Odds and Ends

Well, I've been a bit short on blog posts lately.. not because there was nothing going on... there has actually been tons going on, keeping me extra extra busy. So here are a few odds and ends from over the past couple of months.

Aaron and I were blessed to be able to go on the Tusculum Young Professionals Retreat in Gatlinburg. We weren't quite sure if it would work out due to my work schedule on Saturdays, but we headed out around 10:30 or so Friday evening and were able to enjoy most of the festivities. The devos were great, I especially enjoyed our small group time. We also got to trek to the Gatlinburg strip during our free time on Saturday. It rained the whole time we were there, but we still had a great time.

Complete TYP Retreat album

With life so crazy busy, Aaron and I hardly ever get to spend much time with the Mehaffeys anymore.. but we made time for Chili's and Maggie Moos.. and it was awesome. Good times. :)

Random January 2009 pictures

Newton is still our favorite dog.. of course. Recently he has become facinated with staring out the window and sitting out on the balcony watching people. He also got his first taste of carbonated flavored water. He was a bit hesitant at first.. but loved it. He also got his first summer cut. It's growing on us.. (maybe because it's growing...)

Newton's 2009 Album

I was able to attend a baby shower for a friend from church. She just had her first baby girl. I can't wait to meet little Avery Grace.

Complete Baby Russell Album

I was also able to help host a baby shower for another dear friend from church who is about to have her first child, sweet baby Adley. I am so excited for her. I had a great time being able to spend time with my church girls and shower Beth with goodies and love.

Complete Baby Watson Album

Also, Aaron and I were able to make another trip to Memphis to visit our favorite little nephew. He's sooo adorable. We had a great time spending time with him and the rest of the family. He even let me take a few pictures of him. I was so attached that I even held him while he slept and I played the Wii with Aaron, Andrew, and Krystle. We can't wait until we get to visit again.. hopefully real soon!

Ethan's very own album

and.... I got to spend Valentines with my wonderful husband this year. I love him. :)

Coupon Queen Wanna-Be?

So, I'm considering a new calling. Coupon Queen? I dunno if I'm up for the challenge, but I gave it a first try today and I think it went pretty well. I had never really clipped coupons before. Every once in a while I will clip a coupon for pizza delivery or out of those big entertainment books that you buy for school fundraisers, and I sure don't EVER buy anything online before searching high and low for a "promotional code", but I never clipped coupons for groceries and other personal items. A few days ago I read Kristina's blog about being frugal and she mentioned thegrocerygame.com. I was eager to learn more about it so I checked out the site. It seems to be a pretty good idea. It creates a list of items that are best to buy (in your area at a specific store) based on what's on sale and the coupons that you should have. My only problem was that I really should have waited until I had a stash of coupons to reference to. More than once my list would reference a coupon that was received in the Feb 1 Red Plum... well I sure didn't have that coupon, they all got thrown away if it was received before yesterday. Anyways, the GG has a trial for $1 for a month and then you can decide to keep it or not and then you have to pay $ for it... not too bad though. I'm going to see how much I can save then decide if it is worth it.

Anyways, so since I didn't have a lot of coupons saved up, I did internet searching for coupons for the items that were on sale, and I had pretty decent luck.
So here's what I got today with my coupons/sales etc...

Original price = $33.93

Some of my best deals:
Colgate toothpaste Was: $2.13 each Now: FREE - yep all 3 of them!

Purina puppy chow Was: $4.48 Now: 0.98
Land O Lakes butter Was: $1.89 Now: 0.44
Scotch Brite Sponges Was: $1.69 each Now: 0.50 each

Total paid: $10.12
Saved: $23.81 that's 70%

Looks like I am going to have to try this again. :) I like those numbers!
I was actually kind of nervous when I checked out, because I almost felt like I was ripping them off.. I mean, I got 3 tubes of toothpaste for FREE!

Meet & Greet with Baby Ethan

Aaron and I were so excited to see our little nephew that we just couldn't wait until the weekend (especially since I have to work on Saturday morning, so we wouldn't get there till 3 or 4 on Saturday!) So Tuesday night after work we met up and drove to Memphis. We were on a mission: no bathroom breaks, the gas tank was full before we left, and slow people were not tolerated very well. We arrived at the hospital at 8:30 and were able to visit with Andrew, Krystle, and Ethan for awhile. Mom and baby are doing well and should be going home on Wednesday. Ethan was the most precious little baby ever. He has such a cute little head with tons of hair. He likes to shake his tiny little fists a lot and when he cries his little bottom lip quivers. It's precious. Apparently he had been sleeping pretty much most of the day. He must have heard we were coming (Aaron said he sent him an email) because he was wide awake for most of the time we were there. After what seemed to be too short of a visit, Aaron and I loaded back into the car and headed back to Nashville. It was a long night.. some people said we were crazy, and maybe we were... but it was completely worth it.

Ethan Parker

Aaron and I are blessed with a handsome little nephew. Aaron's brother Andrew and his wife Krystle brought little Ethan Parker Howell into the world last night at 11:28pm with a full head of dark hair after a very long day of anticipation. He was 21.5 inches long and weighed 8lbs 6 oz. We can not wait to meet the little guy!

The only pictures I have so far:

Baby Ethan with Papa B

Fat or Fluff?

So lately I've been thinking.... hmm is my dog getting fat? We need to start walking him more, run stairs, some sort of exercise... etc. Instead we gave him a bath.

Look how skinny he is. He looked even skinner in some of the other shots, but almost unhealthy skinny.. like we were neglecting him or something!

Right after his bath and many shakes, the fluff is slowly reappearing. Check out those cute puppy dog eyes!

And here he is, our little fluff ball.

Girls' Night!

In celebration of baby girl Russell who is about to be born my friend Rachel put together a huge girls' night for one last shin-dig. Although Red Robin is one of Aaron's favorite restaurants of all times, he missed out on it tonight. We've been missing out on it! I didn't realize that there was one so close so it has become a tradition for us to eat at Red Robin pretty much every single time we go to Memphis. It's just something we do. Tonight I went with just the girls and it was amazing. The staff was great! They gave us free appetizers (Deidre is convinced it was to keep us quite so we wouldn't disturb the other guests!) and were extremely quick! Aaron and I will definitely be visiting again real soon. After Red Robin we hopped over to the new Smyrna movie theater to see "he's just not that into you". It was a really good movie, but it took me a little bit to sort out all the characters! There was just way too many and they were all weirdly connected. All in all we had a really awesome time. I really enjoyed hanging out with the girlfriends, especially those I don't get to see too often.

-courtesy Mindy Mehaffey (mine was kinda dark... sad!)