and to all a goodnight.."

It's a little after Christmas now, but I hope everyone enjoyed their Christmas spending time with friends and family, and celebrating the birth of Jesus!

We are spending a few days with the Sell's. We went to the Christmas Eve service last night with Matt's family, have had a nice Christmas day. We exchanged gifts, had a nice Christmas dinner, played some Wii and just hung out. It was nice just to do much of nothing all day and just hang out and relax.

We will head to B'ham in a few days as well, and spend some time with my family.

Hard to believe in a week it will be 2010! Can't wait to see what is in store.

Christmas morning

our little present

Macie posing in front of the tree

Family picture

Our Christmas decorations

our tree

Family Picture in Front of the tree

Spending time in B'ham

Posing with Tyler, Megan, and Bear

opening our gift from Tyler and Megan

mom and dad posing

me and Tyler

Merry Christmas to all and to all a goodnight!

Giving Thanks

Today we celebrate all we are thankful for! I am so thankful for our wonderful families, friends, good health, a home to provide shelter, jobs, freedom, the men and woman fighting for our country and so many other blessings, that we don't deserve.

Let us not only remember how thankful we are on this day, but every day of the year.
Sometimes its hard not to get caught up in the everday things of life, and really think aboutall of the blessings that we are given.
So, on today and every day, let's try to remember even the smalls things, that make us thankful.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here are some pictures from our Thanksgiving at my aunt's house.

Hanging out with my little cousins

Playing with the leaves

Everyone say Cheese!

Our fall decor

3rd Anniversary!

Yesterday Matt and I celebrated out third anniversary! I can't believe its been 3 years since we got married. Everything goes by so fast!
We have gotten to experience alot in this third year, and I can't wait to see whats in store for the next year.Some of the things we have done this year:

-Went to Disney World the day after we celebrated our 2nd anniversary.
- Purchased a new car. After driving the same car since I was 16 I said goodbye to the Sentra and got a Nissan Altima.- Matt's dad's family came down and we had them over to our house for the first time, to celebrate Christmas with them before heading to B'ham to celebrate Christmas with my family.
-Matt completed his 4th year of teaching.
-I celebrated my second anniversary with Merial.- We attended my cousins wedding in B'ham.
- Traveled to Las Vegas over Spring Break. My first time to go!
- Traveled to Michigan in June, for Matt's cousins wedding.- Went to the beach with my family over the 4th, our yearly tradition.

Our trip to Las Vegas was an early anniversary celebration, so for our official anniversary last night we went out to eat at one of our favorite rest., Stoney River, who by the way has the best rolls in the world! We rented a movie afterwards and then headed to bed to get ready for work the next day.
Here is a picture of us from our wedding day 3 years ago:

and us on our third anniversary:

Coming soon, another post on couponing, a belated post on Vegas, and house updates.

Kate minus Jon and the 8

About a month ago some friends and I went to see Kate Gosselin speak at Roswell United Methodist Church.

Tickets were just $5 for balcony and since I have been following the show for a while now I really wanted to hear her speak in person.

My neighbor Kelly and I rode together and met up with friends from my small grup Nicole and Jennifer as well as Nicole's friend Allison. We ate some dinner and then headed to the church.

It was pretty crowded although the church was fairly large, but suprisingly it did not completely fill up, there were still spots in the balcony.

Many of us were wondering what she was going to speak about esp. since recent rumors have been circulating about Jon and Kate separating.

Some pictures came out recently of Jon at a bar with some college students while he was away at his mom's taking care of her. Since then the media has been speculating all sorts of things and still is I think.

So we were all curious if she would mention this at all, which turns out she didn't.

Mainly she spoke of "their story" from when she and Jon meet, having the twins and finding out they were having sextuplets and she also answered some questions about the show.

She shared how her faith has always been a part of their story and leaning on God for strength through the trying times and the good times.

Afterwards she signed autographs and signed copies of her book. Kelly and I decided to wait out the line and I got my book signed. It was very quick but we got to speak to her for just a moment as she was signing and we also got to get some up close pictures while we were waiting in line as well.

Here are some pictures from the event.

Home improvements

There are always little things I think of that I would like to do to our house, I guess that is never ending.


I have a list of things that I at some point I would like to do in regards to decorating/changing some things up.

One thing I have wanted to do for a long time is paint our breakfast nook.
I thought about this soon after we moved in, just to give the living room/breakfast area a little something.

Our living room and breakfast area flow together and it would take so much to paint our entire living room, but the breakfast nook is a pretty small area, so I thought it wouldn't be too hard to paint it.

We searched out colors and bought three small sample sizes of different shades of red.
Originally I thought I wanted to do a tan/beige, just a little darker than the color of our walls now, but after thinking about it more and with my mom's thoughts as well I wanted to do something with more color to make it stand out.
So I started looking at reds.

After trying out three small sections on the wall we picked the red that we liked the best.

Now, note to anyone wanting to do red, b/c it is so dark and bold if you start with a white wall you must first do a coat of primer and then most likely 2 coats of the red.

Thank goodness it was a small space b/c an entire red room could take quite a while with doing three coats.

I think it turned out good and we even found some cheap art from Old Time Pottery to complete the look. I also picked up some fake lemons and red apples to use as the centerpeice and replace the green apples I had before.

Here is the completed project:

Several things to post about and couponing!

So, I realize again it has been over a month since I have written.
I have several things to post about from the last month or so.

Several things in upcoming post include:
A home improvement
Kate Gosselin
Family wedding
Our trip to Vegas!
My new obsession, couponing!!

I want to also change up my background but that will have to wait until I am at home seeing as how my computer at work is giving me trouble in doing this.

Because this is fresh on my mind today and I am very excited about this, I wanted to blog about my new hobby:

Couponing!

After reading many other blogs about couponing and all of the money that people save, I have started to pay more attentions to the weekly coupons and sale ads.
Not that we haven't used coupons in the past, but there really is a art to getting the most out of your coupons and getting the most savings.

For the last several weeks Matt and I both have been looking over the ads to see what's on sale and also collecting the weekly coupons.

We try to find the things that we use on a normal basis first, and then always check out the BOGO items at Publix.

Typically the two stores we shop at are Publix and Walmart.
Generally we shop at Walmart for most things b/c it is cheaper than Publix for things we typically use.
We go to Publix for the BOGO items b/c this makes items even cheaper than Walmart at times, and when buying produce and meat.
The great bonus to the BOGO items are that you don't have to purchase two items to get the price, you can purchase one item and get the half off price, which is great.
Latley we have started checking out Kroger b/c they run lots of great sale's as well.

So to the couponing..

There are two sites that I really like that are dedicated to coupoining/saving money:
couponmom.com
southernsavers.com

Couponmom.com has many links on the site and updates its coupons weekly. You can print them out and there are usually 6-7 pages of coupons. There are some silly coupons mixed in, but most are very useful.

Southern Savers.com is a website that list the weekly ads for Publix, Kroger, CVS, etc.
For example, with Publix it list all of the BOGO offers for the week and then out beside the item on sale it gives a printable coupon.

Sometimes it will refer back to a coupon from a previous weeks coupon circular from the paper, so to take full advantage you have to keep all of the coupons from previous weeks, of course until they expire. I file mine in our file cabinet and have a separate hanging folder for each week, then just toss the ones I haven't used when they expire and that frees up a folder for the next weeks.

There are many other sites out there these are just two that I like.

So on to my best week ever in couponing:

So we shopped at Publix and Walmart this week.
I wrote down all of the BOGO offers that I wanted to check out and then made my list for Walmart to get all of the other items needed:

My grand total at Walmart before coupons was $77.25, my total after using coupons was $64.56!I saved roughly $13 by using coupons, and these were all items that we use.

Some of the best deals I got were:

Italian Dressing- $.08! , had $1.50 off coupon
V8 Fusion- typically $2.98- $2 coupon made it $.98!
A second V8 coupon for $1 off, making it $3 for 2 bottles of V8 Fusion, and its great for you!
A free pack of gum
Trop50- Tropicana OJ with 50% less sugar- usually $2.98, with coupon $1.98.
2 cans of Pringles- $3, with coupon $2 for both
$1.10 total off of two boxes of Hefty zip bags
Poptarts- 2 boxes for $2.64 with $1 off coupon
Carpi Sun- box of 10 pouches- $.87 with $1 off coupon.

Those are just a few of the items saved on.

At Publix we got some more great deals too. I saved $6.75 in coupons and $11.64 on the BOGO items.
Here are just a few items purchased:

A free bag of Fresh Express Salad with the purchase of a Sargento Salad Finishers. Then if you mail in a rebate you end up getting the bag of finishers for free! So a total of $6.19 in free items.

Yoplait Kids Yogurt- 6 pack- BOGO which puts it at $1.40 for one, then a $1.50 off coupon makes it free with $.10 overage!
So they paid me to buy it! Even though it's kids its normal flavors and just the right amount for what I like.

3 boxes of Mueller's Pasta- BOGO item- with $1 off 3 box coupon it made them $.65 ea.

2 boxes Quaker Granola Bars- BOGO item, usually $2.99 ea, with coupon $2.25 for both, so roughly $1.12 a piece

So I spent $90.56 and saved $31.45. This is at least 2 weeks worth of groceries minus little things we will have to pick up here and there.

So as you can tell I am very excited about the coupon game, and trying to save some money, casue I mean, who can't afford to save money.
I have also realized I am officially an old married lady now. :)

It's been a long time....

So I just realized I haven't posted anything in about two months.
I like to look at other people's blogs, but I just forget to update mine.

So, not too much new going on the past couple of months.
It must be baby central as we have two friends who have had babies in the last week and another due in just a few weeks.

Our friends Robbie and Lindsay had their baby last week, a big healthy baby boy, Herreson, 10 lb., 4 oz.!

My good friend April had her baby on Tuesday, a boy, Charlie, 7 lb. 11 0z.

So I guess springtime is the time for lots of babies to be born.

Things have been pretty routine for us. Both just working and doing things on the weekends.

I celebrated my two year anniversary with Merial back in Feb. I can't believe it has been two years since I started, the time surely has flown by.

In other upcoming things for March:

Matt's b'day is tomorrow, the 13th! A Friday the 13th b'day!
I got his present a couple of weeks ago and I can't wait to give it to him, he is gonna love it.
I can't say what it is, in case he read this, which he won't, he probably doesn't even remember about my blog, :), but just in case.

March 20th I am going to see Kate, http://tlc.discovery.com/tv/jon-and-kate/jon-and-kate.html.
I am interested to see what she talks about. Jon was supposed to be coming with her but for some reason can not come now.
But I think it will be neat to see her in person and see how she is versus on TV.

March 28th is my cousin's wedding in B'ham. I am looking forward to seeing lots of my family that I have not seen since my wedding.
You know we have to go to at least one wedding a year. :) This year we just have two and I think that will be it. I think this will be wedding #25 or 26 for us, seriously, we have been too a ton!

I think they may finally be slowing down as this is the least amount of weddings we have been to in one year, since Matt and I met. Last year it was 5!

So that's about it for the month of March.
My mom is coming into town tomorrow, for the weekend, so that will be nice. My dad is going out of town so she is coming to stay so she won't be home alone.

I will try to be better about updating more frequently, although who even reads the blog anyway. :)

99 Things...

My friend Jenna, over at http://atlantalovings.com, tagged me to see what all I have done.
Technically I'm supposed to tag someone, so I'm tagging all of you. You copy the list and bold the things you've actually done. Leave me a link in the comments if you do it so I can come by and read all about the things you've done!

Here are the things I have done:

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland/world
8. Climbed a mountain.
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18. Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29 Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33 Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelo’s David
41 Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal in a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45 Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain5
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie- does my husband count? :)
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60 Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Gotten flowers for no reason
64 Donated blood, platelets, or plasma

65. Gone sky diving
66 Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67 Bounced a check
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job 
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79 Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a lawsuit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee

Reflecting on 2008

So, 2008 has come and gone.
Alot has happened in 2008, some big things, some small things. Overall it was a great year.
I wanted to look back on 2008, and reflect on some of the events that took place, in no particular order.

1. The biggest thing I would have to say, that happened in 2008, was buying my new car. It has been great so far and I actually enjoy my ride to work alot more, in a more reliable, faster car. :)

2.I hit my one year mark with Merial in Feb. and I am now headed towards two years.

3. Matt started his fourth year of teaching, that is hard for me to believe.

4. Matt and I went to Disney World, for our 2 year anniversary, with two other couples.
It was wonderful! I already want to go back.

5. Matt and I went with my family to the beach, over the 4th of July. It was a great trip.

6. We went to Michigan with Matt's family over Memorial Day, to attend his cousin's wedding.
We don't get to see his family as often, since they are up North, so this was nice. Plus it was my first time to be in Michigan, in the summer. It was nice to get to experience summertime there, at his Aunt and Uncle's lake house.

7. Matt and I celebrated the one year anniversary of being in our house, as well as one year anniversary of adopting Macie, our sweet puppy dog.

8. We also attended a total of 4 weddings, which were all very nice. This is actually down from our usual 5-6 weddings a year. :)

9. Last, but not least, we had a great Thanksgiving with the Sell's and a great Christmas with my family.

I can't wait to see what 2009 has in store for us!

I will post a follow up Christmas post soon, as well as a post with Goals/Resolutions for 2009.