Happy St. Patrick's Day!

GREEN GREEN EVERYWHERE!!! We have been having SUCH a fun St. Patrick's day! I felt a little guilty for not even putting Piper in green last year (or myself and consequently got pinched by Carole!) so I decided to have a little fun with it this year. Curtis told me every year his mom would lay a trail of leprechaun tracks for them to follow to find their breakfast - LuckyCharms, and dyed their milk green! What fun! Good job MaryANN! So I adopted the tradition while taking it one step further by dying the toilet water green! Ha!Ha! Silly In know! Piper thought it was so fun and silly. When she got to her breakfast she had a curly green straw too - what fun! I had to work at the Y today so I brought a pot of "gold" (chocolate coins) with a rainbow coming out of it for the kids to enjoy. Piper thought it was funny that the leprechaun had stopped by there too and dropped some of his gold. She soon found out he had played another trick on us and the gold was chocolate! So fun! We made shinkydink shamrock necklaces with the kids and just have really enjoyed our day. Sadly I have NO pictures:( I know - it's a tragedy! but I have LOST my camera - I can't find it ANYWHERE!!! Last I remember seeing it was after Piper's first ballett class and I was uploading the pictures for the blog. Curtis thinks Piper hid it somewhere - hopefully we find it soon! Naps are in progress right now. I really want to make a leprechaun trap after naps but we'll see if there's time. We has a ROUGH night last night! The only one the slept was Piper. Curtis found out he has a double ear infection and a sinus infection and Bailey has a double ear infection - I think I have one too but not sure what to do! It's probably in my head - anyway, that's all in our neck of the woods. Hope you're all having a very green and tricky St. Patrick's day!

Ballet

I have just been loving working at the Y. Not only has it given ME something to do and a way to earn a LITTLE bit of extra cash, but it has just been awesome for Piper. She has such a great opportunity to socialize every week and make new friends while "we're" working. She has gotten SO much better at saying hi to people and learning to be polite to my co-workers and the other kids - she's really coming out of her shell which is just wonderful! (If you know Piper, you know she DOES NOT like to be touched by someone she doesn't know, talked to or certainly not left alone with other people! She has ALWAYS wanted me right there holding her! ) Anyway, the BIGGEST perk to me working at the Y has been the great classes and camps. I have been able to work out in class settings with friends and have been able to get my runs in while letting the kids play in the child watch and Curtis has been able to do some of his P.T. on their equipment. Recently, the Y opened a ballet class for the little ones so I signed Piper up (and since I work there, It was SUPER cheep!). Curtis and I BOTH were worried she wouldn't like it since I wouldn't be able to hold her hand the whole time, but we did it anyway. Well, today was her first day! We talked all about it this morning and she got really excited to get her outfit on, especially her tights "like mommy wears". I think she was mostly excited because I was jumping around the house SO excited myself! I set her up on the bathroom counter and put her hair up in a bun just like Ballerinas and she #1 allowed it and #2 LOVED it. She loved having it hair sprayed up and posed so beautifully for me before we left. When we got to the gym, she saw all of the other little ballerina's standing around waiting and she told all of my co-workers she was going to dance - too cute! Then the time came for them to enter the dance room ... alone...without there mommies...

Piper cried! At least when she finally realized I WASN'T right behind her. But Lisa (the instructor/co-worker - so piper knows her really well) said it was fine and just leave her... so I did... and ... SHE DID GREAT!!!!!

She LOVED every minute of it!!! I stuck around and watched, along with all of the other moms, peeking in every so often hoping she wouldn't see me and she did great. I went for a run while they did there thing then came back to watch the last 10 minutes and Piper was actually dancing and running around. I was SOOOOO glad she wasn't one of the kids with their face pressed up against the glass waiting for their moms!

The last little bit they turned the music on for the girls to free dance and Piper was SOOO cute shaking her little bootay like Emily taught her to.


Anyway, we had the BEST time EVER and Piper said she wanted to do it again after her nap - haha. I have the cutest video of her dancing that- if I can figure out how to put on here - i'll add later.

Couponing

So I have been attempting "couponing" for about the last year here in S. Carolina because a.)there are some AWESOME grocery deals to be getting b.) "everybody's doing it (that's not really why but it's is the truth - EVERYBODY coupons here which can present a problem at times) and of course c.) to save money. Well last weekend I forced Curtis into doing my Publix run with me so that we could buy everything in 2 transactions (I had an episode last time I tried doing 2 transactions even though it was lagit. so I begged Curtis to do it with me so I wouldn't get embarrassed) and this is our results. Thanks to my friend, the couponing queen, and her extra coupons we got all of this for less than $25!! (i think it came to $22.10!!!)I did it in 4 transactions;two of the transactions we only paid 10cents!!!! - it was AWESOME!!!! I hope this made curtis want to coupon hunt for me when he passes the recycling bins on his way to work:) Anyway, here's the rundown of what I got...

17 bags frozen veggies

4 canisters of bread crumbs (chicken parmasean here I come!)

1 box nutrasweet (didn't have a coupon for but Curtis needed)

1 gallon of milk (also didn't have a coupon for)

1 tub butter

2 starkist tuna pouches

1 can progresso soup

2 canisters pillsbury grands

1 canister cinn. rolls

12 cans of corn

10 cans diced tomatoes

3 BIG cans hunts tomatoes

3 32 oz chicken broth

14 jars of Ragu

10 bag of knorr rice

2 boxes brownies

3 canisters of Pam

2 8oz chuncks of cheese