Growing up TOO fast!

Here are some pictures of my boys on the first day of school. UGH! What happened to my babies? It seems like just yesterday that I brought them home from the hospital, held them in my arms, nursed them through the night, rocked them to sleep... now they are confident little boys with happy personalities ready to grow up. I'm not too sure I like this! I wish I could slow time down a bit.

But I know they must spread their wings and fly. Carson is loving 1st grade and reading books to us every night. Kolby is loving preschool and has charmed every one of his teachers! Watch out world, here they come!

Holey Moley!

Holey moley...Holy cow...what am I talking about? Holes of course! My challenge this week at Crop Addict is all about holes!! Get out those hole punches because we are going to be making holes! My challenge to you is toc ome up with creative ways to make holes in your paper. Don't just use those hole punches the way they were intended...think up exciting new ways to use them...create borders, create shapes, create a title, use different sizes...let's see how HOLEY you can make your layouts!

Check out my example. Its a layout I did last year and is one of my favorites! I used three different sized hole punches to create my water droplets. Love the effect!

Upload your layout in the Sep 15th - Sep 22nd Holey Moley Challenge Gallery AND link back to the Weekly Challenge forum by midnight PST on Sep 22nd.

Good luck! I can't wait to see what you come up with! Winners are usually announced at the end of the month and receive some great prizes!! Come join the fun!

Saved $250 in groceries!!!!!

Yup... you heard me right. I'm still in shock! I just left Meijers, our local grocery store and saved more than $250!! That's not even including the $96+ I saved in a couple trips to Walgreens and Family Fare!! In fact, in one of my trips to Walgreens, I bought 5 bags of Chex Mix, 2 boxes of Fiber One bars, and 3 bottles of Robitussin cough/cold syrup and they PAID ME! I made a profit of $2.00!!

So... I bet you're wondering how I did it?

I just signed up for a trial membership ($19.99 for TWO months) at Savings Angel . I had a few teachers that I work with that had been raving about it for about a year, but I kept thinking... I'm doing ok, I usually buy stuff that's on sale, so its not going to save me much. Besides, its $19.99 a month... can I really save enough to make up for it? OH YEAH! I sure was fooling myself! This is the coolest thing I've ever signed up for! Even my husband is shocked!

Its not a complicated theory. Savings Angel simply takes sales from local stores (Michigan and Saint Louis) and matches them up with killer coupon deals to give you unheard of savings. They give you the links to print the coupons or tell you exactly which newspaper coupon flyer to go to to cut out a particular coupon. I was never a coupon cutter, but its easy when they tell you exactly what to print or cut. No going through coupon books in the aisles. I simply took all my pre-cut organized coupons to the store, went down the list I printed from their site and ended up with a great deal!

Here's a couple highlights from my trip to Meijers last night:
*free boys jeans
*free boys underwear
*free boys shoes
*free boxes of Green Giant vegetables
*free tubes of Colgate toothpaste
*free Ladies Speedstick deodorant
*Lean Cuisine meals for $0.90
*hot dogs for $0.15
*Combos pretzel snacks for $0.40
*Betty Crocker tuna and chicken helpers for $0.40
*Electrosol dishwashing detergent for $0.40
*Hunts snack pack puddings for $0.53

My receipt said I had $65.65 in just coupon savings!! I paid $199.18 for $450.61 of groceries! (I'm totally stocked up for awhile!!) My savings were $251.43 and I even got $7.00 off my next shopping order.

I am so excited about this. Just couldn't wait to tell everyone about it! Give it a try. If you do try it, it would be great if you would use me as a referral. My referral number is 15393. Happy shopping and SAVING!!

P.S. For all you scrapbookers... I just saved myself plenty of money to go on a shopping scrappy spree!! YIPPEEE!!

The Melting Pot

To celebrate our 11 year anniversary (which is TODAY!!), we treated ourselves to an INCREDIBLE four course dinner at a fondue restaurant called The Melting Pot. It was so much fun! We were seated in a quiet dimly lit booth with high sides so you couldn't see anyone else. (It was very romantic!). Our first course was a Wisconsin Trio cheese fondue that came with different breads, granny smith apples and veggies. Our second course was a wonderful salad. I had a tropical one with mangoes, coconut crusted pecans and a sweet citrus dressing. Our third course was the main entree. We had a platter of meats (filet mignon, jerk sirloin steak, peppery shrimp, vanilla rum chicken and marinated pork) that we cooked in a mojo wine/broth. It was scrumptious! There were also 7 different sauces we could dip into! Our final course (at this point we were so stuffed they could have rolled us out of the restaurant) was a chocolate pecan turtle fondue with flaming rum! We dipped strawberries, pound cake, brownies, Oreo crusted marshmallows and cheesecake into!

I have always loved fondue. Now I'm an addict! Can't wait to do it again!

Crop Addict Monthly Challenge

I'm the featured design team member for September for Crop Addict!!

How cool is that??!!

Anyways... I created some challenges for this month, which was a ton a fun! Here's my first one. I hope you'll come play along!

"Labor Day is a glorious holiday because your child will be going back to school the next day. It would have been called Independence Day, but that name was already taken." - Bill Dodds

As a teacher and mother, September signals the beginning of school. Backpacks get filled, pencils get sharpened, and school supplies get bought.... To celebrate this exciting back-to-school time of year, I want you to think back to Kindergarten basics and focus on letters. Sticker alphabets to be exact.

Pull out those sheets of alphabet stickers and get creative with them. Don't just use them for titles, but use them as embellishments, masks, or backgrounds. Show me all the unique ways you can use letter stickers on a layout!

Upload your lo into the September Design Team Monthly Challenge Gallery at Crop Addict. Post a link in the forums under "Monthly Challenges" by midnight PST on September 30th.

Let's see your ABCs! Hope you play along! Good luck!

Crop Addict September kit!

I had so much fun with the September Crop Addict kit! It was full of Little Yellow Bicycle and Basic Grey papers. There were also embellishments from Heidi Swapp, Maya Road, 7 Gypsies, and Cloud 9 just to name a few! It was so fun and I just loved how my layouts turned out! I have tons of stuff left over too! Thanks for taking a peek! (Complete supply lists available in my Crop Addict gallery)