This is how you know you're a KRAZY coupon lady...

This post will be short.. well, short for me. Most of my posts are paragraph after paragraph, page after page, lifetime after lifetime, but this one is short, sweet, and to the point. It's about couponing.. one of my favorite hobbies that sometimes tires me out just thinking about it. Tonight was one of those nights. I did go couponing tonight, but maybe it was one of the crazier things I've done lately.
Here's a little background into my night tonight: Jackson and I have agreed to watch our friends' little boy while they take a scuba diving class Monday nights this semester from 6:00 to 9:00. Fun, right? We were glad to help out, because they're the ones that watch Addy when I'm at work so it's nice to swap babysitting hours. Well, it was Orian's first time with a babysitter, and he did GREAT!.. for about the first 15 minutes... then all of the sudden for a mystery reason he just started crying. Addy came over to him, saw that he was crying, and gave him some nice pats on the back. She's so sweet. She then looked at him again, sees that he's still crying after her best efforts to comfort him, promptly sticks out her bottom lip and SHE starts to cry. Oh brother.
After a few minutes Orian stops crying, but then he looks over and sees Addy crying now, so he starts crying again. Addy would stop crying, look over and see Orian crying and then she would cry again. And so it went.. for the better part of 2 hours. That's a lot of crying. Trust me. Jackson tried to help out as best he could but he was speedily trying to finish his homework, so we tried to just leave him alone. Finally, after 2 hours and me trying EVERYTHING to calm this boy down, Jackson found a good stopping place and took Orian to the basement with him. This was so helpful because it was time for me to give Addy her bath and get her to bed so I could go couponing (although I'm quite tired by this point.)
So I get Addy in the tub and she plays for a while. Addy loves taking a bath, so I usually let her play for a while. Well, after about 5 minutes in the tub I look over and see a red-faced Addy squatting just above the water and I think, oh, no, you better not be doing what I think you're doing... She was. She pooped in the tub. Gross. Great. Another mess to clean up. About this time of course the Martineaus show back up to pick up Orian so they're knocking on the door while I'm trying to wisk her out of the tub, rinse her off, calm her down because she's quite upset her bath time was interrupted, and run off to answer the door.
Orian had worn himself out and was sleeping finally (props to Jackson) so the Martineaus left with Orian and we were left cleaning out and bleaching the tub and trying to get a very tired Addy off to bed.
Finally we're finished. It's about 9:30 and I am EX-HAU-STED. I would so desperately love to have just crawled into bed right then. But then, alas! I have this thought: Oh, no, I have a $5.00 catalina that expires tonight! (a catalina is a little coupon that works like cash you can get from buying certain things in a sale.. so a $5.00 catalina is basically like a $5.00 bill that I can use at Albertsons.. coupon lingo) I then think: oh, it's only $5.00. I'm so tired! Then I think: It's $5.00!! That's like just throwing away $5.00 bill! Unacceptable. Especially to a couponer.
So... instead of crawling into bed, I wait until Addy falls asleep and head off to Albertsons, dead tired and with a headache to use my $5.00 catalina. Was it worth it? You tell me.

The picture is blurry.. sorry. It was taken from Jackson's cell phone because I couldn't find our camera.
I bought:
6 Juicy Juice 8-pack boxes
5 Lysol Disinfectant Wipes
1 Lysol 4 in 1 All purpose cleaner with bleach
3 Lysol Toilet bowl cleaners
1 DRAINO cleaner

GRAND OUT-OF-POCKET TOTAL: $1.88 (this is where you "oooh" and "ahhhh")
Plus, I got another $1.00 catalina that I can use on my next shopping trip!
Everything was bought with coupons with the exception of the DRAINO that we needed for our bathroom sink. I basically just paid tax for everything. This is why couponing is the best ever. I save so much money, and now I have a bunch of cleaning supplies and I love these little juice boxes for Addy! Yea!
I think it's exciting. You may disagree and think I'm a CRAZY coupon lady instead of a KRAZY coupon lady (by the way, check out krazycouponlady.blogspot.com. They're a great couponing site), but I like it and I love getting things for free and/or very cheap, and now I'm going to bed. Good night.

And there's even more goodness where that came from!

What the title of this post is referring to, I'm not entirely certain. BUT be that as it may, I'm quite proud of me and my update-after-only-a-couple-of-weeks-instead-of-months self. I know everyone's cheering and hooraying..even if it's only on the inside.
The Fish family (the Jackson and Sheila one, not to be confused with any other relatives)has had a busy summer. Jackson is working his heinie off doing construction work -- which is quite the opposite of being exhilarating for him, I believe -- but his work is such a blessing to us. It's hard work though...most days he is gone from sunrise (which, I'm not gonna lie, I've usually not gotten me and my gagingly refreshing morning-breath self out of bed yet) to sunset (when I'm usually quite tired and ready for bed). I am writing this and thinking that possibly Jackson may have a crazy idea that I just sleep all the time! That's all he sees me doing! I don't, hun, I promise! I even do productive things most days! :)
I think it's rather lame that he's gone so much, but since he works so hard in the summer, he usually makes enough money where he doesn't have to work during school, which is a HUMONGOUS blessing. So I have to think BIG PICTURE kinds of thoughts. Jackson spends his summer days with his buddy Kevin. They enjoy replacing/tearing off roofs in the hot summer, working on their tans with their SPF 50 sunscreen, and losing lots of weight that may or may not have been put on throughout the school year. I don't know about you, but doesn't that sound like a DREAM job??? haha... or at least a job that reminds you why you're spending thousands of dollars going to college in the first place? Perhaps the second option is the more likely. Perhaps.
As for Addy and I, we like to P-A-R-T-Y!!! haha..or something like that. Addy has certainly had a busy summer helping me learn what in our house is not baby-proof and to enjoy the joys of vacuuming. And sweeping. And making sure nothing small is EVER on the floor because she will eat them/it. She is quite a funny little girl. By now she usually knows what it is she isn't supposed to get into, but, of course, those are the things that attract her like a magnet to a... fridge. Sooooooooooo as soon as she thinks I'm not looking, she'll scurry her little bum over to the forbidden object laughing and giggling all the way. Dead giveaway. If she has reached the forbidden object without me "knowing," she will look over her shoulder at me to see if I am watching. If I am (which is just about always), she'll give me this sweet INNOCENT smile that pretty much says Oh, hi, Mom! I wasn't doing anything! Just looking around...hehe...at 13 1/2 months old, already she's such a trickster.



I know what you're thinking.. her? I can see the halo on top of her head! There's no way she would EVER disobey! It's pretty much true.. and that's one reason why I love her. She is the joy in my life, and I wouldn't trade her for the world. I just also think she's quite hilarious... She must take after her mother. hahahahah. good one.

Addy and I had a good 4th of July. Jackson's dad and uncle were in town for a week and a half, and they were on a fishing expedition, so we didn't get to see too much of them. For the 4th, Addy and I went up to Idaho Falls to spend time with my family. It was fun. My brothers are home for the summer, and so it's fun to go spend time with them just like the olden days when we were all still kids... except I'm now married and have a baby.. and they have their girlyfriends that they love to spend their time holding hands with, and one just returned from a two-year mission and the other is a Marine, and the youngest is a coming up junior in high school... other than that, it's almost the exact same! So the day before the 4th, my mom found out about a 4th of July 5K run that they do in IF! So...most of the family ran a 5K for the 4th! We even had matching shirts! (SIDENOTE: All this typing of 5K reminds me of this trial we had last year where the defendant's attorney was talking about how the defendant was an avid runner and loved to run 5Ks.. but instead of saying 5Ks, he kept getting it mixed up with 401-Ks, and so he kept telling the jurors how Mr. "Smith" loved running and loved running 401-Ks, and I thought it was quite funny...)



There's our "before" and "after" pictures. Aren't we CUTE?! But wait a minute! What is this? Oh, no! Not everyone made the journey... is probably what you're thinking. Don't fret. Everyone made it. Sorry, LauraLee, you're not in the "after" picture, because you had left to get the kids by then... in case you were worried.

The rest of the 4th was fun.. We watched a parade...

...had a BBQ...


...and Addy even got to jump on Grandma and Grandpa's trampoline with the sprinklers!

She loves water, and it was so funny to jump with her/watch her. She would hurry and crawl into the water and then sit there and blink her eyes really fast, and then she would apparently get thirsty because she'd stick out her tongue and try to figure out how to get enough water on it to get a drink. She never did figure it out. It's still a mystery.

This is kind of a random post. I don't have any more pictures, so I suppose it is time to end it, because, frankly, who wants to just read all these words I write and not see any pics? Not me, that's for sure. So the end.

Journal Writing

I've decided this blog is a lot like my journal.. first I'm stoked about it and write once a week...for about two weeks...then it becomes once every two weeks, then once a month, then here we are at three months in between postings. To make it even better, I tell myself all the time that I'm just going to start posting every Sunday and make it like my journal. Then Sunday comes and goes and...........nothing. Bummer deal. haha.. so I've decided to look through some pictures from the last three months and post about whatever I have pictures of. Fun!
So I'm starting in April. My last post was April 3. April 4 was the next day, which was my birthday!! This year I turned 22. I do have to admit something though. When I was a kid, I distinctly remember being with my mom at the doctor's office or something and a receptionist was asking how old my mom was and mom kept saying she was, like, 32 when she was actually 33 or something. The receptionist kept asking and my mom kept giving the wrong age. As a kid I just thought it was so funny that anyone could forget how old they were, because birthdays are always such a big deal. Well, guess what? I am only 22, and for some reason this year I have had the hardest time remembering if I turned 21 this year, or 22, 23... and I usually end up having to subtract the year I was born with the year it is.. coming up with the result that I am now 22 years old. Isn't that dumb? Be as it may, it is true... haha. Random tangent. Anyway, I did have a good 22nd birthday. It was actually general conference, so we spent most of the day watching conference.
That night between sessions we went out to dinner. My mom's birthday is actually the day before mine, so we went to dinner with my parents to none other than both my mom's and my FAVORITE restaurant EVER, Olive Garden. Yum. It makes my tummy growl just thinking about it. After dinner, all the boys went to the Priesthood session, and my mom and I went out and bought our cake.
We have this tradition where every year we go out and buy ourselves an ice-cream cake (mostly since our boys aren't really "bakers", and birthday cakes are especially not really their specialty) and we are allowed to eat as much of it as we want. This year's flavor was banana cream. It was divine.
Adalynn is growing up soooooooooooooooo fast. I'm wondering where my little baby went. One of her favorite things to do when we're at grandma's house is to watch her "movie". Her movie is my mom's digital picture frame.

She LOVES the pictures that have babies or small kids in it. She gets excited and will talk to the cute babies (or shout, rather), and then she'll watch patiently while the "commercials" play (a.k.a. pictures with no babies in them and just boring adults). It's so funny.

So now I'm moving into the "finished projects" stage of this post. Remember that post I did forever ago about the huge remodeling project Jackson and I had undertaken? Well, it is finished! (mostly, at least) Jackson did 98% of the work, and I mostly "supervised," which is a nice way of saying I basically helped with the demolition and that's about it. He did such a great job. Here are some finished product photos.



Nice, eh? While he was busy with his manly man construction business, I was working on a project of my own: a girly homemakery project of making Adalynn a matching bedset. I had really wanted one of these for her for a long time, but the least expensive ones I could find that I even sort of liked was at least 75 bucks! I said no way, Jose (pronounced "hoe-zae"). So I made my own. It was actually like a bajillion times easier than that dress I made Addy. It was fun. Oh, and I only spent $32 for EVERYTHING. I love thriftyness. You can judge for yourself if the finished product is worth $32 and a beginner seamstress. Personally, I think it rocks!



I made a matching crib skirt, bumpers, quilt, and curtains! Yea for hobbies!

Oh, yes, change of subject, while I was scrolling through these pictures of mine, guess what evidence I came across that I almost forgot to let the world know about? Evidence of almost vandalism. That's right, ladies and gentlemen, almost vandalism. Here's the dealeo: One day Jackson and I were inside minding our own business, just a normal night for the Fish family when all of the sudden what do we hear? A knock at the door! We open the door, and much to our surprise, here's what we find:

P.s. the roll of toilet paper says "Gotcha," just in case you can't read it... Jackson said that we got toilet papered! Really? This hasn't even happened to me since high school! Odd. I look up and our little teeny tree in the front yard is toilet papered. Observe:
I think, oh, that's cute, they just got our little tree, and, look! M&Ms! Cute. But the story does not end there, oh, no, no, no. Out of the corner of my eye I see a little flap of white flapping on the boat. Guess what? The boat's been hit! We follow the white toilet paper trial to the backyard where we find that our two very large apple trees as well as the clothes line and various other parts of the house are now decorated in white. Drats!! Right under our noses!!

So who would be capable of such an almost heinous almost crime of almost vandalism? Luckily for us, I am an almost pro-detective/ninja, and so the case has been almost solved. Good job, Mike and Kaci Watkins in your black ninja outfits, we took it all to be in good fun. Oh, and the M&Ms were good.

So that takes us through April. May is next. Really I have very few pictures from May, and they are all pretty much dealing with Trevor coming home. Trevor, my brother, has spent the last two years serving an LDS mission in the Moscow West Russia mission. He came home May 29. It was so fun! We are only 13 months apart, so we were pretty close growing up, and so it was so fun that he was going to be around again! He flew in to the Salt Lake Airport. He could have flown in to the Idaho Falls Airport, but the little hang-up is he would have had to spend the night in SLC in the airport and then fly to IF in the morning. That seemed a little silly, so we drove down to Salt Lake to go pick him up. I went with my parents and my older siblings. We had a lot of fun reminiscing and chatting on the way down.
The only downside of the trip was when we got to the Salt Lake Airport and there was a surprise waiting for us...apparently when you go to the airport to pick up a missionary, you're supposed to bring balloons, banners, creative "welcome home" dilleos and the works. Surprise! We missed the memo. So we got there and thought, uh oh, how is he going to even know we're here to pick him up? So I made a sign that said "Elder Terrill" on the back of a piece of paper my dad had of Trevor's itinerary. There. That ought to do it.

Finally he made it. He was the last one off the plane, I swear. Okay, maybe not THE last, but at least the 3rd to last or something. It took FOREVER!! We actually were a little worried that maybe he missed his connecting flight out of New York or something. Now that would have been unfortunate! Luckily for us, he is just polite and let the rest of the plane off before him... good for him.

Yea! It's good to have him home. **Oh, and update, he's already engaged to his lovely love, Kendra. They're set to be married in August. Wow, that was fast, huh? Her ring is very pretty. Also, she is very pretty, so that is a good deal. Here is a kind of bad picture of the happy couple with her eyes closed and him stuffing his face. It's the best I've got. Don't judge me.

Now it's time for the main event....Adalynn's birthday!!!! On June 16 Adalynn turned a year old! We, of course, had a party for her. We tried to keep it simple and we just had a BBQ at our house. Thanks to all my couponing, it didn't even cost us very much money! I made the cake, and, okay, here's the deal. I was trying to be creative. That was the first bad step. Anytime I try to be creative or crafty, it usually doesn't work out so hot.. haha.. anyway, I was trying to do this "ABC block cake" idea...which kind of turned out, with a few exceptions: The chocolate cake kept falling apart/just crumbling and it became a chocolate/oreo cake (since it looked more oreo-ish); and, two, the cakes didn't really turn out like "blocks" per se... more like a couple of taller than usual cakes or something...haha oh, well. At least it's the thought that counts.. right? I also made Adalynn a little mini cake for her to eat all by herself, frosting and all.


Jackson did great at grilling the burgers and everything. He's a handsome chap, don't ya think? (It's kind of a rhetorical question. You don't have to answer out loud that the answer is yes.)

And here's our birthday girl! She got some awesome presents including some cute outfits that even came with....wait for it.... hats! She LOVED the hats she got. She especially likes taking them off of her head when we try to put them on...haha..


Adalynn also got a lot of books, which she LOVES, and fun toys! She definitely got spoiled this year! Thanks so much to everyone!

Of course we have to include pictures of the cake-eating contest between Adalynn and...herself... Adalynn was so funny. At first she would take these dainty little bites and not really making a mess, and then....she must have tasted the frosting. She dug in!! Addy would grab full fistfuls of cake and frosting and just get as much as she could in her mouth at one time and then go for another bite. And another. And another. She ate and ate and ate and ate and ate and ate until you could tell she was soooooooo full, but she must have loved the cake because she would keep grabbing more like she had to keep eating. FINALLY, after much of her cake was devoured, she flipped her plate upside down as if to say get this out of my sight so I can quit eating! She's a cutie.


What a fun age Adalynn's at. It would be nice if we could make a trip to Arizona soon so that the rest of the family can see her too. We're thinking we may have time in August (gag) when it's super-duper hot. Fun! We'll see. But that's all I have for now! Congratulations on making it (if you did) to the end of this long, yet fascinating :), post!

Finally, an update!.. and a very long blog post ... or a novel, if you prefer

So I haven't even updated our blog in 6 weeks! Yikes! I seem to be getting worse and worse and blogging instead of better and better like I said I would. What a misfortune. The good news out of all of this though is that there is a reason why I haven't been very good at blogging lately, and that reason is.....(drumroll, please...) I now have some hobbies!! Yea! It's so fun. Okay, so my hobbies are kind of nerdy, but, really, I don't even care. So my first hobby that I've really started to LOVE is sewing. I am definitely not a very good sewer, but thankfully my sister-in-law, Nicole, has been soooooooooooo patient with me. Thanks, Nicole, you're the best! So here's how the sewing hobby began: One day Nicole and I went to Joanne Fabrics to look at patterns that were on sale for like $1 or $2 a piece (which is really a pretty good deal, because usually they are WAY more) Anyway, while I'm looking through this book of patterns I see the CUTEST pattern for a little dress (like Adalynn size dress). So I decide, hey, I'm just going to make Adalynn a dress.. how hard can it be? So I buy the pattern, and then I drag Nicole through the material so I know what kind of material I should get, and then I head off to Wal-Mart to buy a sewing machine. Ta da!! Beautiful, isn't it? haha.. so, anyway, I buy my $80 sewing machine (which is super cheap compared to most sewing machines, but Nicole assured me it would work out so great for a beginner like me..and it does). So I get everything that I need, and a few days later Nicole and I have a "sewing day"...or night.. I can't really remember which. Seriously, I think if I were Nicole I would have been ready to kill me by the end of the day. I had absolutely NO idea what I was doing, so seriously Nicole would tell me one step, I would do it, then I would read the directions, have no idea what they were trying to say, and I'd ask her what I was supposed to do next. She'd tell me and I'd repeat the previous steps where I'd do what she told me, try to understand the directions, not understand them, ask her, and she'd have to explain it to me... on and on... I think you get the picture..
I really only took one picture of my work-in-progress, and it is before I cut out the material. This was by far my least favorite part. After our sewing day had ended, I still was not even close to finishing the dress... I had hardly started it! But I decided, hey, why not just try to figure this out on my own? That worked out...not so well... Pretty much all of my time was taken up by me thinking I understood what I was supposed to do, doing it, and then taking out the stitches because what I did was not what I was supposed to do. Sweet.

Perseverance is the moral to this story! After lots of hard work and about four and a half weeks later, we have the finished product! To tell you the truth, I was really quite relieved that the dress still fit her... haha.. My dad was kind enough to take some pictures of Addy, so here is Adalynn and her dress in all their glory!




Cute huh? She is such a funny baby. Next I must briefly blog about my second hobby, which is................(feel free to do another drumroll, if you would like)....................................couponing!!! That's right, couponING. This is not merely clipping coupons, my friends. This is a sport! An art! Finding and clipping coupons and then finding sales on the items you have clipped coupons for and then combining your savings to make the items 1. FREE!!, 2. Close to free (aka very cheap), or 3. A money-maker (through rebates and different things)! Such a fun deal! Couponing can be slightly time consuming if you're an addict like me.. I'll try and post some of the great deals I've gotten later, but for now I don't really have pictures of everything, so it makes it not as impressive looking. Don't worry though...details are coming!!

Well, I have to say that even though I really do love my fun and perhaps slightly nerdy hobbies, there are a few somethings that I love even more: my hubby and baby! Jackson does so much for our family and I'm super impressed how he's taken on this remodeling project and just gone to town with it. He claims that he's never done most of this stuff before, but he is a natural!! We are pretty much down to the painting stage (yea, finally a light at the end of the tunnel!!)... oh, and we have to finish installing our countertops and extending our floor. Okay, that may sound like kind of a lot, but really it truly isn't. These are very minor projects compared to the huge construction project this has been. AND here's the greatest thing: Even though Jackson's super busy with school and family and remodeling and his nagging wife, he still finds the time to just be so sweet. I am very lucky to have him and I just love him to pieces!! (even when he spends the whole day talking to me in Spanish and I don't have a clue what he's even saying to me...or about me.. haha) Love ya, babe!

Adalynn. I swear she is all I ever talk about.. but I secretly love it!! Okay, I just have to say this outright: She is a super hilarious baby!! (she must take after her mother in that aspect... haha.. okay, lame attempt at a joke) She's so much fun; her personality is really starting to come out. First, the factual info, for anyone interested in hearing: Adalynn has officially cut four teeth, and a few of them were rather nightmarish to get. It was sad. She also is now such a big girl in her forward-facing carseat that her Grandma Fish gave to her. We tried to take a nice happy picture of her in her carseat to send to grandma.. not so much luck. Here's what we got:



She looks super excited, huh? Okay, not really. But like I said before, her personality is really coming through. One thing is for certain: This girl DEFINITELY takes after her mother in her ice-cream loving ways. She had her first ice-cream cone, and at first she didn't really know what to do with it. Then she got a good lick (or bite, really), and WHOA, what goodness was in her mouth! She goes from this...
...to this...
...to this... ...in about five minutes. I'm not even kidding. Needless to say, she got a bath afterward. Adalynn also loves to read the newspaper. I know, genius baby. Actually I'm impressed, because she seems to be so talented that she can even read it upside-down!

I wish I could get a really good picture of it, because I find it so funny and she does it all the time. She usually even gets this way serious look on her face like, hey, mom, this is serious business, this reading the newspaper stuff. I think sometimes she does things just to make me laugh.. or to kind of spite me... Like, I don't know what her deal with shopping carts is, but she LOVES to lean down and just suck on the little metal handle thing. Gross! I make sure that I sanitize every shopping cart before I put her in it, and then I try to hide the metal with blankets and toys and hope that she'll get distracted. Nope. The second I turn my back she pushes the blanket aside and WHAMO! just like that she has her tongue all over that. I will turn to her and say in a firm voice "no, no" like they tell you you're supposed to (who is "they?" well, the experts, I suppose), but then she'll just look up and start to giggle and I then I start to laugh, and really the whole situation just turns into a comedy. Gross, yes, but rather funny.

Seriously, I can't even imagine how boring my life would be if I didn't have a little baby finding her bag of diapers in her crib and all of the diapers stacked so neatly in there and then laughing hysterically as she pulls them out one at a time and chucks them out of her crib when she's supposed to be taking a nap... Then I go in, because she's obviously not sleeping, and find a room filled with random diapers scattered everywhere and one little baby looks right up at me and just thinks she's the funniest baby that's ever lived. I mean, really, does life get any better than that? Not for me, that's for sure.