Dance Eden, Dance!

The other day Eden was stomping her feet and I told her that was dancing. Being the smartie that she is, she will do that everytime I tell her to dance. The other day I was eating breakfast and she was playing in the kitchen and we were listening to Taylor Swift. When this song came on, I looked over and she was just dancing away. I grabbed my video camera and got this... (please excuse my naked baby - she wouldn't let me put clothes on her that morning - I think she would rather be naked anyway. I promise my child has more clothes than me!)

***Don't forget to pause the music at the bottom!

Dance Eden, Dance! from Carissa V on Vimeo.

Memorial Day Weekend

Oh how I love 3 day weekends!! This weekend we got to spend some quality time with my old roommates (and their husbands) from college. Everyone is all spread out accross Texas (and one in Iowa), so it was so great to have everyone in the same place and catch up.

Here are the girls at Lupe Tortilla...
K.C., Anne, Me, Rachel, Cynthia, & Krista

Here is everyone... (minus Anne's husband, Scott - he had to stay in Iowa)
K.C. & Sterling, Rachel & Patrick, Myself & Nick, Anne, Cynthia & Mike, Krista & Henry

The girls again...the girls came over Sunday afternoon and they all got to see Eden! Good times!


I had so much fun catching up with these special people!!!


This weekend we also got to see baby Kynnly Statser! Our good friends and former neighbors, Aaron and Heather had their baby last Thursday. She is sooooo precious and such a beautiful girl!!

Here she is...

A Neighborly Issue

We have been in our house for a little over a month now and I have only met ONE neighbor. Aren't your neighbors suppose to bring you cookies and introduce themselves? Maybe that's too traditional. The second week we were here the neighbor next door was out walking what I think was their grandbaby and she waved at me. I waved and said "hi" and started walking toward her to meet her and she turned around and started walking the other way. Hmmmm....maybe we live on a street of introverts. Do I just need to go introduce myself?? Any thoughts...suggestions??

Eden Funnies

I absolutely love this stage that Eden is at right now. Don't get me wrong, it is a lot of work keeping her out of things she is not supposed to have. But, I love all the fun things she does and learns each day. Here are a few things she has done recently that are so cute and funny!

- She has learned to give kisses. When you say "Eden give me kisses," she comes right up to your face with her mouth open real big and touches your lips.
- Yesterday we were playing in the back yard and she wanted to play with her baby pool. There was no water in it and it was a little deflated. I went over and started blowing some air in it and when I was done she came over and put her mouth on it and started doing the same thing. So cute!
- The other day she fell and hit her head and I got some ice to put on it. She of course wanted to play with the ice so I gave it to her. I asked her where her owie was and she put the ice on her head.
- She loves putting things together and taking them apart. Sometimes she will bring me two things (most of the time a cup and a small toy) and she wants me to put them together so she can take them apart.
- She loves getting snuggled. She will bring me her blanket and her puppy and hand them both to me and I wrap her up in the blanket and she gets REALLY excited and squeals.
- Her favorite thing right now is jewlery. Anytime she sees jewlery on anyone (mostly GG) she wants it - especially bracelets!
- If you tell her she is "so pretty" she either strokes her hair or rubs her clothes. If she is wearing a dress, she holds it out to you.
- She is starting to know exactly what you are saying. The other day I told her one time..."can you go put your bracelets in your princess truck?" and she thought for a second, looked around and went over and did exactly what I asked.
- If she has something she is not supposed to have we tell her "Eden, go put it back." and she says "BAAAA" and usually returns it but a lot of times we have to help her put it back. haha


Her new words are...
- BAAAH = Back
- Puh = Puppy
- Dada = Daddy
- Mama = Mommy (but she rarely says this)
- Behbies = Babies
- Bizay = Busy
- G-jah = GG
- Beh = Bed
- Jeeuse = Juice
- Duh = Duck


I just love that sweet little girl.

Here are some cute pictures from a few weeks ago. We took her to the park and there were ducks. She chased the ducks around pointing saying "Duh, Duh, Duh!" So sweet!!

Happy Birthday, Nick!!

This past Sunday was my amazing husband's 24th birthday! On Friday we celebrated together as a family. We started the night with an amazing dinner at Escalante's Mexican Restaurant. YUM-O! We then went over to the mall and got Nick some new clothes...he was in desperate need of some new jeans! Shopping is always a daunting task, especially for clothes. It's hard to shop when you are trying to stick with a budget and find something that fits great and looks good too. We walked right into Macy's and Nick found a pair of jeans, some shorts, and 3 shirts that he loved. I'm talking we were probably in there about 45 minutes and we were done. It was awesome. Shopping for us usually takes hours...well, maybe I should say shopping for me. I guess guys are easier to please in that area. (*For all you penny pincher's out there, Macy's is having a sale on Levi's jeans. I had already bought Nick 2 other pairs of jeans before we went that night and one of them cost me $8.99!! We actually bought another pair of those for him to use for work. A $50.00 pair of jeans for $8.99 - AWESOME!!.) After shopping we went over to this new ice cream shop called Swirl. Nick LOVES this place (and I do too). When you walk in you get an empty cup and you go fill up your cup with as much frozen yogurt as you want. There are all kinds of flavors to choose from. Then you go over to the topping bar and put whatever toppings you want. You pay by the ounce and man is it delicious. Nick likes to get the mango yogurt with fresh mango pieces on top. I got the cake batter yogurt with crushed up butterfinger. YUMMY! We had a blast and Eden was such a great girl that night. On Sunday, his actual birthday, we had my family over to celebrate and we had a wonderful time.

I am so grateful for such an amazing man to be my husband and life partner! As I was thinking about him on his birthday, I realized this year how much I appreciate him and also how much I have learned from him. One thing I knew about Nick since I met him, but I guess never really truly appreciated about him is how wise he is. He really blows me away with things he says and knows, and how he handles situations. It makes me confident in our future as parent's and as Christians that I have such a wonderfully smart, intelligent, and wise person to go through things together with. He is my BEST friend and my love for him grows stronger every day!

He is an amazing father to our beautiful baby and I LOVE seeing the two together. It's the sweetest thing!

I hope you had a wonderful birthday, Nick!

I love you.

-Carissa

*A letter from Eden*
-Dada,
Thank you for being such a great daddy! Thank you for working so hard to provide all these fun toys for me to play with, a comfy bed to sleep in, and yummy food to eat (and throw on the floor). I love it when you play with me and give me kisses! My favorite part of each day is when I hear you come in the door and I realize how much I missed you all day. You are the best daddy in the world and I love you, Dada!
Love,
Your little princess!

More Savings!!

Today I went to Wal-Mart armed with my coupons!
I saw on this website - www.moneysavingmom.com that wal-mart had a few things on sale that I either needed or wanted. Did you hear me? WANTED! I can actually buy things now that I want as opposed to only being able to buy things we need.

Here is what I bought...

1 - 9 pack of Cottonelle toilet paper
3 - Jello boxes (we make a lot of jello salad around here)
2 - boxes On the Go Crystal Light (I LOVE this stuff but never buy it because it's not something we need)
1 - bottle of Kraft BBQ sauce
1 - bottle of French's mustard
1 - bottle of Kraft salad dressing (Creamy Poppyseed - try it, it will knock your socks off it's so good!!)

My total BEFORE coupons was $15.16
My total AFTER coupons was $7.99

That's a 50% savings!

Ok so here is what I did...
I went to Kraft's website where you can register to recieve their newsletter and you automatically are able to print coupons right off your computer. I checked out www.moneysavingmom.com and saw the list of Wal-Mart sales going on. Also on Money Saving Mom is a link to Cottonelle (or just click here to take the pledge) where you can get a $1.00 coupon. I then collected my coupons and was on my way!!

While at Wal-Mart I noticed that mustard and salad dressing were on sale and I had coupons for both so I went ahead and bought those because we always need those items around here.

The Kraft BBQ sauce was on sale for $.98 and I had a coupon for $1.00 off! Yes that's right, it was FREE!
The Kraft salad dressing is on sale for $1.59 and I had a coupon for $1.00 off any Kraft dressing so the dressing was only $.59!!
We actually have a ton of toilet paper, but how can you beat $4.00 for 9 rolls of TP!! That's like $.44/roll. You ALWAYS need that stuff.

I just wanted to share with you how my Wal-Mart trip went and how you too can save your hard earned dollars!!

Happy Shopping!

-Carissa
here is my e-mail if you have any questions carissavann@hotmail.com

Frugal Shopping

A few weeks ago I came home with a bunch of groceries, mostly HEB brand or Hill Country Fare (an HEB generic brand) and Nick asked me how much I spent. I reluctantly told him...$125! I felt like I really didn't get that much stuff and we both agreed that it was crazy that amount of mainly generic groceries cost so much! I only got the bare minimum of things that we NEEDED - not really anything we wanted and it still was $125. Nick and I both agreed that something needs to be done in this area, especially since we just bought a house. I remembered that my friend (Heather) from College Station recently posted about her shopping technique. I'll admit when I first read her blog I thought to myself how hard it would be to clip coupons, pay attention to sales, and spend hours searching for deals. After my second week of doing all that, I find it is TOTALLY worth it when I walk out of a store actually excited about buying groceries and not dreading telling Nick how much I spent. I usually can't wait to get home to e-mail him the list of how many groceries I got and how much I spent. Yes, it takes a lot of Internet searching, coupon collecting and clipping, and planning but it's my job as a wife to make sure our money is spent wisely. Now after 2 weeks of successful grocery shopping, I am frustrated that I haven't done this before. I guess I just needed a push in the right direction - THANKS HEATHER (& Kirby)!!
When I make my grocery list, I used to figure out what we were going to eat that week and then plan my list based off of what meals I planned out. Now, I check out what's on sale in my HEB starting with meats. Then I see what else is on sale and try to match up my coupons with the sales that are going on (the grocery game is where I find these). I also clip coupons and try to plan meals and other groceries around coupons. HEB has a lot of good deals and sales but I have learned to pay attention to those and plan around them. I've also been stockpiling each week. I try to buy things we will need but maybe not that particular week if it is on sale. Now I have a freezer full of meat, a pantry full of name brand groceries, and a bathroom full of necessities. I'm still learning this whole frugal grocery shopping but success to me is excitement about my grocery bill!

Here is my grocery shopping summary for this past week.

I shop at HEB and CVS - except this week only HEB.

Groceries
05/12/09

*(HCF = Hill Country Fare)

1 tub HCF Cool Whip
1 gallon organic milk
1 box Kotex tampons
1 box Kotex panty liners
6 HEB eggs
1 container Sara Lee cheesecake bites
1 box Quaker granola bars
1 box Ritz crackers
1 box q-tips – name brand (value size – 500)
1 bag Uncle Ben’s ready rice
2 small cans Grand’s biscuits
1 box Betty Crocker chocolate cake mix
1 Pert Plus shampoo for men
1 Welch’s grape jam (squeezable)
1 Kraft BBQ sauce
1 box Quaker instant oatmeal
1 HCF apple juice
1 container Philadelphia cream cheese
1 box Capri Sun sunrise juices
1 small HEB extra virgin olive oil
1 can HCF corn
1 can HCF green beans
3 cans Campbell’s condensed cream soups
2 bags HEB mini-boxes raisins (28 boxes)
1 bag 8 o’clock coffee
1 can HCF sweetened condensed milk
1 bag Heath bar toffee bits
1 HCF anti-bacterial wipes
1 container Daisy cottage cheese
1 bag Pepperidge Farm bagels
1 bag Pepperidge Farm English muffins
1 bag HEB shredded cheese
1 container HCF chicken breasts (a little over a pound)
1 package HEB linguine
1 loaf of HEB bread
3 gallons HCF drinking water
3 small lemons
3 small bananas
1 potato
1 bag grapes
2 containers strawberries

I typed up the name brands because I was able to get so much name brand stuff this time!

Total before coupons was $91.54
Total after coupons was $75.52

I used to spend an average of $100 or more per week and not get near this much stuff!!

Good luck shopping :)

-Carissa

Eden's First Year

Ok I finally made it.

I have been wanting to do this for weeks and finally did it.

Here it is - I love it and hope you do to!

We have a lot to praise God for - just look at that beautiful girl!!

**Be sure and pause the music at the bottom before you start the video**

Happy Birthday Sweet Eden!

Eden is ONE! I can't believe how fast this past year went by. It has been so amazing to see our little angel grow so much in one year. What a blessing she has been to us each and every day! Here is a little slideshow of Eden at her birthday!