Summer Randoms (and I do mean random)

We are really enjoying the beginning of this somewhat mild summer! I am seriously wondering why LAST summer couldn't have been this mild. I was sooo nauseated this time last year and it was soooo hot! Ugh, just those memories ALONE are enough to keep me content with my little family of 4 :)

We have had a few nice enough days to spend some time outside. This past weekend we had a bbq at my grandparents to celebrate my grandpa's 80th birthday. Their backyard is perfect for taking pictures (we got some back there on Easter too) and we did the best we could with our very busy and active toddler :)

I love these little boys so much!

Malachi just keeps getting more and more handsome! He brings a lot of joy into our lives as he continues to grow and learn new things!

I love having the boys be 9 months apart. It is hard work for me, but it is just incredible to watch how much change there is in a 9 month time frame! Malachi is running and starting to talk, and is getting more and more coordinated and is starting to have his OWN opinions (oh joy!)

It is hard to believe just 9 months ago HE was where Eli is now, just starting to learn and discover and roll and babble. I still laugh at the fact that at 5 months Malachi was going in to 12 month size stuff and Eli is still fitting in his 0-3 month stuff! But Eli ADORES his big brother, even if big brother is a little rough!

So we are really enjoying this summer! I am also getting back in to couponing. I was really in to it a year ago, but with pregnancy and a new baby at home I just didn't have the energy to devote to running to a ton of stores to get the best deals or spend the time researching deals. But I am back at it now that I have 2 boys who sleep 12 hours at night (yahoo!!!)

It is taking awhile to get back in to the groove, but I am happy to report that last night was a great shopping trip and we spent just $8 on all of the following items!

I will NEVER be in to extreme couponing, I just think that is dumb and wasteful but being frugal and saving money is NOT and I am all for doing that! We have even looked in to a lot of our household bills lately and cut out the unnecessary things. We got rid of our cable tv and I can't say we have missed it at all! Actually most of the shows that we enjoy watching we can watch online and I am even cutting way back on that - it is just a huge waste of time! We also talked with our insurance company and got a huge reduction on car insurance because I hardly drive anymore since I don't work and I spend most of my days at home AND we went through the pain in the neck process of switching our life insurance policy to our car and home insurance company and that also surprisingly saved us quite a bit of money too!

We are still going strong on our Total Money Makeover. We aren't really moving forward with our goals at this moment but we are hoping to make more changes in the coming months to push us closer! AAAAND if the IRS would ever send us our tax refund that would help too, but that is a whole other subject.

I also made more strawberry freezer jam yesterday. This stuff is the best. Oregon strawberries are so very yummy and one of my favorite parts of summer! My mom was gracious enough to help me out with this little project as my hands are quite busy these days!!!

Peter and I, thanks to our parents have been able to get away on a few dates over the last few weeks and that time has been really nice and refreshing. It is easy to get so distracted by life's happenings and our kids and yada yada yada, but just getting away for a few hours were we can have a quiet dinner without a boy throwing food and a crying, hungry baby has been great for us!

That is pretty much everything. We are having a fabulous and relaxed summer so far!!!