Thirteen

Roll Tide!  Alabama won their national championship game Thursday night!  That makes 13 National Championships!  It is an awesome feeling and you can imagine how excited our family is.  We've been waiting awhile for this win.  Our family was at our last win in 1992 in New Orleans and we had a great time, although I have to admit I don't really remember it!

I'll go ahead and give a shout out to my very own Dad who actually has a National Championship ring from his playing days at The University under Bear Bryant.  I guess I never really understood how big of a deal it was growing up because Dad always wears it.  It's a neat ring and I'm glad he has it.  He's always had neat stories for us while we were growing up about The Bear and how he and Mom met on campus.  Fun times!

Back to the game....

At first, Matthew was kind of upset at how we were playing...

 

But then both boys (and Jordan) got happier toward the end of the game!  We let John Michael stay up a little late so that he could watch some of his first National Championship game and he enjoyed it.  He did his touchdown arms and yelled "go go go go go!" quite a lot!  If you're not from the south you probably have NO idea why this is even a big deal at all, but if you are then you get it.

The next day both boys wore their football outfits.  JM's is red with a football on it.  Here he is modeling it at breakfast.  He kept looking at the football during the day and saying "dutball!"

Matthew also had on his football gear the next day.

 And speaking of football players, by the looks of Matthew's size it looks like we may have a future football player on our hands.  What a big guy!  We don't care what he does one day, as long as he's happy!  We're already in size 2 diapers and wearing 3-6 month outfits! 

Tonight at dinner while JM was stuffing tons of pizza in his mouth we talked about how in a few years these two boys are going to eat us out of house and home.  Good thing we're doing Dave Ramsey now so we'll have a ginormous food budget one day!

 And just for fun, (I totally copied this off of someone on facebook) I thought it was a neat video of some of the highlights from the game.  Enjoy!

 

Getting Ready!

All my boys are dressed and ready for the big Championship game tonight!  Roll Tide!  I bet you my brother, Ray, also has on some sort of Alabama gear on today!  John Michael will be staying up to watch some of it, I'm sure!  We've got a few game snacks planned and we'll all be wearing crimson and white as we cheer on the Tide!

Our blizzard that was supposed to be coming was a no-show, but we're still snowed in because of our crazy steep driveway.  So, I embark on yet another day of being home bound.  It's not so bad...as long as I have the promise of being able to get out and about in the next day or so I'll be good!  At least I'm getting a ton of laundry done.  Although it is sitting in piles on my bed to be folded.  I should be folding laundry...

Jordan went in to work super late because of his crazy work schedule the last two days, so we were happy to have him with us this morning!

Matthew is all ready in his Alabama shirt and burp cloth!

Here's the two boys this morning watching Finding Nemo while I got breakfast ready, loaded the dishwasher, and started some laundry.  JM is wearing his Mickey Mouse Alabama PJs.  So cute!  Jordan played in there with them while I got ready!

Jackson and John Michael watched Jordan leave for work out our front window.  JM yelled "Bye, Dadin" over and over!  In case you didn't know, JM calls Jordan Dadin and me Dada...that's a whole other issue in itself!

Coupon Mom

*Update  I had Jordan take my Wal-Greens picture for me because I was busy doing baby stuff, and apparently as I quickly uploaded a picture today I did not check it to see what he actually took a picture of!  We do different transactions to get the register rewards and I thought he was taking a picture of our $20 transaction but he was taking a picture of ALL 3 of our transactions that day.  We just weren't on the same page!  Woops.  My bad; hey I'm busy!  We still got fantastic deals that day.  Here's what we did:

Transaction #1

Pampers $10              $2 off coupon
Pampers $10              $2 off coupon            
Cereal $2                   $0.55 off coupon
Cereal $2                   $0.55 off coupon
Milk $3
----------------
$21.90 after coupons   (Keep in mind 2 packs of Pampers at Wal-Mart would cost that much)
$5.50 back to us in register rewards to be used toward another transaction.

Transaction #2

We did the exact same transaction as above again, but with different coupons for different cereal.
----------------
$21.00 after coupons
$5.50 back to us in register rewards

Transaction #3

deodorant       $3.99       Buy 2 get 1 free coupon for deodorant
deodorant       $3.99
deodorant       $3.99
Crest               $2.50      $0.50 off coupon
toothbrush     $2.50       $0.75 off coupon
Always            $5.49       coupon for free smaller pack of Always
Tampax           $6.99      coupon for free smaller pack of Tampax
Dawn               $0.99      $0.25 off coupon
-----------------------
$30 spent, as per Wal-Greens special you get a free Tide
$13.95 after all coupons PLUS register rewards from earlier 2 transactions

$56 total for the WHOLE thing.  I am SO sorry if I misled anyone.  Like I said, we still got great deals that day!  I still think it's pretty good considering the 4 packs of Pampers would be around $40!  Once again, sorry everybody!

So, for example, if you buy something and get back $2 or $3 in register rewards PLUS your $2 off Pampers coupon, you can get Pampers for half price.  That's how we roll!

 

Just call me coupon mom.  After a few complicated transactions at Wal-Greens, we got all this stuff below for $20!

I had coupons for everything and a lot of them were buy one get one free.  We also got 2 gallons of milk plus the Tide was completely free!  We used register rewards and coupons to get such good deals.  Wal-greens has some decent stuff this week, also.  If we don't get snowed in this week I plan on making another trip!

We discovered that by using their register rewards plus coupons you can get diapers for next to nothing!

 

 Verse O' the Day:

I thank my God every time I remember you.

Philippians 1:3

Hello, 2010!

This is what greeted us when I got up for a 3AM feeding!  The snow was falling it kept on through the night and into the morning.  We had even more snow than we did on Christmas day!

Since we were lazy on Christmas Day and didn't take JM out to play in the snow, we decided that today would be perfect.  We got JM all dressed up like the little boy on A Christmas Story and he and Jordan headed outside.  Matthew, me, and Jack watched them from inside! 

Because bichons have cottony fluff, it's so hard when it snows because they get tons of clumps of snow stuck all in their hair.  Basically, it's a big mess to clean up and we have to get the hair dryer out!

JM is ready to go!  He loves these new flashlights that plug into the wall and stay charged. 

I haven't seen him smile this much in a while!

I honestly think he had a fantastic time!

After a while I headed out for a few minutes of snow fun!

I took Jack sledding down our driveway.  He loves the snow and he went with us everytime we went down.

JM and Dada getting ready to go down the hill!

Family shot.  And yes, we bundled Matthew up in TONS of layers of fleece and a snowsuit.  He was so warm that he fell asleep out there.  He didn't go out of the garage and he wasn't out there too long!

Jack blends in with the snow!  He loves it!

After we came back inside I fixed hot chocolate for everyone!  JM loved his first hot chocolate and he and Dada enjoyed it by the fireside!  We had such a good time.  We've had the fire going all day, Matthew is all snuggly in our arms by the fire and JM is sleeping away.  I know he wore himself out doing all that sledding!  Paternity leave is coming to an end as of tomorrow, and I'm sad, but I was so happy to have Jordan around for so long.  I'm so glad his company puts family first!

 

I had just a few random pictures to share.  Here's my little snuggle buddy!  He is just so darn sweet!

Also, since it's been so freezing lately I decided to make slow cooker red beans n rice.  It was nice and easy, I just poured everything in the crockpot in the morning and then dinner was ready that night!  I got the recipe from Southern Living.  I'm not a huge red beans n rice fan, but Jordan said it was blog-worthy for sure, so I thought I'd post it.  Plus, beans are healthy for you!

Slow Cooker Red Beans 'n Rice

1# dried red beans

3/4# smoked turkey sausage, thinly sliced

3 celery ribs, chopped

1 green bell pepper, chopped

1 red bell pepper, chopped

1 sweet onion, chopped

3 garlic cloves, minced

1 tbsp creole seasoning

Combine first 8 ingredients and 7 cups water in a slow cooker.  Cover and cook on high for 7 hours.  Serve with hot rice.

 

Our Year In Review

2009 came and went and so many wonderful things happened.  After quite a few years of dealing with a trying family illness involving my brother Judd, we felt like we could finally breathe a sign of relief for the first time in 10 years as God graciously answered our prayers and we got the report from the neurologist that we only dared hope for:  Judd's scans are clear and Dr. Gomez has no way of explaining why it looks so great, but it does!  Hmmm...perhaps it's a little thing called a miralcle.   Thank you, Lord.

We also watched in awe as our little baby grew up before our very eyes and became a little man!  I know there's no way to show everything we did in 2009, but I thought I would pick just a few pictures from each month. 

This post is mainly for me and maybe the grandparents.  It's very long and full of pictures, but I need a way to document our year!  God has blessed us and we are so grateful for it all.  Happy New Year!

January

We had a crazy ice storm and took JM to the Aquarium to see all kinds of fish and then got lost on the Turnpike on the way back home!

 February

We didn't do too much this month; mainly stayed inside and played while we eagerly awaited Spring!  We also did Gymboree Music during the Winter!

 March

JM learned to clap on the day he turned 10 months old.  We were at home in AL and I got to visit my Alpha Gamma Delta Big Sis in Tuscaloosa and JM got to visit with both of my grandparents while we were in Tuscaloosa!  How we miss that place.

 April

JM celebrated his first Easter, went to an Easter Egg Hunt with our Sunday School class, started standing a lot on his own, and got his Easter pictures taken with a real bunny!  Also, we were surprised to find out that we were expecting...and we kept it a secret for 10 weeks!

 May

May was a very busy month for us, probably the busiest of the whole year!  All of our family came up to celebrate JM's first birthday.  We celebrated 3 birthdays while they were here and then let them all in on our little secret about baby #2!  Everyone was SO shocked and excited!  Over the period of one weekend we celebrated JM's first birthday with a jungle-themed party for family, had baby dedication at our church, and then flew to Orlando to celebrate JM's first birthday at Disney World (just like his dada!) with Gaga and Gamps!  I cannot even tell you what a good time we had.  I love Disney World and we can't wait to go back!

 June

In June, JM learned to walk on his own and he was so proud and we were too!  We also started heading to our neighborhood pool on most days and playing outside with our little red car.  Our backyard was a big source of enjoyment for us all through the spring and summer.

 July

In July we took a trip back home to AL to celebrate the 4th with family and I stayed behind with JM so that we could get a good visit in with all of our family.  We swam at Gaga's house, visited all sides of the family, and even squeezed in a trip to Tuscaloosa.  We also had our ultrasound and got to see our precious baby hanging out and kicking around!  We didn't end up finding out the sex and it was so fun not to know!

August

We must not have done much in August because I don't have any interesting pictures!  JM moved up to the big kid Sunday School class from the nursery and we started cleaning out the office to make way for the nursery...which still isn't 100% done!

September

Football season is here and we are happy!  Roll Tide!  Baby Matthew was growing and getting bigger inside and John Michael's curls were really started to get curly and long!

October

We went to a pumpkin patch and picked out some pumpkins with Gaga, carved a Mickey Mouse pumpkin and dressed up as a cute teddy bear for the worst Halloween ever (JM did NOT enjoy the church carnival and it was just bad all around).

November

November was exciting and exhausting for me being so big and pregnant.  We got a few Christmas decorations up, took JM to Chuck E. Cheese for a last hoorah before the baby came and took him to get his first big haircut.  God blessed us with Matthew James, born on November 24th at 6:31 pm weighing in at 10 pounds 14 ounces and 22 inches long.  We came home Thanksgiving night.  He is a wonderful blessing and a perfect addition to our family.  He is so sweet and quiet and I could just eat him up he's so big and cute!  JM became a big brother this month!

December

This month we were tired from having a newborn, even though he's good and a great sleeper, we're still tired.  I am learning to adjust to having two little ones!  I celebrated my birthday with a night out with Jordan and Matthew tagged along.  We had family up and celebrated Christmas with each of them while they were here.  On Christmas Day it snowed and it was our first White Christmas ever!

Whew!  What a year!  I wonder what's in store for us for 2010....