Psst! I've got a secret!

Okay, you may have attributed my silence on the web all to busy mom stuff. But I've got to tell you what is taking up all my spare minutes right now. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a cheapo about a lot of things. Why did none of you introduce me to the art of the coupon? Seriously, looking back I think I was an obvious candidate. Think what could have been clipped and saved if I'd started on this obsessive road years ago. I've been doing it for a couple of months now I think, and it's hilarious how giddy I can get about it all. For instance, take the picture below. On this particular Saturday morning, Dan and I made a couple of stops (Target and Kroger, and got everything pictured for $30 and change. If you were to look closely, you'd see that there are 32 items there, and some are bigger ticket items, like 4 jars of peanut butter, cheese, 3 lbs of beef, bags of apples, etc. It's absolutely fascinating to see what you can get for ultra cheap and free. We've got Pepperidge Farm Goldfish coming out our ears because we hit a big sale where we could get them for $.50 each, and then we had COUPONS, so they were FREE! I've taken the goal of trying for a percentage savings of greater than 50% everytime I shop. With a little planning I usually hit around 57%, but on my trip to Publix two days ago I hit a new record of just over 70%! See what I mean? I'm totally obsessed. And don't get me started on what you can get for free if you're willing to jump some rebate hoops. I don't think I'll have to buy toothpaste or toothbrushes for a long time. Anyway, I thought I'd hang out a little dirty laundry today so you know what I'm really up to.

It was bound to happen...

Here's what we have to show from our first little urgent care trip with Harrison. Luckily we didn't even need stiches--just some super glue for skin. All-in-all, it was pretty pleasant for what it could have been. The gash is a result of a fall off of his Big John tractor that he thought would be fun to ride downhill.


We visited the fire station with a friend, Camden, last week. Fire men are so nice. They showed us all around, gave us hats and badges, let us sit in the truck, and took pictures with us. It was either a stroke of luck or a sign of my lax parenting that Harrison is sporting yellow rain boots that look appropriate with his hat. They were not donned especially for the occasion.

Truman is crawling everywhere and is obviously happy about it. The kid cracks me up.

Rocky's been having to pay the price for Tru's early mobility.

We're really loving the weather and enjoying Tennessee in the spring. So fantastic!

All part of the plan

The real reason I wait so long between posts is that then I have exciting impressive news to report when I come back. Such as:

--We're potty trained. For real, I think. All I can really say about it is that Harrison has proven to me how very intelligent he is, and it was really easy once he was ready.
--Tru is army crawling and sittying up! In that order. The sitting up "for real" just happened a couple of days ago, after he was 7 months old, but that kid has been doing an impressive army crawl for a while now. I've had to get the baby gate back out, but that's a fair trade because I caught him spit-shining my floor today. I train 'em early.
--Truman is also eating a ton. His favorites to date are unmashed banana, peas, raw ground pear, and um, whole french fries. I know, the mom I used to be just shuddered, but the new hey-I'm-doing-good-to-remember-both-their-names mom that I am now thinks it makes eating out SO much easier.

Here are a few of my favorites that have popped out of H-man's mouth lately:

"The sun is happy today!" (Spoken on our first sunny warm day after a cold snap.)
"My hand is lonely." (Said when he wants Dan or I to hold his hand in the car.)
"You're the best mommy EVER!" (I swear, I don't know where that one came from, but it wasn't coached. I'll also admit that I was a total sucker for it, and he says it a lot now, just to butter me up. I'll take what I can get.)
"I fall in my pee, Mommy." (Okay, maybe that one's not as cute as the others, but if you had the mental image of what he looked like when he was saying it like I do, then you'd be laughing pretty hard.)

Anyway, we're filling our days with parks and picnics, walks and sunshine. Life is good.