It's Cereal Time!

My little Declan turned 5months on Monday. I can't believe how the months have flown by! I look at our small couch and remember when we brought him home from the hospital and I put the carseat on that couch and thought it myself "Am I ready to do this?" Some days are better than others and I'm better adjusted to taking care of 2 kids than other days. He is such a joy to have in our family, in all of his stinker ways. I am continually in awe at how much he loves Corin. He loves watching Corin and smiling at him. Corin can make him laugh by far more than anyone can; Corin made Declan laugh for very first time. He gets distracted easily when he is eating a bottle because he hears Corin's voice and wants to look around for him. He gets SO excited, kicking his legs and wiggling when he hears and sees Corin.

When I was at Target I picked up some Gerber rice cereal to start him on. I know most of you have already started your babies before they turned 5months, but this is just what I do. My doctor has always recommended to start rice cereal when they are 4-6months, so I just take the middle. Mornings get a little crazy, so I decided with Declan we'd do it in the evening, so last night was our first time. We've had the high chair out for a few weeks and he loves to sit in it and play with his toy.

This is an old (8/6) picture of Declan enjoying playing with his toy in his high chair

He loves to hit it and watch it go around.

First bite! I love the faces!

"What have you given me Mom?"

But as he ate more and more, he seemed to like it.

LOVE this face!! He would pucker up and start sucking what he had in his mouth down.

He smiley the whole time!

Lil Artist

I LOVE this time of year, when back to school items are cheap! I LOVE school supplies! I'm a bit of a snob though, I will only buy Crayola crayons, markers and colored pencils, they are just the best by far. Maybe that is another reason I love back to school time because Crayola is cheap and I can stock up! When my boys start to school for their own personal school supplies they will get the Crayola brand, but the supplies for the art room or class room I'll go cheap brand.
So, because of this when we were at Target today I went to the Back to School section and we picked up some markers and paints. Corin was VERY excited to get some paints. I realized though that I need to just chill out if he is mixing the colors and not washing the brush inbetween colors, he doesn't care, but he did pretty well at remembering.

Here is his first painting.

Here is painting #2.

I was feeding Declan so I wasn't able to get pictures,

but he was "blending" colors with his hands!

Oh, my child, can never stay clean!

Arvada 50 Year Jubilee

The Arvada Colorado Stake has been established for 5o years(well more like the Church as been in Arvada, since things have changed) so what better way to celebrate than with a Jubilee!

What an amazing, spiritual weekend it was!

I am SO glad we were able to be apart of this historic event! Professional pictures on a tractor.

Enjoying a chocolate chip cookie in the grass. He was SO chocolatey since it was hot and the chocolate chips were getting soft, oh well. He LOVED every bite!

Shooting rubber duckies with a water gun

Then he got to enjoy a sucker for shooting down the ducks.Waiting in line for our food. Corin was telling me "NO pictures" so of course I took one anyway.

Declan taking a little snooze.


Corin FINALLY got to go into the bouncing castle, he wanted to do that ALL day, but was impatient to wait in line. We got in and he was VERY happy. He did a great job getting out when his turn us over.

A Handcart ride. Abbie Speed (one of my Beehives) and Noah Justus are looking that the camera. It was a SL Ward ride!
Ohhh....I remember going on the Trek in 1998 and pulling one of those....

Our Missionaries (Elder Beil and Elder Finn) along with boys from our Ward (TJ Dorny) pulling the handcart.

I didn't get picturesof all the booths they had, mostly because Corin just wanted to run around in the grass. He did th nailing with Shane, but I was under the Quilt booth tent chatting with some friends and getting Declan cooled down, he was hot and sweaty and needed to be in the shade. He did the seeing how fast you could throw (unfortunately his didn't register) and Shane only got to 38mph, guess he shouldn't aspire to play MLB. The quilt they did is going to be a great keepsake for the Stake. Everyone got to sign it and then the kids traced their hands on it. We did both Corin's and Declan's hands!

There was entertainment as well at the Fair that some of my Beehive girls were apart of. They have amazing talent in clogging. Shaylee Roberts

Claire Heeb

I LOVE my calling being the Beehive Advisor! I have a group of amazing girls that I have the honour to teaching every Sunday.

Along with this Country Fair they had a Video Presentation and a Musical at Arvada West HS. We went on Thursday night. It was great! Quite a few people and youth from our ward were in it. Unfortunately they wouldn't allow pictures because of copyright issues. They did music from the past 5 decades. The funniest part was "Thriller", Ian Griffey, a tall, skinny, redheaded, white boy (that is a direct quote from his mom, Kelly who is Corin's nursery teacher and he ADORES her) played Michael Jackson. He did a fantastic job lip-singing to it and had ALL the moves!
The fireside on Sunday was great as well, all previous stake presidents spoke about things that happened while they were in that calling. It was wonderful to see friends who used to be in the ward. I was so glad that people made it an important event in their lives to travel from where they live now to come celebrate the Jubilee. It was a wonderful, spiritual experience to be apart of.

I will be 78yrs old when the next one comes around! And my boys could possibly be grandparents!

Eatible Play Doh

Today I thought it would be fun to do play-doh, but not just the ordinary kind, but the eatible kind! This was partly do to not wanting Corin to use my cookie cutters on regular play-doh. They aren't super expensive, but they are fairly decent and even though I use them only a few times a year around holidays I didn't want them exposed to regular play-doh, so eatible play-doh was the best option. I know, I'm crazy, but oh well.

I think he was most excited that he could eat it.

I gave him some raisins, sprinkles and mini marshmellows (they are dehydrated and made to o in hot chocolate. Grandma Norberg sent them to us one year with our Christmas check.)

It's like snack time and play time all in one!

Declan enjoyed watching Corin.

My WAGS Haul!

So today was my first time making a major trip to Wags (Walgreens) for Register Rewards. I haven't done it because there was nothing I needed and it seemed that it was only on toothpaste which I have plenty of thanks to Shanna when she came out in November. There is also another reason why I haven't gone to Wags, even though I really should. First, I can't find anything and second, it seems that all the ladies that work there are CRAZY! Last night the lady checking me out was totally TMI! Okay, so maybe the crazy ladies only work at night because when I went this late morning the manager was really nice.

So, here are all my many transactions, how did I do?

LAST NIGHT
Transaction 1:
Vitamin Shampoo: $3.99-SALE (reg. $6.99)
Total paid: $4.33
got back a $4RR

Transaction 2:
Vitamin Conditioner: $3.99-SALE (reg. $6.99)
Total paid $4.33
got back a $4RR

Transaction 3:
8 jars Ragu pasta sauce: 2/$4
4 boxes Jell-O: 3/$3 (had to pay $1.19 for 1)
Dawn soup-.99

4MFGC 2/$1 coupons on Ragu (got off a link from Hip2Save, they were in Spanish, but they took them)
WAG coupon from ad for 2/$1 Jell-O
MFGC 3/$1 Jell-O
MFGC .50 Dawn soup
$4RR (for some reason it wouldn't take the other one I had)
Total paid: $10.35
got back $10RR on the Ragu (buy 8 participating Unilever products get $10RR)

TODAY
10 individual transaction for the Vitamin Shampoo and Conditioner
paid $4.33 for each
got back $4RR on each

Transaction 11:
2 Dial Body Wash $5.99 each-BOGO
8 Skippy Peanut Butters 2/$4

BOGO $5.99
MFGC 2/$1 Dial
5 $4RR
Total paid: $2.20
got back $10RR (part of Unilever 8 items for $10RR)

Transaction 12:
8 Ragu pasta sauce 2/$4

4MFGC 2/$1
(computer wouldn't take any RR and manager didn't even know why)
Total paid: $12.70
got back $10RR

Transaction 13:
Benadryl anti-itch gel $6.49reg
Tylenol Allergy Multi-Sympton 7.99reg

$1 off MFGC for each item
Total paid $13.70
got back $5RR
(should have added in a small item to be able to use another RR, but didn't remember it. I will for next time. I give myself a little break since it was my first time. I'm learning as I go.)

Transaction 14:
2 Maybelline Great Lash Mascara 2/$8

$4RR
$1.76 off-50% off Maybelline products
Total paid $2.77
got back a RR for a FREE Maybelline mascara up to $4.79

Transaction 15:
Garnier Fructis Dryness Hair Treatment $3.99 SALE (think reg. is about $6.99 or more)
M&Ms .50 (now I remembered to add in a small item, well the manager helped. She was ringing me up. She said that the computer would only print out the RR if I didn't use a $4RR and I wanted my RR plus to use one so I added the M&Ms. Some other Garnier Fructis products are on RR as well. I remember seeing different aersol hairsprays.)

$4RR
Total paid .85
got back a $2RR
(I think this was my favorite transaction of the day. Maybe I'll go back for more..I will need Dryness hair treatments especially when winter hits)

Transaction 16:
2 .5oz Neosporin $5.99 each
M&Ms .50

2MFGC $1 off Neosporin
$10RR
Total paid: $1.51
got back a $4RR

I added up the Total Savings from the bottom of the receipts and it came out to be $130.43
I have $47 of RR coupons left!! Plus the FREE mascara up to $4.79.
I put $96.04 on my card, but I have basically $47 to spend again at Walgreens. (Think I added everything up correctly, I do have a wiggly, crabby baby on my lap) Ohh...the possiblities on what to get seem endless. I'll have to look to see what I actually need. Since I have so many I could actually get some reg. priced items that I want. I wish I could have used more RR on the purchases that I made, so what actually went on my bank card would have been less, but no total was over $15. I'll remember for next time to add little cheap things into some of the transactions so I will have a better chance of the computer taking my RR.



Shanna and Alisa: need anything? I know your WAGS in Utah get picked over quick. I can start making you boxes of stuff =0)

Discovery

Declan has discovered his tongue.

He loves to chew on it!

Finger Painting

I'm SO glad that the rain and gloomy weather is gone so we could go outside today! I can't believe that I was cold in JULY!! Corin's friend Hannah came over to play for a couple hours. It was a bit breezy, but they didn't care. They played with the hose and put a little water in the pool and had a great time just running around after each other playing whatever their little imaginations could come up with. They had to leave so we didn't get to do fingerpainting, so Corin did it on his own. I made fingerpaints, just the primary colors so we could mix them to make the secondary. (LOVE finding recipes for those sorts of things, makes it SO much cheaper than actually buying them!)

His first picture he accidently sat in so this is his second picture where we worked together on color mixing for a while and then he did it on his own and painted.

Here is the recipe I used if you are interest. Next time I'm going to try one that I found that calls for cornstarch instead to see the difference.

2 cups flour, 2 teaspoons salt, 2 1/2 cups cold water, 2 cups boiling water, Food Coloring (til you reached the desired color)

Mix 2 cups flour with 2 teaspoons salt. Add 2 1/2 cups cold water. Stiruntil smooth. Gradually add this mixture to 2 cups boiling water. Boil until smooth and thick. Add food coloring, then stir until smooth.

I took it off the stove, seperated it into 3 bowls and then mixed in the food coloring.