Mr. Momentum has changed his address...

So last night was a meeting at Adam's work. We're still relatively new so we went over information that we needed to know.  It was very informative, but my thoughts were very occupied with how well Jaxon was or wasn't behaving down in the childcare room.  I worried for all 90 minutes.  :)  Fortunately, he has the best big brothers in the world and they kept him very busy so he was pretty good.  Also, some new friends also had their kids in childcare and they helped keep all of my boys busy!!  I was just so happy Jax was good!

Tonight is a another baseball game for Adisson.  I'm hoping the boys try as hard as they did the other night.  They didn't win, but they gave it a great effort.  I also wish they had a few more games left this season.  If they had enough time to practice and play, they might actually be a pretty good team.  Unfortunately, this team seems to be full of new-to-baseball kids while another team is full of kids that have been playing since they were in diapers.  But anyway....

I've been letting the craft juices stir around in my brain the last few days and I'm hoping we have some time this weekend to do some things I'd like to try and to make a few things I'd like to make.  I'm pretty excited, but not overly so because I know that I can get craft burnout pretty quickly!! :)

Anyway, off to clean...

Then everyone is happy!

I finally went to the grocery store tonight.  Thank goodness as the food was getting rather scarce!  The good news is that for the first time since we got here, I feel like I finally did a good job saving money.  It's hard to feel like I'm doing the best job with my coupons when I shop at a store that doesn't double (oh, I miss Giant Eagle) but I finally saved 40% on my total for the first time in NC.  And managed to buy some higher ticket/non coupon items.  It's weird to come home and feel so excited about grocery shopping, I guess.

Since I don't work outside of the home (as an at-home mom, I'm sure I could help argue the case that I do lots of work inside the home, but that's neither here or there), I feel like it's my job to do the best I can to save money when we shop.  I'd like to get better with our budget, moving is such a huge change and adjustment, that it seems like it takes awhile to get things back into some kind of order.  :)  One of my fave ways to save money is to coupon.  When I am prepping my coupons, it feels like I'm physically doing something proactive to be helpful to my family.  And when I'm matching my coupons to the current sales flyer, I feel like I'm working toward my goal.  And then, when I hand over my coupons and watch my total drop lower and lower, it feels like my efforts have paid off.  And I get pretty excited!

I'll never be one of those extreme couponers, and that's ok with me.  I don't have the time to spend to do that kind of shopping, I don't have the money to wrangle that many coupons (because there is NO WAY every single person on that show gets ALL of their q's for free), and I don't have the space for all those products in my home.  Clutter is costly!!  My goal in couponing is to get the items we already use (or something similar) at a reduced cost.  And I achieve that.  So I'm happy.

And when Mama is happy.....

Thank goodness that's over!

FINALLY!  After several hours, I FINALLY got my coupon binder organized.  It's been awhile since it's been so neat and tidy!  And I'm so excited about it!  Now to plan my grocery list and menus for the week.  Ok, I have more to write later, but I was so excited about coupons and had to tell someone.  Or no one as the case may be here. :)

I heart coupons!

After we moved to Maryland, I was blessed with a HUGE assortment of grocery stores.  In Kentucky, we had just one...a Super WalMart.  And that's where we did *all* of our shopping.  So moving to MD was so exciting!  We did our grocery shopping at Giant Eagle where we'd earn $0.20 off of each gallon of gas for every $50 we'd spend and at the gas station, we'd earn 1% off of our groceries for every 20 gallons of gas we'd pump.  So we really earned a lot of benefits!  And Giant Eagle doubled all my coupons up to $0.99!  I became a coupon queen!  I'd been couponing a little before Maryland, but after I realized how amazing Giant Eagle was...I was hooked on coupons.

And then we moved to North Carolina.  And my coupon dreams crumbled.  :)  We are so blessed to have a brand new Food Lion about a mile from the house.  It was just built last summer and while it's not huge (read: lacks some variety), it's so nice to have a decent grocery store so close.  But Food Lion doesn't double coupons.  And because they don't have the variety of larger grocery stores, I have lots of coupons that don't get used.  

I could shop at a bigger grocery store up in Sanford that I found online that looks super great, and doubles coupons, but it's nearly 40 minutes away since it's on the north side of town.  Driving so much with gas so expensive would quickly cancel out any grocery savings.  Darn it.  

I miss couponing.  I miss the excitement of saving money.  I recently signed up through a really great company to get my coupons delivered to me in bulk once per month.  This saves the huge hassle of trying to find the newspaper on Sunday.  It seems the Sanford paper doesn't carry all of the inserts and neither does Fayetteville...so I have to find the Raleigh paper and they seem to sell out and/or aren't carried in my closest gas stations.  Plus, it gives me coupons that are better in value than I would get just buying my local paper.  

Tonight, I went through 6 weeks of coupon inserts and cut out the ones I'd need.  I still have to sort through them and organize them in my binder, but it definitely reinvigorated my love for my q's and I'm hoping that I can get better at using them...even if I won't be saving quite as much money as I was before.  :)

"I WON SOMETHING!!"

Soooo, my oldest son has his own laptop.  It was his Nana's old one and given to the boys for Christmas, but he's the only one that has any interest in it.  He's frequents Boy's Life (it's a Scout site) and when he's there, he enters just about all of their MANY ongoing contests.  He always gets very excited about it and more than once he's been CONVINCED he would win this super great prize.  :)  He was disappointed awhile ago when he realized he was not the winner of a Nintendo 3DS.  Anyway, tonight I was downstairs with the other kids when he starts yelling for me in a way I know he needs something.  Turns out, he finally did win a prize from Boys Life!  He won a set of autographed books about baseball!  I was very excited for him, though I couldn't help but think about how cool it would be if he won something he truly had his heart set on and it didn't take long for him to express that sentiment to me as well.  But we were both very excited about the prize!  I hope that there's a way the books can get here soon (I'll be grateful for them whenever they arrive, of course) as his baseball season is winding down and I know he could use the inspiration.  It's been a tough season and sometimes, a Mom isn't quite as encouraging as someone else who's actually played baseball.  :)

This weekend we have a baseball game and a few baseball practices.  Fortunately, there's about 27 hours between the two so we can do something else for a change.  :)  I'm voting for staying home and getting stuff done around the house and I'm sure the boys wouldn't mind a break in being busy but they'd also like to get out and do something, too.  We'll see what option wins out.

I've mentioned to Adam more than once that I'm having a hard time finding my place here in NC.  Things are different for us and I guess it's just taking me awhile to get settled.  But I can't really blame him if I'm not doing anything to make myself feel at home here...because it's gonna be home for us for awhile.  A very long while.  I guess I need to work on that instead of blaming him...shhhh, don't tell him.

Anyway, off to watch HOP with the boys and work on my newest yarn project...a baby blanket for a baby on the way (definitely not mine...that ship has sailed!!)...I just love new babies!!  :)

Puppies need to eat!!

Over the weekend we participated in a Cub Scout Camp-o-Ree.  It was so much fun!  We got there on Friday night and got our stuff set up.  It was pretty chilly (and really just cold overnight!) but it's nicer to camp in cool weather as opposed to smoking hot weather.  Saturday was filled with cub scout competition activities.  Adisson's pack did pretty well, gaining trophies in nearly half of all events!!  We left early on Saturday to run home, shower and clean up so we could attend a cook out thrown by Adam's coworker.  We had a great time there (and we got to see our lone NC friends!) and got back to the campsite right on time to see the Order of the Arrow ceremony.  Wrapped things up on Sunday and made it home with a few hours to spare before we had three hours of baseball practice.

Adi had a game on Monday night (loss...again) and we were supposed to have scouts last night but it was cancelled because we just had the camping trip.  So we mowed the yard instead (ok, I say we because I actually did help...I mowed the part of our neighbor's yard that meets ours, it's not much but I hate to leave it undone...he's mowed our entire front yard before!).  It DEFINITELY needed it, so I'm happy about that.

Tonight is another baseball game.  Woot. (not really)  Tomorrow night, we volunteered to take a donation of dog food to an animal and rescue organization.  I've been looking for a service project for us to do as a family and I think I might have found one.

A few weeks ago, we took Buddy in to the animal hospital for a check up and some shots.  He also had to have some blood work done because he is considered a "senior" dog due to his age.  He has a clean bill of health!  He has some arthritis in his knees and in his hips (which we knew about) and due to his discomfort in moving around a lot sometimes, he's put on some weight, but it's still in the healthy range.  We have a joint supplement for him now, too.

While we were there we saw a dog that had been brought to the animal hospital due to severe neglect.  She'd been so starved that when rescued, they estimated her being just hours or a day or so from death.  And for Adam it was love at first sight.  I'll save more of a discussion about her on another post but since then, we've been very animal aware around here.  When a local no-kill shelter posted on their facebook that they were running out of puppy chow, I thought that buying food and taking it there would be something that my boys could understand in regards to charity.  It's hard to find a charitable act that I can explain to my kids so they comprehend it, but little boys understand puppies and that puppies need to eat. :)

Anyway, today we have lots to do.  We're working hard on some scout stuff for Adisson and stuff to do around the house and school stuff....the list goes on and on!! :)

You've got a friend in me

The new school room is nearing its completion, just a few final touches should put us right where I had envisioned us being. :)

On another note, I have got to make friends in North Carolina.  I was so sad to leave my friends in Maryland, I guess it just felt easier to not make any friends here.  But we aren't leaving.  This is likely home to us for awhile. And I guess I need to accept that and start getting cozy.

But I miss my Maryland friends and my longtime Ohio friends desperately.  :(

I've got an idea!!

Over the weekend, we decided that we needed to so some rearranging.  By we, I mean me.  I decided that we needed to do some rearranging and my husband just said ok and moved stuff. :)  Currently, we have three bedrooms and a "bonus" room.  Our bonus room is a room above our two car garage, so it's the same size as the garage.  Just off of the bonus room is a smaller room referred to as an office.  In the bonus room there are also three decent sized closets.  When I started house hunting in January, I decided that we wanted a three bedroom with bonus room/office combo so I could set it up a certain way.

One bedroom, the master, went to the boss and I, of course.  We have a master bathroom, too.  Down the hall is the hall bath (that the boys and any guests use), keep on walking and you'll get to two doors across from each other.  One door leads to our guest room (we have a guest room!!) and the other door to our very full, very busy school room.  On down the hall leads you to the bonus room.  All the toys are in the bonus room and Zander and Jaxon's beds are in there as well.  Adisson was given the "office" as his room but due to the safety of my very busy toddler, the french doors were removed and black out curtains were put up instead.

It seems most evenings, you'd find the five of us hanging out in the school room.  The smallest room in the house.  Someone on the computer, someone at the school table, some of us on the floor playing with stuff.  And I thought, why on earth are we in this tiny room when just a few feet down the hall is the largest room in the house not being used??  So I talked to the boss about my idea and while he wasn't thrilled with the amount of work it was going to take (he often gets the heavy, ugh part of the work), he agreed with it being a better use of space.

So here's what we needed to get done:
School stuff to the bonus room, Adisson's stuff to the empty school room, Zander and Jaxon's beds to Adisson's old room.  It took alllll day on Sunday and we still didn't get it done.  I'm hoping to post pictures of our new school room when it's finally finished.  Hopefully, we get it all done by tomorrow night.

But this week's schedule is baseball game on Monday, Scouts on Tuesday, baseball game on Wednesday, FREE ON THURSDAY, camping all weekend with scouts starting Friday, baseball game on Saturday, work function Saturday afternoon/evening, baseball practice for both boys on Sunday.  :)

Lovin' it!

Let's play ball!

Ohmygoodness.  I'm going to give you, imaginary reader, a rundown of the next several days for us.  Today, we're having lunch with Adam at work, going over our wills with an attorney, doing a tiny bit of shopping before coming home to quickly get ready for baseball's opening ceremony tonight.  The tomorrow, we have three baseball games.  Sunday, a two hour baseball practice.  Monday, a baseball game. Tuesday, cub scouts.  Wednesday, a homeschool meeting and a meet and greet with a political candidate (for NC).  Thursday, a baseball game.  Saturday, a baseball game.

This is our first experience as a baseball family.  :)  I'd like to say we'll continue playing after this year, but honestly, I'm not sure.  I can see now why soccer definitely suits us.  Hopefully, we'll be able to find a soccer league this fall.

Honestly, not much else going on that isn't baseball related.  Tonight, I get to see my boys in their uniforms for the first time.  :)  I can't wait.

I guess there's been so much going on in the last month, but then not a lot to talk about. :)  The boys have been signed up for baseball.  That's a new thing for us, we've always been more of a soccer family and this is our first time trying out baseball.  I was a little concerned that Zander wouldn't like it (we had an episode last year when we took him to his first soccer practice and he quit without setting one foot on the field) but he's done sooo well and he's so cute!  Adisson's been trying hard at baseball, but it's hard to start a new sport at nine when everyone else has been playing for years.  He also has some not so encouraging coaches, but we're trying to deal with it the best way we can.  Tomorrow night is the big Opening Ceremonies thing at the ballpark and I'm so excited to see my little guys in their uniforms for the first time (they don't have them yet!).

Adam's parents came down to visit over Easter weekend.  It's the first time in 9 years of marriage that we've had a guest room and people stay in it.  :)  It's so nice to have a guest room!  We were super busy and got to do some fun stuff.  We also managed to get to the park and get some nice spring pictures taken of the boys.  I hope Adam gets them finished up soon so I can post them.  It's just so nice to have family visit.  Adam's parents always make sure they do the best they can to visit us during the year.  They usually come down to visit twice a year and we make it up to Ohio twice a year.  It makes me kind of sad that the only grandkid experience they get is kids living far away.  :(  Anyway....

So the next 6 weeks will be a blur of baseball games and Cub Scout meetings.  Plus Adam's got several weeks of training coming up that will keep him busy for half of May, most of June, and half of July.  :)  Then....it's vacation time!  We're going to Gatlinburg, Tennessee!!  We've never been there before and I'm SO excited!  We'll be vacationing with my brothers, their kids, my Mom, my Grandma, my Aunt & Uncle and hopefully my cousin, and then my in-laws will be coming down for the weekend.  The boys are going to have SO MUCH FUN!!

Anyway, I've got to sew belt loops on to Zander's baseball pants.  He's sooo teeny tiny that there's no way I could have bought him pants without an elastic waist, but those with an elastic waist don't have belt loops and he has to wear a belt for his uniform.  But I'm pretty sure I found a decent tutorial online to sew belt loops on to baseball pants.  We'll see how that goes. :)