HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

We had a great day today, carving pumpkins and taking the boys trick or treating! This first pic is of the tree in our front yard. The leaves are just a gorgeous color of fall red. The photo doesn't do it justice, but I wanted to try to capture it.

Not much more chatter from me tonight, just wanted to share the pics of the monkeys!!

CA trip! (pt. 1)

Joshua and I got the opportunity to jet off for a monkey-less trip to CA earlier this month and it was a wonderful getaway. We flew my mom here to watch the kids and headed out for a much needed couple's weekend.

Our trip started off pretty rough. We were to fly out on Thursday afternoon but the weather turned pretty rough and the airport was shut down so we couldn't catch a flight until Friday morning. This would have only been mildly annoying except for the fact that we had special plans for all day Friday. We hadn't seen our best friends, Art and LaVerne in almost two years, and LaVerne's birthday was Saturday...so we kept our trip a secret from her and planned on showing up on her doorstep and whisking her and Art away for a quick overnight getaway to the coast (her favorite thing to do). It was quite the to-do keeping it a secret from her, getting her husband the time off work and planning the hotel etc. So when our flight out was cancelled, it was pretty disappointing to have all of that go out the window because we ran out of time. But, we regrouped and just planned on getting there Friday afternoon and going out to dinner with them and enjoying the couple of hours we could spend together.

So we got on our OKC to LAX flight. Joshua had free first class upgrades in his frequent flier bank, so he used them on us and we got to fly "in the front of the plane". WOW, was that pretty awesome! We had a flight attendant referring to us as Mr. and Mrs. and getting us anything we asked! And in this day of age of not even getting peanuts anymore when you fly coach, we got a yummy ORGANIC snack box!

And here's what I look like in first class LOL!



It was a pretty nice ride in first class. Joshua swears that you don't feel any turbulence up in the front of the plane, and true to form it was smooth sailing. I also cracked up when our flight attendant brought us warm, damp towels to clean up with (served from a tray with silver tongs) right before we landed. WOW!

So to add to our cancelled flights from Thursday story, our Friday morning plane was of course late leaving the gate too. We were pretty worried about making our connection in LAX (that would take us to LaVerne's hometown) as we only had 30 mins. We landed with about 15 mins before the next flight left. The flight attendants announced to the other passengers to please stay seated to allow us to get off first so we could rush to our next gate. So we got off and just like you see in the movies...we RAN!! I was of course wearing the worst shoes for this sprint, but we did it, and we rushed up to the gate our plane was departing from, just to be told by the attendant that yes, in fact, they knew we were coming but had closed the doors to the plane three minutes ago...too bad, so sorry! SERIOUSLY?! It was noon...and they offered us seats on the next flight at 9pm. WHAT? We can make the drive to LaVerne's house in just over two hours, so that's what we did. Joshua hopped on the phone, rearranged our plans to pick up our rental car there and off we went.

Next awesome thing about our trip?...Joshua upgraded our rental car to a HUMMER!! For completely UNpractical reasons, I LOVE Hummers! So it was another really cool treat to be drivin' around in style all weekend in this...



So we made the drive, connected up with my dad who had been so awesome as to run and get us a birthday cake for LaVerne and headed over to her house to surprise the heck out of her. BOY OH BOY did she not see us comin' LOL. I'd been doing an awesome job over the last two days of calling LaVerne to just say hi and telling her of all the stuff I was doing around home (complete lies) to keep her in the dark about the fact I was on my way to see her. So the utter shock on her face when I walked in her room and grabbed her in a big hug was priceless! We had a wonderful evening together going out to dinner and enjoying cake and company with my dad at his house.










Stay tuned for part 2!!

FREE lunch!

Went out to do coupon errands today and just had to share my free goodies! I did a couple of nice grocery coupon deals at Target (9c frozen dinners and 51c big bag chex mix) and got my free Starbucks coffee from the Via Challenge a while back. Then I headed over to Pei Wei to get my free spicy beef ramen dish that I earned from their Facebook campaign last month. The super nice counter guy said "here, enjoy a beverage on us while you wait for your lunch" (SCORE! I haven't had soda in a long time due to dieting and being appalled at the cost in general). And can I just say, the ramen was YUMM-Y! Nice advertising move, Pei Wei! I'd never been before but now I'll definitely be going back!

suzy homemaker

So I'm very proud of myself...I made two crock pot meals this weekend and they turned out AWESOME! Saturday morning I put a pot of pinto beans on to get happy. We headed out to Bass Pro Shops to get the boys their Halloween costumes (ughh that didn't go so well, but we got some cute pictures out front anyway).



When we got home and walked in the front door, the house smelled AMAZING!! Here's the end result...

I also dusted off my sewing machine this weekend. It's been FOREVER since I actually attacked a real sewing project (other than fixing Trev's blankie or mending a missing button). We decided that the boys are going to be fishermen this year for Halloween, and after being horrified at the $70 Bass Pro Shops wanted for two fishing vests and two fishing hats, Josh came up with the plan that I could sew them for the boys. I was hesitant, but decided to give it a go...so I got $22 worth of supplies at the fabric store and dove in last night. Here's a pic Emilee snapped of me. Stay tuned for more finished product pics in a later post.

I'd shopped for all of the ingredients for another crock pot meal earlier in the week, so I decided to quickly throw it in before we headed out the door to church this morning. Another home run in crock pot land...may I present Smashed Potato Soup (Weight Watchers style)!

I really am looking forward to using my crock pot like crazy in the next several months. It makes a wonderful homey feeling to have a pot of something cooking away...a warm meal ready for dinner, and the house smelling yummy all day long.

buildin' firetrucks

We took the kids to the FREE Lowe's Saturday kids' workshop a while back and they all made firetrucks. Even Emilee wanted to join in (I wasn't sure if she'd feel a bit "too big" for this...) and they all had a blast! We'd never gone to one before, and I have to say I was very impressed. The Lowe's employees were super helpful and fun, and even the police and fire departments came out to let the kids play on their equipment.


Whatever you say, Daddy...as long as you don't take away my hammer!!






Lookout, Chips!!!

Free and cheap!

Headed out for a quick coupon trip tonight so I could make sure I didn't miss the double coupon deals this week like I did last week! Here's what I got...

OK so fun picture first...everything in this pic was FREE!!!! And actually, it was even better than free, I made $1.37 overage after the coupons doubled so I got paid to take these items home with me! Oh and not pictured is also a FREE ice cream sandwhich that I just couldn't resist so it was consumed on the way home!

This is my CHEAP picture from tonight's shopping. The yogurt singles were 14c each. The yogurt delights were $1, the cinnabon bars were 89c, the juice was 99c and the veggies were 61c each. The juices came out to be 3 for $4. The gloves were $1.29 and the cheerios were $1.39 (and my monkeys are going to be soooo happy to see these in the morning when they open the pantry...they've been begging for me to get some more)! I love this picture because it's stuff I would absolutely be buying anyway (ok well maybe not the yogurt delights, but you gotta have a treat once in a while, right?!) so getting it on such a great deal is awesome! Total for this picture, about $12!!

So for way under $15 after tax, I got a BUNCH of things that we needed and even a treat or two!!

Our baby's last year before TEEN

Ugghhh, I'm terribly behind on posting...sorry! Things have been busy here as usual, but school has been NUTS so I'm just not getting the time on the computer I'd like. Anyway, first and most importantly as I catch up...Emilee turned 12 on September 15th! Yikes, it's nuts to think that she's two thirds of the way to 18 or only has 4 years til she's able to drive...holy moly time needs to slow down a bit!

Here's Em posing with her gifts. Notice she's holding a cell phone to her ear. She's been DYING for one for the longest time, and we finally broke down and gave her one. It's an old one we already had (with a cute new cover thanks to ebay lol), added to an account we already had, plus a texting package of course. Boy oh boy is she a happy girl as she was the absolute LAST kid we know to get one. We had a blast giving it to her too. We put it in a gift bag, turned ON, and put it in her room the night before her birthday. Joshua leaves for work about 5:30am, so at 6am he called her new number and it rang (playing Happy Birthday that we'd downloaded onto the phone) and she answered that thing lickety split lol. She came into my room grinning from ear to ear holding her new phone shortly after!



Birthday cake with friends and family...


Painting pottery with her friends...


Happy Birthday, Freddy-girl!!