I'd like to thank all the little people...

I am so excited to have gotten a blog award from Michelle. It's my very first and I've always secretly wanted one so thanks Michelle! Stop over to her blog and join her and her husband in their journey as they plan to adopt a precious little one. 

This award is no joke - it even has some rules and regulations to go along with it. I must...

- Add a link and a note of thanks to the person giving the award

- Pass the award on to 15 bloggers whose blogs you have recently discovered that you love

- Share 7 things about yourself

I'm going to try my best, but I'm not sure I even have 15 people who follow my blog (and have blogs of their own) so we'll see how this goes!

Ok, my 7 things..

1. I am Canadian. I was born in Ontario, Canada and lived there until I was almost 3. Yes I have dual citizenship. No I don't say 'eh'. 

2. I was a competitive gymnast for many many years followed by springboard diving. 

3. As of 2 days ago, I have taken up the hobby of knitting. I have big dreams of making it big by selling my adorably cute baby creations on Etsy, but for now I'm trying to master the basic washcloth.

4. I never outgrew the phase of not liking vegetables. I'm still waiting for that day to come...

5. (this is getting hard to come up with interesting things that ya'll don't already know!) I have been skydiving and would do it again. 

6. I do not enjoy tanning whatsoever. I think fair skin is very pretty and prefer to protect my skin.

7. I do not like to rewatch (most) movies or re-read books. It drives my hubby crazy!

Ok and now for my nominees! Please don't feel obligated to actually go through with this. I know many of you have much more interesting things to blog about than 7 facts about themselves. This was perfect for us since our days are filled with trying to get Emma 'regular' if you know what I mean and that doesn't make for very appropriate blog posts. :)

1. Katy (Brighter Side)

2. Katie (Loves of Life)

3. Karla (Shades of Grey)

4. Brittany (my biggest fan haha just kidding...you know who you are)

5. Jenny (Nate and Jenny)

6. Brynne (Baby McCutie)

7. Kristen (Life in the Beehive)

8. Lauren (Knowing Norrah)

9. Ellie (Harnish Farm)

10. Laurie (Journey of Faith)

11. Amy (Miracles in the Making)

12. Heather (Pray for the Shellenberger Twins)

13. Michelle (Life through my Green Eyes)

14. Kat (Hildebrand Land)

I can't think of anyone else so if I missed you and you're reading this and you have a blog - consider yourself nominated and accept my apology. And now...I'm off to finish my potato soup and get ready for this next snow storm. Who's ready for spring? :)

I'm a blogging amateur - help!

Ok I've been trying to upload the afore mentioned video of Emma dancing and it doesn't seem to work. It uploads fine and then when I click 'publish post' I get an error message that says, 'HTML tag is not closed: OBJECT." Sooooo any advice from my technology savvy readers?  Speaking of things working, if anyone can figure out why all of the links to other people's blogs (usually on the right side of my screen) keep dropping down to the bottom, fill me in. It's driving me crazy!! Hope everyone had a great weekend and enjoyed our 'heat wave!'

Grocery Shopping 101

Several of you have asked for tips on how to cut down your grocery bill so this post is for you, Amanda, who recommended that I just do a post on it so all can benefit. First let me say that this is our first month attempting to keep our budget so strict so I'm by no means a professional (I feel like several of my girl friends could write this post much better than I could) but I'll share what has worked for me! I can laugh as I think back to when we first got married and I wanted to impress my new husband and have as many yummy treats around the house as I envisioned his mom to have. Ha! Our bill was outrageous those first few weeks! We've come a long way! :)

1. Strategic Menu Planning - Simply coming up with a menu for each (dinner) meal of the week helps a ton so that would be the first step. That way you aren't buying a lot of extras that you won't use and will go bad. Next, get strategic about it. For example, if I'm planning on making a recipe that requires some potatoes, I will make sure to use potatoes in other days - like mashed potatoes as a side one night or making potato soup. That way you are getting full use out of that big bag and you don't have to buy foods to make other sides. Make sense?

2. Humble yourself - I wasn't sure how else to sum up this tip but essentially I mean: don't be too prideful to try out the no-name brand rather than the expensive name brand foods. Often we've found that we can't tell the difference and the savings really add up! 

3. ALDI - seriously I have fallen in LOVE with this grocery store. I could do a whole post in and of itself on how great this store is. The local one is on Lititz Pike and WELL WORTH the extra drive. I know there's other stores in York and Harrisburg and if you're from farther away you can check out their website to see if they have one near you. They're all about cutting costs where they can so their prices can be super low. They don't have baggers or cart collectors so they don't have to hike up prices to cover those costs. The carts are chained together and you insert a quarter to unhook it and when you are done - you get your quarter back. They don't have any name brand stuff, but unlike other bargain stores, they always have everything you need. Nothing is more annoying than a hit or miss store and then having to go to 3 other stores to get what you need - esp. when you have little ones with you! So...shop Aldi! You'll love it!

4. Coupons! I have to admit that I don't use coupons, but I know this works well for friends of mine. If you get the Sunday paper (which we don't) there are lots of great coupons and stores like Giant often has double days where they double the coupon. So if you can't get to Aldi, this might be the ticket for you.

That's really it! I actually kind of enjoy going grocery shopping each week: it's like a game to see how low I can keep the costs! 

Oh I thought of another tip! The class we are taking recommends that you budget out what you are going to spend each month on food and then take out the necessary cash for the month and keep it in an envelop. I can honestly say that when you have the cash in your hand and see how much (or little) you have left to spend for the month, it is easier to keep those impulse purchases to a minimum. 

Hope this helps! Let me know if you guys have any other tips because I'm always looking for more! Happy shopping! 

Goodbye Silverado

I have to share with you how humbled and blessed I am by my husband. We've been taking a financial class offered through our church for the past few weeks and have had to look at the harsh reality of our situation (adding a baby to the mix and losing my income isn't pretty). So we've been working hard on cutting out all extras and keeping to a strict budget (let me tell you people, $50.00 a week for groceries, diapers, and household necessities is NOT easy, but I've been able to do it, praise God!) Anyway, all of this to say that after doing some serious thinking and praying, Jarred decided to sell his truck. I can't even begin to describe how much of a sacrifice and act of love this was for him. This truck was his material pride and joy. I think we may have more pictures of this truck than we do of Emma! :) My man is not overly romantic or mushy; he tends to show his love for us in his daily actions and this one was a big one. Thank you Jarred for providing for us and being willing to sacrifice for our family. We love you! 

8 Months

While we were in Florida, somebody turned 8 months old! :) I need to document what she's been up to because it's been a big month for her. I feel like everyday she's doing something new!

What have you been up to lately?

-Right after you turned 7 months, you learned how to crawl and you haven't looked back since! We love to chase you around the house: when you realize we're coming to get you, you giggle and crawl as fast as your little body can move!

-You know how to pull yourself up, but you don't do it the normal way. Instead of going onto one knee and standing up, you totally muscle it and roll up on the tops of your feet until you are on your tip tip toes and you can take a step in to stand normally. It's hard to describe in words!

-You make have gone through several phases of little noises you use to get someone's attention: first it was a little breathing/spitting noise (again - hard to describe), then you learned how to smack your lips, then you figured out how to let out a quick "eh" yell, and most recently you learned how to curl your tongue and you make this crazy grunting noise as you do it.

-You went on your very first airplane ride and vacation to Florida and did GREAT!

-You have 4 teeth now (two on top, two on the bottom) and I'm hoping we'll get a little break before anymore try to come in!

-You say a lot of words (da da, ma ma, etc) but you don't really know what you are saying. It's just noises.

-You do understand one thing for sure and I think it's probably the cutest thing I've ever seen. When we say "Shake it baby!" you wiggle and shake and dance! I'm going to try to attach a video of it so ya'll can see how adorable my little dancer is!