Announcement #1~~Surrogacy

I said last week that I had two announcements to share. The first announcement is perfectly prefaced by sharing that today is a very special day...the little boy I carried as a surrogate, Garrett, turned six today!! It's soooo crazy to believe that it's been six years since I delivered that little miracle for his amazing parents. I got to chat with him on the phone today and he's such a big boy!!!...telling me of his birthday party and liking the present I sent him and about what he's been doing lately. It was sooo cool!

So onto the announcement #1~

I've decided to do one more surrogacy, and I'm matched with a new very special couple! We've gotten through the legal stuff and are getting our medical details in line and are hoping to do an embryo transfer in mid/late August. I am so excited to help this couple! They live within a few hours of me, don't have any children yet and are just a BUNCH of fun to hang out with. Last weekend when we went to Sea World, they are the friends that went with us and we had such a nice time with them. And they are soooo great with kids. Mine just love them! They are going to be wonderful parents...and with any luck that will be sometime next year! Here's a picture of my family and Gabby and Charlie from last weekend.


Just a little info for readers who might just be happening by my blog and aren't familiar with surrogacy. I am a Gestational Surrogate, a woman who carries another couple's biological child, meaning the surrogate child I carry is not related to me biologically. We utilize the IVF process to get me pregnant with their embryo, and then when their child is born they take home their precious miracle!

God bless paper plates...

and paper cups and paper bowls and plastic silverware!!!

Because I got home this weekend to find my dishwasher has blown up again. This will make THREE times in the last year that I've had dishwasher issues and been handwashing (gasp!) for weeks on end while I wait for the warranty company to come out, examine the problem, take FOREVER to order the part and then repair it. Ughhhh.

And aren't I a wimp LOL...cuz wasn't it just a couple of decades ago our mom's were functioning just fine without these darned contraptions...and now mine breaking seemingly brings my household operations to it's knees.

As Josh would say...oh the perils of being a housewife!!

Cell phone laws!

http://www.iihs.org/laws/cellphonelaws.aspx

Wanted to share the above link that I found while cleaning out my favorites list. It's a state by state list of hands free cell phone laws. By July 1 (next week, guys!) CALIFORNIA, WASHINGTON, UT, NJ, NY, CT, DC all have laws prohibiting talking on your handheld cell phone while driving! Time to get that blue tooth you've been putting off!

What we've been up to!

Hey everyone! Long time no blog!! Things sure got busy here and I just haven't had the time to sit down and share like I want to. So let's see...NEWS...

The big monkeys are out of school now so I have three to entertain during the day. We dabbled in buying a house last week so that took up my whole week getting bids on repairs (it was a fixer upper) while we waiting to see if our offer was accepted. Bummer that our offer was rejected as it was a great sized home with a pool in the backyard that would have been a great investment and home for our family. Oh well...I think we'll sit tight on the home buying thing for a while and see what the very sad real estate market decides to do in the next little while. The big monkeys are at Vacation Bible School this week and having a blast so Carter and I are back to having quiet mornings. My dad retired week before last so Mom and Dad are enjoying/adjusting to having dad home all the time (yay Mom for your new laundry sink in the garage...having that handyman around is gonna be cool *wink*!!). I am also saddened to say I haven't been to CVS in two whole weeks! I know, shocking! Hopefully I'll get there this week as I have some ECBs that are close to expiring.

The last fun I have to share is this past weekend we went to Sea World with friends and had an awesome time! Our family has never been, so seeing Shamu and all of the fishy sights was so exciting! And we had a bunch of fun at the new waterpark that they've recently opened inside of Sea World too. There was a lazy river that you float down on tubes that Carter loved and then there were tubing rides for the bigger, braver ones. Here are a couple of pictures...

Here fishy, fishy...

SHAMU!!!

You are gonna get wet!!

What a great day!

Sea lion and walrus show

Check back for two exciting pieces of news I'll have to share, hopefully next week!!

Sticker Fun

Check out www.pyzam.com/toys . I had a blast making a family sticker to run at the bottom of my blog...scroll all the way to the bottom of this page to check it out!!

A new look with love

So today was a big day for Emilee. She's been growing her hair to donate to a children's cancer charity for about two years. And it was finally long enough to cut...

~BEFORE~

~AT THE SALON~

~BYE BYE PONYTAIL~

~SOOOOO CUTE~

~AFTER...ALL SMILES~

Emilee's hair will be donated to Pantene Beautiful Lengths, which is an organization like the more well known Locks of Love. The nice thing about PBL is that they take hair starting at 8" in length, where LOL has a minimum of 10"...and Emilee has been stuck at about 9" for a while so PBL works out for her! If anyone else is interested in donating like Emilee did, here are the links to their sites.
http://www.beautifullengths.com/en_US/index_home.jsp
http://www.locksoflove.org/

It was a neat surprise when we were at the salon too...the stylist who cut Emilee's hair has a daughter who is a cancer survivor and received a wig from Locks of Love. She was very kind and encouraging to Emilee, telling her what a special girl she was and letting her know just how wonderful her donation is to girls like her daughter.

WE ARE SO PROUD OF YOU, EMILEE! Love, Daddy and Mommy

CVS 6/1-6/7

It was a GREAT week at CVS as we were getting low on diapers. So I took advantage of the buy $20 in pampers get $5ebc deal, and then I did two more packages just cuz with the sale price and coupons I had it was still an awesome deal. And with the $1/1 coupons I had, all of the chex mix and cereal on sale for $1 each was FREE. I don't have time to type out all the details this week (if you have a question feel free to email me or leave a comment and I can answer later) but the long and short of it is...I started off with $19 ECB in my pocket, spent $2.31 out of pocket in four transactions, and ended with $12.98 in ecb...

which means that all that stuff cost $8.33

...about the price of one package of diapers on sale! There were some other good deals on toilet paper and paper towels to be had, but I didn't get the chance to go back. Oh well, more fun will be had next week! Anyone else having fun at CVS?

And now don't forget to check out MoneySavingMom and the Centsible Sawyer to see the awesome deals that other frugal people like me are getting!

http://moneysavingmom.typepad.com/

http://thecentsiblesawyer.blogspot.com/

Where O Where?

So Carter has a new stashing place for his special treasures. When there's a missing sippy cup, the remote is lost and I can't find my car keys...where should I look? In the clothes washer of course! So what surprises do you find when you are starting a load of laundry??

Monkey #1

Emilee has been a busy bee at school! She’s gotten two awards recently that we are very proud of!!

First she and a friend participated in the school’s Oral Language Festival where they gave a humorous orative presentation of a poem. They had to have their poem and actions memorized and perform in front of an audience and judges. Emilee and her friend won one of seven finalist spots in the initial competition, and won THIRD PLACE in the final school wide competition! She came home with a trophy and a big smile on her face!!

Emilee also won the monthly character award for her grade. This month was respect. We are now the proud displayers of a lawn placard touting her honor for the entire summer (this is a big deal in our city…to have earned one of these lawn signs in front of your house…the kids all recognize them as VERY cool).

CVS Scanner

Oooooooh my goodness!!!! What a wonderful day yesterday!! Silly really in the scheme of ALL, but little things sometimes make the icing on the cake. I went to CVS yesterday to use the rest of my Pampers coupons and get a great deal on diapers. I went to my second choice CVS (a little farther from my house) to also see if they had any of the freebies in stock that my first choice was already out of. And lo and behold! I walked in the front door and THERE IT WAS!! The elusive CVS scanner machine...price checker and coupon printer-outer!! I've read for months about lucky people who have these in every CVS they frequent. You walk in, scan your CVS card just to see what pops out coupon wise and they always get cool coupons along with the all important $3 off $10 CVS brand purchase. So with a huge dorky smile on my face, I ran up to the newly installed miracle maker, scanned my CVS card, and out came my $3/$10 and two other coupons! WOOHOO!! Now I've got a great coupon to use when I finally can get my hands on the bandaids and qtips!!

I'll have pics and a rundown of my week's CVS shopping up later in the week. I have another trip planned Thursday night or Friday morning (when my favorite CVS's truck comes in to restock) to try to get the freebies and the paper towel deal done.