More ball

I thought I would put up a picture of C from baseball since I missed doing that this year. This was his 5th year which is the minor league. Luckily, he got to be on the Cubs since they are his favorite baseball team.

Play Ball

I love this picture of AD that my hubby took. This is his first year in baseball (t ball). I love watching little kids sports before they become competitive; when all you do is cheer everybody on and every game ends in a tie.

Thinking, thinking, thinking

I thought I was busy when I stayed at home, life is a frenzy now that I am working full-time again. I haven't had time to sit down and write anything on this blog for over a month. Then today I got some inspiration. I was reading one of my favorite blogs, Walk Slowly, Live Wildly and she was talking about how she always feels like she has to write out this long post but that now she is going to start just posting small snippets on her blog.

That really resonated with me because that is EXACTLY how I feel. I don't want to give up on blogging but I barely have time to do dishes and the laundry. So until my life calms down (if it ever calms down) I will probably just put up pictures and random short stories mixed in with a long post here and there.

So to start things off here is a picture that I took while we were in Colorado for the 4th of July. I just love the flag against the blue sky with the mountains in the background.

Graduation party decor

So, I apparently promised 4 days ago to put up the decorations we used for R's party but since I was busy planning C's birthday party I completely spaced it off. So, it is a few days but late but here we go....

I am a simple person so I like simple decorations and I also am not much of a balloon bouquet person so you won't find those at any party I throw.

Here is a snapshot of what our decorations looked like..



I loved the little buckets. We found them at the dollar store and decorated them. We decided to use them to hold drinks on the tables, eliminating the need for a lot of coolers.



We also used the Class of 2010 punches as cupcake toppers for the cupcakes and for detail on baskets and the napkin/silverware holder.

We did find a banner that you could personalize because I am also not a fan of the stuff that says "Congrats Graduate" and we had his memory board set up on a table with photo albums with his pictures.

Like I stated, the decor was very simple and worked out great for a casual party at the park.

Graduation party planning- location and time

I will be honest, I started working on R's graduation party last year. I went to some parties that our friend's had and paid close attention to details. One of the things that I noticed was that most of the graduates had their parties on Saturday evening or Sunday after the ceremony so they couldn't go to their friends' parties or left their own parties to attend their friends' parties. Another thing I noticed was that if you had it at your house there was just way more to do. Besides getting the decorations, invites, food, etc. together you also had to make sure you house was immaculate.

So knowing that I wanted to put my energy into the actual graduation and party that weekend and not into cleaning my house, we chose to have R's party at our local park. I really think this venue was a great idea because there are a lot of little children in our family and they could play on the playground equipment just steps from the shelter house.

AD on the slide at the park.

We also had R's party on Saturday (the day before the ceremony) from 11 am- 2 pm so he could attend all the other parties that he was invited to attend. This really seemed to work out great and the weekend seemed to flow at an easy pace.

Tomorrow: the decorations.

Graduation

R's graduation has come and gone. It was a wonderful weekend. His party was a hit and I am about as proud as a momma could be. Here is a picture of me, R, and my hubby at graduation.


Congratulations R! We love you and are so proud of you.

My first attempt at coupons

Our first month with me back to work has just flown by. It has been an adjustment to say the least. The thing that was affected the most was our meal plan or I should lack of one. Even when I attempted a meal plan something would invariably happen and the meal plan went out the window.

With that being said, it basically means that we ate out A LOT. We probably spent more on eating out this month than we did groceries. So this week I need to get some groceries but not very many because we have food, I just need to cook it.

Earlier this month I signed up for The Grocery Game. It is a site that matches up coupons with your local grocery store and gives you a list of what is on sale and tells you the percentage off. It shows you which items are free and which ones you should purchase or wait on.

I am not a coupon user normal but I have been wanting to give it a try and even though I didn't purchase a lot I still saved 33% of what I spent. My total was $44.00 and I end up paying $29.00 but I didn't use coupons on everything. I saved 52% on the things that I used coupons on. So maybe coupon clipping isn't so bad after all.

And in case you might be wondering, here is a picture of what I purchased.

It will be interesting to see how much I save when I do an actual regular week of grocery shopping but even if I only save $15 a week that is still $60 a month and that isn't too bad. Not bad at all.

This post is linked to Super Savings Saturday.

The beginning of the end

Well, we have about one month left until R graduates. There is so much to do and not enough time to do it. Last weekend was prom. Here is a picture of R looking all dapper in his tux.



R was also crowned Prom King. Here he is dancing with the Queen.



He doesn't really like being the center of attention which explains the "deer in the head lights look" he has right here or it might have been the complete and utter shock at having his mom taking his picture at prom. I am just not quite sure which one.

Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes

One of my favorite food blogs is Annie's Eats. I drool over it regularly. If you have never visited it you should; here is just one reason why....



Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes.

The cupcake is a chocolate chip brown sugar cupcake with a cookie dough filling and cookie dough butter cream.

I made these for my first day at my new job and they were delicious. Of course, they do have 6 1/2 sticks of butter in them but they are so worth it. They were so good that one of the girls I work with went home and made them that weekend.

So if you haven't already go check out Annie's Eats. You will not regret it.

Soo......

I understand now why most bloggers are either stay at home moms or people that blog for a living (well, I guess they could also be combination of the two :) Since starting my new job I have had pretty much ZERO time for anything. I feel like if I even stop to have a simple conversation it throws off my entire evening.

The last two weeks of my life have consisted of me getting up, getting the kids ready, going to work, coming home, making dinner, doing a couple loads of laundry and going to bed.

Mainly though I feel like I need to call and apologize to all my friends that work full-time. I imagine all those times I called them up to talk for an hour that they probably had so many other things they could have been doing. Well I would apologize to them, if I had a chance to call anybody which I obviously now don't.

I think maybe this blog will come in handy to update our family members. It may be the only way they get to keep in touch with us anymore. :)