1st day of school

Clay's first day of school!! He claims he "doesn't want to go back to school". Yet he woke me up at 7am and while eating his waffles was running around and around the kitchen going "woohoo"... so you decide.

He was ready to go way before the bus came so we toke pictures with him alone and with the neighbor's children and then ofcourse Collin and the neighbor's granddaugther had to get into the action as well (Cregan was spending the night with Grandma and Papa).

As Clay was getting on the bus, and I was walking back home with just one in tow, I was almost dancing a gig... :0 I know how non-PC of me, but heck ya!! Summer is over and school is ON!!

My Kroger experience

I'm so excited, I'm a self proclaimed coupon addict, so the temptation of triple coupons is to much for my sensibilities and eventhough I needed absolutely nothing from Kroger and went anyway, coupons in tow and shopped until my kids literally dropped!

I reviewed all my favorite blogs, stretchingabuckblog, thriftyandchicmama and dealseekingmom and gotten all the best deals possible for my Kroger experience, I regestered for my E-coupons, which is basically an additional coupon put onto your Kroger card and comes off when you buy an item with an E-coupon. The best part about E-coupons is that you can use a regular coupon with the E-coupon. For example, my Nature Valley granola bars where 2.49, I had a .50 coupon, that tripled to $1.50 and then I had my e-coupon for .50 off the bars, so I paid .49 for my granola bars (a 12 count which makes it like .04 a bar!!!

So anyway, I made my list, pulled out my coupons and went to the store. I got my total and after all the e-coupons had come off, I owed $87.00, after the triple coupons had come off, I actually paid...............what for it..................anticipation building................$33!!!!!

I love a bargain, I love triple coupons and right now I'm loving Kroger!!



Here is the receipt that shows I saved $112.20. I purchased 69 items so the average cost of 1 item was around .50!

Here is a picture of the items I bought, there were more in the back that just kept falling over and finally after arranging and rearranging, I gave up and just took the picture!

Lia Sophia

Has you heard of Lia Sophia?? I hadn't before last month, my neighbor had a party and invited me and I found my new bff again, jewelry!! I used to wear all kinds of jewelry, my jewelry box, husband and credit cards can attest to this, but had, since having the boys, gotten out of the habit of jewelry (and taking care of me...but that's another post). Now that the boys are a tiny bit bigger and I'm not popping a baby out every 2 years, I find I missed my jewelry and looking pretty...

So back to Lia Sophia, went to the party, totally enjoyed myself and the host, tried on tons of jewelry and decided what the heck, I'll have a party too. So I rolled this pair of dice and whatever # I rolled, I got a piece of jewelry $100 or less for that amount, well I rolled a 4. So I paid $4.00 for a $98 necklace! Then also for having a party, I got to pick any item of her "little box", I chose this AWESOME ring, I'll take picture and post.

The day of the party finally arrived and I was SO nervous that no one would show and no one would buy anything, no need to worry though, Sherri, the representative did another outstanding job, and I'm going to get a bunch of FREE things, because I get 40% of the total sales of the party!! So exciting!!

Thxs to all that came and hope you enjoyed yourself, I know I did!!

Crystal's babyshower

My good friend Crystal is having a baby and I decided that even though this is her 2nd baby boy that she still needed a baby shower. I feel every baby requires a baby shower anyway, but I was SO excited to host this one.

Crystal's husband was over in Iraq with Josh last year and Crystal and I quickly became friends. She's just one of those type of people that likes to give, give, give and never asks for anything in return. So I wanted her baby shower to be relaxing, and have all the things she loved.

I had candles everywhere, flowers everywhere and guacomole, I could have been done right there, she was enamored! :)

But I had more fun with it, I put a clothes line made from ribbon across the wall and hung cute oneies in the color scheme of blues and browns,






printed baby Jacob's name and hung that on the other wall.






Sophie was gracious enough to make Crystal's cake and did an OUTSTANDING job, she never worked with fondunt before and found a recipe for marshmallow fondant that was easy and delicious and she did really cute two tone circles on top of the cake.






I served chicken salad sandwiches, pasta salad, fruit salad (that I made into flowers) and the guacomole.







We had really fun games, we played how many cotton balls in the baby bottle (which was an enourmous baby bottle piggy bank), and a fun Old Wise tell game, also we played baby memory, which is one of my favorites. The basics are like a memory game, except you have words like Doctor's bill and Doctor's bill and when you get the match you get a candy that matches the name, for example Doctor's bill is 100 Grand, Baby Girl is Baby Ruth, baby boy is O Henry, Epidural is Lifesaver and so on... We also played who can deliver the baby fastest, which is tiny plastic baby's found at JoAnn's put into ice cubes and then the guest have to try to melt there's the fastest. It got interesting seeing how people did that, for example Sherry had her baby under her armpit and Sophie was trying to melt the baby out of the water only to scold the poor baby's butt...

The babyshower was great fun, but now I'm ready for baby Jacob to make his appearance!!!

Summer

Finally we have a week of nice warm days, yes that's right people, a week. Ohio has been unusually chilly for summer, maybe not to everyone, but to me it's been awful, full of rain and high 70's! High 70's in JULY!!

So I was pleasantly surprised to have mid-80's this week, and actually got to take the kids swimming and lay out a bit. Let's just hope August is a little bit warmer than July, because come September it'll be getting colder again... (sigh) I miss Georgia...

Family Vacation

obviously my reputation for being a bad driver precedes me....











Tanya is trying to help me up the cliff, we were almost peeing our pants because I kept slipping, finally she gets me half way up, but drops her gum in my hair and shortly after I bang my head on the rocks, it's a wonder I didn't fall off that cliff...














Me posing for the camera (this is my new picture for incentive to lose weight...)



























This year for vacation we went back to Summersville. Only this time we went with Josh's entire family. Josh's parents stayed in a cabin, Ryan (Josh's brother) and wife and 1 of their kids, Tanya (Josh's sister) and her husband and 3 kids and Kayla (Josh's baby sister) and her husband and 2 kids all stayed in tents. We got up to Summersville late because Josh was trying his hardest to get the boat working (alas it never did get to work). And we ended up staying in a cabin too. We stayed at Summersville Lake Retreat and it was a very nice, private facility.

It rained most of the time, but there was one day that we got a boat and went on the lake, the lake is 361 feet and is surrounded by big green trees, cliffs and waterfalls, it's beautiful! We swam and jumped off of cliffs.

The boys went out together and the girls went out together (there's too much of us to all go together now) and apparently Cregan did a front flip off the cliff (trying to download video of it)

Elton and Billy

I have always been a huge fan of Elton John's, I am not an obsessed fan or anything, I just know all his songs and follow his life, I know where he lives in Atlanta, and that kinda of stuff, you know not insane or anything............

Well, he and Billy Joel came to Columbus and you better believe I was going. Josh (aka "the stinker") refused to go with me, so I told him not to complain when I bought a ticket for the amount that I would have bought for both of us to go..... hmp, right back at you stinker.... luckily my friend Janny came with me, and even more luckily (not a word, I know...) her husband drove us there and picked us up, because there are a WHOLE lotta Elton/Billy fans from in the Columbus, OH area.... that place was packed! But we got really pretty good seats.

It was 3 1/2 hours, no opening act, no intermission. In the beginning, there was 2 piano's facing eachother and here came Elton and Billy strolling on stage!! AWWWWW I was in one of those AWWWW moments!! And they played a few songs together, then Billy left and his piano was lowered and Elton was on stage singing to ME, not to all those other people, just ME!! Can you believe it I must be the luckest Mrs Stinker there is!! Then Billy came on and Elton left, which was good, and then both back together again!!!! It was AMAZING.... just A M A Z I N G....

I had a great time, with great company and a great gay boyfriend? (aww Elton, I know there were sparks... :) while you sang to me)...