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.