Mr. Valentine Visits The Grimmett's

The kids are both tucked snug in their beds.

With visions of cards and candy going through their heads.

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You see, tomorrow is February 1st

So, soon valentines will be dispersed.

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Mr. Valentine will make his nightly round,

And if all of the toys are picked up off the ground

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In the morning the kids will find,

Cards and stickers and chocolate divine.

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Can you believe it's February already?

Puke Update

After puking-round 2 last night, Shaun decided not to stay and ref the game after his and to come home and help me out. I requested that he stop on his way home to get some sprite for the poor girl.

I am so not a big fan of giving my kids pop. (This is a battle between Shaun and I) It is So sO SO unhealthy for you. So when I poured some in a cup to give to her I just called it Sprite, not pop. She didn't like the way it felt on her throat and didn't want to drink it. Well, the genius Daddy told her it was pop and all the sudden she liked it. (At this time I had made her a bed on the floor next to our bed, because she had already gone through both sheet sets for her bed, and I was laying in our bed.) She looked up at me and said, "Thanks pop girl!" I couldn't help but laugh!

Then approximately 5 minutes later she was at it again, barfing everything up! Pretty sure the pop didn't even help!

Let's just say, I'm a walking zombie today! And Maisey is back to normal!

What a night!

Nothing like cleaning up your kid's puke,

TWICE

in the same hour while the hubby is off playing basketball!

Deals vs. Drugs . . .

. . . But NOT dealing drugs. That's important to note!

If my husband/mom/sisters/friends didn't know that I was couponing, I'm sure they would think I was doing drugs because of some of the following phrases:

"Once I started I was hooked"
"I get such a high from doing this"
"I just did an awesome deal"
"I've got to run and do this one deal real quick"
"This is so addicting"
"A friend got me hooked on this"

I'm sure there are several other phrases I've said in the past 3 weeks.

But all of the above phrases are so true.

And sometimes I feel like I'm doing something illegal when I walk out of Fred Meyer with 8 free boxes of Ziploc bags (and 8 coupon books!) but I'm so NOT! It's just smart shopping and pairing up coupons with sales. The women who run the hardcore couponing blogs are amazing!

Well, I reached another "first" in my new couponing adventures. My very own "deal" that I came up with all on my own! 2 boxes of free bagel bites from Albertsons! Maisey loves bagel bites and they are perfect for dinner on the nights we leave her with a babysitter.

And for some reason, they just taste better when they are free. :)

Spokane Trip Round 3: Fun Fun Fun!

We were only in Spokane for 3 days, but we did several other really fun things while we were there!

We went to Riverfront Park in downtown Spokane so Maisey could ride the carousel! This was the first time that she rode the horse by herself! She was so brave! And Grandpa spoiled her and let her ride 3 times!

We played lots of Rock Band, featuring Daddy and Brother on the Mic. . .

. . . and Maisey on the drums!

(I played the guitar, but in all of my pictures I have this really serious stare that isn't very attractive, so I'll pass on posting those!)

The dog, Madison, loves to sit up on the top of the couch to watch out the window. Well, Maisey found that spot to be pretty comfy too!

Maisey got to take Madison on a walk! She sure loves that dog and since we've been home she's only asked me for a dog 10 bazillion times!

Don't worry, my answer is ALWAYS no!

We are looking forward to heading back up this Spring for Grandpa's PhD Graduation and so Maisey can get her puppy fix in again until the summer!

Spokane Trip Round 2: Chuck E' Cheese

Grandpa promised Maisey that he would take her to Chuch E' Cheese. Everyone had a great time, including Nick and Nathaniel (who were, at first, embarrassed to be seen there!)

Gage and Daddy played in front of the green screen.

Maisey made up her own rules to ski-ball. Which, by the way, I was the ski-ball champ! :)

Grandma hung out with Gage and fed him his lunch.

Maisey and Mommy played lots of games while Daddy, Janel, Grandpa, Nick, and Nathaniel played lots of basketball. Daddy ended up winning the bonus by scoring more than 50 points and he one 100 tickets. Everybody combined all of their tickets to buy Maisey a Princess diary. She loves it!

Thanks for such a fun day Grandpa!

9 Months

I can't believe Gage been out of me longer than he was in me!

He has been my sweet little boy this month.

He sleeps through the night, hates when mommy leaves the room, takes awesome naps, always has to be in mommy's sight, eats well, plays well, loves his mommy, doesn't snuggle, loves walks and to be outside, always wants mommy, and scoots all around the house--BACKWARDS. Oh, and did I mention, He's a Momma's Boy?

He always sleeps with his feet crossed! So cute! Even more cute when they are propped up!

He loves teething biscuits, wagon wheels and yogurt melts. Also ice cream, peaches, cantaloupe, honey dew, toast, and anything else we are eating!

What a little man!

Our Future All-Star

Love him!

Happy 9 months big guy! Before we know it we'll be planning your mission farewell!

For all the moms out there

My sister sent me this:

I was out walking with my 4-year-old daughter..
She picked up something off of the ground and Started to put it in her mouth.
I took the item away from her and I asked her not to do that.
'Why?' my daughter asked.
'Because it's been on the ground;
You don't know where it's been, it's dirty, And probably has germs,' I replied.
At this point, my daughter looked at me
With total admiration and asked,
'Mama, how do you know all this stuff?
You are so smart..'
I was thinking quickly and replied,
'All moms know this stuff.... It's on the Mama Test.
You have to know it, or they don't let you be a Mama.'
We walked along in silence for 2 or 3 minutes, But she was evidently pondering this new information.
'Oh.....I get it!' she beamed,
'So if you don't pass the test you have to be the dad.'
'Exactly,' I replied with a big smile on my face.

:)

A Few Lessons Learned

5 boxes Fruit by the Foot
10 boxes Life Cereal
3 boxes Gushers
2 boxes Quaker Instant Oatmeal
6 large bananas
2 packages of Lever 2000 soap
10 Gerber 2nd foods
Total: $17.70
Catalinas: $6.25
GRAND TOTAL: $11.45

And $8.75 of that was the baby food

So with out the baby food my total would have been $2.70

Plus one thing I learned, I should have split up my fruit snacks into 2 different transactions because I could have recieved an extra dollar in catalinas bringing my total to $1.70 for everything! Oh well, next time!

Another bonus of the night: I'm pretty sure I found my favorite checker at Safeway! He was AWESOME! And really surprised about how I got everything so cheap! He even doubled some of my "do not double" coupons! I'll definitely be finding his line again!

Any ideas on how to score cheap baby food? This stuff is killing me!

Spokane Trip Round 1: Airport

Maisey could hardly stand the wait of going on an airplane! She told everyone all week that she was going on an airplane to grandma and grandpa's house.

We got to the airport 2 hours early because my mom had get back for a meeting, so we hung out outside of security for a while. They have a kids play place so Maisey played with legos and went on the slide. Then we ate lunch at Panda Express (Maisey's favorite!)

After lunch we headed to our gate. We still had about 30 minutes until we boarded, so Daddy was nice enough to take Maisey on the moving walk ways. But she had to have her back pack. She was going to be a hard core traveler.

Here's Maisey on the plane. She loved to "read" the safety card. We didn't have to take any toys out of her back pack at all. She was so entertained with watching out the window, the saftey card, the sky mall magazine, and her apple juice. Plus it's only an hour flight!

Here's the dude with the pilot! I took a pic of Maisey on her first flight with the pilot too. Gage did pretty well, he's really squirmy and hard to entertain, but at least he wasn't crying!

Coming up next: Spokane Trip Round 2: Chuck E' Cheese

Our Happenings

Our desktop is back up and running, so that means I have lots of pics! :)

2 weeks ago, Maisey went to her cousin, Madi's birthday party. It was at Build A Bear and Maisey had so much fun.

Of course, she picked a blue bear!

Here she is watching it get stuffed. She was mesmorized!

Maisey named her bear "4". So here she is giving 4 a bath!

Maisey sitting by the birthday girl!

The whole party! It was pretty chaotic and they went to Red Robin after, but Maisey was melting down so we decided to head home for nap! (Maisey is on the bottom row, second from the left.

Maisey's new potty dress

We've also been doing some serious potty training! She LOVES dresses so I told her I would buy her a new dress if she started going potty on the big girl potty. It worked like a charm. Every morning when it's time to get dressed she asks to wear a dress. I let her but if she wets in her undies she has to put pants on! Pretty good deal right? Well, she hasn't worn pants at all for the last 3 days. We've even ventured to the library twice and wal-mart once in undies! She has done so awesome!

For her first day staying dry in undies all day we bought her a Dora movie.

I also took the kids swimming 2 weeks ago! Since I was going by myself I thought I would take a pic before we left. I didn't think I could manage the camera and two kids by myself! They were both so excited to go!

It's been a week. . .

. . . since I posted last.

My sisters keep reminding me!

My free time has been consumed by learning how to coupon. Hopefully I can get the hang of it and it will start coming easier to me!

Our desktop won't connect to the internet for some reason, so I can't post pics from Madi's birthday party that Maisey went to. It was at Build-A-Bear and Maisey LOVED it! We haven't seen Daddy too much this week, so when he isn't so busy and the kids have caught up on their dad time maybe I will ask him to fix it.

Maisey said to me this morning, "Mommy, I'm having a bad day." I asked her why and she said, "Because Daddy hasn't played with me in a long time." Isn't that so sad?

Good thing we are going to Spokane this weekend and hopefully the kids get all of the Daddy time they need.

Last night Maisey was sad too, so I told her that after brother went to bed, her and I would do something special. We decided to paint toe nails. I did hers and . . .

. . . she did mine! Not too bad huh? (Sorry this pic is so poor quality, it's from my phone then emailed to the laptop--remember, the desktop is broken!)

Well, I should probably start packing! We leave in less than 24 hours! Wooohooo!!!

Maisey Moment

So I took the kids swimming today and when we got to the locker room a senior swim class was just finishing so there were a bunch of old women in there changing.

Maisey says really loud to me, "Mommy, that lady has really big nipples."

My only hope is that because they were so old, they couldn't hear very well.

You're probably thinking "what are you teaching your 2 year old?" Well when she asks us what body parts are, we tell her the truth! So don't judge!

I'm pretty sure. . .

. . . I kicked motherhood's butt this week. I have made dinner 9 of the last 10 nights, I have gone to the library twice, play group once, took both my kids swimming BY MYSELF, organized Maisey's hair pretty shelf (pic to come later), laid down for about 20 minutes during nap time on Wednesday, and I'm going on a date with Shaun tonight! :)

It was a good week. . .

And no joke, Maisey just walked in my room and told me she pooped. (She's wearing undies!) Maybe I won't brag so much next time!

Dora Junkie

I saw Maisey take something away from one of the girls that I babysit and she said, "You'll never find it now." Followed by an evil cackle.

Thanks swiper!

My first couponing experience

Earlier today I saw a post on a friend from Spokane's blog about a cracker deal at Safeway. It sounded easy, so I logged onto Shaun's face book account, made him a fan on wheat thins, printed off the coupon, printed off two more coupons and waalaa. . . 5 boxes of free crackers from Safeway!

One of my goals this year is to start spending less at the grocery store and start using more of what we have! This is a great start to my goal! Thanks for the post Celeste.

I'm going to start following Frugal Chic Living because we have a lot of the same stores here and I can't seem to find a coupon site for our area!

A few of my projects

My first project: Homemade Baby Food. I was a little disappointed in this project. Gage wanted nothing to do with it. He didn't like the vegetables at all and the fruit wasn't worth making (i.e. it was just as much money to make it then it is to buy it). So at least I can scratch one weekly thing off my list.

I think I am done with my organizing project! Thank goodness, because I'm pretty sure the checkers at Wal-mart were getting pretty tired of seeing me there EVERY day! Which is more often then the normal every other day!

I put all of our wrapping paper and bows in one tub, and all of our gift bags and tissue paper in another. The top tub will be taken to the shed as soon as Shaun takes down our Christmas lights.

Baby clothes on top, baby gear underneath!

More baby clothes. . .

. . . and more!

You should see my shed! It has twice that many bins in it! Mostly full of holiday decorations. And not to mention each of the kids' closets has a couple bins in there as well. I told you it was a MAJOR project!

On to my next projects:

Organizing Maisey's hair pretties, and the whole shelf.

Organizing my craft closet with the end goal of getting anything craft related into this closet and out of the garage, cupboards above the laundry, kitchen, and play room closet. We'll see. . .

Catch Up Time!

I just posted a series of posts but I back dated them so they would still be in 2009, because when I get my blog book printed I want them to be in the 2009 book, not the 2010 one!

Here are the links:

Sunriver

Christmas Morning

Christmas Eve

Christmas Light Display

Enjoy!

New Year's Eve

Games, Ice Cream, Sparkling Cider at 12:00 AM EST (Maisey's first toast :)), Put Maisey to bed, Watch The Express. Go to bed at 11:00 PM PST!

Happy New Year!