Mrs. Hayley...future extreme couponer!!

  I'm currently working on a coupon binder because I'm wanting to save as MUCH as I can for my family!  Groceries and just about everything else are getting VERY expensive:-(  Living on an unpredictable income (because my husband is a truck driver) we really have to watch what we spend!  I'm ALL about saving money and in the past few weeks, I've saved my family over $600!!
  I just bought a Trapper-Keeper to keep all of my coupons in and the poor thing is already busting at the seams!  I've got 40 dividers with all different categories to divide my coupons up in an easy to find system!!  Unfortunatly, I still have more categories that I need to buy dividers for!!  Now, to keep my coupons neat and organized, I will be using baseball card holders.  But finding them in this town is about like searching for a needle in a haystack!!  I've found them on Amazon.com very cheap and brand new:-) 
  Just to give you an example of how much I've saved: last week I went to 3 different stores, Wal-mart, Walgreens, and the Dollar Store.  I spent a total of $164.10 on tons of items from food, to diapers, to toilet paper and paper towls, to health and beauty items and much more!  I saved a total of $94.  So...

      I PAID  $164.10

      RETAIL VALUE $258.10

      TOTAL PERCENTAGE I SAVED:  64%

WOOHOO!!!

   I am so proud of myself for achieving that much savings in only the first month of my couponing quest!!  It's not easy AT ALL!!  It's very hard to keep your concentration, especially when I was shopping this last week!! Because I was shopping in the middle of 1 of our 10 tornado warnings on Wednesday! haha  I love the rush I get from saving so much!!  What really made my day was when my husband told me how proud he was of me because he knew how much work I put into it!!  Needless to say, I think I succeeded!!!

So Proud!!!

Just a little Emma update!!  Last night late, we had a major scare!  Emma had quickly developed knots behind her ears.  There were 4 total!  Steven and I were scared to death of what this could mean and neither one of us got any sleep!  We took her to the first doctor we could get her into, and Thank God, she was just fine.  The knots were swollen lymph nodes that are caused by many different things and will go away on their own!  I hope no one has to experience the horror of worrying that your child could have a major illness.

On a lighter note, I have some updates on Emma's developmental milestones!! 
* She is crawling about 95 miles an hour!

* When asked a question, she will either shake her head yes or no, depending upon her answer!

*She plays peek-a-boo by herself.  If you ask, "Where's Emma?" she'll cover both eyes with her little hands and then take her hands back down and just grin!!

* She knows the signs (American sign language) for milk, water, more, and book and uses milk and more on a daily basis!

* She has a 25-30 word vocabulary.  Here are some of the ones she says that I remembered:
~ Hi and bye (while waving)       
~ go, no, and quit (the three words she hears most often LOL!!)
~ Emma
~ cookie
~ truck (She will use this in a sentence as "Da uck", or Dad's truck
~ good girl (which she repeats after each time we tell her!)
~ Mama, Dada, Gaga (Grandaddy, my dad), Ga (Pa, Steven's step-dad), Nana (Steven's mom), Gigi (my mom), A-da (for brother Alden), and Bubba (for brother Avery), Wu (our dog, Lucy)
~ gog, Emma's version of dog
~ gat, Emma's version of cat 
       There's a new cat that hangs around our house, is very friendly, and Emma LOVES him!!  Everytime she sees him, she hollers, "gat, gat, mea, mea"  It's beyond adorable that she's trying to talk to the cat!!
~ ba ba, which we don't use, but she does say it sometimes when she wants her sippy cup
~ mo mo (saying while signing more, for more food or drink)
~ Uh, uh (no)
~ Uh, oh

~ When she'll drop something, I'll usually make a silly face and say "Oh No" to make her laugh and to teach her not to get upset if that happens!  Now, whenever that particular phrase is uttered, she puts her hands on the sides of her head and grins!!  It's too funny!!




Here's my silly girl making one of her many goofy faces!! 

  Well, I think that about sums up what's been going on here lately!  Oh, I almost forgot, we are feeding ourself with a fork and doing AWESOME!!! 
  Oh, we also are very good when playing with other babies!!  Emma shares great, but at home she's begun to share will one particular individual I'm not too happy about, OUR DOG!!!   Emma just has a big ole heart and wants to make sure that Lucy gets extra snacks during the day!!  She will eat a bite, then throw down one for Lucy.  Then when she gets a drink from her sippy cup, she'll throw that down for Lucy too!  (No, Lucy doesn't get close to her cup)  But it's still precious!!
   We're incredibly blessed that Emma is doing so well and is so smart and is so well behaved!  She can put a smile on anyone's face!  She loves to give hugs and kisses and all you have to do is ask and she'll either blow you a kiss or plant one right on your cheek!!

*~Easter~*

Yesterday, we had a great Easter Sunday!!  We got up and went to church!!  Bro. Jason gave a great message about being disciplined in life and how we should strive to live a life that Jesus would be proud of!!  We love going to church and Emma especially love it!  Several of the middle and high school girls just love her and pack her around everywhere!  Mrs. Slatton and Mrs. Brenda always take such good care of Emma in the nursery!  Everytime I step foot in our church I feel like I'm at my second home with our extended family!  After the morning service, we took a drive out to Rock Island to Emma's G-pa and G-granny Smith's house!  We had a great lunch and Emma had fun playing with her brothers and cousins!
 

Here we are waiting for all of the eggs to be hidden!





Aunt Ashley took Emma hunting for her very own eggs!  I filled them with cereal puffs so Emma could be just like the older kids!





Here's Alden's prize for finding the silver egg:-)





Here's Emma and I just a swinging (lol, couldn't help the musical reference) after the egg hunt!

We tried to get pictures of the boys hunting eggs, but they were finding them at the speed of sound, and the pictures we did get were fuzzy:-(  Better luck next year with those pictures!!

After the egg hunt, we drove the 30 mintues across town, back to our house!  We took the boys home and went back to church for the Sunday evening service!  Steven used to play southern gospel music there and he began playing with them again Sunday night!  He had a big ole grin on his face the whole time!!  It was so good to see him smile like that:-) 

There was also a church business meeting and folks it looks like our church is buying a concession stand at the Warren county fair!!  So, I'm sure I'll be working that in September which is fine by me!!  Sounds like fun:-)



12 month check up

Today, we took Emma to her 12 month check up and to get her shots.  She was SO sweet and very well behaved!!  She was an angel!!  She sat perfectly still while she had her finger pricked for a lead test.  The shots were another story!!!  She screamed and cried and screamed some more.  Bless her heart, I felt so bad for her but after about 5 minutes, she was smiling and happy again!!  Emma only weighs 17lbs. 10oz.  I was shocked because I could've sworn she weighed MUCH more!  She is 27.5 inches long.  She's going to be a very petite little lady!!  She's in the 75 percentile in height and weight and is right on track!  I knew Emma's head had grown because we started to have some difficulty actually fitting her head into the neck of some of her shirts!  Her head measured 45 cm.  She's wearing size 3 diapers and wears 12 month clothing.  She's just now getting into wearing size 3 shoes. 

It's About time...

 THAT EMMA FINALLY HAS A TOOTH!!!!!  She started cutting her bottom front, left tooth last Friday and it's finally above the gum line!!  We thought she would cut her first teeth around Christmas, but when that didn't happen, we hoped she would get one for her birthday, and she did!!  I would post a picture...but my camera is broken :-(

1 year ago...

  At this time, one year ago, I'd been in labor for 25 1/2 hours and had been at the hospital for 7 1/2 hours.  I had a very long and hard labor but at 10:30 p.m. all of the tears, pain, and sickness was beyond worth it when I heard my sweet baby girl's first cries!  Emma decided that she wanted to see everyone when she was born, so she was a postierior birth (face up.)  We couldn't have been more thrilled to have a tiny, 6 lb. 19 in. perfect baby girl!! 

  We finally got to go home Thursday morning, April 15th.  I went straight home and began taking care of Emma.  I didn't have anyone staying there to help me.  It was just Steven and I.  I wanted to do it myself because we'd gone through so much just to have Emma and it was important to me.  Losing two babies in a row made it incredibly bittersweet to be taking Emma home healthy and perfect!!  I wanted to spend all of the time with her that I could!  To this day, I've spent every day of with her!!  She's spent 1 night away from home and had a ball!!
  To this day, Emma has been the best little girl I could've asked for!  She always so happy, sweet, and is always smiling.  She does have her naughty fits when she doesn't get her way.  She had learned the word, NO, very quickly!  Believe me, the word NO is used quite a bit with Miss Priss.  She's into everything and I love it!! 
  Emma, Mommy loves you more than life itself!!!  You mean the absolute world to me and there's nothing I wouldn't do for you!!!  From the very first day, you've been an amazing baby and are quickly becoming a toddler!  Thank you God for blessing us with such a sweet little angel!!!  I'll never be able to say thank you enough!!!  Happy 1st Birthday sweet baby girl!!!  I'm sure Mommy will be crying most of the day!!! 

~*PARTY DAY*~

   Today, we celebrated my sweet baby girl's 1st birthday!!!  She officially turns 1 on Tuesday the 12th at 10:30 p.m.  She had an absolute blast today with all of our friends and family here at our home.  She had 2 Minnie Mouse cakes, cupcakes and a cute little mash cake that I hand piped.  She didn't want to sit still to open her presents but we got through them!  She was such a good little girl today!!  She loved her cake, especially the icing.  When she finished eating her cake, I took her straight to the bath tub because there was cake and icing EVERYWHERE!!  Everyone started arriving at 11am and the last party goers left at 3:30pm.  By 3:35, Emma was sound asleep and cuddled up in her bed!
   Mommy, Daddy, A-da, and Bubba love you so much Emma!!!  We are so proud to call you ours!!!  You are beautiful, intelligent, silly, and have never met a stranger!!  We love you more than words can say!!!  Happy 1st Birthday sweetie!!!
Here's some pictures of Emma's bright and colorful Minnie Mouse birthday party:

Emma wearing her Minnie Mouse dress and her "1" crown.

Mommy and Emma opening presents with Macy helping!

Emma's adorable towel from Red Bird Boutique!!!  I LOVE the things that she does!!

Emma got some more books that she loves from her G-Granny and G-Pa Smith

Emma looking at her cake trying to decided what to eat first!

Loving the icing!!

Sooo dirty!!! but so sweet!!!

Thank  you again to all of our friends and family who came today and who helped!!  We all had a blast and Emma had a wonderful 1st birthday!!!

Love you baby girl!!