Rebekah is 1

I can't believe she is one already, it feels like yesterday I gave birth to her and was able to bring her home. She is now a toddler =/

Yesterday we celebrated with a few friends from church.

We love you Rebekah, Happy 1st birthday =)

Christmas tree :)

I am sooo glad Christmas is here. Finally after months of listening to Christmas music and visioning stockings hung above the fire place, our house is now fully loaded with a tree down to Christmas scented candles :)
I am so thankful Seth could be here for a "normal" Christmas. Last year he was only here for two weeks due to Rebekah being born, and the year before he was in Iraq. Hopefully despite being broke from 4 birthdays, Thanksgiving and now Christmas we can get a chance to relax and think about what Christmas is really about. We wish we could be with everyone this year but because of money issues and wanting to be together we thought staying home would be best for our family.

Here is a picture of our tree, sorry about the quality of the picture. I am actually posting this blog from my new phone app.
Hope everyone has a great Christmas :)

Levi is 3

Seriously 3 years old. It saddens me to see him grow up so fast. I remember finding out we were pregnant with him and waiting so long for those 9 month of pregnancy. I wish you all could personally meet with Levi one on one. He is such a loving little boy and is very funny.

Levi we love you so much. These three years have been the best three years I could possibly have with you. Thank you for who you are. Hope you had a wonderful birthday =)

Seth we are so thankful you could finally be here for his birthday.

Reba Girl

It has been way to long since I last posted. Things here have been pretty busy and I haven't had my computer for over a month. Just recently Rebekah started walking and is getting into everything. I have seen her change so much in just the past month, it's crazy how the time has flown =( She is definitely entering "Toddler hood"

Here are Reba's 11-month accomplishments.

- Rebekah you have already mastered the stairs. Every time I catch you, you turn around laughing while shoving your face into the stairs. You scare me every time.

- You love bananas, bread and really just about anything we put in front of you. You even steal food off of your big brothers plate. You eat so much, yet your still so small.

- You still wear size 3 diapers.

- You crawl faster than I can chase you and pull up on everything in sight. You have started taking a few steps but haven't quite mastered walking yet. Hopefully soon =)

- You love eating paper. Every time I leave anything " Paper" around you have already eaten half of it. Im guessing you have ate at least 10$ worth of coupons.

- You love playing with Levi in his room. Although he hates it lol

- You drink about 4 bottles of formula a day and LOVE any type of juice. Pretty soon we will start you completely on WHOLE MILK.. WOOT Money in the bank haha

- You now have 4 teeth. 2 on top and 2 on bottom.

- Finally you are in size 12 month clothes and wear size 2 shoes.

- You need a big girl carseat

- NEXT MONTH YOU WILL BE A YEAR OLD =)

We love you so much Rebekah. Thank you for bringing so much Joy to our family.

Getting started with coupons

Start collection coupons

Internet Coupons: {coupons you can print at home from your computer} my favorite sites for printing coupons is

- Coupons.com

- Smartscorce

- Red plum

Also if there is a certain product you are looking for it always helps to go to their website an brows for coupons.

Also if its legal and if your desperate "like me" you can always resort to dumpster diving.

If you can afford it, every sunday try and stock up on the sunday newspaper. There will usually be 1-2 coupon inserts. If your lucky their may even be three. Be sure to look out for the RedPlum insert SmartSorce and even P&G

Once in a while I even buy the "All you magazine" which has about 90$ worth of coupons every time.

Store Coupons: Whenever shopping in your favorite store be sure to grab a few of their store paper and any coupons you may see around the store.

Catalina- Is a printable coupon that is handed to you with your receipt at the store, many times it is a voucher for “store cash”. This is one of the most effective ways of getting items free!
Peelies- peel off coupons found on products at stores
Blinkies-found in the aisle at the store spitting out of the blinking black box
Tear Pads- Usually displayed next to the product and tear off of a pad.

Be sure to keep every coupon.

Keep all your coupons until the day they expire. You can either throw them away when they expire or what I do is send them to Military families over seas. Military families over seas can use expired coupon up to a year. Please if you decide to do that sort your coupons into TWO categories, food and nonfood, and send them to this volunteer who will then send them to military bases overseas.

KCL Overseas Coupon Program

Amanda Brumbaugh

10960 W Bridgetower Dr

Boise, ID 83709

GET ORGANIZED

The most important thing about couponing is getting organized. Everyone has a different way of doing it. I personally prefer filing mine and having a binder

Filing Method: Get a letter sized accordion file and file your coupon inserts. Don’t clip until you are ready to use them. With this method you do not have to waste anytime clipping coupons you never use. You will have to spend time clipping before you can shop, and you will not know where your coupons are if you unexpectedly find an item on sale. You could also clip your coupons and store them in a small accordion file.

Binder Method: keep you coupons in baseball card holder sheets. Then separate each section by Frozen, breakfast, soap, laundry... on and on. There is no wrong way of doing it.

Find the deals

My favorite thing about couponing is the fact that other people find the deals for you. You jut have to be willing to spend an hour a day on the computer finding them. My favorite website is thekrazycouponlady.com

If you go to her website you will then find tabs for different stores. Click on whatever store you are wanting to shop at and she will have a long list of whats on sale at that store or even better what will be FREE =)

Example. This is an actual deal going on at Walmart

She will list an item " Tic Tacs" With a picture. Under the picture you will see this

Tic Tac Singles $1.04, Regular Price $1.00/1 – Tic Tac Product from RP 6/12 Final Price: $0.04

What that means is at walmart Tic Tacs are going for $1.04 Regular price It then says to use your $1.00 off 1 tic tac product from your REDPLUM insert. ( RP 6/12) 6/12 would be the date the insert came out. So in this case tomorrows newspaper insert will have that coupon. Use that coupon when buying the tic tac and you will end up paying just $0.04 on it. Cool huh. Hnestly it is really that easy.

TIPS

Just because you have a coupon doesn’t mean you should use it right away! ALWAYS wait for a good sale!

When you see an item on a super good sale, purchase a lot of it! This is how you effectively build a stockpile. Never again will you just run to the store to grab something you need and pay full price. From now on, you will shop from your stockpile – a stockpile that is full of items you paid pennies on the dollar for!! You will now menu plan from your stockpile and use what items are on a good sale that week.

IF YOU ARE REALLY WANTING TO GET STARTED I WOULD RECCOMEND GOING TO THIS WEBSITE AND BUYING REDPLUM, SMART SORCE AND P&G INSERTS FROM THE PREVIOUS WEEKS AND EVEN MONTHS. IT IS BEST TO HAVE AT LEAST 2 OF EVERY INSERT. Their may be a deal tomorrow where you can get toothpaste for free but will need the coupon from the insert 2 months prior.

http://www.couponsthingsbydede.com/Coming_Soon_s/74.htm

Go to her website, click on the WHOLE INSERT TAB at the top then order as many as you can from the weeks and months prior.

Good luck and happy couponing. PLEASE let me know if you are wanting more details on couponing.

Sorry for being so behind on blogging. Honestly we really don't have anything to exciting going on for me to blog. So for now ill fill you in on what I can. As you all know last December I gave birth to our beautiful daughter Rebekah. She is such an amazing little girl and is full of so much personality. She is still really tiny but is finally filling out in length. Last night we weighed her and she is now 14lb. Im not sure where she is supposed to be, but she looks pretty healthy to me =)
Everyday she seems to enjoy Levi more and more. She even lets him ruff house with her. Ive even caught Levi sharing his blanket with her while watching veggie tales together. Levi on the other hand.. Is a HANDFUL.. He is the sweetest little boy you could ever meet, but man does he drive me crazy sometimes. He is always craving attention and trying to make everyone laugh. Im sure Seth was the same way at the age of 2.
Over the past few months



Rebekah
Wanting to crawl but has yet to do it.
Holds her own bottle "which helps out sooo much"
Hair is getting so much longer and has yet to lay down =)
Is teething =(
Sleeping through the night without waking up.
Laughing at her self in the mirror. Which is the cutest thing ever








Levi
Talking up a storm while forming sentences.
Potty trained.
Picking up words that we are not teaching him = /
Sneaking in the fridge for food. He can seriously eat more than I do. The other day he had 4 pieces of pizza. I was full after 2
Rough housing with Seth as if he were an adult
Growing up way to fast.






Recently Seth and I celebrated our 4 year anniversary. It was the first time in 4 years that he was actually home. We had a pretty relaxing stay in an 1800 hotel in Manitou Springs. The day started out with walking in the garden outside the hotel then an hour long couple massage. Soon after we walked about 50ft from the hotel to an AMAZING restaurant called "The craftwood inn" had a few drinks then headed over to a hot tub outside the hotel. Overall we both had a great time.






Over the past 4-5 months I have been attempting "Extreme Couponing" To be honest I don't know why I didn't try this sooner. I will probably never again go to the store without a stack of coupons. About every few days a group of girls from my church including the pastors wife " Yes pastors wife" go dumpster diving. Its legal and sooo much fun" Since Feb I have already stocked up on body wash, tooth brushes, toothpaste, bbq sauce... and the list goes on. I have even gotten formula for FREE. Even today I picked up 10 things of similac formula all free. Its a pretty amazing feeling walking into a store getting about 100$ worth of groceries and only spending 10$ I dont even know how much I have saved us since the beginning. I do know I wont have to buy cereal for a long time..
If any of you are interested ill slowly add a few things to the blog explaining how I do it.


Me with the head lamp ready to dumpster dive haha
And the rear end of my friend Hailey "Pastors wife lol" and myself.




Just a glimps of what I have gotten for free

Update..

Forgive me for the lack of blogging. We "I" have been pretty busy around here, chasing Levi and keeping up with the needs of a three month old. For the past few weeks, I kept telling myself I needed to blog rather than just add photos. But days passed, weeks passed and before you know it, a whole month had passed.
So, It's been a crazy month. Seth came home to get ready for a school out in NC, Martin and Debe came out for the weekend, we began potty training Levi and just yesterday Seth left again for two months.

We sure enjoyed visiting with Martin and Debe. It's not often that we get to spend time with the family, let alone have them stay at our house. While they were here we visited Garden of the Gods and was on a hunt to find Martin a new coat... The only warm thing he brought "to Colorado" was his blue, bumish looking sweater that he seems to love lol. We gave him a hard time about it. We took them to this really nice out door sporting store and still his blue sweater couldn't compare to the nice north face jackets hanging in front of him. Poor Debe, she seemed to hate that thing. Non the less he left empty handed, still wearing that sweater... We miss you guys already and hope to have you back.







We are still doing really well at home with the little one. Levi loves her so much (maybe a little too much!) and kisses her every chance he gets.


Seth's visit was short but sweet. While he was home he managed to get a few things done around the house as well as take care of the kids "sounds weird" so I could get my hair cut. I wish we could have had more time together. Now I just need to keep myself busy and before I know it he will be home.
Oh yes forgot to mention.. Levi and I are now taking baking classes every thursday. He loves helping in the kitchen so a baking class seemed like great mother son bonding time. And let me tell you he is loving it. On top of baking with his mommy, he gets to bring his goodies home. So far he has baked key-lime pie and monkey bread. .. By the way, if you have never tried monkey bread you are missing out. So easy to make and probably "now" one of Seth's favorite after dinner desserts






We are also potty training.. So far he is doing great



MONKEY BREAD

3/4 c. sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 1/2 sticks butter

3 cans canned biscuits
1/2 c. sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon

Heat the first three ingredients and boil for 2 min. Cut each biscuit into 4 pcs. Roll each piece in last 2 ingredients. Layer in greased bundt pan. Pour boiled mix over it. Bake at 350 degrees for 1/2 hour. Turn out on plate and serve while still hot.



Kind of random.. Part of my new years resolution was to completely go through my closet and get rid of everything I don't wear anymore. I also wanted to put away all my pregnancy clothes (and normal clothes stretched out by pregnancy) I ended up getting rid of about 1/3 of my stuff and am soo ready to get into shape and start on a new wardrobe. It feels so good to have so much stuff gone that has been collecting dust over the past few years.


Bare with me while I write.. I'm not very good at it, at least you can still get an Idea of what we have bee up to..

* STILL CREATING ART*
Because I don't blog as often and had a baby 3 months ago doesn't mean I have stopped working. "making things that is" I have actually been busier than ever.

Making a few gifts for a friend who will be having her baby shower in April..
- Burp clothes
- Pacifier clip
- Hooter hider
- Head bands for her soon to be baby girl.
- And possibly a painting with her name on it.. Not sure yet..
Please keep her in your prayers. Her name is Michaela and she is a little over 25 weeks pregnant. A while back she started having contractions and is now having to stay in the hospital for the remainder of her pregnancy.. Things are looking better but I can't imagine being in a hospital that long.

I am also working on making a bunch of baby things for our up and coming farmers market.
Dresses anyone.. So cute!








And my most precious piece of art is my babies Levi and Rebekah. I just love being a mother again, both her and Levi are my biggest inspirations. I love you both