Silly Cereal Time

I was feeding Ava some cereal the other day about mid-afternoon when a serious dose of the sillies hit her. It was cracking me up! Here's the evidence. ;)

Happy 5 months Ava!

Seriously? It's been a month already ?? Oh my, where is the time going ... really. Since I've gone back to work the days and weeks just fly by! I feel like Ava grows and changes everyday. I go to work and come home (especially after working two 12's in a row) and feel like she's grown so much! Our days are filled with routine and busy-ness. :) As a mom to this squealing, babbling, wiggling 5 month old I have to say that its not possible for me to love my life with her any more than I do right now! She is a ray of sunshine to us... our pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. :) I love being her mommy!

We started green beans with the munchkin ... this is her first food since rice cereal. She gives me the bitter-beer-face with almost every bite, hehe. We do cereal in the morning and green beans in the evening. I think we'll move on to peas next week.

Ava naps about every 2 hrs. She takes a long nap in the morning (about 1 &1/2 hrs) and then 30-40 min naps the rest of the day. She is super crabby without her naps. :) I LOVE rocking her for her naps. Its our time to really cuddle and we both enjoy it. I love watching her eyes drift into a sleepy slumber ... and I LOVE how she reaches her little fingers up to my face and "talks" to me as we both rock back and forth. I will never forget the one time when she put her hand on my chin and started cracking up laughing ... it was kind of a, I'm-so-sleepy-I'll-laugh-at-anything chuckle ... cutest thing ever, just out of the blue started laughing as she held onto my chin. Silly girl.

She has recently discovered her thumb. :) She doesn't really suck on it, but gnaws on it with her toothless gums. She doesn't suck on anything really ... occasionally she'll take her binky for naps but not often.

She's been talking up a storm lately. She's throwing in some consonants in her babbling ... I'm hearing some m's and b's in all that gibberish. :)

Here are some pics for the month ... can't wait til this weather breaks and we can enjoy the outdoors a little more!!


Smiley face!!



So serious ...


Silly girl



Gnawing on her thumb ... :)





Cutie pie ...



Green bean deliciousness :)

This months's coupon savings ...

I tried to save all of my grocery shopping receipts for the past month since I just got into this coupon craze. I'm pretty sure I got an adrenaline high this past week at Kroger while grocery shopping ... my neck and chest got all red and blotchy (and those of you who know me well know that I wear my emotions on my neck! haha) as my excitement hightened when I saw all the FABULOUS deals they were having ... who knew that was possible!! haha. I looked like one of those stereotypical die-hard grocery shopping, deal making, money saving moms frantically wheeling my grocery cart up and down the isles flipping through my coupon book as unexpected great deals grabbed my eye and I couldn't pass up the savings. My heart rate is rising as I talk about it ... haha. No really, I got some items for FREE ... that's something to get excited about. Now if I were a really good couponer I would've gone home, printed off more coupons, and went back to the store to get more for FREE. The best items I could've gotten for free were airwick airfreshners. They were on sale for $1 and I had a $.50 off coupon (which is doubled at Kroger), so there you have it, the item was free. :) Okay I'm going into way more detail than I planned on for this post ... I just wanted to tell you all how much I saved using coupons this month and look where it took me. :)

I'm proud to announce that I saved $ 191.36. This was 28% of my total spent on groceries for the month. I included diapers and formula in my total spent. So the savings percentage would be greater if I did not include those items, but I don't really feel like doing the math for that right now. ;) Not bad for a rookie couponer. :)

Now that I have an idea of how much I can save (I'm sure I'll become more of a strategic shopper as I get more practice with it ... which means saving more $!) I'm trying to decide what I should do with the "extra" money ... more $ in Ava's college fund? Christmas fund? Vacation fund? Savings? Investments? The possibilities are endless! hehe:) This is really neat.

First Family Photo Shoot

We had our pictures taken a couple weeks ago at Target. It was a combination of Family Easter pictures and Ava's 4 month pictures. I wanted to wait until Ava was able to smile 'on command' before her first official photo shoot, and she's doing that very well these days! :) It was a fun time. Ava did wonderful. A little worn out and tired of the camera in her face by the second outfit change, but overall she was a peach. :)








My Favorite.






My goodness I love these footsies.

Portia's New Look ;o)

We have hardwood floors on the entire first floor of our house. We really didn't think about how Portia's nails would affect this floor when we first bought our home ... nor did we think about it when we were buying area rugs -- or they would've covered a larger area. We've lately noticed that Portia's nails are doing a huge disservice to the beautiful hardwood flooring in our living room. We keep her nails clipped pretty short, and she loves to chew her nails anyway (I know, weird:), but despite our efforts to protect the floor, her 130lbs of chubby love are continuing to chip and scratch our floors.

Here's our solution ...



Paw-tectors :)

~They're even rubberized so she doesn't slip and slide on the hardwood floors. C'mon, it was a good idea! :)

Organic Food Coupons

Just found this one ... its going to be one of my favorites! I like to buy a lot of organic products but I find these items a little pricey if I don't really hunt around for good deals. So here's a good coupon site for organic products ... if that interests you :)

• www.mambosprouts.com
  

Ask and you shall receive :)

Many of you are asking about my couponing sites so here's a list of the ones I like to go to. Keep in mind that to print a coupon from pretty much all of these sites you have to install the "coupon printer" ... so do that when you're prompted. I listed some sites here that you can just load the coupons onto your grocery card, too. I really like those! :) Also, read 'Coupon Mom's' pamphlet about saving money with coupons. She's a serious saver and her strategies are neat to read about. :)

• www.couponmom.com


• www.coupons.com


• www.couponsuzy.com


• www.cellfire.com --> neat one b/c you can upload the coupons onto your grocery card instead of printing them!


• www.smartsource.com


• www.shortcuts.com -->another one you can upload to your grocery card.


• www.bettycrocker.com --> this one sends good recipes to your email, coupons as well.


• www.hotcouponworld.com


• www.p&gesaver.com


• www.eatbetteramerica.com


• www.eatingwell.com

So, as far as baby coupons ... you can go to Similac.com and sign up to receive newsletters in the mail where they'll occassionally send you similac coupons. Pampers.com does the same thing ... although there are a lot of coupons out there for pampers. I've also found that you can go to ebay and search for coupons. A lot of times you'll find people getting rid of their similac coupons ... its usually something like, $25 or $30 worth of coupons for $5 bucks or so ... and free shipping of course, so there's a little savings there.

These are sites for non-grocery coupons & savings :

• www.slickdeals.net


• www.fatwallet.com


• www.couponcabin.com

Enjoy! :)

P.S. I've been slacking on my blogging lately, but I have some SUPER cute pics of Ava to post ... its been crazy around here for the past week, but I'll try to get those on here soon!

Happy St. Patty's Day! :o)

Feeling lost ... ;-)

Well ... it's Monday ... usually right about now I'm getting swirlies in my belly thinking about what's going to happen next on my favorite show that would normally start at 8pm tonight.

Sadly, The Bachelor is over... sniff, sniff. I'm not even excited for the upcoming season of The Bachelorette (Jillian was not my favorite). Although I am very disappointed in Bachelor Jason for his lack of commitment to Melissa (because I picked her as the girl who would win his heart from the FIRST episode!), I suppose I'm happy for his happiness... even though I liked Melissa better than Molly. I will admit ... I was slightly obsessed with the show ... and might've had a little crush on the bachelor. ;)

On the upside ... American Idol will surely feed my need for reality tv! :) PLUS, it's on 2, sometimes even 3, nights a week!! I'll keep you posted on my picks of the week!! Don't be fooled, my husband loves the show as much as I do ... maybe more? :)

Coupon Craze :)

Because of this crazy economy and the uncertainty of so many jobs out there (ours are safe so far!) I have decided to become frugal mama and save as much money as possible by couponing. I've never been a big couponer... mostly due to laziness and uninterest, but this stuff is addictive! I'm hooked! :) All it took was saving $60 at the grocery a few weeks ago and now I can't stop! I rarely buy something without a coupon ... there are so many out there and if you know where to dig you can find some juicy deals! :) If we go out to eat somewhere I'm always like, "wait, I might have a coupon for that place!" and I excitedly go digging through my accordian coupon file in search of a great deal! Hehe. I will try to pass along as many deals as I can ... especially for all you moms out there buying formula and diapers! If you like Huggies diapers there's a $5 off coupon at coupons.com that you can print up to two times. Take today for example, I sent Eric to the store for diapers & formula for Ava. I had $1.50, $1.00, and $0.50 off coupons for Pampers diapers ... $5 and $2 off Similac formula ... and a $5 off a $50 dollar purchase at Target... voila -- $15.00 worth of savings!! It takes some organization, but its worth it! :) Let's hope Eric remembered to use the coupons. :)

Ava's 4 month's ... Part Two :)

Ava had her four month pediatrician appointment on Monday. Here's a run down of her updates :)

*Weighs 16 lbs (90th percentile) and is 25 1/2 inches long (also 90th percentile).

*Wears size 3 pampers cruisers :)

*Had her 2nd round of shots ... this girl didn't even CRY! What in the world!? She's a trooper :)

*Wears size 6 months clothes ... some 6/9 months if they run small. I know, she's growing outta control!! :)

*Eats 5 oz of formula every 3 hours ... 6 oz before bed.

*Grabs EVERYTHING! And proceeds to explore it with her mouth.

*Laughs hysterically when we tickle her chubby lil thighs. My favorite.

*Still has that crazy clogged tear duct ...

*Takes 3 one hour naps during the day.

*Sleeps 8pm to 4am ... again, finally :) Oh by the way, no more diarrhea ... OR diaper rash :)

*Becoming increasingly more interested in Portia and the kitty ... she always want to grab them as they walk past her.

*Loves to smile ... you don't even have to work for her smiles ;)

*Can spend more time playing independently ... her favorite is playing in her activity gym ... what we like to call "the jungle" :)

*LOVES watching the TV ... especially Bachelor Jason :)

*Infatuated with sticking her tongue out.



She is our angel for sure!!!