Coupons and a Recipe

I think I've mentioned before that I read/love The Pioneer Woman. She's very funny and entertaining, plus she makes yummy food and gives us printables so that we can make it ourselves. A few weeks ago she posted THIS recipe for grilled chicken salad with feta, corn and blueberries.

Photo Credit

Now, I know that sounds strange but the picture and description made it sound very appetizing so I printed the recipe and decided to make it last night. It was SO yummy!! I made a few minor adjustments... I only did 2 chicken breasts, I used basil instead of dill, and I skipped the lemon. It was very simple and very refreshing. I served with sun-dried tomato bread. It was a perfect summer-y meal!

On a totally different topic, I took a quickie trip to Target this morning to get a few good coupon deals. First, I picked up 2 Sally Hansen nail polishes (polish-i??) for $2.04 each. I had two $1/1 Target coupon that I paired with two $1/1 manufacturer coupon (mf) (click on Personal Care on the left), which made them just $.04 each! I also picked up an Up&Up (Target brand) children's acetaminophen for $2.54. I used a $1/1 Up&Up pain relief coupon and paid just $1.54 for medicine for Jax! Finally, I grabbed a 24 ct. box of Up&Up Ibuprofen for $.97 and used another $1/1 Up&Up pain relief coupon, so I got it FREE!! My total was $1.91 for all 4 of those things! That's less than the price of 1 nail polish.

I had also planned on buying John Frieda Root Awakening shampoo and conditioner but they were out. They are priced at $4.99 this week and the plan with those was to use a $3/2 Target coupon stacked with a $3/1 mf coupon (from the paper) and a $2/1 mf coupon. (If you don't have the coupon from the paper, then print 2 of the $2/1 mf coupons). It would have worked out to just $0.99 each! I will be making another trip over there sometime this week to hopefully get those!

Finally, I ran to Party City to buy a few things for Jax's birthday in 2 weeks. It is Mickey Mouse themed (have I already told you that?) and I am currently working on party favors. I placed a balloon order to pick up the day of, and I will need to go back a few days before the party to pick up plates/cups/napkins. I can't believe my little man is turning TWO!!

HAPPY MONDAY, Y'ALL!

A Birthday Party

Yesterday we attended a birthday party for our friends daughter, Taylor. It's hard to imagine that the little girl we met when she was turning 2 turned into a big 5-year-old!

The party was at Monkey Joes, which is a local bounce place... and just happens to be where we are having Jax's party in 3 weeks!

He had SO much fun and I cannot wait for his party!

Jax is also obsessed with Taylor, so he was very excited to be there with her!

Today is Taylor's actual birthday and we are heading to "Balloons" (Red Robin) for lunch after church. We are trying to enjoy these next few weeks because our friends are moving out of state (stinkin' Army), and we will miss spending time with them!





Yesterday was a great way to make some memories that will last forever :)

Mother's Day

We had a greatest yesterday! Hubs got up with Jax and made me breakfast. He also got me a gift certificate to get a mani/pedi! I can't wait to use it! We had a great day at church, them grilled with friends at our house. It was a lovely day!

I am so so blessed that God chose me to be Jax's mommy!

**My heart is with those of you who so desperately want to be a mommy. I know how heartbreaking it can be to get through the day. I constantly pray that God will bless each of you with your own special little one :)

Ohhh, man!

Summer Lovin

I am getting so excited for this summer! Jax is turning TWO (can you believe it?!) and I have fun things planned.

We went to our town's annual Dogwood Festival this past Saturday and while we were there I saw a booth for The Little Gym. They are just building one here and I can't wait to take Jax! Hubs and I both did gymnastics when we were young and I'm so excited to introduce Jax to the same thing.


They are opening a few days after Jax's birthday so I signed him up for a free trial day. I really hope that he loves it because they have a summer session that is once a week for 10 weeks. It's pricey (boo) but totally worth it to me. It will give us something else to do this summer and I think it would be so fun!


Before this came up, I signed Jax up for gymnastics on Fort Bragg. It is only for one week but I thought that could be fun too. So now he'll have lots of fun gym time this summer!


In a few weeks there will be swimming lessons opening up so I plan on enrolling him in those too. I am just so excited that he is old enough to do all these fun activities with.


I'm not looking forward to the sticky heat that comes with summer, but what better way to cool off than playing in an *air-conditioned* gym and swimming in a pool?!

(Sorry that some of the pictures are blurry... Taking iPhone pictures of a busy toddler is hard!)

Easter!

I really should be heading to bed (since it's 10:30, which means it's past my bedtime) but I realized that I haven't blogged in a week, and that is just sad! PLUS, I have to do the requisite Easter 2011 post... so here it is :)

Our Easter went really well. I spent Saturday cleaning the house and getting food ready for Sunday. I planned on making red velvet cupcakes, but instead of doing red food coloring, I was going to do Easter colors for both the cake and the frosting.


Not to brag, but I'm a good cook... however my good-cook-self didn't account for the fact that red velvet cake has cocoa powder in it, and when mixed with pastel colors it turns a lovely muddy color. Lame. So instead of having pretty pastel-colored cake, we had this....

*the flash made it look brighter than it was*

*it was supposed to be pink, blue, and green*

*not so much*

Thankfully, the delicious cream cheese frosting is white so that was easy to turn into the correct colors and they turned out lovely.

Except that I overcooked them and they were dry. So they looked lovely, but didn't taste as amazing as I had hoped. Plus the whole mud-colored cake thing wasn't so lovely. So I guess the frosting looked lovely, but the rest... not so much. Oh well. It still provided sugar, which is always good in my book.

On Easter morning, we put Jax's basket in the middle of floor so that he would see it when he got out of bed (aka- when we got him out of his crib). He was so excited and he carried the basket over to his daddy and said "oooooohhhh" the whole time.
He went straight for the "choo-choo" and daddy quickly opened it so that Jax could play.

He slowly made his way through other toys and candy... and of course had to bite off the chocolate bunny's ears!

He got this airplane lollipop from his grammy and the propellers spin when you push a button... he kept staring at the lights and putting it right up to his face. Too funny!

We got ourselves nice-looking and went to church to enjoy the AWESOME Easter service that our church put together.

I really, really love our church here and that is one of the only things I will miss when we get out of the Army and head back to California. So anyway, the service was great and there were probably 30 people that went forward to the altar call! Isn't that awesome?! And our church had 9 services at our 3 locations, so who knows how many people in total came forward?!

After church we headed back our house and had some friends and their kids over for a BBQ lunch and Easter egg hunt.



I was preparing the food and hubs asked where the chicken was... well, this absent-minded mama forgot to take it out of the freezer. Major fail. So the daddies made a trip to the grocery store to get some un-frozen chicken to grill. In the mean time, the kids just played and had fun. Jax is obsessed with our friends' 5-year-old Taylor. He is alllllways asking for "teeyo" and always wanting her to come over to play. They had a blast looking for eggs and running in and out of the house, and playing on the slide, and getting hyped up on sugar.

None of the kids even ate a real lunch. They filled up on candy and that was that. Ha! The food turned out delish, the time with friends was great, and overall we had a really lovely day!

Tornado

Well we are currently in the aftermath of a very nasty tornado that came through our area. We live in central North Carolina and multiple tornados came through on Saturday and ripped paths across a hundred miles. We are so blessed that our house wasn't hit but people just down the road weren't so lucky. There is so much devastation and ruin. Streets are closed and traffic is terrible around town. I spent the afternoon with a friend handing out water bottles to the people who are working to clean up the mess. I took a few pictures (inconspicuously because I didn't want to be rude) but I thought I would share.










































I took a video on Saturday during the storm but I'm having trouble uploading it. I will try to add it as soon as I can.

The tornado hit Fort Bragg too and there is a lot of clean up that needs to be done there as well. Please keep these families in your prayers... Especially those with deployed soldiers. They need it right now!

Peace

I want to thank each of you who have been praying for me. I have felt such peace over the past week, and I know it is partly because y'all have been praying. I've been very open about how much we want another baby and how hard it has been to wait. This past week has been so un-stressful and I'm so thankful for the chance to just enjoy life. I wish it were always this way, but unfortunately my brain always works overtime and I have a hard time turning it off. I am constantly focusing on every little thing that is going on... and I tend to focus on the negative. I wish it that weren't the case, and I pray all the time that someday my brain will automatically focus on the positive. Especially because there is SO much positive to focus on, and I always have to remember that. I really hope that this month will be less focused on "trying" and more focused on enjoying. So far, it has been that way. Thank you again for your love, support and prayers. I feel it! And I know this little guy appreciates a less-stressed mama :)

Spring Has Sprung!

We've had some off and on weather over the past week, but the last few days have been lovely! On the days that weren't so great, we got to play inside, which can still be fun. Hubs pulled out his motorcycle helmet and gloves and Jax was having a blast playing with them!

When I was downloading those pictures to my computer, I found these from when we went to Williamsburg. I thought they were pretty cute!

A few weeks ago I wrote about our little garden that we started this year. We haven't been the best growers over the past few years, so we're hoping for better luck this year. We bought some more plants recently (red bell peppers, basil, and seasonal flowers) and planted them in the yard. So far, so good... things are started to grow and bloom, and I can't wait to be able to walk to the backyard and pick something to use for dinner!

The tree we planted last summer is finally growing!

Ivy we planted when we first moved in. It started as 3 tiny plants and spread across the whole planter!!

Bell pepper and asparagus on the left, red and white onions on the right

Basil and rosemary

And finally, just to document this time... here's a couple pictures of life...

Jax reading his Bible! (Sorry for the blurriness, I didn't take these pictures)

The playroom tornado that occurs on a daily basis

Happy Sunday!

Can ya spare some prayers?

Well, I try not to whine much on my blog. I certainly don't want it to become a place for all the little problems that can build up, I'd much rather focus on good stuff. Like my hubby. And my kid. And the beautiful weather. And awesome friends. And how blessed we are. BUT, there are times when a girl just needs to vent, and ask for some prayers. Now is one of those times. I will try to make this relatively short and un-whiny....

It's no secret to those of you who have been reading for a while that we want another baby. Like, really really want. We tried for 6 months before hubs left for his deployment. Nothing. He was gone for 7 months. So... nothing. Obviously. He's been home for almost 2 months now. Still nothing. I know that 2 months isn't long, but when you add it to the other 6 from before, we're going on almost a year. Maybe I'm supposed to start with a clean slate since he was gone, but to me it feels like we've been wanting and trying for forever and nothing is happening. And it doesn't help that everyone is having second (or third, or fourth) babies, and because of Facebook, Twitter, etc.... I see it all day everyday. I would like to take a break from these things, but it would be impossible to escape. I live in a military town, which means that everyone is pregnant. Which means that there is no escape. So for now, we wait and keep trying and suck it up and deal.

It's times like these that I'm thankful for my God who loves me and knows my heart. I turn to Him when my heart aches, when I'm sad, when I'm lonely and when I need support. Of course my family and friends love and support me(us), but there's nothing that compares to the love of the One who knows you down to the number of hairs on your head (Luke 12:7).

Friends, I ask for your prayers too. I ask for prayers for a baby, but more than that, I ask for prayers that God's perfect timing will be present in our lives. I ask that we will have peace in the situation we are in.

I will keep you updated with this... and hopefully I will have good news very soon!!