HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!

Happy 11th Birthday to my Cinco de

Mayo baby!

11 interesting things about her:

1. She loves reading

2. She loves when mom cooks mexican food.

3. She likes American Girl dolls and stuff and wants more...lots more...
4. She plays softball and basketball.

5. She's been in softball Allstars 2 years.

6. She plays piano and has won superior perfomance several years

7. She's won 1st place in UIL twice..once for storytelling and once for oral reading.

8. Her favorite color is green.

9. She has to make her bed and keep it neat every day or it will drive her crazy
{her room is another story!}

10. At age 4 she told me she wanted to be a dog catcher when she grew up.
{What she meant was she wanted to be a veternarian}

11. She likes dolphins.
At age 7 she wanted to swim with dolphins when she grew up.

11 things to love about her:

1. She loves Jesus.

2. Her laugh is contagious.

3. Her smile brightens a room.

4. She's a born leader.

5. Everything she does - she does to the best of her ability

6. Her beauty steals my breath away.

7. She's a daddy's girl - but loves her mom just as much.

8. She's a great big sister.

9. Gotta love her sense of humor ;)

10. She cares about others.

11. She's a gift from God.

"Then, gathering the children up in His arms, He laid His hands of blessing on them."

Mark 10:13

Day at the beach

A beautiful day to be in Galveston...



This is the sight I love the most!


"You help me daddy.."


You can't go to the beach and not look for seashells!



They could be hiding anywhere...


"Hey...where did dat water come from?"


Just here to help out the lifeguards...

"I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore.." Genesis 22:17

My little cheerleaders

I'm so glad my friend took a picture of this. I thought it was the coolest thing ever.

I ran a 5K this past Saturday that went near their home.



As cold as it was that morning those brave little cheerleaders, and their mom, went to sidelines to cheer me on, and the 600+ other people running. I felt like a star.

And I'll tell you something else....that cheering section kept me moving. As much as I wanted to stop and walk...even if just for a minute....I kept thinking to myself "No way...I can't be seen walking....they're here to see me run!"

We even had a motivational speaker amongst out group. He was running, and sweating, never losing a beat in stride. He was cheering everyone on, even as he ran by some that had started to walk. He would encourage them to pick up the stride again. He was 75 years young. How do I know that? He kept repeating it. As motivation I'm sure. {If a 75 year old man can do it, I know you young folks can!} I thought he was great.

Join me on the next one friends! You won't regret it!

Run for the Ring ~ Saturday, April 19th ~ http://traditions.tamu.edu/index.php?q=node/14
See Spot Run ~ Saturday, April 19th ~ http://www.cvm.tamu.edu/seespotrun/

Spoiled

No, I'm talking about my baby girl. I'm talking about me. I've realized that I've gotten a little spoiled. This whole coupon shopping thing has me rotten. See....I enjoy saving money. Really I do. But I like options. I want the option to spend my money where I want....save it where I can and splurge a little when I can. And if I've watched my pennies and saved them where I can then I know I can buy a few nice things and not break the budget.

Here's one of my favorite splurges:

For the past few months I have kept fresh flowers in my house. I'll stroll the floral section at Kroger and start digging around for the ones that have been marked down. There's just something about having fresh flowers in the house. Makes me smile every time I see them. :)

And I only spend around $3-$4. I buy a new bouquet every week or so. Love it!

Another little splurge:




Is it really a splurge if your veins are begging for it? This is really a treat, because I don't buy it often. But Alex and I love it so much that we won't brew anything else at home. Anything else is just not the same. And behold....there's a starbucks in Kroger that gives me my 10th cup for free. Make it a venti!!



A recent one time {ok, maybe two times} splurge:





This particular lady didn't come help clean my house, but she looks quite eager to do so. I needed some serious spring cleaning help. I finally gave in to pay someone and we both started spring cleaning my house. She worked on my living room for 3 hours. The windows shine, window sills and screens are clean, ceiling fans have no dust, dust bunnies had no hope, furniture is fresh & clean, walls and door frames have no handprints, and no kids are allowed in there for at least a month.


So here's the part where I spoil my baby girl....

I love shopping, but hate spending alot of money. The solution? Only buy on clearance with some of the money I save from couponing. And use a coupon for the clothes on top of the sale. This isn't even half of what I bought at 80% off, plus an additional 30% off that. Cute isn't it?

Speaking of cute.......

Had to throw these in here just for fun.

Debtors Anonymous

This is something that I sometimes keep quiet about. It can be a touchy subject for many. And it's something people don't usually openly talk about. I'm talking about $MONEY$...debt in particular.

I'm very open about our financial situation. In fact, I'll tell you all, my good friends, what our debts are. Here we go:

Number 1. Our home

Number 2. That's it......

Really.....

No credit cards. No loans. No gas cards. No store cards. No car payments.

God dealt with mine and Alex's heart about debt a few years back. I started listening to Dave Ramsey on the radio, and we went to see him at a seminar in Houston. What he teaches is almost exact to Crown Financial, only "he sinks his teeth in" is what I've heard quoted. His daily radio show helped keep us on track. We slowly began paying off credit cards, loans...even sold a car for less than what was owed on it, and paid off the difference... just to get rid of that payment. We lived on beans and rice {wrapped in a tortilla of course!} to pay off those bills. A treat to my kids during those times was a 99 cent burger at Jack in the Box, no fries, and water to drink. {water is good for their brains anyway} Every extra dollar went towards debt. We were intense. We wanted out of those bills.

At one time our mortgage person told us that there where very few people that applied with home loans that didn't have debt.

Really? So she was telling us we weren't normal.

Here's normal:
*52% of Americans don't have retirement savings at all.

*The average family's consumer debt is: $35,154. (car loans, credit cards) This does not include the mortgage.

*The average American saves less than 1% of their income (into savings accounts) with most saving 0%.

* Over 40% of households spend more than they earn each year.

I don't want to be normal.

A few more statistics:
*About 60 percent of active credit card accounts are not paid off monthly.
*Last year the credit card industry took in $43 billion in card fees.
*The average graduate student has six credit cards and one in seven owes more than $15,000.
*People using credit cards in fast food restaurants spend up to 50 percent more than when they pay cash.
*Studies show on average you spend 15% more anywhere else when you use a credit card than with cash

And here's a big one: Some 2.7 million U.S. households -- one of every 73 -- filed for bankruptcy in 2007.

WOW

I hate those Visa commercials that portray the guy paying with cash as "slow". Not in the loop. That's the smartest guy of the bunch.

Now I don't think all debt is bad. If we didn't have a loan for our home we wouldn't be living here. Our current vehicle we had to pull out a small loan that we paid off in 2 1/2 years, finishing just recently. But we went over a year and a half with absolutely no car payment when we started getting control of our finances, driving around a 10 yr old yukon with 170,000 miles. Proudly.

Having no debt has given us a freedom that I wasn't sure even existed. I thought debt was a way of life. You just have to have a car payment. Credit card debt? Everyone has it. Savings? Would be nice, but we need our money now, not later.

Take a moment....and imagine....dream if you will.....that you had no car payment......no credit card payments.....no student loans........you actually have money left over at the end of the month....you know where your money is instead of wondering where it went.....you have a nice size emergency fund in the bank....your retirement fund is looking good....kids have college funds....you fill up your gas tank with cash.......you buy that new furniture cash....you vacation on cash....washing machine go out? No problem, you go buy one cash....car needs a new transmission? Cash baby!

It's a dream that's real. We don't have to be slaves. Breath the sweet air of freedom my friends.

"The borrower is slave to the lender..." Proverbs 22:7

Want more information on becoming debt free? Listen to Dave Ramsey on 550 am daily from 10am-12pm, or on 1010 am daily from 1-4pm. Or go to www.daveramsey.com

Queen of the trampoline

Run away with me....

Or walk with me. Whatever you'd prefer. I'm talking about a 5K & 10K walk/run that's coming up on April 12th @ Messina Hof...and it's supporting Habitat for Humanity. More info here: http://www.runthruthevines.com/

On this same day there will be another walk/run in Brenham called the Bluebell Fun Run. More info here:http://bluebellfunrun.com/

I'd really like to work myself up to the 10K, but from the looks of my current endurance I don't see that happening this time around. So I'm planning on the 5K, since I did one already...but I'm still going to work towards the 10.

I did a 5K a few weeks ago with some friends. It was a night time run called Glow, and was amazing. I've only worked myself up to run 2 miles continuously, so I wasn't sure if 3.1 would be possible. It took every "Go girl!", "You can do it!", and "You're almost there!" to get me to keep running, and I did, for the entire 3.1 miles. The feeling of crossing that finish line is indescribable. You have to experience it. What number you finished doesn't even matter. What does matter is that you finished.

I've decided I love running at night. It was cool with a slight wind. No sun beaming down on you. My face wasn't as red as a tomato when I finished. And most importantly - I wasn't self concious about my "jiggly legs". Yes.... my son pointed them out to me once when we were walking as a family. He said "Mom, your legs jiggle now when you walk. Cool. When did they start doing that?"

Hmmm...good question....I know they never did that in my younger years.....

His dad replied "Son, never, ever tell your mom, or any other woman, that anything jiggles on them."

I need to add a #14 to my list of why I love my hubby

And add muscle toning to my excersise routine.

Hope you'll join me for this run! {Or walk} :)

Stretching the dollar

I can't go into too much detail about bargain shopping, because there's so much information, but I've received so many questions I thought I could give some folks a starting point. Bargain shopping for household stuff comes easy. Bargain shopping for food - healthy food - takes more effort. In addition to my regular coupons through the Sunday paper and online, I depend on my coupons that Kroger sends me in the mail. I've come to find out that not everyone gets these coupons as often as I do, which is about once a month in the mail. I get the regular $ off a particular item, but also $ off any produce, fruits, meats, etc. So the only thing I can come up with is that after you spend a certain amount of money at Krogers they up the coupon mailouts.

Here's what I bought on my last grocery trip:
8 boxes cereal, 2 gallons milk, eggs, bread, large veggie tray, apples, grapes, bannanas, 2 boxes frozen veggies, many canned veggies, 5 cans tomato sauce, 2 jugs juicy juice, 2 8-packs box juicy juice, 2 jugs minute maid oj, 2 packs chicken breast, 4-pack mixed fruit cups, 4 pack dannon yogurt, fruit snacks, 2 tubs wipes, bag of pullups, 3 big bags rice, 2 small flavored rice, box of bisquit, 3 bags salad, cheese sticks, flour, 2 boxes hot pockets, pizza, yogurt, 2 bags totinos pizza rolls, little smokies, no-yolk noodles, 2 glade air freshener, 1 glade refill pack, 2 boxes of some kind of oriental noodles, 2 containers of honey, fibersure, & flour







All came to a grand total of $186. I paid $79.02. Not the best I've done, but not bad. I usually spend less than this on my weekly grocery budget, and I only buy meat when it's on sale. Thanks to my hubby's last hunting season we have a freezer full of fresh, hormone free & very lean buffulo ground meat, steaks, stew & roast meat. Did you know buffalo tastes just like beef without all the fat?

Another plus for shopping at Kroger: each time you spend $100 in groceries you get to buy 25 gallons of gas at 10 cents off a gallon. And the $100 is before coupons. I'm always able to get my gas at a cheaper rate than any gas station or even Sam's.

Some of these bargains I find as I'm shopping through the stores. Some bargains I find when I get the weekly sale paper. Many deals I find on the websites that I have posted on this blog. Most have store specific forums where they talk about what bargains people have found for the week. For instance, if I want to know what good deals are at Target this week, I go to the Target thread. Other people have already done the work of finding the deals for me. Makes it a lot easier because quite frankly many weeks I don't have the time to figure out what deals are where. That's how I got started, just by reading the web sites, and with lots of advice from the coupon queen bee - Kelly V.

I've been able to narrow my deal shopping to 3 preffered stores: Kroger, Target, and CVS. Every now and then I'll go to Walgreens when they have a particular deal I'm interested in, like when I received $200 in spa rewards money for spending $10 in medicine.

My mom and I got 1 hour massages for free at Riviera, with $50 to spare. I think I'll use that towards a facial....

See, coupon shopping has more perks than you thought.

You know it's spring when...

A good 'ole neighborhood game of baseball breaks out!

There's a hit! Runner goes to first base.....

First base throws to third....

And runner slides to third base!

The fans go wild!!

Team meeting on whether he was out or not...

Hey...I thought we had an umpire.....

I bet the ump would know whether he was out or not....

Where did that umpire go????

?

?

?

?

Does that face look like she was up to any good??

It's sure is a cute one though :)

Don't you just love spring?!!

13 for 13

Following suit of many of the wonderful blogs I read, I'm listing 13 things I love about my hubby for 13 wonderful years of marriage. February 17th was our anniversary. Thirteen years ago we were two scared to death teenagers saying "I do" in Iola, TX. Today we're 3 kids, 3 homes, hundreds of disagreements, millions of hugs and kisses later and still going strong.

Why do I love him? Let me count the ways.....

1. He's patient with me.

2. He'll drive hundreds of miles a day to come home to us every night.

3. He works hard and never complains.

4. No matter how crazy an idea I have, he'll tell me it's the greatest.

5. He does the laundry better and quicker than I can.

6. I love his laugh.

7. He makes the best bar-b-que hands down.

8. He's a sweet, caring, devoted daddy.

9. He's selfless and giving.

10. He treats his girls like the princesses they are.

11. He's teaching his son how to be the man God intends him to be.

12. He models #11.

13. He loves me more than any man in my life ever has.