I Know You've Heard This From Me Before But...

I just love Love LOVE JoAnns Fabric Store!

And I love even more their COUPONS!

Why am I trying to surpress my desire to shout this from the rooftops today?

Well for one thing I don't want to be the town crazy. :)

But the REAL reason is that their most recent mailer had a $5.00 off coupon for any regular priced item originally $5.00 or more.

Well I bought these today.





I know, I know at this point you are thinking, "Cookie Cutters? She's excited about cookie cutters?"

But yes as a matter of fact I am.

We have been in serious need of some new ones. Yesterday we made sugar cookies and our kids had to use the stars from Christmas. :)

Anyways, the cookies cutters cost $5.49 regularly.

So with taxes I paid $.52!

Oh ya!

Sadie's Pigtails

Sadie had pigtails for the first time today! They were so cute! She is so cute! I love that she had hair when she was born, it is so fun!

Anyways enough of that. Here are some photos of her.



Doesn't she look so big? I hate getting older because time really does fly. She is going to be five months on Wednesday. I can't believe it.


Okay so not "some" pictures of her, a lot of pictures of her. (Wes says I take a lot of pictures). :)


I'm so glad that Novalee hasn't really been jealous of Sadie but instead she just loves her. Whenever Sadie is crying Novalee always runs and grabs one of her toys and brings it too her. Then she reassuringly says, "It's okay my Baby Lovins." I just love that.

I also want to say that Jared really loves both of his sisters. But whenever he is with them and I'm about to take a picture he says, "No no no" and runs off. I guess he is too manly for that kind of stuff. :)

Things That I love

Up until now this has just been a piece of paper sitting in my nightstand drawer.

I feel like I have it pretty good.

And for whatever reason I wanted to share some of the things that make me happy.

Also I have heard that you can't love the things that you use because you don't use those you love. But for this post let's just say the word "love" is used very loosely in some instances.

• Being organized
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• New Fabric
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• Auto-fill on the computer
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• My kids getting along
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• Dinner already made without my help
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• That my car still runs and when it's clean, that it still looks decent :)
• 
  
• Baking desserts with my kids and eating the desserts too of course.
• 
  
• When my sons teacher tells me he did "better" today
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• Reaching goals
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• Clutter free areas in the house (currently non-existent)
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• Outings (with or without my kids) :)
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• My can opener I bought two years ago (before I was using a dollartree one. Ouch!)
• 
  

• Gift cards. Even though they have a negative stigma of being so called, "impersonal". I don't care. What is better than buying exactly what you want without having to feel guilty about spending money you don't have?
• 
  
• food storage (it can be such a peace of mind)
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• coupons
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• my vacuum
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• going to change a poopy diaper and finding out it's only wet or at least that the poop stayed in the diaper
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• being able to make something look new or feel new again
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• when my kids ask me about Heavenly Father
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• working out
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• bedspreads
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• snuggling in that bedspread with my kids
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• The warm sun coming in through a window and I can actually let the warmth put me to sleep
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• Having a washer and dryer in my apartment instead of having to cart the laundry and three kids to the laundry mat in freezing weather
• 
  
• My little Novie dressed up so cute for her dance class in her tutu.
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• The church we go to
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• My sweet little family

I probably overlooked a gazillion things but these are things I really love right now.

What are somethings you consider a blessing in your life?

Novalee's a Swimming Machine!

Last night Novalee had her last swim lesson.

She is so good at just about anything she tries. I love how hard she works at things but how she thinks even hard work is fun. Another thing I love about her is that she is FEARLESS! She was willing, whole heartedly to try anything the instructor asked her to do.

(Please note that fearless is great for swim lessons with an instructor nearby. However in other cases she does cause her parents to cringe, jolt upright and run to the rescue pretty regularly. Little Monkey.)

Anyways, she passed her class. Yay!

I totally get that they have fun regardless but is it just me, or do other parents feel like the class wasn't a huge waste of time and money when they actually pass?

Here are some photos of our little swimmer.

Have I mentioned before that she is a little sassy? :)

She's under the water.

Backstroke.

Congrats Novie!

We really just love you so much!

My Chief Complaint

So this has been on my mind for sometime now. I could use some help or ideas.

The thing that bugs me the most right now is that my daughter Sadie only goes to sleep with a blanket touching her face and only stays asleep if the blanket is by her.



So due to the fear (paranoia really) of SIDS, let's just say Wes gets little sleep and I get even less.

Unless she is sleeping in our bed, which let's be honest, doesn't help the SIDS thing, she doesn't sleep. Having her sleep in our bed in fact probably increases the risk since we have a pillow top bed and we sleep with a very fluffy comforter.

The only other time she sleeps is in her swing and because she is sitting upright, I justify that she can sleep with a blanket, which is why she actually sleeps in the swing.

But I am stubborn and refuse to let her sleep in the stupid (don't tell my kids I said that) swing all night long. I know soon enough she will be too big for it and then where will we be.

I just read the other day that babies can't sleep with a blanket until they are 12 months! What! We can't survive on such little sleep for that long.

So the solution...it's simple really. All we have to do is get tough and let her cry it out in her bed.

But I'm not sure when that will happen because her cry is a scream and it sounds like she is being tortured, slowly and painfully.

And I don't really want our neighbors (thanks to apartment living) to think we are being bad parents.

Plus we might be able to handle listening to her cry for 20 minutes at the beginning of the night but after that we are too tired to stay up, nerves strained to wait through another crying fit. Did I mention she sleeps in our room? (Thanks again to apartment living).

So that's it. That's what bugs me, mainly I'm super bugged that the one thing that actually lets her sleep she can't have for another, 7 months.

I know later down the road I'm going to read this and laugh that this is my biggest complaint but for now it is what it is.

Sadie's Christmas Stocking

Yes, you read that right. :) I just finished it last night. :) She only went one Christmas without a stocking, not too bad, right?




I can only say that I'm glad I have a few years before I need to make another one. :)

Good Deals @ Soap.com

Okay this might seem totally cheesy but I guess I'm willing to post about this particular website because I feel like I got a pretty good deal and wanted to share it with others.

So Soap.com.

I first learned about it after buying diapers at Diapers.com.

At Diapers.com I felt like I got a really good deal too. The first time you buy diapers you get a 30% cash back credit. Which was awesome because the diapers were cheaper than the stores and the cash back credit that i got I used to buy Novalee's birthday presents this year.

Wow, I'm totally off topic.

On Thursday I ordered these things on Soap.com. They have all sorts of household items.

Suavital Fabric Softener Dryer Sheets 80 sheets
Nature Made Mult For Him Vitamins and Minerals 90 ct
(2) Suave Body Lotion 32oz
(2) Suave kids 2 in 1 Shampoo and Conditioner
Reach clean Burst Floss 55 yds
Crest Plus Scope Toothpaste 6.2oz

First time users get $10 for free after buying from diapers.com. Plus orders of $25.00 or more get free shipping.

So I paid $15.39 for all of these products after discounts, free shipping and e coupons.

On Friday afternoon the next day these arrived.


One day later, pretty great, right?

The total price without shipping would have cost $26.14.

I wanted to make sure I got a good deal before posting this so I price compared at Wal-Mart which generally is pretty cheap.

I found everything but the exact lotion.

I found a few similar ones and just guessed they probably would cost $5.00 or so.

With that guess, at Wal-mart all these things would have cost us $28.41 without taxes.

$28.41, and even $26.14 is quite a bit more than the $15.39 I paid.

If you decide to look and buy I have a promo code BRAN3960 that offers 15% off your first order.

But try the codes at this website and see if you can get a better deal.

Also if you want the promo code for diapers.com go to babycenter.com and on the right hand side there is a link for 30% cash back credit. My promo code BRAND3960 offers 15% off. I'm not sure if you can use more than one code but you should try.

That's all. Hopefully this isn't too lame. But since I have no clue how to use coupons I thought these websites were pretty great and wanted to share!