RIP laptop

My beloved laptop died today 11/11/08. It's a pretty sad day around here. I loved my laptop. It was only with us for a short time (6 months) but it had a special place in my house that made it convenient to surf the net, upload pictures, photoshop, IM with friends and most importantly again...surf the net.

Luckily, no information was lost because it gets backed up every night to our home server.

Dusty is currently trying to solve the problem and replace it at a minimal cost. Not the best time of year for this to happen. Joshua's b-day is in 2 weeks, the girls b-day is 2 weeks after that and Christmas is 2 weeks after that.

hmmm... I think my wish list needs to be updated.....

The Election

Dusty and I decided to get up extra early on election day. Diane came over to watch the girls and we took Joshua with us. We figured it would be good for him to be there while history was made. This election was definitely historical. Either the first woman vice president or the first black president.

Our polls opened at 7am and we were in line at 6:40a. Luckily, the wait wasn't long at all. We were out of there by 7:30a and we were voters # 37 and 38 in our precinct. It was so exciting!

Here was the line in front of us




and here was the line behind us



I'm so glad the election is over and behind us. Although nothing that Dusty and I voted for, won. It's still all good. I just look forward to American recovering (hopefully) from all the crap going on.

Congratulations President-elect Barack Obama and Vice President-elect Joe Biden

Halloween

A little late...but I didn't want to skip over Halloween. I love Halloween. It's so fun to get the kids dressed up and go trick or treating.

Joshua had a Halloween parade and party at his school. We took the girls there at 1pm to watch brother in the parade. All the kids looked great!! We even got a class picture done.







The girls did so well. They watched all the kids walking by. Most of the kids stopped to comment on the girls. It was cute.



After the parade, we headed out to eat. After going to Applebees, we headed back to Joshua's school to pick him up. We then went to visit my mom at work. She works at a nursing home, so we walked around and let the residents see the kids.

We then went to my dad's house. It's tradition, for us, to trick or treat there. Their neighborhood is really nice (the people and the houses) We didn't even get 1/4 of the way around the neighborhood before heading back home. Joshua got a ton of candy. It was fun this year because there were more people out and about trick or treating. I think it was because it was so warm (for us in Michigan anyway)

Here are some more pictures of the kids.

Clippin' coupons, paying off

I'm in week, like..um, not sure..maybe 8 or 9 and it's really paying off. My weekly grocery bill is less than $50.00 which is awesome! I'm still stock piling on things that are great deals (free or nearly free) Today Kmart started their double coupons up to $2.00 deal again. We took a trip up there and used all of our Pamper coupons that were over $1.00 (they expire friday anyway) and then I went through all of my coupons that expire soon that were over $1.00 and we were able to score free shampoo, nearly free toothpaste, toothbrushes, toilet paper and some other items.

I love saving so much money. It's nice to look in the pantry and see it fully stocked. We are set on laundry detergent, dishwasher detergent, pretty much any cleaning supply, toilet paper, paper towels, frozen veggies, chicken breasts, sausage, campbell soups, cereal, and a bunch of health items (tylenol, dimetapp..etc)

I've got a system down now that works really well for me. I purchase a few Detroit Free Press newspaper and at least one Flint Journal every Sunday. The DFP has a TON more coupons than the FJ. I would say, at least double the amount. It's a strange thing. Coupons are very regional. You definitely want to grab the highest circulated newspaper for your area. I also get a few extra inserts from family/friends that don't use the coupons in their papers.

Anyway, I always thought cutting coupons was a bigger pain than it was worth and always thought that "buying coupons" (newspapers) was kind of defeating the purpose of saving money but I easily make up the cost of the newspapers for the entire month, during one shopping trip. My average savings is over 50%. It feels nice to save so much money!

Happy Birthday Dusty!

Just a quick little note to my sweetheart.

Happy 29th birthday Dusty!! Hope you've had a good one and here's to your upcoming weekend of celebrations and presents =)



Love,

Cynthia, Joshua, Addison and Samantha

Playdate

We had a playdate this weekend with a friend that has a little boy who is 3 months younger than the girls. This was the first time the kids have gotten together and I think they played very well for not knowing each other and being the age they are. The little boy's name is Graham.

Here are a couple pictures of the girls. They are a bit blurry but cute!


Poor Graham would cry every time Addison got upset. This happened a couple times. It was kind of cute because he seemed to either be irritated or sympathetic. I'm going with sympathetic!


Samantha seems to be thinking.."oh geez mom, get me away from these crying babies"



Our upset little sweethearts.


I don't want it to appear that Graham cried the entire time, because that's not the case at all. Here he is playing with Samantha.



Sweet baby face


Little man wore himself out!!

Pumpkin Pictures