It's been so long...

since I've blogged. Like I've said, I haven't gotten the hang of it. Plus, we've been really busy for some reason!? So... with so many things I could blog about, I will at least share our family pictures. These are just a few sneak peek's that Jenny @ Moondancephotography.org sent us.



I think that these are pretty good. I always criticize myself and the way I look though. So I'm trying to just let go and just love that these are of Phillip, Claire, & me. I'm so excited to see the other ones!
There's so much to say and so little time. ;o) Tomorrow, or rather later today, we plan on decorating for Christmas! So if I have time I'll be posting a few more things.
Night!

My Birthday!

Sunday was my birthday!! I celebrated all weekend. Woo! And I'm not done because... I didn't get my ice cream cake! ;o)
Anyway... when I walked into the office on Friday, my desk was all decorated and the ladies had bought me a cake. It was so nice. Then my boss brought in potato soup for all of us and I got to take home the leftovers. Woo! It was too yummy! Friday after work, we went straight to my parent's house and then we went to Red Robin for dinner. Another yummy! I had signed up for coupons and such and I got a coupon for my birthday, a free meal! We then went to Michael's (I spent way too much money! (o: ) and then to Borders.
Saturday I cleaned and prepared for a party we had that night. It was wonderful! So many people came and we had the fire pit going and made s'mores... I also made my own cake. I will have to post pics later tonight. It had a giraffe on it!
Sunday we had church and then we went to Red Lobster for my birthday dinner with Phil's side of the family. We went to Payless after and I ran into my friend (Actually she works there.) and we talked for a while. I found pair of cute shoes and she gave me her discount! It was so awesome. That night was Area 58 and then we went to our friend's house and just hung out. Until 2 AM! We do this almost every Sunday night. It's like a ritual. Ha ha... The only thing is that we have to be at work in the morning and be able to do our jobs (Well, Phil has to... I just sit here.). So it's kind of rough. We may have to stop doing it, just because we say we'll leave at 10:30pm and then we're like just until 11pm, and we keep doing that until it's 1 or 2 am. Anyway... last night was so wonderful for me. I really got to talk about some things I thought I had dealt with and realized I haven't. I'm so thankful that my friend let God use her last night. I don't think she'll ever realize what it meant to me to be heard by her.
In other news... I went to the dentist. I haven't been in 4 years. Yeah, I know. Anyway... even though I take great care of my teeth, I still get cavities(Genetics). I have 4 small ones. I believe 2 of them are in my wisdom teeth. Which most people have had removed, but my mouth was big enough to fit all four! Except that my bottom teeth which were pretty straight before the wisdom teeth, became slightly crooked. (My point is that those teeth are way back there and hard to brush so I can see that I have cavities in those teethe.) So I have to go get those four little stinkers filled. Blech. The dentist is going to only do one this week and see how I do and then he will make me come back just once if I do well, or twice if I don't so he can fill like 1 cavity and then the other 2.
Well... I'm going to clip some coupons! Happy Monday!

Coupons

Oh! I LOVE coupons! A co-worker of mine kept bringing me coupons that she didn't use but knew I would. I asked her where she got them. "The Sunday paper." So... we got a subscription to the Sunday paper. It's amazing the amount of coupons I get! And it's paying off! For the $1.25 I spend each week on a paper, I am looking at saving approximately $10-$15. I know that doesn't seem like a lot, but it is just Phillip and I. If I got to use the coupons for diapers, wipes, formula, children's medication, etc... I'd save much more. Either way, most of the coupons won't expire until January or February of next year anyway! I've given a lot of the diaper coupons to my friend who has a 19 month old and another on the way. I have given my parent's quite a lot of the coupons as well. And as quirky and silly as this is... I had taken the coupons I thought I was going to use with me to Walmart. Sometimes buying the generic is still a much better price than buying the brand name with a coupon. Since I wasn't going to use it, I just left the coupons right next to the items it would be used for. I'm not going to pay that much when the generic is cheaper, but some people are very specific about the brands they buy and I thought I could at least help someone else out. This is the quirky, silly part... It made me feel great! Haha... The idea of helping someone save money gave me like a high. I feel so silly, but I hope that people saw them and used them!
Something I just recently found out is that Walmart accepts competitor coupons and ads from other stores. In IL we have Schnuck's, Shop-N-Save, Save A lots, and Dierburg's. Since I'm getting the newspaper, I'm now getting all of those ads. So like this weekend, I used ads from Shop-N-Save and Schnuck's. One of their ads had the store brand parmesan on 10 for $10. Well, Walmart's store brand-Great Value-was$2.62. I needed 4, so I spent $4 and saved $6.48! All I do is just cirlce all of the items in the ads I want and show it to the cashier before she starts ringing me up. It is so helpful. Obviously I'm trying to find more ways to save $... Sometimes I feel like it's a dead end and then someone tells me something like you can use competitor's ads at Wal-mart! Woohoo! Plus... I still can get all of my shopping done in one place that way. I'm so thankful for that.

It's November!!

I love November! It's my birthday month and I share it with my Mom! The leaves have finally changed. The weather gets cool enough to wear sweaters. Thanksgiving! Family! Preparing for Christmas! Warm colors and perfect nights for a fireplace. Too bad we don't have one. ;o)
I made some sugar cookies on Thursday for work the next day. They turned out okay, they were pumpkins and leaves. I made orange, yellow, and brown icing to cover them. They tasted great, didn't look super but they were consumed so quickly it didn't matter! Hehe... The recipe was from allrecipes.com.
We handed out candy Thursday and Friday night. We didn't really get that many trick or treater's. I was kind of surprised because we live on a really busy street. Oh well. It was still fun. We had some friends come over with their little boy. He was dressed as an adorable scarecrow! He kept giving his sucker to our dog, Claire. It was too much. ;o) Today we just cleaned, made our weekly grocery run, and watched a movie. A very relaxing and wonderful day!
Tomorrow we're going to have family pictures taken. Of course it's just Phil, Claire, and myself. So it's really considered couple pictures. I'm really excited though. A girl at work is taking them. She has a photography business on the side Moondance Photography. I think she is really great. I will have to post some of the photos when we get them back.
I have a few things in mind to post later this week as well. I still haven't gotten the hang of "blogging" yet. I'd love to blog everyday. But honestly, I don't find my life so exciting that I have to blog about everything... hehe. I do LOVE reading everyone else's blogs. I get so much inspiration from them! Anyway... I'll keep on postin' as I can!