as promised...

Here come a few of the many pictures that I took from our busy weekend past....as promised.

On Saturday (Daddy Buck's Saturday off for April), our day was spent at the annual Louisiana Strawberry Festival in Ponchatoula, Louisiana.

It was a terrific spring Saturday full of bright sunshine, a mid-morning parade, carnival rides, food, drink, and music shared with our dear friends from Mississippi that made the trip to share in the fun with us.

On Sunday, as I ailed from my self-inflicted sunburn, we went to our annual neighborhood Easter egg hunt.

The children were divided into two age groups....4 and under & 4 and over. Buck-a-roo captured the prize in the 4 and under category for racing past the toddling toddlers and snatching up 39 eggs and proudly chanting "I won...I won" as his basket overflowed finding the most Easter eggs strowed across the lawn of our neighborhood park. Frank-o also nabbed a prize egg....so all was good in the Vaughn house of egg-hunters!

Moderation. Balance. Good Times.

Thanks to Tim at Fort Thompson, I have been given another blogging honor.....the I'm a Fan of Your Site award.

Somewhat significant seeing as our blog has been somewhat neglected over the past several weeks. I am struggling with finding blogging time since the change of time into daylight savings. We have had wonderful warm days and splendid seasonal evenings for outdoor playtime with my boys and that is what I have been doing as opposed to blogging. I decided that I never want to reminisce and think I missed something in my boys lives because of being on the computer. I created this blog for them as a way of documenting life....not depriving me of the little moments in their lives. Moderation. Balance. Good Times. That's what it's all about for me and amidst all of that, I will blog when I can.

Nonetheless, thanks Tim! and this past weekend went to the Strawberry Festival in Ponchatoula, Louisiana (first of many this summer....check), two crawfish boils (the firsts of many of the season.....check), and our neighborhood Easter egg hunt(first of many through next weekend....check). I hope to post pictures from all these events later this week (seeing as my camera is not even in my possession at the moment...I cannot download, edit, or post any pictures at the moment).

Have a great week and let's keep the MckFamily in our prayers as it looks to be a week of change and difficult decisions ahead for them.

Wordless Wednesday

Alternately Titled: Frank-o's "April Fool's Day" Dance

As seen in....

our kitchen

I call this the cleaning station-this section of the kitchen countertop houses baby wipes, Clorox wipes and Lysol spray for routine use. This area over the sink is also the current site of our Easter egg tree with the chocolate bunny figurines...

Above the kitchen cabinets is part of our Americana collection...

This is Buck-a-roo's Bible verse magnet collection. Each Monday at preschool, he is given a new Bible verse, brings it home on a magnet for the refrigerator and memorizes it to recite at school during the week.

And this, my friends, is my 2009-2010 Royal Carribean vacation guide that the travel agent mailed my mother and I once we booked our spot on the MckCruise. We are praying feverishly for Stellan's complete recovery.
I spotted this post idea at 4 Little Men and Girly Twins and decided to give it a try. I like the concept and hope to make it a once-weekly post.

carnival creation

*Update*
I am having issues with posting the Mr Linky portion....I have to get the boys from school, go to Home Depot to pick out paint color, out to dinner with the family, and pop some pills for the horrible head cold that is getting me down. I hope to work on this more tonight. In the mean time...create your post, post the new Coupon Ca$h-In Carnival button to your blog, and speak of your blog post in the comments of this post


Original Post
What do you get when you combine two popular topics in the blog-o-spere, a. blog carnivals and b. couponing, with the real life endeavour of saving money in today's tough economy?

You get the Coupon Ca$h-In Carnival hosted by Vaughn Family Chaos!!

It will be a weekly carnival (I ask that you all chime in on what day of the week works best for you, your couponing, your shopping, etc...) where my blog readers and yours join together to post about your weekly couponing adventures! Where did you shop this week? Where were the best deals? How much money did you pocket? Where others can print the coupons you used? Upcoming advertised savings?

It is fun to post about your couponing rewards and even more rewarding is sharing with your blogging buddies so that they may also reap the benefits. I will start this week by showing you a picture from my visit last Sunday to KMart...

KMart advertised double manufacturer's coupons on Sunday and I was all over it like white on rice. You will see in the picture that KMart breaks down their savings on your receipt into two categories, as do most stores. I saved $15.27 on advertised sale items and $11.75 in redeemed coupons for a total of $27.02.

This is a very general description of my savings. You may do the same in your post or go into more detail for specific items and coupons. Either way...just spread the word on how you saved yourself a chunk of change.

I have posted a Coupon Ca$h-In Carnival button to my left sidebar that you may place on your blog and will post Mr Linky to the bottom of this post so that everyone can link up. Have fun and happy couponing!

Wordless Wednesday

1st weekend of Spring

As you know by now, the boys and I traveled to central Louisiana to my hometown this past weekend to visit my family.

While enjoying the fabulous Spring-like weather this weekend, we had an excellent brunch at my grandparents....fruit tray with homemade grenadine fruit dip, garden pasta salad, baked LA sweet potatoes, honey ham (that my grandmother baked) sandwiches with crisp lettuce from the garden, caramel cake, and a loaf of homemade Amish bread for me to take home. Oh yea...that's my Maw-Maw's idea of an easy, thrown-together Saturday brunch :)

In between our many trips back and forth to the table, the boys strummed us a tune on my grandfather's old guitar. For literally hours, they they bickered over who's turn it was took turns at the guitar.






We even had a practice-run Easter egg hunt. Frank-o even managed to find one egg that was filled with Starburst (from Lord only knows when seeing as my grandmother certainly had not placed them there this year).




On Saturday night, we took my Meme out to dinner and visited with my younger cousins.

On Sunday, my dad returned from the fishing camp just in time for a 30-minute freeforall wrestling session before we got back on the road to return home. Thanks to Papa Cody's wrestling....the boys slept the entire 2 1/2 hour road trip home!!

We hope you all had a wonderful start to Spring as well. I have many post in the waiting....(as seen in, coupon cash-in carnival, guest miracles post, 1st trip to the dentist) that I hope to edit, tweak, perefect, and post this week. Don't hold me to them all....