Waylon is 2!!!!

I can not believe that our little guy is 2 years old already! It amazes me everyday how much he learns and how smart he is. (I am not just saying that either!) As I am writing this he is in his bed not napping and I can hear him playing with his new tractor & trailer but he is laying down and playing quietly, so I will take the quiet time I get. Because I know these naptimes are not going to last forever. Which makes me very sad.

Over the past year Waylon has grown up so much and can not even begin to imagine how much he will change over this next year.

Things I love about Waylon right NOW

(in no particular order)

1) He loves to sing and blurts out in song at any given moment. Some of his greatest hits right now are: If you're happy and you know it, Old MacDonald, Bingo, ABC's, Twinkle Twinkle, and then there are some hits from the radio too that he sings along with or knows the song..Like Keith Urban's Sweet Thing, Waylon calls this song Sweet Babe. George Straight's Write this down, and Jason Alden's Country..are just a few that come to mind.

2) I love that you can have a conversation (well kind of) with him. You can ask him a question and he will answer you or tell you what he wants. That is after he repeats your question a few times 1st.

3) He understands you, If he is looking for something, you can tell him where in the house it is, and he will go and get it.

4) I love that he is around his family so much and LOVES each and everyone of them. He know everyone by name and talks about them often when they are gone.

5) I almost love that he almost has his molars. I can not wait to stop cutting everything up into bite size pieces. He is getting there, and I can not wait for him to have all his teeth, although I think that will be a while still.

6) I love that Jake calls Waylon "buddy" and Waylon will come up to Jake and say "hi Buddy" just like daddy says to him. On that same note, I call him "baby" and he comes up to me and says, " Hi, baby"

7) His vocabulary is HUGE mainly because he loves to look at books. He is awesome, because when we go to the library we will get a bunch of books on one topic and he learns all about those items quickly. We got a bunch of books a few weeks ago about Trucks! He pointed out a CAR TRANSPORTER the other day!!! Amazing!!! He also knows the difference between a back hoe, dump truck, tow truck and so many others.

8) One he is doing right now! He trys to get my attention while he is in his crib, he will yell at the top of his lungs.. Hi Mommy...to see if I answer. I don't, not nearly like daddy does at night time. But he trys and trys...sometimes you will even hear him say, "go to sleep" because if I do say anything back to him, that is what I would say.

9) I really love that Waylon is such a great eater and goes to sleep well too!! We get complemented on that a lot and I think we just got lucky. Waylon has very few foods he will not eat or is allergic to. He trys anything and likes most of it. Then when it is time for bed he goes down so easily without any fuss and it is AWESOME!!!

10) I love most that he is still my Baby. He still needs me and most of the time I can still hold him and rock him to calm him down. This is another thing I love dearly and it makes me very sad that someday this will not be something he needs. So I make sure to hold him just a little longer these days and kiss him a few extra times.

Time has gone by so fast already, I do not want to forget a single moment of him being little! It will only be for a little while and only ONE time. I love this little guy more than anything!

Happy Birthday Baby!

Waylon's Birthday Party Yesterday

We had a small (well as small as our family can get, party for him yesterday) We did not do a huge party like we did last year for him. I think it was way too much for the little guy, so this year we tried to do just a little less and next year maybe we will just do cake and presents. Waylon had a great time seeing his cousins and his faimly. He got some great presents that I know he will be playing with for a long time to come. Thank you so much` Here are some pictures from yesterdays party.

Waylon with his cousins Gavin and Hudson!

Waylon and his new Car from Gammie, Aunt Corty and Uncle Jon

Waylon eating his Birthday cake or as he called it his Pake!Waylon and Papa with his new Trike~Go radio flyer~
Waylon's cousin Kylie~she loves her Baby Waylon
This was Waylon's present from Mommy and Daddy, that we gave him this morning for his birthday! He loves it

The Phoenix Zoo

On Friday we (Waylon, Hailey (my niece) and I ) went to the Zoo! It was a great Freebie I had heard about and we took advantage of it, even though it was HOT. Every Friday in May the zoo gave you 2 Free admissions when you showed your Fry's VIP card. So we got up early and packed lunches, snacks and drinks galore and headed out to the zoo about 8:30 Friday morning. We would have been able to leave a little earlier, but Waylon was testing his terrible two fits out for Hailey and I and he postponed out departure about 30 minutes.

This was Waylon's first time to the Phoenix Zoo and I had not been in daylight in years so it was a lot of fun to see the animals, well all of them sleeping pretty much. There were plenty of fun things to see though. I love that the zoo has little splash zones now, so you have a chance to cool down and get wet. We took advantage of this and it was fun, until Waylon got pushed over by a lovely young boy I would have chatted with had he not been so quick!! Little booger!

Here are a few shots taken by my great photographer Hailey that day of the animals and Waylon. It is nice to have some pictures with me and Waylon together, that are not set up. We had a lot of fun and I am glad Hailey was able to come along with us, Waylon and I enjoy her so much. Love you Hailey! Sleeping Tigers

Mommy and Waylon on one of several Tractors we HAD to test drive.
Waylon in the petting zoo. Not so sure of these goats???
Waylon and Hailey were having a great time on the drive home. They sang songs, took pictures and Hailey did some video of silly Waylon too!

Waylon's Stack O' Toys

While I was making breakfast yesterday, Waylon was frantically running back and forth from his play room. I looked up to see he was stacking his toys on his Table. He was very proud and was willing to let me take a picture. So I did!

A whole weekend together~

With this being a holiday weekend, Jake and I make it a point in our neighborhood to stay home, because it is quiet. We enjoy our neighbors greatly, but it is also nice to have a quiet neighborhood too! So as everyone packs up their toys we plan our weekend out here. Jake stayed home with Waylon and I on both Saturday and Sunday and we ALL enjoyed ourselves a lot. Saturday was a lot of fun, we made a trip to the Children's Museum and then came home and went swimming and then played more in the water after we got home. It was a fun filled day all around.

The Children's Museum is not so much a museum as it is a play place, but Waylon had a lot of fun. In fact when we pulled up he said "Tot Town" which is a play type place I take him to during the week, wierd he said that because he had not even been inside it yet. When we walked in though that is exactly what it reminded me of. There was some fun activities for him to do and he enjoyed running from one to another.

This was one of the stations I just held my breath on, because all I saw was a huge mess! But he loved it and I was so glad I had Daddy there to help me clean that mess up. Yep, if you look on the picture of just him, it is all over his foot, sandals and pants. Thank goodness it all comes out!!

This station was in a grocery store setting, what fun! They had a bunch of beans for the kids to scoop and it was great. They also had a whole store with carts and a check out station too! What great idea to save some of your old boxes and things for the kiddos to play store if they are in to that. :-)

There was also a noodle forest another fun station. This was the size of a large room where there were 100's of noodles hanging and you could just go through them, it was fun but has potentential to be quiet dangerous for kids who are too rough. Glad we went through with him, I am pretty sure he would have gotten trampled on if we hadn't.

Then we came home and after a much needed nap, we went swimming and then played in the water at home! It was an all around great day that I will think of often.

Waylon and Daddy driving the car~!
I love my boys more than anything and this weekend it was multiplied! I love you boys!

Super Savings Yippee!!

Well our coupon quest continues. I have become a member of CouponSense and love it. It has helped me not only save money, but become more organized with my coupons. Here are a couple of our runs from the past week. Jake is even getting into this and made a run for me too! Our average now is about 70% savings on our grocery bill.

Target Run last SundayOn this particular run I had a list ready to go and was a little disappointed, because some of my info from a blog was not correct. I guess that is what you get, if the blog is not local, I should be more careful. So I did not purchase everything on my list, but made up for it big on the next trip to a different store. I love Target when there is good deals because you can use Target coupons and manufacture ones together. These can add up to a lot of savings-for example- I got all of this pictured above for $4.63 Yep- it would have cost me about 16 bucks that is a total of 72% off my original bill.

My Albertsons Run

Albertsons does not double or triple any coupons but they do take competitor store coupons. So the items that were not at Target or I should say were to much at Target just so happen to be on sale at Albertsons so I got some smoking deals on these crackers. I was able to by 2 boxes of Ritz crackers on sale for 1.88 each and then I had a manufacture coupon for -$1.00 off which made them 88 cents each. Then I had a Target coupon for a $1 off when I bought 2 of them so it made them 38 cents a box! I also did this with the Wheat Thins and Triscuits plus added a coupon on that if you bought one of these types of crackers you would get a box free! That is where the 5th box came in at. Then I also bought cheese. It was on sale at another store for 99 cents so I used their coupon. My total for all of this would have been $21.34!!! I spent only $3.62!!! I saved 83% on this trip!!!! This was one of my best yet...

A late night Fry's run by Jake!

Well, Jake has been paying close attention to my runs and I told him the other night at about 8:15 or so that we could have gotten Ice Cream for $1.50 today. I just did not make the run. He said where is it I will go and get right now! So naturally I sent my dear husband off into the coupon world with his ice cream coupon (plus one more for cheap Ketchup, he might as well pick it up for me since he will be there right?) Fry's will double your coupons automatically at the register so I sent Jake with a $0.75 off coupon for the ice cream and then a $0.20 one for the ketchup. The ice cream was on sale for 2.50 and when they double the coupon, they mean double it up to a $1 so that made our ice cream a $1.50. The ketchup was on sale for $0.98 and with the doubled coupon it made it $0.58! Jake was so excited with cheap ice cream that he bought two, however I only had one coupon. He did well and was even proud of himself too, I could tell! He paid a total of $4.58 in the end which would have been about the cost of just one of the ice creams on a normal trip. Jake's savings was 66%! Not bad for a first run babe!

Enjoy our super savings! The thing I love most about all these deals is we are getting back to the good food, none of that generic stuff for super cheap. I miss some of this food, cheap is great but better with coupons.

I will be blogging more, now that school is offically out for the summer! We have a lot ahead of us and a lot of fun things planned together!

Thankful~

Over the past month I have come to realize I have a lot to be thankful for. I have been through a lot in the past year and because this is a positive blog, I am not going to revisit many of those events. This blog is all that I am thankful for and have to be thankful for, so that if I need to revisit this myself, I can.

First and for most I have the best family and friends anyone could ask for! I am so lucky to be surrounded by so much love everyday. My family and friends mean so much to me that I can not imagine what my life would be like without each and everyone of you! Whenever I need to talk, vent, cry or laugh you are all there for me and I thank you so much.

Secondly, my family, the one I have with just Jake and I is perfect! I have a wonderful husband, who works his butt off to do so much for not only us, but our friends and family as well. He tells me everyday how much he loves me and I appreciate all he does for us. Even if he is away a lot, I know it is not by choice. It sure is nice having him home again. He will be home until about the end of August. We have an amazing friendship and an even more amazing child. I can only hope that someday our dream of completing our family will happen.

Thirdly, my baby, Waylon. One never can express the true joys of motherhood until you expierence it yourself. From the moment you decide you want children until the days of your existance is over, it is the hardest, but most joyful and loving work you will ever do. I do not like to call it a job, even though it is, I prefer not to call it that. :-) I never knew the love of a child until the moment I held Waylon for the first time, in the hospital, and I amazed that I love him more and more everyday!!!

Lastly, for now anyway, I am so thankful for my job. I had a scare with all the budget cuts, that I might not be able to work part time next year. This was because my partner has not been in the district as long and was in jepordy of not being asked back. Thankfully, after a long stressful period, we are able to be together next year. I can continue to work at a job I love, with someone I admire and trust, and be with my son a little while longer.

These are just a few moments of life that I have to be thankful for as there are many more, maybe a different day I can write more. To each of you who read this know that I love you and am grateful to YOU!
Lots of Love
Colette