Coupons and Smiles

I love couponing.  I go about once a week sometimes less.  I feel that I get so much for my time and money.  I spend about 3-4 hours a week is all and I get so much for that.  Rite Aid is one of my favorite stores. I get so much there and they are always so helpful and friendly.  Below was one of my better shopping trips.  I spent less than $3.50 for all of this stuff.  4 bottles of Old Spice body wash with a free deodorant and 15 bottles of dish soap. (please ignore the eating baby in the background!)

Belle loves all the Primary songs that we sing in Nursery or for family night.  Since learning the Smile song (if you chance to meet a frown...) she now smiles with her fingers on her face when asked to smile for a picture.  She does love to have her picture taken and always wants to see the picture after you take it.  (still in jammies with hair not done)

Crafts

Here are a few of the crafts I have been working on.  Hope's shadow boxes.  I have been working on them for over 3 years.  Its been one of those projects I really struggled to get done.  Trying to work on the boxes always stressed me out and felt like such a big task to accomplish, but its finally done.  The lefts box has hand and foot prints, a lock of hair, the outfit and blanket she wore in the hospital, a big letter H, and her stats at birth.  The right top are flowers and ribbons from her casket that we put in silica gel to dry. And the bottom box are molds of her hands and feet.  I have one more box that is empty and I might add stuff to ( stuff from her service or a poem Jarod wrote for her).  I bought the two smaller boxes in a 3 pack from Michael's (we added the glass though) and Jarod built the larger one (we bought a single frame and built the box and added the glass).

I saw this on Pinterest and loved it so I made my own for Valentine's Day.  HERE is where I got the idea, mine is red instead of pink.

This is a cute plaque I made for Belle's room. I sing her Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star all the time for bed.  The letters are vinyl in Navy that I bought on clearance at a scrapbook store about 4 years ago.  I painted the board ivory and painted the decorative edge a spring green.  I put the vinyl on and sprayed the plaque with a clear varnish.  I added glitter to the stars to add a little detail. Now to figure out where to hang it...

Beautiful sunset & 2 new members of our household

There was a beautiful sunset a few nights ago.  Here is the view from my front door.  I loved all the snow and the pretty blue, pink, and purple sky.  The house across the street is my brother and sister-in-laws!

We got a couple of fun presents for Christmas this year (more posts to follow of the rest of Christmas).  We got this fantastic chandelier. The picture is not the best but it gives you an idea.  Its now over our dining room table replacing a super cheap, super old ceiling light with a cracked shade!

I also got a piano for Christmas.  I have been wanting a piano for a while now that we are settled and not planning on moving (ever).  We have been saving up and just about a week or two ago I found this baby on craigslist and it was fantastic.  Such a great piano and a great price.  It is about 15 years old (we think), the lady we bought it from thought it was about 20 years old but the serial number makes us think its a little newer than that.  The size and color are great for our house.  It sounds pretty good but needs to get tuned up and have a couple of sticky keys fixed.  I have to wait a couple months to get it tuned so it can acclimate to my house but that's ok. It has been great having a piano-Belle is thrilled of course and thinks its for her (we are working on her not climbing on it)

Thanksgiving

We had Thanksgiving at our house this year with all of Jarod's family and my parents and my aunt and uncle.  It was so fun to have everyone at our place.  The turkey was so yummy and moist (thanks Niki & John). Here are the pictures of our tables.  I love how they turned out.  You can see Jessica quickly working on finishing my napkin rings I didn't get done (thanks!).  Of course I only got pictures of our tables not of everyone there (priorities right?)

Halloween & shoes

Here is the cutest little Tinkerbell I ever saw.  Belle was TinkerBelle for Halloween this year.  Her outfit turned out so cute.  I made the hair bow with ribbon, tulle, and feathers.  I also made her little poms poms on her feet.  I added several layers of tulle under her outfit so that it was fuller.  She loved Trick or Treating!  She called it Treat-Treat and would say thank you to everyone. It was pretty cold and windy this year but we got in all the festivities we wanted.  We Trick or Treated downtown where all the roads were blocked off and we went from business to business.  There were a lot of people that participated in this.  Then we went to our ward Trick or Treat.  Then we went to 2-3 neighbors and called it good for the night. The weekend before Halloween, Bart & Kellie had a party at their house with a hayride, games, and fun treats.  It was a great Halloween!

Lately, Belle loves putting on shoes.  We will often find her trying on whatever shoes she can find-including daddy's huge snowboots, and papa's tall cowboy boots.

Todd & Shae's Wedding

My brother Todd got married at the end of October at the Mt. Timpanogos Temple in Utah.  I need to work on getting a few more pictures of the wedding day but here we are outside the temple.  Belle was getting so tired-it was a long day, but it was so good.  We had a lot of fun getting everything ready and enjoying the festivities.  We had a reception that night and one a couple weeks later back in Washington.

Bear Lake & Yellowstone

This summer we were able to take a big trip to Logan, Utah, Bear Lake, and Yellowstone.  We visited a bunch of cousins and had fun getting to know Logan.  We went to the Logan Temple while we were there-it was beautiful.  We also got to to spent a couple days at Bear Lake.  It was so fun!  Here is the view coming into Bear Lake from Logan.

One our way to Yellowstone we went through Jackson.  They had these amazing antler arches (there were about 3 or 4 that we passed).

The view going through Grand Teton National Park.

There was still snow on the ground in several places even though it was July.  It was absolutely freezing at night too. Good thing we had tons of blankets and we slept pretty good.  We all squished into tent-we fit Belle's portable crib and a queen air bed in there.  During the night our bed deflated so by morning we were on the ground. Jarod tried to patched the bed for the second night and it was a little better-but not by much. I think this was Yellowstone Lake.  It was huge and the views all around the lake were gorgeous.

Waiting in front of Old Faithful.

Here it goes!

We saw a ton of buffalo and elk.  We didn't see any bears, but I felt ok about that cause just a couple days after we left a man got killed by a grizzly bear-ack!