What a Steal!

Today I went to Wal-Mart (or, as they say our here "The Wal-Marts") with some coupons.

I should preface this by saying that I always have coupons with me. When they come in the mail I put the ones I want in the big pocket of my diaper bag so they are always with me, should I remember that I put them there.

Today, after subjecting my children to the dressing room and other random boring things. I made them sit in the formula isle with me while I went through my coupons. You know... the really great ones that the formula companies send you right at the beginning of your baby's life and then you only get the cheap piddly ones after that.

Well, today I SCORED on the "saving money" front.

I bought ALL of this... worth $88.32

for only

$10.32!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

There may be some of you out there thinking... "But, Catherine. You don't bottle feed your baby." And, yes, while this is true, it never hurts to have a back-up plan. And, when my children do wean themselves (between 5-10 months of age) I'll already have this great formula supply on hand to supplement her with!

ROCK ON!!!

Father's Day 2009

So, for Father's Day this year... as I've told you before, we went all out!

This morning we had Steve open up the kid's cards first. They all got him a cute card about how cool he is. And this year, Noah got him a card all by himself. It was REALLY funny! It had a picture of a Boston Terrier in the front with a surprised look in it's face and it read,

"For Father's Day this year I made you a gift all by myself!"

Then you open it up and it says,

"It's out in the yard!"

I thought it was pretty funny, but the thing that cracked me up the most was that Noah got it!

Awww..... my little boy is growing up!

(sniff... such a proud moment for a Mommy)

Then Steve opened his gift from the kids. (I know you MUST be diggin' the cool ties that he was sporting. The kids made them for him at a Primary activity the previous day. He actually wore them to church. Such a good Daddy!)

It was an 8x8 hardback book (20 pages) from Shutterfly that I made with the "Daddy-o" backgroud and had different pictures of Steve with his kids on each page with little messages under each. It was pretty cool and Steve really liked it.

After church Steve came home to a "Special Dinner."

Do you remember that blog entry a couple of entries ago with the "hamburger cupcake?"

Well... I made it for Steve and the kids had a great time bringing it in to him as if it were his special meal.

Steve was pretty impressed. He even asked me how many of the red checkerboard containers I had to buy to do that "meal" for him. He was surprised to hear that I made them. Actually, I think he was VERY impressed. (Maybe even relieved that I didn't buy them.)

Then the real meal was brought out.

When I ask Steve what he wants for a special meal there are usually two things that he mentions. One we call "The Cheesy Pepper Meal" and the other is "The Pepperoni Pasta."

Since he got the Cheesy on for his birthday, I decided that the Pepperoni one was the one. Mainly because it's a lot easier to make than the other one is. A LOT.

When we have these special dinners I bring out the good China as well as the wine glasses. The boys always act "fancy" when I do. It's pretty funny when they get going.

Someday they are going to REALLY hate these pictures!

Then came time to open up the rest of his gifts. (Don't you love that grown-up wrapping paper?! Nothing says, "I see you as such a wonderful adult with great grown-up qualities, like the movie Cars wrapping paper!)

His first gift was this:

He really liked this gift! (He thought it was the "big gift" I was referring to earlier in my blog)

The next gift was his annual Father's Day Calendar!

He thought he wan't getting one this year because he got that cool Father's Day book instead. However, Shutterfly had sent me a coupon for a FREE picture book. All I had to do was pay shipping, so he got BOTH!!!

You remember the cool Elvis pictures I posted earlier this year of Steve being Elvis for a church activity?

Well, I had "The King" sign the cover of this calendar for me! (Just kidding! It was Steve's idea to pretend like he was signing it. Too funny!)

He was relieved to see that he still got his precious calendar and I really like making it for him! He gets a different picture of his family every month to look at at work and this year I found this website that actually allowed me to put pictures in the dates themselves. So, for example, there is a picture of me on July 15th! My birthday! Pretty cool!

NOW FOR THE GRAND FINALE!!!!!!

The BIG present was in the Father's Day Card I bought for him. I gave it to him last and I think he just thought it was a card until I insisted that the kids not stand in front of me while he opened it up so I could take pictures of him.

When he opened the card... THIS is what he saw!!!!

Two tickets to see AEROSMITH AND ZZ TOP in concert next month!!!!!!!

He got this huge grin on his face and said, "No way... these are fake."

(Well, to tell the truth, they are fake. I had to scan an old ticket that was lying around the house and then edit in the concert info and then print them.)

So, I said, "That's only because the real ones won't be here for another couple of weeks!"

I love the HUGE grin he got on his face.

PRICELESS!!!

What a GREAT Father's Day!!!

(Now I should probably call my Dad...)

Bad News!

The contract fell through on our house

I guess the people who put the contract on it decided that they really weren't ready to own a house and decided that they wanted to rent instead.

I say... "Go ahead and waste your money. But I would much rather own due to the rate of return you get on your investment. But, to each their own."

So, hopefully we'll get another bite soon.

We REALLY would like to go and live with Steve again.

Yes, he left two weeks ago and, while we do see him on weekends, it's just not the same as seeing him every day. Olivia sure misses him a lot!

My New Favorite Website!

Thanks to my friend, Janelle Ehat,

I spent a good chunck of my day viewing

my new favorite web site!!!

Bakerella is her name and

awesomeness is her game!!!

This lady has soooo many cute baking ideas

and it's just soooooo much fun to read her posts.

Whether or not she's actually baking.

So... thanks Janelle for the Head's-up on this site.

Or, maybe I should say,
"Keep your awesome websites to yourself!

Now I'm going to spend all of my time here!"

But, seriously... thanks!

It's awesome and hopefully I'll give this cute

Father's Day treat a try!

(Shhhh.... don't tell him!)

Fabulous!

Here is a picture of my four sweet children!

Yes, I did say "FOUR"!!!

They are all pretty wonderful!

Surprise Gifts!

Steve is the BEST father!

Sometimes his parenting skills make me really jealous.

However, I wouldn't trade it for the world. He's just amazing!

So... for Father's Day this year, I got him a REALLY great gift and I'm fittin' to burst I want to tell him so bad!

I'm not going to tell him, of course, but I felt like blogging that I had a great gift would help relieve the pressure of having to keep it in for another 12 days.

Wish me luck!

Fixin' to go...

We accepted an offer on our house today!

I went online (finally) to see what our listing looked like and here it is!

So, barring any unforseen incidents, we'll be moving around the first of July.

Very bittersweet.

Y'all come back now... ya hear?!

So, as a ploy to try to entice you to come visit me in Abilene, I give without any further ado...

TOP TEN THINGS YA GOTTA DO IN ABILENE!!!

Find adventure at Frontier Texas!

Feed the giraffes at the Abilene Zoo!

Bite into a juicy Rib-eye steak!

Be amazed at The Grace Museum!

Catch a star at the Paramount Theatre!

Step back into time at Buffalo Gap Historic Village!



See artists in action at The Center for Contemporary Arts!

Book time for the National Center for Children's Illustrated Literature!



Shop, shop, shop til you drop!

Review WWII at the 12th Armored Division Memorial Museum!

So, there should be something for everyone there.

If none of them appeal to you, how about this one:

Come see the Hardy's, whether old or new!

Always entertaining!!!

See y'all there!!!

Change of Plans

So... you know how I said a while back that we were moving to Arlington where Steve was going to start a new job mid May?

Weeeelllllll.... That job was contracting with GM who, as you should know by now, is experiencing some difficulties. Plants are closing and bankruptcy... GM is in the crapper. A week or so after we accepted the offer (but before we actually started) the GM plant in Arlington announced that, rather than shutting down for the normal two weeks in the summer to get ready for the new line of 2010 vehicles... they would be shutting down for 9 weeks!!!

Ummmm.... so are we moving from one closed plant to another just to find ourselves in the same boat we're in now, six months from now?!?

So, before Steve actually started this GM job, we got another job offer from this company called Tetra Tech which contracts engineers to do various jobs all over our great country. This job was based in Abliene, TX (West Texas) at Dyess Air Force Base.

Well, we ended up taking this job instead. We felt it was a better choice for us.

Surprise!!!