The weekend is over....

And boy did it go by fast, as usual! Saturday we did our usual grocery shopping. We got some amazing deals!! And, we didn't even set foot in Walmart. I am getting SO sick and tired of Walmart and the way their prices fluctuate. Just an example: they had a dozen large eggs for .88 for a few weeks, which is a great price. All of the sudden they jumped to $1.38, then less than a week later they were up to $1.48! WTH?!?!? And their gallons of milk.....we buy whole milk for Chase and Walmart brand milk was $2.78....now it's up to $3.98!!! We shop at Krogers and Food City and their prices are way cheaper than Walmart now, so now we only use Walmart for prescriptions and over the counter meds. Each week we went into Walmart we would leave disgusted by the constant changes in their prices, so we see no reason to have to go back there for groceries. Actually, we were going their for just meds and pet food, but now we buy the dog food from the co-op and the cat food from Target........I was such a die hard Walmart shopper, now I can't stand going in there!

After we did our grocery shopping we came home and Chase took a really good nap.......over 4 hours!! When he woke up, Z said he wanted to go to the store and then go out to dinner. (thank you once again survey money!!) We headed over to Pigeon Forge/Sevierville area and we had Ryan's Buffet for dinner.....let me just say, it was AMAZING!!! Not only was their food delicious but the whole atmosphere was nice.....it felt so family friendly/oriented. And for a Saturday evening, they were not busy at all! Golden Coral was across the street and they were super packed, and Z had been seeing commercials for Ryan's and wanted to try them so we had that for dinner. I'm so glad we went there.....their dinner rolls were SO good......I love the rolls at Golden Coral, but the rolls at Ryan's were even better!!!! Ty got a huge kick out of all the different foods he got to eat......he had pizza and tacos, and he thought that was so neat! Everyone enjoyed themselves!!

I did get laundry done yesterday but didn't get to put it all away, so that is my goal for today. That and to make some time to scrapbook....even if I only get one layout done i'll be happy!!

A few other updates

So I had blogged about our freezer going bad and we finally have another one. It's still in our carport, like our old freezer, but we're working on making room in the house for it. It's so nice to have a freezer again!! And now when we find some good sales on groceries we can stock up again.

I had also posted about my computer acting up again. Well, a few days after posting I hooked up my regular hard drive and it went to working again!! I swear I have no clue what keeps happening with the modem. I will be so glad when faster internet is available out this way and I won't have to worry about the modem anymore!!

School is going ok for Ty. He's had a few mornings of crying, but it's gotten better. I'm sad to admit that we bribed him with ice cream! We were letting him buy every Friday but that didn't seem to work, so I told him if he can do good every morning he can buy ice cream every day. He also asked if he could wear his silly bandz rubber bands to school and I told him he could and between that and the ice cream he hasn't cried! I just hope it keeps working for him. This week he brought home the papers for school pictures already....they are taking them September 2nd! School has only been in session for a little over a week and they are already doing pics. We decided we were only buying a super small package and won't be mailing any out. They do spring pics, which we loved so much more than the fall school pics so we'll wait to get pics to mail out then.

Well, that's it for now. It's so hard to believe summer is "over", but i'm SO looking forward to cooler fall weather!!! I hope everyone had a greet summer!!!!

Chaser's update

Wow, it's been way too long since i've done a Chase update. It's so hard to believe he's almost 15 months old!!

He's doing so much lately it's hard to keep up! He's now walking 99% of the time. He's also attempting running, which is hilarious to watch!! He loves getting big borthers Spongebob hat and bringing it to me saying "Bob! Bob!" As soon as I put the hat on his head, he is giggling and running away! LOL He'll do that several times and each time he laughs harder and harder....I need to try and get it on tape......here he is wearing the hat:



He is such a little love-bug....he loves coming up and laying his head on my chest saying "Ahhh...." He still only does kisses every once in awhile, but will gladly let you kiss him......when you ask him "Can I give you a kiss?" he leans his head towards you to kiss it! LOL He LOVES MeeMee and is always petting her or sitting next to her. He loves the dogs too, but it's just something about MeeMee he likes more. Last week I noticed two new teeth coming in on the bottom, so he now has a grand total of 8 teeth! And he just loves to smile and show them off. He still isn't "talking" much, but LOVES to babble!! He's also learned how to get himself down off of our bed and he likes to climb up and down on Ty's bed. It's been awhile since i've done a weight and height check on him.......I need to work on that!

Grrr.....

Once again I am using my old hard drive as the modem on my other hard drive is once again acting up. Yes, the same modem that we just bought about a month or so ago!!! It's doing the same exact thing that the other modem was doing.....here is what's going on. (in case someone has any advice/input to offer!! LOL)

When I try to log online, the modem makes no noise and after a few attempts I keep getting an error message of: "The modem on the remote computer isn't responding..." or something like that. We've had the hard drive to the computer shop.....nothing was wrong with the modem. In fact, the guy at the computer shop hooked a phoneline up to my computer and got online at the store! Z ran new phone line at home, thinking that was the problem. Tried to get online with no luck. Now the real kicker is.......(well, other than the fact that the computer tech got online with my hard drive at the store, in front of Z) my old hard drive works just fine (albeit it's super old and sooooo slow) and will get me online....using the exact same phone line! We ended up replacing the modem from my regular hard drive and it was working just fine....until this morning. Now, I was able to get online early this morning, but I kept getting bumped offline. Just like what happened the last time all this mess started.

I just can't wrap my head around what is going on.......how is it my old hard drive works fine with the phone line, but my regular hard drive won't let me online, but it will get online elsewhere?!?!?

First day was a success!!!

Tyler said he had a GREAT first day yesterday!! He has two classmates from last year in his class, which he said was nice. He was a little disappointed that his best friend from last year wasn't in his class, but he said he got to see him at recess and they got to play! He said his teacher is really nice and all the kids in his class were nice as well. He said his favorite part of the day is riding the bus, though! He still had a little bit of a nervous stomach this morning, and I wish I knew what to do to help him with that. :( He had it all last year and I was hoping since he is older it would ease up for him.....although, i'm in my 30's and still get a nervous stomach about things! LOL All in all he had a great day......

Another school pic

I love this pic from this morning, even though he has his eyes closed....(little stinker!)

First day of school pics......

Ty was SO ready for school!!!!!






Sorry the bus picture is so blurry.....my camera was set on video and I didn't know it! :( He only has a half day of school today, and I can't wait to find out how his day was!

First day of school!!

WOW, I can't get over how fast this summer went! I can't believe Ty is starting first grade today. I'm SO going to miss having him around. :( Yesterday afternoon his school had an open house and we got to meet his teacher and check out his classroom. Each room has a "theme" and they have a flag hanging outside of their rooms with that particular theme. Last year his teachers room was apples and she had an apple flag hanging......well, Ty got a postcard in the mail a few weeks ago with a frog on the front of it and it said his teacher would be Ms. Meadows and to go to the frog flag in the first grade hallway. We found the frog flag yesterday, and boy does she like frogs! She had them everywhere!!! Ty got a huge kick out of that. His teacher is so nice! She's been at that school for 26 years! We dropped off his supplies, filled out a few papers and got to chat for a little while. We also got to see a few of his classmates, and we saw two of his classmates from last year are in his first grade class. It was nice to see some familiar faces from last year, like the two ladies that help the kids out of the vehicles during morning drop-off. They both couldn't believe how big Ty and Chase have gotten!! We also got to meet the new principal and he seemed very nice as well.

Ty is also going to be a bus rider for the very first time and is SO excited about this!!! I was hesitant about letting him ride the bus before he started school last year. (well, he would have only been on the bus in the morning since kindergarten got out earlier than the rest of the school) I didn't like the idea of a kindergartner riding a bus with alot of bigger kids. (bad experiences of riding the bus when I was in school) But since his school only goes up to 2nd grade, I figured it wouldn't be too bad. Plus, he's been bugging me to ride the bus ever since he rode one on his first field trip last year!! I'll be sure to get pics of him getting on the bus this morning.

We're looking forward to another great school year!!!

HUGE deals!!!

Last Friday and this past weekend we got some amazing deals on toys for the boys!!! Friday the boys and I went to Target and they had some toys marked down 75% off.......they marked them down on Thursday so it was all picked through, but I found an adorable stuffed Spongebob for only $1.47!! Chase loves Spongebob and Ty has a Ty brand Spongebob that Chase likes to play with so I figured this way he could have his own! I also got some good deals on a few other things, but that was for things around the house. (well, I also got some scrapbook stuff super cheap...I LOVE their dollar section!!! Plus, I used paypal/survey money to pay for the scrapbook stuff so it was basically free!!) On Saturday we went to Kmart and they had tons of toys marked down 50%......we found a cute Elmo toy for Chase and several Matchbox sets for Ty, all for Christmas!! We easily got over $75 worth of toys for just under $20. It feels so good to have things already put away for the boys for Christmas. I'm expecting several payments from survey's i've taken and i'm hoping to use that money for gifts for them as well!

Keep an eye out at Kmart and Target for some great markdowns!!!!!

Such a bad blogger

I am SUCH a horrible blogger......it's been over a month since i've done any posts, and I am so, so sorry. Can you forgive me?!? Pretty please?


I did have some computer trouble that made it very difficult to get online.....I mean, I could get online but I had to use my old computer and I have to restart it every 40-45 minutes because it ends up going sooooo slow. So that made doing anything online a total pain. And it took FOR-E-VER to get my regular computer working again.....and to this day no one knows what was wrong with it! We ended up having to buy a new modem (which we had a new one put in just this past January....curse you, dial-up internet!!) and now it's working fine. So, let's see if I can remember all that has happened the last month....

In July the in-laws came back down again.....only this time, Z's brother, sister and niece came with them! It was so nice to finally have Z's sister meet Chase, and it was great that we got to meet her daughter as well!! Ty and her daughter hit it off perfectly.....it was as if they knew each other their whole lives. We got to go swimming with them at the hotel they stayed at in Pigeon Forge, and I am so impressed with how well Ty and Chase did with swimming. They both loved it!

Z and I hit a big rough patch a few weeks ago, but so far things are going better. We are working together on things and hopefully things will continue to improve. He did find out the company he works for has once again switched hands, but this time it seems to be a great thing! Health insurance is supposed to be MUCH better, and he will get more vacation time and somewhat better pay. I'm looking forward to the better insurance, that's for sure! This past weekend our big freezer died on us. Ugh, we lost so much food. And what we did manage we had to shove into our little freezer in the kitchen. Hopefully this weekend we'll be able to get another freezer. We can't complain too much, though......the one we have lasted us 10 years and survived several moves.

The boys are doing GREAT!!! Ty is getting excited about school starting next month. I am as well.....I feel so bad that he doesn't have kids his age to play with. Chase is walking all OVER the place! Crawling still seems to be his preferred method of travel, but he is walking like crazy.....and the look on his face is priceless! He is SO proud of himself. I have a video of him walking on Facebook, so if you're on my Facebook and haven't watched it yet, I highly recommend it! He's still hit or miss with talking.....he loves to sing, though! He just keeps growing and getting so big.....they BOTH do!

Well, I guess that's it for now. The boys are wanting mama to play. Hope everyone is doing good and staying as cool as possible in this nasty heat!! It's been in the 100's here, and we only have a/c in the bedroom and living room so trying to cook dinner in this heat has been super rough.

I promise to do my best to update more frequently!!

Long overdue mail update

Mail has been pretty decent, but i'm sure it'll be slowing a little since I didn't get much time to sign up for things when we had company and with being sick. Anyhoo, all of this is from 04.05.10 to present:

- Coupon for free Sun Chips/Facebook
- $5 cash/Opinion Outpost
- Degree Deodorant sample/Walmart
- Ritz Munchables/Facebook (soooo yummy!!)
- American Lung Association Layard
- Test product from In Home Product Testing (will pay $30 Target GC once completed!)
- Stride Gum/Facebook
- $12 Survey Check
- KLM Photo tags/Facebook (they turned out GREAT!!)
- Loreal Hair Color Coupon (2)
- Pretzel M&M's/Facebook
- Orville Cheddar Cheese Popcorn/Krogers
- $12 Pinecone payments/Paypal
- $5 Buzzback Payments/Paypal
- $5 Family Dollar GC
- $10 CVS ECBs
- Uncle Bens Coupon
- Nail Polish/shoptext (so cute!)
- Thermos/Copenhagen
- Kraft Sample Pack/Facebook (came with 3 packs of Dried Tomato and Basil Wheat thins and coupons for free Oscar Meyer Lunch meat and Kraft Barbecue sauce!)
- P&G Samples/Cascade and Pantene
- Legos
- Butterfinger Coupons/Facebook (2)
- Fusion Proglide Razor (Z really likes it!)
- Pot Holders/Stouffers (2)
- Underwear/Warner
- Dove Deodorant/Walmart
-Dr. Scholl's for her insole/Facebook (and only one...so weird!)
- Secret Clinical Strength/Walmart
- Old Spice Body Wash/Walmart
- Cophart hat
- Kraft coupons (for 6 free things! )
- Ritz Crackerfuls Bacon and Chedder/Facebook (YUM!!!)
- Red Gold Tote Bag (2)
- Pedometer/Nature's Bounty
- Thong
- Kraft Mayo Samples (not sure if these are safe to eat....they were in the heat for who knows how long! )
- $20 Amazon for a survey

I LOVE Target!!!

Target has a dollar section as soon as you walk into the store and I just love it!!! I always seem to find some super cute scrapbook things, specially ribbon. I had only been in their scrapbook section of the store once but they were SO expensive! Well, the other day I finally looked more in the isle and found TONS of stickers for only .99!!! I got some cute alpha stickers and a few packs of chipboard alphas that I had been needing. I also found some adorable glitter monkey stickers that go with Chase's party theme.....and they also had some packs of 12x12 paper for only .99! I need to build up my survey money more and get back into that scrapbook section to stock up!!! (Then all I need to do is find the time to get some scrapping done! LOL)

Recent layout

Ugh, I am so far behind in scrapbooking.......trying to find the time to scrap is tough!!! And most of the time, when I do get a chance to scrap I have no creative mojo. :( I worked on a digital layout yesterday and i'm not quite sure i'm happy with it. I still want to do a paper version of this layout but i'm not quite sure what I want to do with it. Anyhoo, here is what I came up with....