Picture Predicament

I knew that I wanted to post all of my digital photos on the internet to share with friends and family, so I set down on the computer to find the perfect website. This has proven to be a daunting task and one that made me a little insane for a brief couple of days. At first I was wowed with shuterfly's website and all of its bells and whistles. The classy way they display your photos is awesome. I even started an account with them and worked on it for a few days. I just found that it took a long time to complete any one task on their site. Then, I came across the Picasa site which allowed me to upload and edit about 24 albums within a matter of hours. Heavenly! However, I continued to click my way back to the beauty of my original shutterfly site. With help from Josh, I found the strength to delete the pretty website and commit to the practical Picasa one. It doesn't have all the bells and whistles, but you can still view all of the photos and even order them from the web and choose where to have them printed. I hope that everyone finds the Picasa site easy to navigate and fun to look at. If you want to view the site, you can look to the right hand side of this blog and Click where it says CLICK HERE. When I was feeling sad about deleting the pretty photo sight Josh taught me, "You have to crack a few eggs to make an omelette." Thanks Yoda! :) Just like a man to offer a useless proverb in a woman's time of need. Ha! Made perfect sense to him... I am only teasing Josh- you are very supportive! I thought it was funny and was just glad to have resolved my picture predicament. Enjoy!

Deals, Deals, Deals !!!

This is a picture of my very best deals from this week. This is a total of $99.98 worth of products that I payed $33.20 out of pocket. That is a net savings of $66.69. The best part of all is this is all stuff we will actually use!! Here is the line up- 2 boxes Wheat Thins, 2 bottles Kraft dressing, 1 Coffemate creamer, 2 packs Oscar Mayer jumbo all beef franks, 2 packs Kraft cheese singles 16 slices each, 2 boxes of Cvs brand baby wipes, 3 boxes Band-Aids, 1 Advil infant drops, 1 Colgate total toothpaste, 2 boxes Kashi cereal, 1 box just bunches cereal, 1 pack Kotex overnight pads, 2 Sally Hansen nail polishes, 1 bottle Juicy Juice, 1 loaf bread, 1 Dove shampoo, 1 Dove conditioner, 1 Johnson & Johnson baby wash, 1 Johnson & Johnson baby lotion, 2 Oral B toothbrushes. WOW!!! I do have to say that I spent a lot of time coupon and deal hunting on the Internet, but for me it was well worth it. Who knew that I could be frugal and have fun doing it? Very shocking but very true!!!

My new hobby

This is a picture of my coupon binder. It is organized with tabs by different categories such as paper products, cleaning supplies, toiletries, etc. Behind each binder I have several sheet of clear plastic baseball card holders that hold each coupon separately making everything very visible. I found this binder idea on one of the websites I like and I absolutely love it. It makes coupon organization a breeze and this way I can always see what coupons I have and plan my shopping trips accordingly. I will be thanking Claire for all of this down-time as all of my deals have beeen saving major bucks! I am also going to post some pictures and blogs of my deals soon. *UPDATE* This is no longer the method that I use for coupon filing. I am using a much faster/easier method now that I am going to be posting on soon!!!

Baby Shower Bliss

In lieu of my pregnancy prescribed "Nashville arrest" my family brought my first baby shower all the way to me from KY!!! I am not allowed to leave Nashville until Claire is here. My amazing sister-in-law Penny packed her mini-van absolutely full with shower food, cake, 2 kids, 1 husband, and all the necessities to prepare food and stay a weekend in a hotel. I know. We have all confirmed that she is indeed superwoman. You should have seen this woman turn and burn in a hotel room kitchen and then transport all the home-made goods in a mini-van an hour away to Gallatin TN. Amazing. Then, Josh's cousin Amy opened up her beautiful home to everyone and hosted the greatest baby shower ever. Josh's Aunt Belinda also transported food from Ky and helped get everything prepared. In addition, my mother and father-in-law packed their church van with eager family members and toted them all to Nashville so they could ride together and save on gas. God has blessed my family with some amazing, amazing people for whom I am very grateful! As if all of those blessings were not enough, the shower itself was wonderful. The spread of food provided looked like nothing less than something you would see on the cover of Southern Living magazine, and the presents that we received were fantastic! At the end of the shower Amy handed out prayers of blessing (on perfectly decorated paper) for each person to pray aloud over baby Claire and continue praying at home. That was emotional to say the least, but the most precious gift. When I recovered from the activities of the weekend I awoke in FULL BLOWN nesting mode. Nothing and no one is safe in my home right now- until everything is in order and my hospital bag is packed. I know that theoretically I should have 10 weeks left, but I am not banking on it. Do pray for my dear husband as we have already made 5 trips to babies-r-us in the last five days. Okay- that's an exaggeration- but not by much. He has been awesome through all of this and I am so thankful for him! If you would like to see pictures from the lovely event look to the options on the right and click under the Pictures of Family & Friends tab and you will be taken to our family photo page.

Enter Drama

My entire pregnancy had been the picture of perfection. No nausea, no mood swings (no more than my baseline mood swings), no cravings or feeling crappy. I really felt great! Then, on 7/19/08 I woke up to contractions that would not go away despite rest and gallons of water. I was instructed to go to the hospital where I got a shot to stop my contractions and was put on bed rest. When I saw my MD 7/22/08 (I was 26 weeks) she informed me that my contractions had moved the baby down into the birth canal and that I could no longer work until the baby was born. I have since been on restricted activity and have been seeing my MD like crazy. Twice a week some weeks! Now I am waiting and trusting God to bring all of us safely through this. I am 30 weeks as of 8/18/08. I have made it 4 weeks since the contractions! I will see the MD 8/29/08 and get an ultrasound to check Claire's growth. Because she is so low, the doctor can't measure her like she normally would. What all of this has taught me is that I am not in control. Big surprise! I am learning to allow people to help and me and graciously receive. I am also learning that babies control your life even before they make their debut. However, it is all worth it. I am actually loving my time at home and have used it to prepare for Claire, and prepare for our lives on Josh's salary alone. It's been fun so far!

How it all began..

Our pregnancy journey began February 14, 2008. I know- Valentine's Day! We were both thrilled! I had been using a fertility monitor, counting days, and charting temperatures to optimize our chances of conception. Now that I write all of that it seems like I was a little obsessed. :) Oh well. Thanks to my obsessive tendencies I knew that I should be able to take an early pregnancy test on Valentine's Day. I had previously developed an elaborate plan in my head about how I would tell Josh if we were indeed pregnant. It involved a romantic dinner and decorated cake. Strangely as soon as I read the word "pregnant" on my testing stick the plans flew out the window. I ran frantically from my bathroom to Josh's and screamed, "Happy Valentine's Day we're pregnant!!" Classic. Big elaborate deal or not- the end result was the same- euphoria! Our first MD appointment 3/13/08 confirmed our pregnancy by ultrasound. We even saw the heartbeat! Then 4/14/08 we saw the MD and heard the precious heartbeat! We had our 20 week ultrasound 6/6/08 and learned that we were having a perfect baby girl! We decided to name her Claire Elizabeth.

Welcome

Welcome to my blog! I am sure to be only member of my immediate family posting here- as baby Claire is still in utero, and Josh is way too occupied with nuclear fission, NASA, and photovoltaics to drop any lines on this blog. I will post on their behalves- with or without their permission. :) Just kidding. I want this blog to be a place for people to check in on our family and see what is happening! I also plan to post deals that I get as a new and enthusiastic bargain shopper. I am learning to clip coupons, go CVS-ing and only buy what we really need. It is a challenge that I am enjoying, embracing, and occasionally bragging about. Some of these outrageous deals you just have to share! Josh is really in favor of my new-found frugality- he even went out to get my sunday paper this week so that I could clip coupons! I hope that you enjoy this blog and feel free to add comments where you please!