She Did It! She Did It! YAY!!

We officially did it! Gracie has now ventured into the world of wearing big girl panties, at least 90% of the time! Yes, I said it! She is now potty trained!!! YAY!! I'm so excited! Can you since my excitement in the least bit?! Did you just feel the earth shake from all the jumping I'm doing for this new accomplishment in our household??!? If your a parent yourself and you have tackled potty training then you can completely understand what that excitement feels like. I cant even begin to tell you how happy I am that she decided she was ready for this, and all before school starts! Couldn't be better timing :) We have dabbled in trying to master the potty situation for about 6-8 months. But we never got farther then just sitting on the potty and playing, she just wasn't ready. We would sit on the potty only before bath time, because that's the only time I could get her to sit there long enough. 9 out of 10 times she wouldn't pee, and if she did pee, I would just figure it was luck. But last Tuesday when she came to me wanting to sit on the potty in the beginning of our day, I was SHOCKED! But, I let her try, thinking it was more of a game to her then anything else. To my surprise, she was serious. She went right at that moment in the potty and continued to go in the potty the rest of the day. She would tell me about 80% of the time that she needed to go. After a few days of successfully still using the potty every time she needed to go, the "Potty Fairy" made a visit to our house (potty fairy, aka her grandmother lol). The Potty Fairy brought Gracie a new princess potty (as seen in the picture above), a new matching princess stool that would be easier for her to move around, and new princess panties. This was just the thing to keep Gracie on track! She was so excited about the new potty supplies that it encouraged her to want to keep going in the potty! If she peed/pooped in the potty I would let her pick out a piece of candy and found some old stickers and some construction paper and let her put a sticker on her "potty chart" every time she went. She LOVED all this excitement about potty training and now over a week later she is still using the potty! We use Pull-Up's at night time only, for obvious reasons. We have had a couple "accidents" during this first week of training, but they have all been poop related. I think, at least I'm guessing, that the poop "feeling" might be a little bit harder to detect for the little ones, and honestly its only been a couple times that we have had that "accident" so I'm not complaining. Even going on vacation last week she was able to still stay focused enough to still go when she needed to "go". So I'm curious, how did the rest of you tackle potty training? Did you have any crazy things that worked to get them interested and did your kids just decide on their own they were ready?! What were your results and how did you feel when they finally mastered the obstacle's?!

Whats new with you?!

Hello fellow friends and blog world! I haven't posted in awhile, and thought I would stop in and say good morning! Alot has been going on the the Holmes household, enough to make our heads spin! We've had some fun moments and then they all ended with an incident with my car that has now left me without a vehicle. But we wont talk about that lol. I thought I would update everyone on what we have been up to this summer. We have had a pretty good summer so far and honestly, I'm very sad that its coming to a quick end. Gracie and I both start school again next month as well as we will celebrate her 3rd Birthday!! I cant believe my baby is growing up! Its honestly like a sick joke to a parent to watch your babies grow up and need you less and less. Anyways, back to our summer!

This summer we have spent ALOT of our days at the splash pad with our great friends the Erskine's! You can check out Nicki's blog here.



Gracie playing with the water guns

This is the "magic sensor" that turns the water back on once its turned off. :)

   At the beginning of the summer some of my family, Gracie and I went camping along the river! We had a great time, however our camp site location was horrible! The site was great, we LOVED the location, except we had HORRIBLE neighbors who partied all through the night. The crazy thing about that was that they literally never went to sleep the entire 2.5 days we were there! They had the worlds largest bon fire going, biggest one I had ever seen, and drank endless amounts of beer and insisted on yelling profanities the whole weekend. I was honestly shocked that people could act like that. I understand that when people have to much to drink the say and do things they wouldn't normally do. And then you wake up the next morning with a hang over and cant imagine drinking that much again for awhile and act "normal" again. Well, not these people. These were grown adults, with small children with them as well. We complained the first night, waiting until around 10 or 11 to even say anything, and they took that as a personal insult and continued to do what ever they could to make our trip uncomfortable. After the first night when we complained, they continued to stay up all night, party as loud as they could and then at 8am the next morning started banging on pots and pans as hard as they could and yelling "Its time to wake up! Its 8am!!" I'm telling you these people were crazy! Not to mention, the camp resort we stayed at had two main camp areas. One was a camp area mainly for those that want to stay up later and party and have a good time. The second camp area, where we were staying, was designated for families, those that want a low key camping weekend. I don't understand why these men and woman were acting that badly, but all I can say is that I think more than just alcohol had something to do with it. No normal human being acts like that, even if they were irritated that we complained and rained on there parade! Even the last morning their dog came over to our camp site and proceeded to relieve himself ON OUR camp site. We shooed the dog away and they came over towards us puffing their chests telling us "He's just taking a p**s". Anyways, we were lucky that during the day we were having so much fun on the river that we didn't even bother to think about the crazy group most of the time we were there. We still cant wait for our trip next year and just hope to not have scary crazy neighbors!!



My cousin, her friend, and Gracie catching fire flies :)



My mom and sister hangin out!



My crazy cousin on our horse back ride. She's such a goof ball!

Everyone lined up and about to head out on the trail :)

Trying to get a picture of me and Gracie on our horse. No horse in the picture but you get the idea :)

 After we have packed up the campsite and head home, we stop at the Pizza Hut just on our way out of town. Its our last meal of the trip and our tradition to do every year. We always sit in the large back room that always seems to have no one else back there and we just have a fun crazy time. There are these candy and game machines back there and one of them has nothing but face facial hair "stickers" and some even have fake moles!! Its so funny, and the girls spend crazy amounts of money ever year putting money into the machine to see what facial hair or mole they will be so lucky to get. We get some great pictures and it really is alot of fun!

My crazy cousin and her best friend with their lovely mustaches lol

My other crazy cousin with her beard lol.

One afternoon we decided to take the kids to see the new movie Cars 2.



This was the best picture I could get since it was dark and I couldn't see what was going on lol

 Then, just last week a good friend of mine and I took our kids who are just a few days apart in age to the Zoo. We had alot of fun, even though the temps got over 105 degrees that day lol.

We started the morning off by catching a Sea Lion show.



This is Gracie and Little Z man, he's such a cute little guy! I love this picture, such an honest feeling between a boy and a girl lol. They really do like each other, just not at this moment I guess lol.





It was so neat to be front row! The Sea Lion demonstration was right in front of us. I sure enjoyed it but Gracie wanted nothing to do with it being so close!



Then we took the little ones on a carousel ride. They had alot of fun!



Of course, we couldn't leave the Zoo without making a trip to see the new baby Elephant. She is only a few months old and just so cute!! She squeaks and is a very playful "little" thing, comparatively...lol

 Overall, this has been a great summer! I'm having so much fun with Gracie. Its so sad that she is getting older and growing up, but at the same time its so fun that she is able to do more things and last longer in the day without naps. We have so much fun together, I just wish Daddy was able to join us more often :( But he is such a good daddy who works so hard to provide for Gracie and I. We sure do love him :) However, this weekend he is taking some time off of work and we are going to spend the weekend in TX visiting my Aunt and picking up my sister to bring her back to the good ole state of OK for school. It should be a great weekend!!

I hope all of you are having a wonderful summer as well, despite the heat! I don't normally say this but I'm honestly ready for fall to get here, if nothing more then for some temperature relief!

Count Down to Disney!

So about a month ago or so my Mother and I started planning our summer trip to Disney World in May of 2012. I CANNOT begin to tell you how excited I am about this trip. So far, we are planning on me, Hubby Holmes, Gracie, my Mother, my sister, my Mother's boyfriend, and my Great Aunt will all be going. I'm so excited about going that it has consumed my (almost) every thought!! I feel like I'm 9 again when I went for the first time and just thinking about seeing Cinderella's Castle and seeing Mickey in person just makes me want to giggle like a little girl lol. The first time my family went to Disney was back in 1993. My Aunt was living in Florida at the time and married her then husband in June of 93. They wed on June 13th I believe (I may have the date off by a day or two...) and my birthday is on the 18th of June. Just a day or two after the wedding, we packed up and drove just a short drive (Me, my Mother, my Sister, and my Mimi) to Walt Disney World. We stayed at the Caribbean Beach Resort, which at the time I didn't realise how cool that hotel really was until now looking at the hotel in all of our planning. I just remember how magical and grand everything was. It literally felt like being inside of one of the magical Disney movies that we all love and enjoy, as corny as that may sound. It truly is a kids dream come true to be able to walk through Cinderellas Castle and to eat lunch with Winnie the Pooh or Goofy and Pluto!

I was so lucky to be asked to join my Aunt Laura to go again in the summer of 2004. My younger cousin was having a cheer competition and I got to go!! I was so excited to see how everything had changed and what was still the same! Much of it was just as I had remembered, but there was so much more to see and do! I mean, it was Disney after all and 15 years had passed. Some things were bound to be new! It was alot of fun and I will be forever grateful to have been able to join them!

So, next summer Gracie will turn 4 in August of 2012. We are planning now that way we can make sure to have plenty of time to figure out all the details and plan a perfect trip! Hubby Holmes and I wanted to wait until Gracie was at least 5 before thinking about having another child. So, what better way to spend a special trip with Gracie as the last time she will be the only child (or should I say Princess, that's more fitting I think) and to give her the absolute royal treatment then to take her to none other than the most magical place on Earth. Also, my sister was about 4, I think about to turn 5, when we went as kids. But for some reason, she has a hard time remembering much from her childhood. Literally, she cant remember hardly anything that happened to us as kids, all the great memories we had growing up are to her, like listening to someone esle tell stories about themselves...she doesnt actualy remember being apart of them when in fact, she was right there through it all. So, this trip is serving double duty and giving her a little bit of her childhood back. Hoping to rekindle some of those great memories we had when we first went together as well as to give her many many more! I know she will love it and I cant wait for her to go...again lol!

My original plan when my mother and I started planning this trip was to surprise Gracie and not tell her we are going until the day of. I cant begin to tell you how hard I cried the ugly cry watching videos of parents who have done the same thing with their kids. NO JOKE! Go to YouTube right now! (Okay, maybe after you read this..) and type in Disney surprise vacations and just watch some of the videos of the kids finding out that they are leaving for Disney only moments after they open the box/card/etc.. telling them that their bags are packed and everything is ready to go! If you even have a little spark left inside of you from your child hood then you just cant help but shed a happy tear of joy watching the light in their eyes and the glow on their cute little faces. They are just soooo happy! Its easily compared to winning the lotto for an adult for these kids. Some of them cry and some of them are just jumping for genuine joy. Its amazing!! Okay, so back what I was talking about. My original plan was to do this very thing with Gracie. Now, I realize that she will only be almost 4, so it may not mean "as" much to her as it would if she were a little bit older, like 7 or 8. But, we have talked about Disney World and explained to her that Cinderella and Bell and Ariel all live at Disney. She is a HUGE Disney Princess fan so this made her pretty excited just to know where they live. I ordered that Free Disney Planning DVD and sat down and watched it with her just to kind of see what she would say or do. I never came right out and said "This is were we are going....were going to Disney world". Or at least I thought I hadn't said that in front of her....Nope! I was wrong. Apparently, my own excitement for Disney took over and I must have been talking about it so much in front or around her and not even paying attention, that she now thinks (more like knows..) that were going to Disney. Every time she watches a Disney movie and the part before the credits where the castle comes up and Tinkerbell flies over the castle...she yells as loud as she can...."That's Disney World!! Cinderellas Castle!! I'm going there!!" So, needless to say, my plan is to keep my mouth SHUT! about anything Disney in front of her and hope that she kind of forgets or doesn't think about it over this next year. I really want to surprise her with this trip and just want it to work out perfectly! Right now we are only 316 days away from our trip! That seems like forever, but really its only a little over 10 months and will be there before we know it! I cant wait to update with more details on where we will be staying and some of the fun and exciting things we will be seeing and doing!

Wedding Recap #3 - Getting Ready!

Before I recap the getting ready part of our wedding day, I want to say a HUGE thank you to my friend and hairstylist Laci. You have NO idea how much you calmed me down that day and how much you made me feel so much better and more relaxed. And for that, I love you! lol

Laci was seriously, like others were too, a huge help to me! She was so helpful at the rehearsal doing what ever little tasks we needed help with. My getting ready started pretty quickly right after the rehearsal. All of my bridesmaids had their hair appointments at the salon at the same time and my mom and I got our hair done back at the hotel so that it would be a little less chaotic. I could not believe it, but Gracie ended up passing out, on her own, with no coaxing involved lol, and took a nap for over 2 hours!




I cant tell you how happy I was that she took a good nap!

Laci was so sweet to order us some margaritas! We were able to have a a couple hours just hanging out while she did my hair. It was so fun getting a chance to hang out with her, we don't get very many moments to hang out. Even if she was doing my hair at the same time lol.

The bridesmaids hair ended up taking a little bit longer then we had expected. Not only was it our wedding day, but it was also the University's graduation day so all the salons were jam packed with people getting ready for graduation that day. I had hoped we would all be done getting ready in time to get to the train station early to get as many photos done as possible. That didn't quite work out, which wasn't anyone fault, there just wasn't enough time. I'm so grateful for the photos we did get however. Our photographer, Shana Mills Photography, did a FABULOUS job! She got so many great photos of Hubby Holmes and his groomsmen. Even though we didn't have time to get any bridesmaid shots, she was still able to get so many great photos of the getting ready process. Here are my favorite getting ready shots and some of my favorite shots of the groomsmen she was able to get before the wedding :)

Cant live without my phone! ;)



My beautiful cousin





"Waitin on Woman" ;)





I sure love Hubby Holmes :)





I love this one of Hubby Holmes handcuffed to the light pole lol

I could seriously post like 50 more but then that would just be silly. The overall getting ready for our wedding day was so chaotic and just an unorganised mess! I'm just glad that at least the pictures (most of them anyways lol) depict something different. I'm glad they captured the joy that we truly felt in our hearts that day! I learned very quickly that day that I will never (like there will be another chance anyways, I'm going to be with Hubby Holmes forever, Duh! lol) but I will NEVER do that again lol. I wish I would have paid someone to do EVERYTHING! All the set up, all the transporting of stuff from here to there, all the little details, everything. **EDIT!**(I cant say thank you enough to Fancy Cakes Etc. for all that they did! I cant let it go without acknowledging the work that they did! They truly did do so much that day, that without them I would have just been one hot mess and there just may not have been a wedding lol. They did so many things, i.e. the cake, the caterring, helped find music, the set up and take down, etc...that It would take me all day to list what all they did. Thank you Debra, Tegan, and all the Fancy Cakes Etc. crew!!) My day was way to consumed with worrying about 50 million little things to get done that I should have just been able to enjoy it for what it was. All I can say, is that the second my veil was placed over my face and I walked down that aisle towards my best friend, all of the stress of wedding planning and preparing for everything literally lifted off of my back and everything in the world was just as it should be! But that's another recap ;).....

Coupons, Coupons, Coupons!!

So as you know I LOVE using coupons! I don't know what I love more?! Being able to purchase certain foods for my family that I otherwise couldn't afford, or watching the price at the cash register drop dramatically after I hand over my coupons. I follow many sites to get all the best deals, I buy at least 3 news papers every week and keep up with my friends about where they are finding great deals. I love our coupon nights that we just started a couple weeks ago and cant wait for the next one coming up soon!

Today I scored some GREAT deals and thought I would share them with you! I went to three stores, Walmart, CVS, and Homeland. Here's what all I got today:

The first store I went to was Homeland. Here are the deals I got:

• 3 boxes of Duncan Hines Premium cake mix. These were on sale for $.99 each. I had a coupon for Buy 2 get 1 free. Making these $.66 a box.
• Ivory Soap bars were on sale for $1.99. I had a coupon for $1 off which doubled making the soap completely FREE!
• Bounty Napkins were on sale for $1.29. I had a $1 off coupon which doubled up to the price of the item making them FREE!
• Bordon Singles Cheese were on sale for $1.99. I had a $1 off coupon that doubled making them FREE!!
• Mt. Olives relish was on sale for $1.29. I had a $.50 coupon that doubled making me pay only $.29!
• A-1 Marinade was on sale for $2. I had a $1 off coupon that doubled making it FREE!
• Glad freezer storage bags were on sale 2 for $3. I had $1 off coupon that doubled making them only $.50 each! (YAY for cheap storage bags! We use a ton of these a month!)
• Sargento Cheese slices were on sale for $2.50. I had a $.75 off coupon that doubled making these only $1.
• Land-O-Frost deli meat. On sale for $3.99. I had a $.50 coupon that doubled making this $2.99, that's the best price so far Ive ever paid for this.
• Items I did NOT have coupons for, Imperial Sugar was on sale for $2.49. There was a printable for this, but I didn't have it so I paid full price :( The Velveta cheese I needed for our Fourth of July cookout this weekend so it was a NEED. It was on sale, but again, no coupon. It was $3.99.

Before coupons my cost was $48.51. After coupons and after tax my total was $16.45!! YAY! And most of that cost was the sugar and block of cheese that were full price. Everything was FREE or almost FREE! And the even better part, is most of this I can use for our cookout this weekend!



The next store I went to was Walmart.

Now, I know that some of my friends have got some of these items at other stores for cheaper. This was the best that I got, but I'm pretty happy with the deals I got at Walmart. I NEVER get good savings at Walmart!

• Dove Men+Care Body and Face wash was on sale for $3.97. I had a coupon for Buy One Get One FREE up to $5.99. The cashier said that Walmart always gives you the maximum value off. So even though the product was only $3.97, she gave me a discount of $5.99 because the coupon was good for "up-to" that much. Talk about an awesome cashier! I paid a total of $1.95 for 2 body washes! (I'm not holding this as fact because I'm not familiar with Walmarts coupon policy and I have NEVER heard of cashiers doing this before!)
• Dove Men+Care Bar Soap 6pk was on sale for $5.97. I had a $4 off coupon making these $1.97! I had two coupons for these so I got 2 6pcs of soap.
• Gillette Men's ProGlide Razors in the travel section were on sale for $5.97. I'm not sure if this was a "sale" price or if that is the price they are daily. I had 3 $4 off coupons making these only $1.97 each. This was GREAT because Hubby Holmes uses this exact razor. I NEVER find stuff for him that's exactly what he uses. He will be very happy to have these :)

My total before coupons was $37.79. After coupons I only paid $15.01! Ive never saved that much at Walmart, so I was pretty excited about all these great savings! (Yes, I realize that I'm a nerd and I get excited about this lol but seriously, these are great deals people!!) :)


The last and final store that I went to was CVS. If it weren't for the fact that they have shopping carts with cars attached to the front of them that my daughter can get inside and "drive" through the store, then we would have NOT made it through this store lol. Shopping with a toddler is not an easy task and by this point I had her out all day and she had not had a nap, and was hungry, and I'm sure had a pull-up that was about to explode because it needed to be changed lol. So this was a VERY quick trip!

• Pantene Shampoos were on sale for 2/$6.97. I had a coupon for $3 off when you buy 2 making them only $3.97 for 2 PLUS a $2 ECB printed off on my receipt making these only $1.97 for 2!
• Dove Men's Deodorant was on sale for 2/$7. I had a Buy One Get One Free coupon making these only 2/$3.50
• Woman's Degree Deodorant was also on sale for 2/$7. I had 2 Buy one get one free coupons so I got 4 deodorants for only $7.
• However! If you spent $15 on select Degree and Dove products then you get $5 ECBS. Before coupons my deodorant costs were $21 so I earned the $5 ECB's for those.

My total before coupons 39.12! After coupons and after tax I paid $11.07. BUT with my $2 ECB's from the Shampoo and then my $5 ECB that printed from purchasing the deodorants I really only paid $4.07!! That's one of my best CVS trips ever, but then again, I'm new to alot of the CVS shopping.


I had so much fun shopping today! It was so great to get so many things my family can use and not break the bank. Today I spend a total of $42.52 and saved a total of $86.45! I cant wait to see what is on sale next week!

Wedding Recap #2

With all the stress that the day before our wedding brought me, I was NOT about to let the day of our wedding be anything but relaxation, joy, and just filled with love and laughter. Hahahaha, yeah right! That was not what was in store for me that day lol. Well, the love and laughter part ofcorse was! But to think that the day was going to be anything but stress free and full of relaxation was a JOKE! The day started with our wedding rehearsal. We had our rehearsal the morning of our wedding because we had alot of family coming in from out of town and it made it easier for them to not have to miss work/school/etc. on Friday. So bright and early at 8:30 we all headed to the Train Depot to unload 3 cars FULL of wedding crap into the station and try to fit in a wedding rehearsal, breakfast and some set up in only 2 hours that morning. It was rather interesting to say the least! We were so blessed to have so many friends and family there to help us! Everyone found a job and pitched in! I could not have done it without all of them. And not one of them complained about my disorganization and chaotic mind that day lol. Here are some pictures of our family and friends helping out:

My nephew helping out like a stud!

I'm so glad they helped! Look at all the crap they had to carry in, so funny to look back on it now and see how unimportant some of that stuff was! lol

Everyone waiting to be told what to do :)

I feel like this picture is a good representation of the day! Just a pile of stuff everywhere!

This is Debra, our head caterer and wedding planner. The look on her face is priceless! That is exactly how I was feeling this morning lol

Everyone helping set up tables! What great troupers they were :)

"Are you sure you want me to put that there?!"

Apparently I was dishing out orders lol

You gotta leave time for playing on your iPhone :)

By this point others joined in on the "setting up the candy bar" lol. I think they just wanted to sneak some tasty treats ;)

Once we got some things put away and the caterer arrived with breakfast for everyone, the morning started to look up. I know now looking back on everything that the disorganization was a result of all the planning and ideas that I had come up with from a year and a half of planning and thinking I needed every little detail to make our wedding day perfect. But in fact it took away from me being able to enjoy the time with family and friends. I will say, and I'm sure I will mention later, that once I walked down the aisle towards marrying my best friend, all that stress lifted away and I was in complete love and joy! Nothing mattered any more and everything was perfect! Everything just fell into place and I was able to enjoy our wedding evening, with a few surprises too! Everyone enjoyed the rehearsal breakfast and we were able to run through the rehearsal in less than 20 min! After the rehearsal, everyone parted ways to get ready for the big event of the day! Gracie and myself headed to the hotel to enjoy a few moments of quite time before getting my hair done and all the bridesmaids headed off to get their hair done at the salon. Kudos to all the girls at Synergy Salon for making them all look FABULOUS! Thank you to everyone who was there at the rehearsal and helped out. I may not have told you thank you but your help was very much appreciated and we could not have done it without each and every one of you! Hubby Holmes and myself love you all and are very grateful for all you did for us that day :) Stay tuned for a recap of getting ready and the ceremony! :)