In denial

I wish I was in The Nile, not Denial but I am. I can't believe next monday I'll be 25 weeks. I can't believe that its just flying by. I have a tentative induction date already set in place for February 24th. So basically I have till, well, then. I don't have a ton left to do. Mostly everything has been purchased from when I was pregnant with CB.

I'm toying with the idea of buying a twin bed for him because he's using the crib mattress right now on his toddler bed, and he really would fit in his toddler bed for a while. Its rated to like 80 lbs (must be tons of fat kids in the world because by 80 lbs I was like 5'5)

I didn't really think it through that a twin would probably just be easier and less transitions but we switched him at like 14 months because he was climbing out of his crib and could have gotten seriously hurt.

We've also been super busy, hence the lack of posting. Soon there will be one huge "look at all my projects post!" I'll say this since I've been twitter bombing about our house project, we decided to pain. In two days I (by myself with a 2 year old and a 4 inch brush) painted the kitchen, living room, and hallway.) all thats left is one wall in the living room that needs to be rolled, and our bed room. The boys rooms are next!

Today I tossed that yummy crock pot pre-made stew in, and have a loaf of bread rising on the counter along with peanut butter cookie dough in the fridge.  My dad is coming up tomorrow to help us move furniture to paint, which will be nice because I can't move stuff on my own and almost all our bookcases are wall mounted and I don't know how to take them off. lol.

Busy busy, I'll try to post more soon. Probably tomorrow night I'll get some pictures and get a post in the works for next week.

Another fun thing to do, is to watch the percentage go up every day past 24 weeks your pregnant. Its nice to know Bean has a chance. Takes a lot of worry off my shoulders

Easy Money Saving Tips For Busy People

I think it would be safe to say, I really love saving money. Greens a good color you know? It looks amazing IN the wallet not in the till. I've figured out some fun and savvy ways of saving more cash, and stress free. I am not going to fib and say I've always been good at it, hell, I'm still not always good at it. But I  try, and I've found some REALLY easy things to change that saved a ton of money so far.

1. Cold water washing, makes little to no difference in how clean your clothing gets. Plus you don't have to sort lights and darks (I'm lazy laundry do-er) If you use dry detergent add it BEFORE you add the clothes, other wise it does seem to clump up a bit more. 
2. Cutting Cable. Seriously probably the biggest savings. It DOES take some getting used to, and has its sucky moments when their is a big game on that we want to watch. But overall the 120$ a month we're no longer shelling out on trashy tv and commercials is worth it. We have 35$ High speed internet, Hulu+ ($8) and Netflix instant ($8) So for about 50$ we get most of what we enjoy. We have the cable to watch from our computers too on our TV, it allows us to watch football on the normal TV when games are cast over ESPN3 its free!
3. Coupons. Seriously I used to hate people that would coupon. I would see someone with a wad of them, I would actually repack all my crap into my cart and back out of the line. I've figured out a pretty decent system that works for me though and doesn't leave me feeling like that asshole digging through my purse for that "I know I have one more" coupon person. As I walk through the store, I figure out what I have as far as coupons goes. I usually make a list and give my couponed food items a * that way I KNOW what I have a coupon for. As I grab the food I take the coupons our of my baggy and put them in my wallet (so I don't forget, I'm pregnant remember?) Most of the time the checker is really fast with the coupons. But if it takes time, its not because I don't have a stream lined system. 
4. Freezer meals, probably the weirdest and easiest. I've made so many awesome meals and frozen them. I also enjoy making a ton of food and freezing it in discs and tossing them in freezer bags. Its nice to have something fast and easy to toss in the crock pot (or thaw and microwave) Breakfast burritos are my favorite so far, I made about 40 of them for less than 15$ and we still have tons of them left. Way cheaper than going out to eat and getting a breakfast burrito. Huge savings is to make your favorite out to eat or random grabs at home. In the morning I just toss a burrito in the microwave and go. 
5. Hanging clothes to dry, this kind of goes with washing in cold. But its seriously so easy and laundry dries over night. Plus, its already hung up, which feels like less of a step. Not sure why. But it cuts dry time to about 15-20 minutes a regular load, as apposed to 45-60 minutes normally. I'd like to figure out a better system besides just hanging as much up in my bathroom as I can. I'd like to put in 2 or 3 tension rods by the linen cabinet that are removable. Maybe a retractable clothes line.
6. Change Collection, Not really a money saving tip. But come on, how many people have change rattling around the bottom of their purse? and never use it. I have one of those change saver/counter things and when ever its full I take it to coinstar and get it turned into cash/giftcards. So simple

This is really just a short easy list of things to do to save yourself some cash, I'm not a hoarder, I don't feel the need to have 9 thousand bottles of relish. These ideas are so easy, and so simple that anyone can do it. It also makes life easier, saves money, and doesn't take any extra effort. 

After my bottles of detergent are gone, I'm going to attempt to make my own laundry soap. I've wanted to, but have been getting such good deals on detergent recently. Granted I have 1 bottle left and a little bit left in the bottle I'm using right now. I'm excited to try it! 

This has been a Pinterest heavy weekend,

For all my friends that know me, I'm kind of a Pinter-Whore. Its seriously my favorite thing to do online (and on my iPhone) 

Last night I made the most delicious Loaded Mashed Potatoes, they were AMAZING. I did whip some extra sharp shredded cheddar into the actual mashed potatoes, that way in case you didn't get a top layer bite, it was still nice and cheesy! I might do a slight twist on this dish for thanksgiving, and make this casserole with stove top stuffing on top too. Since I'm planning on making a fancier stuffing dish, it will keep some of the traditional foods alive. (There will be a later post about thanksgiving. Don't worry ;) ) 

Pre-baking!

Today I made Pulled pork tender loin, It smells amazing. I didn't actually measure out 12 oz, since I bought a 2 liter of A&W soda. Mr.C was all "ZOMG we're actually going to HAVE root beer in the fridge! SQUEEE" (well he didn't "squee") I guess my husband likes root beer? who'da thunk it! 

Pulled pork with just root beer. Waiting for a nice helping of BBQ sauce soon

Added BBQ sauce. Smells. AMAZING.

Dinner was BOMB

I made dog biscuits today

From this website. They were so easy and cheap to make. Our dogs have some allergies to corn so buying biscuits from the store is always a bit of a challenge because I have to sit and read whats in the boxes, and god forbid I buy the same brand and they change the formula, then the dogs are all diarrhea and whining.

I have also been wanting to make them biscuits because CB has a bad habit of wanting to give them treats, and then runs off and eats them himself. Which is so gross when you think of all the unregulated crap in dog snacks. So today I decided to try my hand at making dog snacks. Well they turned out great, I kind of want to eat them. I had to buy a little dog biscuit cookie cutter today for this project pretty much everything else was already in my cabinets.

I talk a hard game, but I love my poochies

This is 2 batches in the jar

Nesting pictures

I don't have any "before" pictures, but it was BAD. Like really bad. Read my earlier post about having 2 garbage cans full of crap thrown out.

My "Baking" cupboard! I have had most of this stuff all around my kitchen. (I store flour and sugar in mason jars)

Breakfast nook cupboard! + Coffee! 

Coffee cups, beer mugs, water bottles, and to go lunch boxes 

None of our dishes were in the same cabinet before. Finally got everything nice and organized together! 

Under the sink cleaning supplies

I made nesting my bitch!

I'm one of those people that starts nesting, almost as soon as that second pink line pops up on the test. We've also been having some major discussions in our home about living here longer, rather than shorter. In october we signed another 9 month lease, we were not ready to commit to another year here at the time. 

But we've kind of explored our options as far as finding a rental house and we've decided that our long term goal of moving out of the metro, and buying a small 2-3 acre farm and either building our dream home. That is the goal, thats the dream. So instead of moving, and putting another 200+ a month toward another "this is not our forever" home. We've decided to continue to live in our apartment, which is actually, totally big enough. 3 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, and nice sized kitchen (while small, will make me appreciate building my dream kitchen) 

On to the point at hand, nesting. I decided to clean the kitchen. It was cluttered and unimaginably full of crap. Mr.C took out 2 full garbage cans of old boxes, old food, stale chips. Weird shit.  I then spent most of the day (in spurts) cleaning the cupboards, moving bigger stuff out to the pantry, and re-organizing. I'm pretty happy with the outcome. I've got some awesome proof pictures! I always figure right after cleaning it will be the cleanest its ever gonna be.

Other things I want to do since we've decided to stay a while, paint. I'm tired of white walls. I want to paint the kitchen orange, our bedroom slate grey, CB's room fun color, maybe one wall of orange or teal, beans room will probably be painted aqua blue to go with the orange, green theme we're doing. I might paint the living room grey as well, maybe a fun bright color in the hallway since its so much darker. I just have so many ideas of things I want to do. Make this our for-now home while we wait for forever. For a while we'd just been waiting to move again. But we both agreed we are done moving. Our next move will be to our forever. This place is perfect for what we need now. 

October 28th 2009, 4:32 PM

Was the day I knew what true love felt like. Two years later I can't believe the time has gone so fast. You amaze me every day, I can not even believe something so perfect, so precious came from the two of us. You are a little motor mouth, an amazing runner, a lover of animals, a dancer to music, a little mini chef, a picky eater, a lover of warm blanket snuggles, not afraid of getting dirty, wet, or cold, strong willed, and kind hearted.

When I think about what I want for you out of life, all I can honestly say, is that I want you, to feel the love someday that I feel for you. Daddy and I are so proud of you, anything you do in this world will be amazing.

Thank you Carson, for giving us the gift to be your parents.

Love, Mommy