Summer is almost over!

Well we are closing up on our summer and I just needed to recap ALL that we have done. It seems to have been a long summer in some ways (waiting for Toni) and super short in others (once she got here time has flown by).

Wow! Now that I look back at all our blogs and pictures I have not even blogged about we have done a lot to make us all very tired around here. In no particular order this is what we did this summer.

1) We went to Tucson to see Jake as he wrapped up his out of town rotation and visited the Pima Air Museum. This was a lot of fun, but we had only an hour there before it closed so we must go back, oh yeah and I don't want to be 9 months pregnant again when we go! To HOT

2) We also went to the AZ Mills Aquarium...this was fun but I am not sure we will do this again. I am not sure it was worth the money to go. It was cool though.
3) There have numerous amounts of Baby Showers (mine and Courts) and Birthdays (Waylon, mine, Toni's birth, Olivia's birth, our neighbors Jackson, and Cousins Hudson, and Gavin too) I think that is it? So lots of fun parties and CAKE. 4) Waylon has been working on numbers and letters a lot this summer. There are some days I think why am I even doing this? He is three and not interested??? But there are many days he is and I know he IS learning them because he is strating to point out all the A's, B's and some C's we have done. He can write an A all by himself and is getting there, just not as fast as I had planned. I guess I should not have expected a 3 year old to master a letter a week right?

5) We have built numerous forts around here. Thanks to all the Hailey time we had this summer she has instilled a love of forts with Waylon. We have also played with cars and shaving cream. Something we can thank Brandy for, he LOVES to do this too. Waylon even lined up all his cars one day...Wow he has a lot of them..

6) We have gone to Pump it Up with a great coupon from my neighbor. Buy one get one Free for the boys during their Free Jump time...Awesome way to get energy out for 1 1/2 hours. FUN for $4. We must do that again!!!7) We have also even made it to the Lake as a family. One of my favorite days so far. I really miss the days of just going to the lake all day and hanging out...so when these days do come around I cherish them so much.

8) Then of course there is my favorite day...the day Toni finally arrived and everyday since then. We are so grateful that she is here, healthy and happy. We are now a complete family of 4 and loving every minute we are together.

As we wrap up the summer the fall brings a lot more exciting times...We are taking our first trip to Sedona with Toni, our newest nephew, Connor, is almost here and I go back to school to what I hear is a great class. So as you can see there is still more to blog about in the future.

Coupon Savings of 76% today at Fry's

Well even though there is a new baby in the house I have not lost my touch or urge to continue my couponing. I guess I am just struggling finding time to post about it. Today the kids and I went to Fry's and got all of the items above for a grand total of $28.41! They were out of a few things so we had to replace those items with some cheap lunchables..not my favorite, but they can be for adding up these kinds of savings.


I am not sure I have time to do a break down of everything...but basically Fry's has been accepting competitor coupons the past two weeks so this has helped a lot in bringing the totals down each week. Thanks to my fantastic neighbor I snagged a $6 off a $30 purchase coupon from Fresh and Easy..(I had only a $3 one, so this helped a lot) I also used some coupons from Safeway and Albertson's too..(love when they do this because then I may not have to run to those stores too)


Here is what I got (sorry I do not have time to do the coupon breakdown and prices) But what I can tell you is Coupon Sense has done all the work for me...If you are serious about these amazing savings you should try it...I am averaging 60-70% + savings EVERY time I go to the store. The first month to try coupon sense is $4 and then after that it is $15 a month...(which is well worth it and totally something you can split or share with someone too)


9 boxes of Kleenex
10 boxes of Smart Ones
2 Sunny D (Free)
2 Wishbone salad dressing
1 cake mix
1 cars Vitamins
1 Old El Paso Tacos (Free)
4 Cinnamon Rolls
4 Quaker Rice cake Snacks
2 Grape Jellies
1 bag of Chex Mix
9 lunchables ( this was my filler item because it was 59 cents a piece)


I think that is all- Pretty Great I think 46 items for 28 bucks! (less than $2 an item)
My favorite Part is the total coupon savings $88.53! (remember that is not just paper coupons that is the club card savings and matching all coupons that were not $1 and making them a $1)

The letter "A"

Well as everyone went back to school this year and I did not, and I felt the urge to TEACH... This is the first year in 9 years I have not been apart of the first day of school....and I MISSED IT....(no worries, I am returning after Labor Day...I have maternity leave this year because of our sweet Toni)

Waylon started going to Brandy's on most of his normal days and I am enjoying some one on one time with Toni on those 2 days as well. However, one of the goals I have made for Waylon this year is number and letter recognition. Waylon can say all of his ABC's and knows how to count up to 13...BUT has not one clue what these numbers and letters look like.

I came across a blog that had a link for a preschool curriculum and I loved it...It had all kinds of activities to do with each of the letters. So I thought I would just work with Waylon on a letter or so a week and see how it goes. The website offered a sneak peek at letter A so we tried that last week and Waylon really liked working on. A few days he "wanted" to sit down and work on the letter A. Awesome!

Here are some of the things and activities we did last week with the letter A.

1) The picture at the top of the blog was one of the first things we did..I traced the letter out and Waylon glued pasta shells on the letter to form his own big and little A's. (this was fun, because we used Wacky Mac which is always super cheap or free and we have tons of it...and he also wanted to sort them out into groups before we did the gluing)

We also did a matching game with big and little A...this was great too because it reviews colors too. Waylon did this without any problems at all, another great review for A in a few weeks for him too.

2) Another day we did an e book on the web page and it introduced words that started with the letter A...we then glued those to a page and read the words a few times together. (we reviewed this week and he remember almost all the words/pictures too) On the backside there was a cute space/planet activity that he liked finding the letter A and coloring it. This fit PERFECTLY because the same day we did this Grandma and Papa came over to bring some presents from there trip in California and they brought him Space stuff...COOL!

Then one of my favorite and Waylon's too is the tracing. We have our good days and not so good days with this activity and you need some patience when doing it, but I love the idea. I printed of the practice pages for big and small A. Then I put it into a large plastic bag and gave him a dry erase marker to practice tracing the letter with.

This works out well but a few tips...

1) erase soon after otherwise it will stay on the plastic and makes it hard to erase.

2) have them trace with their fingers first and then give them the marker, huge reward and they love it.

3) put the practice letters in the same bag, one side is big and the other small.

The best part about all of this is that the blog I found this curriculum on was doing a give away...So I posted a comment and was one of two winners... I won this awesome curriculum for a year! I am so excited and we have already started working with B...Another great find here at our house!

Happy Beginning of the School Year Everyone!

One Month Old~Just Toni

Our Baby Girl at 1 month old...It was so hard to get her to look normal and sit up..this was the best I could do....

UNTIL...

Big Brother came in to help...we both kept laughing because she kept falling over...she did not seem amused...so cute...MY KIDS...

I can not believe that Toni is already a month old. Seems like yesterday I was writing down how life was going to be so different in the next 24 hours when she was going to arrive. Now, here we are a month later....the time will only go faster. So before too much time goes by lets recap her and our first month together.

Toni weighs about 9 and 1/2 pounds (I am guessing, if not more). She is no longer being breast fed as mommy just decided it was not for us. Not only am I not a fan of it, but it is so much harder to sit down and truly feed her and bond with her the way you should with a 3 year old who needs you too. So after 2 or 2 1/2 weeks, we were done. She is doing great on the formula and seems very happy and is definitely getting plenty as she begins to pack on more weight.

Toni still sleeps with us in the bassinet in our room and continues to wake about twice throughout the night. She is not on any set schedule yet (which has me a little crazy) but she is consistent as to being feed about every 3-4 hours and eats about 3-5 oz. of formula each time. Toni will probably only be sleeping with us maybe another 2 weeks and then we will move her to her room at night. She is quickly outgrowing the bassinet and really enjoys her naps all sprawled out in her crib. As you can tell she is squished in there and almost end to end...(just like Waylon was at this age)Now this looks more comfortable...Our sleeping beauty in her awesome crib!

Toni is a wonderful and sweet baby girl. She is not much of a crier and seems pretty content most of the time. She also sleeps through everything, seems the louder the better for her. You can clean, play, have friends over and she sleeps through it all. She is beginning to hold her head up more, smile a little more, recognizes our voices and faces and have more of a personality too. We love you baby girl!

More to come next month as we continue to watch her grow and grow.