Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Our Petting Zoo...

I knew that country life would be different, but I didn't know what I was in for. Yesterday while cleaning the toy room in the basement, we saw that we had a new resident-a fluffy gray mouse had made himself at home. Since that window doesn't have a screen, I think he'd fallen and couldn't get out. Once the boys knew he was down there they decided to spend their afternoon throwing rocks at it. Somehow it survived.

Today we met our newest guest, a muskrat (according to the in-house animal expert). It too fell and couldn't get out. It shredded the screen in it's attempts at freedom.





I wonder what tomorrow will bring... We do have 4 more window wells.

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Big Man's Lego Creations

This is for Grandma so she can see the latest creation.



Wednesday, February 22, 2012

The Men I Love...

Little Man has had a loose tooth for a few weeks now. He's been so excited about it. Jeff helped loosen up the last little bit and Little Man popped it out himself. It was fun to see how all of the kids got excited for Little Man. He's waited a long time to do some of the things his big brother has already done. He's been very patient about it, but now that it's his turn, he's having a good time. He couldn't stop smiling all night.

The tooth fairy was caught off guard since, but thanks to some good neighbors she rustled up a dollar bill. When she went down to find the tooth, it was in a death grip in his hand. The next morning, he'd forgotten all about it, and had to go back down to see what he got. What a nut.



Today is Jeff's birthday. We are no longer different ages. For four months out of the year, I am extremely older than him. Now we are equal again. The planning started yesterday with Big Man calling Jeff to find out what he wanted for breakfast on his birthday. Jeff told him that he could pick. At 6:30 this morning, Big Man was out in the kitchen preparing the birthday breakfast. I think we'd done breakfast in bed for him on previous birthdays and he'd remembered. So I guess it's tradition. (I didn't get breakfast in bed for my birthday) I could hear Big Man slowly making his way down the hall with a tray. When he gave it to Jeff, he said "That took 7 minutes. One minute to walk in here." That cracked me up.

The awesome birthday breakfast consisted of a glass of ice water (the best breakfast drink) and a bowl of Peanut Butter Crunch. There's a towel over the tray. It was very fancy. I love my men. They are the best.

Monday, February 20, 2012

Sleddin...

What do a 4-wheeler, a big backyard, and snow all have in common? Good sledding fun. The kids have a blast doing this. With our second good snow storm, they've been entertained for hours.











Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Gotta Love 'em...

My kids are so unique. It's kind of fun to see how their personalities, interests, and talents emerge as they get older. Little Man is naturally athletic. He excels in sports. It comes naturally to him. When Jeff brought home these little bow-and-arrow sets from the Hunting Expo. last weekend, Little Man practiced at it for about 10 minutes before he was knocking over the target every time. It's not quite that easy for Big Man. He has to practice much longer and harder for these type of things. He's better at being creative and artistic. These things come naturally to him. They both still had a good time shooting their bows.





It's always a fun game to go peek at the kids after they're in bed. You never know what you will find. Usually Little Princess is upside down on her bed with no covers on. Tonight this is what we found. This is the first time she has ever fallen asleep with one of her brothers. I'm not quite sure whose idea it was for this little sleepover. I guess I'll find out in the morning. It was cute though and warranted a photo opportunity. Every time I see their sweet peaceful faces while they're sleeping, my heart melts. They are the cutest things (even if they're extremely naughty at times). I am a lucky mom.

Baby M is 11 months!!!

I'm a few days late on my post and photo shoot, but here it is. I can't believe my baby is almost a year! I just saw a picture of her as a tiny newborn and wondered how she got so big. She spent most of January sick with two separate ear infections and a NASTY cold. February has been much more eventful so far. She is finally crawling!!! She finally decided it was okay and off she went. She grabs the carpet with her hands and scoots her legs and body along. It's the cutest thing. She has also graduated to a sippy cup. She wasn't too happy about it at first, but with a lot of coaxing from Mom, she's warming to the idea.

Every time I take her picture, I try and capture the perfect shot and in the process I get a bunch of cute ones. I couldn't decide between them. So, here they all are.









Monday, February 13, 2012

Happy Valentine's Day

I've always said that holidays are much more fun with kids. This one is no exception. Last week we addressed all of the Valentine cards and got them ready. Today we created 'the box'. I saw this cute idea on Pinterest a few weeks back and Big Man liked it. It looks pretty similar to the picture I saw with the exception of red on the teeth and eyes. He wanted to put more blood on the teeth, but I said no. Happy Valentine's Day everyone.




I didn't read Little Man's schedule very well, but realized at the last minute he needed a box too. So with an hour to spare before preschool, we whipped up another one. It turned out cute too.

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Let's Get Ready to Rumble...

I love my kids. They are hilarious, creative, and energetic. I will give them that.




Last summer I let the boys take some of their own money to a few yard sales in Nephi. They picked out these lovely boxing gloves. I am not an advocate of fighting and really don't want to promote it, so I let them play with them a few times and then they quietly slipped away into the yard sale box.

That was until today. I got out the yard sale box to take pictures of. There's a group on facebook for an indoor yard sale, so I was going to post a few things. I took all the pictures while they were playing at their friends house. They came home and immediately went through it all. Before I know it, Little Man is yelling that they need to change into shorts. Not just any shorts, but shorts that match their boxing gloves. The fighting began. Before I knew it they'd recruited their sister to be the announcer. Next thing I know she's changed into a pair of blue shorts and has on a pair of boxing gloves while Big Man is doing the announcing. (Complete with a toy microphone from the yard sale toys) It was utter chaos. I finally convinced them to at least take the boxing downstairs so Baby M could sleep. When Baby M woke up she became a spectator and the boxing event continued.

They are creative and adorable (even if they are loud and a little rough and tumble).

Couponing


I have taken up couponing. I have wanted to for a while, but didn't know where to start. I found some awesome websites that post weekly deals and other information that helps me save money. My favorite site is http://freebies2deals.com

A couple of weeks ago I ordered two newspapers. I've also been printing out some coupons online. I've found some good ones on coupons.com. My first few weeks I saved about $30. Not too bad right? For a family of 6 that can add up to $1500 a year. This week I saved $50. That savings isn't all in coupons, it's store discounts too. I do a lot of my shopping at Smiths. In addition to the good deals, I'm also using my rewards points for fuel discounts. More ways to save!

I've learned that a successful shopping trip requires a lot of planning. So here's what I've done. Sometime after getting the paper on Sunday I cut out all coupons. Sometime after that I organize them into my binder. After the weekly Smith's ad comes out, I match up the weekly deals to the coupons I have. I've also learned to take my binder to the store in case I come across an unadvertised deal. It's come in handy a few times.

Here's a few of my favorite deals: Smiths was marking down their packaged Pepperoni. It was marked down to $.69 I had a coupon for $1.00 off two. This made each package $.19 Score. I had several coupons, so I stocked up. Now we can make out own pizza anytime we want for the next few years :)

Another deal was Trident gum. The coupon was for a $1.00 off three packs. Smiths had the big packs on sale for $.69 each. I had three coupons, so I got 9packs for $.36 each. Fun right?

I'm still learning, but I love saving money. My next step is upgrading my binder. You're supposed to have a zipped binder with baseball card plastic sleeves to organize it. When I got started, I didn't have that available, so I made my own. I thought it would work just fine-until today. I got to the store ready to shop-only to find my baby had fallen asleep. I carefully lift her out of her carseat and grab my binder. I grabbed it upside down. All of my coupons go flying. It was a wet windy morning, so half of the coupons are stuck to the ground, half are blowing across the parking lot. Ugh. I put Baby M back in her chair and went running after all my hard work. (I had literally spend at least an hour planning out this shopping trip and getting the coupons ready) Now it was just a jumbled mess. I made the most of it though and still saved a bunch.

Here's to saving more money in 2012!