Flipping

The kids are obsessed with flipping. This is a skill they all discovered taking a Parent and Tot gymnastics class at the Y. The Parent and Tot class is something I do with all of the kids when they are around 2. Riley has not yet taken this class, but has learned all about it watching the boys. Flipping is something that Seth is a master of, he loves to flip and will flip anytime anywhere, all he needs is something to hold onto. He no longer needs to even "climb" up to flip over, just something to grab, ie your hands, a bar, the ropes on the hammock, anything. Lately, every night before bed we have 15 minutes of flipping, it's exhausting for us, but they love every second of it.

I thought you might enjoy seeing some pictures of everyone flipping. And in case you can not tell who they are upside down, they are in order Seth, Noah, and lastly Riley.

More Vacation Pictures

Here are a few more pictures from our trip to Oklahoma. Hope you enjoy.


Noah(sad to be leaving) and Lane


Seth and Noah at the OKC zoo

Seth trying out an airplane cockpit at the Children's Science Museum in OKC

You Know Your Child is Tired When....

This is how I found Seth when I went to check on him at nap time. He was supposed to be upstairs asleep in his bed, but with Seth you never know. Don't worry after taking a quick picture I carried him to his bed where he slept for 2 more hours.

Money Saving......

For several months now I have been reading a blog almost daily that helps me the saving my family lots of money. This blog lets me know about good/great deals at stores of all kinds, with links to coupons, and other money saving ideas. It has been a huge blessing for my family and has helped me cut our grocery spending cost significantly. I don't think I will ever be as good as she is, but I am doing better, both at saving money and finding the deals myself.

I have also learned there are ways to getting some items for free or almost free by using CVS and their Extra Care Bucks program. While I have struggled in figuring this out and have made many mistakes in trying to get it to work for us, it is finally starting to make sense. This week I was able to work this system and get a ton of expensive, read diapers, items at CVS for (are you ready?).....$1.70 cash. I was so proud of finally getting the CVS deals to work for me that I took a picture of all of my items to show the world.

My $1.70 purchase


I also went grocery shopping on Sunday and while my trip to Publix cost more than my trip to CVS I still think I did pretty good. I spent $77.00 on everything seen in the picture below and saved $50.00. This will feed my family of 5 for about 10 days, of course some of the things like the hand soap will last us months, especially since I have a full bottle in all of the bathrooms already.



For those of you curious the blog I have been reading is called Money Saving Mom and the address is moneysavingmom.com. It has helped me save in all kinds of ways and get a lot of freebies over the past 7-8 months.

I am also putting a link to the site on the sidebar that will link you to the site.

Vacation

Last week we went on vacation to Oklahoma City, OK. I know that probably seems like a strange place to spend a week of vacation, but we got to spend the week with family. Yes it was hot and no there was no beach but we had a great time visiting and playing with cousins, aunts and uncles that we only get to see about once a year.

We traveled by different means and times, Jared, my parents, Noah and Seth drove the 10+ hours from Nashville to Oklahoma City, while I flew with my grandmother and Riley on Friday morning. As a funny side note, Mama (my grandmother) was tagged as a special security risk at the Nashville airport. This meant it took longer for us to get through security, while they frisked my 87 year old grandmother. This was even more ridiculous given the fact that she did not have a bag with her, but Riley and I stood right next to her with a carry-on suitcase and a diaper bag and were not given a second look.

The kids spent the week playing with their cousins, Lane and Sloane, while the rest of us spent time catching up and enjoying the week off from our regular schedules. The week included a trip to the children's science museum, the Oklahoma City zoo, a couple of trips to the neighborhood pool, a water park, and lots of playtime at Aunt Kay and Uncle Web's house and Lane and Sloane's house and playroom.

We also got to meet the newest member of the family. My cousin Courtney welcomed her first son, Cannon, on Friday morning before we arrived. He is beautiful and it was great to get to see him while we were there.

Cannon


Cannon, Courtney and Clint

Car

As many of you know back in May we had to sell Jared's 1999 Isuzu Rodeo, for the past several years we have spent thousands of dollars keeping it going and emissions passable for registration. This year when we discovered the computer was going bad and the air compressor had gone out on the air conditioner Jared finally admitted that it was no longer worth fixing.

For the past 2 months we borrowed his parents extra car while he looked for a new car. He really wanted a truck, but with gas prices being almost $4/gallon he decided to go with a smaller car. After much research, we have a new car. A 2008 Toyota Yaris, bright blue, hatchback. I call it the bubble car and I think Jared looks weird driving such a small car, but I'm very happy with the gas mileage and the way it drives.

These cars are in such high demand that we actually had to put money down on a car the the dealership was supposed to get, but had not even been made yet. Jared reserved the car at the beginning of July and we were finally able to pick it up this week.