Happy Birthday mom and Mike

Kristin, Matt, Emily and Jamie

Emily, my mom and Jamie

Luke and Jamie

We went to my moms house last week to celebrate her birthday (As you can see Luke and Jamie are busy putting candles on the cake). It was fun, but a bit strange since my brother was not there. He moved to Texas 2 weeks ago and this was the 1st family get together since he left. But, his girlfriend, Kristin, brought her laptop and her web cam so we were able to talk to Mike and see him thru that. He is living out of a hotel right now, and can I just say that I feel very bad for that maid! LOL...Luke was a bit confused by the whole process and really did not like it much, but I am sure he will get used to it since that is how we will be communicating with Mike from now on.

The kids and I went with my mom and sister last night to see the Rockettes! They were incrediable! I can not belive how perfect each of their moves were and how in sync they were! It was seriously something that was breathtaking. (Well-not so much for Emily, as she fell asleep) but Luke liked it and today he was talking about seeing baby Jesus on stage. Who knew a 2 year old would remember the part about baby Jesus more than the big Santa Clause number? From an adults stand point the nativity scene was pretty amazing, but so was the Santa Clause scene!

Emily is starting to walk now behind her push toys and she started eating Cheerios last week too! She is also wacing now and clapping her hands too! She is completly head over heels for her big brother too! Luke has started picking her up (which I have put a fast stop too!) and trying to carry her around...especially if she gets too close to his Geo Trax.

That is about all the updates for this week that I can think of...but if something else comes up I will let you know! LOL...Oh our close friends The Penrod's are coming into town the 1st weekend of December, so I am pretty pumped about that too!

Kroger-ing

Get out your thinking caps and calculators.... at least that is what I needed to accomplish this shopping trip. Here is what I purchased at Kroger tonight. They have a mega deal happening right now when you purchase any 10 items in the mega deal category you get $5.oo off your purchase immediately. They limit you to 3 mega deals per transaction, so I did make 2 trips. No biggie tho, I just went out to the van and unloaded my first 6 bags and turned back around and went in for transaction # 2. ;) Everything I bought I had a coupon for and was on sale (that is what my goal is now-to never pay full-price and always use a coupon!) So my total for both transactions was $110.00 and after my coupons and 5 of the mega deals discounts ($25.00 off my total) I spent $49.00 for all of this! I averaged .97 cents for each item! Not to shabby! Here is the list of what I purchased:

2 rolls of Viva paper towels

2 boxes of Orville Redenbocker popcorn

2 bottles Listerine

3 boxes of Extra-Strength Tylenol

2 boxes Betty Crocker instant potatoes

2 bags Pizza Rolls

6 boxes of Soft Pretzels

1 box of batteries

1 box of Swiss Miss

1 bottle of Johnson's baby lotion

3 bags of Betty Crocker cookie mix

2 bottles Welch's juice

18 boxes of cereal

1 bottle of Treseme hairspray

4 tubes Right Guard Deodorant

Thanks right, I bought 50 items for less than a buck a piece! Each receipt shows that I saved 69%, so that makes me feel pretty good! Oh and in case you are wondering-yes we love cereal in this house! It makes a great to-go snack and Emily is getting pretty close to being able to handle Cheerios. Plus Mick and I both enjoy sitting down to a bowl of cereal in the evening once the kiddos are in bed every now and again. I can not wait to go back to Kroger tomorrow, as I saw a lot of items that were not advertised in the mega deal that I have coupons for, which I had left at home.

I like to move it move it!

This is one of my favorite outfits that Emer's has right now (thank you AF!) She looks so old and so stinkin cute! We have had a pretty fun week so far! Last night Mick and I went out to dinner with some of my girlfriends from high school and their hubby's. We all had a great time! We checked out this place downtown called Water Street Wine Cafe and it was really neat! It was a very small place tho and with a group of 9 of us we pretty much took the place over! I had a wonderful glass of blush wine that was oh so yummy! We are meeting next month at a local Italian place that will be pretty good (no, not Avanti's). It was so nice to get out and have some nice adult conversation with no kiddos and no worries! Of the 5 of us 3 of the girls are going to the reunion and 2 of us are not. I am happy that I am not the only one not going of our group. On Wednesday night we watched Facing the Giants with some friends from our life group and again I had a great glass of wine! This one was from Kickapoo Creek Winery and it is one of my favorites! I so enjoy a nice glass of wine with dear friends!

The kids and I went to Safety Town on Wednesday morning and had a good time. Luke drove his Little Tykes car around while I pushed Em in the stroller. We were the only one's there enjoying one of the last nice days before mean ol' Mister Winter arrives. Today we are going to see Madagascar 2 at the theater this afternoon, that will be a good time! Luke is pretty excited and I am thinking that Em will fall asleep in my sling.

Oh boy am I am ever excited to head to Kroger's tomorrow morning! They are having some serious great buys right now and when you pair it with the coupons that I have, I think I will get some seriously sweet deals! Can't wait to plan it out tonight once the kids are in bed....some Friday night fun, huh? LOL.....At least it is my idea of fun! I love it and look at it as a challenge to see how much I can save at the store and I LOVE it even more when the person behind me makes a comment about how much I save. It totally makes my day! Have a great weekend and I will be sure to post about my serious deals later tomorrow!

70 degrees on November 2?

It was a beautiful weekend here in Peoria! The weather has been crazy nice the past few days, so we decided to take advantage of it and have some family fun! We went to Detweiller Park on Saturday afternoon and played football and at the playground and then decided to take a hike in the trails. Luke thought it was the coolest adventure ever to be able to run in the woods! We had fun flipping over dead logs and looking for bugs. We found spiders and worms and other little creatures, we listened for "reindeer" but I think we were too loud. Luke thought it was pretty neat that we were at the top of the hill when we came around a curve, and loved being able to run back down. He rode on Mick's shoulders for a bit and liked reaching up and grabbing the trees also. Emily was in her sling and really enjoyed watching the trees pass by. She played in a swing for a bit and thought that was really neat! We ended up stopping for a quick bit to eat on the way home. What a perfect Saturday! Of course I forgot my camera, but after church on Sunday we headed to the Shoppes and had another great afternoon. I still can not believe this weather!

Reason # 1045....why 2 year olds should not have markers:

Luke did "paper work" this morning with me while Emily napped. He ended up with marker all over his hands and face and arms and of course on the table and chairs.....He even had it behind his ears!

Extreme Make Over Part 2

Well Monday was CRAZY busy at the Extreme Make-Over house. With deadline looming everyone was running around crazy! But the difference in the house from when we left on Friday and came back on Monday was insane! The house was up, the window was in (must have solved that problem), the floors were done, the rooms had paint and wall paper, the bathrooms were complete, the kitchen was done and the laundry room was to die for! I basically just cleaned the floors for about 3 hours and then we were hustled into the basement so they could film upstairs. We worked for a bit on the 2 bedrooms in the basement, but then stopped and realized they probably forgot about us as we had been in the basement for about another hour! We heard the crowd outside cheering, so we went upstairs to see them filming the "unload the furniture" scene. We snuck out the backdoor and went down to the food tent for some dinner. When we came back to the house we were turned away (by some very cranky designer assistant) and told to come back to clean in about an hour. Well that was at 7 and our shift was done at 8, so we left. We never got to see Ty ;( But this house is amazing! We did see Michael again, (he seemed cranky) We saw Ed again, and this other chick designer that I do not know. Pauli was there, on his cell phone or what we thought was Pauli...but turned out to be a producer of the show...lol...I am so happy that I was able to take part in this and to have a chance to see a behind the scenes of this show that our family loves to watch!

Extreme Make Over Home Edition....

Sorry for the delay in the update, I have been fighting a horrible cold and sore throat! Mick actually asked me to stop talking on Saturday because I sound too much like a man! LOL....Anyway-Ty was not there on Friday when I worked, I worked from 2 pm to 8pm and had a blast! I pretty much just worked in the basement and tried to keep the mess to a minimum. A few friends and I had to climb into the crawl space and push broom that out-let me tell you that my thighs were killing after that! We also helped carry out excess supplies and swap out de-humidifiers and massive fans so help the drying process of the floors and dry wall mud. I did see Michael, he was wearing leather pants! Let me remind you that is was raining and freezing! Leather pants? He came in and did a few takes by the HUGE bird cage they are building in the house. I also saw Ed, he actually looked more like a volunteer, he was in jeans and a sweatshirt and did a few takes. Also-Pauli was there, he was outside helping the carpenters figure out a problem-the MASSIVE picture window was too big to fit! I think they have it in now tho....it was really funny though because in the show it looks like the designers are there the whole time working and that is soooooo not true! They ride up in their little gators and hop off and do a few takes and then head back to the comfort of the warm, dry trailers! Ty was in Pennsylvania doing a home reveal on Friday, but I heard he was back in town now, so maybe I will get to see him today! We are not allowed to bring cameras, but a few of my friends have picture phones so I will post some pics of me in my hard hat when I get some! Oh and I know you are jealous- I have my own blue Extreme Make Over T-shirt now!

Rub a dub dub

2 babies in the tub
and who do you think they would be?
A cute little blond boy whose name is Luke
and he's about to turn 3!
Another little blondie whose name is Em
and she is as cute as can be!