Help!

Well, February has come and gone which means it's time to reflect on my first month of couponing and sticking to a budget. I'll just throw it out there: epic failure. I've read about families of eight living on $300 a month in groceries. Obviously seven of them are starving.

Things that worked: 

• A couple very successful couponing trips. (I'm getting the hang of it!)
• Going to multiple stores. Target is my new favorite.
• Switching to the envelope system. Using cash worked really well... until it was all gone... and I still had 21 days left in the month.

Things that didn't work:

• Giving Scott my debit card. a) I ended up just grabbing his to use when we ran out of cash, and b) I have the whole card memorized anyway. (Is that weird?)
• Sticking to a budget. Obviously. 

So, here's where I need some help from my readers. And I know you're out there because I've seen the Google Analytics. On average, we spend about $600 in groceries, $150 eating out each month. In February we spent $800 in groceries and $180 eating out. I know, for being the first month couponing/really budgeting, how did I go over so much?! Gluten-free. Dairy-free. (That being said, February was actually an improvement from January.) My goal? $400. (Ha!) Obviously I need a more realistic goal. Soooooo, kindly leave me a comment and let me know:

How much you spend each month in these areas? 
How do you stick to a budget?

In other news, Landon's bedroom that was bursting with toys, has finally gotten a facelift. For months, I thought the only solution was to get a bookshelf to hold everything. Well, after stalking KSL forever and never finding the perfect used bookcase I could fix up, I decided to rearrange his closet and room. I also gave the train table (good ol' cardboard box) a makeover with paint and fabric I had around the house, and now it looks much better, and finally has a place against the wall. At least I was thrifty in some way this month! :)

The Grand Tour

Come on in! Here's the tour of our new place...

We are the top right. Finally! After two years of living below people, it's about time we are the ones on top.
The madness before unpacking. Wish I had a before before picture. Two guys had been living in it for five years. The carpets were blue, really old and worn, and the walls were pretty much black from who knows what. It. was. so. dirty.
And after.
In the corner where the previous photo is taken is this storage closet. The left half is full of boxes and the right will be our pantry. Yay! A place to stock up on food!
The hallway. It is located to the left of the kitchen. (The wall on the left in this picture is the wall in the living room with the bookcase and painting of us.)
All the storage closets in the hallway!! Three! Love it! (This picture is taken from Landon's room.)
Bathroom (from hallway).
Landon's room. (In panoramic form, hence the weird warping.)
Our room.
Walk-in closet. Niiiiiiiiice.
Our bedroom has a door to the bathroom as well. Love how connected everything is.
And last but not least, Scott's office.
The end. We love love love our new place. Let's hope we don't have to move for a while...

Holidays and Happenings

Lately we have been...

Lovin Landon: We recently switched his reflux medicine and have noticed such a big difference in him this past week. He is sooooo happy, curious, content, etc... all those good adjectives. He is slowly sleeping better as well which also helps my mood exponentially. :)

Filmin: (Duh!) Just yesterday Scott filmed a commercial for Body Mint; a company out of Hawaii. It was mostly outside and I was doing craft services (providing food) so our lil guy was there too, all bundled up and hangin with daddy and me. He was even in the commercial! Oh my goodness, can't wait to post the finished product so you can all see him - it is priceless!
Eatin and Movie Goin: Here is our Thanksgiving feast. Yummers! We had our meal at noonish then headed up to our favorite theater in West Jordan to see Harry Potter. At the last minute (AKA two days) before we saw the movie I decided to read the book (it has been years). I made it through everything that was in the movie and was so glad I read the book first. I had forgotten how AMAZING those books are. Now I need to dig through the storage to get my whole set and read them all. Oh, and of course the movie was fab and I can't wait for July. Landon was a perfect angel and slept through the whole thing!

Rearrangin and Decoratin: In order to fit a tree in our lil itby bitty apartment AND move Scott's "office" out of Landon's room (doesn't work too well to have him in there and Landon trying to nap at the same time) we rearranged our living room as pictured. (There used to be a sofa chair in the tree's place and we found that desk for 25 bucks on KSL - steal!)

Landon was sleeping when we decorated the tree, so when he woke up it was really fun to see how much he enjoyed looking at the new tree. He likes to sit on the floor and just observe. (Of course then he also tries to wiggle his way closer in order to touch it.)

Every year since I was born my grandparents on my mom's side would send me a Christmas ornament. They were from a series and were super uber cute. Anyway, my mom is now starting the same tradition with Landon. We couldn't find any series that we loved so we decided to do our own. His ornament theme is going to be movies! So, this year he got the one pictured below.
Happy Holidays!!!

The 5,972 Things We've Been Doing...

Seriously, I'm not kidding. March madness in our neck of the woods. Here's an update into our latest happenings:

Dr. Fubalous

Scott is shooting this hilarious web series about a doctor/rapper. We'll let you know when it is finished and online. When he was shooting this music video portion this homeless guy came by and stopped to watch. Then he started dancing, so one of guys working on the project told him to go dance with the dancers. He actually did. Soooo random.

EMERGENCY!
Scott went to the ER three times in seven days. The first two visits- he couldn't breathe because of pain in his chest and abdomen. (I thought breathing was important so we finally decided to go after dealing with it for hours.) Third visit - has a vein explode while getting pumped full of contrast solution during a CT scan. At the elbow, his arm swelled to the size of a large grapefruit in a matter of seconds. Apparently this is something that obviously doesn't usually happen, but if it does, is only seen in people over 70. He is doing much better now.

Happy Birthday to Me!

On March 31 I turned 23! Scott decorated the house and got up early to fix me french toast with strawberries and whipped cream. At school, my kids called me into their music room during their music time. They were all sitting in a circle singing an African song and had a chair set up for me at the end of the circle. Each one took turns coming up to me, whispered a complement in my ear and dropped a nerd candy in a goblet that was set in front of the chair. It was sooooo CUTE! My two favs were 1) "You're the best teacher ever and when I grow up I want to be a teacher just like you." and 2) "You're beautiful." (From one of the boys in my class.) Their music teacher explained that this is an African birthday tradition. Very neat!! After school Scott and I went ate at Outback Steakhouse (Mmmmmm!) and came home to open presents and eat ice cream cupcakes from Coldstone. I love birthdays!

And Getting Bigger...

Here's the photo from 29 weeks. I feel great, besides a little tiredness and being uncomfortably large. Last week I had the gestational diabetes test and rhogam shot done. I thought half the world was negative and half was positive when it comes to blood type. Apparently being negative is not that common. It's only like 17% of people, or something like that. Lucky me.

Catapults!

I've been teaching about forces and motion/simple machines in science this month. As a culminating project, my students made catapults at home and on a sunny Friday we tested them out with marshmallows. I even let them shoot at me, which they were very excited about.

Conference and Easter

Scott's sisters came down from Rexburg over conference weekend so we had tons of fun handing out with them. We all had tickets to the Sunday afternoon session so that was very neat to go to. It will probably be the last time Scott and I actually go to the conference center for a very long time, since kids under 8 aren't permitted. We really enjoyed all the talks, especially the many on teaching children in the home.

Lost and Found!

In November I lost Scott's car keys. I literally searched EVERYWHERE over and over again. I assumed I had thrown them away by accident. I finally replaced them in January. I thought it might be like 10 - 20 bucks to replace. Oh no. $150. Yikes. Those are some high-tech car keys. Sheesh. Well, the other day I was cleaning up our porch and to my utter surprise found the keys laying on one of thees benches out there. I couldn't help but laugh. They're super rusty and gross looking, but I'm very curious to see if they still work...

Moving

We just found out yesterday that we have to move in the next month. We knew when we moved here that the family upstairs were trying to sell their house. They actually took it off the market when we moved in, and had been trying to sell it for a few years now. Well, a friend of a friend was interested, came by, made a great offer, and don't want basement renters. :( Sooooooo here goes the house search again. The fam is so nice, they feel so bad and are trying to help us find a place, while also finding a place for themselves. This has by far been our fav apartment so we are sad sad sad to leave. I laughed when Scott told me. It's funny how these things always seem to happen at the most inopportune times. Oh well. That's life.

Scott's Second Trip to LA

On Sunday Scott leaves for LA for the next three weeks. He will be working on the set of ABC's Brothers and Sisters. They will be filming the season finale.

Goodness. If you made it through that, congratulations.

The Diner

Ok, finally some picts of the new pad. If Scott weren't so busy, I'd have him make a video. But, until then, here's a picture tour. I've just been dying to get these up here so my fam can see it. I don't really have much else to say... Scott's been working like crazy to finish the film before Friday. It's great. We'll probably be rich and famous by the end of the year. :) Ummmmmm... I had a kid throw up in class yesterday. On his desk, in the desk, down the front of him and a huge pile on the floor. I had to help get him semi-cleaned up while waiting for the janitor to come to the rescue. I got one whiff and I was sure I would throw up too. Strangely enough, last year I had a boy throw up and he sat in the exact same seat...

CHECK IT

Ok, so ummmm we FINALLY found and decided on a place! Goodness, I don't know what's worse, trying to find a new apartment or a new car. We looked at soooooooo many, and there are so many other people looking as well. Not to mention this week I started school, which is a whole other blog in itself. In the end we had six people offer us their basement apartment. (Apparently we are the "ideal" renters; having a steady income and no kids.) It was so hard to choose because the pros and cons of one would equal out those of another. Everything was happening so fast and everyone wanted to know right away and, and, AHHHH. But then, we found the perfect one. Well, almost perfect. It's in Alpine which for me, makes a 5 minute drive to school, but for Scott it will be 45 minutes. (He's a better driver in the winter anyway.) IT IS SOOO TIGHT THOUGH! It's one bedroom but the living and dining room/kitchen are awesome. As you can see in the pict, the dining room/kitchen is completely diner-decked out. SO COOL. It comes with an air hockey table, ping pong table, PIANO (Scott is stoked), our own huge cement patio and the backyard is huge and backed up against a school so no neighbors for quite a while. They also have an in home theater with an entrance from their side of the basement and from ours. We will be able to use it for movie nights, or screening Scott's films. COOL OR WHAT? New adventure here we come....

A New Start

View outside our front door

Mapleton, Utah. Home sweet home. For the most part. It's been an interesting adjustment- obviously much different than Rexburg! We love being in a bigger city though, with so many more options for food and entertainment. Our apartment is a good 20 - 30 minute drive from campus and all the action, depending on the severity of the snow and time of day. But anyway, here are some moving shots and picts of the new place...

Not wanting to drive anymore after the Christmas adventure

A little scared, not knowing what's to come

Not anywhere near as bad as it was to start

BYU is VERY different from BYU - Idaho. (I would never go to school here!) The people are no where near as friendly and there are definitely some bad cases of road rage. For goodness sakes, I obviously don't know where I'm going all that well, but I had like three people honk at me in the space of two minutes. Geez, take a chill pill. Scott has a few classes that he is looking forward to, although there will definitely all be a lot of busy work. He has a couple great teachers as well. One of them was actually a producer for the film, "Together Again for the First Time," (mentioned in an earlier post.)

I have spent the week applying and interviewing for various jobs. A few receptionist positions, and a few teaching positions. Hopefully I'll find out soon if anything is going to work. Sometimes I wish I was still in school, it was just be a lot easier. Being graduated is weird, and scary and arg I just need a job!