Its been a couponing frenzy

Next thing, couponing....

All of my friends always ask me, "Jennifer what in the world are you going to do next" - I just have to laugh because I love to dabble my hands in anything I can teach myself. So...its been mary kay, its been bracelets, its been bows, tutus and everything cute, its been wreaths and decorating and babysitting kids....and wow, the list goes on! So...here we are learning the "art of couponing" - aka saving major bucks!!!

I've started clipping, organizing and using coupons! I'm excited and ready to go above and beyond the stuffing them in the side of my purse and using them by chance if I see something that I happen to have a coupon for! I'm going to shop for what I've got coupons for...save and stockpile! haha....Definetly have no intentions of becomming an addict like the extreme couponers. Just a few papers a week for me will do!

Kaylee and Camden are thrilled by it too. They have helped clip coupons with Momma and Kaylee likes to take care of the binder when we're in the store! Pretty funny, but hey....teaching kids to save money is never a bad thing!

Camden's 3rd Birthday

We spent the entire day before Cam's birthday at Busch Gardens! He really loved Elmo so we thought what better place to take him to see Elmo for real ;) However....He isn't fond of the "characters" so he wouldn't come anywhere close to them! Haha...Kaylee loved the characters! We rode rides, ate yummy food and played fun games! Most importantly we spent the whole day with family! Camden really loves his family =)

Sunday, the actual day of his birthday we went to church in the morning and then the airport for lunch. Camden loves the airport a whole lot! When we pulled into the parking lot he said "The Airport, yay!!!" After lunch, we went to Gee and Papa's house were his cake and presents were! Then, he got to stay all afternoon and evening playing with Sterling! He loved that!

Camden has had an incredible year. We cannot wait and see what is in store for him until his 4th. We noticed that Camden seemed to be behind in his speach around last fall, so we started getting him evaluated. At this point he could not make more than a two word sentance, tell us needs or wants and wasn't very frustrated when he couldn't communicate with us. Evaluation continued for a couple of months. During this time, he was going to a friend's house for daycare, soley for interaction. There, the teacher said that she didn't notice anything out of the ordinary and that he was just a little behind, whereas the school system was trying to diagnose him with multiple things. I was always willing to accept a disabled child, if I had one, but so many others were telling me that they didn't feel like he had a learning disability. During this time, we did a lot of praying and searching and decided that we were going to homeschool our children, basically the evaluating ended there. We have worked with Camden, things as simple as every day language...he knows his numbers, can say them and recognize them. He knows a lot of colors as well as the alphabet. He has learned songs and can finally carry on a conversation with us. We are persistant about getting him to tell us his needs and wants. Its been a huge learning process for us all but I see God's hand in the entire situation - he puts us exactly where we need to be and teaches us exactly what we need to learn at the perfect time. We are blessed with women at the church who love him unconditionally and are patient with him, we know that God is in control of our little boy and we'll learn right along with him and take as much time as he needs!

As far as fun and play time, Camden absolutely still LOVES his trains. He loves cars 2, also and cannot wait for the new movie to come out! He loves Elmos and Toy Story as well. He will play outside ALL day and loves the sandbox! He loves to play with Kaylee and they communicate and play so well. Kaylee is a perfect big sister, she loves him and takes care of him. Its adorable!

Camden is certainly a light of our lives, we strive hard to avoid that "middle kid" stuff. We love all of our kiddos exactly the same...

On Camden's birthday busch gardens day, Kaylee rode her very first roller coaster!!!! She loved it, shes a little dare devil just like her Daddy!!

Kinston took his first couple of steps with....

Anna!!!!! Too funny! Joey and I took the kids to a squirrels game and Anna and the kids came over to play with Kinston while we were gone. I get this text "Please dont be too upset, Kinston just took three steps" =) I was so incredibly excited, not upset! We have been working with him for weeks trying to teach him how to walk and I guess he just wanted to walk for Anna! =) He took those steps on May 12th and has been doing lots and lots more walking since. Still crawling a lot, he realizes it gets him where he wants to go faster! hehe...

The Garden

Above is a picture of the garden, two weeks after it was planted!

Well, a couple of Saturdays ago....Anna and I stood in the driveway saying we'd love to have a garden! Gardening would be so much fun and we'd love to have lots of veggies, about 2 minutes later they husbands are on the phones calling around about renting a tiller. Within 2 hours.....the backyard, a 20x16 ft section to be exact, was being tilled! Eric, was the man behind the tiller. Praise God for him...that was some hard work!

Not once, not twice but three times over he tilled the area up for the garden! The kids loved helping, they weeded and did their share of digging the garden! Brittany and Tyler joined us in the afternoon, we enjoyed a great time of friends and fellowship and as always, good food! Then later that evening, the boys went to return the tiller! The girls had a great time again, of fellowship.....meanwhile the boys decided to buy all of the plants and seeds we needed for the garden and surprised us with all of them when they came back! So....the next day, Mother's Day, we all planted everything! It is a Mother's Day I'll remember forever.

So, as friends and family for the past two weeks we've been watering and caring for this garden. Giving it a lot of attention..we've even prayed for it! <3 We're excited to see what God does with our garden, we of course pray that its plentiful and helps save as much as our coupons at the grocery!