I like to sleep...

...just not at the "normal" times. I am a night-owl. I hate going to bed early and I define early as anytime before 1 am. That said, I am NOT a morning person. I hate to get out of bed early so it's a real stretch for me to get the kids up & to school/church at an early hour.

My ideal hours for sleeping? 3 am - 10 am.

I wish I could get the rest of the world on board. LOL!

Snowgirl

We got some more snow today and the kids did the one thing they had yet to do the other 2 times we've had snow this season - make a snowman (or snowgirl as Morgan insists on calling it because of the hat & scarf).

Here are a few pics. Don't know what Owen was doing in that one picture. We used buckets because the snow wouldn't really pack into a ball easily so it's a rectangle snow"girl"

Why the return to blogging??

I decided to start my New Year's resolutions in February...

Resolution #1 - stop procrastinating (LOL)

Valentine Cards Take 3

Well, I'm sure you can figure out who comes next - right? Drew sat down to work on his Valentine's Day cards tonight. He wanted to do what Morgan did with the Heart Shaped Sweet Treat Cups from Stampin' Up. They are little containers that stick to your paper that you can put things in. We put little conversation hearts in them. I felt kind of funny having my SON make heart shaped flowers but that's what the kid wanted to do. He did a great job & had fun doing it.

Valentine Cards - Take 2

This morning Owen & I sat down to make his Valentine's cards. It was so much fun and he did such a good job. Here are some pictures...

Valentine Cards

Morgan has been looking forward to getting together with her friend, Elizabeth, to make Valentine cards for some time now. The stuff finally came in so today was the day.

Here are a few pics. I'll post the final product when we put the ribbon on them.

The Power of an Apology

Never underestimate the power of the two little words, "I'm sorry." They can cause big change and go a long way to mending hearts. The lack of those words can sometimes cause huge rifts and broken hearts.

Apologizing hasn't always come easy for me. When I was younger I absolutely HATED to swallow my pride and apologize. It was like pulling teeth and I didn't do it nearly enough. I was right. Period. Even if I was wrong, I was "right".

Life doesn't work like this.

One things I've been very purposeful about over the past 10-15 years is to apologize when I've made a mistake or hurt someones feelings. It isn't always easy but it is necessary. I have apologized numerous times to my children when I have responded to them in a way I shouldn't or done something wrong, I think it teaches them a good lesson about life. I've apologized to my friends when I've stepped across the line and I've even apologized for things that I really didn't need to just to keep the peace.

I find it very sad when we let our selfish need to be "right" (even when we may be wrong) and our need to keep our pride in tact keep us from saying the two words that would do more to fix a situation than anything.

Many friendships are lost because of an inability to look beyond ourselves and truly care about another person enough to apologize.

The thing I hope you take away from this... don't let pride keep you from humbling yourself and apologizing when you've made a mistake. And, on the flip side, if someone apologizes to you, don't let your pride keep you from accepting the apology.

A girl can never have too many shoes...

Morgan decided to clean up her closet the other day and she organized her shoes. You can see a picture below of some of her shoes. Yes, I said "some". The girl has 38 pairs of shoes! Oh my!!

Now, before you think that Mom & Dad have gone overboard, most of those shoes have been gotten at SUPER DISCOUNT and probably 10-12 pairs are in a size bigger than she currently wears. Last week I got her 5 pairs of shoes for $1 each! The week before that Eric bought her 4-5 pair for CHEAP on sears.com. We know she loves shoes, and so we've been pretty good at getting a fantastic deal but I had no idea she had this many.

Guess she's good for a while, what do you think?

Catching up - Fall 09

Okay, so I got a bit behind on my posting. I tend to stay over at Facebook and forget about this blog (not that many read it, it's not all that interesting).

In an attempt to catch-up, here are a few pics from a friend's house. Fall is my absolute favorite time of the year and I really had wanted to get pics of all three kiddos in the beautiful leaves. I was only able to get Owen. Here are a few pics with my friend Jennifer & her son, Collin.

I'm partly to blame, I admit it.

Well, I hate to admit this but I'm partly to blame for the new coupon policy change at Publix - one of those who took advantage of the crazy deal on Planter's Trail Mix last week w/the Food Lion coupon (it made it free with $1.00 overage).

Now, my intentions weren't necessarily bad - I bought a bunch of trail mix to donate to our school because we are on limited funds and needed some food options for cheap. That said, regardless, the fact that Publix will take competitor's coupons is a blessing and it shouldn't be taken advantage of. I was convicted of that after my last transaction and I feel badly that I made a bad choice.

There are consequences...

Publix has changed their coupon policy in regards to competitor coupons. They will only take ONE competitor coupon per item, per customer, per day. No more printing off multiple coupons and using them. Apparently there were a couple of people who tried to use 90 Food Lion coupons in one transaction for Trail Mix (getting $90 in overage). Another tried using 64 coupons in one transaction. NEITHER ONE WAS ME - I'm just making that clear. The most I used was 15 which is WAY TOO MANY, I know. I'm sorry!


For more on the corporate coupon policy change - read THIS blog here.

Owen's 1st day of preschool

Another milestone in our family - Owen started preschool! He goes on Tuesday & Thursday and LOVES it. He has a wonderful teacher who was also one of Drew's teachers when he was in preschool. We keep asking him his favorite part of school and he always says "eating". Too funny!

Drew's 1st Baseball Game - Fall 09

Drew is playing his 4th baseball season and the improvements this season are huge. He is hitting off the pitcher every time, he is hitting 1st in the batting order instead of last, he is playing at 3rd base instead of in the outfield. He's doing awesome!

Here are a few pictures:

Morgan's 1st Soccer Game - Fall 09

This is Morgan's 4th soccer season and she is doing great! She has found a sport that she really enjoys and is pretty good at it as well.

She scored SIX goals today out of the 7 that her team scored! Here are some pics:




I think her body position in this photo is crazy!

Owen plays baseball

They have a great program for young kids here called Smart Start. It's a baseball program designed to teach the younger kids the fundamentals of baseball and just get them exposed to the game. It meets on Saturday mornings for 1 hour only.

I still can't believe my youngest baby is old enough to play a sport. Here are some pics.




He was apparently confused and was kicking the ball around instead of picking it up and throwing it. You picked BASEBALL, not SOCCER Owen!

Publix shop

So, I didn't take a picture but I had a good shop at Publix today! Lots of great deals.

Here's what I got (all for $53.75 - tax included)

6 - Chex Mix Bars
1 - Glade Candle (2 oz) - FREE
2 - Country Crock (small size)
1 - Lime Away Cleaner
12 - Planters Trail Mix (GREAT deal! $1 money maker on each pack)
2 - Keebler Chocolate Chip Cookies
4 - Rotini Healthy Harvest Pasta
9 - Pillsbury Toaster Strudel
7 - Green Giant Frozen Vegetables - FREE
3 - Bounce Dryer Bars (2 months)
4 - Tide Stain Release Tablets - $ .26 money maker on each pack
2 - Tide HE Detergent (50 oz)
2 - Healthy Choice Steamer Meals
1 - Bertolli Olive Oil
1 - Goldfish - Pretzel
1 - Goldfish - Cheddar
14 - General Mills Cereal (Cookie Crisp, Lucky Charms, Kix) - Most were FREE
1 - Goodnights (the most expensive thing I bought!)
1 - Charmin Toilet Paper - 6 double rolls
1 - loaf of bread
1 - bag of flour
2 - Kraft Shredded Cheese (larger bag)
1.61 lbs of Granny Smith apples
1.82 lbs of Fuji apples
2.18 lbs of grapes

Getting paid to shop!

Okay, I went to Target today, list in hand, to take advantage of several deals and freebies.

I got all this:







and Target PAID ME $ .63 to buy it! Not pictured are 2 Tostitos Salsas as well. This was three transactions. The only reason they paid me was because I was talking to the lady behind me in line and forgot to use my free candle & $1.00 off tide (travel size - made them free) coupons. When those were entered I was refunded more than I paid for all three transactions by $ .63! I did tell the cashier but she said it was fine.

CRAZY!

Gravity

I am sitting here working on a project for PTO and watching a taped So You Think You Can Dance that is highlighting past performances. I was struck by one in particular. It's trying to show the hold that addiction has over people and I couldn't help thinking of how sin can get ahold of us. It's a pretty good picture of that.

Take a watch:

Now that's some savings...

As I mentioned in recent posts, I have started doing the whole coupon clipping thing. Harris Teeter is a grocery store not too far away and they started tripling coupons up to $ .99 this week. The Kroger stores around HT started tripling coupons too. Add that to their Mega Event ($5.00 off your bill when you buy 10 participating items) and you can come away with some GREAT deals.

I didn't take a picture of my first trip to Kroger, but here are some pictures of my second trip.

Here's what 80% savings and a total of $38 (tax included) will get you with the right coupons:

First day of school (Morgan & Drew)

What a big week this has been in the Mueller household. On Wednesday Morgan had her first full day of 2nd grade and today, Drew had his first day of Kindergarten.

Morgan has always loved school. Since Kindergarten she ends each year crying because she doesn't want it to end. I'm so thankful that she loves school and loves to learn, I hope that doesn't change. I still can't believe my baby is in 2nd grade though - it seems like just yesterday we were doing the Kindergarten phase-in with her. The pictures below also include Morgan's good friend, Sarah, who comes home with us each day.

Drew is starting Kindergarten this year and he is blessed to have the same teacher that Morgan had. We LOVE her and are so excited that she'll be Drew's teacher too. Up until this morning Drew was super excited to start Kindergarten and be a "big kid" like his sister. This morning he was excited but that was really tempered by his nerves. I don't see him anxious or nervous very often but as we approached school and parked, he got really quiet. It was funny because we prayed in the car on the way to school and he kept his eyes closed the whole time and was concentrating very, very hard - this is a bit unusual for him. LOL. We got in and he had to sit at a cafeteria table with his teacher and a few fellow students before walking down to his classroom. Our county does a phase-in period for Kindergarten students so for the next 3 school days only 1/3 of the class goes for 1/2 the day. The next 2 school days 1/2 the class comes for the entire day before they all start a regular schedule together next Friday. I think it was good for him to only be there with 4 other students for his first day.

Now we just have one more kid to get first-day-of-school-pictures for! Owen will be starting preschool in September on Tues & Thurs. He is very excited and doesn't quite understand why he can't go to school just yet.