Hairography

I decided one day that I was sick of pigtails and clippies as my only option for the girls hair so I watched some video's on youtube and this is what I came up with...

A basic easy braid to keep the bangs out of the face...for the girls obviously.

French braided bun...absolutely adorable crown of a braid.

Twist side ponytail with a homemade flower clippie.

And from the side. Always helpful to take a picture of a two year old while playing.

And the side twist ponytail on my big girl.

A sort of knot pigtail bun 'do....adorable basically!

Training On The Go

Potty training...not fun. But with Hailey we're on round number two. About six months ago we gave it a good run and she did well, not fantastic but well. Then we got super busy and then we moved and we were not stable enough to give the attention needed to make her successful. Granted she was doing well. Last week Our beautiful, spunky, hilarious, freakishly strong third born decided she wanted to go to the bathroom on the toilet, and so she did, number two and everything, just because she wanted to.

Well now for two days we've changed her into underwear once she wakes up in the morning and she stayed in the same pair all day. No timers, no giving her constant drinks, she's seamlessly incorporated potty training into everyday life. Even going to Costco. So much so that I forgot until we were there and I got her out of the car seat, that's when I remembered she was in underwear. And that's when I broke into a nervous sweat. I don't know what I expected, an accident in the middle of tasting samples, running to the bathroom with 4 kids in tow and getting kicked out of Costco for bringing unpaid merchandise into the bathroom, or utter complete success from my big girl, I'm still not sure. But we made it home, in fact she told me she had to go while we were in the car and I was ever so thankful that we were only 5 minutes from home instead of 45 like when we lived at camp. And she held it. She held it till we got home. Ah my big girl. Of course she wanted to wear just underwear to bed tonight but mommy is too nervous for that. Who wants to wash an extra pair of sheets when there are already 4 basket full of clothes waiting silent yet dauntingly to be folded...not me. I hate laundry, it's my least favorite chore.

And I'm fully aware that now we're going to digress just because I've bragged about how great she has done. But for now, that's where we're at.

Extreme Couponing

I've decided to get into couponing. Not just clip them out and use them here and there; but clipping them, stacking them, doubling them, twice the valuing them, printing them, strategizing with them. Now I have only been at this a handful of times and the result is huge savings and an adrenaline rush I never knew I could get from shopping. I'm not a shopper, in fact I'm an anti shopper, nothing about it excites me...until now. My hands were trembling and my breaths were short during checkout, inevitably I dropped one transactions worth of coupons, and I felt like I was doing something wrong even though everything about saving money while using coupons is legal. When I got home I laid out my bounty and began to play the guessing game with Jer. 'Guess how much all of this cost us'? And my voice was shaking as I got to keep saying 'less', 'less', 'less'.

The problem I find now is that I don't want to go shopping for things we need unless I can get them for super cheap. So now the dilemma I'm facing now is, we are on our last package of wipes and I don't have cheap wipe options with coupons so I may just end up at Costco until a good deal presents itself. All in all, I'm loving it, couponing has become a hobby now and I'm enjoying saving our family money!