I keep thinking, I wish we had a bigger house, or I wish I had a dining room with a table so that we could fit more people.  But, we don’t and I’m happy with what we have.  We are so blessed with sweet friendships and a beautiful home that is just right for our season of life. 

I decided to make slow cooker boston butt since we don’t have a grill - that’s a long story too.  Maybe we’ll have one by next summer and we can have people over for actual BBQs!  I put a HUGE boston butt in the crockpot on Friday morning and let it cook all day long.  I put salt, pepper, water, and just a little BBQ sauce so I wouldn’t overwhelm the meat flavor.  I think it turned out great.

I tried to clean all Friday, but as my post from a while back showed, I got little done with Matthew hanging around the house!  My sweet, sweet husband packed up the boys and took of on Saturday morning to let me have a good shot at cleaning without interruption!

Even though Alabama football didn’t start for a week, both my boys were ready!  They’ve both got their Roll Tide gear on!

 I made my BBQ the day before so I would have a lot less to do the day of.  It worked out great.  I shredded it really well and rehydrated it with some beef bouillion and BBQ sauce.  I then put it in pans and heated it in oven until we were ready to eat.  I made BBQ beans and we had fruit, potato salad, and macaroni salad and tons of soft drinks, lemonade, and lemon water (a personal favorite!)

Does it look like we had enough?!  Everyone brought something yummy and we ended up with THREE chocolate desserts!

 All of our neighbors have boys and so it’s so fun when they all get together and play!  The bigger kids ate at the picnic table.

 Bless sweet Kaitlyn’s heart, she’s the only girl out of 8 boys! 

 The dads all played football with the little guys.  They had a really good time!

 And the little ones….

 scooted and cruised around the grass.

JM was ready to catch the football!

 We had such a fun time eating, visiting, and talking with everyone.  It was kind of sad to say good-bye to summer, but now we’re saying hello to fall with all of its glorious drops in temperature! 

It was so nice to have friends over and I’m looking forward to doing it more often with more people.  There’s something nice about filling your house with great food, friends, and conversation!

Verse O’ the Day:

Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.

Joshua 1:9

Most of the longalls that I got are reversible!

Some of my favorites are all the dressy longalls that I got for Matthew.  I’m hoping he will be this size throughout the winter.  I planned this so that perhaps with some of the shopping we’ve already done, we won’t have to buy any clothes for the boys until Spring.  Oh yeah, except shoes and some shirts.  That is my goal and I’m going to try to stick to it! Luckily, because Matthew is so big, he will be wearing John Michael’s clothes from last fall.  He got his own clothes last night too, but I will definitely be supplementing his wardrobe with what JM wore last fall!  I got some really great things last night!  JM got his first rain coat and some winter coats too.

Since it was rainy today and we stayed in to let Matthew have a really good morning nap, I decided it would be a great morning to start my new “mom curriculum”!  I’m just going to start with the letter “A” and go from there!  We worked on painting an A and John Michael pretty much pitched a fit over some of it.  I helped him and we got it done.  We’ve had a fun day of block building, books, playing with dump trucks in a pan of rice, and play-doh. 

After lunch we used sesamestreet.org to learn about things that start with A, but not before we watched the “C is for Cookie” song.  I have to admit, it’s so cute and catchy!

Of course we learned about apples, alligators, and other A words.  I like how he picked up his letter A and held it while we watched and talked about some of the videos.  We also played a few of the games, which I think is great for helping him use the mouse and use his pointer finger.

Matthew liked it a lot too!  He wanted to be in on the action so he sat in his high chair and watched and laughed and laughed!

That’s a pretty big smile!

Our kids are learning things so differently than we did growing up.  They’re so used to the laptop and computers!  I’m sure it’s going to be a different world they grow up in.  What a fun day!

We ate dinner there and had lemonade too.  We saw all kinds of livestock.  Unfortunately, my camera decided not to work when we first got there so I don’t have pictures of that!  Don’t even get me started on my camera, it’s a mess right now!

Jordan rode the carousel with John Michael.  He had his pick of this or the ponies and he chose the carousel!  Let me just say that it was SO expensive.  We could have gone to Branson for what we paid that night.  Ugh.

Matthew patiently waited while JM rode the carousel.  He got some extra special attention from Gaga and Bop too!

All 4 of us, sweating like there was no tomorrow!  Even though it was way hot, there was a really nice breeze so it felt nice the whole time we were there!

Now, what we did next was way fun and exciting!  John Michael was tall enough to ride his very first real roller coaster.  I’m usually against these things because they look like they could collapse at any minute, but he pointed it out and it’s the one he wanted!

So I rode with him and I tucked him in nice and tight beside me.  It was really fun and we went around quite a few times.  He kept saying “weeeee” because all the people around us were yelling “weee!”  He had a really good time on that roller coaster and it’s something I won’t ever forget.  I was so glad I was able to ride with him for his very first big boy roller coaster ride!  We would have let him ride it again, but we wanted to have some money when we left, so we didn’t ride anymore!

Sweet Matthew riding in the wagon!

We saw some live music too.

It was so hot and the boys drank a lot of water while we were there!

I

We were so excited when the John Deere man told us John Michael could sit on the tractors.  He loves tractors and diggers and anything farm-related!  He was so excited!

Biiiiig tractor!  E I E I O!

He could have driven that tractor all night!

And Matthew got to drive a little tractor too!

We had a really good time.  We spent too much money, it was way hot, and it kind of smelled bad at times but it was really a fun memory to make with our family.  Plus, we were glad Gaga and Bop got to come and make some memories with the boys too!  I’m sure we’ll go back next year!

Verse O’ the Day:

The LORD of hosts has sworn: “As I have planned, so shall it be, and as I have purposed, so shall it stand.”

Isaiah 14:24

Jordan went to work a little late this morning so we could go as a family and drop JM off.

It made me feel so much better because he was so excited to go to “chuch” to go to school. 

For once in our lives we were EARLY!  I couldn’t believe we got there before the doors opened.  This will not happen again; mark my words.

Oh my, this picture is just bad in so many ways, but the main way that screams out to me is “honey, those bags and dark circles under your eyes aren’t going away anytime soon.”  It’s no surprise I don’t get a lot of sleep these days!  Anyway, John Michael ran right into his room and started playing with the cars.  He said “bye, Nana!” and so I said Bye! and off I went!

Sooo….while brother’s away, Matthew will play!  After we dropped JM off Matthew and I headed home for some breakfast and tea.  My big hope was that I was going to put Matthew down for a long morning nap and I was going to clean, clean and clean some more.  Basically, that didn’t happen.

Matthew played pretty hard and made a general mess of things….

He spilled a TON of water out of Jack’s bowl.  That took two towels to clean up!

He creates general mayhem wherever he goes.  He’s awesome!

“Who, me?!”

John Michael did great today!  I wanted to make sure I wrote down the things he told us because I know that tomorrow I won’t remember:

-We asked him all about his day and even though he can’t really tell me tons of details in sentences, he did tell me he went “night night”.  He also kept saying “shhhh” after he said that and I finally figured out that the teachers were probably telling them to shhhhh at naptime!  Tonight, he kept getting on the floor and laying down and saying, night, night…shhhhh!

-He told me “eat” and that he had ketchup; which he did!

-We asked him what friends were there and of course, he said Sarah Kate.  I was so glad to see her in his room this morning.  He also kept saying “night night Sarah Kate!”

-JM also told us he played today!

-They said he ate great and he also colored a picture that they sent home with him.  He is becoming a little artist lately!

I think in this picture below he’s thinking about his day at school!

I’m so glad he did well, it’s a load off my shoulders.  I’m going to have to come up with another way to get my house clean, but I’m just thinking it’s not really going to happen on Fridays with Matthew around.

We had to wait for the bigger kids to clear out, but he was oh-so excited to try!

A lot of anticipation going up the slide for his big shot!

Jordan helped him up the slide and I caught him!

The look on his face was so funny as he came flying down the slide.  Just in the last few weeks he’s gotten a lot more adventurous as far as trying new things and not being afraid.  He’s growing up so fast!

A big family hug of congratulations (minus Matthew!) and to comfort him just a little bit too!

Matthew looks very uncertain of all of this!

A few times he would cry when we got to the top of the stairs, but he loved it when he went down!

This picture says it all:  He had a blast!  It’s so fun watching him explore and learn new things!

Why not?!

Both boys loved it so much!

I know John Michael felt so big that he could push Baby Brother around!

But, JM wanted a turn too!  Daddy obliged.

The look on his face says it all!

Uncle Judd even got in on the action!

I’ve got so many pictures to upload from the County Fair on Friday!  We had a blast and I was so glad we braved the 103 degree weather to go!  I hope everyone had a great weekend.  We sure have!

Verse O’ The Day:

Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.

Joshua 1:9

I’ve been letting John Michael vacuum, sweep, and swiffer.  I’m starting his home-trainin’ early!

He truly does enjoy it and it’s so nice to have a little helper around the house.  Oh yeah, and he also loves to help with laundry so of course I let him!  I’m starting him early!

He also kept wanting to go outside and I couldn’t figure out why until I took a look and saw they had a Barbie Jeep outside.  JM loooves Jeeps and he really wanted to go outside and drive it!

How precious are these two?!  JM drove Sarah Kate around and it was so stinkin’ cute!  I just kept thinking, if they get married one day, this picture could be in their wedding picture slide show!  I’m just kidding, by the way!  They’re two.

Matthew was good and hung out with us in the dining room.

And I brought a homemade chocolate pie and I bought an apple pie. 

The older kids helped take care of the little ones.

Sweet Emily eating a hot dog.  She’s always telling funny stories!

And the two cuties once again!

We had a really good time and enjoyed the surpirse of who we were going to be eating dinner with!

We mainly use Register Rewards in combination with coupons to be able to get great deals on diapers.  With two in diapers it’s essential that we not spend a ton on diapers if we can help it.  Here’s how I do it:

This week I had $5 in Register Rewards lefover from last week’s transactions added into this transaction. 

-Lysol toilet bowl cleaner - buy one get one free for $2.99 (plus a coupon for $1.00 off when you buy two)

-Venus razor system -$8.99 then $3 in Register Rewards (plus a coupon for $2 off)

-Duracell batteries - $5.99 plus $1 in Register Rewards (plus a coupon for $0.75)

Total: $10.84 with $4 in Register Rewards on our next transaction

Onto the next transaction:

We then took our $4 in Register Rewards and applied it to:

-Pampers - 10.49 (plus a coupon for $1.50 off)

-I also had a coupon for “buy any Pampers, get a Pampers wipe FREE!!” so the wipes were free

-Total $8.91 for 2 packs of gum, Pampers, and Pampers wipes.

One important thing to remember is if you are laying down what I call “pieces of paper” you have to have at least that many items .  For example, we had 2 separate Register Rewards coupons, plus 2 different Pampers coupons, so we had to make sure we checked out at least that many items.  A lot of times I’ll add in paper clips or a pack of gum to have enough items for how many “pieces of paper” I’m presenting the clerk with.  I hope that’s not too confusing!  I get so confused half the time when I do this!  On this transaction I added in two packs of gum for Jordan to make it 4 items that we were checking out!  After our transaction the computer printed out a $1 off Pampers coupon for me to use next time, so that was a plus!

A lot of weeks it’s not really worth it, but then some weeks they really have some good deals that work for us.  One thing that helps us a lot is that my grandfather faithfully sends me all of the coupons from Sunday’s paper every week.  This helps so much because he gets multiple papers, so a lot of time I get multiple coupons and I can do the same transaction twice to get a great deal plus more register rewards!

Have a happy weekend!  I hope I’ve inspired you to pick up a Walgreens ad on Sunday!

He was SO happy to ride in the wagon with the boys.  He’s always been the best dog to them.  Jack got lots of pets.  People just gravitate towards him because of his fluffy hair!  Kids especially want to pet him!

JM jumped in the bouncy house and of course, cried when his turn was over.  Oh the emotions of a 2 year old!

It seemed like half of our Sunday School class was there!  It was pretty crowded!

Me with all three of my boys!

Braxton, Baby Ben, John Michael, and Matthew all putting their little toes in the fountain.  John Michael loves this fountain and now Matthew does too.

My two sweet boys!

I just love this picture.  I might have to frame it! 

Before we left, we asked JM if he wanted to ride a pony and he said “naaaay!” so we figured that was yes!  He loved it.  He was super-serious the whole time, which means he’s taking everything in and thinking about it.

I thought he might freak out once I put him on it, but he was just fine!

I had fun showing him a new animal and talking about the pony’s mane and eyes and his fur!  After he got off we got to pet Alex the pony!  Meme will be so happy that JM likes horses because myself and my brothers really don’t like them.