Oreos

Do you ever have one of those days?

I am sitting at my kitchen table, eating Oreos for breakfast.

Today I woke up to a screaming baby. Why? Who knows.

I am sneezing my head off and my nose is a faucet.

I am working on a project for the company I used to work for and have a deadline to meet today.

My dog decided to try and dig her self out of the back yard again and is covered in mud sitting in her crate.

It is only 8:30 am.

And all I want to do is get away, but today I need to be a Mom, I need to work, I need to give my dog a bath, I need to do a load of laundry so my husband will have socks.

So because it is one of those days, I will probably be eating Oreos for lunch.

Family Pictures

Well, we decided it was about time to take a family picture. A girl Nate and I went to highschol with, Ambyr Porter, is a great photographer and met us in Frisco last Saturday to take some pics. It was cold and windy so Pierson wasnt too happy in most of the pics. We may be taking some more of just him to see if we can get him to smile! She posted a few pics up on her blog if you are interested! They look pretty good for a not so happy baby and a mommy not back down to her fighting weight! :)

www.ambyrporterphotography.com/blog

Sick again...

So Pierson is sick again. Its another cold and it is in his head and chest. He sounds just terrible and is a mess. The sneezing and coughing, the poor thing. If I leave the room he freaks out. Doesnt really want to be put down and this morning I made his nose bleed because he was fighting so hard when I was trying to use the bulb to get the gunk. The paci is usually my saving grace but when you cant breathe its a no go. Hoping the sickness is gone before we go out of town this weekend! Here is a pick from this morning - you can see a little red under one of his nostrils! I think he may live!

I finally tried it!

So I have been hearing for many months now that if you take the time to clip coupons, become a member of the Grocery Game and check out some other sites you can save BIG at the grocery store. I also heard that you would need to go to multiple stores - that part I was not interested in -getting out with a 6 month old for one shopping trip is hard enough.

Well, I finally caved and tried it out. I have been clipping coupons for about a month now. We buy the Sunday paper and I go through and clip what I think we could use, even things I think we wont use. This week I joined the Grocery Game and got my list to Kroger. I have heard Kroger is one of the best places because of the Kroger Plus Card and they double and triple some coupons.

So my goal was to buy 2 weeks worth of groceries, which includes enough for me to cook 6 meals and have leftovers. I headed out this morning with my list and 22 coupons to see what I could save.

I bought:
-milk
-4 12 packs of soda
-4 Lean Cusines
-3 Stoufers Meals
-Soy Sauce
-Dry Sherry
-Dark Sesame Oil
-Rotel
-Turkey lunch meat
-2 lbs of boneless skinless chicken
-3 cans of chicken broth
-2 cans of black beans
-corn
-onion
-ginger
-avacado
-whole wheat and flour tortillas
-Smart Start cereal
-Frosted Mini Wheats
-Shredded Cheese
-Doritos
-Tortilla Chips
-2 cans of Pringles
-coffee
-coffee creamer
-frozen sugar snap peas
-brocolli and cheese
-2 potatoes
-Cinnamon Rolls
-2 Cresent Rolls
-Skinny Cow Ice Cream bars
-Laughing Cow Cheese
-2 Deli Creations sandwiches
-2 Uncle Bens Long Grain Rice
-Rice Cakes
-Eggo Waffles
-Baked Cheetos
-Secert Deodorant
-2 Jumbo packs of Pampers
-Formula
-6 Yoplait Yogurts
-Downy
-Gillette Body Wash
- Crest
-Cascade
-Grapes
-4 Reeses Eggs
-red bell pepper
-2 things of popcorn
-2 packs of gum
-vitamin water
-zucchini
-ragu
-Jergens lotion
-softsoap
-strawberries
-whole wheat pasta
-spaghetti
-Pantene Shampoo and Conditioner
- 3 other things that I cant remember or read on the recipet :)

Before coupons and savings - 270.34
After - 201.52

So I saved close to 70 bucks just by taking the time and I only went to one store. 200 dollars might still seem like a lot to some but I bought diapers and formula which are huge costs and this was my very first time! So I am so excited and cant believe I didnt do this sooner! Nate is happy that I am saving money but thinks I am going crazy. It is an addiction! I cant wait to see how much money I can save in a couple of weeks!

Swagbucks...I think it really does work!

So I just signed up for a swagbucks account because I have been hearing you can redeem points for giftcards, good giftcards like Target, Gap, Southwest Airlines, etc!

So the deal is you sign up and then use swagbucks.com as your search engine. It is powered by Google. You dont get bucks every time you search but get them every so often and then you can redeem your bucks for gift cards!! I think everyone should sign up because what can it hurt!

Here is a link to sign up and try it out!

http://swagbucks.com/?cmd=sb-register&rb=433643

Let me know what you think!

Fun Times With Friends!

We have had so much fun with friends this month!

At the beginning of the month we went to the Mavs game with our friends Step and Jon Gilbert. They both got Aggie rings for Christmas from Mom and Dad G so we went to celebrate and dunk! They live in Houston and we wished they lived closer...we love hanging out with them.

Steph and Jon with their Aggie rings!

All the Aggies!

Next, two of my college roommates and their husbands came to visit. I love these girls so much and miss seeing them! They also live in Houston so we dont get to see each other all that often. They came to meet Pierson and we had a wonderful weekend. While they were here Matt, Emily, and Tobin came over for some fun too! It is so fun to get together with old friends!

Tobin "playing" Guitar Hero.

The Girls - Jana, Me, Lindsay, Emily

Picture with Pierson before they left!

And one of Pierson just because he is so stinkin cute! First bitter biscut! He loved it!

5 months

Pierson was 5 months old on Monday! He is becoming such a joy and is so much fun these days. Nate and I cant imagine life without him. He has grown up so much this last month.

- He started solids about a week ago and it is going pretty well. He wasnt too excited about them at first but he is sure loving his sweet potatoes and was not a big fan of bananas, which is fine with me, the smell of those things makes me gag.


- He has started noticing Bentley and she has become a huge distraction, espically when eating. He will stop everything to watch her and reaches for her when she is close by. Today he started laughing at her when she yawned and laughs everytime I say, "No, Bentley, No", which is very often. :)

- We bought him one of those jumpers that hangs from a door frame and he loves it! He would sit in there for hours if I would let him.

- He is rolling from his stomach to his back all the time but hasnt quite mastered from his back to his stomach. He rolls over on to his side to reach for toys but doesnt want to go all the way. I dont know if he will ever voluntarily roll to his stomach...he hates being on his stomach.

- He sat in his stoller, like a big boy, without his carseat for the first time and I am not sure he knew what to think about it...he was SO quiet.

- He talks ALL the time and has learned how to yell this past week. He can be very loud.

- He tried to mimic me for the first time the other day. It was precious and so cute!

-He can now sit up on his own for a few seconds at a time and loves to play with the remote.

- And last but not least, he is sleeping through the night MOST nights and when I say sleeping through the night I mean not eating at night - going to bed at 7:45 - 8 and waking and eating between 7 and 7:30!! We are still getting up once or twice to give him his paci but that is nothing! I want to give a shout out to my friend Katie who gave me some great advice!

Just hanging out in the tub.

He loves to sleep like this.

In other news, he will hopefully be getting his helmet in the next month or so and he started physical therapy a couple of weeks ago and it is going well. He will probably be in PT for about 5 to 6 months, so we have a ways to go. I am looking forward to getting the helmet - I cant wait to see my boy with a cute round head! :)