Summer Swimming

Levi just finished up his swim lessons for the summer. I have extremely fond memories of swim lessons growing up - I was pretty much a fish until I was nine. Unfortunately when we moved to AL, I never got back into it - something I regret because I really loved it.

Levi is our little guy - here he is lined up and going over the rules of the pool: Showing all the parents how to get into the pool:

Kick-board King:

Levi's favorite was doing the dog paddle with the noodle. He kept talking about how big his muscles were getting from doing the dog paddle - I'm assuming this is something his teacher told him.

This was the first year that I didn't sit in on the lessons (or have to get in the water - yea!). It was perfect because I could work-out while he was in swim lessons and Kara was in the nursery. The last lesson, however, was the one for the parents and Kara couldn't be upstaged. She kept trying to take her clothes off and jump in the water - this girl is not scared of anything!!

Addicted

Back in February/March, I read a couple of blogs that went on and on about this blog called Southern Savers. I looked around the site a little bit at the time, but didn't want to dive in and become a "couponer". Come April, however, I really started to give this thing a go - in fact, I blogged about it here.

Fast forward three months and now I am a complete and total addict. Seriously. I started with CVS and now do Publix and Kroger too. I love, love, love the way Jenny at Southern Savers sets up the grocery lists every week - I have no idea how she has the time to do it all - I hope she is making a lot of money!

Over the last 3 months, I have shaved $25-$50 off our weekly grocery bill (that's $100-$200/month!). Don't worry, we still eat out a lot...couponing hasn't turned me into a cook! It isn't something I "have" to do, but I've found that I really do enjoy it!

True, it takes a lot of time (especially in the beginning), but I love finding new deals every day! Yes, I buy stuff that I wouldn't normally buy, but my rule is I usually only buy it if it is under $1 (and most of that is free!). Hey, if they want to give it to me free, I won't deny it! For everything I know we won't use, I have a big box of stuff to donate. We have also really enjoyed trying new foods and products all the time. It seemed like we had been in a nine year rut and all of a sudden, you never know what you are going to find in the pantry!

To give you an idea of how well you can do, here are a few of my recent CVS trips. I do the best at CVS, but I usually save about 40-60% at Publix & Kroger.

I got all of this for $10.37 (it would have been less, but two unnamed kids were pulling candy off the racks and I couldn't get to my last transaction). Note that this includes a package of diapers! Last week, I spent $4.51 on all this (includes 4 12-packs of coke!). I would have spent that much on the batteries alone 6 months ago!

If you all know of any other great sites out there, let me know!

The Beach

Garet and I have always loved the beach - it has been a constant in our dating and married lives. We dream of living on the beach or in a beach community someday. As parents, beach trips can be a little more challenging, but we hope our kids will grow up to love the beach as much as we do.

We quickly discovered that when going to the beach with a 3 year-old and a 1 year-old (while pregnant), that these are some very good people to take with you:

I think they love the beach and our kids as much as we do.

And four adults to two kids is a very nice ratio indeed.

Levi preferred the sand, which made Garet happy.

And Kara preferred to lounge in the shade, which made me happy :).

We stayed at the Phoenix on the Bay II which was absolutely fantastic for little kids. They had a lazy river, water slide, "kitty cat" pool, indoor and outdoor pools, and a boat dock on the bay. At this age, our kids prefer the pools over the beach, so it worked out better for us to stay there.

We all enjoyed floating leisurely around the lazy river. Kara enjoyed her "independence" and Levi thought he could swim "so fast".

It was a little cool one morning, so we headed to the park. This was the first picture I took...

...this was the last.

Levi conquered every balancing act

while Garet slept in the background

before he helped Kara balance herself.

We took a walk out on the pier and almost got blown away

but Levi still enjoyed shooting at the wind anyways.

The battlefield:

Feeling very pregnant:

Kara decided she would much rather wear her shirt like this:

The wind followed us to Florida as we headed over the border. This was Levi & Kara's first time in Florida - another state down!

Levi didn't want Kara to blow away!

Let's see...do you think they are related? We were able to have dinner with Uncle Gary & Aunt Karen one night.

One last day at the beach..."no more pictures, mom".

See you later, alligator!

Facebook Adventures

Warning: this post turned out way more nerdy than originally intended. Sigh.

About a year ago, I switched over to Facebook. Soon after joining, I asked Garet to join and he finally said, "When you get 500 friends, I will". Of course, he said that when I was around 150 friends thinking the day would never come. Well, this week I approached the 500 mark and suddenly my friend number began to drop. Turns out Garet made a deal with some of his buddies (Person 1, Person 2, and Person 3 (DC)) that they would drop me when I got close to 500 friends so that Garet wouldn't have to join. Can you feel the love???

Despite their efforts, Garet joined since I would have 500 friends had the conspiracy not taken place. He does have to live with me after all :).

Every time I mentioned his holdout to people, they would ask, "How in the world do you know 500 people?". Truth is, I didn't know myself! Granted I like to talk...to anyone really, I've moved around, I work at a church, I've had my share of jobs, I married into Garet's ginormous family, and there are not many people these days that are not on Facebook.

Since I'm a math major, I do what all good math majors do and analyze. What better than a pie chart - we do like our charts and March 14th (right, Allison M?).

So, here are all my Facebook friends in pie chart glory:

My commentary:

• Auburn - 107 (the largest group by 1. We were blessed to get to know so many great people through the Auburn BCM, our church (Lakeview), and my fellow math majors :)
• Hillwood - 106 (this is the church I grew up in. It has been so much fun reconnecting with all those people I grew up with - most of these are from the youth group, but it does include many parents of my friends as well!)
• The Brook - 86 (my current church. It pays in Facebook friends to be on staff :). Seriously, I love these people!)
• Grissom - 65 (these are people that I knew from High School that I didn't go to church with. Keep in mind that my high school had over 2000 people. Most of these people I was on the flag corp with or in the band with. Great memories)
• Along Life's Way - 45 (most of this number is from spouses and family members of some of my closest friends but also includes friends that have moved away)
• Family - 36 (did I mention Garet has about a million cousins?)
• Local - 36 (various people I've met here in town whether through the kids school or we used to go to church together)
• Old Jobs/Garet's co-workers - 17 (speaks for itself)

So, there you have it - how to get 500 friends on facebook without even trying :).

A little bit redneck, but a whole lot of fun!

That title is probably a country song, but it describes perfectly what our summer has looked like so far!

Before you make fun of our "mobile" swimming pool, try it for yourself - the kids LOVED it! (And I promise, Kara wears a bathing suit 99% of the time, just not in these pictures!)

We have a name!

For those of you who have anxiously been awaiting a vote for the name of our next child, I hate to disappoint you, but we actually made a decision (with weeks to spare)!

Let me back up a little and explain that Garet and I are terrible when it comes to naming children. I don't know why it is so difficult for us, but it just is. We decided on the name Levi sometime around 36 weeks (which is cutting it close on a first pregnancy since you don't know how long you have - it turned out to be plenty of time for me).

Kara almost didn't have a name! After polling our friends on my Myspace account (does anyone check theirs anymore?), we cut it very close. I had a scheduled induction and the day before our friend, Melodie, told us we had to make a decision! She made us each write our top two choices on a napkin (we were at Applebees) and then Levi drew the name. Kara it was!

That experience really stressed us out and so we were determined not to let it happen again. Plus, with a 3.5 year old and a 20 month old, we were getting tired of saying "baby brother".

Before we knew if Kara was a boy or a girl, we had a boy named picked out. She obviously wasn't a boy, so we put it in the archives. When we found out we were having a boy this go around, we decided to pull it back out, but for whatever reason, I still hesitated. Well, I finally decided I just needed to make a decision.

So, without further adieu, "Baby Brother" will be:

Garison John

Garison is a combination of Garet + Alison (get it?) :), thus the reason for the one "r". I think that will bother a few people, but Garet and I both dealt with the single consonant issue and we turned out OK. It was more important for us that he shared our names.

And, for my Aunt Ruth Ann (only because I love you :), John is from my dad & brother.

We feel that this will be the fitting addition to our family. All the children have one of our names in their name and I think that this will probably/hopefully?? be the conclusion to our family expansion.

In closing, I have to share Levi's question regarding Garison if you missed it on Twitter/Facebook:

"when baby Garison comes out of your tummy are you going to be all out of babies?"

My response? "I sure hope so!"

Auburn Reunions!

I've said it many times, but my four years at Auburn were some of the best of my life. I have so many good memories from that time period and I know that they are due in a large part to the wonderful friends we made from our time on the plains.

We have been spoiled the last couple of weeks to be able to spend some time with a few of these friends. I'm always amazed at how easily it is to talk and hang out despite all the changes we've incurred over the last 10+ years! If you are ever in the area, please let us know - we would love to see you!!

Our buddy Jason is a pilot and so his schedule is always last minute. Thankfully, we were able to pull a dinner outing together when him, his wife Lindsey and kids were in town for the night.

Here's the crew! Dan & Ellen, Bull (minus Ashley), Jason & Lindsey and us! The restaurant was so kind to give us our own room in which we let all the kiddos run around while we talked. War Eagle!Then, a couple of weeks later, a few of us got together for a big surprise!! In Auburn, Carmen, Joy and I were the best of friends and did everything together. Carr married a guy named Scott and in January or so he started planning a surprise birthday party for Carr's 31st birthday. Of course, I was in! Joy and I ended up bringing our men and it turned out to be a perfect (although too short) weekend in Chattanooga (could it be anywhere else?) on the lake. The surprise was a huge success and you can read my friends takes here: Joy and Carr.

Apparently we still thought we were in college, because we stayed up until 3:30 AM talking! That was a little taxing on this preggo mother of a toddler and preschooler, but it was so worth it. I think we all agreed that our early 30s are not exactly what we had envisioned. Life is a little harder, things aren't perfect, there have been some surprises in life, but I thank God that we still have each other and our friendships despite the very different paths our lives have taken. For instance, as Joy mentioned, we all married completely different men, but they hung with us this weekend and we had a great time together. Here we are with the additions to our trio:

I couldn't end this post with out a huge thank you to Carmen's parents - they took care of all the cooking and cleaning and I felt like I was in college all over again. I can't remember the last time someone has taken care of everything for me and I just get to enjoy!

I hope the reunions don't stop here!!

My Motherly Intuition

was very wrong today.

Because they were 100% sure at the doctor today.
And I am still in shock.
And thrilled that God provided just what our family needed.