little sister

My youngest sister is visiting me for three weeks. THREE whole weeks!!! It's SO very wonderful to have a part of my family here with me. I really love Oklahoma and my life here, but a girl does get homesick now and again. Anyway, we've been hanging out lots, having GREAT times. Sixteen is a fun age. :) Time at the pool, playing with Baby Girl, shopping, baking, movies... it's been a lovely three days so far. :) AND.... I'm giving her a crash course in couponing and finding deals. So far we've hit up Walgreens (sweet deals!), Target (more sweet deals), Krispy Kreme (do I hear a shout out for free donuts??), introduced her to Chikfila (free spicy chicken sandwiches!), and checked out the brand new QT (three cheers for .49cent drinks). We also stumbled on coupons for free drinks at Taco Bell and more free donuts from Krispy Kreme, so you can guess where we'll be eating... Now we need to work some exercise into our plans. (bah humbug!)

Baby Girl has discovered the fine art of rolling over, from her tummy to her back. It's incredibly adorable to find her in her bed in the morning, not on her tummy, but on her back, rolling around and talking to herself. Even at 4:30 in the morning...

Sweet deals this week:
Walgreens: we spent $10.92, saved $56.38, and have $4.50 in RR! We got: 4 boxes Kotex U products, 4 bags of Hersheys pieces, 3 bars Neutrogena face soap, 7 packs of Orbit gum, 3 cans Arizona tea, 2 bags of Lifesavers, 1 Butterfinger, and 3 bottles asprin. Not bad for $10, eh?

Target: (we totally rocked here!)
I think I threw my receipts away when I cleaned out my purse, but I can tell you about the 40 bottles of Sobe Lifewater for only $5 oop!!!! Target had a deal this week that for every 10 bottles you bought, you'd get a $5 gift card. We used a .50/1 Target coupon for each bottle, and did four separate transactions. We spent $5 the first time, and then the second transactions we used the $5 GC. The third transaction we had three B1/G1 coupons to add to the .50/1 Qs, so we only used $2 off the GC. Last transaction we had two b1/g1 Qs, so we used the remaining $3 on the GC and came out with an extra $5 GC. I think we did pretty good, eh?

This week will bring more sisterly, deal-finding adventures.... we'll be sure to keep you posted!

normality

And life continues on... Summer has set in, hot and humid. Lines at the local snowcone shacks are long. Pools are open and crowded from morning to well after dark. Baby Girl is sleeping longer every night (nine hours straight last night!), and rolling from her tummy to her back quite routinely. There's something strangely endearing about being woken up at 4:30am by a cooing baby, who, when you check on her, is not on her tummy as you left her, but rather on her back, playing with her blanket and smiling when she sees you.

This last week was a strange one, in that Husby was out of town 4 of the 5 weekdays, including two nights away. The coming week will be the same, as will the next three months. I do not like him being gone so much... it's lonely. But it's a necessity right now, and it gives me a greater appreciation for those who deal with this as a normal part of life. The bright side is that Baby and I can occasionally go spend a day or two with him. We'll explore the "unique" little towns that are a part of middle-of-nowhere OK and TX.

My baby sister (who's now 16!!!) is coming to visit in a few days. Three cheers for that! We will go shopping and swimming and watch chick-flicks, and have a total blast. Baby Girl is going to love meeting her Aunt CC, too. :)

And that's about it. Just another normal week in the life of a stay-at-home-mommy. :)

head above water

I have thought about this blog often in the past couple of weeks. Visions of sitting down and typing have played through my mind at regular intervals. I think this has been the busiest I've been since I was pregnant, and trying to accomplish it all with a four-month old baby was no small feat. Besides being incredibly busy with THINGS to do, PLACES to be, and TASKS to accomplish, there has been turmoil to sort through. Small family dramas, employment uncertainties, life decisions, etc, etc. The few times I did try and write, my mind refused to cooperate, begging instead for a few moments of silence and time to just zone out. It looks like things are slowing down now, and I'm glad. I think much more of what felt like chaos, and I'd break down in tears... and then only a day or two of watching fluff filled movies, eating comfort food, and snuggling with my baby and husby would have helped me recover!

It's a curiosity really, the things that God allows into our lives at times. Like when we feel we are doing everything right and on track, and yet life is HARD. Like when it feels that curveballs are being thrown one after another and there is no way to see them coming and prepare. We beg God to give us just a glimpse of what He is doing and it feels silent... We hold on, knowing that He is good and faithful, but wanting to see evidence. It's a hard road, but one I will continue to walk, even though I have my days of stopping to cry and say, "God, please! I need some air!". One day, all this will be clear. I am really looking forward to seeing the big picture for this season of our lives...

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In other news, Baby Girl is growing SO much lately! Not only has she jumped into the next size diapers and clothes, her development is progressing more every day. She rolls over now, from her tummy to her back. (A look of wide-eyed shock accompanies this feat.) She's beginning to lay on her tummy and play happily for a few minutes at a time. She grabs at toys that dangle about her. She laughs and giggles. EVERYTHING captures her interest. She is getting to be so much FUN! She is my light on gray days. :)

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In couponing and deal finding news, I totally rocked CVS the past two weeks. A new store opened near me, and mailed out a set of coupons. $10 off a $20 purchase, a free 2 liter of Coke, and up to $3 off a CVS brand product. They allowed all coupons to be combined into one purchase, so it made it easy to pay a dollar or two for over $20 worth of stuff. The best part? I live in an apartment complex, and many of my neighbors threw their coupons in the junk mail bin up by the mailboxes. I snatched up as many as I could and made SEVERAL trips to CVS, doing multiple transactions each time. We are totally stocked up on Coke, Vitamin Water, pop, and bottled water... Not to mention toiletries, makeup, paper goods.... It was SUCH an incredible blessing to be able to get so much for so very little.

All of this for only $2.71!!!!! (A savings of almost $200!)

being a mother

It's always encouraging when someone you don't expect expresses how great they think it is that you've made the choice to be a stay-at-home-mom. Not that I am unsure of my decision. It's just really nice - affirming - to hear it from someone from whom you don't expect it. From the time I was a little girl, I knew that "when I grew up" I wanted to be a mommy. I never had aspirations or dreams of a great career. Instead my dreams were about puttering around my house, making cookies and doing fun things with my kids. And now that my life is just that, I am happy. Fulfilled. I don't want more. Of course I have days when I feel like going insane because the only people I've seen for three days are my husband and infant daughter, but that's easily remedied by a trip to Target or Starbucks. :) This is a good life I lead. As always, God has been good.

lost... bought... found.

Yesterday I lost my phone. One my morning walk with Baby Girl, it fell out of the stroller somewhere. I searched my whole route. Twice. And found nothing. It is amazing how attached one can become to a little piece of plastic. Honestly, I felt as if I was disconnected from the world. And I felt like a big clutz... having to replace a phone could not have come at a more inconvenient time. But God was good and we discovered that we were eligible for upgrade pricing... Now I have a sweet new phone, and it was quite a good deal! Wanna know the crazy thing? After I went to get the new one this morning, I checked in at the apartment complex office to see if anyone had found it and turned it in. It was there. And it still worked. *sigh* Oh well. It was about dead anyway, having been drowned twice and dropped about a bazillion times. Now I have a backup phone if anything drastic happens to the new one. I will admit... My new phone is pretty sweet... Touch screen. Full keyboard. The works.

SCORE!

Grandpa S. was in town today with a few hours to kill in between the young uncle's baseball games. Husby recruited Grandpa and the boys to watch Baby Girl while we ran a few errands together. (Yay for mini-dates!) We left the boys with brownies, sandwiches and a sleeping baby, while R & I went to Target. It's nice to go out without the baby every once in a while...

My $3 Snuggle Qs arrived in the mail yesterday so I stacked them with $1.50/1 Target Qs and scored us some FREE Snuggle! (x4!) Then I found a cute purse on clearance for $3.74 and used a $5/1 purse coupon. The overage allowed me to get one more bottle of Snuggle for like... 20cents. Total for 5 bottles of Snuggle and 1 purse? $1.48. Oh yeah!!!! This is my most awesome trip yet!

Friday Busy-ness

Today dawned cloudy. I was so sleepy that I never heard Husby's alarm go off, and that's super unusual for me! Baby Girl woke around 8am (God answered my prayer for extra sleep!) and I took that as my cue to rise from the dead. (This sinus-infection is really zapping my energy!) There was much to accomplish on this gray, humid day.

We were out the door around 9am. My goal - hit up Walgreens, CVS, and Target before Baby Girl decided she'd had enough of the car seat. I almost made it. She made her protests known as we checked out at Target. By the time we returned home, her wails were reaching a peak... Oh for the day when she will sit in the cart and be amused with a toy!

Since she's been down for a nap, I put groceries away, reorganized the fridge, ate lunch, made brownies (for the coupon swap tonight!) cleaned kitchen, and surfed the net. Now it's about time to leave for my twice-weekly babysitting gig. I will spend 4 hours with 4 kids under age 8, plus Baby Girl. Then I will drive home, drop her off for her daddy to put her to bed, and go to my first ever coupon swap. Yay!!! I'm super-excited to meet the ladies from the forums, and hopefully get some great Q's!

Today's deals:
CVS:
Spent 7.84, received $4 in Extra Care Bucks, saved $10
Got: 2 Colgate Pro-Clinical Toothpastes, 1 Huggies Wipes, & 1 gallon Borden milk

Target:
Spent $11.59, received $5 GC, Saved $17
Bought: 3 jumbo packs Huggies diapers

Target:
(I'll post the awesome deals, and not my whole grocery trip... it wasn't all on sale or a deal, but some things you just need...)
2 Classico alfredo sauces, 2 44oz red pasta sauces, 1lb. ground beef - $2.77+tax!
2 Off! clip on repellent - $3+tax
Chocolate Silk 1/2 gal. - .69!
2pk Up&Up mouthwash - 2.48(less than the price of one regularly!)
and other goodies....

Time is short, I must go!