Another Adventure

So today I rushed to three stores....I know that sounds like a lot of stores but it was totally worth it! I went to Target, Wal-Mart, and Albertsens.
2 Capri Suns (On sale 2 for $4.00)
7 Halls Cough Drops (got all of these FREE)
2 Gillette Body Washes
2 Gillette Shampoo
5 Jello Pudding Mixes (On sale, No coupon used)
2 Baby Lotions
2 Baby Body Washes
2 Baby Oils
4 Pledge
7 Kellogs Cereal
7 Kraft salad Dressings (paid 8 cents for each)
2 Mustards
5 Kraft BBQ sauce (On sale, No coupon used)
Not pictured is one gallon of whole milk (had to get it in the fridge sorry)

You can see how I purchased most of these with coupons by going to:
itshiptoclip.blogspot.com

Total Spent: $40.97
Savings: $79.04

PLUS I got coupons for Three Free gallons of milk to use on my next purchase and also 5 cents off gas (I know that's not a lot but it's worth including right)

What a Beautiful Day...

for being in love! Rex was trying to kiss Graycee while I was taking their picture! What a funny shot! I love it!
Rex & Graycee decided to come down and visit us this weekend! We were so excited! We have not seen them forever it seems like. All of us were sick of being in the house all day so we decided to take a little drive over to the "DIXIE" rock. We climbed up the rock and enjoyed the scenery for a while.....well at least I tried to! LOL! Anyone who knows me understands how scared I am of cliffs!
Colby & Trevin walking along the rocks....
Attention Below: This is my scared face while I watched Trevin run around as Colby says "Ya, I am watching him" with a HUGE cliff behind me!
Graycee, Rex, and Trevin!
Trevin sitting in the rocks! He LOVED playing with the rocks and running around!
It was a beautiful day and also very hot! I could not believe how hot it is getting down here! I am not so sure I am going to survive my first summer down here! Wish me luck!

Date Night

Last Friday night we went out again with some of my friends from work. We went to Tuacahn and saw Joseph-A Nashville Tribute. It was amazing to say the least. All of the singers are LDS and are very well known. One of the singers is the manager/producer of Shedaisy, the pianist is the pianist for Diamond Rio, and I can't remember the rest. Due West is part of this group. The lead singer is from Richfield and they are amazing as well! I was a little upset because Mindy Gledhill who sings Emma was not able to be there, but the woman who actually plays Emma (in the new movie Emma) came to sing. I soon got over my disapointment when I heard her sing! It was truely a testimony builder!
Colby, Myself, Melissa, and Braydon on one side and....
Braydon (again) Vanessa, and Mike.
We went over to the Barben's home (Vanessa & Mike) and they gave us a tour of their house! It was incredible! This was their pet Lizard (not sure if you really consider this huge thing a lizard) and I really wanted to hold it! Little did I know it had SHARP fingernails and so I was a little hesitant when Mike put it on my shoulder!
Before we left we had an awesome dinner prepared by all of us. Instead of going out to eat we decided to make dinner ourselves! Budget people, Budget! I made Baja salad, Vanessa & Mike marinated pork chops and made baked potatoes, and Braydon made Queso dip (for an appetizer) and also some peanut butter brownies! The food was delicious! Much better than going out to eat! It was such a fun night! I love working with such awesome people. It has truely helped me become a better person and realize what life is all about!

Thanks Riley & Tana for watching Trevin...We didn't know they were going to be coming down last weekend. We had already bought the tickets! I felt horrible!

Coupon Clippin' Adventure #2

Ok so after work this morning I decided to venture out before tons of people were in the stores and go shopping again with my COUPONS! I had to take some rain checks on some things (so some things are not pictured) but I took a picture to give you an idea of what I actually purchased!

3 Dr. Pepper 12 pks
2 Capri Suns
2 Boxes Pop Tarts (12 each)
5 HUGE Pace Salsa bottles (blow the picture up just so you can see how big they are)
4 Tree top apple juices
2 Doritos
2 Vanilla Wafers
2 General Mills cereal (Coco Puffs & Cinnamon Toast Crunch)
3 boxes of Gushers
1 Pizzamore Pizza (not pictured)
2 Dannon Light & Fit yogurt packs (not pictured)
1 Beritoli Dinner (not pictured)
4 Frosted Flakes Cereals (not pictured)
2 Rice Krispy Treats (not pictured)

Total Out of Pocket Expense: $61.65
Total SAVINGS: $65.60

I was extremely happy with my purchases! Still not as good as my friends blog but at least I am getting better! I need to order more Sunday Papers in order to get the AWESOME deals she does! It's amazing how much money you can save with a little time and some coupons!

Target Deals

Ok so I will make it known...I am a huge fan of coupon clippers! I used to hate to be that person behind someone in the grocery store that brought 500,000 coupons just to save a little money, but

I AM ONE OF THEM NOW! Yes, I know some of you may think I am loosing my mind and need to get a life, but it's worth it!

Today I went to Target (with poor Tana alongside) and I got some AWESOME deals! I have been following a blog of a mom who posts deals and tells you what coupons to use etc. You can find her blog here

Here's what I bought:
4 Quaker Oatmeal Squares Cereal (if you have never tried this cereal I recommend it!)
6 Quaker Granola Bar boxes
2 Life Cereal boxes
4 Bags Tostino's tortilla chips
2 Bottles of Tostino's Salsa (got these free)
4 Boxes of Wheat Thins (got two free)
2 Rice Krispy Treat boxes
2 Shout bottles (only paid $1.25 for each one)

I paid $43.04 with a savings of $39.44! AND, on top of that I got two $5.00 gift cards to use at Target. So actually I only spent $33.04! I would have saved an additional $4.00 but they were out of some things that I needed and I had coupons for. I was a little upset, but I am over it now!

Next time you're in line behind a coupon fanatic, check out how much the person saves and maybe you will think twice about being a "coupon clipper" too!

Today

I am enjoying...
the blossoms on my favorite tree
being on call and realizing its ok to have a little time off
getting my house ready for Riley & Tana to arrive
finally having some time to myself
a long hot shower
reality T.V. shows
reading Eclipse (it's only been about forever ago since I started reading this one)

and most importantly, being myself and realizing that's just exactly what I want to be!

Chelsea & Tim...

Since blog uploads your pics retarded we will start with the funniest picture of the day....

Chelsea asked me to take some pictures of her and Tim this weekend while they were down in St. George. She is my sister-in-law and I absolutely love her to pieces! These two will be getting married in June and she asked me to take some pictures just for fun! Nothing too professional but they work right? The green picture was our last location and we could not come up with any more pose ideas so Tim came up with this awesome pose! What do you think?
Thse two are honestly so cute together! It was so much fun to hang out with them this morning after church! With the help from my friend Keisha I was able to find some awesome locations here in St. George. Thanks Keisha!
The next picture was a little sunny and let off too much light on their face but I still wanted to post it anyway. We spent too much time at our first location so the sun was out! It was a good learning experience!


And now for my FAVORITE pictures of the day....

I had to post it twice because I wasn't sure which edit I liked best! Although these two may be so different (As Tim would say) they fit each other perfectly! Thanks for asking me to practice on you guys today! I had so much fun!

Alright, Alright....

here ya go! Everyone has been asking me to post pics of our new house. I have already posted some of my sons room but that room is still in progress....more to come. Anyway, once again these pics are a little out of order but we will deal with it. The first picture is part of my master bathroom. We have a garden tub and a shower on this wall and then on the opposite wall we have our vanity and a small room for the toilet (see pic below). As you walk completely through my master bathroom we have a large walk in closet.
This next picture is most of my kitchen. We have dark knotty alder wood cabinets. As I have said before the coloring in most of these pics are off (not sure why) but I love my cabinets! The hallway you see in the middle leads to our laundry room (to the left) and our master bedroom (to the right).
This next picture is part of our living room just off the kitchen.
More of our living room...
And our house from the outside. We still are planning on putting a light colored stucco around the garage and rock (but that can wait). You can see how warm it is down here! I love it!
This next picture is our entryway. Don't mind the orange extension cord on the floor. Colby has been trying to convert everything over to one computer for the last few weeks.
Close up of our cabinets in the kitchen.
This is part of our master bedroom. We still have boxes and stuff placed in here so this is all you get to see.
This shelf is on the wall in our kitchen by our table. I got the frames from my mother for my birthday and I love them!
Well that's most of our house. We do have a guest bedroom and bathroom, closets, laundry room, garage, etc. that I left out just because I have tons of pics on here already. I will post more later if you really are in need to see them.

Hope you enjoyed seeing parts of our house! We love it!

Feeding the Ducks

I got up this morning and got ready early because I was determined to do something fun with my son today while Colby was at school. As a little girl I always remember going to feed the ducks with my family along with my grandparents in Springville. I always loved having the ducks surround you as you threw them large amounts of bread. My grandma would always get so nervous that we would get bit by one of them, but that didn't seem to stop us from having a good time.
Today was a beautiful day in St. George. On Saturday I noticed there was a small pond just a few blocks up from our house....
So we went and fed the ducks! I had some old hamburger buns that I knew wouldn't get used. I loaded Trevin in the tahoe and away we went. While we were driving I explained that we were going to go see the ducks. He immediately started looking around for them and wanted to know where they were.
When we got there he saw the ducks and screamed, "Oh, Ducks!" He always starts saying something by saying "Oh" first. When I started to throw the bread to the ducks, he got mad and wanted some for himself.


He enjoyed me feeding the ducks while he ate. After a while he caught on and realized if he threw the bread to the ducks they would swim toward him. It was so much fun to spend time with him and do something with my child that I used to do when I was young. It brought back memories of my childhood and what life used to be like.

If you look at the very first picture posted, you can see all the BIG chunks of bread...those were Trevin's pieces he threw for the ducks. You can see they didn't make it far enough into the water so they didn't get ate until we walked off. The ducks were a little scared of a screaming child yelling for them!

Cute Cousins

On Saturday Trevin & Austin watched Madagascar while sitting on the Cars Couch Trevin got for Christmas. I thought it was so cute! Diana had dressed Payton & Austin in the BYU shirts Grandma Theral gave all the boys for Christmas, so I thought it would be fun to have Trevin match as well. We had planned on getting a picture of all three of them together and never got around to doing it. I still think we need to...
The first two pictures are after Trevin was completely ready. Don't mind the big hair in the next pictures. He has his dad's curly hair and sometimes it gets a little crazy!
Intense concentration...

In this picture both of them were saying cheese while trying to watch the movie at the same time!

Josh & Diana (with the boys) and Riley & Tana came to stay at our house this last weekend. Riley & Josh played in a softball tournament just a few blocks from our house. Kent & Diane were also down for meetings. It was fun to spend time with everyone! We love having them come stay, even if Josh gets sick!

Be Prepared to be Jealous...

as I tell you how nice it was to just sit outside in my backyard with my pants rolled up and a short sleeve shirt on as I basked in the sunlight of St. George!

Colby, Trevin, and I were outside playing in the backyard a few minutes ago. I had a sweater and pants on. I couldn't believe how warm it was when I actually got outside! I took of my sweater, rolled up my pants, and sat on the concrete to enjoy the sunlight. It was so nice!

The sunlight was so warm against my skin. I could hear the wind blowing, but it was stopped by the fence in our backyard. Every once in a while I would feel the breeze on my feet. I could close my eyes and hear Trevin playing in the rocks and Colby playing with a scooter. :) For a moment I thought about numerous things and it made me realize how wonderful my life is! I am so blessed!

I realize that in a few months the weather is going to be so extremely hot down here that I won't want to go outside and play, but for now, it's wonderful!

The Big Reveal

This is my cabinet Colby made me when it's open. Would you ever believe that all this food is behind such a beautiful piece of furniture made by my husband? I can't even begin to explain how much this cabinet means to me and how much I love it. I am trying to do the right thing by getting my food storage. Telling myself "I just don't have room for it" wasn't good enough for me. We have been so blessed to have jobs, to have enough money to provide for ourselves, and to be able to say that we did all of this on our own! I have been talking with some people from work and we have decided that the Prophet doesn't ask us to get our food storage because of an emergency like a tornado, fire, etc. but because maybe someday Colby will loose his job, or myself, and we will not be able to have enough money to get through financially. I have decided that I am going to be prepared even if I don't think I will loose my job and even if I know we are financially stable at this time of our life.
I am willing to give up a little money to be prepared and it feels good. It feels really good! I was loading this cabinet today and I realized I honestly have so much canned food (more than enough) and now I need to work on looking at my regular recipes and making sure I have enough of all the "little ingredients" I probably have overlooked. If you read the Ensign it talks about getting a three month supply of food that you would normally eat...and then gathering more food that are staple foods after that.
This is the complete view of the inside. You can see I almost have the whole thing full and my pantry is still almost completely stocked (pictures in an older post). I don't say all this to try and get you to praise me for trying to get my food storage, but to give other people hope! Even if you don't feel like you have enough money financially or enough storage space, there are ways around finding the space to put everything, and you can start by getting one or two extra cans a week and building from there if money is an issue. Trust me, when I first started, it was hard to balance money and space. I feel like I have been extremely blessed already and hopefully by following the counsel of the Prophet more blessings will come to our family.