Getting Caught Up

Here are some pictures from the past week. No good reason for being behind, just keep forgetting.

We were supposed to go to the park with Dixie and Zayli last Thursday, but the rain caused us to change plans. We went to the play area in the mall instead. They had a great time. Here they are on top of a VERY slippery igloo-thingy.
At a park on Saturday for friend Aubrey's 2nd birthday. It was sunny but chilly.
Playing on the enormous playground, Maggie loved having me on the other end of the see-saw. She spent most of the time up. =)
Yummy lunchtime and children sitting fairly orderly. So nice!
Ice cream cone cupcakes, so darn cute! Maggie loved it.
Here: the photo attached to the dictionary definition of SNARKY. That wrinkled nose is a common sight in this house. At this point in Maggie's childhood we are working on appropriate responses... I don't think anything else needs to be said about that.
And shortly after, Maggie double-fisting asparagus at dinner tonight. Not sure when she started to like it, but I think the fact that she got to eat it with her hands helped.

Life is SO Funny Here

Last night I made teriyaki chicken with rice and broccoli. Nothing fancy, but one of my favorite go-to dinners. Tyler had out his hot sauce, as usual, and Maggie pipes up with this: "I don't want boy sauce, I want girl sauce."

WHAT?!?!? She kept asking for girl sauce. Tyler figured it out before I did. She thinks the hot sauce is only for boys since Mommy doesn't really use it, and girl sauce is soy sauce. She wanted soy sauce on her dinner. So, I got the soy sauce out of the fridge, and all was well.

SO FUNNY!!!

I'm a closet NKOTB Fan

Ok, in middle school, not a closet fan. But when grunge moved into Seattle, I trashed my New Kids cd's and tapes (I AM that old - I had tapes). But, my first concert was New Kids in the fall of 1990 - 7th grade. I went with my best friend, Gina Buzzelle, and her cousin, and our moms. I had my mom scan and email me the picture of my original concert. I'm the one on the far left. Gina in the middle in the tie-dye get up, and Kristy on the right. Back in the day I thought I was HOT STUFF in my new penny loafers.
It was the best 1st concert experience EVER. The moms rented a limo and took us to Red Robin. At the time it was the fanciest restaurant I had ever been to. Being one of 3 naughty children we never went anywhere except Denny's or Pizza Hut. We got screamed at the entire drive to the concert - I guess other girls thought we were the New Kids in our fancy limo.

My friend Meredith called me up Monday afternoon and asked if she could get tickets if I would go with her. I said "of course!" So, at 6:30, we headed downtown for the concert.

Before the concert at my house. Meredith wasn't able to get tickets off Craigslist, so we just drove downtown and got them from a scalper. They were really good seats.
Us at the concert. I did not buy a concert t-shirt, and we had not saved our clothes from back in the day (like I would fit into anything I had in 6th or 7th grade!).So the purpose of this picture is not to showcase Meredith (but doesn't she look lovely?), but to sneakily get a picture of the mom-type lady int he middle of the picture. She came with HER daughter (in the blue farther down). Hysterical to me, since I went with my mom to my first concert, but I didn't need her for the 2nd. =)Here the boys pop out of the floor of the stage for their grand entrance. The concert was not sold out, but I think it was the loudest concert I have ever been to. Seriously. 30-year old ladies are loud. I hooted and hollered until I was hoarse. I sounded like a man on Tuesday morning.Here's my favorite New Kid: Danny Wood. I LOVED LOVED LOVED him. Random, I know. everyone else liked the other guys in the group. I still think he's good looking, but I would never trade Tyler for him. Tyler is my Richard Gere. Meredith's binoculars - given to her in high school by a boyfriend who took her to see "The Phantom of the Opera"! Awesomeness, I tell you.
Part of the concert the band came out to a platform pretty close to our seats. If I were still 12, I would've freaked out and possibly passed out being so close. Like I said, a lot of the ladies were going nuts.My camera was on it's last seconds of battery, so I didn't get a good shot. Blurry will have to do.
Going to the concert brought back a lot of emotions and memories:
-sitting in my parents bedroom frantically dialing Ticketmaster to get my tickets (Mom wouldn't let me stand in line in downtown Seattle, overnight, for some "odd" reason).
-singing every song over and over and over until I was blue in the face
-how much I loved my NKOTB stuff that I had (until they went out of style)
-thinking that I would actually get to meet them, and Danny Wood would fall in love with me IMMEDIATELY, and I would run away with him and we would live happily ever after (Pretty Woman had come out recently, and I SO thought that could happen in real life). Remember, I was TWELVE. I dreamed about marrying Danny Wood so often, it's ridiculous.
-swooning every time their videos were on MTV - back in the day when they actually played videos.

Anyway, those memories are fun and mortifying all at the same time. I was SUCH a silly girl at 12. Praise God He saved me from a life of being nothing more than a groupie. And that I have been blessed with a full life, a wondeful husband and child, a great house, I could go on and on... but I will leave you with one thought. Only New Kids fans (that have been to a new concert will understand) "Let's get this!"

Pump It Up - turns a frown upside down!

Monday our friend Julie invited us out to a warehouse full of moonwalk toys (that's what I remember them being called when I was little). They had a HUGE slide, obstacle course, climbing wall, basketball court-thing, etc. So we got there, and Maggie DID NOT want to go on them. I think she got scared when she couldn't see me for a second when I went to talk with a friend, and then in my zeal to get her to go down the slide I knocked her over as we were going up the blow-up steps and she cut her lip (I KNOW - bad mama!)

So she pouted and cried and whined for about 10 minutes. She put herself in time-out on the bench. How could I not take a picture of that?
Finally, she got the gumption to try it herself. Here she is lined up behind Nyah to go up the steps. So the slide really is fun! Maggie told me later, "Mommy, I don't want to go on the slide with you."Happy girl!
And off she goes!

Dancing To Her Own Beat

Maggie LOVES LOVES LOVES to dance. Today we danced in the Old Navy changing room - they were playing something groovy in there. Here she is dancing to music in her head one morning last week.
Note: She says "That Rudolf sings with the dentist". Maggie is talking about the Rudolf the Red-Nosed Reindeer clay-mation Christmas movie... haven't watched it since Christmas, but apparently her dancing brought that video to mind. How bizarre. You will also note the static hair and Maggie's failed attempts to get it off her nick. =)

I should make sure she can REACH her juice

Maggie can open the fridge now, which has some advantages, like her being able to get her sippy out of the fridge. Of course, it helps when I don't put her Hello Kitty water bottle on the top shelf (see the yellow one at the top in the center?)...

I wasn't in the kitchen when she opened the fridge, so I walked in and saw this then told her to stay there until I could get a picture. I wonder how much longer she'll hold still so I can take a picture?

I've Succumbed - a Post on Couponing

A wave of couponing has hit my circle of friends, Kelly, specifically. I've always used coupons (thank you, Amron!). I love all things BOGO (buy one, get one), clearance (I LOVE me some clearance digging) and mix-&-match sales. I have recently been able to do a couple of shopping trips where I've saved anywhere from 75-90%... but I will admit that some of those trips ONLY included the special deals and not other weekly/needed items that our household normally consumes. I don't typically buy anything that we do not eat or use unless I have a specific person I am getting it for, so I thought I would post my trip to Kroger today to show a normal trip.

This week Kroger has their mix-&-match sale, buy 10 items, get $5 off. You can do that up to 30 items, so I did and got $15 off which is taken into account in the starting price of these items ($0.50 per item). I listed the total value of the coupons, which includes the doubled amount if they were $0.50 or more.
Mix-&-Match Items:
2 Welch's Juice $1.99 ea., coupons: $1, total paid: $2.98, individual price: $1.49.
5 Dole 4-pk fruit cups $1.79 ea., coupons: $2.25, total paid: $6.70, individual price: $1.34.
3 Nature Valley Granola Bars $1.99 ea., coupons: $2.2, total paid: $3.77, individual price: $1.27.
3 Fiber One Bars $1.99 ea., coupons: $1.5, total paid: $4.47, individual price: $1.49.
1 Nutrigrain Bars $1.99 ea. no coupons
3 Ken's Salad Dressing $1.49 ea., coupons: $2, total paid: $2.47, individual price: $0.82.
5 Ziploc Sandwich Bags $1.99 ea., coupons: $4.4, total paid: $5.55, individual price: $1.11. I picked up 3 pkgs of 120-count sandwich bags, 1 pkg gallon bags, 1 pkg quart bags.
2 pkgs Dixie Bowls $1.49 ea., coupons: $1.99, total paid: $0.99, individual price: $0.495.
1 Cottonelle TP (12 rolls) $5.99 ea., coupons: $1, total paid: $4.99, individual price: $4.99.
1 Viva Paper Towels (6 rolls) $5.99 ea., coupons: $1, total paid: $4.99, individual price: $4.99.
2 Colgate Toothpaste $1 ea., coupons: $1.5, total paid: $0.5, individual price: $0.25.
2 Colgate Toothbrushes $1 ea., coupons: $1.5, total paid: $0.5, individual price: $0.25.
Other items I picked up:
1 Cod (2.5#, frozen) paid $9.99, no coupons.
1 Chicken paid $3.14, no coupons.
1 Chicken paid $3.08, no coupons.
1 Chicken paid $3.22, no coupons.
1 Flour paid $1.99, no coupons.
1 Whole Wheat Flour paid $2.49, no coupons.
4 Yeast Packets paid $0.89, no coupons.
3 Harry & David Choc Covered Cherries paid $0.50 on clearance, no coupons.
1 Nestle Choc. Sticks paid $0.5 on clearance, no coupons.
Bunch Green Onions paid $0.68, no coupons.
Bunch Asparagus paid $1.40, no coupons.
3 Oranges paid $1.67, no coupons.
1 Cucumber paid $0.82, no coupons.
1 Stayfree Pads paid $2.50 on sale, no coupons.

Total Paid per receipt: $75.50 before taxes for 58 items. (I know I have a typo in my addition up there somewhere, but I am not going to try and find it and the receipt says $75.50). I saved $96.28 with MFG coupons, doubled coupons (up to $0.50), buying stuff on sale and the mix-&-match $15. 56% is not bad for my regular shopping, especially when $32 was allotted to items without coupons.

I still need to get lettuce, garlic and more fresh fruit, but other than that I'm pretty set this week. So there's my post. Got it out of my system. Updates on Maggie to come soon.

Hidden Kitty Attacker

Olive likes to hide in Maggie's toy bin under the coffee table. The occasional swipe at my feet reminded me to get the camera out.

Birthday weekend

This past weekend I turned 29 for the 3rd year in a row. Gramma Sue and Grampa Jones came to visit us for the "big" event. I took them to an orchid grower here in Nashville: Merkle's Orchids. Ed Merkle was featured in the February issue of Southern Living. He was very hospitable and talked about all the different species we were looking at. He even had several of the orchids that produce vanilla, and one type of orchid that ONLY blooms after a certain type of summer rainstorm. Quite amazing.

The greenhouse was close to Opry Mills, so we went there to walk around, shop and have lunch. Here's Maggie playing in one of the tents they had set up at Outdoor World-bass Pro Shops. One of the clerks there said a woman actually LEFT HER CHILD to sleep in that tent while she finished shopping because the little girl was tired and didn't want to shop any more. Tempting, but NO.
Maggie at Neely's BBQ for my birthday Sunday night. I'm still figuring out my new camera, so the close-ups of the food didn't turn out. Neely's (Pat & Gena Neely of Food TV fame) was amazing! Pat's brother runs the Nashville location, and he was chatting it up with the people at the next table, so we pretty much got the whole history of Neely's while we ate. My GLORIOUS birthday cake. It's the 4-layer monstrosity from Costco. Best darn chocolate cake I've ever had.
We also went to the Opryland Hotel on Monday to walk around and see all their flowers in bloom, but I neglected to get those photos off my mom's camera. We had a great time, even if Maggie was crabby because of her cold. Love you guys!

Sick Baby Girl

The past almost two weeks, Maggie has had some kind of sickness/cold. I finally took her to the doctor today, but this picture pretty much sums up her past 2 weeks: lethargic, grumpy, tired, grumpy, lazing about, runny nose, grumpy, cough, ... did I mention grumpy? =)