{ For the Love of It }

There are lots of angles I could approach these pictures with. I could talk about how I need to clean my shower doors (it's steam, I swear) or something catty about my husbands farmer's tan. But honestly, my heart swells when I see the two of them all smooshed up in the shower. There is something very gentle about my burly biker man when it comes to bathing the kids. He's always done a better job than my half hearted attempt at another "have to" before bed. He takes time to scrub their hair, under armpits and even cleans out ears while they are warmly wrapped in a fluffy towel. This man loves his kids. He may not have been able to carry them on the inside, but he carries them in his heart everyday.

I do thank God for him. He is the perfect man for me and a wonderful father to our children.

{ Carnivore }

These are my meat and potato, minus the potato, men. They have a serious addiction to red meat.

{ The Bigs }

Why do I let this little one talk me into playing Beauty Shop?

Mascara is going to be her best friend.

This awesome boy can make breakfast all by himself. He also empties the dishwasher, folds laundry and feeds the dog. No, you can not have him!

{ 2 Cute }

I just love this shirt. 2 Cute for Time Out It's the truth, he is too cute, but he also needs time out once in a while! Notice the beads, his big sis likes to dress him up, and he likes the attention!

He's also at the age where he wants to attack the camera everytime I get it out!

{ Just Showin' Off }

Sometimes I think God is just showing off his skills. Like when I look at my beautiful children or this morning when we look out and there is a double rainbow. It's hard to see in the picture, but I promise it was there. And a promise is what it is.

And God said, "This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come: I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and earth.... Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life." Gen 7:12

It's so cool to be able to open the bible and show the kids scripture in action. What was written so long ago is still relevant today!

{ More Father's Day pictures }

This is his happy face!

He loves to play in the water
Just Chillin'
Happy boaters
Thanks Dawn for taking such great shots of our family!

{ Thank you, Lord for Dawn }

I mean it. This woman works with a quiet grace that never stops. She is the one behind the scenes making sure everything goes smoothly, but never asks for credit. She attends every function and never just sitting around, always coordinating, cleaning, serving, or playing with children.

Dawn supported us in our adoption, and I can see it when she looks at Bizi, that she truly loves our little brown bear.

How lucky are we to call this woman a friend?! I'm looking forward to knowing her better and being a sponge to her wisdom and humor.

And Dawn, if you are reading this, check your calender cause you guys are totally coming over for dinner!

{ Father's Day }

We went out to Lake Hefner today with our church and celebrated Father's Day with our Super Dad! The kayaks were awesome!! A big thanks to all the people who worked so hard to make today special for so many families!

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I have several other pictures, at least I thought I did. What I actually have is video. Dang. I'll try to see if I can upload some video of Davis in his kayak. He was a trooper and took off in his own boat. Paige rode with daddy and Bizi sat in my lap and chilled.

Big love to all the great dad's in my life!

{ Last trip 4 the week }

It's easy to say that this is my last trip for the week because I bought out all that they had of what I wanted! There's no more Garnier, Nivea or cereal! Go me!

I'm still waiting for more Huggies baby wash (you know I got dirrty babies), and toothbrushes.

What about a CVS 101 here at my house? Anyone game? Don't you want tons of crap clogging up every closet you have? Honestly, I love having the extras around so when gas prices are $10 a gallon, I'll still have cereal, a clean shaven husband and children hopped up on sugar!

{Free Stuff from WM this month}

I love what I can "buy" for free from WM! The Poweraid was $.75 and I had 3 $.75 coupons, Kotex was $1.00 w/$1.00 coupons, Gold Bond and Old Spice Deod, same thing. The ham was $1.98 and I had 2/$2 coupons. Yippee for free ham! The Coffee Mate came from a free coupon that I got in the mail.

There were also some great deals on bacon, cereal, & Kashi waffles.

My subtotal was $115.93 after coupons : $77.00.
Not as good as some of the serious Frugal Hacks, but dang good for little ole me.

{ Takes time to save money }

This is my project this morning. Utilizing the information on HCW, then sorting my coupons into the binder, to finally double check receipts to see the deals I have left to steal...ahm, buy.

Should take about 30 minutes baring fighting children, crying babies, or cut Internet lines. (more on that later)

People tell me that it takes too much time tying to save money. Well, maybe, but I think it is time well spent!

{ My mom would be in a Coma }

I don't know if you can tell by the picture, but I ended up with 104 FREE candy bars tonight!

Along with 2 boxes of Cheerios, 2 Razors, 2 blade refills, 5 Nivea shaving cremes, 2 mouth washes, 1 Johnson buddies bar of soap, 1trial size Dove body wash, and a Contour meter.

I rolled ecb's and made some serious ecb's ($15 and counting!) off the candy.

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Here's how the candy deal went down. There is a coupon spitter-outter-thingy in the candy section that is $1 off Hershey candy. The Hershey bars in the picture are 2/$1. PLUS they are running a ECB deal where when you buy $10 of candy you get $5 back in ECB. ROCK ON! Lucky for me one of the nicest cashiers was working and thinks that getting deals is fun.

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I took all three kids with me tonight, so I told them (not Bizi) to stand in front of the coupon machine and pull out anything that comes out. (child labor is a beautiful thing!)

THEY ACTUALLY MINDED ME! We ended up with tons of coupons and a pile that I brought home! And I got to shop one isle over in peace! I even handed out some of the coupons to the people in line as I was leaving. I felt like Willy Wonka on crack!

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I took a bag of the candy to Davis' baseball game tonight, and for the first time all season THEY WON!! GO COLTS!!! I treated all the boys to chocolate!! One of the parents said the chocolate was lucky, so now I have to bring it to all the games. There are only 4 more games and about 11 boys on the team, so I should have plenty to hand out to the siblings as well.

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Really hope they have a sale on diet pills, seriously.

{ Here ya go Dawn }

I was asked how I did the cereal deal...here it goes.

Cereal is 3/$10. Buy $20 of General Mills and get $10 extra bucks back.

6 boxes of cereal = $20
- $4/20 Coupon (get this in your email from cvs.com)
- 6/$1 cereal coupons (printed online)
-$10 ECB (from other transactions)
--------------------------
= $1.60 for tax + $10 ecb

I keep rolling my ecb's and have a gift card (that I got from a RX coupon) to cover tax. So, nothing comes out of my checking account!

Hope this helps you on your quest for free stuff.

{ Daily Loot }

Here's a lovely picture of my free loot from yesterday. I also added a gallon of milk and a 12pk of TP.

I think I'll head back tomorrow and do the Nivea deal again. We can always use shaving cream, the BBC (bald by choice) man goes through a ton!

Fiber anyone?

{ Hi-Yah }

Check out the focus on this tough kid! He loves his Karate.

He and daddy are doing this together but daddy was out of town so I got to go for the first time.

I was absolutly amazed at the dedication he has for this sport.

I think he'll be a black belt before we know it!

{ Good CVS run }

CVS was really fun last night! As you can see I struck the mother load on chocolate. The bags of Hershey's were on sale for $.80 and right below them was a coupon for $1 off! Free I tell you!!! Free!! Good thing my father-in-law likes dark chocolate! Guess what he's getting for Father's Day?

Everything else was also free and I actually made more than I spent in ECB's. My favorite cashiers were working last night and I am teaching them how to make money in their own store. Too funny. I even bought them some free candy last night too!

Tomorrow starts a whole new week of deals! Woot!

{ Silly shots }

At the bowling alley. Poor Bizi looks tired.

Davis stole the camera from me.
Trying to give him the evil look so he'll give me back my camera!

{ Da Biz }

This little man is growing by leaps and bounds every day.
He hit a growth spurt and everyone we see comments on how long he is!

As you can see in the picture his is up and running!

His vocabulary is growing as well. His current words are:
Dada
Mama
Woof Woof for Bleu
Dadis for Davis
Dat for Paige
Night Night
Yum!
No no no no no no

He is an absolute joy and we relish everyday that we get to see his personality bloom. I do not take for granted his life and the gift it is to us.


Next month we will have been home 9 months. The same amount of time that he was an orphan. For some reason this timeline is very important to me. Not that I can ever make up for the time we didn't have with him, but we have built a new foundation for him to grow upon and to me it gets stronger with every passing day.

People have made comments about how great we must be as parents or people. It's so hard not to laugh in their face. I am not perfect, most days I'm barely nice. For reasons we may never know God has chosen us to parent this child and I try really hard not to screw him up.



To quote Evan Almighty "He chose all of us.". We just have to answer him.

{ Good Medicine }

Granny had a knee repacement and the kids were really worried about her, so they got to go see her while she was in the hospital. Both kids loved playing with the bed! Davis kept asking if he could nap with her.

I'm so thankful that we live close enough to help and that the kids have formed such a close bond with Dave's parents.

{ Sweet boys }

Davis has always been a snuggle buggy but he has taught his daddy to be one too. Even my mom loves to sleep with Davis when she comes to visit. There is something very relaxing about his nature (most days). Best thing: he loves to be loved on!

{ sweet Rwandan Boys! }

I LOVE THESE BOYS!!

Benjamin (standing) and Nicolas (crawling) belong to our sweet friends and were once at the same orphanage as Bizi. I love the two of them as if they were my own little brown bears.

Thank you, Lord for the addition of all 5 of the boys into our lives!

{ Bowling }

We had a great time taking the kids bowling, but who knew how expensive this sport has become! It was over $55 for the 4 of us to bowl one game! Yikes!



Personally, I think Dave's face is to pretty to wear that Ozzy shirt, but what do I know?

He does have some serious bowling issues. Don't say I didn't warn you if we ever go together!