And he's off!

Ethan has mastered sitting up.

In just a few short days, I am going to have a crawling baby on my hands.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm very excited for Ethan. But honestly, I was hoping it would be another month before he started crawling. Now I am really going to have to watch where he is, be careful he can't get small objects into his mouth, and be extremely mindful of closing the gate upstairs.

For now, he's hurling his body forward and crawling backwards.

Do you see the determination in his eyes?

Way to go, Ethan!

Riley's Helmet

Riley got this bike for Christmas from his Great Grandparents. Its a bike that's been in the family a few years.

This past weekend, we picked up the bike but we told Riley that he couldn't ride it until we got him a helmet to wear. So, he found a bucket and decided that would make a good helmet.

Cute.... yes!

A suitable helmet.... no.

For the past 3 days, he's been wearing his Spiderman bucket on his head. I know, we need to get him a helmet!!

Bad Morning

I live by routines and so do my kids. Every morning in our house is pretty much the same. They wake up, I change their diapers, we go downstairs, I fix Riley his breakfast, and then I make coffee. I have been drinking coffee for 6 months now. Before I had Ethan I wouldn't have ever dreamed I would turn into a coffee drinker. After a few sleepless nights with a newborn, I turned to coffee and now I'm addicted.

This morning I poured my water and then went to the cabinet for a coffee pot liner. (Tim later corrected me that they are called filters.) Well, we were out of coffee filters. This was not good! I live for my morning coffee. I always pour a cup of coffee and put 3 splendas and creamer into my Dunkin' Donuts Coffee and then go catch up on my blogs and email.

My coffee mug remained empty all morning. At one point, I thought about using paper towels as a filter but I didn't get that desperate. I was very sluggish all morning and I just wanted to just crawl back into bed. It didn't help that I was up with one of my kids for 2 hours this morning. Thank You, Jesus for good little nappers this afternoon!

Tonight I will be heading back to Kmart to get coffee filters. I can't go another morning without my coffee! Our local Kmart is doubling coupons this week, so I've been trying to get some deals.

I got all of this for $16 and saved $40!

You can go here to get some tips. It isn't as easy as it seems and our Kmart prices our higher than at other places. Saturday is the last day Kmart will be doubling the coupons.

Anyone have a coffee filter coupon?

My Sweet Baby Boy

This girl loves a good deal!

There are days when the highlight of my day is checking the mail. I love checking the mail because most of the time there are free samples or coupons in the mailbox. I started this addiction shortly after Riley was born. So, what have I gotten in the mail???

*Diapers
*Shampoo
*Tooth Paste
*Laundry detergent
*Razors
*Food
*Formula
*Bottles
*Books

The main sites that I get my information are from Money Saving Mom & Freebies4Mom. It typically takes a few weeks to get the free sample after registering for it. I never know what will be in my mailbox and that's where I find joy in opening the mailbox. However, I find it very frustrating that my mail does not come at the same time everyday. I'm not sure what is going on there.

I also really enjoy using coupons. I like finding coupons that will get me free or almost free things. Hunting and using coupons like a pro can be time consuming. I am not a pro. I go for the easy ones and I find most of my good deals on the websites listed above. I don't get the Sunday paper but I get most of my coupons from family, the mail, and mainly printable coupons from the Internet. I usually save about $15 at each shopping trip using coupons. I had good intentions on listing a few of the good deals that I've gotten lately but they aren't available anymore. Here are 2 deals.

Yoplait Kids yogurt--$2.27
Use $1.50/1 printable$0.77 after coupon

A great coupon to print to Save $5 off any $25 purchase at Babies 'R Us that expires on May 2. You can also use this coupon online.

Catching up

I have been out of town for a week, so I wanted to update with what we have been up to.

On Saturday night, Tim and I went on a date. His company had an appreciation dinner for all the employees at Meadow View. We had a great night together!

On Sunday, Ethan turned 6 months old. The time goes by way too quickly! He's such a sweet little boy! He's very laid back and he's almost always smiling.

He...

weighs 17 lbs. 10 oz.

has brown eyes
loves watching his brother
loves laughing at his brother

loves playing with his toes

sucks on his 2 middle fingers to soothe himself
is rolling over from his tummy to back
is working on sitting up

has some wild hair in the front but I'm not ready to cut it yet

brings joy to our family

On Sunday, I left with the boys to go visit my family. The drive was OK. Both of them lost it around Crossville. Thankfully, we were stopping soon to visit a good friend of mine from college. We were all ready to get out of the car! The last 2 hours of trip went by quickly. I brought out the DVD player for Riley and that entertained him.

Monday through Thursday I kept my sister's kids. Riley loved playing with his cousins! They all played great all week!!

Ethan got lots of love from his family!!

Ethan and AustinI think they could pass for brothers!

Chayse loved holding Ethan

Love from Aunt Julie

Playing outside

Ethan's first time in a swing

On Thursday, everyone came over to my Mimi and Poppy's house. The kids colored eggs and had an Easter Egg Hunt.

On Saturday, we went to Big Daddy and Dee Dee's. The kids ate breakfast and had an indoor Easter Egg Hunt!



Saturday afternoon we drove to Pigeon Forge to meet Tim. We all were very excited to see him!! Tim's family was camping there. On Easter morning, we ate breakfast at Cracker Barrel , visited with his family at the campground, and drove home. It was great to be back home! I missed sleeping in my bed with my hubby and its been so nice to get back into a routine with the kids!!

Rain, rain go AWAY!!

I don't know about you but I am tired of the rain!! It has been raining for 4 days straight and I'm sick of it. This is what we would rather be doing.

We HAD to get out of the house today. The rain can make the day drag on... so I had the bright idea to take the kids to get their picture taken with the Easter Bunny at the mall. I was expecting to just take home a picture with Ethan because I thought Riley was going to cry and I wasn't going to buy another crying picture. (By the way... I can't believe how much they charge for one picture. Every time we go it gets more and more expensive!) Well, Riley surprised me and he actually did pretty good. So we got a cute picture with both of them.

This is last year's Easter Bunny picture. Riley was 18 months old and he wasn't too happy about sitting with the Easter Bunny. He has candy in both hands!

I hunted for about 45 minutes for 2007's Easter picture and then remembered that I didn't take him to get his picture taken with the Easter Bunny. (It always seems to take me WAY too long to make a post.)

Then, 20 minutes after I had made the post, I remembered that I took him to the photographer that I had my maternity pictures taken by. He had a sign that said, "Have your picture taken with the REAL Easter Bunny," outside his photography studio. I thought it would be better than taking him to get his picture taken at the mall. It ended up not being what I thought it would be. When I walked in the door I was thinking, "You have got to be kidding me" and I wanted to walk right back out the door. He had the bunny on a card table. At that time, Riley was only 6 months old and he wasn't sitting up well (very dangerous!!). Plus, the backdrop consisted of the cage with fake flowers on top of it. I suggested that we go outside with the bunny and he said that he would run away.

This is the "professional" picture. It looks like Riley is ready to eat the bunny's ears.

Thankfully, we ended up going to a park and he did get some great pictures of Riley.

Back to our Saturday...
I also had the bright idea to get their picture taken at JC Penny. I wanted to get a cute Spring picture of the boys and since they had matching shirts on, we were already at the mall, and I had Tim's help, it seemed like a good idea. Well, you know how it goes on Saturdays at Penny's... they schedule pictures every 10 minutes. Luckily, we didn't have to wait but I felt rushed since their were 2 families waiting behind us. Riley wasn't really wanting to cooperate (remember my list of things you can't "make" a toddler do?) and the photographer wasn't that great either. We tried to get Riley to hold Ethan and that wasn't going to happen. Ethan is trying to sit up on his own but he's not there yet. We tried getting some pictures of Ethan on Riley's back but Ethan was to squirmy. They worked with us for about 10 minutes. Then, I went to look at the pictures and I only had 2 pictures to choose from. That hasn't ever happened. Usually, there's about 15 pictures to choose from and I end up buying more than I had planned. This time I didn't even like the 2 I had to pick from. I left the store without spending a dime. But I wasn't that disappointed since it was planned last minute and we did get a cute Easter Bunny photo. Our friend, Katie, is going to take some family pictures of us soon and I know those will turn out beautifully!!

We ended up having a good mall trip! I got a watch and an outfit to wear to Tim's company party next weekend, Tim got some new tennis shoes, and Riley got some Dora and Boots Jibbitz for his crocs. Then we headed over to Applebee's for a very cheap and delicious dinner!!