FREE!

That's right, I got the above items for FREE!  I know it doesn't look like much, but it was such a victory for me.  I've started couponing.  I'm not an extreme couponer like the show on TLC, but I have learned a few tricks from watching the show.

Here's the break down on the above items:
Crest - on sale 10 for $10. - coupon for $.50 off 1 (which doubles to a $1 at Kroger) = FREE
Cascade - on sale for $.98 - coupon for $1 off 1 = $.02 PROFIT
Glade - on sale for $.97 - coupon for $1 off 1 = $.03 PROFIT

It just takes a little effort to save a lot of money, and it's kinda fun too.  There's definitely a learning curve... on my first trip attempting to coupon I only saved 27% on my bill and I was at Kroger for over 3 hours.  However, the more I do it the better I get.  On my best normal trip buying actual things we use and need I saved 53%.  I actually saved more than I spent!  I went once specifically to get an item that was on sale I knew I had coupons for... I ended up getting 4 boxes of cereal for $2.03 including tax (the regular price of ONE box is $2.32).

Sometimes couponing means that my living room looks like this:

If you look closely you can see AnnaBelle's bone to the right in the middle of several stacks of coupons... she kept wanting to play and walking through them for some reason.  The living room didn't look like this for long and it did result in my first free finds, which was an exciting goal to meet.

I use a few websites to assist in deal finding that I think are very helpful:

www.couponing101.com

www.southernsavers.com

www.couponmom.com

www.coupons.com (I print coupons from here.)


I've gotten some of my family and friends started on couponing.  It's fun to hear what others find and to see their excitement... who doesn't love saving money?!

Do you have any fun couponing experiences?

Cousin Camp

The "Big" Cousins

    A few weeks ago the Martin girls (my grandmother and great aunt's daughters and their daughters) got together for a few days for the first annual Cousin Camp.  We made Martin Memories and had a blast.  We cooked, ate, cooked, ate, and ate some more.  We also went out on the boat and tubed and had a "boatnick," and a few of us (by us I don't mean me) jumped off a waterfall.  Words can't express the craziness and fun we had.  Pictures really tell the story best.

The first day basically all we did was cook and eat.  We even made mozzarella!  Check out that story and all the awesome food here.

Us and our food!

Tubing on the lake was very fun and a little painful.  I was very sore, ridiculous, I know.

Our wonderful driver, Ginny!

sisters

We convinced mom to tube with us, it was quite hilarious.  Just getting on the tube was an ordeal.  We managed to keep her on until the very end, we forgot to pull back when we were slowing down and she went flying forward and under the tube.  It was pretty hilarious.

trying to figure out where to hold on

happily on the other tube

Katie Ruth switched tubes for a little while.

Us all falling off, you can't see mom because she's under the tube

Katie Ruth and I saving her life

Mom talking about seeing "the light"

Depending on how she's feeling when she tells the story she was under the tube for anywhere from 30 seconds to 90 minutes.  It's pretty hilarious to hear her tell it.  We're all glad she survived.  Needless to say, she did not tube again.

Isn't she so cute?

Before heading to the waterfall, we stopped to get gas and had some fun:

Trying not to burn

Instead of showing pictures of the jumping from the waterfall, here are some videos... enjoy.

BOATNICKING! (We ate a lot, but we ate WELL.)

Laughing... we did this a lot.

 Here's the whole clan (minus Sarah, she had to go to school :( we missed her):

Here are our battle scars:

It was a great trip... makes you wish you were a Martin, doesn't it?

Hoppy Easter and Happy Birthday!

Last night the Robertson girls carried on the tradition of egg dying... here's a picture of the fun:

Today is my mother's 50th birthday!  I can't believe she's half a century old... she definitely doesn't look it!  Here she is with her stack of presents:

 
This book is one of the gifts wrapped above... I hope she enjoys reading it.  She also got some reading material on the upcoming Royal Wedding... we can't wait for that party!













It's also a Robertson tradition to have jello eggs on Easter.  Katie Ruth loves them as you can tell from the pictures below.

I've got several projects in the works, so check back for updates soon!  Happy Easter!  I hope you're enjoying the day celebrating our Risen Savior! 

Sante South

About 2 weeks ago the Alzheimer's Association  put on their annual event called Sante South to raise money for Alzheimer's education and research.  The event is a wine festival that consists of many different wineries and restaurants providing food and beverages for the attendees to taste.  I volunteered to help with the silent auction again this year.  I designed and decorated the item display to go along with the wine theme.  Here are a few pictures of the display:

Alzheimer's Disease affects countless families.  Some one in the U.S. develops the disease every 69 seconds.  If you would like to donate to help this cause you can do so here.

Ikea = Overwhelming

Since we got married almost 3 months ago we've been very busy.  Justin has worked a lot and we've always got something going.  So, when our schedules matched up to have a weekend off we decided to take a second honeymoon trip to Atlanta!  (So, it wasn't really a second honeymoon I guess, it's just what we jokingly called it... just go with it.)  It was a little of a crazy weekend, but it was really great just to spend quality time together.  We went to Six Flags,

ate a the Cheesecake Factory,

and went to IKEA.

These are our IKEA faces.

We were really excited.  This was our first trip to IKEA and it was a little overwhelming.  It was also a little disappointing because we didn't find any of the furniture pieces we went to buy.  But we had lots of fun looking around anyway, and managed to find several other things we're pretty excited about.  Here's Justin in the check out line with all the fabulous finds:

Here are a few pictures of where some of our "finds" found their home in our house:

Arching Floor Lamp

I really like this one.

Napkin Holder (and napkins!)

AnnaBelle thinks this floor lamp is cool...

...or maybe she just wanted to be in the pictures.

This is probably not where all of these pieces will stay permanently, but it works for now, and we like having them out.  More progress shots to come.

Speaking of progress... our other bar stool came in this week!  Here's the pair together at the bar:

I really like them.  The kitchen is almost complete!

I'm SEW excited!

I know, corny title, but I couldn't resist!  I got a new sewing machine recently and I really am excited about using it.  Here it is:

I set up and threaded my machine this weekend.  It was fun and runs so much more smoothly than the old one,  I'd been using my grandmother's old machine (I think it's from the 80s).  My grandmother taught me to sew when I was in junior high, but I didn't really use my skills much until the past year.  It was fun to refresh my memory and figure things out on her old machine, but it has its quirks and it was time for a new one.  My new machine has several features the old one doesn't have too.  I'm excited to try them out. 

My first project is recovering a couch for my friend, Katie.  She designed my beautiful wedding invitations and save the date cards.  I'll post pics as I complete the project... hopefully soon!

Foodie Freddies

My friend Heather and I have started a new blog to help each other brave the world of cooking for two.  See it here.  My first post is about this dish:

GREEN Chicken Curry

 The dish turned out pretty well if I do say so myself.  It was the first meal we ate at our table, in our new house, eating on our new dishes.  It was really fun.  You can find the link to the recipe on the new blog here.

Home Sweet Home

Well... We've been in our home a little over a month now and still have a little bit (by little bit I really mean crazy huge amount) to go in getting settled.  Building our house was a wonderful experience for us, mainly because we had a wonderful builder.  He does really great work, very efficiently.  Amazing.  Check out his website here.  Now to pictures of the day we moved in.  These pictures do help me to see how far we've already come and they're a good "before" place to start.  So, here we go...

Our Bedroom

Our Bathroom

Our Shower/Tub

 

Justin's Closet

My Closet

Guest Bathroom

Laundry Room

Guest Bedroom

Upstairs Hallway/ Stairwell

Downstairs (view from the garage door)

Half Bath

Pantry/Dining Area

Kitchen/Dining Area

Living Room

Move-in day was wonderful.  We had lots of great friends and family help out.  We are very grateful to have such amazing friends.  (Check out a few of their blogs here, here, and here.)  More house progress to come in future posts... I've been dying to have something to put a lamp on in our living room.  I found a great piece for just that yesterday!  Pictures coming soon!

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