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....

"Not Me!" Monday

I DID NOT tweet a Twitter message of "Love You" earlier this week. A message that was actually supposed to be a text message sent only to Daddy Buck and NOT to all of my 20+ Twitter followers. {oops!} The responses that ensued were great!







Frank-o DID NOT have lime green, booty-staining bowel movements on multiple occasions during the past week for no apparent reason other than to honor St. Patrick's Day.







I DID NOT at one point this past week truly believe that I could gather, mix, and create an entire four course meal from ingredients found on my kitchen floor. Nope! Not ME! I would never allow the state of my kitchen floor to get that awful! This week WAS NOT noticeably the week opposite that of when my houskeeper comes.



This blog carnival was created by MckMama and I participate weekly every Monday morning. However, I would imagine that MckMama's post may be delayed this morning because she has been in the Emergency Room all night with her baby, Stellan. His heart rate was too high and the doctors were desperately trying to get his rate to decrease. My prayers, as well as, many others are with them on this Monday morning.

i heart faces ~ week 11

After a busy weekend of visiting family for the boys and I, we are home. It is Monday morning 0500 and I am editing my i Y faces post. Typically I have my i Y faces posts complete way in advance and schedule them to post early Monday morning. Not the case this week and that is because I was stumped for a picture for this week's theme!

This week's theme....no flash.

Thank goodness the weekend's activities were all outdoors with bright sunny skies and not a cloud in sight.

Frank-o found this large sombrero in his great-grandfather's work shed. My grandfather uses it to shield his face from the sun when he works in the yard. It shielded Frank-o's entire upper body. {grin!} Hopefully tonight, I will post more pictures from our fun-filled weekend.

This should be an interesting week of entries....check them out here!

Flashback Friday

This weekend last year was Easter weekend and we had a fabulous weekend indeed. The weather couldn't have been any better as evidenced by the crystal blue skies in the following pictures.



I suppose you can now guess what we did on Saturday before our Easter Sunday festivities. The weather was A+ and the wind was quite robust. Papa Cody spent the day kite-flying with the boys.



The boys and I are headed to my parents' house this weekend for a visit while Daddy Buck is going to the deer camp. The forecast for this weekend, the first weekend of Spring, is superb here in the deep South.

Sunny skies, no chance of rain, family, and friends is a combination for Good Times had by all.

The forecast for this weekend looks to be good for most of the country for the first weekend of Spring. Get out and enjoy it....