Thurs-eeee-day

While we were in Gatlinburg Dottie and I went shopping. We were on a hunt for shoes for me, her and Addie so we went to Rack Room Shoes. After finding us three some Tennis shoes and Addie some Rain boots we saw some CUTE socks for her as well. They have the days of the week on them! I thought this would be a cute way to teach Addie the days of the week......well......It was! But my OCD child has learned to recognize the words too fast and now we HAVE to wear Monday socks on Monday and so on. This morning I tried to put Saturday socks on her and she FREAKED OUT!

Anyways, we all now refer to the days of the week as follows:

Mondy, Tues-eeee-day, Win-seee-dy, Thurs-eee-day, Fridy-day, Satsi-day, and Sunny-day!

Happy Thurs-eeeee-day!

And here is one of the 50 pictures I took of her eating a cookie for the invitation to her 2nd birthday party! I will post more about her party soon! I'm pretty proud of it, it's going to be cute!!

(If you are ever around us again ask Addie to repeat the days of the week for you........its too funny!)

Our 2 1/2 hour trip that took 4 1/2!

Friday afternoon, Graham came home around 3:00, Ellie was picked up alittle before then and the car was packed and ready to go. My plan was to leave for Gatlinburg around 3:30, ofcourse Graham waited till then to even start packing! We FINALLY got on the road at 4:00. As we were stopping to get gas I was trying to get Barney set up on the little DVD player that we have been using of mom's. WELL, that thing has had it, Cale used it, Miranda and Ali used it and we have used it on 2 trips this summer. Everytime I would sit it down it would go off, I told Graham to just stop at Walmart in the valley so I could go get her a new DVD player (something we knew we would be doing sooner than later). Well ofcourse Graham, who has to be incontrol of EVERYTHING, said let's just see how it goes, we can always stop at a Walmart later and get one. FIne, FINE I know how it is going to go, she is going to get bored with the books, colors, babies and other random things she has to play with and then she is going to scream...........and scream and scream. But whatever if you want to wait! We made it to Athens and ate and she was still doing OKAY, but as soon as we got back on the freeway she started, "BARNEY, BARNEY BARRRRRRRNNNNEEEEEYY!" After about 30 minutes of me trying to find SOMETHING to make her happy and nothing working Graham got off the freeway to find a Walmart. See if he had just listened to me to begin with we wouldn't have had to first of all, listen to her scream, and second, waste an hour buying her a new one (not to mention the extra $20 it was in Lenoir City than it was in LV). Finally we got Barney in, and hit the road again. Addie was a perfect angel the rest of the way!
So needless to say Addie got a dvd player for her birthday, those blame things are expensive! We are going to get her one more small thing but yeah thats what she gets, good thing she won't realize it this year :)
Anyways, that's how our trip took 2 extra hours. Because Graham won't listen to his smart wife :)

alot of nothing

- We are taking Addie to Gatlinburg for the first time this weekend! I think she is going to have a BLAST!

-I have only started packing (maybe an outfit in her bag and mine), and we are leaving around 3:330 this afternoon.

-My sweet Delta sister had a baby boy yesterday and I am SOOOO in love with his name: Haize! In't that too cute?

-I had a dream that I had a baby last night..................it was an alien?????

- I FINALLY orderd the 30 day shred dvd (I used to just do whatever workout was ondemand) and it came Tuesday.....I did level 3 for the past two days and OH MY WORD, talk about kicking your butt! And I'm a pro at levels 1 and 2, I can do them both very well keeping up!!

- Graham and I had a heart to heart last night about the JUNK we have in our office, the dresser in our room and the garage. I told him I would give him till he finished his MBA in April but after that WE ARE THROWING THIS STUFF AWAY!!!!!!!

-We are going to leave Addie in the room she is in now, but still paint it. After much consideration, I decided that Addie NEEDED her own closets and I am currently using the closet in the bigger of the bedrooms (Our closet in our room is TINY!). So if we put a baby in there, we can paint the Amoir from our room and put it in there and use it as the baby's closet.

-Now I have to look and buy a chest of drawers for our room and a new dresser (we currently have Graham's from his parents house in there and I HATE it!). I also want new end tables in the living room, a flat TV for the living room and an antique buffet thingy to go under the TV, and when we have another baby I will need to get him/her a chest of drawers!

-I'm tired thinking of all this!

- Oh yeah Graham ALMOST finished my wall (yeah it's been 6 months), and I am trying to pick paint colors for the living room.

- Two times this week I have been doing dishes and the girls have coming running in screaming.......................BUTT NAKED! They think it is so funny to take all their clothes off and run around! Crazy Crazy girls!

Makeover

Yay! You like the new look???

Help Haiti

During my run through of blogs this morning I have been even more touched by the outreach going to Haiti. I cried for the people when I heard the news, wondering why? why does this happen to the poorest country. God said he will never give us more than we can handle. It just makes me think that maybe the people of Haiti are in reality very strong (spiritually) people. I dont know it was just a thought. Anyways here are a few websites that you can just click to donate, or text and donate. Even $5 would help, just think if everyone in America gave $5....that's ALOT of money :)

http://www.hope-for-haiti.blogspot.com/
https://www.compassion.com/contribution/giving/disasterrelief.htm?referer=105120SocialSponsorshipBlitz

You can text "Haiti" to 90999 and it will donate $10 to Red Cross and the $10 will be added to your phone bill.
Or you can text "disaster" to 90999 and it will donate $10 to the compassion's disaster relief program.

Please post these websites to your blog! And lets help send Haiti what they need to get back on their feet.
Now go DONATE!!!
And keep Praying!!!!

Christmas Eve.....WAY LATE :)

Christmas Eve morning, I got up and made a big breakfast for me, Graham and Addie. Then we let her open presents from us. I made her a Princess Blanket, Graham got her a Thomas the train set and we also got her a Barney. I failed to take a pic of the train (which indeed was her favorite) but here is her blanket. I like to make a present each year for her. Last year I knitted her a baby blanket, I guess I will have to make something besides a blanket next year :)

We started off our evening at Papa John's eating dinner and then opening presents. I LOVE this time, we have done it this way since I was little. It is a blast being with all my aunts, uncles and cousins and watching the kids opening presents!! Here is Addie making Papa play babies!

Next we went to Mee-Mee's house for Christmas with the Jones. I'm horrible I just got a few pics here but here is Addie and Keely playing dress up in all Addie's new Princess gear from Aunt Terri! We had a blast, then we headed home to get in bed for Santa to come :)

When we got home we took some pictures in our pj's my mom made for us then we read The Night Before Christmas with Addie and she went right to sleep.After that Uncle Sam and Graham spent an hour or so putting Addie's big presents together.

Here we go....

So the holidays are over, Graham went back to work, and I HAVE to get this BLAME weight off and be healthy! I am not going to lie, I do want to be skinny for all the vain reasons. But since I had Addie it has become more important to me to be healthy, which goes right along with being fit and skinny and looking good. I want to be able to keep up with her, I want to make sure I live long enough to see her grow up.
I haven't been so good at REALLY working out every day. I probably do it on average 3 days a week. But that isn't enough. I want to get back to the 5 days a week. That's when I saw results, I felt better, and Graham started to notice that I was looking and feeling better! So I have picked Thursdays to weight every week and I am going to report to ya'll so you can hold me accountable! I want to loose 25 pounds by the summer. And be totally Hott by my next anniversary since we are thinking Vegas or a Cruise! So come on Jullian, and no more pigging out infront of the TV!

Randoms

-Isn't my Addie the most beautiful little girl ever?? (we like to think so :))

- I went to Target tonight to take something back, I had $40 to spend....What did I buy you ask? Sweat pants, yoga pants, a sweat shirt, shoes for Addie, a book for Addie, gum. Yep I'm a boring housewife.

-Addie bit Ellie on the ear today. (it wasn't bad Ellie didn't cry, she came to me and said, "Brandy, Addie bite my ear.....it hurts....ice please" she is so cute sometimes)

-From 9:30 till 1 this morning Addie spent about 1.5 hours in the corner.

-Ellie spent about 20 mins total in the corner.

- Last night, Addie came to me and said, "Mommie, peepee" I said, " okay go (she tells me this 100 times a day and doesnt do anything)" A few minutes later I go to check on her to find her butt naked sitting on the big potty and PEEEEEEPPPEEEEing!!!! I was so proud that she told me she had to go, and I didn't have to remind her!

-My sweet little angel will be 2 in 6 weeks. Where does the time go??

-Graham FINALLY went back to work Monday, I missed him I promise.

-I am so totally excited that Scott and Nicole had their baby tonight and everyone is doing okay

-I think I will try and read some more of Breaking Dawn before I go to sleep, I only have like 200 pages left :)

-I made a quick yummy dessert tonight. Take some kind of fruit, I used apples, place in a greased baking sheet, pour over a package of cake mix (just the mix dont mix anything in it), then cut up butter all over the top and bake until it's golden. YUMMY! I promise it's not THAT bad for you!

- I feel so much better after getting back to working out! I'm sore but it feels great!

-I'm going to bed! Good night!

Saving, stocking and couponing!

I will finish on our Christmas posts later. I wanted to share some of my new obsessions.

In late October, after looking at our budget, I started couponing again. This time I have taken it to a whole new meaning. I've made a game out of it and have a blast looking and getting good deals!
When Addie was born I KNEW I didn't want to go back to work so I played with our budget and started figuring out ways to save money. I have always cooked dinner, I really enjoy it. I used to make a huge spread every night. BUt when Addie was born I started making 1 meat, such as Country Fried steak, and the first night we will have mashed potatoes, then the second night we eat the left over meat with say green beans. Sometimes the meat will last us even 3 nights and we just add another veggie. Another thing is once a week we eat a "veggie meal". I had read that it is healthy for you to eat all veggies for one night a week and it also says you money, win win!
Graham used to go out to eat every day for lunch as did I when I worked, but now he takes his lunch and that has saved us $200 a month alone. Not to mention we both lost some weight ;) I make his lunch every night, usually a sandwhich, chips, pack of crackers, some fruit, and a little debbie. Sometimes he takes soup with him but he usually likes sandwhiches. Since most of these things have long expiration dates I stock up when they are on sale. Right now I have 14 boxes of little debbies, 10 boxes of the package crackers, and probably a month worth of chips! It was a challenge to find a place to store this stuff but I have 4 huge cabinets in my laundry room (which is right off of the kitchen) that works great! I stock up on alot of stuff when it is on sale. Box juices for Addie, gummy snacks, cookies, cake and cookie and brownie mixes (I have 15 or so right now), Sugar, flour, etc.
I used to shop only at Walmart, because let's face it it's easy to get everything you need there. But after looking at receipts I realized that I was buying atleast $20 a trip of nonsense (that's %$520 a year of nonsense!!). I took a normal list to food lion and shopped........then I took the same list to BILO. I saved pretty well at FL but saved over $80 MORE at BILO! So until we get a Kroger, or Publix close to me BILO is my store. Every Sunday I get my paper and look through the ads, I mark the inserts by date and file away in my folder. Then I start looking at my fav websites (time2save.blogspot.com, southernsavers.com and mycitymommy.com).
NOTE: I used to clip all the coupons and file in categories like, food, addie stuff, bathroom etc. But have found that filing the whole insert by date and then cutting before I go, is alot easier. And it keeps me from buying things we DONT use just because it's on sale and I have a coupon. Hey spending 50 cents can add up over a year.)
When I go to the grocery store I have an idea of what I want as far as meats, but then I do ALOT of B1G1 deals. When you do these deals plus manufacturing coupons PLUS store coupons, PLUS Bonus card........you get GREAT deals!! Sunday I went to the grocery store and got groceries for 3 to 3 1/2 weeks all for $150!!!!!! When they ran my bonus card it took off alittle over $100 then I had $50 in coupons. I was THRILLED!!!
Another thing I did when I started was CVSing. I stocked up on bathroom stuff for probably 9months or so. That's another post though, CVS is the easiest game of all! ECB are you friend and I get sick to think of all the ECB i have just thrown away in the years :(
So this year I am trying to get my groceries down to $200 a month(and thats a 4 week month). I truely think this is doable, it will just take some work! Being the financial lady that I am, I am also going to pay more attention to our investments (and Addie's too!). There were so many times we should have sold stocks last year that I didn't catch because I just didnt look. I have it set up to alert me when things fall to certain levels. Afterall, we have to grow Addie's funds so she will have a nice little nest egg when she moves out ;) 2009 we spent getting rid of debt and this year we are starting off by not buying things until we can pay for them! No way around it! If we are even just alittle short we will HAVE TO WAIT! If there is one thing Graham and I agree completely on it's money. We have hardly ever had fights about it. I joke and say that he is physco and won't let me spend anything but I am the same way to him. We have NO excuse to be in big time debt, we are only 26! I'm glad we got through the tightness of last year to pay off college credit cards, and another small loan.
NOTE: I don't count a house payment and a car payment because I figure we will ALWAYS have that!
Maybe this year we can live alittle more. Maybe go out to eat more than once a month ;)
If you have any tips on how to save pass them on!!