First Time for Everything...

Friday night, Steve made me aware of something I never would have guessed. He's never carved a pumpkin before. So Friday night, we changed that! I have been putting off carving pumpkins with Emily for as long as I could. I've always thought it would be more trouble than it's worth. And we aren't at home on Halloween, so why would we have carved pumpkins? But this year Emily was really wanting to carve one, so I gave in.

We invited Sam & Holly over, and had thought we were going to make some pumpkin pie while we were at it. After some research online, we decided against the pie, but we did do some pumpkin seeds. Holly & Sam, both, ended up really being a big help with the carving & cleaning out of the pumpkins.

Emily was so exhausted from her week at school, she ended up falling asleep before we finished the carving.

Steve did a great job! For a first time, Emily picked out a VERY challenging design for the pumpkin. But he did it all, and it turned out incredible!

Fall Break...

well as you can tell I'm a little late in posting this, but man oh man we have been SO busy...

Emily had such a great Fall Break...and to be honest Steve and I had an awesome break from parenthood. Emily & Elaina spent a couple of days with his parents and a couple of days with my parents, so it was like we were child free all week. We missed them something terrible, but man it was a nice break.

Not only did Emily & Elaina go to my parents, so did my niece & nephew. So, they did lots of fun things for Fall Break.

They started their time together with going to an incredible breakfast at the Loveless Cafe. It's a little eating place that's pretty famous around Nashville. They apparently all loved it.

Emily has alsways told me she wants to be an ice skater when she grows up, and Franklin has an ice skating rink that has open skating. So, they all went to check it out. They had a BLAST! And Emily is asking me when she can go back.

Did you notice how wet the bottom of her jeans are!?! That cracked me up!

As you can tell, Elaina had a blast too!

The next day they wanted to do something outside, so they drove out to Montgomery State Park & saw some of the fall landscape.

Then once they got home they decided to go by an apple orchad and get fresh apples to make apple butter with. When we were kids we made apple butter every year, and it's always been one of my favorites, so I was so glad Emily was able to make some.

And the best part of this is that we already have our teacher Christmas gifts! They made some in smaller jars for us to give to Emily's teacher!

As you can tell, they all had a blast!

Pumpkin Time...

Last weekend we all went to the pumpkin patch in Franklin. Well, I guess I should say some of us went, it was SO cold, and we didn't think it would be a good idea for Elaina to be out in the cold. We had so much fun! But did I mention it was cold!?!?!

They had tons of baby animals for us to look at. And a fun tire swing. We took 100 pictures in under 3 hours, so I'm just going to let the pictures show how much fun we had.

Surprise...

so, I've been slacking on the blogging lately, but really do have a great excuse! This past week Steve turned the big 3 - 0!!! And I was planning a big surprise for him, so blogging was put on the back burner while I was working on planning a surprise party at night. I never realized how hard it is to keep a secret from someone you live with. Especially when you are trying to figure out decorations & doing lots of the making of the decorations.

But Steve was very surprised!!! He knew we were doing something on Friday night, he just didn't know what. Since we had so much fun in Vegas this summer, I automatically wanted to do something with a "Vegas/Casino" theme. So, it all kind of came together once I came up with the theme.

I have to say, the next party I plan on this scale, I will hire someone to cater the food! The food COMPLETELY stressed me out. In fact, if it wasn't for Holly, I never would have gotten it all finished. Holly & my sister Candy really helped me out! I was running behind the whole day and they stepped in and really helped me get it all put together!

Everyone said they had fun, so the party must have been a success! The picture above is of the awesome cake! Kenya has really out done herself with all her cakes lately! I just told her the theme and the colors I was using and this is what she came up with! She's INCREDIBLE!!!!!Here's lots of other pictures!

This is him as we came in the door. He was so surprised & felt so blessed to have so many friends willing to come hang out with us to celebrate his birthday!

Pictures of more of our friends:

This is the candy bar I set up. It was supposed to be party favors, but we all dug in during the party & then no one wanted to take any home. So, now we have SO much candy at the house! If anybody wants some, let me know!!!

To go along with the theme, I had a friend who knows about card games put together a Texas Hold'em Tournament. Everybody had a lot of fun playing! Some of us didn't really know anything about playing cards, so we sat out. But lots of people really had fun playing. Lots of laughing, moaning, and cheering came from the card tables. Look at that concentration on Mike's face!

And the winner of the tournament....

Now all the decorations & party stuff:

Only one more thing to say - Steve, I love you more than you could ever imagine! I can't wait to celebrate 30 more birthdays with you!

Saving Money...

is a definite do when you become an adult and have to be all responsible like and have to put money away for college, weddings, etc., etc. So, I've been trying to do the coupon thing with my groceries. We have a set budget for groceries every month and I've really try to make the whole coupon thing into a competition. The whole thing really excites me...which is really a scary thought! I haven't really done as well as some other blogs I follow, but I'm definitely doing better than I did this time last year (I wasn't even cutting coupons at that point)! What was I thinking!!!!

This past week Harris Teeter & Kroger were doing triple coupons up to $.99. I normally do not shop Harris Teeter because they tend to be a little more expense on some items. But man, oh man, I'm so glad I went this week. I still spent what I had budgeted, but I saved $150 total. And I think I have enough cereal, granola bars, and wipes to last us until the end of the year.

Normally when I do my grocery shopping, I think to myself that I need to do some pictures and post what I saved. But some how between getting the groceries in the house & dealing with the girls, I just never got around to it. Well, this time I did. Actually, I need to thank Steve for reminding me. You see, every time I go to the grocery, he will come in and say "is this all you got for $___ of groceries." And so when I was telling him what all I got, I told him I wished he could see what all I got before I put it away because it was filling up our entire kitchen counter tops. So he suggested a take a picture. This is what $198 will get with triple coupons:

This is only the non-perishable food. I had already put up all the perishable food before Steve suggested the photo op, so I took some of the fridge & freezer.

Basically my fridge and freezer were empty, except the condiments in the fridge door. I also stocked up on formula, food, and cereal for Elaina.

I always hear people say they don't have time to cut coupons, but I can definitely testify that it is well worth the little bit of planning it takes!