Saturday day trip

Across the street from the city dump is this little observation area of some "wetlands" in Salt Lake. It's all a result of storm runoff, but over the years it has become a sort of bird sanctuary with pelicans, herons, and such. Although it stunk it was still pretty and fun to see.

(I managed to get Amy to wear pig tails for a whole day!! We are making progress)

Amy & her books

The other night we went in to check on Amy and this is what we found. Apparently, she had a hard time going to sleep.

Pictures from the Summer - Part 1

I've needed to recharge my battery for awhile, and so I haven't been taking a lot of pictures. Today I finally decided to check out what pictures I have taken and finally put them on the computer. Here are some of our favorites:

Amy playing at the McDonald's playland.

Amy, Ian, and Kenny going down the Shark slide at Kenny's work party.

Ian looking cute at Wheeler Farm.

Our first annual fourth of July family breakfast.

A Week in Review

I find myself in a constant struggle for balance between children, home, husband, friends, family, myself, work, etc. etc. I've been tired of having the chaos of our life dictate what we do. I am amazed how easy it is to lose sight of priorities. For awhile I've felt like our family needed to be more purpose-driven. We spend so much time just going through the motions and not putting equal time into what is most important. It's been a good experience to sit back and reflect on what I want our family to be, what I want our children to learn, and how to accomplish those goals.

This last week I tried doing a different activity with the kids everyday. When Kenny came home we tried to have a couple of fun nights. I've decided one of the ways to accomplish the goals I want is to have a schedule. I've always believed in a schedule for my kids as far as nap time goes - wish I could say that schedule was more for them than for me, but lets be honest - a nap schedule is absolutely for my own sanity. But this week I've thought about having a little more of a fun schedule. Isn't that sad - having to plan fun!

Monday, however, isn't too much of a fun day! We clean house. This is one of the only days I don't watch another little boy, so I wish I could say we do something really fun on this day, but I have a hard time being able to do anything without starting the week with a decently clean house. I did get Amy involved in it though. She was a great window washer and bathroom counter cleaner. I guess those things are important too.

Tuesday was our outing day. We headed off to the aquarium. Ian, our little scaredy-cat, couldn't bear to have the trout look at him directly. He would get all hysterical and put his face into my shoulder. By the end of our adventure he was a little less timid, but still didn't want to get too close to the fish.

Wednesday was our arts and crafts day. I let Amy go to town with the paints. She literally didn't move from her chair for 2 hours. She painted anything and everything she could (luckily without any damage to walls or tables). Then she started decorating herself. Check out her orange puffs in her ears. I had to take a picture after walking by and seeing her. She's so silly.

Thursday Amy, Ian, and I baked cookies, but the highlight of the day was the evening with daddy. We went to the gateway to get Ken's ipod repaired and stopped to let Amy and Ian play in the fountains. These fountains run all day and include a little watershow on the half hour. While we were there a live band played as well. Amy loved running in the fountains. She was drenched by the end, and of course, Ian, was so freaked out by the spraying water he wanted nothing more to do with them.

The Oquirrh Mountain LDS Temple Open House started last week, so Kenny and I got tickets and took the kids on Saturday. Of course it was beautiful. The highlight of the tour was the sealing room. They had groups sit down in the sealing rooms and explain that it is in those rooms that families are sealed to be together for eternity. There are mirrors on both sides of the sealing room, so that when looked through you see you and your families reflection forever, symbolic of the nature of the family. We lingered a little to have Amy look in the mirrors. When she realized she could see herself again and again and again she lit up and started doing some funny gestures in order to see all the "other" Amys do those same things.

After the temple we came home and got some of the "have tos" done. But those were even great as we did them together. We picked peas and strawberries (while Ian and Amy ate them just as fast), and mowed the lawn. Kenny beamed in delight as Amy got out "her" lawn mower on her own to help daddy.

I don't know if we can really keep up this momentum. It was a pretty busy week. But I will say it was also very fulfilling. Kids make everything in life sweeter.

Deal of the Week

You are probably thinking, "she hasn't posted anything in 2 months and she posts about her deal of the week?" Yep! I've been a little obsessed with the whole coupon thing lately, only because I love getting free stuff. Two weeks ago I went to Albertsons and spent $9.99 but saved $48.00. That was a great day! Today was pretty fun too. I only go to buy the stuff that's on sale w/ coupons.

Here was my shopping list at Albertsons:

2 Starr Red Raspberry Vinegars
2 Kraft BBQ Sauce
2 Tabasco Sauce (one green sauce, and one chipotle)

Final Cost: $.25 (Yes, one quarter!)
(saved $10.75 in coupons/promotions and $10.64 in preferred savings)

Amy's Faces

Here are some of Amy's faces! She'll do these on cue, and they always make us laugh! Our favorite one is the one that can't be captured on the camera - the facial expression she has as she is trying to get to the correct face. From left to right: mad, sad, happy, surprised, silly (and a repeat of mad again).

The Grocery Guru

Last night I went to an Enrichment activity where the "Grocery Guru" (http://www.gurusdeals.com/) came and shared with us how to get better deals on your groceries. Granted, it was a sales pitch to subscribe to the newspaper (which worked in my case), but it made me excited about "cutting coupons".

Today as I was thinking about my new commitment to cut coupons, I came across this site: http://www.savvyshopperdeals.com/ . This has to be the greatest website. It shows you where all the great deals are (here in Utah) and then tells you where the coupons are that go with them.

The "grocery guru" suggests having a binder w/ page protectors where you can store the coupon inserts (not cut) by date. When you are about to go shopping you can check where the coupons you need are and then cut them out. After 5 weeks you throw the oldest set of coupons away. I'm looking forward to trying this!