Packing

By 6:00pm I finally had all the girls' stuff labeled and organized and ready to put in a suitcase. I just need to finish my stuff and clean the house. Sometimes getting ready for a trip is exhausting!

Tomorrow morning the girls and I will leave for our 10 day trip North. I can't wait to see my sisters and brother-in-laws and all their kiddos! I pray it will be a good time. I don't do well without sleep, and I don't sleep well when I'm not in my bed. I also don't do well without Brent kicking me in the butt telling me to get over myself and my tiredness and have a good time (figuratively of course =) ) I'm praying that Elliana sleeps past 5:30am (her standard waking time when not in her own bed). I'm praying Avery will sleep even though she has to share a bed with me. I'm praying I will sleep even though I have to share a bed with Avery. And most of all, I'm praying that we'll all just relax and not worry about the 2 weeks after vacation when life is a bit rocky as the girls readjust to reality. Vacation here we come!!!!

Did she just say that?

Avery has this game where she calls for whatever it is she is waiting to get. For example, "milk cup, where are you?" "Church, where are you?" "Wal Mart, where are you?" "House, where are you?" You get the picture.

So tonight we had spaghetti for dinner, and after dinner Brent was on the floor under the table cleaning up all the sauce that never made it to the girls' mouth, and we heard, "Daddy, where are you?" Only this time it wasn't from Avery. It was Elliana! She did it 2 or 3 times with Brent. Then as I was getting her ready for bed, I told her to go get her milk cup and off she runs to the kitchen yelling, "milk, where are you?" Her first 4 word sentence at 14 1/2 months! And we all thought she was going to be the quiet one in the family.

Grocery Fun

I'm extremely excited this week. We refund our grocery envelope on the 15th of each month, and for the first time since Elliana was born, we still had $12 left in the envelope when we went to fund it!!!!! I'm usually in the hole $10-15 by the end of the month, so this was way exciting for me. Maybe we can double it by next month!

So here were my deals this week. If any of you buy diapers, you should definitely go to Target this week. If you click here, you will go to the Target coupon generator. There are 3 coupons you can use at the same time to buy diapers this week. There is a coupon for $5 off the purchase of Pampers diapers and wipes (the wipes are on sale for $5 this week). The next coupon is for $3 off the same purchase so now you've already taken $8 off the total purchase. Then there is also a coupon to receive a $5 gift card when you purchase the combo of diapers and wipes.

The first time you make the transaction, you'll pay $7 for the combo of diapers and wipes but you'll still have the $5 gift card which is almost like paying $2 for the diapers and wipes. But the coupon generator lets you print as many coupons as you want so if you go and do the deal a 2nd time, you can you use your $5 gift card, only pay $2 out of pocket, and walk away with another $5 gift card. In essence, you would make $3 off the deal. Pretty fun!!!

At CVS this week, I bought 2 tubes of Colgate toothpaste, a gallon of hormone free milk, and some mascara for $5. Not bad since a gallon of hormone free milk at Wal Mart is $5!!!

I'm loving this money saving game. My goal is to have $24 left in the envelope this month. We'll see how I do!

20 minutes at the Waterpark

Apparently this is why they say no running at the waterpark. 20 minutes into our fun family day at the pool, Elliana's body wanted to go faster than her legs could move, and she face planted into the cement. Since blood and public pools don't mix, we headed home to take early naps. Those 20 minutes wore us all out!
It doesn't seem to bother her much though, and as long as you pretend you're beeping her nose like a car horn, she'll even let us put medicine on the cut. Her older sister should take lessons from her!

Saving Money

I am on this quest to save our family money on our grocery bills. I started by trying the grocery game. It was a great place to start because it got me used to cutting coupons and looking at store ads. But with the grocery game, I needed to have a surplus of money for a couple months in order to buy the great deals plus the items we needed each month. Needless to say, we never had that extra money! So I canceled the grocery game and have started searching those countless blogs for ways to save money. It sounds weird, but it has become a fun pass time for me =) I've always been a frugal person so this whole saving money thing is like my new drug! So my two favorite blogs are money saving mom and the Centsible Sawyer. These blogs do all the hard work for me. They tell me what coupons to cut, link me to websites with valuable coupons on it, and then list all the store deals for the week. All that to say, here are my accomplishes for the week =)

Target: I got a jumbo pack of Pampers diapers and then 231 pack of Pampers wipes. Paid about $8 for them and received a $5 gift card from Target. Which means I really only spent about $3 for the diapers and wipes! YEAHHHH.

CVS: I did 3 different transactions. The first transaction I bought a Venus razor for $8 and received $3 Extra Care Bucks back. (they are store credit). I then bought 2 cans of shave gel and some girl needed products using coupons and the Extra Care Bucks. I only spent $2 out of pocket and received $3 more Extra Care Bucks. I then went and bought 4 bottles of dish soap using only the Extra Care Bucks. So total I spent $10 and still have $3 Extra Care Bucks to use next week on a purchase. I was pumped.

So this post has nothing to do with the girls or anything that most of you want to read about, so sorry =) But I am pretty pumped about possibly finding a good solution to stretching our grocery money a bit further. I'll let you know at the end of the month how it worked with our budget!

Memorizing Scripture

About 2 months ago, Brent and I started noticing Avery's ability to memorize things. She would memorize songs after hearing them just once. She could repeat everything Brent or I ever said, and she definitely could memorize any cartoon we let her watch. As we talked about it, we decided that instead of filling her head with untrue things, we would teach her to memorize the truth of scripture. So we bought this book that has a verse for every letter of the alphabet, and I'm spending 2 weeks on each letter and each verse. For the letter "A", we made cardboard A's, went on scavenger hunts, taped words together, and just did all sorts of fun things, all while memorizing Matt. 7:7. For the letter "B",the verse was Gal. 5:22-23. We've spent the week singing songs, making sugar cookie B's, and then I made a chart of all the fruit of the spirit so every time she displays a fruit of the spirit, she gets a sticker in that square. We're hoping that will help teach her what love, joy, peace, etc... mean! I posted a video of her saying her verses below.

July 4th

We spent the 4th of July at Grapevine Lake with our friends Susan and Andrew and the Oestreich Family. Earlier that day, we had been pretty sad that we weren't in Iowa this year sitting at the Urbandale parade, so we were grateful that Susan and Andrew had the great idea of heading out to the lake. We all had a great time!

Elliana was still a bit sick, so she spent the majority of the time with me on the blanket in the shade. She had a great time playing on that blanket. It is amazing was a 1 year old can find to entertain herself.
After a couple hours on the beach, we met the Oestreich's at the dock and they were gracious enough to take us for a ride on their boat. This picture was taken right after we got on the boat. The girls had never been on a boat before so they were still a little uncertain about what was going on.
By the end of the day, they both loved it! I asked Avery what her favorite part of the day had been, and she looked at me with a little spark in her eye and said, "the boat. Let's do that again mommy!"
We still haven't seen fireworks in person in 2 years, but Brent and I enjoyed the ones on TV last night =) We figure one day our kids will be old enough to stay awake until its dark outside, but for now, we enjoyed the relaxing day at the beach, on the boat, and the Boston Pops fireworks on TV.

Avery's Bible

Avery's favorite book right now is her Bible. She "reads" it all the time. A few weeks ago, Elliana spilled some water on the table and a little bit got on Avery's Bible and she said with her arms on her hips, "Oh no. My Bible. I read it every morning!"(those of you who know her well, imagine her high squeaky whiny voice at this point) Pretty cute. We love that she loves reading her Bible, except maybe after the 100th time she asks me to read it to her in one day =)
Tonight after I finished reading a few stories to her from the Bible, I left the room to get her some milk. When I came back, she was reading to herself, and this is how her version of the Bible read. "Fe, Fi, Fo, Fum, the giant can't come to my birthday party. Go back to school giant." So maybe the salvation message hasn't penetrated her mind yet, but at least she has the habit of reading the Bible every day =) Oh, and tonight as we were praying, here was Avery's prayer. "Dear Jesus, be with Goldilocks and help the bears be nice to her. Amen." Don't you love kids?!!!

Things I never thought I would say

Here's a few things I've had to say today that I never would have imagined having to say. They can speak for themselves about how today has gone =)

• Don't eat the peas out of the trash can
• Don't eat the banana out of the trash can
• Why would you lay on top of your sister while she's crying?
• Don't play in your throw up
• Did you throw up again? Don't swallow it. Spit it out.
  

It's been a fun day.

Some Firsts

We had a big weekend of first time experiences for the girls. The big exciting one is maybe going to be a little gross for those of you who don't have kids =) But yesterday for Elliana's 14 month celebration, she went #2 in the big girl potty!!! And no, I'm not trying to potty train her yet, but still very exciting that I had one less poopy diaper to change yesterday. I really do think she did know what she was doing when she was up there though. I won't go into the gross details to tell you how I know though =) Pretty fun stuff for a mom who hates changing dirty diapers!

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Avery also ate her first corn on the cob this past week. Being from Iowa, I've always been pretty picky about my corn on the cob. You usually can't get really good corn in the South. But I found some this past week, and we all enjoyed it tremendously! You can't beat hamburgers and corn on the cob in the summer =)

Weekend in Review

We spent the last few days in Duncan visiting Brent's family. It was a whirlwind of a weekend, but the girls had a lot of fun. As you'll be able to see from the pictures, we didn't stop all weekend. We'll just say that we got home at 8:00pm on Saturday night, and Brent and I were asleep by 9:00pm. Here are some of the highlights =) To see the rest, go to our web album at http://picasaweb.google.com/kariminter.


Here are the girls playing at the splash park. They had a blast playing and throwing water on MaMa and Gramps!
Kiddiland is a little amusement park in Duncan. It just has 4 rides, and Avery and Elliana had a blast! There's a little park next door so we played there as well.


Breakfast with Gramps...a chocolate cupcake =) Avery has been going to a lot of birthday parties lately and so keeps asking when her party will be. Last week when she was talking to Gramps on the phone, she asked him if she could have her birthday cake while she was there. Of course he delivered with this really cute cupcake. Unfortunately, we were so busy all weekend the only time we were home to eat it was Saturday morning! Avery thought she was in heaven =)


Amber's baby shower. Here Avery is trying to tickle the baby in Aunt Amber's tummy =) Elliana stayed home with Brent and attempted to take her morning nap. Why is it that when kids are exhausted, they can't sleep?!!!
We ended the shower with a very tired Avery who tripped, fell, and hit her head on the corner of the table. This bloody gash is the evidence. It wouldn't be bad except Avery is petrified of bandaids, and she is even more petrified of people touching her owies. We'll just say cleaning up this one was interesting =)

It Has Arrived!

Brent's deer has finally arrived, and it is already hanging in his office. It came just in time as we said good bye to all the deer in the freezer this past weekend. Not that we actually ate all of it already. I accidently left the garage freezer door open last week when I grabbed some meat out of it, and so all that was left was ruined. I have to admit though that I was not sad to dump the remaining meat in the trash! This deer was pretty big and so a little gamey. We've been eating it for 8 months, and I was definitely ready for some meat without the extra kick! Below are some pictures of his deer as well as the rest of his office in the new building.

Father's Day Weekend

Avery getting some hugs from "the big mouse"
Elliana and Avery riding in the truck together
Going for a walk with Grandpa. Elliana is suddenly attached to this apron. She wants it and her princess crown on all the time!
Blowing bubbles with Grandpa and Grandma

We got lucky on Father's Day weekend. Not only did the girls get to have fun with their daddy(who by the way is the greatest dad ever), I got to have fun with my daddy as well! My dad had meetings in Plano last week, so after the meetings, they came over to spend some time with us. We had a great time. The girls had their first experience at ChuckE Cheese and lots of bike riding and bubble blowing time with Grandpa and Grandma. Avery loved saying Happy Father's Day all day and even prayed (unprompted!!) that daddy would have a happy father's day. I hope both dads had a great weekend! We love you!

Finger painting anyone

I watch a couple kids 2 days a week so I try to have fun things planned during those days. We usually spend the afternoon in the pool or sprinklers, but yesterday the weather didn't cooperate. Luckily last weekend I had picked up some crafts on the clearance isle of Target, and we were able to have a finger painting and sand art afternoon. Sorry there's aren't any pictures of the sand art! Have you ever tried to pour sand into a little bottle with a 13 month old, a 19 month old and a 2 year old? There are no extra hands for a camera!! But here's some of their finger painting creations. They hand a blast. Notice the difference between the two older girls. Libby uses one finger and Avery uses her whole hand, arm, and yes, even her toes! Avery is my little creative artist. She loves it.

Elliana's first haircut

I gave Elliana her first haircut last week. She's getting her first haircut just a few months after Avery got her first hair cut =) Its kind of fun to have a kid who has hair before her 2nd birthday! Here are some pictures of her first cut. I took about a 1/2 inch off the back. She was beginning to grow a mullet!

Animals

This is just a cute short video of Elliana. She has started to imitate animal sounds so I thought I would capture it on video. When she does the elephant sound, notice the arms always go up in the air. That's supposed to be the elephant's trunk raising when she makes the noise =)

Turning 30

Its official. I have left my 20's. It was a great time though. My sweet husband, who knows me so well, planned the perfect family weekend for me. Over the years, we've discovered Brent likes gifts but could care less about cakes, cards, or having a special day. I, on the other hand, am completely opposite. So this year, Brent may have pulled off my favorite birthday ever, complete with a cookie cake (my favorite)! He more than succeeded in making my 30th birthday one of the best memories I have.

Elliana

I've been waiting to post about Elliana until I could get some good pictures of her doing the things she loves to do, but she won't sit still long enough (if that gives you any idea of what she's like)! Elliana is our little sweat heart who continually keeps us laughing. She loves reading books and you'll often find her in front of the book shelves reading all the books. She gets so excited when I sit on the floor and tell her that I'll read a book to her. She goes running to the shelf and picks out her favorite books, runs back to me, and crawls in my lap to read. She's not one that you can just describe pictures to either. She wants you to read every page and she sits there enthralled while you read.

She is also my little climber. Determination is the adjective I would use to describe her. She will find something to climb and work at it for 30 minutes until she can teach herself how to climb it. She's figured out how to climb into the bathtub, onto Avery's bed, up the ladder on the play equipment in the backyard, onto the couch, and everywhere else I don't think its safe for her to be =)

She loves to play and play hard, but she's also a cuddle bug. She loves to hug everyone and love on all her friends. I love that she'll just climb into my lap and lean against me and cuddle for a few minutes. How can you have a bad day after a few minutes of cuddling with your baby?

Summer is Here

Friday we spent the day at NRH2O, a waterpark here in town. For Elliana's birthday, grandma and grandpa got us season passes so we can go all summer! When we got out of the car and Avery saw the park, she started jumping up and down screaming "I see it, I see it, I see it!" Its so fun to watch the pure joy and excitement on their faces.
The top picture is of me with the girls going down the slide. Its interesting because this year Avery is a bit more aware of danger and so is hesitant to do anything by herself. On the other hand, Elliana is miss independent, has no clue water can be dangerous, and was rather annoyed that I wouldn't let her go down the slide by herself. Interesting dynamics =)
The 2nd picture is during lunch. The park lets you bring coolers in so we were able to bring our own lunch and have a little picnic.
The final picture is of the girls playing in the water. The alligator squirts water out of his nose and Avery was waiting for the water to squirt and get her all wet again. Elliana was waiting some what patiently for her turn. We're working on the whole sharing thing =) And just for the record, Elliana has to wear that many layers at the pool b/c of her kidney problems and the medicines shes on! She won't be the dork at the pool forever =)

Brent's new toy

On Friday we decided to go ahead and buy a scooter for Brent. If you know Brent, you know he had a spreadsheet full of info about how much money we'll save in gas and insurance if we got the scooter. He researched bikes all week and test drove a few Friday morning and then ended up getting a great deal on this bike. We're keeping the Accord for right now, but if the bike works out, we'll probably end up selling the Accord and just having one car. So far he's loving it! He even taught me to drive it last night and it was a blast. In this picture, Avery is sitting on it but no worries, she never got to ride it =) Mommy isn't that nice! The first thing she said Saturday morning when she woke up was, "do you think I'm big enough to ride daddy's new bike now?" I told her maybe when she's 5 =)

Avery

So one of my goals as a parent is to get to know each child as well as possible. I really want to study them and find out what makes each kid tick. So I thought I would blog about each kid this week. Below is all about Avery at this stage in her life. She loves to color, swim, and play with dolls. If you do any of those 3 things with her, she feels like a princess. She also obeys quite a bit quicker if you have spent time doing one of these activities with her. I guess she feels loved and so reciprocates by showing us respect and obedience. Below I've posted a couple pictures and a video. The video is of Avery coloring and telling me all about what she wants to do today. I hope you can hear it! She is talking all about a white trampoline at a big swimming pool that she wants to jump on today. We've never been to a swimming pool with a trampoline at it before so who knows what made her think of this! Yesterday she wanted to go to the "moon" place with her wagon and it was purple and pink and white. Who knows what that is either!! Her imagination is incredible these days =)

Our Cruise

Brent and I went on our first vacation since our Honeymoon. This summer is our 5th anniversary and we both turn 30 this year so we decided to bite the bullet and just go. My parents were gracious enough to watch the girls for us, and we had a blast. I have to say that I wasn't sold on the idea that we needed a vacation, but I knew Brent really wanted to go so I helped make it happen. I am so glad I did. We go on date nights every other week, and we have a lot of fun as a family, but its just not the same as the fun you have without kids on an extended vacation. We got to be adventurous, lazy, silly, and totally irresponsible for a week and it was wonderful. It was such a great reminder to us about who we were before kids. I never want to forget that. After 3 years of being pregnant and nursing, it was needed. In the midst of the beaches, the ocean, the zip lines, and the rappelling, I remembered how to let go and just enjoy life.

Mother's Day

Mother's Day was bittersweet this year. I took the girls to Texarkana to my parent's house on Mother's Day. We ate a wonderful brunch with my parents and then I had to say good bye to the girls for a week. Brent and I were going on a cruise and the girls were staying with my parents. As I'm getting ready to say good bye, I realize that I've never been away from Elliana before and only been away from Avery for 1 night when she was 8 months old! Needless to say, I was a mess. As I was sobbing and saying goodbye, Avery crawled into my lap and said, "Its okay to be sad mommy, but try not to cry on the boat. Have fun with daddy." Talk about role reversal! So with my 2 year old cheering me on, I said good bye to my babies and drove home. On one hand it was difficult to leave them, but on the other hand it is so fun to watch them grow up and form relationships with their grandparents. This is definitely a mother's day I won't forget.