduate from Michigan and they're in the midst of job hunting so I'm hoping they move to Dallas! I would love to have her close by and I would love even more if she could be E's teacher! Now wouldn't that be amazing! Liz, I had so much fun! Let's plan a girls reunion really soon!

Cake Truffles

We have a mother/daughter activity coming up this Saturday so I've been busy pulling stuff together to get ready. I decided to make little treat bags for everyone to take home with some cute little homemade truffles. I think they're super cute! Here's the recipe for both kinds:


Cake Truffles
1 cake mix (and additional ingredients to make the cake)
1 can of frosting
Bake the cake as directed and let cool. In a largo bowl, break cake up into a fine crumbs. Add the can of frosting and mix up until combined and it holds together. Refrigerate (I put it in for about 1 hour, but it can be in there covered for up to 3 days). Roll into balls and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Dip in chocolate. Decorate as you wish.


Oreo Truffles
1 bag oreos
1 pkg cream cheese softened
Put oreos in cuisinart and crunch to a fine crumb. Dump into a bowl. Put cream cheese in cuisinart and add 3/4 of oreos and pulse together until combined. Add more oreos as needed, but keep some aside for decoration. Roll into balls and place on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Dip in chocolate.

For the cake truffles I made a white cake mix and put a little bit of red food coloring in it to make it pink. Then I dipped it in chocolate and sprinkled pink chocolate on the top. So now when you bit into the truffle it's pink inside. The oreo truffles are dipped in pink chocolate and have oreo bits on top. I tried one and they are super good. All the leftovers will have to go to my friends or else I will consume them all!

Posts to Come

I have a lot of posts to go so here is a little preview for this week...
-drugstore deals
-blast from the past
-4th of July (anyone from the family please send me pictures)
-run on
-9 months
-one liners

Drugstore Deals

This was from last week, but I had to share. I don't have time tonight to go through the breakdown of it all, but here's a little look at what I got and how much I paid. I ended up breaking it down into 2 transaction and my grand total out of pocket was...$1.76. I now have $11 in Extra Care Bucks to use this week and I still money on my CVS gift card. Somehow I forgot to use my gift card instead of my cash, but still $1.76 isn't all that bad.

Sewing Project

Despite all the sewing talent that might come from my family, I am a complete novice when it comes to anything with a sewing machine. I see all these blogs and etsy shops with all this crazy sewing creativity and I just sit there and wonder how the heck do they do it! Well, my mother-in-law found a super cute pillowcase project that she could teach me to do so we could make the boys some travel pillows for our trip to family reunion in Utah.

Okay, so seriously, I totally don't know a thing about sewing so Cheryl was patient enough to get me through and my pillowcase turned out to be an actual pillowcase! I couldn't believe it and it wasn't too hard. E had to see every little thing that came out of G'ma's bag and what each instrument did. He especially loved the magnetic pin holder. E even figured out how to run the sewing machine and wanted to "drive" it so G'ma let him take it for a spin a couple times.

So here are the finished products. E's is the red one with the horses and Max's is the one with the Sheriff badges. Super cute!
We're going to have horse back riding available to us at reunion so G'ma wanted to get E excited to go ride some horses with her. She brought some really fun pictures and told him all about her favorite horse, Gala. E loves his little pillow and believe it or not, Max loves his too. I have no idea why my kids have an affinity for pillows and blankets. E has an entourage of 5 blankets and 2 pillows that he takes to any room that he's playing in. At least my little cowboys will each have a little pillow for the car ride to Utah.

Blackberry Picking

We had our 3rd annual blackberry picking day! I was looking back at pictures from our previous visits and I can't believe how little E was! Here's a look at our first time there. And this is E now. I couldn't believe how many people were there this year! I got there right at 7am on Saturday and they were all picked by 7:15 am! The whole field was full of cars so I had to park all the way at the end, but nevertheless, we went picking. It was really great to have E there to pick all the ripe berries at his eye level. He was finding them left and right. Had he not been there, I don't think I would have picked as many as I did. I had Max in the stroller picking them off the bush and putting them right in his mouth. Oh my, he was a mess! There were a few people asking me if they could take his picture since he was quite a site to see. I feel bad that we didn't make anything with our fresh blackberries this year. E kept asking to make jam. He was asking me if we "had all the ingredients" so we could "make our recipe" when we got home. I made so much freezer jam this Spring that I didn't have anymore room for it so we just ended up flash freezing all the berries and we've been enjoying them ever since. Can't wait for next year!

Slip-n-Slide

Okay, it's time to catch up. No more tip toeing around it. I'm just going to sit here until it gets done so prepare yourself for an all nighter. The other day I received this little freebie in the mail from a mail in rebate from some batteries. You see all those fun little offers on the packages, but does anyone really take the time to do it? I do. My friends at book club were laughing about this the other day when the package of Twizzlers had an offer for a Twizzlers pool noodle on it. They were wondering when they'd see me at the pool with it. Haha, guys.

We did some yard work a couple weekends ago and E was being such a great helper so we helped him set up the slip-n-slide and we all took a turn to cool off. E LOVED it! He couldn't quite get to the end by himself, but with a little help from Daddy he could make it. Max loved just watching E from his exersaucer. Max loved the little sprinkler parts and we let him play in those for awhile.
What a happy boy! I totally had flash backs to being a kid with our slip-n-slide. It was big a yellow and so much fun. Our friends even put a couple of tarps down to extend down the hill. Now that is fun!

As you can tell from the first picture, the garden is doing great this year. I'm growing tomoatoes, rosemary, basil, jalapenos, dill, and cilantro. The cilantro has come and gone and it was great this year. Everything else is ripening as we speak. Great stuff this year!

Busy Body

 

Max is certainly taking after his brother! He is mobile and EVERYWHERE! Now E crawled very early and Max took his time, but once Max got it...that was the end of it! He's crawling on his hands and knees and can get around the house really fast. I've forgotten what it's like to baby proof. The floors have to be super clean and all little pieces have to be thrown out or put away. Every door in this house is closed, especially the bathrooms. He loves to go in there and dump out the trash cans and pull up to look inside the tub. Yes, he's pulling up to stand too! He's tried taking a few steps while holding on to the ottoman, but he hasn't really cruised anywhere yet. Only a matter of time. E started walking at the end of 10 months and was running by 11 months and after that life got really crazy. I have a feeling I will be experiencing deja vu here pretty soon. The nice thing is that E LOVES to play with Max and crawl along side him and help him out when he needs it. He's also a great tattle tale right now so I know exactly what Max is doing at all times. I love having another set of eyes that can help me out while I'm unloading the groceries or put in some wash. Life with boys is never boring! I let Max play around in the newspaper while I clip coupons on Sunday and he loves pulling the paper all apart and crawling in it. Then E likes to cover him up. That's why there is crumpled out paper in all over the place in this picture.

Mystery Coupons

My husband came home a while ago with a mysterious bag of coupons that were laying on his desk at work. I just started cracking up when he handed them to me. I guess word gets around about the couponing. So I'd like to thank the mysterious coupon clipper that sent those home with Ry. They were very handy and I will take any mysterious coupons that you'd like to send our way.

Drugstore Deals

I've had quite a few requests about showing more couponing stuff and some "how-to" information. So there will be more about couponing soon, but for now let me show you the deals that I got this morning from CVS and Walgreens.

CVS

So here is the breakdown of what I got
1 Snickers $1.50 (Used Free coupon from Chocolate relief)
2 Schick Quattros $15.98 (Used 2 $4 coupons) Received $6 in Extra Care Bucks (ECB)
1 Crest Pro Health $2.99 (Used .50 coupon) Received $2 in ECBs
1 Aveeno Conditioner $6.50 (Used $2 coupon) Received $10 ECBS (you had to spend $20 to get the ECBs and I had bought $15 of Aveeno last week and this promotion carried over to this week so I only had to spend $5 more dollars to get the ECBs)
2 John Friedas Hair Care $9.98 (Used $6 in coupons)
1 Purex 3 in 1 6.99 (Used $2 coupon) Received $2 in ECBs
3 Father's Day cards 7.97
My total was 51.91

I had a $10 off a $50 purchase that printed out from my receipt last week that I used
Then I had $18 worth of coupons
Then I had $22 worth of CVS coupons and ECBs
Total 2.57
But it gets even better!!! I got a coupon a few weeks ago for a $25 gift card if I transferred a prescription to CVS. Well, it just so happened that they adjusted my dosage for my thyroid medication so I transferred that over to CVS and got a gift card. So I used that last week and today and paid $0.
So summary:
Paid $0
Gift card balance $15.30
ECBs for next week $20

*The Purex looks pretty cool. It's basically a dryer sheet type thing that goes in your wash, releases detergent and you keep it in with the clothes when you switch them over to the dryer and then it will release the softener and dry sheet action. It will be a fun thing to try out especially since they're safe for high efficiency front loaders!

Walgreens

There wasn't too much at Walgreen this week that I needed to get, but I had a $5 Register Reward that expired today so I had to get over there and get something with it so this is what I did.
2 Rimmel Nail Polish .87/each on clearance (used $1 coupon)
Cover Girl Nail polish 2.19 on clearance (used $1 coupon)
2 Dry Idea deodorant 3.79/each (used $2 coupon)
1 Right Guard deodorant 2.19 (used $1 coupon)
Walgreens Safety Pop .99
2 pkgs hamburger buns .99/each
Altoids .50 on clearance

My total was 17.15
I had $5 in coupons
Walgreens had an in store coupon for the deodorants to make them .99, but if you use your manufacturer coupons first and then scan the in store coupon then it will deduct even more for your total so it ended up taking off 7.60 off my order which gave me an overage of .83!
Then I used my $5 register reward
Summary
Paid 0.24

I love it when I can just use the spare change I have in my wallet!
If you have any questions or want a certain thing explained in a future coupon post, just let me know and I'll be sure to mention it.

Winner!

I haven't entered many giveaways in the past year, but for some reason I have 2 in the past week! I won a $100 gift certificate to Chase's Treasures and a Shade shirt. I just got my shirt in the mail and this is what I got.

I wore it the other day and E asked me why I splattered milk all over myself...nice.

Here is what I picked out from Chase's:
The Black and White ABC will have E's name in bright letters for his room and the Animal Alphabet will be going in Max's nursery. I'll be checking my doorstep all week!

SC Girls' Vegas Trip

Hop on over to Carly's blog for more pictures and check out my side bar under "California friends" for their updates as they come in.

We moved away from Santa Clara almost 3 years ago and it was quite a tough move for us since we were leaving the greatest friends ever! We were always doing something whether it was family game nights, BBQs, parties, pool days, Girls Night Out, birthdays, visiting new babies, you name it. None of us had family around so we ended up becoming family to each other and helping each other out through everything. I have missed these girls way too much and I've seen some of them here and there throughout the pass 3 years. Well, thankfully Becky and Michelle coordinated a fun filled weekend for all of us to get back together in Las Vegas! We couldn't get everyone there (we missed you!), but we did at least get 10 of us together. It was so awesome to see everyone! I missed them!!!

I left Friday evening and got to ride in first class! Somehow with Ry's frequent flyer miles, they gave me those seats. I had no idea what to do with myself! I had hot towels, a meal, hot chocolate chip cookies, leather seats, tons of leg room. I felt so pampered! When I got to Vegas I met up with Jess after she got off her flight and then whole posse came to the airport to pick us up. I could hear the cat calls and hollering all the way across the parking garage so I knew that this weekend would be a whirlwind of laughs. We got to stay at Becky's in law's house while they are away on their mission in Ghana so we had very nice accommodations. Seriously, this is the picture of the house. Isn't the sky gorgeous?!

We had some hot tub fun and then played some "Truth or Dare or Talent" (don't ask me how that started, but it was hilarious) and this picture captures that moment perfectly.
I haven't laughed so hard in a very long time. We didn't end up going to bed until 3 am which is 5 am Dallas time and I had even gone to boot camp that morning at 5 am so I had been up 24 hours so needless to say, I was completely delirious which makes everything even more funny.

Saturday we just got up when we wanted to and went out for a little walk/jog around the neighborhood which was probably quite a site to see since we're a bunch of moms walking around retirement neighborhood. So we got a little exercise and then hit the outlets for some retail exercise. Always fun! Then that night we got all dolled up and hit the Vegas strip. I don't know if any of you have seen the movie, "Serendipity" but the restaurant featured in the movie is in NYC and just recently opened another restaurant in Vegas so we decided to try it out.


They are known for their frozen hot chocolate so we couldn't leave there without at least trying it out. It was so delicious!

After dinner we wanted to go see the water show at the Bellagio and on our way their we had this person hand us a bunch of tickets and an invitation to go to Pete Wentz's(from the group Fall Out Boy) 30th birthday. Some of us couldn't pass up the chance to go so we headed over there to see what it was all about. Well, we got their right about the time it was supposed to start so we waited, and waited, and waited and got tired of waiting so we met the rest of the group down by the water show.


Well, we headed back to the car and forgot where we parked for awhile so we had to use the panic button to try to find it. I love the look on Michelle's face.

We found the car and piled in so we could get home for some more girl talk sessions.

Sunday morning Becky made us a delectable spread of crepes for us to enjoy. Yummy!!!
We all got ready and headed out to church. After church is was just a great relaxing day. We got to lay in the sun, I organized my coupons, we put all our pictures of a CD for everyone to take home, and we all had Sunday dinner together before some of us had to leave. I was so sad to see out trip come to an end. BOOOO!!! I am glad to know that I'll be seeing some of you when I come up to Utah next month! Hooray!!! The party just can't stop can it?! We said our good byes and then started packing up our stuff and cleaning since we had to leave early in the morning. The rest of the group left early the next morning and my flight didn't leave until the afternoon so Michelle took me over to her house to hang out until my flight. It was so nice to see Deloy and the kids. I hadn't seen Markie since he was 6 months old! Wow!

I had a great flight home and came off the plane to a homemade sign that said "Welcome Home Mom" and my hubby and two boys happy to see me. You can't get any better than that! I love it that Ry made this happen for me and really made it easy for me to go. He took great care of the boys and they told me about all the adventures that they had while I was gone. They went to Oklahoma and hiked on some trails and even got to see a buffalo. Sounds like quite a fun time! The best part when I got home is when Ry told me, "Man, your job is hard and I didn't even do the laundry!" I just started smiling. I guess it's a good thing for moms to get away for a short time so everyone can appreciate each other a little more. I missed Ry and the boys so much while I was gone and I just appreciate him making this such a great experience for me. Also a huge shout out to my mom for watching the boys for me all day on Monday! I couldn't have gone without you, Mom!

Thanks Becky for everything you did for us this weekend and thank you girls for such an awesome time! Who wants to come to Dallas?!

I'm Back!

...in many ways...blogging, Vegas, girls' trips, everything! There is so much to catch up on...pictures to come.

3 1/2 years!

Ethan is officially 3 1/2 now! Sometimes I wonder if he's 3 1/2 going on 35 with the things that come out of his mouth sometimes! Right now he's into doing a lot of things. We just had our first pool day at Nanny's the other day and he's already trying to swim on his own so we're starting this summer off right. You'll be finding us at the pool all the time!

E's still loves golf! He took a golf class through the local parks and rec and he goes out with his dad here and there. Ry even took him to the Byron Nelson golf tournament last weekend and I think he really enjoyed watching the pros. I think he even had one of the guys throw a ball to him!

He's loving having friends over or going over to friends' houses these days. One of my friends in the ward watches him for me when I have activity days and I switch with her on the days I don't so he gets very excited for Wednesdays for his buddy to come over or to go to his buddy's house. I came in the other day from boot camp and he was dressed and ready to go with his shoes on at 6:30 am and told me, "I'm ready to go play." It was a very long time until 3:30 rolled around. Geez! He still loves to ask people if he can come play at their house. I'm trying to teach him that it's not polite to invite yourself over, but it's not quite getting through to him.


E's working on "earning" things these days. We've started doing chores around the house everyday and he gets pennies in his jar for doing them. He's learned how to make his bed, put his clothes away, clean his toy room, help mom bring in groceries, put away things, and help mom with whatever she needs. It's been a slow process and he's really tried my patience but he's started to actually be REALLY helpful these days. He loves putting pennies in his jar and he loves to "earn" all sorts of fun prizes. Right now he's also working on sitting in Primary. He's all over the place in opening exercises so we're really trying to get him to sit with his class and listen to his teacher. It's funny because he tells everyone in Primary that he's trying to "earn" pennies, but somehow he forgets when he wants to get up and walk around.

I can't believe the difference when I think back to what we were doing last summer. It seems like he was grown and matured so much in the past few months! To think that last summer we were phasing out of diapers and working on potty training just boggles my mind! I feel like that was ages ago, not last summer! Time flies when you're having fun!

8 Months!

During my blogging hiatus Max turned 8 months and there have been lots of fun things going on with him. We've entered into the world of mobility! Max has started army crawling last week and he can also rock back and forth on his hands and knees. He also does this funny thing that we like to call the "penguin" where he gets up on his hands and knees and then attempts to crawl and just ends up on his tummy with his arms at his side and kicks his legs. He looks like one of those penguins that is trying to slide across the ice. I'll have to get it on tape, it cracks me up all the time.

Max also has started cutting his first set of chompers! The first one has already broken through and the second one his creeping up there, but not quite in yet. He's been a little bit more tempermental these days, but that's to be expected.

We're also branching out in the food arena. He's trying all sorts of new foods like mango, eggs, watermelon, teething biscuits, and cheerios. I have to pick up some baby yogurt for him sometime so he'll be trying that soon. He's also learned how to drink though a straw so anytime he sees someone with a straw he usually begs for a sip so watch out!

Struggle

I'm still struggling over this blog thing. I'm debating whether or not to go private. Until then, no posts.

Blogging Blues, I Need Advice

I've been thinking a lot about my blog and my blogging style...or lack thereof. I just haven't been blogging like I used to. Well, I came across a post on one of the blogs that I read and I could totally relate to her post. She talked about how lately she feels like she's lost her voice on her blog because she knows that everyone reads her blog. I know you're probably like, duh, your blog is posted on the Internet...every one's going to read it. It makes total sense in my head, but it's hard to explain. When a lot of people read your blog, it leads to some major problems...People get offended if they're not invited to an outing, people get offended if you don't include your outing with them on your blog, people pass judgements about what you're doing/not doing as a mom, people think you're braggin if you write about something you're celebrating or accomplished, they think you're negetive if you write about "true life" occurences, and quite frankly people are just nosy. I feel like I don't write blog posts or omit things in my posts because I know certain people are reading my blog and I don't want to offend them, come across as bragging or negative and then be judged unfairly. I have seen a lot of negative anonymous comments lately on other people's blogs and I'm can't believe how mean people can be. I have to admit that I do roll my eyes at some things people say on their blogs, but obviously everyone has a right to their own opinion and I appreciate their blogs and I enjoy reading them.

I've considered going private so I can regulate who I want to read my blog, but I really think private blogs are annoying. I never read them (sorry if you have a private blog). It takes too much effort to look up the blog, log in, and just find out that it hasn't been updated. I enjoy my bloglines account and its instant updates. Plus, I've come across some amazing moms and friends through blogs and had they been private or my blog been private then we would have never connected. So I guess that's where I'm at right now. I just wish I felt the same way about my blog like I used to. I used to post pretty much whatever was on my mind or whatever was in my heart at the time. I just feel like I'm writing my blog for other people and not myself.

It's such a catch 22. I love connecting with friends, family and new people and I also love that people take the time to stop by and catch a glimpse of our life. And what blogger doesn't love comments?! But I don't love certain people reading my blog, or people taking things the wrong way, or being judgemental. I have no way to regulate that. What's a girl to do? Any advice?

I Can't Even Think of a Title...

I put E's bike helmet and Ry's raquetball goggles on Max the other day when we were playing in the playroom the other day. I was laughing hysterically and Max thought it was pretty funny too.