Who is This Girl?

Maddie passed the 11-month mark on Monday, and I have to say I really feel like my little baby is gone. She's getting so big (by Maddie standards) and is incredibly independent and opinionated (she must get that from Jordan!) I feel so proud when I watch her cruise around the house or look at her books or have conversations with her baby doll or any one of a million little things that she learns and grows into every day. The tiny cuddly stage was fun in its own way, but I just love seeing this little person emerge right before my eyes! Jordan is already talking about the next one, and I have to admit I'm a little scared. As much as I love this little girl, she's a handful! I keep telling him I can barely manage the one I have much less think about another one! Props to all you Moms who threw caution to the wind and said bring it on. I'm chicken :) Besides, we're basically going to be living out of our car for two months this summer as we travel around visiting family before the big move, so I think I deserve to at least be settled somewhere before we start in with 32 weeks of constant nausea! Anyway, I'm extremely blessed with the cute girl I have now and plan to savor every moment of Maddie and Mom time I get! And you should get to savor the little miss too, so enjoy our 11-month photos!

Our morning piano recital

The cute girl

DISASTER! And even with all this, she still wants the books

She may look innocent now, but ...

Watch out, here she comes!

ATTACK! What a camera hog ;)

Maddie Mischief

I know I posted at the beginning of the month that Maddie has started crawling and standing while holding onto things. What a difference two weeks can make! She is now constantly on the move! She has explored every corner of the apartment she's allowed to go in (no laundry room, bathroom or Mommy and Daddy's room) and likes to race up and down the hallway, daring us to chase her. She also loves standing up on anything she can get her hands on and has even started to let go and stand on her own. SCARY!!! It seems like in the last two weeks my baby has really become a little girl. Part of me is a tiny bit sad, but I also LOVE watching her explore and learn. We've tried really hard to make our tiny apartment fun for her, which has even meant packing up all the books on the bottom shelves of our bookcases and replacing them with her toy boxes, books and a basket of other random items she can play with (insert "I told you so" here!). Consequently, I rarely see the living room floor during the day with all her toys spread everywhere and I spend a lot more time vacuuming and dusting so her hands and feet don't turn black as she roams around! She definitely keeps me busy now more than ever, but she is seriously so fun and I can't imagine loving anything more!

Taking over the bookcases ... the bottom row is all hers! You don't want to see what it looks like when she has everything out playing! (Yes, we like The Office)

Exploring in the pantry. If only I could get her to like eating food as much as she likes playing with it!

Hmm, I wonder what's in these drawers ...

I better pull everything out just to see!

Hi Mom!

I realize most of these pictures are of the back of her head, but she gets so busy, she won't turn around for pictures!

The first of three times we played in the laundry basket today

 Yes, she is clapping for herself! So proud :)

Adventures in Couponing

A few weeks ago, Jordan and I watched a documentary on TLC about extreme couponers, like get $400 worth of groceries for $26 extreme. One of the women actually dug through dumpsters to find coupons people had thrown out with their Sunday papers. Yikes. I've never really understood the big deal with coupons. I always just saw them as a way to make brand names more affordable, but since I'm not brand loyal and I think Western Family tastes just as good as anything else, why use coupons? The generics are usually cheaper anyway even with the coupons. However, can you imagine how sweet it would be to save like that?!?! (minus the dumpster-diving of course). I'm definitely going to need to work those kinds of miracles over the next four years while we're living on student loans. So when a friend in my ward hosted a Savvy Shopper party, I decided to see what all the coupon hype was about. I went, I learned and I decided to give it a try.

So here are the results of my first shopping trip to Rite-Aid. I would normally NEVER shop at Rite-Aid but evidently they have really great coupon deals and programs like UP Rewards (which is basically like getting cash back to use on your next purchase) and in-store rebates (which you get in the form of a check mailed to you at the end of each month). I signed up for the Sunday paper to get more coupons but haven't gotten it yet so I only used 8 coupons that I printed off the internet. Below is a picture of my haul:

2 pouches of Betty Crocker chocolate chip cookie mix, 5 boxes of Kellogg's cereal, 2 bottles of Shout, 2 bottles of Drano (I have lots of hair), 2 packages of Hall's Cough drops, 2 boxes of cold medicine, 1 box of Chloraseptic throat lozenges and 1 box of contact lens solution

Total Retail Value: I have no idea :)

Total After Sales but Before Coupons: $43.86

Total After Coupons: $36.06

Total After Factoring in UP Rewards ($8) and Rebates ($17): $11.06

I could get used to this!

Go Cougars!

Although I'm not working directly with the men's basketball team at BYU anymore since I've been staying home with the girl, I do get to work the actual games doing stats for the television crews. I LOVE getting paid to sit courtside and watch basketball! This past Saturday, Maddie came with me and then got to hang out with Dad at the game! Anyone who knows Madison knows that she thinks loud noise is just a good excuse for her to try to be even louder so overall she had fun! She made friends with the old folks in the seats next to Jordan, clapped with the crowd and "sang" along to the fight song! Nap time was long overdue by the time the game was over so we didn't hang around long but we did get a couple pictures. While she may be a Memphis Tiger for the next four years, she'll always really be our BYU baby!

(Thanks for the BYU sweatshirt, Aunt Jonni!)