Baby/Toddler Shopping

Aaron and I went shopping the other night to buy some baby/toddler items. Things we felt we should have if we got a call on a child that we needed to go pick up asap. We'll pick up some more gender specific things once placed but for now I settled for gender neutral.

This is what we've picked up so far

-2 baby blankets
-4pack receiving blankets
-2 fitted crib sheets
-2 sippy cups
-2 toothbrushes
-kid toothpaste
-kid mouth rinse
-thermometer
-nail clippers
-Cars and Princess silverware
-nightlights
-wipes
-toothbrush cups
-Johnson's baby wash and lotion
-toddler car seat
-extra set of twin sheets (in case there is an accident)

Do you see the Spongebob fabric under the nightlights? I figured I would make another pillowcase, just like the monkey one but with boy fabric. I can just switch out the pillowcase if its a boy or girl. If we ended up with 2 kids I'd just get another pillow.

Ok, so all you moms out there....what am I forgetting? Things that are more of a necessity those first few days? We wanted to be somewhat prepared if we had to go pick up a child at 3am and didn't want to spend a lot of time at the store. I realize I don't have any diapers but I don't want to go out and buy one of each size that maybe we would never use. Diapers are something quick we can run in and grab.

Brut Deodrant

Here it is folks! The long awaited deodrant post. Haven't you all been on the edge of your seats waiting? Due to us being a little busier than normal this weekend because of a little sweetheart the post is later than I thought it would be.

Now on to how I got the deodrant for only .08 each. Our local Kroger store had it on sale for $1 each. I ended up having coupons for $1 off 1 deodrant. Therefore, all I had to pay was tax which was .08 each.

I bought 20 coupons for the Brut on Ebay for $1.75. I only ended up getting 15 deodrants since the store ended up being out of stock.

Overall I spent $2.95 for the coupons and deodrant. The normal cost for the deodrant is $2.69 each. Thats like totally amazing!!! I'm so excited.

No More Naked Finger

Aaron's new ring finally came last week so no more walking around with a naked finger!

Respite Care

Wow. What a weekend. Some of you already know, but if you don't, we did respite care for a 5yr old girl this weekend. Respite care is basically just short term care for the child's current foster parents. Reasons for the foster parents needing respite care could be that they just want a little break or maybe they have something going on that they can't take the child with.

Anyways, Tuesday morning my mother in law and I went out shopping for a baby shower gift for a girl at our church. After shopping we had some lunch and then headed home. Our licensing worker called shortly after I got home and said, "I have a question for you. I was wondering if you and Aaron would want to provide respite care for a little girl this weekend." After I got some information from her I hung up and called Aaron. It took us about 5 seconds to decide that of course we would do it. We were told her foster parents would give us a call to set up times and such.

We were over the moon excited for this. We knew it was just respite care and that she would return to her foster parents but it was still an opportunity. An opportunity to care for this little girl and maybe open a few more doors for placements later.

Per licensing standards we have to have all chemicals moved up and locks on cabinets. Basically a safe house for children. Well we didn't have locks on cabinets yet and some chemicals were still down. We didn't see a need to do all these things now since we didn't have a placement. It would just remind us of the fact that we're childless.

We spent Tuesday and Wednesday night getting all those things done. It took a lot of time so we ended up thinking maybe we should have done it beforehand. The animals knew something was going on and kept following us around the house as we were moving lots of things around.

This little one would be joining us from Thursday-Sunday. I had lots of things planned such as swimming, fingerpainting, sidewalk chalk, playdoh, and bike riding.

When her foster mom dropped her off I was shocked as she jumped out of the van and came all smiles up the sidewalk with her Minnie Mouse suitcase. I showed her foster mom the room she would be staying in and we talked for just a minute. Thankfully there were no tears when she left. We immediately started playing and having a good time.

She did so well, I was so proud of her. She listened very well and we hardly had any problems. She got upset at Walmart because the horse wouldn't work. I put a $1 in that stinkin horse and it wouldn't move. She ran over to another machine and I said, "No we're going home, the machines aren't working." She got upset and started crying saying she really wanted to ride one. She even did a little feet stomping. It didn't last long and I talked to her about it when we got home.

We went to church this morning and I couldn't believe how well she did. She didn't hardly make a sound. It was so cute because she walked down and sat on my father in law's lap and stayed there the whole time. I heard her whispering a few times but nothing else.

We went out to lunch after church today and the waiter was taking our orders. He came over to me and I ordered my food and handed him my menu. He said, "Um..what do you want for her?" I was like oh duh. I'm only used to having to worry about ordering food for myself.

Aaron and I noticed we did a lot of spelling this weekend. C-A-K-E, B-I-K-E R-I-D-E, P-A-R-K. Lil cutie picked up on everything we said. It was like she could hear everything we said no matter how quiet we were. We did a lot of whispering and tip toeing around when she was asleep. Its funny because earlier tonight I got up to walk to the bathroom and tiptoed down the hallway forgetting she wasn't here anymore.

I ended up doing a photo book at Walgreens that she could take home with her. That way maybe she would remember us. She really liked it and was carrying it around with her. I printed off tons of pictures and plan on putting them in a photo album. I'm thinking I will get just a really big 4x6 photo album and then I can put picutres of all the kids in it. I can take cardstock and cut it to that size and write the child's name, their age, and the dates we had them. Then I can put all the photos in the slots and then just keep going with each child. Maybe we'll end up filling a few albums. Who knows...God already has that planned out.

She was such a cutie and I miss her so much already. It was so hard to let her go back to her foster parents. Aaron and I already felt attached to her. We can't imagine how upset we will be if we take one in for a few months or even a year and then have to send them home to their bio famiy. Its not something we can ever prepare for. But knowing that we stepped in and provided love and care during that time makes me happy.


I'm so thankful for this opportunity. It was such a good first experience dealing with a child in foster care. We'll be praying for her that God would be holding her close and healing the pain in her heart.

We're praying for more opportunities and of course an adoption opportunity.

Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord unto me!!

Dial Soap

I've mentioned before how I've been doing some couponing here and there. Lately I've been checking the sale flyer and if there is something on sale we use, I try to find coupons on ebay. My latest purchase was Dial soap. They were on sale for $1. Since we will always need bathroom hand soap I headed over to ebay and located some coupons. When I had heard about people actually buying coupons I thought that can't be worth it in the end. I stand corrected.

I found 20 coupons for $3. It seemed a little high but there were 20 of them and it paid off. The coupons were for .35. The store I go to will double those to .70 so I ended up getting the soap for .35 each (tax included) Overall I spent $7. If you include the cost of the coupons it was $10 overall. But, I wasn't including the cost of the coupons since the money to buy the coupons was from an item Aaron bought at a garage sale and then re-sold it for more on ebay.

Normally the soap cost $1.59 so for 20 bottles it would have been $31.80(tax not included). Of course I wouldn't go out and buy 20 at a time but eventually I would have bought that many over a period of time.

I called Kroger before we left because I wanted to make sure they still doubled coupons. I saw at a Kroger in Texas they didn't anymore. The kind (I mean rude) lady on the phone said that yes they do double but they will only double 2 like coupons in one transaction. Are you serious? That means I have to do ten transactions to make it work!

I ended up doing 5 transactions one day and 5 the next. I didn't want to make the people behind me too mad! Crazy coupon policies!

I'm excited and it felt like such an accomplishment! We won't need hand soap for quite some time! I usually don't find a lot of things I can stock up on but when I can I try to.

FOSTER CARE UPDATE: Nothing to report unfortunately. Our licensing worker was on vacation this week so I plan on calling her towards the middle/end of this week to touch base. The agency is offering a discipline class sometime soon so we would like to get signed up for that. I'm also considering talking to them about volunteering. I haven't completely decided yet if I want to add that to my schedule or not. If I do I would probably only do it until we received a placement. Who knows..maybe they don't even need any help. I've posted before about The Forgotten Initiative and how they serve local foster care agencies by doing different projects and supporting the agency workers in their difficult jobs. Of course you can volunteer through them but I kind of wanted to stick with the agency we are licenced with. I thought it would be great to help the agency in any way I could and it would also help us to stay involved. Helping the agency can help the workers better support and care for the children! So, I'm still trying to decide but no other news in regards to a placement.

Stay tuned for a post on deodorant and how I ended up paying .08 each (tax only)!! Have a good week everyone!

Lake Of The Ozarks

Last week Aaron and I took a vacation to Lake of the Ozarks for our 5 year anniversary. When we decided we wanted to take a trip for this occasion we were thinking about Colorado as the destination. It ended up that Colorado was going to cost more than we wanted to spend so Aaron brought up LOTA (Lake of the Ozarks). I went to the website vrbo.com and found a condo to rent right on the lake!

The condo was really nice and even had a screened in porch with a view of the lake. When we arrived on Monday we got all our things settled and then headed out to the grocery store to get some snacks. I found a Jelly Belly set up where you could fill a bag with tons of different flavors for $7.99 a lb. Well they come out really fast when you pull the lever so I think I ended up with a whole pound of bubble gum ones. I was shocked when we checked out and the total was $44.00. I was thinking all we got was water, toilet paper, paper towels and some breakfast stuff. Well, we had over $15 in jelly beans (over 2lbs).

Anyways, the first night we ate at a place called Bandana's barbecue. It was pretty similar to a Famous Dave's so it was good! On Tuesday we went shopping to the outlet mall. I came home with some new Nike shorts, a tshirt, hoodie, playing cards and one of those Coach wrist wallet things. One of those where I can put my license, debit card, cash and phone in. That way I don't have to carry my whole stinking purse around.

Tuesday night we ate at a place called JB Hooks. We had a great view overlooking the lake. A coworker of Aaron's told him to go to this place. He said it was expensive but it was worth it. I disagree with this. Our meal was $89 for food that I would say was similar to an Olive Garden or Red Lobster. I guess we were paying for the view?

Wednesday morning we got up and went jet skiing. It was nice because there was hardly anyone out on the lake. We took turns driving but I didn't ended up driving very long. I was spinning the ski into circles and when I went to turn back the other way I didn't hit the gas hard enough. Needless to say we ended up flying off. I bet it was not a pretty sight. Let me tell you it was SUPER hard getting back up on it. You have to grab a hold of this bar on the top of the seat and basically pull with your arms to get your whole body up. As I was looking like a struggling beached whale I'm sure the people in the houses nearby got an early morning laugh. (Note to self...work on upper body strength)

Once I got back on the jet ski Aaron realized he had lost his ring. It has always been loose so it is somewhere in the bottom of the lake never to be found again. So, Aaron's walking around with a naked finger. Not something I like.

There was also a pool at the condos so we spent some time there getting burnt and doing a little swimming. At night we liked sitting on the porch and just looking out at the lake!

Overall, we had a good trip and enjoyed visiting a place we had never been to before. Below are some pictures.

I thought the welcome note was really cute and they also had blueberry muffins for us! 



This picture above is the screened in porch.

View from the porch

View from our dinner table at the expensive place! 

Back Up And Running

Our computer crashed on us the night before we left on vacation (June 3rd) and we finally got it back tonight. Apparently the hard drive went bad? So, almost $200 later we're back in business! We took my Dad's laptop with us on vacation so Aaron could try and stay caught up on work emails. Then his laptop ended up crashing on us. I still don't know whats wrong with it. I now have to try to get all my favorites back on here since they couldn't recover anything. Not sure I'll remember all of them! The other crummy thing is that we had just redeemed a $25 iTunes gift card on there and downloaded 10 or so songs to put on our ipod. Well the night we went to do that is when it crashed so we lost all those too.

I'm glad we have it back though! I felt at a loss for a while. On the other hand I'm reading a good book right now so that kept me busy on times I would've been using the computer.

I'll update on our vacation and our "we're still stuck in the same spot with the foster care situation" soon!