Long time, no see!

Whew!

It's been a long time since I've written an entry and, well, for quite good reason.  Life, simply has caught up with me.  My journey through life with three children, a husband & a dog while maintaining a safe and clean home, and not to mention my own sanity, has been a challenge over the last year!

Alas, I feel as though, maybe, just maybe, I'm beginning to see the light at the end of the tunnel.  So, here I go again.... alongside my hubby who has recently decided to start blogging, I'll attempt to keep my thoughts and life in balance for those of you who are interested.

I continue to focus on my marriage, our children, and my close family and friends; helping out where I can but for the first time in my life, learning to say no when I just can't and finally attempting to "take care of myself" along with everyone else.  I figured out how to ask for help a while ago, which was a good start.  I've honed in on how I want to spend my career days and am actively pursuing a career change that I think will leave me with a sense of fulfillment and accomplishment at the end of the day.  And I'm working on something that I think has been missing for a very long time; emotional confidence and strength.

Mooseman Ironman.... check!

Hello All! This is Beth writing in for Tara. What a crazy and long weekend it's been but I couldn't be any prouder of my sister than I am today! Tara finished the Mooseman Ironman 70.1 this afternoon sometime around 3:30pm, which brought her to complete the endurance event in under 8 hours. The fact that she was able to complete it at all, especially given the conditions of the course today (extremely cold and wet) is nothing short of amazing to me. Tara was in great spirits as she crossed the finish line and she looked terrific. I especially want to thank ALL of the members of Team In Training for their hard work and effort.

More photos and stories to come ....

HAPPY EASTER!

Aaron Self-feeding

Once again, the video quality is poor here because I've compressed it for web streaming. Nonetheless, you get the idea. Today we started to introduce some table foods and he is doing much better with self feeding than he did during our initial attempts. He actually ate an entire banana during dinner this evening! I would have restricted his intake but he's had banana baby food without negative reaction and he thoroughly enjoyed feeding the little pieces of banana to himself!

Baby Shower Gift

How fun is this?!?! I copied the design from a site that I found online and will be giving this to a friend for a baby shower that I'm going to soon. :)

On the Move!

Aaron began crawling between Christmas and New Year's. I knew that he'd become proficient quickly at crawling but I was shocked yesterday when I walked into his room after he awoke from a nap to see him standing in his crib!

Holiday Shopping Deals

Greetings!

I've been online shopping and recently came across some great deals that I thought I'd share. I just love it when merchants give away free money!

First off, the best place to find valid coupon codes for merchants is savings.com

Check out buy.com for items at great prices and if you select the "eBillme" payment option, and enter promo code "buy10dec" you'll get $10 off your purchase of $10 or more. I found a gift that I'd been looking for that normally runs about $20-25, but I paid $14.99 through buy.com (no tax or shipping charges) minus my $10 savings with the eBillme code and my final cost for the gift was $4.99!!! The only confusing part was that I had to select the "Place My Order" button before I entered the promo code, but the discount shows up when you get the eBill from eBillme.

At Gap.com, you can get 20% off your entire order by entering promo code "GAP20"

If you're shopping at the store and you want to bring some coupons with you, I found a great website a long time ago that has consistently provided me with coupons that I can print from home, http://www.wow-coupons.com/all-printable-retail-coupons.php

Happy shopping!