The past week

So much has happened in the last week, I don't even know where to begin. I guess I could start with Mat's new favorite sport, curling, which is currently on the tube (yes, we still have one). During this Olympics a new love has blossomed between curling and my husband. I actually don't mind watching it as much as some sports, but I prefer ice skating. Mat has finally finished his two classes and is on his way to a 4.0 in his graduate program. He is going to be taking an additional soccer class, outside of school, in Florida. The class is a week long and he will earn his National Diploma from the NSCAA. This is thankfully during the same time that my parents will be here visiting. Mat's new class begin on March first, but he will only be taking one class the next quarter.

Abby has mostly conquered her bow-bow (pacifier) addiction, which we began weaning her off of about a week ago. She still uses it during naps and at night, and I must say that I don't see this ending any time soon. She struggled and really missed her bow-bow for about the first four days, but now she hardly asks for it at all. We were hoping that without it constantly being in her mouth, she would begin to talk more. She now babbles non stop, and is saying more words, more frequently. Her favorite word is Uh-oh. Sometimes she throws her cup on the ground just so she can say uh-oh. I think she's really begun to enjoy her English words and sometimes she'll say a string of as many words as she can think of and in no particular order. "Mama dada Bubu hi uh-oh." Or, she'll just walk up to Squirt's face, "Bubu, Bubu, bubu, bubu." Abby calls Squirt Bubu, it is much easier to say, and it's what Mat and I call him the majority of the time. As well as she is doing learning her new words, there are some words where she's stuck in her ways and won't even try to say them correctly. Mama has four meanings, depending where she puts the emphasis, Mommy, Grandma, All done, and one other word I can't think of right now. I've tried having her say, "all" and she says, "Ma", then I'll say, "done" and she'll say, "Ma". We've also been working on potty training, but I'll save that for another day.

The pets are all hanging in there. Garfield is more annoying than ever, that cat just doesn't know how to shut his little kitty mouth. He is constantly meowing. We do love having him around though, because he is the only of the three pets who lets Abby maul him. Skeeter sleeps next to my head every night and has developed the new habit of drinking out of the sink, I guess it's an improvement from the toilet. Squirt is still terrified of life in general. Besides his normal issues of rotting teeth, no hair, old age, and low thyroid, he is constantly in the wrong place at the wrong time. Flying objects and Abigail's body gravitate toward him. He spends as much time as possible sleeping and has even been know to sleep in until noon.

I've been busy trying to save all the money I can using coupons and shopping strategically. We're on a very strict budget trying to get all of our debts paid off. I'm enjoying my job in the Athletic Department, someplace I would've never in a million years, imagined myself. It involves time on the computer, organization, and numbers, three things I enjoy. Abby and I are still going to our weekly coffee group, where we've made some new friends. I'm especially enjoying having Mat back, since his classes have ended. It seemed like for two or three weeks I never saw him, because he was always drowning in school work. God has been so good to us in providing for all of our needs, some of our wants, and allowing us the privilege of caring for his child.

Mat's life

Mat is finishing up his final papers and presentations for his online classes, thus I have not had much access to the computer. As soon as he is finished, and hopefully when his new class starts, I'll be able to post more often. He is only taking one class next semester, instead of two. He's been quite the busy guy. He's a student, a husband, dad, in the process of starting up an indoor youth soccer program, and soccer coach. Many have asked what he does in the off season. He has weightlifting four times a week, study hall twice a week, miscellaneous tests and compliance paperwork, recruiting, scheduling games for next season, and much, much more! In between all of this, he's trying to squeeze in watching the Olympics. We love our busy guy!

Thrifty Thursday

I've discovered some wonderful sites to grab free coupons during the last few weeks. Some are even the coupons that are found in the Sunday papers.

Redplum
Enter your zip code, select your coupons and print.

SmartSource
Enter zip, select coupons, print.

P&G eSaver
No more clipping, coupons are downloaded right onto your shopper card.

Coupons.com
Sign up for 131 free coupons, plus local coupons.

Mysavings.com
Random free products and coupons

Abby News

Abigail's has figured out that if she pushes the dining room chairs around the house, she can get into practically anything and this is one of her new favorite things to do is. She usually pushes her chair around the kitchen and draws on shopping lists, does dishes, or plays with the water in the teapot. She's such a great little helper.


Abby and I had some new friends come over today. Abby's friend is 17 months old and they played peek-a-boo, hugged, shared sippy cups, played in the princess castle, and ate snacks together. We met them last Wednesday, at our weekly coffee Mommy and baby group. Hopefully it is the start of a wonderful new friendship :)

We've been having quite the nightly adventures when Mat goes away to weightlifting/study-hall. Last night Squirt puked three times on the same rug and on the couch. The cat puked in our bedroom. Abby and I found squirt standing in the middle of the street in the dark...did I mention that he's black? And last, after Mat was back home and in bed, around midnight Squirt puked on our bed!! Ahhhhh! We've spent all day today trying to get our bed back in order for sleeping purposes tonight. The last load is about to go in the dryer.

Mat and I have been slowly trying to wein Abigail off of her pacifier. We noticed that she talks a whole lot more when she doesn't have it in her mouth, and we're hoping that this will continue. We started out by only giving it to her in the house and in the car. She is now used to that, so we've moved on to only giving it to her in the car and while she is sleeping. She doesn't like this process so much, but she's not putting up as much of a fuss as I thought she would. It also helps that she's easier to distract now with little things, such as spaghetti noodle boxes.

Have a wonderful evening!

18 month Photos

New Abby Photos have been uploaded. There are images of our first snow, lounging in the sink, and much more. Click the pic below to view more.



My child usually likes to try new foods, but lately she's been a little picky about the look of things. Take lentil soup for example, it took her two dinners before she would actually eat it, and even then she was suspicious. With this knowledge, I don't know why she likes to try eating dirt/sand. On four or five different occasions she's tried to taste one or the other and promptly spit it out or had me scrape her tongue. This afternoon, while were were walking about Squirrel Park, Abby squatted down and full on began eating the dirt. I'm not just talking about a little taste, but two fist fulls went into her mouth and she was crunching on it all the way back home. I tried pulling some who knows what (possibly moss) out of her mouth along with the dirt, but couldn't get it all out.

Thrifty Thursday

Welcome to Thrifty Thursday #2!

Everybody likes to get something free, right? So, this week I focused on freebies, some of which are samples, but still free.

Free Powerbar sample
Register with powerbar.com to get a free PowerBar Gel Blast sample. Don't know if it's yummy or yucky, but it's free!

Free 20 oz. Orange Julius
Sign up with Orange Julius and receive a coupon for a free 20 oz. Julius fruit or Premium Fruit Smoothy. Yum! I was sadly unable to use this coupon, because I could not find an Orange Julius within a reasonable distance.

Box Tops Coupons
Sign up to receive a FREE Box Tops for Education coupon booklet with $10 in savings.

Freeflys Samples
Freeflys Samples is a fun website with MANY free samples listed in different categories, such as, "Food", or "Children". The only bummer is that you have to sign up to view the samples.

Almost Free Bar-S Hotdogs
Many stores double coupons, and if you are able to find one of these stores, this $1 off Bar-S coupon will give you two packages of hot dogs for around 39 cents each. That was the deal we got at our local grocery store.

These were a few of my favorites from coupon hunting this week, hope you enjoy!

Desitin Anyone?

As I was on Facebook this afternoon, I heard my little daughter making some noises from her room, which indicated to me that she was up from her nap. As I was finishing up on the computer, I noticed that she was suddenly silent, which usually happens when she falls back to sleep, so I decided to let her "sleep" a little longer. A few minutes later, I heard her making some happy noises, and went in to get her. I found her sitting on her bed, quite proud of herself, and holding the Desitin in one hand and rubbing it into her face with the other. Oh my! After my inspection of the messy Missy, she leaned back, crossed her legs and let out a content sigh. Daddy very promptly retrieved a baby wipe to clean Abby up. By the condition of the changing table, I could also tell that she had it to get to the Desitin.

This story strangely resembles a tale I heard of Abby's cousin. The following is a message from Abby's Aunt: "Cousin T was up all night Sunday crying and finally we determined he had and ear ache so I took him in on Monday to the doc and he has an ear infection in both ears, but he slept 12 hrs last night so that was really nice. Then after we got home from the doctor, we ate lunch and I laid Cousin T down for nap, then I got a phone call and Cousin T got quiet so I assumed he was sleeping, about 15 minutes later I went into put Cousin L down for nap and lo and behold the little monster was not sleeping but making a royal mess with the container of butt paste. It was everywhere, his whole face, in his hair, all over his clothes, on the floor. Let me tell you that stuff is greasy and not the easiest to get out, I've found baby wipes is actually the most effective method."

I guess they must be related.

A Church to Call Home

After our fifth Sunday visiting a local church, we think we may have finally found our church. It is a traditional church with a young pastor, only 25 years, straight out of seminary (it's weird that I'm calling 25 young). He and his wife live in what we are assuming is the parsonage on the other side of the lawn from the church. Mat is going to schedule an appointment for us to meet with him sometime this week to discuss the church's core beliefs, mission statement, etc. We also mentioned to him that we may be interested in getting involved with the youth. I really miss youth ministry, I think even more so than Mat, because he's still able to do a form of youth ministry with his team. One of the main things we were looking for in a church was a pastor that preached from the Word, and he definitely does this. Today, his first fourish minutes of the message was a medley of scripture that he quoted from memory. He is currently going through 1 John and uses scripture throughout his sermon.

We really enjoy how friendly the people of the church are, but they don't hold a candle to the friendliness of Brookside, the super-dooper friendly church. Abby seems to enjoy the nursery, she knows exactly where the baby dolls are and goes straight to them every time. This is the oldest church in town, founded in the 1700's. The church does not have a website, but below is a picture of the current building.

1842 ------------------------------Current

How to Create a Blog

I’ve been asked several times how to create a blog. In this post I will take you step by step through the process. For those of you who already have a blog, I would just ignore this post, because it may be rather boring.

1. Create a gmail account. If you don't already have one, I think it's easiest to first create a Google email address by going to www.gmail.com and clicking the white button on the right side of the screen that reads, "create an account". Follow the steps to create your account. If you already have a Gmail address, skip to step 2.

2. Create a blog. Go to www.blogger.com and click the big orange "create a blog" button on the right side of the page. This will take you to a new page where you must Create a Google Account. If you already have a gmail address, or you have just created a new one, click on the blue underlined "sign in first" at the top of the page. If you see "Sign up for Blogger" at the top of the page, then you are in the right spot.

3. Sign up for Blogger. Fill out the "Sign up for Blogger" form and click the orange continue arrow at the lower right hand corner of the page. Be sure and check that you agree to the terms of service.

4. Name your blog. Select your blog name and address. These are usually identical or similar on most blogs. Click the orange continue button.

5. Choose a template. Choose the template that you feel best suits your site or that you think is perrrty. Don't worry, you can change it later. Before selecting the template, you can preview it by clicking, "preview template". This will show you an enlarged example. I chose the "minima" template. After you have made your selection, click the orange "continue" arrow.

6. Your Blog has been created. Hooray! You've created your blog, now click the "start blogging" arrow to start blogging.

7. Layout. You will then be directed to a page where you can publish your first post if you would like. I would suggest that you hold off on this for now and click the "layout" tab as seen below.

Once you have clicked "layouts", as seen below, you can choose to change your "page elements", "fonts and colors", "edit html", or "pick new template".

"Fonts and colors" lets you change exactly what it says, fonts and colors, but I'll let you do that at a different time, because it is very self explanitory. I wouldn't even bother with the "edit html" option, because that will be way too confusing. The "pick new template" option takes you to the same page we were at earlier when you chose your original template. There are a few more options available if you would like to browse those at a later time. Right now, we will focus on the "page elements".

8. Page Elements. Everything in this section is broken up into neat, easy to navigate boxes. We'll start at the top and work our way down. In the center of the page, you should see a large gray box with a blue strip across the top titled, "Navbar". Click the word "edit" on the right side of the blue strip. Here you have the option to change the "Navbar" configuration. I chose "tan". Make your selection, then click, "save". Under the Navbar you should see your title, and this can also be edited by clicking the word "edit" In that box.

9. Add Gadget. Below the title, the same length as the title box, is an "add a gadget" box. We're going to ignore that box for now. Below and to the right of the add a gadget box there is a column of smaller boxes, please see below.

The top box is also labeled "add a gadget". Select this box. A new box will pop up, where you will be able to scroll through, and read about different gadgets. If you see one you want, feel free to push the "+" button to add it to your blog. I'm going to add the "search box". As I said, to do this I press the blue "+" button, as seen below.
This will take you to a new page where you can make any selections or de-selections that you would like. I de-selected web, because I only wanted the search box to search the blog that I'm creating. After you make your selections, click the orange, "save" button. There is now a "search this blog" box listed under my "add a gadget box". I'm also going to to add the "labels" gadget following the same method as above. When a gadget is added, it is automatically placed at the top of the list, but can be moved by clicking and dragging the gadget to the desired location. I reorganized my column to the following order: Search this blog, About me, Labels, Followers, and blog archive. Feel free to edit the other gadgets as you see fit, by clicking the blue "edit" to the right of each gadget. Don't forget to edit the "About Me" gadget and add in a little information about yourself to allow your readers to get to know you. Before moving on from this step, you must click the orange "save" button on the upper right. If this is not done, you will lose all of your work.

10. Postings. We are now ready to create your first post. Click the "postings" tab, which can be found in the same line as the "layout" tab, please see below.

This is where you will go anytime you would like to write a new post. There is a box at the top where you can type in your title, I would always recommend using a title, it makes searching a little easier. Below the title is where you will type the content of your post. Below the content is a place for lables. I would also recommend using labels with as few words as possible, and always using labels for searching purposes. Each post can have multiple labels. After you have typed your post and are happy with it, click the orange "publish post" button at the bottom left of the page. You can always edit your posts later. After publishing, you can click "view post" or you can wait until the next step where I will tell you how to view your blog. If you decide to view the post, use the browser's back button to return to this page.

11. View Blog. At the end of the row of tabs with "posting" and "layout", you will see the words, "View Blog". Click these words to view your blog. Here you will see the address of your website, please see below and are able to navigate your blog. To return to the your blog layout (see #7 above), click "customize" in the upper right corner, to the left of "sign out", please see below.

If you would rather "sign out" or create a "new post" this can be done by clicking those words in the same row as "customize".

Edit Posts. After clicking "customize" and returning to the layout page, click the "posting" tab (see #10). In the row below the "posting" row, click "Edit Posts". You will be redirected to a page where you can edit any previous posts or drafts that you have written. From here you can also delete and add labels.

Sign Out. To sign out from your blog, click the words, "sign out" in the upper right hand corner of the page, please see below.

Sign in. After signing out and when signing in, you will be at the blogger start page, found at www.blogger.com. Go to this address whenever you would like to access your blog. To sign in, type your gmail address and your gmail password. After signing in, you will automatically be directed to a the "dashboard" page. From here, you can get to "new post", "edit posts", and "layout" by clicking on any of them in the box titled, "manage blog", please see below.

Hopefully this should be enough information to get you a great start. If you have any questions or would like to leave me a link to your blog, please leave it in the comments. If you are unsure of how to leave a comment please go here.

Thrifty Thursday

I found some grrreat coupons and I thought I'd share my favorite's with you just in case you're interested. I might make every Thursday Thrifty, but only if it's not too boring. I'll share my favorite finds from the week, maybe. Below the coupons are a few Abby tidbits that I thought you might enjoy.

Free Gallon of Milk:
Enter to win the Got Milk free milk for a year give away and they will email you a coupon for a free gallon of milk with a $100 grocery purchase from any store, any brand of milk.

Free Coupon Booklet:
Sign up with Eat Better America and they'll send you a book of coupons in 6-8 weeks. I'm not sure what's in the book, but I thought I'd give it a try.

Free Tuna:
Click Here and print the $1 off coupon, good for any Starkist Tuna pouch (that's the technical name). We used our coupon at Wal-mart on the cheapest pouch, only 97 cents, making the tuna free!

$2 off White Cloud Toilet Paper:
Sign up with White Cloud Promotions and print a two coupons, one for $1 off and one for $2 off. After much research and reading consumer reports, this is what we've found to be the cheapest, yet still two ply toilet paper. Hurry, this one expires 2/17/10.

$1 off Desitin:
Go to desitin.com, scroll down to the bottom of the page, and print the coupon. Nothing to sign up for! I know most of you don't personally use desitin, but we think it's great, cause it's the only thing that works on Abby's rear.

As I was writing this post, I saw a stream of White Cloud T.P. running down the hall. Ahhh, our precious dollars are being waisted away by our precious daughter. She certainly is a cutie patootie. A few of Abby's favorite's:

-Foods: Peanut Butter on a spoon, graham crackers, uncooked pasta, grapes, fruit cocktail cherries, whatever mommy has on her plate.
-Drink: Juice = water, orange juice, vitamins, which she pronounces as "Ice"
-Bath Time Adventures: Soaping up her belly, sucking the water out of her toys, waving bye bye to the water, inviting the cats in with her.
-Books: Prodigal son, good Samaritan, baby faces, Animal Baby
-Entertainment: LOVES washing dishes, is currently enjoying shoving play-dough up her nose, coloring (only on things she's not supposed to or things mommy and daddy are using), anything outside.
-Toys: Car baby, baby, remote control from Sarah Light, Squirt
-Things to do that she's not supposed to: climb on the dining room table, climb on the coffee table, try and pick up squirt, kick squirt, feed squirt, dip anything into the toilet.
-Ways to mimic mommy: put makeup on, puts baby powder in her hair, shaving legs, clipping nails, laundry
-Ways to mimic daddy: blow nose, dancing, pig noise
-Little habits: turning on the angel night light from Charlie (our homeless friend), putting dirty clothes in the laundry basket and clean ones too, finding diapers and laying them out across the floor.

Dinner time!

Toothpaste Race

Well the Toothpaste Race has finally come to an end. I'm sad to announce that Mat was the winner by 26 uses. He's such a faithful toof brusher! As I mentioned in an earlier post, I was supposed to use Mat's toothpaste 20 times to make up for the amount that he used mine while on vacation. I finished my tube and was only able to use his seven times before it ran out, and I mean it was dry as a bone, I made sure. In the time it took Mat to use up his tube, I was only able to use 2 and 22/23's tubes. I know, it's sad, but at least Piglet is a boy to make up for it :)

I had asked if anyone had any good homemade granola recipes at the end of a post a few days ago. Nobody, not even my mom left me a comment with a recipe, and Mom, I know you have a good one, because I've tasted it. I found one online at that I'm going to give a whirl at. Here it is, if anyone else wants to try it too. I'll be sure and let you know how it tastes.

Ingredients

• 1/4 cup butter or margarine, melted I'll use Smart Balance
  
• 1/4 cup honey
• 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt We'll leave out the salt for Mat's heart
  
• 3 cups old-fashioned oats
• 1 cup flaked coconut
• 1 cup chopped walnuts
• 2/3 cup raisins

Directions

1. In a bowl, stir butter, honey, cinnamon and salt until well blended. Combine the oats, coconut and walnuts in a greased 13-in. x 9-in. x 2-in. baking pan. Add butter mixture and stir to coat evenly. Bake at 275 degrees F for 50-60 minutes or until golden brown, stirring every 15 minutes. Add raisins. Cool, stirring occasionally. Store in an airtight container.

I will also be leaving out the coconut (mat doesn't like it), raisins, and walnuts. I wanted to try a pretty plain recipe to start out with and this one caught my attention because it doesn't use sugar, but honey instead, yum! I might try adding in a little vanilla too.

If anyone as another recipe, or tries this one out, let me know!

Remember how I told you I was going coupon crazy? Well, here's a coupon for $1 off any Quaker oatmeal and it doesn't expire until 4/30/10. We'll be able to get at least two uses out of this. It does require you to already have installed or to install the coupon printer. Just follow the prompts and save it to your computer.

Abby and I are off to make some granola, Good Evening!

Chuck-O

Chuck is on tonight! Eeeee! We're about to start watching, now. It's officially my favorite television show. Abby's in bed and Mat is making cookies...again! We went coupon crazy today, and our best deal was making seven cents on a bag, yes I said bag, of tuna. We had a manufacturers coupon for $1.00 off and we went to Wal-mart where the tuna was only 93 cents. Yay! I should've saved the website that I found the coupon at, but I didn't. Oh well, I guess I'll learn my lesson for next time. I just caught someone sneaking cookie dough out of the bowl...

Our snow is melting and our first and only winter storm is over with. We're a little sad, but mostly sad that abby didn't enjoy it like we thought she would. We took pictures, but not too many, since all she wanted to do was eat the snow. She fussed on our walk to and from the school, but once we returned to our yard, she was happy eating snow again. She's such a cutie-pie. I do have to say that in her defense, it was sleeting, blowing sideways, and hitting her in the face when we went out.

Remember to keep Haiti in your prayers.