WHERE HAS THE TIME GONE?

You know your getting old when you start forgetting the littlest things. Uggghhhh, I am now closer to 40 than I am 30! Yikes!!!!! Anyhoo, I was looking for recent photos I saved about a week ago on our computer so that I could do a little catch up on our blog and I can't find them! I honestly can't remember where I put them. And I bet it was one of those "I'll save it here because it will be easy to find!". Hmmmmmm, apparently, NOT so easy! LOL. Oh well, as a result of my searching I came across photos of my kids when they were smaller. It was so fun to reminisce and so sad to realize my babies are no longer babies any more. They have grown up so much and so fast! So here's a few of my favorites I found.

The above picture I love because Ethan wanted so badly to ride in the bumper cars with the big kids. Obviously, he is way to small and trying his darndest to take a peek. The following picture, don't you think it just reeks of Ethan's personality?! Awwww, he was such a little stinker back then.

These Boots Were Made 4 Walkin ...

I've been wanting a pair of boots for sooooooo long but just haven't found the right pair. All I could find were ones where the heel was too high (good luck walking in those) or to gaudy or wouldn't fit over my calves (that's frustrating), and last of all how crazy expensive they seemed to be. But now that I've lost weight and have smaller calves I couldn't believe how much easier it was for boots to fit. So yayyyyyy for me, the search for the perfect boot has resumed! Just after Christmas I took a stroll into Macy's just to check it out and staring at me were the cutest boots ever! Well, I thought so anyway. Chad not so much. But then again, do you remember this post I did back in March 2009? So, his opinion on footwear doesn't count anymore! Sorry hon, but it's true! LOL.


I was so happy when these $120 boots were on sale for $59.95. But very sad when they didn't have my size! Uggghhhhh, hate it when that happens! Days went by and I just didn't have the time to check out the other Macy's in Boise until a couple of weeks later. The kids had Martin Luther King day off so we decided to head over to the mall and see if they had my size. The only way they agreed to go and behave themselves was for me to promise a trip to Chuck E. Cheese afterwards. Hmmmmm, I really should have thought that one through a little better!

We made it to Macy's and I found the same boot but there was no SALE price on them. So I asked the helper guy if they were on sale for the $59.95 as they had been a couple of weeks ago at the Nampa Macy's. He turned the boot over and seeing the $120 price tag highly doubted that they would be on sale for that much as it would make them 50% off. But being that we were not in Jersey he was more than happy to go and check. All you Jersey friends you know what I'm talking about, don't you?! LOL. After he rang them up he looked at me kind of weird and I couldn't help but ask "So are they on sale?" He just grinned and said, "They are much better than that?" You'll never guess what they rang up for? $29.95! And . . . they had my size!!!!! I was one happy customer and nothing was going to ruin my day! Not even Chuck E. Cheese!

CHRISTMAS IN CANADA

For Christmas we decided to drive the 11 hours to Canada to visit both sets of parents. The drive was actually pretty smooth until we crossed the border and found this!



I'd forgotten just how much snow Southern Alberta can get! On the other hand, Ethan was in heaven! He did a lot of this:


and a lot of this:

Actually, I have a funny story about Ethan and the picture of him in his bathrobe. So, grandpa Wolff had Christmas music playing outside his house and I was in the living room and noticed through the open blinds that Ethan was out on the front sidewalk dancing away in his robe and shooting off his gun to the beat of the music not having a care in the world. I thought it was hilarious. It was kind of "Christmas Vacation" like. Anyhoo, you had to be there to see it. It was pretty funny. Wish we had it on camera. It was sure nice to go home and spend time with family since it had been 4 years since we had been there for the Christmas holidays. We were taken really good care of and it was really sad to say bye at the end of the week. I will add that it wasn't sad to say goodbye to all that snow! Here's some other pictures of our Christmas holiday for you to check out.

*** CLICK ON EACH PICTURE TO ENLARGE ***

EDYN'S FIRST DANCE RECITAL

This is mostly for the grandparents since my mom was begging me awhile back to make sure that I recorded Edyn's dance at the Festival of Trees and post it on here. Since Edyn did a much better job for her actual recital, that was this past Saturday, that's the one I'm going to post. So here's the cutest tap dancer ever! Well, at least her mother thinks so.



After the recital was finished all the kids were up on the stage and the parents were asked to walk up there and get their children.

Edyn was so cute when we handed her her flowers and she kept saying "These are for me? These are for me?!". I love that she loves her dance class and her teacher, Ms. Amber, is amazing!

She is so good with the kids and goes way beyond what you would expect a dance teacher to do. Thank you Ms. Amber, the show was fabulous!

Here's a couple of pictures I took of Edyn today after her dance class and the first one she just wouldn't stand still for and the second picture I just love. Wish I had a cooler background for it instead of our kitchen. LOL.

I'm a Couponer! Is that even a word?!

Thanks to a Relief Society meeting a couple of months ago I had no idea that this even existed! Couponing! I thought it was even funny that it had it's own title. Some great info was shared and at first I was a little timid and very slow at it but here I am three months later and I absolutely love flyers and coupons and finding the next deal! Another funny thing is that whenever we visited my sister she always had coupons pinned up on her cork board and Chad and I were relentless in making fun of her and all her coupons. Anytime anyone made a suggestion of something to do Chad and I were right there to add "Do you have a coupon for it?!". I know, we were cruel! LOL. So to Shaneen, I apologize! I finally see the light!

So without going into too much of all the details of how I do it, because that would probably take all day, I'll just show you a few of my deals that I picked up today at Albertsons. My trip to Albertsons today consisted of three trips to the cashier. Here is my first purchase.

Any guesses to what I paid for it?!

$35.44! What should have been $103.19 only cost me $35.44. I saved $67.75! And the best thing about this purchase was I bought the required items to receive $10 to spend on my next purchase. And your not seeing things, that is 11 boxes of cereal on that table! I love it when I save more than I spend! So of course, I used that $10 on this next purchase.

Any guesses to what I paid for this one?!

$5.63! What should have been $36.48 only cost me $5.63. I saved $30.85! And again, the best thing about this purchase was I bought the required items to receive $10 to spend on my next purchase. And finally, here is what I bought for the third purchase.

(Ooooops - Forgot to include in this picture
the 2 big packages with 24 bottled water each!)

$12.28! What should have been $53.67 only cost me $12.28. I saved $41.39!

So my GRAND TOTAL spent for the day for all of these items was $53.35.
TOTAL SAVINGS = $139.99!
Now, I know I didn't go too much into detail about how I go about this but I do have to say that I spent a good few hours last night making a plan and going back through piles of flyers from the past few months and websites to get the right coupons to stack to get the most for my dollar. But after shopping today and seeing what I brought home it was well worth it! Anyone wanna come over for breakfast tomorrow morning?! Cereal is on the menu! LOL.