Tagged by...well, several people

My friends Jennifer, Teri and Jen K. tagged me. I'm suppose to share the following information about my husband. Here it goes...

1. Where did you meet? In the parking lot at church before our college group went to Busch Gardens for the day. Our mutual friend Michelle told me a new guy was going to be there and asked me to introduce myself and make him feel welcomed. We ended up becoming good friends for several years before we started dating, although I have to admit...I was smitten immediately

2. How long did you date? 1 1/2 year before we got engaged. We were engaged for 5 months

3. How long have you been married? 5 very wonderful years!

4. What does he say that surprises you? That I'm a great mom.

5. What is your favorite feature of his? His eyes...especially when he smiles

6. What is your favorite quality of his? His integrity. His desire to walk uprightly, let his yes be yes and bring Glory to His Father in Heaven

7. Does he have a nickname for you? Babe

8. What is his favorite color? Red

9. What is his favorite food? Most anything with cheese, pistachio pudding, cow tails, sunflower seeds

10. What is his favorite sport? He enjoys both playing and watching sports (however he doesn't get to watch very often). He likes to play men's softball and flag football and does Tiger Woods Golf on the Wii count? And he likes to watch football (especially with Nicole)

11. When and where did you first kiss? In front of AVI when he was dropping me off at my car. I've been married now 5 years, so I guess I can't get in trouble for this...it was our first real date:-)

12. What is your favorite thing to do as a couple? If he were answering this, he would say sitting by the fire talking...but for me, it would be sitting on the pier talking:-) I guess the location doesn't matter much, it's that we are together.

13. Do you have any children? 2 beautiful little girls, Nicole 2, and Hannah 6 months (you should know that by now:-)

14. Does he have a hidden talent? I'm not sure if this is a talent, but he can bend his thumbs all the way backwards...

15. How old is he? 27

16. Who said, "I love you" first? He did, on the couch at AVI, I didn't say it back for almost a month...I was scared to.

17. What is his favorite type of music? He likes most anything that gives glory to God. Sometimes he likes to sit back and listen to hymns by Red Mountain Church and other times he's bumpin down the road with rap or hard rock (Toby Mac, Cross Movement or LeCre). We even had a little stint with country music a few years ago. He spends a lot of time listening to sermons by John Piper, Paul Washer, John MacArthur, Leonard Ravenhill and me reading C.H. Spurgeon.

18. What do you admire most about him? He is an incredible husband and a loving father. He works so hard to provide for our family and constantly encourages me and wants me to be a stay at home mom. I love his commitment to his family and desire to raise the girls in a home that bring Glory to God. He is so patient, kind and loving and I'm blessed to be his wife.

19. Do you think he will read this? Yes, because the posts get e-mailed to him.

Ok, so now I am tagging my friends Kim and Kirsten (all my other friends have already been tagged and posted) . You're IT! Can't wait to read all about your sweeties!

We love play-doh

While I was typing my CVS post this morning, Nicole was playing with Play-Doh. When I was all done, I went over and we started making animals together. It was fun and we of course, had to take pictures. I must say...the older I get and the more chidren I have, the better I become at art:-) I am quite sure these are the best play-doh animals I've ever been a part of making.

I'm not sure why the giraffe is sideways.

This is Nicole's Dog

Sillyness in the mornings. And...I can't post this picture, without posting the coutnerpart.
(August 2007)

Quick CVS Savings

I have been dying to share this with you for several days, but I simply have not had the time to write this....hopefully I'll get it out right now (Nicole is playing with Play-doh and Hannah is trying to take a nap).

I went to CVS Tuesday night with my trusty friend Teri. We racked up!

I bought approx $125 worth of stuff.

I spent $3.35 cash out of pocket

I earned $30 in Extra Care Bucks.

So...where did the rest of the money come from that I used to buy my stuff...from coupons and ECB. I made 5 different transactions....Let's see if I can explain.

*Deal: If you buy $20 in Duracell batters, you get $15 ECB (do this deal 3x)

*I had 3 coupon for $5.00 off of two packs of batteries (therefore I got the batteries "for free

after ECB)

*I also had some little $.75 off coupons for batteries

*Deal: Buy $10 in Glade products, receive $5 ECB (do this deal 5x)

*I had a TON of Glade coupons, including several Buy One Get One Free

*Deal: Buy Loreal Age perfect cream for $15.99, get $15.99 ECB...so it was free after ECB

It would be crazy for me to actually type out my transactions (I will though if you want)...but I will detail what I got.

6 packs of batteries (3 AA and 3 AAA....all 6 packs had 16 batteries in them)

2 Glade plug in (with 2 refills in each pack)

2 Glade plug in twin pack refills

4 Glade candles

4 Glade Glass Scents

2 Glade scented oil candles

1 Deodorant

1 Loreal Age Perfect cream

I'm very excited because now I have $30 ECB for their "black Friday" event...which actually starts Thanksgiving day (guess who'll be there at 7am?)

Then, Wednesday night I took my friend Jami to CVS to show her the ropes...I think she's addicted now. She could only do the battery deal twice (because I only had two other $5/2 packs coupons), but she did the Glade deal 5 times I think. Anyway....here's a snippet of her e-mail. I'm just FLABERGASTED at the savings I saved tonight that I had to share numbers with you!!! I bought $79.27 worth of products in total spent a total of $4.58 which is a savings of $74.69 PLUS I walked out with $12 in care bucks!!! It was very fun to share the excitement with a friend. Yay!!! So...I'm set on batteries for a little while. Next week they have another great deal I can't wait for...I'll share more about that later though. OK...off to play with play-doh (don't I have a great job?)

to my mommy friends

If you have one spare minute....you need to click on this link and read this short post on Girl Talk.

I'll write more later about my best trip ever to CVS last night...and of course a few pictures of the girls.

Our Weekend

We had a GREAT weekend...well, Sunday together as a family. Saturday Jeremy had a side job most of the day for a friend and I went rollerblading first thing. Then we had church, so we didn't have a lot of time all together. However, that was made up for on Sunday. In my eyes...it was a perfect day.

We woke up to a beautiful "cold" front. (I know, I know...some of you would say cool) It was in the 50s probably by the time we got out of the house around 9:00. We took a walk up to Dunkin Donuts. As you can see by this photo ...we were bundled:-) Hannah fell asleep in the stroller. I think she really likes to be bundled. She gets all cozy and falls asleep almost every time. Anyway...we walked to Dunkin Donuts for a nice healthy breakfast (yeah right). We had to cross a major intersection to get there. Once across, I noted how much bird poop there was on the sidewalk from the birds that sit on the stop light polls (they weren't above us on the way there, they were across the interesection). Well...of course, since I have the big mouth, on the way back the birds moved and were sitting above us as we waited for the lights to change so we could cross. Yep...I got pooped on!!!! (Side note, tonight I had my jacket on and Nicole looked at me and said "mommy, bird poop" hahaha It had already been washed, but she knew that was the jacket).

After donuts, we went up to the park again. This is becoming a favorite pastime of ours. We took a ball, a frisbee, and a croquet set Grammy got at a garage sale a few weeks ago. We had a blast. We ran, and tackled, and tickle, and hit things...it was great. Nicole crawled under some bleachers to get a ball, almost got stuck, and had to be coaxed out by Jeremy (we didn't get a picture in time, sorry). I've loaded a video with two segments. Jeremy and Nicole had a blast chasing and tackling each other. Nicole was worn out, and was asleep before we got home, I mean to lunch with Jeremy's parents and their friends from church.

Next Jeremy and the girls went back to his parents house to watch some football and I went grocery shopping. Unfortunately I don't have any stupendious deals to share with you. I saved $56 in coupons and sales, mostly sales. Oh...I did leave my coupon binder in my shopping cart and had to go back. The sales people were quite impressed by my binder (thank you Teri:-)

Then Jeremy and I went to Bible study...we just finished Revelation. I wish every one I know could go to this Bible study we go to on Sunday nights. It is so rich and full of such depth. It's nice to go somewhere where the Word of God is taught and it's not just fluff that "tickles your ears" like so many preachers out there. Jeremy and I then went to one of our favorite restaraunts, SilverSpoon and had a Spinich con Queso appetizer and dinner. It was nice to sit, eat dinner at a normal pace, and talk without little voices interrupting:-) We had a great time together:-)

So, anyway, I don't usually give a play by play of the weekend...but, I felt like sharing. I'm thankful for such a wonderful family. And I'm always thankful for days like Sunday...it was perfect!

Oh....I almost forgot these last two pictures. Uncle Justin came over Saturday to toss the football with Jeremy. He took a few minutes out to push Hannah. I wish I would have snapped a shot of Hannah laughing. It was sweet to watch them play.

And...today my mom bought the girls matching pajamas. Nicole was so excited when I was put her jammies on. She was giggling, and thought it was really funny to have them on (they are footies and she hasn't worn those for probably a year and a half). Then we showed her the Hannah had matching jammies. At first I thought Nicole might get mad, but then she smiled and thought it was fun. Here's a cute picture.

Obedience

This morning I was walking with my friend Amanda and we were talking about discipline (a matter, she hasn't fully visited as her sweet baby is just short of two months old). Nonetheless...she was a good sounding board for me. One thing we talked about was how difficult it is to be consistent in disciplining obedience. Often times, someone on the outside might think it's silly that Nicole get disciplined for something, however they may not realize that she is being disciplined for disobedience. Now is the time in her life that Obedience is our major issue. Obedience is obeying an instruction immediately and with a happy heart. Our main issue has been the immediacy of obedience. Anyway....this article on Girl Talk encouraged me. She struggled for 2 hours for her 2 year old to eat a piece of toast...trivial and even silly to most...but to her, it was a struggle of authority and disobedience. I just wanted to share for my other mama friends out there:-) Be encouraged....you (we) are not alone.

Grandma's here

Nicole woke up this morning saying "Mimi, airplane". Mimi is what most of the great-grandkids call my grandma. Hannah and I went to the airport this morning to pick grandma up. Hannah was thrilled to see her. She was jumping around, smiling and laughing for her. Yay! She knew grandma was someone special:-) We went back to my mom's and had lunch. Nicole was also very excited to see grandma Mimi. She ran to her with open arms. Nicole was also shocked to find out that Mimi is "Papa's mommy" (my dad's mom). Here are a few pictures from the morning.

Hannah has on a new outfit today, well...sort of. This is the famous Nicole dress. One of my all time favorite pictures of Nicole is her in this dress.

Here is Nicole (Jan 1, 2007...days under 7 months old)

And here is Hannah (will be 7 months old in aobut 2 1/2 weeks).

Adorable, BOTH of them! I'm excited because Jeremy just got down two boxes of clothes that Hannah can now fit into. It's rediculous how many clothes these girls have. Tiffy...here's hoping tomorrow you get pink news:-)

I was almost late to the airport because I had to swing by CVS. It should have been quick, but they didn't have something I was looking for, and the nice manager went to the back to see if they had anymore:-) Anyway, I bought one thing I went in for...mascara. Here's the deal (Teri...you'll be proud!)

Rimmel mascera $6.99

Manufactuer Q -$1.00

CVS Q -$1.00

CVS ECB -$3.49

Grand total OOP $0.59

ECB +$4.00!!! (for my next purchase)

Here's the cool thing. The manager was trying to find out for me if something (vitamin water) had ECB, because it wasn't in the flyer, however there was a tag on the shelf. So, she did a transaction just with my Vitamin water. Turn out it didn't have ECB, however all my coupons printed...which was where I got my CVS Q for any Rimmel product. I grabbed that coupon and used it on my next transaction for the mascera which greatly reduced my out of pocket price. I was pretty excited that happened. Oh...it also came with a free eye liner. Woohoo!!!

I just got a sneak peak of CVS's black friday add. Who's in? They don't open until 8, so I'll be able to hit other store first:-)

Well, it's about time

I know I know....I haven't posted in a while. I don't know why, but it has been very busy, in a non-busy sort of way. Make sense? no. For the past several days I've had all these ideas about things to write on here, and now that I have 5 minutes to do it, I can't remember anything:-)

Did I tell you that Nicole knows her ABCs? Well...she usually skips M and V...but she does know those letters separately. Here's a little video. She even sings "Now I sang my ABCs, next time won't you sing with me" at the end. Oh...I totally forgot to tell you what she's saying at the beginning. Hannah had been "spitting up". Nicole says it funny "spit up up up up". I don't know where she got that from, but it's funny.

She can also count to 10 now! Woohoo....way to go my little mathematician. In fact, this morning I was making Jeremy's breakfast and lunch. There were two plastic spoons, but I took one and put it in his oatmeal. She noticed and kept telling me one of her spoons was missing. She didn't know it, but she did subtraction. 2 spoons - 1 spoon = 1 spoon left in her hand.

Hannah and I had a photo shoot again the other day. She is a doll baby. I just can't get enough of her smiles and laughter. We are still struggling in the sleep department. She's waking at night again. I guess that's just her personality though and we'll work through it.

Jeremy golfing with Nicole on Sat. morning

My grandma is coming down to visit for a month tomorrow, so you'll be seeing lots of pictures with her. I'm excited because Nicole knows who she is now and is looking forward to seeing her, and Hannah's never met a stranger:-)

Air freshner

My Sister-in-law, Tiffany, sent me a recipe for a yummy air freshner for you home (yummy meaning it smells good...don't drink it!, hmm...well, maybe with some sugar it would taste good too:-) For my organic friends...this is all-natural so you should like it. I tried it today and it does smell good:-) Oh...I just realized I forgot the cin. sticks, I'll have to get those next time.

1 Orange
1 Lemon
3 Cin. sticks (she told me to get them in the craft section at walmart for the best price)
6 bay leaves
1/2 cup whole cloves

Cut lemon and orange into quarters, combine fruit, spices and 2 quarts of water in a large saucepan. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer as long as desired. Add more water as needed. Cover any left over mix and refrigerate for several days and reuse.
She said that it lasts for about two weeks

Praise the Lord

Both girls are asleep, at the same time, without crying. In case I only have hour...I'm signing off. Have a super weekend!