Jackson's birthday

We went to my nephew Jackson's 6th birthday party. It was a John Deere themed party and the decorations turned out so cute.  They had tractors rides and lawn tubing, it was great.

I helped make the cupcake wrappers and toppers.

Belle sure enjoyed herself!

Apple Blossom Parade

Every year my family goes to the Apple Blossom festival in Wenatchee. There is a big parade and than we have a picnic afterwards. Here we are ready for the parade.

Belle really liked the floats and the bands.

The rest of the crew.

And where we all hung out while waiting for the torrential downpour to pass by us. I have never seen so much rain on Apple Blossom.

Our New Swimming Pool & Other Happenings

The girls on my mom's side have a fun get together we all call the "Sister Trip." This year we went to Spirit Lake in North Idaho and stayed at one of my relatives cabins (thanks Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Holland!!!). We had so much fun. We went shopping, played games, and made fun crafts. We can't wait until next year! Here we are at Lake Coeur d'Alene walking out on the boardwalk.

And here is our new swimming pool! My dad is putting in some new fields of orhard and in order to help with the irrigation, they built a frost pond. Its so more sprinklers can all be run at the same time and also helps with frost control in the Spring. It is huge-as you can see with my little brother on his dirt bike in the hole. We have talked my dad into making it the family pool with all kinds of amenities. There is a shallow end and soon to be dock. There have been talks of rope swings and zip lines. The plan is also to make it an ice skating rink in the winter.

Turning the water to begin filling the pond!

The posts with the beam is where the dock is going to be. We need to take some pictures of it completely full.

Pigtails-at last

Belle's hair is finally long enough to do pigtails. The ends are really wispy and so I think she looks cuter with little piggy buns.

Belle loves to take baths. If you say its time for a bath, she will take off running to the bathroom. She just discovered that she loves to splash-even if her face gets soaked. She gets crazy hair from her piggys. (Don't you love the green/blue bath tub-its our favorite feature in our home)

Belle walks and runs all over. She loves to unroll the toilet paper. She also is obsessed with dogs and she frequently runs to the window and woofs at everything. The second she sees a dog she is woofing non-stop. She also knows the animal sounds for cow, chicken, sheep, bear, and sometimes kitty. She can say bananas too, which are her absolute favorite food.

Crafts!

I have been crafting a lot lately. My mom, sister-in-law, and I have been doing a craft night once a week and its a blast. Its so fun to actually get some projects done and spend time with them too. The first night I decided to make a St. Patty's day decoration since I don't have anything for March 17.

Here is what I came up with. I love all the Subway Tile writing that is really popular right now. I got the writing from HERE and it comes in all different colors. I just painted a plain board white, distressed it, than Mod Podge on some cute paper and than the signage, drilled 2 holes and tied a cute ribbon it-DONE! I hung it on my key rack and it was so cute.

We just had Super Saturday in our ward (which I was in charge of as the new Enrichment Leader) and we made some really cute Temple Picture Blocks. I got the idea from HERE. I thought they turned out so cute. The ribbon was found by my friend Jessica from Hobby Lobby!

I saw this super cute button egg and just had to make one for Easter. So last craft night I whipped one up. I got the idea from HERE. I just used whatever buttons my mom and I had. I painted my burlap with some watered down brown paint to get the look of my inspiration egg. Now I just need to make some cute felt bunnies to match!

A few forgotten holiday pictures

Belle met Christopher Ewert during Christmas. He was half her age but just as big. He is my good friend Janneke's son.

I made Belle a turkey shirt for Thanksgiving. I got the idea from my sister-in-law, Jess, she made some for her kids and I thought they were so cute. She got the idea from HERE. I even had to put a long sleeved shirt under cause I am a mega copy-cat.

Here is the finished product on Belle.

At our ward Christmas party Belle got to sit on Santa's lap. She didn't cry and even was laughing a little at him.

Couponing!

I have gotten into the coupon craze. There are quite a few ladies at church that coupon and they did a little class on it a while ago. I had started couponing a little bit before that but I really understood so much more after the class and really got into it after that. Its amazing how much money you can save if you really work hard at it. I spend just a couple hours a week (only on the weeks I actually go to the store to coupon-other weeks I don't even spend time on it at all) and I save hundreds of dollars. I took some pictures of a few of my more successful shopping trips.

This is a purchase at Rite Aid I made about a month ago. I did 3-4 transactions (which means I had to got through the line a couple of times-some of the transactions I did one right after the other). So just guess how much you think I would have spent on all this:

• 3 bags of chex mix
• 1 gillete powered razor
• 9 packages of paper plates/bowls \
• 2 packages of dishwasher soap
• 2 bottles of Tums
• 2 bottles of Bayer low does aspirin
• 3 packages of feminine pads
• 1 box of tampons
• 4 packages of diapers

I only paid $6.25! WOOHOO! I was so proud of this purchase.

These 2 pictures are from a great shopping trip to Albertson's. They do doubler coupons and it makes the deals so amazing. I got all the things in the 2 pictures for under $25. There were

• 40 cans of veggies
• 2 boxes Ritz
• 13 boxes cake mixes
• 13 cans of frosting
• 3 boxes of popcorn
• 3 bottles of vegetable oil
• 9 cans of Pam cooking spray
• several cans of soup (I don't remember how many)
• 10 bags of flour
• 10 cookie mixes
• 4 graham cracker crusts
• 8 yogurts
• 13 boxes of Swiss Miss
• 2 gravy packets
• 3 boxes ziploc bags
• big can of oatmeal
• 2 jugs of juice

If you want to learn more about couponing I use the websites: happymoneysaver.com and athriftymom.com.

HAPPY SHOPPING!!!