My Beautiful Sister

The day of Anatyn's party was the same day as Senior Prom for my sister. I was so excited because I got to help her get ready since I was already at their house setting up for the party. Earlier that week my mom had a second surgery on her ankle so she was down for a couple weeks. I think my mom felt a little left out of the festivities, so when her boyfriend Trent came to pick her up, they did the corsage/boutonniere tradition in her bedroom so she could see. Then a few of us walked over across the street to take a few pictures. There were about 5 of us with cameras and only two couples so it felt a little "paparazzi"-ish. She is absolutely gorgeous and looked stunning in her blue dress. I am so lucky to have her as a sister. She is my only sister and she helps me out a ton! It has been fun to be her second mom and be there for her while she was growing up.

Anastyn's 1st Birthday!

On May 11th our little baby girl turned 1! It amazes me how quickly the last year has flown by.

The weekend of her birthday we had a family party to celebrate and she had a blast. She received about 12 new summer outfits and a few cute toys including a new Cabbage Patch doll. She was spoiled to say the least! We invited everyone over to Grandma Jeri's house to party and had dinner together. The menu included shredded BBQ chicken sandwiches, chips, fresh fruits and veggies and of course cupcakes and ice cream for dessert. Thank you to everyone who came and made her big day so special!

Anastyn is such an angel! She is a really good sleeper, she sleeps through the night and takes two good naps during the day. She will eat almost anything we feed her. She decided on her birthday to start walking. She is happy to play by herself on the floor or even sit in the high chair for a little while so mommy can load the dishwasher. (She likes to unload the silverware and suck on it...GROSS!) She can be shy around new people, but she loves her mommy and daddy. She only says one word- HI! She is always watching what is going on around her. We are so blessed to have her as our sweet daughter!

Obsession #2

Obsession #2 would be couponing. These are the goods from my latest shopping trip. I generally do my shopping at Smith's. If you watch for the sales and match the coupons up with the sale items, then you can get way better deals than shopping without coupons at Walmart or Winco. Plus they also have a sweet rewards program! If you use the rewards card each time you shop you will accrue a point for every dollar you spend. They also have double point items and 5 extra points for every reusable grocery bag you use. Then four times a year they send you a gold envelope with a coupon for the dollar amount of how many points you have. Mine this last quarter was worth $19! That is free money! If you really get to know the system, it can be your best friend. On this last shop I got some really sweet deals that I will share:

5 bottles of Kraft BBQ sauce for .14 (with coupon) each plus on the bottle there was a bonus coupon for $2 off a container of Kool-aid or Country Time lemonade which was on sale for $2 so it was free!

2 Freschetta frozen pizzas $4.49 each plus $2.50 off because of the coupons and then at the end I got $3 toward my next shopping trip for purchasing these. So the total cost was $3.48 for two pizzas!

10 boxes of pasta for FREE!

4 Reach Flosser started packs for FREE! (Because of the coupons I had, I actually was paid .50 to buy these.)

One of the boxes of cereal was only .24

4 cases of bottled water for $8

So, the total cost of this shopping trip was $53.73! I saved $98! I was so proud of all my hard work.

Another thing that I have been watching is the sales at Walgreen's. If you work at it, you can get some sweet deals there too. The weekly sales there start on Sunday, so I go at 6 am on Monday morning to get the best deals. I need to slow down though until we move because I am almost out of room to put things!

The Green Chair

BEFORE:

AFTER:

I have a new obsession (actually two of them, but this is just one of them). I love to refinish furniture. I found this blog called allthingsthrifty.com and it is awesome! You have to check out the site. She has the coolest ideas and is super talented! Anyway, I decided to start looking for things that could be redone. My mom has an end table in her family room and she so graciously let me totally change it. It no longer matches her family room but it looks awesome and I still need to take a picture of it. While I was in the process of changing the end table (in my parent's garage, because I don't have a place to do this hobby), I noticed that one of her neighbors was having a yard sale. I have been looking for a dresser that I can refinish for my girls to use. The lady doing the yard sale didn't have a dresser, but she had this chair. I wanted a chair for my small patio to dress it up a little and I couldn't pass this up. The best part??? She sold it to me for only TWO DOLLARS!! I just had to have it! I had visions of what it could be while I carried it back to my parent's house. I thought green would be a nice color for the outdoors so I bought some spray paint and some antiquing glaze and went to work. I love how it turned out! This whole project cost me less that $15! I am still on the lookout for that perfect dresser, but I need a bigger place anyway, so I must be patient!!

Easter 2011

My girls enjoying their indoor Easter egg hunt. It lasted all of 30 seconds...

The Easter bunny found our house this year and the girls were thrilled. I keep wondering when my older kids will catch on to things like this (and Santa and the Tooth Fairy). The Easter bunny always visits us on Saturday morning and leaves behind lots of goodies. This year he left new CTR rings for the big girls and little toys for the younger two. They also got the Tangled movie which has been viewed about a gazillion times since then.

David and I are very careful about Easter and try not to go overboard. We were raised to know that it is not a second Christmas for the family so we do very few gifts. By enjoying the festivities on Saturday we can then focus on the real reason we celebrate the holiday which is our Savior. We want our children to know that he made the ultimate sacrifice for us and we should always remember that.

What's behind door number one?

I have had a lot of people ask me how I manage to fit 6 humans into such a small home. I though I would give you all a private view of just how it is done around here! Aren't you lucky??

We are going to start with the "linen" closet. Notice how it also houses some kitchen items.

Next we have this bad boy. This is a storage ottoman in the living room that hides the blankets, baby toys and who knows what else. I found a sippy in there the other day. It was an old one... with milk...yummy... See how much I can hide??

This is my indoor storage room. We have 3 industrial shelving units holding all the food storage.

Here is another view. This room is 11 feet long and 3 feet wide an it is FULL!

I bought this cube storage shelf at Target when we lived in our apartment downtown (now that was a small space...) I actually used the black cube drawers as storage for all of our socks (and no one ever knew that) and kept it in the living room there. Now it is in our bedroom and it hides other random crap.

See? Table cloths and place mats.

Remotes and our old cordless phone.

And baby items. Totally random but I know every little thing that is in the drawers!

This is Alyssa and Abbey's closet. One thing about my house is that there are NO dressers! We found these wire basket drawers at Ikea for $15 a set. They are perfect for what I need them for. All of my scrapbooks are also in this closet. And, yes, they have way too many clothes!

Here is a look at Avery and Anastyn's closet. Here we find all of our board games, most of my craft supplies and unfinished projects, baby blankets, and all of their clothes and dresses.

And now I will let you take a peek at my closet. Please don't judge me...

This is all of the shoes and the girls' dresses that don't fit in their closets. I have two of almost all of them.

Just over a year ago David and his dad installed my amazing closet for me! I measured the entire thing and drew up the plan of how I wanted it to look. We spent about a couple of hours on the closet aisle at Lowe's and purchased everything we would need. It took them an entire Saturday to complete, but it is beautiful and I will miss it when we move!

As you can see we used this space top to bottom!

Not pictured are all of the under-the-bed storage bins and our bookcases and I also want to mention that I have a bunch of other things that are stored in the basement of my parent's house. (Thanks Mom and Dad!) We also have another storage room off of the patio that is totally full of other things like the Christmas decorations, camping supplies, paint, and anything else I can stuff in there to forget about.

Now, aren't you so happy I let you in on my secret??

Avery's Birthday

Bill's sugar coma! So cute!!

Avery turned 2 this year! (Two months ago.) We were at Grandma Jeri's house for family night and made some cupcakes so Avery (and Abbey) could blow out some candles.

While we were opening presents at home, each time Avery ripped off a piece of wrapping paper she would take it directly to the garbage. It took her forever to open them up, but it was a very clean process!