Girls' Weekend

This past weekend we went to Virginia Beach, and Amanda, Vicky, and I had a girls' weekend type thing. I spent probably half of the weekend with family and half with the girls, so it turned out really well, and I had a great time. Here's a recap of our "girls activities".

Saturday morning after Bailey's nap, Bailey and I went over to Amanda's house and then all of us girls (including Bailey and Lily) and Matt went to Abuelo's for lunch. I had been wanting to eat there for a while, and the food was really good.

Later that evening, after Bailey went to bed, Vicky, Amanda, and I went to Starbucks for the yummy pumpkin spice coffee. I had never had that before either, and it was also delicious. I am definitely going to have to visit Starbucks again before that leaves the menu for the season!

Then Sunday afternoon I went back to Amanda's again (sans Bailey this time) and we went to The Cheesecake Factory for dinner (another place I had never been to, just realizing how many "firsts" I had this weekend!). I have never been somewhere with such an extensive menu! I think we were all overwhelmed at all the choices but we finally decided to get a huge appetizer sampler type thing to share. Everything was so good (except for the calamari, which I did not try, see picture below) and we were all stuffed, but of course still had to order cheesecake! You can't go to The Cheesecake Factory and not order cheesecake, after all.

Here are a few pics from our dinner:

Amanda and Vicky with the nasty looking squid. I don't understand how people can eat those. Eww.




Two of the plates of our appetizers. The plate on the left had my favorite stuff on it: Quesadillas and Corn Cakes. They were SOO good.




And finally, a picture that our cheesy waiter took for us. He was definitely playing it up trying to get a big tip, but he talked way too much, haha.




Then after our dinner, we headed back to Amanda's and then I went and picked up Bailey to bring her back to Amanda's with me so we could have our girls' sleepover! After we put the babies to bed, we watched a movie and some tv, and just hung out and laughed like old times. We finally went to bed a little after midnight.

Here's a pic of Bailey and Lily on Monday morning. I think it is SO cute! :)



We had such a good time and I cannot wait for next year to come so we can do it again! :) I have the absolute best friends in the world!

August Pictures

Here are a few of my pictures to wrap up the month of August.


Ms. Bailey standing with the support of a chair in the dining room.



















Bailey crawled onto the foot platform of her exersaucer and hung out there for a while.















Zoe and Bailey taking their first bath together. I think this picture is hillarious because their facial expressions are exactly the same and they are both chewing on toys and holding them the exact same way!

What Would You Do for a Klondike Bar?

Well, we had a busy Labor Day weekend, and I will update about that soon, but today I did my grocery shopping and wanted to share my great deal! I had two $1 off any 1 Klondike product, and Walmart has single Klondike bars for $1.00, so I got two of them for FREE! Yay for some dessert for me and Anthony tonight!

All together, I save $9.20 in coupons. I spent more than I wanted to spend today, but I got some water sealer for our deck and toilet paper which are both expensive items. I have not planned our meals for the week yet so I am just planning to use stuff I have stocked up on, and didn't buy too much for the week, unless I had a coupon for it.

Well, I'm off to try to clean the bathroom while Bailey is napping. Like I said, I'll update on our weekend soon, and I should have some great pictures as well!

Deal of the Day

I thought I would try to start sharing my best deal every time I do my grocery shopping.

This week Martin's has 16 oz. International Delight Creamers on sale for 99 cents. I do all my big grocery trips at Walmart and they price match any competitor's ad, so they matched the 99 cents and then I had two $1 off any pint or quart size International Delight creamer. So I got 2 French Vanilla pint creamers for FREE and actually made 2 cents!

All together, with coupons and price matching, I saved between $13 and $14. I have a long way to go to be as good as Courtney, but I'm pretty happy with myself! ;)

Grandma, Bailey, and Wifely Things

I am wanting to get to bed very soon, but since I've been MIA for over a week, I thought I'd do a quick post.

First of all, my grandma (Mom's mom) passed away yesterday afternoon. She was not doing very well, so it was expected, but of course, any death is still hard. Though I can honestly say, I feel like I have done less greiving over this grandmother than any of my other grandparents, and that is because I just feel so happy for her, that she is in heaven now. Just yesterday morning she had told my aunt that she was tired and basically ready to go on to heaven and my aunt told her that it was okay if she went, and then she passed later that same day. So just to know that she was longing for heaven, seems to make it so much easier for me to deal with. She is not tired anymore, or in anymore pain, and she is with Grandpa and Jesus now. I just find myself rejoicing more than grieving. But please pray for my mom. She is leaving tomorrow going to Indiana and will be there for a week. I know it helps my mom as well, to know that Grandma was ready to go, but I try to imagine myself losing my mom, and just can't imagine how hard it would be. So mostly, pray for her. The viewing is Wednesday and service is Thursday.

In other news, Bailey turned 8 months on Thursday! Hard to believe. She is really just all over the place, crawling, pulling up on things, and cruising a little bit. And on Wednesday night at church, she crawled up 2 stairs to get onto the stage in the youth room! Also, she has her first tooth that has poked through. She is usually such a happy, fun baby to be around. I just can't imagine life without her, and can't wait to see all the growing and learning that her future holds!

And lastly, before I head to bed, I have really been trying to increase my bargain shopping when it comes to groceries, by using sales, coupons and price matching, shopping at Sharp Shopper (a grocery outlet), and meal planning every week. Not only does it save us lots of money, but I really feel more satisifed with my life through doing this. It makes me feel like I am doing my "job" as a stay-at-home mom and wife by making the most of the money that Anthony earns and making sure he has good meals to eat every night. It is just really satisfying and I think everyone should give it a try! I plan to dedicate a whole post to this subject soon.

Zoe-isms

I just wanted to share a couple of funny things that Zoe has said to me this week.

On Monday, I was over at Mom's watching Zoe, and we were playing "vet". I was the vet and she was the pet owner and she was paying me and she had asked me how much something would be and I think I told her $2, and she pulled a $1 bill out of her little purse and said "This is the smallest bill I have." Haha! I'm not even sure if she knew what that meant, but she's probably heard her Mom or Ganny say that before.

Then yesterday I had her again, and we were running around town and a couple of times she said about different things "It was perfectly fine." For instance, we went by this piece of land that they were clearing for some reason and there were bulldozers and other equipment sitting there, and she said "It was perfectly fine" referring to that spot, like she thought they shouldn't be clearing the land. And then she proceeded to ask me what they were doing there. Haha.

I love that kid. :)

On the Go

Bailey is just all over the place these days. She crawls everywhere, pulls up on anything, and even cruised along the dishwasher a little bit today. She is also clapping now! Food-wise, I've decided she is a vegetable girl - she loves green beans, peas, and the spring vegetable mix I gave her yesterday, but has not liked anything else I've tried. She is eating cracker pieces, biter biscuits (think I already talked about that), and she tried a small piece of corn today!

Here are a few pics of her "on the move"!

Like I said, she pulls up on anything that is low enough for her to reach. I am sure she'll be cruising all over the place soon.






















She loves being in the water, but she was very distracted by a weed growing up through a crack on the deck. I let her skinny dip, and luckily, we had no accidents! :)







































This is tonight after dinner. She had eaten her vegetable mix, and then I let her chew on a biter biscuit while I was trying to finish my dinner but she didn't want to finish it was was getting fussy. So I gave her a little piece of corn to eat. She gummed that for a minute and then was just kind of dazed, and just closed her eyes and went off to sleep. Anthony asked me if I was sure she was sleeping and had not choked on something! She never does this. And don't worry, I knew she was breathing. :) She probably slept for 15 to 20 minutes. I'm not sure why she was so tired, but I think it could be cause she was really crawling all over the house today! Maybe she'll wear herself out enough that she'll sleep all night. Haha, yeah right. :)