December 31, 2011

Goodbye 2011!

I can't believe this year is over. It was a whirlwind and frankly, it went a bit too fast. I still can't believe Liam is here and we have our own little family now. That has been the highlight of my year. I have met and lost so many friends this year as well. Quite a few have also moved away. I became closer with quite a few, which I don't know what I would do without them. Even those who don't live near me, those are some of my closest friends. I have managed to keep my blog going, with a few small breaks here and there. I am so glad I have all you followers, you're amazing. To think I started with zero ha.

Here are some of my favorite posts to highlight the year:
A Letter To My Husband - I was doing some sort of blog hop for that.
Seahawks Game Vs. The Saints - We ended up going to one the best games ever!
A Story On How We Met - For a Valentine's Day link up (was nice to think back).
Our Anniversary - It was early due to the Army taking my husband lol
Liam's Finished Nursery - Took forever, but looking at it just makes me happy.
Liam's Birth Story - Without a doubt the best part of this year!
The Start of Our Paleo Diet - It helped me get down to my pre-pregnancy weight.
First Halloween Here and Here - Some of my ultimate favorite pictures of Liam, ever.
Uproar Fest - Seeing some of my favorite rock bands was AMAZING.
First Christmas - I love having holiday's with my little family.

I had so many more I wanted to add, but I think that is good enough haha. I'm excited to see what happens in 2012! Oh and join in on the new year, new follower blog hop madness. Click below!!


December 30, 2011

Six Months!

Can you believe my baby boy is SIX MONTHS already? I sure can't! I was going to post sooner but I totally forgot. He actually turned six months the day after Christmas... half a year old! Wow! He is doing so much! He kind of crawls. I wouldn't call it crawling yet, but he can go forward if he really wants something. I call it the belly flop because he gets up and lurches forward (not like the past video here), but just forward into a belly flop. Maybe I can capture it one day ha. Anyway, he also does this bear crawl type thing. He doesn't really go forward, but he gets up on his feet with his butt high in the air (like we did back in I don't know, middle school or something). It cracks me up. He is talking more and I repeat dada to him but nothing yet. He just smiles at me like I'm retarded. He grabs everything and chews on everything. He has TWO teeth now. He got one on my birthday and one a couple days later. Apparently that's what he wanted for Christmas ha. He is eating solids twice a day, usually fruits for breakfast and veggies for dinner. I may switch it up later on but for now it works. He has had almost all fruits now. My friend's mom gave me mum-mums to try on him (the rice snack things that look like surfboards to me) and he LOVES them. He gobbled those up..so I am going to buy some today when I get some groceries. He also loves things that rattle. Before he didn't really care but he loves his rattle toys. He also likes Martin's ball that has a bell in it (our cat). Silly boy, maybe I can find a toy with a bell haha.

Stats: 17.5 lbs, 26.5 inches and his head is 43cm (about 83 percentile). He has a big head, but I love it.

He is just growing so fast, I wish it would slow down a little. Although I can't wait for him to be all cute and talk. So much to look forward to in 2012!

**Sadly no pictures to post yet but that just means I need to take more to mark him being 6 months. Although stay tuned for professional pictures in the next couple weeks.**

December 27, 2011

Christmas Photo Dump

Christmas was a whirlwind! My husband's family tradition is to open one gift on Christmas Eve, so we did that and enjoyed family time. Then we opened presents Christmas day, followed by dinner at the in-laws. For once, Adam had NO IDEA what I got him! I finally won at fooling him ha. I got him a Keurig with an accessory to hold all the K-cups. My dad got us two boxes of cups to start out with. Let me tell you, the hot chocolate is delish! I also registered it before I wrapped it, so we can go online and order two boxes and get two free from the Keurig site. We also go Liam a few toys. All in all, it was a good first Christmas as a little family. I can't wait for many more to come. P.S. I apologize for the photos all over. I will clean these up in a bit!










Grampa




 After all the craziness, I was still going! Yesterday morning I scored some deals at Target! This was all worth about $56 and I paid around $26. I got a wrapping kit, two kits of chocolate chip pancake mix, two kits of red velvet cupcake mix, monkey bread mix (that comes with a pan), a set of nine hot chocolate mixes and a new cupcake pan (since ours is gross and old). I wanted a bunch more things, but figured that was good. Plus my dad got Liam the Lion King blu-ray movie! I really wanted it but we were going to wait until after the first of the year, but my dad likes to spoil him and bought it for us. It was only $20 instead of $30 AND it comes with both blu-ray and dvd. I hope everyone else had a fantastic Christmas!!



December 21, 2011

Birthday, Liam, and Not So Worldless Wednesday Madness!!

Where do I even begin? Yesterday was my 22nd birthday and I had a lot of fun. It wasn't anything crazy since I have Liam, but I had great company. I got a free Starbucks coffee on my way to Liam's WIC appointment. As I entered the gate on post, the gate guard told me Happy Birthday ha. Upon that appointment, I discovered that Liam had a tooth poke through; what a nice present ha. By the way, our monster is 17lbs and almost 26 inches long. He's getting so big! He has his 'real' 6 month appointment at his pediatrician's on the 28th. Anyway, after that I went to the mall to see a friend. I ended up meeting another to look around and grab lunch. I had free Ihop, thanks to a birthday thing. Then I ended up meeting the same friend who works in the mall, plus her coworker for dinner at El Sarape (a fantastic Mexican restaurant). Her coworker has THE cutest little boy (aside from Liam lol). She brought me a giant cookie cake, it was delish. I got taquitos and we sipped on margaritas. It was nice. My friend is amazing for buying my dinner for my birthday!

hahaha i look horrid.
Other things going on with Liam - He is almost crawling, it is so crazy!! Just watch this video:


He has his tooth as I mentioned, plus two more bumps on the bottom and two on top where they could come at any time. I am finally starting him on fruits, so he will get those in the morning and veggies at night. Liam is gibbering more and more each day. I can't wait until he starts talking ha. He loves Martin (our cat) to death. Not too much else going on with him. Teeth and crawling; that's what it's about right now.

Look to the left of my finger (click to make bigger)
These past few days have been insane. I have been going, going, going and I can't wait for this month to be over... or to at least slow down. Did I mention I didn't even feel like it's my birthday? I don't feel 22, I didn't feel like yesterday was anything special...it's kind of blah... but I love my friends and Liam made it better too.

December 20, 2011

Steals and Deal


What a great idea from Megan, from The Corral Connection.
Fee free to show us all your steals and deals!


All of this was worth about $50 and I paid $18. It might be my best yet. It's random stuff, but I was super excited for the baby food. Thank you Albertsons for your twice the value (ttv) coupons, which double any manufacture coupon up to a dollar. Also, they had a deal if you got two things of applesauce, you got a thing of juice free. Some good deals, even without doublers, just normal coupons...although all mine were with doublers ha. I did 3 different transactions. 

December 17, 2011

Holiday Craziness

Things might be crazy for the next week because of Christmas. I haven't been on already because my husband has been working crazy hours and he has been home this weekend. I have also been getting Christmas presents ready and taking care of the boy, plus hanging out with friends a lot. I have just been going, going, going. My birthday is Tuesday, which I keep forgetting how close that is. I'm probably just going out to dinner and maybe having a drink. I'll have Liam with me, but a drink with dinner wont hurt. Liam also has an appointment that morning..Happy Birthday to me, right? lol. Then we have Christmas, which we will have a few gifts to exchange and then be heading down to the in-laws for dinner. Should be nice. I'm excited for family to get gifts this year. I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas. I shall leave you with a picture of Liam I took, that will be on our Christmas cards this year.


December 14, 2011

Wordless-ish Wednesdays

I was trying to get my son to go to sleep a few minutes earlier than normal. Well, more like a half hour to an hour early because this mama was exhausted. Well he was rolling around in his crib and I managed to capture this. I have to say it is officially my favorite.picture.EVER.

December 11, 2011

I Feel So Helpless

Have you ever felt so bad, so upset, but you couldn't do anything? The feeling of helplessness?
My poor baby boy is sick and I feel so bad. I don't know what to do. He wont keep formula down, so I have been giving him Pedialyte and carrots (the current veggie he is on). He has luckily kept those down since 4pm, but I don't dare try formula. He was throwing that up yesterday and this morning. So far so good with the other stuff that. I wish I could just give him formula, I wish I could make things all better but I can't. He doesn't have a fever and he's still his happy self...just with less food and some diaper problems (if you know what I mean ha). If he wasn't better in the morning, I was going to call his Dr, but he has been doing well on the Pedialyte. I'm just glad he doesn't have a fever at least. I hate seeing him in pain. I hate this helplessness that I feel for him. Hopefully he will feel better in the morning.

December 10, 2011

Christmas, Steals and Photos

I have been pretty busy running around lately! Where to start? Well first off, I started making an ornament wreath! I finished that today, but it took 4 hours. I guess it wouldn't take as long if Liam wasn't here, but what can you do? It was fun and easy, but time consuming. I am pretty happy with how it turned out. I pretty much followed this blog here, except I used floral wire since I couldn't find a wire hanger at the dollar store, oops. Anyway, I now have it hanging up in our living room! I made the bow and everything! I'm quite proud of myself.


Besides that keeping me busy, I also visited a friend who is soon moving to Texas. That is one thing about the military, your friends move away. She has family up here though, so I'm sure I'll see her eventually. Anyway, before I visited her, I stopped by Target. One of the sites I follow for couponing is Coupon Connections. Well, they found a deal by someone where Target had big gift sets of Johnson's baby (or Aveeno) for $4.49 or something like that. Mind you, these are originally $9.99. This sale was unadvertised. Luckily I went there and found some (although I almost missed them - glad I went around a second time). I had coupons for $2/2 bottles, but it didn't exclude gift sets. Long story short, I got these bad boys for $5...for BOTH. Once again, these are originally $9.99 EACH. What a steal that was! I was happy too because Liam is almost out of bath wash!



After all that excitement, I got to my friend's house. It's unbelievable how fast children grow. Her little ones are getting so big. I love that her daughter is only a month 1/2 older than Liam. Shes super cute and so is her son. She did a mini photoshoot of Liam too! You can check out more of her work here. She does amazing work too! I love the pictures she took of Liam. Ignore my face in one or two of them though. ;) I had so much fun and Liam loved her family. I can't wait to get pictures of him (and all three of us) done next month.

December 7, 2011

Wordless-ish Wednesdays


I'm glad they are bonding now! At least until Liam starts crawling and chasing after him lol.

December 5, 2011

Steals and Deals: Round 2


I normally don't make two posts in one day, but I didn't want to add this to the last post and make it super long. Anyway, I would have posted this earlier, but I was out with a friend. I hit up Albertsons (mostly) for their twice the value coupons (doublers basically). I didn't find much I wanted that was a good enough price, so I just got some random things to add to the 'stock pile' as most would say. We don't really have one, but this works.


All of this stuff is worth about $55 and I paid $22 roughly. I don't think I did too bad. Gotta love lots of shampoo and conditioner. I found ALL of those hair products on clearance, it was awesome. I didn't have a coupon for the Rook Awakening with me (bummer), but even on clearance it was cheap! I only got it because I had two bottles of that kind of conditioner from a deal at Rite Aid months ago...so  I finally got shampoo to go with them! I also got the husband more shampoo and conditioner (he uses whatever is there). Who doesn't love cookie dough? I was going to take up Albertsons' buy 2 peanut butter ones for $4 and get hersey's kisses for free deal...BUT good old shelf clearers beat me to it. Kind of sad since those are my favorite. I ended up just getting these instead. We are good for a long time, since we don't eat too many sweets. Good thing these last for a good year or so, since we are still on this diet.

I hope some of you others found some good deals!

Steals and Deals


What a great idea from Megan, from The Corral Connection.
Fee free to show us all your steals and deals!

I have been out of the loop as far as couponing goes, lately. I think it is because of this diet we are on. All the good deals are on stuff we aren't eating at the moment. However, if I find something really good that will last for a year or so, or something that is not food, I usually get it. After all, we aren't on this diet forever, just a few months or so. Anyway, I found a great deal at Target! My husband is a HUGE coffee drinker and loves the Pikes Place blend and Christmas blend of Starbucks coffee, so I hit up this deal. I got Vanilla and Caramel for me ha.
Worth about $53 and I paid $30!
Let me break it down for you:

Starbucks Roast Ground Coffee, 12 oz $7.99, On Sale thru 12/10
Buy 3, Receive $5.00 Target Gift Card
Use $3.00/2 Starbucks Coffee from yesterday's Smartsource 12/04
And use $1.00/1 Starbucks Coffee from yesterday's Smartsource 12/04
Pay $19.97, Receive $5.00 Target Gift Card AND submit for a $5.00 Starbucks Gift Card
Final price: $3.32 each when you buy 3 (counting Starbucks gc and Target gc)

I did a second transaction doing the same thing, but used the $5 gc from before. So total, I technically got SIX bags of coffee, TWO Starbucks gift cards and TWO target gift cards. Oh and if you do more than one of these deals like me, just use the emailing submission for the Starbucks gc's and use a different address! Like for me, I used my name and our address, plus my gmail for the email address...and then for the second set I used my husband's name, dad's address and my second email (hotmail) for that one... You can only have one Starbucks card per household address.

For another deal I got my husband's Christmas present. Just in case he sees this, I will tell you all later about it. However, it's originally over $100. I got 10% off online (ended yesterday) and then found another promo code for $5 off $50 or more (or something similar)...PLUS free shipping on orders over $99 I believe... So it came to $111 (including tax). THEN I had a gift card for said place... so I only paid $56 out of pocket! SCORE. I hope my husband likes it. Although, i'll be using it too I'm sure. ;)
Have any of you found any good deals lately?

December 2, 2011

December, Already?

**Note: I was going to post this in the morning, but I got busy**

Can I just say that I can't believe it's December already! Seriously, where has the year gone? It is crazy to think, next month is the start of 2012! It seems like it was JUST 2010 ha.

There is quite a bit going on at the end of the month:

20th - My birthday and a WIC appointment for Liam
24th - Christmas Eve
25th - Christmas Day (also going to the in-laws for dinner I'm sure)
26th - Liam is 6 months old...HALF A YEAR old ... time needs to slow down
28th - Liam's 6 month check up

I think there may be more, but that is all I remember at the moment.

I believe we are putting our tree up tomorrow! I still need to find Liam a stocking! I'm excited though because there is just something about seeing a lit tree with stockings hung up; it makes me happy. Plus this will be our first Christmas as a little family, so that will be nice. I already got Liam two presents haha. I will wrap them and put them under the tree, since he can't really play with them until 6 months anyway. I got the Laugh and Learn Puppy, as well as the Laugh and Learn Smilin' Smart Phone. He seemed to like them when we were walking around Target yesterday, so I said 'why not' lol. I also have some clothes for him, but those are just put away in his room.

On another note, I started Liam on peas last night! He seemed to love them! I'm so glad! I can't wait until I can give him other foods. He's such a great baby.


That reminds me! Liam is really starting to crawl. Well, not crawl but TRY the effect of it. He pumps his legs and lurches forward if he has something against his feet haha.


Do you have any big plans this month?