One day....

you have this cute and tiny little baby that you think will stay your cute and tiny little baby forever. And then one day you wake up and he's getting bigger and bigger and older and older. And before you know it, he's into teenage things, like crushin' on cute girls. And you try to remember what it was even like when he was a cute and tiny little baby....sigh!

Bella is her name.

This boy is crushin', hard! I now know why. She's adorable, fun, silly, smart, and sweet. She has earned lots of brownie points with me. She thinks my house smells good, she loves my door, and she reads my blog!

Cheers to middle school crushes!

Life is sweet!

couponing...it's the rage!

Have you watched extreme couponing on TLC yet? Well, if you haven't you should, it's purely insane! I'm not too convinced yet that it really is ALL legit (considering it is reality TV) but it's very entertaining nonetheless. Couponing has become such a popular thing all over. There are websites that teach you how to coupon, where to use them, when to use them, where to locate them, etc. You can take classes on couponing as well. There are forums that you can read, and groups you can join, it's the rage! I don't think I have mentioned on here before but I have been couponing for about 3 years now and I LOVE IT! It is so addicting and actually fun, no joke! When I first started I was overwhelmed, I will admit. But after experience and time I became more efficient, and fast at the whole process. It takes some time and organization but is SO worth the time and effort that you put into it. When I first started couponing, my kids thought that it was because we were "poor!" I quickly taught them that it was just "smart!" Soon enough, Fischer was really getting into it and started coming with me just see how much I was able to take the total bill down. I remember when I was little I loved to cut the coupons out for my mom and file them in her coupon holder. Now Emma wants to do the same thing for me. I think it is great to get your family involved in the process too. One thing we love to do is eat out and we eat out a lot but almost ALWAYS with coupons! We use coupons, discounts from city deals, groupon, entertainment books, etc. A few months ago Fischer and a couple of his friends wanted to go out to eat and Fischer was trying to find places that we had coupons for....I love it! He is smart and will hopefully continue to want to save money here and there. Anyways, I have had a GREAT coupon week this week. I didn't take pictures from my shopping adventures earlier this week but I did score so much and for free too! Today I had another great shopping trip and I decided to take a picture and post for you to see. I purchased the following:

11 boxes Brownies (we love brownies)

8 bags potato chips

4 power bars

2 dozen eggs

2 packages huggies diapers

6 liters crush soda

2 boxes granola thins

1 box fiber one bars

1 box nature valley granola bars

1 caramelo candy bar (not shown)

= 38 total items for a grand total of

$30.84

that's approx. .81 cents per item and I have huggies diapers in there...wowza!

Just thought I'd share my experience! I hear people say that they don't have the time to coupon but really it is so worth it. Some people say that they always forget to bring the coupon and/or forget to actually use it at checkout. It becomes a habit quickly I promise and I take my coupons with me wherever I go...you just never know! I score a lot of free things at Target all the time!

p.s this looks like a lot of junk food but when you have 5 kids, you need snack stuff all the time but I have many shopping trips that include all the healthy stuff too.

Life is sweet!

update.

....but first a cute picture! I love pictures. I love looking at my pictures and everybody's pictures. Pictures kind of make me feel like I know a person even though I may have never met them.

By the way, what's a girl got to do to get some new jeans around here? Suddenly this girl seems to have holes in every single pair. I keep holding my breath that we can make it a few more weeks until warmer weather but then I come to reality that I live in Utah- four seasons in a week! 70 degrees one day, six inches of snow the next.

Today was sunny but chilly. We decided to play outside and when we got a little too chilly we bundled up in warm blankets.

I got so excited when I saw that my favorite tree was starting to bloom today!

Carrying on. So like I've mentioned, we have been planning and working on putting our house up for sale for the last 5 months. On March 15th it was listed and I am grateful to report that we had an offer just 5 days later....which happened to be my birthday..so cool! Whew! Just those 5 days sent my head spinning. We started showing the house just hours of it being listed and it didn't stop. So when I say I am grateful, I really mean I am grateful that I didn't have to do that for months. What a chore it is to keep your home immaculate with five children and a yard in tip top shape with three dogs. Again, so grateful that is over. And in reality, it's not really over until the dotted line is signed (keeping my fingers crossed!) There were some wrinkles that had to be ironed out and so we kept it on the down low for a couple of weeks. We are supposed to close on April 27th. So in the meantime we have been searching and searching for our new home and haven't had much luck. Six months ago we started looking and found some amazing homes with amazing prices. Recently houses have started moving up slowly but surely. We have pinpointed South Jordan as the area we would like to find something in but everything we have found has been either off of a main road or just a few houses in from the main road. A lot of houses we try to look at already have multiple offers on. Most homes on the market are a "short sale" which is NOT a short process. That takes patience and then some more patience. Just because a home is listed at a certain price means nothing. It's just a way to spark your interest. So, it's a game. Needless to say, we do know what we want but haven't had much luck. Yesterday afternoon I was looking online and noticed that a home we had tried to look at (already had an offer and a back up offer) was lowered in price. Long story short, we found out that apparently both offers fell through and they were trying to get another offer into the bank quick. So we went and looked at it last night and really liked it a lot and the price (which again, means nothing). When we got home last night I pulled it up online to look at it again and noticed that the price had been dropped even MORE! So today we put in an offer. We'll see how it all goes since it is a short sale and has to be submitted to the bank for acceptance. We would be happy to get it but certainly not devastated to not get it either. So there is the most up-to-date update. More soon.

Life is sweet!