happy fall

It's official...fall is here!

Our Florida weather may not reflect the change in season, but today is the first day of fall.  And I am so excited!!  Fall is by far my favorite time of year.  I've been wasting...err...investing a lot of time on Pinterest lately looking at all the fun fall crafts and getting inspired.  I've already started a little bit of fall decorating around the house.  And I am so excited to start working on the bean's Halloween costume.  He is going to be Buddy from Dinosaur Train...so, so cute!  Can't wait!  I'm also looking forward to our church's pumpkin patch and Trick-or-Trunk event.  Always so much fun.

To me, fall is all about cuddling up with your favorite people, drinking yummy hot cocoa.  It's all about putting on your coziest, most comfortable sweaters and watching the leaves change colors (although, not so much here in Florida).  It's a great time to think about all our blessings and to give thanks for all the past year has brought us.  And when I think about where we were last year (that's us in the picture below) and where we will be this time next year (2 kids...eek!) I do feel really blessed.  I really do have have the best little family ever and I am so, so thankful.

Happy first day of fall, everyone!

what we've been up to

Oh boy...it's been a while since I posted.  A very long while.  Our family has been so, so busy lately.  Here are a few of the things we've been up to in the past couple of months:

• We're expecting baby #2!  Our newest addition will be arriving sometime in late February.  And we are so excited...and nervous.  But mostly excited.  I can say that this pregnancy has been totally different (and much tougher so far) than my first.  But I think and hope that the worst of it is over and that I'll feel better from here on out.  Fingers crossed.
• The bean turned two.  Of course, we celebrated with a big party...lots of family and friends, the whole nine yards.  And the bean had a great time!  I absolutely cannot believe how quickly he is growing and changing.  It seems like he learns something new every day.  Along with that, he's becoming very independent...and much more defiant these days.  Hello, terrible two's!  Guess I need to re-read a few chapters in the Love and Logic book.
• The hubby has been traveling for work ALOT lately.  He spent two weeks in China in mid-July and has taken several other short trips here and there since then.  As you can imagine, chasing around the aforementioned energetic and defiant two-year old while being pregnant is tough work...especially while hubby is out of town and I don't have my regular back-up.  Those make for some long, exhausting days.
• We got a new car.  Well, new to us, anyway.  Since we are due to add another kid to the family in 2013, we figured we should probably upgrade to a vehicle that will accommodate two carseats.  So, we ended up with a 2007 Kia Rondo.  And I love it!
• Hubby and I celebrated our tenth anniversary.  I'm such a lucky girl.  Ten years is a long time to be stuck with somebody, and I really do feel blessed to have been stuck with such a great guy.  We celebrated with a quick, bean-free overnight trip out of town.  And it was wonderful.

So with all that going on, plus the regular day-to-day stuff, I've neglected the ol' blog just a tad.  Hopefully, I'll be able to stay more up-to-date now that things are hopefully settling down a bit.  We'll see...

our family do's

As part of my recent spring cleaning spree, I've been adding and updating a few decorative touches here and there around the house.  For the longest time, there has been one HUGE blank wall in my living room and I had no idea what to do with.  Should we hang photos there?  Artwork?  I was at a loss.  Then hubby and I talked about creating some art together to hang there.  We felt excited and creative.  We even bought canvases and paint.  We even hung those canvases on the wall in hopes that we would be inspired to create something awesome.  But then we got stuck and couldn't agree on what we wanted.  So for months, six blank white canvases hung on that wall...staring at me every time I walked in the room...mocking me.

I scoured Pinterest (imagine that) and found alot of great ideas.  The one that stood out to me was a sort of "house rules" turned art kind of thing.  With the bean becoming more and more a participating member of our family team and learning more about right and wrong, I thought introducing some family rules would be a good idea.  And what better way to start than to display it right on the wall of the room that we spend the most time in together.  But I didn't want it to be too "rule-y" if that makes sense.  I didn't want to hang a list of don'ts in our living room.  I didn't really want him to constantly see a list of things he wasn't allowed to do.  Instead, I wanted to list out the things that our family does...the values and traits that I want us all to have.  What I came up with is really more of a family pact or covenant.  It's our family do's.

Here's how I made it happen:

• First, I came up with our list of do's.  These are some of the most important things I want to encourage the bean to do and be.  I laid everything out the way I wanted it in Word and then printed it on six different pages.
• Then the hubby and I decided on paint colors.  This was easy...we just went with colors that we already have in our house.
• I painted the canvases green as the background color.

• I then traced my printed words onto each canvas using carbon paper.  This took a while because I'm a perfectionist and didn't want to have to do a lot of touch-up painting to cover up any errant lines that I made.
• Then came the task of filling in the traced letters with brown paint.  I'm going to be honest...this took forever.  I think it took me about 8 hours or so (spread out over a few days) to paint in all the letters.  I used the stiffest, tiniest paintbrush I could find and just went to work.  Again, I didn't want to have to do alot of touch-up at the end to fix any mistakes, so I took my time to make sure I stayed inside the lines.  I did have to do a little touching up with green paint at the end, but it didn't take long at all.

I love the finished product.  Up close it's not exactly perfect...it definitely has a hand-painted look to it.  But to me it's really the words that matter most anyway.  I love seeing our family covenant when I walk in the room instead of that big blank wall.  It just makes me smile.

farewell, afternoon nap

Ever since he was just a tiny guy, the bean has been a fairly decent sleeper.  I think it's partly due to the fact that he's usually a pretty easy-going kid and partly due to the fact that hubby and I have worked our butts off trying to stay consistent with his routine.  It's been alot of work, but has made life so much easier in so many ways.

Up until a couple of months ago, the bean would usually take two naps a day...one around 10 am and another around 2 pm.  They were never really that long.  A half-hour nap was considered good and I'd almost do backflips if he took an hour-long nap.  But even with his short-ish naps, he was generally happy and well-rested.  Then things started to get a little hit-and-miss when it came to his napping.  He started fighting and skipping naps...sometimes the morning nap, sometimes the afternoon nap, a couple times both.  When he did nap, he would fuss and fight it until he finally fell asleep.  And his naps started getting shorter and shorter.  And he started getting crabbier and crabbier.  But still, I stayed consistent, stuck to our routine, and tried putting him down for his two naps a day.  Well as of last week, that was not working anymore.  We were both getting frustrated when the afternoon nap wasn't working out...I was frustrated because he wasn't taking one and he was frustrated because he was stuck in his crib when he clearly wasn't tired.

So, we've decided to adjust the schedule and cut out the afternoon nap.  Instead of laying down for a morning and an afternoon nap each day, we are shooting for one mid-morning nap a day plus an afternoon quiet time where he goes into his crib to play or "read" or sleep if he feels tired.  Hopefully this will allow us both to have a break and a little rest in the afternoon. 

It's been six days on our new routine and so far, things are improving.  His one nap a day has been a bit longer these past few days (an hour or more each day) and yesterday, he even took a 30-minute "bonus nap" during his quiet time.  Woot!  And aside from a little crabbiness being caused by teething (poor kiddo), my little guy has been a happier kid these past few days.  Honestly, I think the new routine will be a bigger adjustment for me than for the bean.  I'm still trying to figure out the best time to run our errands and get out of the house.  But a little inconvenience for a while during this adjustment phase is a small price to pay for a well-rested and happy kid!

learning to coupon

I have never been that great at couponing.  My mom has always clipped and used coupons.  I just never really had the time to devote to sifting through store ads and newspaper flyers...and then keeping all those clipped coupons organized.  It always just seemed like too much work for such little payoff.  But I always felt sort of guilty for letting those savings go to waste.

Well, lately I've taken another look at couponing and now I'm starting to "get" it.  I mean, I understood it before.  Clip coupon, purchase item, give coupon to cashier, save money.  Duh.  But now I'm starting to see that by putting forth a little more effort to match up coupons with store sales and by really understanding the coupon policies at different stores in my area I can get a much better payoff for my hard work.

Now, I'm no expert...yet.  But I'm trying.  And I'm learning.  And in addition to picking up sales flyers and coupons from the stores that I frequent, I've found some great online tools to help me in my coupon conquests.  Here are a few that I'm loving right now:

The Krazy Coupon Lady  I mean, with a name like that it's gotta be a great site.  There's a really helpful section for newbies (like me) and also a much more in-depth section for the more extreme couponers among us.  There is also an extensive list of all the current printable AND paper coupons available.  Lots of useful info at this site.

Money Saving Mom is my favorite right now.  I love the Store Deals section and the Weekly Deal Match-up.  It takes a lot of the guesswork out of how to match up my coupons with store sales.  There is also a great Freebie section, too.  Gotta love free!  I also follow her Facebook page, which is great because I can keep up with all the newest coupons and deals that she has found as she posts them.

Coupons.com, RedPlum.com, Smartsource.com, and Coupon Network are all great online resources for printable coupons.  I love being able to search for exactly what's on my shopping list and print a coupon right at home.

And did you know that the Target website has a whole section where you can print coupons??!!  (Note the exclamation points...I LOVE Target and was crazy excited when I discovered this)  And their coupon policy allows for using both a store coupon AND a manufacturer coupon on an item (unless it is prohibited in the fine print on that specific coupon, of course).  So my favorite thing lately??  Finding a Target coupon I need/want to use, then scouring the internet for a manufacturer coupon to stack with it.  How exciting!

Again, I'm far from being an expert at this point.  So, I know there are a ton of other great coupon resources out there.  These are just a few that have helped me out so far.  I can't wait to learn more and get better at couponing.  The way I see it, if you do it right it's free money.  And I will take some free money any day of the week!