Jackson is 3!!!

Today is Jackson's Birthday! Our "baby" is 3 years old...I am very sad he is getting so big. God has blessed us with beautiful, funny, healthy boys and we are so thankful.

I had a Weight Watchers meeting this morning and I lost 4.2 pounds since last Thursday!!! Yay for me! When I went in the meeting at 9:15 the sky was blue and everything looked good. But when I came out at 10, the sky was black. So we hurried up and loaded everyone up and went off to the theater to go watch Wall-E. It was very cute!

So after the movie we came back to the house to get ready for the party. Kim and Jamie and their 3 kids came, Kayla, Thomas, Gracie and my mom all came over. Jennifer and her 2 boys were supposed to come but they were both sick. He opened his presents and then everyone had some cake. Kyle made a T-Rex head for the cake.

From us he got a Wall-E and Eve toy, my mom got him tons of stuff for him to play with in the pool and Kim got him some boats to play with in the pool.

After everyone was done it started pouring down rain. We were supposed to leave for the water park at 3 but we had checked the radar and the weather there was just as bad. So we sat and brainstormed while we waited for the rain to let up. We decided to take the kids to the Burger King playland and get some of their energy out. Once we got there we decided to go ahead and go to the waterpark. We got there around 430 or so and had so much fun! I can't wait to go again. I forgot my camera of course, so no pics...

Free stuff from CVS!!!

So I did the CVS ECB thing yesterday.

I bought Colgate Total Advanced Whitening toothpaste.

- It was $2.99

- I had a coupon for $1.50 off

- I got it for $1.50 and I got $2 back in ECB's (Extra Care Bucks, "money" you can spend on basically anything at CVS)

- So technically I "made" .50 on this deal

I also got a $4 ECB b/c I had a problem signing in on the CVS website and customer service sent it to me.

So today I went back and bought 2 Listerine Smart Rinses.

-They are $3.49 a piece, get $3.49 back in ECB's

- I had 2 coupons for $1 off

- So the total was $5

- I had the $6 in ECB's from yesterday so I needed something that cost a dollar to make it to $6. So I got some gummi bears for .88.

- So the ECB's paid for everything I bought! It didn't cost me a penny!

(They look really small...they are 8.5 oz... but they were free!)

And I also got $6.98 in ECBs for my next visit!

The point is to keep "buying" more stuff with ECB's, it will be free or cost you very little out of pocket!

I get all my money saving ideas at Money Saving Mom.

Hey diddle diddle...

This week has been pretty low key. Monday I watched little Cooper while Lindsay went and got her hair cut. Then after lunch and naptime we all went swimming. We had so much fun and we stayed in the pool for a couple of hours. Yesterday we went to the library and they had a fiddler. The boys thought it was neat, I think they enjoyed it. (I know he is not holding a fiddle in the picture, he also played the banjo and the mandolin!)

After lunch it was rainy so we didnt swim for too long and Aidan started complaining about his tummy. After we came inside I took his temp and he was running a fever. When Kyle got home Aidan started throwing up about every half hour...poor baby! He got sick once in the night around 2 and then woke up feeling better this morning. We had been planning on going to the movies to see Open Season and he still wanted to go so off we went! We watched aout 30 minutes of the movie before he started feeling bad again so we had to skadattle out of there. He's doing better now.

The weather is nasty so we will be hanging out inside, hopefully I can keep them all entertained till daddy gets home!

Yay! I got some good deals!

Is this a bad baby or what? He is trying to "make a fire" with his 2 popsicle sticks! He is a cutie!

We finally got our pool! We were waiting to get some sand to level out the area for the pool but we couldn't b/c of the rain. I was talking to a friend about it on Thursday that has the same pool and she told me that the instructions say not to use sand! So we have been waiting for nothing! But it is filling up tonight...slowly but surely and hopefully we can enjoy it after church tomorrow.

We decided to go out to eat at Ryans since I had a coupon. The coupon was that 2 kids eat free with the purchase of a adult meal. So all six of us ate for $25! When we were walking in someones car alarm was going off and Tyler stuck his fingers in his ears right as the alarm turned off. So then he says "I didn't know that car alarm had turned off, I just thought that (plugging his ears) worked really well!" (I guess you had to be there...it was funny!). Anyways, while we were eating Aidan is acting all weird as usual and is playing with his food. All of a sudden he says "Hey, look! Cornbread!". He is SO funny sometimes.

I have been reading lots of blogs about being frugal. I learned that to get the best deal for the stuff you need you find a coupon for it and then look for it to be on sale at your local stores.That is what I did with the Ban deodorant (below). So I am excited about trying this with my Sunday paper weekly ads and coupons tomorrow and getting some good deals.

I did some shopping today:

-CVS: I got Ban deodorant- reg. $3.49

-on sale for $1.99

-used a coupon for $1 off

-so I only paid .99 cents!

I also got CVS brand baby soap for free! reg. $1.99

-I used a coupon for $2 off any CVS brand skincare product

-so it was free!

-Target: Oral B Cross Action Power Toothbrushes (Value Pack- 2 refills)

-on sale for $5

-used a coupon for buy one get one free

-so I paid $2.50 a piece

On one of the endcaps I found a white fabric shower curtain marked down to $5.94!

The boys need one for their bathroom and I never could find one. The ones at Walmart

are all vinyl and are at least $10! So I am really excited about this deal!

Summer Camp at Home

I found this blog, http://lizardhippie.blogspot.com/ and it had an idea that I am going to try with my kids. She calls it "Summer Camp at home". Its basically a plan for everyday of the week. I have decided to do:

Cooking on Monday- Letting the kids make a snack with me, like rice crispies treats
Library on Tuesday- They have a craft at the library on these days
Movies on Wednesday- Free movies at Untited Artists!
Field Trip on Thursday- Go to a park or the fountain or a friends
And Friday is arts and crafts day- We all make a fun craft

So we'll see how this works out!

Whew! VBS is over!

Our church had VBS this week and I was the Bible verse teacher for 3-4 year olds. It wasn't too bad, but 3 and 4 year olds don't retain information very well so it was mildly frustrating for me because a majority of them could not even remember the verse when they walked out of class!



Anyways, a friend of mine from church works from 12-5 but wanted her son to be able to attended VBS from 9-12. So she asked me to bring him home with me until she got off. So he has been here all week too. SO I have had 5 boys here everyday this week and I am tired!



Wednesday I brought the boys to the fountains again. The kids love it but there is no shade for the parents, so we only stay for about 30 minutes.





I have been thinking about joining Weight Watchers for a while and I finally went to meeting Thursday morning. I really hate it. I am used to just eating whatever whenever so I am miserable right now. One day if I lose any weight I will do a before and after picture but don't hold your breath. It will be a while.

Our Fathers Day Weekend

I am trying to remember what we did Saturday...I think we did pretty much nothing that morning. Kyle left at 11:30 to go play in a golf tournament. Beckie came and got the kids at one and brought them to see Kung Fu Panda. After that I went to the mall and bought a wallet for Kyle for Fathers Day. I had gotten a $10 off coupon in the mail for spending $10 or more, so I got a $25 wallet for $15. Yay! I went and picked up lunch and rented some old Desperate Housewives dvds and went home and relaxed in the recliner and watched my show!

I was supposed to go play Bunco with Lindsays group Saturday night but the hostess called her that morning and told her she was sick and couldnt do it and no one elses house was ready. So a couple of the girls (and me) that were supposed to play met at Casa instead and had dinner.

Kyle had a really good time at the tournament, he and his partner tied with some other guys for 2nd but lost the tie and ended up coming in 3rd. They played until almost 8 o' clock!

So Kyle had wanted some ridculously expensive golf balls for Fathers Day...Titleist ProV1's. I couldn't pay that much for them so I made him go get them, so technically I wasn't paying $50 for 12 golf balls, he was. Anyways, he thought that was all he was getting for Fathers Day so it was a nice suprise on Sunday when we gave him his other presents. I got him a shirt (from Academy that was marked down to $4.88!), a Nike golf towel, a wallet, and a subscription to Golf magazine.

We went to church and then had lunch at Casa (again). Luckily for us the U.S. Open was on ALL DAY so thats what we did for Fathers Day...we watched golf. Well, not really all of us...mostly just Kyle. We only catch NBC on the tv upsatirs in our bedroom...the kids played downstairs with the Wii and I watched Desperate Housewives on my laptop. It was actually a relaxing afternoon for everybody. Kyle was in the mood for wings for dinner, so I went and got him some from Buffalo Wild Wings. I got the garlic roasted mushrooms, they were disgusting and expensive, so don't ever get those.

The Big One

We have decided to get the big pool...YAY! We were supposed to get the sand to put in the yard to even out the ground where the pool is going to be today but it rained and apparently you can't get sand if its wet?!? It takes a couple of days to dry out so it looks like no pool this weekend. I was hoping to have it for Fathers Day, oh well...

Tyler woke up at 7:30 this morning and threw up...but was mostly fine the rest of the day. He was quiet and not his usual self but his stomach hasn't really been bothering him, so thats good. He didn't eat his supper which is VERY unusual but is watching golf with his daddy and relaxing right now. The boy loves to eat! I did an online BMI calculator with his height and weight and he is over weight! Me and him both need to go on a diet.

Since Tyler was feeling better I decided to make a cookie cake for Kyle for Fathers Day and bring it up to his work. We went to the Dollar Tree where they had Fathers Day balloons for a dollar and I got one for each of the kids to give to him. It was funny b/c I asked the kids what they thought their daddy would say and they said"Awww...thanks guys!" and that was exactly what Kyle said. SO predictable!

After we got home Aidan and Jackson wanted to play with playdough and Aidan made me out of playdough:

I thought it was pretty good for a 4 year old!

I love me some clearance!!!

So, I didn't post yesterday b/c I wasn't feeling well and we really didnt do anything. Today we went to storytime and ran some errands around town. Jackson cant make up his mind about what kind of birthday party he wants to have so we went to Party City to let him look around. They had some Crayola Color Explosion Notebook things marked down to $2 but when I got to the register they were only .50 cents!




Getting stuff on sale is lots of fun for me! SO anyways I got one for all of the boys. We picked Kyle up from work and went and ate at Mr.Gatti's for lunch...mmmmm! We had B.A.M. tonight at church, it went well, I think the kids are enjoying it. They learned about some missionaries in Nepal. We are debating on the Target pool that is 12x36 and is $185 or the Sam's Club pool that is 15x48 and $284...decisions, decisions!

David and Goliath and a car wash

I haven't been doing a bible time with the kids since Kyle does one with them when he puts them to bed. But I felt like we should also do one in the mornings. So, today we did David and Goliath. It went ok...the little ones can't sit still. I asked them to all draw a picture about the story. Tyler, Colby, and Aidan all drew a picture of David and Goliath, and Tyler even drew Goliaths shield carrier. Jackson drew a car wash.

Usually I stay home on Mondays and do laundry but my dryer hasn't been drying, it has just been heating up our wet clothes. So we stayed home and didn't really do anything productive today. Kyle worked on it when he got home so we will see if it works! He is going to get us a pool for the boys, they have one on sale at Target right now. But he has to level off part of the yard first so there is no telling when we will actually get the pool...I figured that would be something fun that we can all do. I hate being out in the heat so I hardly ever do anything outside with the boys. Also they do not know how to swim so maybe I can teach them a little myself instead of having to do lessons. We'll see!

Our weekend

Saturday we all got up and went garage sale(ing). We didn't get too much, it was pretty disappointing. I got some placemats that I am going to turn into totes like this:

We also got an Elvis wig which the kids wanted to model :




Kyle did some yardwork Saturday afternoon. We had a Sunday School class party so we went and visited with everyone. We went to church Sunday and we are currently teaching the 1st grade girls. They are so quiet and polite! I went and helped my mom clean after church and Kyle took the two older boys to play golf... boring weekend!




Jackson is so funny. He has been asking these off the wall questions : Wha woo hapem if der wa a allidader on dis bwidge? Wa woo hapem if der wa a ellapint on we howse? I wonder where this comes from? He is so cute!

Jack Jack has a boo-boo...

I brought Jackson to the dr this morning. Has a cut or something that got infected in between his big toe and his second toe and it made a callous and was all filled with pus underneath. (EWWW!!!) He had been fussing about his toe for a day or two but he would just point at it and say it hurt. We didn't see anything so we just gave him a bandaid (it always makes him feel better to have one). Yesterday I was putting on his shoes and I noticed the underneath of his toes and saw how the top of his foot was red and streaky and a little swollen. So we made an appt for his today with Dr. Landry and he gave us an oral and topical antibiotic. He said is could have been an ant bite or a cut or even a blister that just got infected.

Dave came and stayed with the other boys while I took Jackson. After we were done I went back and picked up the boys and we brought Kyles suit jacket to the cleaners and picked up Jacksons meds and then went to Walmart . So we were all pretty tired from running errands and have been totally lazy the rest of the day! Jacksons foot is bothering him though...poor baby!

We are planning on going garage sale(ing) in the morning, the WHOLE family...so we will see how that goes! Jackson has been running a fever tonight with his infection so we will see how he feels in the morning...

Pretty boring day...

Today I spent most of my morning trying to figure out the whole blog thing. Lindsay called and invited me to lunch with the kids at McDonalds. So we went! I was supposed to take the big boys back to the library to make a craft but the little ones took a late nap and it was too late for us to leave by the time they woke up. So I watched her son Cooper while she ran an errand, he is so sweet and cute!

So for this summer I sort of have a schedule for the kids... they fix their own breakfast in the am, we usually have honeybuns or cereal or poptarts. Then they play or watch tv or play the wii for a little while in the morning, unless we have somewhere to be. We have a snack around 10 and then they play outside or play with playdough or something like that. We have lunch at 12 or 12:30 and then the little ones go down for a nap at 1 till about 2:30. I have been trying to get the big boys motivated to read some book this summer so during naptime there is no t.v. or wii. They can either stay in the air conditioned house and read or go play outside. Yesterday they wanted to read on the porch...

Wednesday...

Wednesday we went back to the library for storytime...it was pretty boring, the kids did a little craft and then we went home. Later on that afternoon I got a call from my best friend saying that she was in an ambulance on the way to the hospital with her 5 year old saying something about his foot almost being cut off. So I went and met her at the hospital and stayed with her until they got him all stitched up. He is doing fine but we are praying for there to be no infection...WARNING! IF YOU ARE GROSSED OUT BY BLOOD AND STITCHES DO NOT LOOK AT THE PICTURES!

Busy Day

The library had their registration for storytime so we went and got everyone signed up. They had all kinds of crafts and fun things for the kids to do.

Colbys team were the champions of their league and had their closing ceremonies Tuesday evening. He was #2 in the batting order and only struck out 2 times the whole season.

Tylers team were also the champions of their team...they were undefeated! They did not have closing ceremonies but they did have a pool party at the coaches house. I ordered some professional shots that I will post when I get them...

Afternoon at the fountain

I am going to start with Monday of this week. Me and the kids went to a local fountain and they ran around and cooled off in the water. They had fun and I got a little sun.

I have no idea what I am doing...

Ok...so here is my very first "blog". I wanted to create a blog so I could document with pictures what me and the kids do all day and also so my hubby doesnt think I sit on the computer all day long...I do take breaks to get a little housework done...