It’s been a while…

Sorry!  We have been so busy since we got back from the beach.  I haven’t had time to get on here.  We had a really good time at the beach.  The first day we got down there, it was really windy… so windy that while we were on the beach the sand starting beating us, so I had to take Ella back to the house.  The other days the weather was great, not too hot and no rain except for once but we were already in for the night.  Jeff and our friend Chris didn’t do so hot with the fishing.  Jeff caught one fish!  Chris didn’t catch anything.  They said it was because of the tide direction or something like that.  There isn’t much to do in that town, so we mainly played on the beach… went out to eat, walked on the pier a lot and took Ella to a local boardwalk.  Here’s my favorite picture from the beach   So glad we went to the beach last week because Gas is crazy right now!  Right at $4 a gallon.  I am planning on not going out much this weekend, the race is in town and traffic is going to be awful.  I have a parent teacher conference with Ella’s daycare teacher this afternoon.  They do it once a year so I can hear about her progress, etc.  Hopefully as long as we have enough time, I am going to take Ella to the circus tonight.  Other than that, dance tomorrow morning and we may go to my mom’s sometime this weekend to swim.  Oh yeah and I am painting my kitchen!  I picked out a color the other day at Lowe’s.. I can’t wait to get started on it.  I have picked out quite a few decoration peices as well. If you would like to check out the rest of the beach pictures, click here.  I still have more to add, so check back later on for them.

Grocery coupons

Okay so this week Bi-lo is tripling all coupons up to .99 cents… Harris Teeter is doing the same starting today, and ending on Saturday.  I always cut coupons!  My mommies group is always posting specials and what coupons to use to end up getting stuff free… so I follow that pretty closely.  So yesterday I stopped by Bi-lo and today I went to Harris Teeter during my lunch break.  Let me share my total’s with you!  Bi-lo before coupons, $17.50… after coupons $2.55!  Harris Teeter before coupons, $65.35… after coupons $6.43!  Isn’t that awesome?!  This is seriously like a game for me.  So much fun…I love it!!!

My Mother’s Day

I hope everyone had a great Mother’s Day.  Sunday morning my Mom and Mike came over and I made breakfast burritos for everyone.  They stayed for a while and played with Ella.  I bought my mom a roaster for Mother’s Day.  Last year at Thanksgiving she was complaining that she wished the turkey didn’t take up so much room in the oven so I thought that the roaster would be a good solution for holiday meals.  Then I got to lay around and relax for a while.  After that my in-laws came over for dinner.  We had a fish fry and the food was really good.  We got my mother in law a satin hands gift set from Mary Kay, two wind chimes and then a plate that Ella and I made at the pottery place.   I couldn’t talk about it a while back because I didn’t want to ruin the surprise.  Here’s a pic of it….  and also I took pictures of the other things that we made, here is the birthday cake plate that I made for Ella  and then we also made a small chicken tile for my kitchen… since I am going to re-do it with some chicken decor.   Jeff and Ella got me a new purse (raspberry fizz) and the new Mariah Carey CD for Mother’s Day, oh and I got tons of stuff that Ella made at school.  It was so cute.  Gift certificates for hugs and kisses and a card she made and a nice poem that had her handprints on it.  She also gave me a tealight candle and a candle holder that her teacher must have bought.  I thought that was really nice that her daycare teacher went out and spent her own money for the mom’s.  Here are some pics of me and Ella. 

 she said we had to make silly faces…

and this one is the serious faces!   

Oh yeah I can’t forget this one.  She has hula hair! 

For all of you Mom’s out there

 

In honor of Mother’s day I thought I would post some great quotes.  I hope everyone has a fantastic day on Sunday!

 

A mother is a person who seeing there are only four pieces of pie for five people, promptly announces she never did care for pie.  ~Tenneva Jordan

 

I remember my mother’s prayers and they have always followed me.  They have clung to me all my life.  ~Abraham Lincoln

 

When you are a mother, you are never really alone in your thoughts.  A mother always has to think twice, once for herself and once for her child.  ~Sophia Loren

 

Grown don’t mean nothing to a mother.  A child is a child.  They get bigger, older, but grown?  What’s that suppose to mean?  In my heart it don’t mean a thing.  ~Toni Morrison, Beloved, 1987

 

It’s not easy being a mother.  If it were easy, fathers would do it.  ~From the television show The Golden Girls

 

No one in the world can take the place of your mother.  Right or wrong, from her viewpoint you are always right.  She may scold you for little things, but never for the big ones.  ~Harry Truman

 

The best conversations with mothers always take place in silence, when only the heart speaks.  ~Carrie Latet

You couldn’t fool your mother on the foolingest day of your life if you had an electrified fooling machine.
- Homer Simpson

All I am I owe to my mother.
- George Washington

The best medicine in the world is a mother’s kiss.
- Anonymous

 

Of all the rights of women, the greatest is to be a mother.” – Lin Yutang

 

“Being a full-time mother is one of the highest salaried jobs… since the payment is pure love.” – Mildred B. Vermont

Oh yeah I forgot

For all of you in NC, don’t forget to go vote today!  Go Hillary!

*Also, some of our water restrictions have been lifted and I can now wash my car every other Saturday if I want to!  Yay!!!

All kinds of things

Well let’s see, I left off at Bunco.  No, I didn’t win any money.  Oh well, hopefully next time.  But I love going to all these different houses because you can get great decorating ideas.  When I see these other women’s houses it makes me think mine looks so plain!  I really need to hang up more pictures around our house.  Saturday morning, my friend Jessica and I got up really early and went to the Britax car seat sale.  Britax is a high end supplier of car seats and strollers.  So we got there and got a spot in line at 6am.  There were probably about 25 people in front of us.  Word made it to our spot in line that the people in the very front were there at 1:30am!  Are you kidding me?  The car seat that I wanted to get retails for $280, I ended up getting it for $190… I know that sounds like a lot of money but this is a car seat that Ella can be in until she is 8 years old, or 80 lbs. which ever comes first.  It is a 5 point harness and I feel comfortable knowing that she is better protected in that seat compared to a flimsy booster.  It is a huge car seat.  So that brings me to another issue.  Jeff just turned in his Company Van and decided that he wants to work in the shop from now on, so that means he will now be driving his truck to work.  His office moved to Concord and he drives right by Ella’s daycare on the way to work, so it makes perfect sense for him to take her and pick her up.  So I really want the new car seat in his truck since she will be riding in it the majority of the time… but we put the car seat in there and it doesn’t fit perfect.  Her feet kind of dangle on the middle console.  She cannot just let her feet hang like normal.  She says she is comfortable… but I am not sure.  I guess I am just going to give it a little bit of time and if I feel it is not working out then I am going to sale it, which should be easy since I got it at such a great price.  It just sucks because I really want her to be in the safest seat. 

Saturday evening I did a girls night with my friends Jessica and Shannon.  We went to a pottery place.  It’s the one that I took Ella to a few weeks back for a birthday party.  I love it there.  I could seriously go there all the time.  There are so many different things to make and decorate.  I ending up making Ella a birthday plate.  Once I get it back, I will post a pic of it.  You have to leave it there for about a week so they can glaze and fire it, etc.  But anyway, it’s a small plate and in the middle I made a three tier cake and listed her weight, length and Date of Birth and then at the top it says “Happy Birthday” and at the bottom “Ella”.  This is a plate that I want her to eat her birthday cake on every year.  I thought it was something neat that she could keep the rest of her life.  Once we finished with pottery, we went out to dinner.  After that, Jessica and I went to TJ Maxx.  I found a few things for my kitchen.

I have decided to re-do my kitchen.  I have always wanted a “country” kitchen.  It may sound weird, but hopefully you will understand my vision!  I want bold red accessories and the theme will be kind of farmhouse-ish.  Chickens, fruit, some modern looking things but mostly vintage.  Right now the walls are mint green but I am going to repaint them a nice tan/light beige.  So once I get started, I will post before and after pictures.  I did find a few things for the kitchen this past weekend but I don’t think I am going to actually start on painting and stuff until we get back from the beach.  Oh yeah, speaking of wanting new pictures for the house… my boss was in town yesterday and he brought in a ton of his work (he is a part time photographer) and he told me and my other 3 co-workers that we could each pick one piece.  It took me forever to pick something because they were all so nice.  I decided on a picture that he called “The bridge to no where”.  It’s really nice, and already matted.  I just need to go to Hobby Lobby or somewhere like that and buy a 16×20 frame for it.  It’s this bridge (his words) that is out in this marsh looking swampy pond and it’s the only thing around.  He said there was some storm that came through and wiped out everything except this bridge and then also at the end up the bridge there is no way to get off, it’s kinda twisted up.  Hard to explain… so I took it home last night and I showed Jeff and he said you know that’s an old fishing dock right?  Yeah that did make a little bit more sense.  Anyway we both like it and I can’t wait to hang it up.  Now I just have to decide on a spot for it.