The Craziness of Life!

I'm a swirl of emotions lately. How can my sweet baby boy be 10 months already?!! Have we really been in our new house for almost a year? Has it already been 10 years since I pleged my love to my best friend, forever?! Well, tomorrow will be our 10th wedding anniversary. It has been quite a ride.

We have been so busy the last year, I really just want to take time off from life. I'm I the only one that feels that way? I wish we could take a month long vacation with our kids this summer and just be a family. Work and school and family obligations seem to take up so much time. There is always something going on. Our weekends are so full there is barely time for laundry. Let alone have time to really clean the monster of a house we live in. Don't get me wrong, I love my house. But the task of cleaning it just overwhelms me. I haven't been able to clean it top to bottom all at once since we moved in. Maybe this long weekend will allow me to get a handle on things.

The kids are growing up way too fast. Hailey is be coming a young lady way faster than Bill and I want her too. I resently had THE TALK with her about how she is changing. I was surprised at how open she was to asking questions. I did my best to answer them without getting too beyond what she needs to know. I found some cool little books at the Christian book store that helped. I read one of the books and let her read certian chapters out of the book. Then she was able to ask me about stuff she didn't understand. Bill and I decided we would rather talk to our kids about these things than let them learn from other kids that don't know what they are talking about.

Bill is doing great with his new position at Southwest Gas. It has been a learning experience for him. They have so many training classes that he has to go through. But we are both learning from them. He shares the good stuff about the classes with me. Since we are both in management type positions, I am able to gain some info from them too.

I can't believe that the school year is almost over. I'm going to have a 4th grader!! Holy Cow!! Happy Memorial day!

Coupons!!!

So my new passion, thanks to Jamie Bielich, is couponing!! I know that with this crazy ecomony almost all of us are looking for ways to save money. Well, with the new house and new baby comes more expenses. More than I could have imagined. Don't get me wrong, I know diapers, clothes, and baby food were all in the mix. I just didn't expect to have the cost of daycare yet. You see we have been blessed with amazing moms. When Hailey was born, Bill's mom quit her job to watch Hailey. She knew that we just wouldn't be able to make it with the cost of daycare. Hailey didn't start day care until she was 18 months old!! I huge savings of over $14,000!!! She is amazing!! My mom was also helping to watch Hailey a couple of days a week. Then when Clayton was born, I only worked 3 days a week. My mom was able to watch him the other 2 days and Lori watched him on Fridays. See I have amazing moms!! So Clayton started daycare at 12 months. Another savings of almost $10,000. For those of you that haven't had to use daycare, it is a staggering number!! Well, this time around, I have had to work full time. In fact I really only took 3 weeks off after having JP. My mom was able to watch him full time for 6 months before it really started taking a toll on her. So at 8 months JP has started daycare.

In trying to save money, Bill and I decided we needed to start clipping coupons. Like most people we really didn't know where to start. I have been trying to do this for a couple of months now and really haven't gotten anywhere. Then I watched that new show called Extreme Couponing. I couldn't believe how much these people were saving. But it failed to tell you how they really do it. I wanted to learn more, but couldn't find anything. About a week later, My great friend Jamie invited me to a free couponing class. So of course I was there with bells on. I wanted to know how these people are able to save so much money. As the class started, everything was so intreging. The wheels in my head immediatly started turning. I think I fustrated the teacher cause I jumped ahead. I couldn't help it. I had gotten it and had to learn more. My the end of the class, I was so excited to jump on this coupon bandwagon. I want to share it with everyone I know. I'm going to host a free class sometime soon. Let me know if you are interested and what day of the week works best for you!!

Just so you know, I got 6 boxes of healthy pasta for FREE this week. :)