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We love you.
And, here's a picture of Michael's first artwork. He did this all by himself, wouldn't let us hold the sticky pad or reposition the pencil.


And, Michael broke his jaw. Here he is with a bandage.

Just kidding. It's a head band thing...

Mid Sneeze

Good Deal #1

Alright! I know it sounds crazy, but I've been waiting all week for this shopping trip. Safeway is having a Living Well Promotion where when you buy $30 of qualifying products in a single transaction, you'll receive a coupon for $10 off your next order. As usual, the $30 total is before manufacturer coupons are applied. So, I have put together a decent shopping list, but am in no rush considering our fridge is full and the promotion goes on until the beginning of May. Here is part one of my shopping trip:

Total Paid: $21.31

Savings of 58%

And if any of you know how much that BIG box of Huggies cost, this was a deal! First I applied a $10 off coupon from a previous promotion last month. I had a $1.50 coupon for Huggies, and the Kashi item was FREE with the coupon I requested from their website. The price before coupons of those two items easily topped $30, so another $10 off coupon printed for me to take home, just so I can use it on shopping trip part 2.

COMMENT if you LOVE a good deal!!!!

To be continued...

Until we meet again

If you've been to our apartment before, you will remember our set of matching, orange chairs. Aren't they lovely? While Richard and I were engaged we accumulated a lot of used furniture from and people in the ward, which basically filled up our entire apartment. I am SO grateful for it all, despite the fact that none of it really matched. But I'm no interior designer anyway. 

Our first apartment in Provo had shaggy green carpet (Richard's favorite), with dark brown, wood slated walls, and the kitchen linoleum was also a green pattern. Top that off with the orange chairs, and a few pictures and you've got a pretty radical/retro apartment setting. At first we hated it. The color combination made us want to puke! But, we couldn't afford anything else, and certainly didn't want to sit on the floor so we kept them. 

And then fell in love.

We joked about them so much that they actually became loved by us. They were actually pretty comfortable, the only problem was we could never sit together in them and you know how "newlywed" couples always want to cuddle. So when we were offered a couch by our neighbors here in Seattle, we bounced at the opportunity. 

Here is Michael on the couch. 

But alas, the couch and two chairs made our apartment much too crowded and I didn't like the cluttered feeling so I hesitantly posted our 2 orange chairs on Craigslist under free. How sad of me to assume that no one would want these chairs, even if they were free. They were gone very quickly.

It's hard to adjust. 

I wonder what setting they're in now.

Goodbye my orange chairs.

Out of the Ordinary

I've done two things this week that I have not done in a long time. OR maybe I should say, I haven't done two things this week that I have been doing for a long time. 

1. Not gotten on my Facebook. Actually, I deleted my account so it was less tempting. I was on it too much among other reasons. Although, I've found that I'm replacing the "facebook" time with blog time though, which was not my intention. Michael needs more attention from me, I think. 

2. Haven't worn makeup. This is just because I've been lazy, but I haven't really cared. No makeup saves money in the end, right? Although, I did get a killer deal on mascara this week at Walgreens. 

Speaking of great deals, today I got a rebate check in the mail from Organix, a shampoo/conditioner line.
They still have the rebate forms on some of the products at (Seattle) Target when I went in this last week. So, if you're in there this week, check on it. Free -minus postage isn't bad at all. I almost considered getting another one and having my check mailed to my neighbors, because it's only one per household. But, I guess that isn't really honest. 

Other cool things I've scored, are free magazine subscriptions, a bread pan for $1, Free product coupons from Pepperidge Farms and Del Monte. Yeah, I guess that's about it for now.

Tata

Utah Trip

We went to Utah for Richard's sister's wedding. It was wonderful and beautiful. Then the rest of the week was meeting with old friends, eating out, shopping, playing, BANG, and all that fun stuff.
Here's some of the family

Cousins Adam and Michael. Adam is adorable! It's crazy to what one year can do to kids. They are so big, and play much better with each other than they did then.

I think it's funny how Adam's face doesn't seem to change in either of these pictures. Michael just wanted me to hold him.

I was pretty lazy at taking pictures over our vacation. I don't think I got any pictures of our newest niece, Jamie. But I did get a few pictures/video to embarrass Suzy. 

Great Deals and Easter Jars

For Easter, I wanted to make something cute to hand out to my neighbors. Layla had the idea of Easter Jars. We used ModPodge to glue decorative paper on the top of the lids and give it a nice shine. Then I also glued ribbon around the rings. And last of all, filled the jars with lots of chocolatey goodness. I'm excited to hand them out! 

I definitely had to take advantage of Albertson's cereal deal this week. These cereals are $1.57 a box when you buy 2. Or pay $2.07 when you buy one. I had two coupons for $1/2. And then I bought one more box at the regular price, to total 5 boxes of cereal and I'll tell you why in a second. 

My total came to $8.35. 

Then I applied my two coupons. My new total is $6.35.

A Catalina coupon for $5.00 off my next grocery order was triggered when I bought 5 boxes of Post cereal. That's equivalent to making my order only $1.35. That's .27 CENTS PER BOX!

Anyway, I immediately went and bought a bag of flour for $4.99 with my coupon--and got a penny back. 

It was a good shopping trip. 

A story.

I will tell you some facts of a story, and you can piece together the details.
1. Heard a noise this morning in the kitchen.
2. Above the stove? In the vent/fan area where the pipes lead to the outside, somehow (I don't really know how it all works)
3. Scratching. Scratching.
4. Mouse? No. Please no.
5. Quiet.
6. More scratching.
7. Call the managers.
8. Call animal control.
9. Remove fan screen and hold cage underneath.
10. Bird doesn't fall into cage, rather flies at the window.
11. Smack. No good.
12. Pirches himself on "family" coat hanger on wall.
13. Remove the window screen.
14. Freedom.
15. No pictures to prove it. Darn.

Cuddlebug

Michael does this cute cuddly action all the time, and at the most random times. We love it.

Been on the Blog all day...

I have caught a cold and have been zapped of all energy. I feel like I have been laying down for most of the day. Luckily I am not scheduled to work for three days straight so I have some time to recuperate. Likewise, Michael has been stuffed up this whole week. At first I thought his slight runny nose was due to teething, cuz another tooth is beginning to come through. But, it's been getting seemingly worse all week. However, he hasn't had a night where he's been screaming all night like he has done in the past when he's sick. I am definitely grateful for that.

Here's some cute pics I took a few days back of the two of us. I love this little sweat suit outfit my parents gave him for his birthday. Michael adds his own touch to it by drooling all over it.





On another note, our friends Brock and Layla have moved back to Seattle!!! They are currently searching for an apartment in our area, so I'm WAY excited to see them more often. So if anyone knows of a good apartment for rent in our area--let me know please!

I am pretty tired. Today was a good day. This morning things were rushed because we all didn't get out of bed till late, and I had to get myself ready for work, and Richard and Michael had to get things ready to go down to Enumclaw. I tend to be snappy when we are running late--poor Richard. I think about speaking with the tongue of angels a lot when I'm snappy, because I need to be better at that.

Anyway, I worked 11-8pm today. I was the front end manager today which is a little intimidating, but I am coming to like. Because I'm managing the breaks of everyone, making sure courtesy clerks get their stuff done, and checking all at once, time speeds by!

The Mahelona's threw a belated birthday party for Michael today in Enumclaw. Naomi and Kevin were there with their kids, and the Butler's and Jarvis' were there as well. I hear it was a great birthday, despite Michael being cranky. Richard came home with 1/2 the cake--which is actually the size of a normal 13x9 cake. SO anyone who wants CAKE--COME OVER!!!

And since this is a random update post--I'll keep going. Richard is almost done with school this semester. He has some final projects he's working on. One in particular he has been spending hours upon hours on. I don't understand, but he loves what he does, and he likes working on the details. He has also created his website in one of his classes this semester, but there is still tons that he wants to do to it--so he won't tell you the URL until he has it set up well enough.

On a different topic, our neighbors have offered to give us their van for free. It looks like this, but a different color and there is only one row of seats in the back. Like my brother Steve told me, "You can't beat free" but I'm having a difficult time wondering if we should accept it or let them give it to someone else who may need it more. If it had two rows of seats, I'd take it in a second, because that means it can fit more kids, and if you know me and my dream family....... well, I don't have to say more. Anyway, we have been immensely blessed with our little car. It's caused us a little trouble recently, but it's been treating us great. And Richard utilizes the bus mostly so we don't really need/use two cars. What do you think?

This Just Happened

What if you woke up looking like this?

This just happened

This is what a good home cooked meal can do fer ya