I haven't posted forever - life is CRAZY!!! - but this was too funny to me. Avery has potty trained, but sometimes it's easier just to let her walk around the house in her underwear rather than taking off and putting on ALL her clothes when she has to got to the potty. Well, today she asked me if she could be Luke's mommy, and I told her of course. So, she was taking cute care of him and Caden called to her, "Avery, if you want to be a mommy, you can't just walk around the house in your underpants". I'm glad he realizes that :)

Memorial Day

It's tradition in my Dad's family that on Memorial Day, we all get together with my dad's side of the family and go to the cemetery. My dad's brothers and his parents are there, as well as other family on my dad's side. And every year we follow our visit to the cemetery with a BBQ and swimming at my parents house. The guys usually golf in the morning too, but since I don't go to that I don't have pictures.

This has always been a good memory of mine, back to when I was a little girl. The family is getting so big now with all the cousins getting married and having kids, but it's such a fun time to reconnect with them all.


Whoever said cemetery's couldn't be fun? Here some of the kids are enjoy a game of follow the leader.
I'm trying to explain to Caden about some of his relatives. I didn't know my grandparents or uncles, but it was nice to share with Caden what I knew about them.
Grandpa and Lucas watching a little basketball.

We Love Visitors

We were so excited to have Grandma Paula and the Ryan's sister and niece come visit for the weekend. It was so nice of them to drive up and spend a few days with us.

We spent sme time at the park, swimming at the hotel pool, and riding bikes outside. The kids had a great time

Check out Caden's air...he loves to do this at our pool too.

Ronalee introduced the kids to the ice cream truck. Why have we not done that before??? Of course, Avery doesn't like ice cream...she says it makes her cold. So she opts for a pop-sicle.

Mother's Day "Tea"

Caden had his Kindergarten Mother's Day program and the kids did so great! They had learned so many songs and had prepared a yummy "tea" time. They escorted their moms into the room, got their lunches for them, and let them sit in their chairs. I thought it was so adorable and sweet of these young kids.



Caden and his best friend Michael

Caden's 6th Birthday

This year we decided to do another jump house for Caden's birthday. It's so much easier to have a party for a bunch of little boys and let them just rough house their little hearts out - outside. Batman was the jumphouse of choice this year, and I think the boys had a great time.

Easter 2009

We had a lot of fun for Easter this year. We went to my parents house on Saturday for the traditional Easter Egg hunt for the kiddos. It's always fun to watch the kids help each other find their eggs.

This year, there was a surprise egg. Avery wasn't too excited when she found a plastic egg with a piece of paper in it. The rest of us were thrilled though, because it had a picture of an ultrasound. Ryan showed me and wondered who had a surprise...turns out Jon and Kami were announcing they were having another baby! We were all so excited.

After the hunt, we had lunch together (thanks to mom and dad) and the kids starting trading their loot.

Book of Mormon Reader

We've really tried, honestly, to do family scripture study. It just hasn't worked how we had it in our minds. So, Ryan bought the kids a Book of Mormon reader and they have loved it!!! Ryan is good to try and read to them each night and Caden especially is understanding the stories so much more. It is a lot of fun to see the excitement they have for the scriptures and learning from them.

Even Better

So after being thrilled about my savings at Albertsons yesterday, I think I did even better today! I happened upon an auction in the Walmart parking lot in Meridian. Turns out it was a fundraiser for the Special Olympics, and Hubble Homes had donated the furniture/accessories from all their homes. Well, I was in search of a twin mattress set since we are now a family of 3 and I"m ready for Luke to be out of my room and into the crib...thus, Avery needs a bed. We've talked about bunk beds, but we really don't know who to put in what room, who would do best sharing and how to preserve all of our sanity...

Anyway, I'll spare you the boring details and get to the point. I ended up with two complete twin mattress sets (mattress, box spring and frame) for $20 a piece!!! They were never used, only for show purposes. One is a Simmons, the other a Spring Air. I also got a Nautica twin bed set - comforter, bed skirt, 3 pillows with shams and two throw pillows for $30. Finally, I found two curtains to match the bedding at $10 per panel. Crazy that the curtains cost more than the beds! They were negotiating a little here and there, but buy the time I got to the curtains, I felt I got such a good price on the mattresses that I shouldn't bother negotiating. Besides, it was for a good cause. Great bargain day for me!

I set one bed with the bedding up in Caden's room. His bed set is actually the same company, just a different patter. I think they go quite well together.

The bed on the right is the new bed...the one on the left is Caden's.
The new bed and bedding

Krazy Couponing

Guess how much this cost me?
About $45....saved$75


And this?$25...saved $93

I have to say I'm officially addicted to couponing!!! And I love it when someone else does all the work for me! I've added new links to my sidebar for some of my favorite money saving sites. My latest favorite is the Krazy Coupon Lady. It is a group of girls from my area who find great deals and post them. The best part is they will search through ads, find the best deals at grocery stores, and then post what to buy, where to buy it, links to coupons, etc. They save you so much $$$.

For example, last week Albertsons had a crazy sale...you basically could buy 3 packs of Pampers Diapers for $4...not $4 each, but $4 total!!! Looking back, I should have bought way more than I did! The problem was, you couldn't find them on the shelves anywhere in town, and when they were on shelves, people were clearing off the shelves and buying like 50-60 packs of diapers!

Anyway, I spent $177.89 on groceries and saved $261.90! So, I got $439.79 worth of groceries for $177.89.

Here's my list:

Pampers 10 packs
Rice A Roni 8 boxes
Kellogs Protein Water 36 bottles
Hamburger 7 lbs.
Potatoes 10 lbs.
Dasani Water 24 .5 liter bottles
Fiber One Bars 2 boxes
Cascade Dish Soap 2 boxes
Go-gurt 6 boxes
Yoplait Yogurt 20
Chicken 8 lbs.
Eggs 2 dozen
Charmin Bath Tissue 36 rolls
Cereal 11 boxes
(Cheerios, Kix, Chex, Cinnamon Life)
Granola Bars 6 boxes
Oatmeal 4 boxes
Popcorn 1 box
Cheese 4 lbs.
Milk 1 gallon

The Protein Water, Hamburger, Chicken and Cheese really brought my cost up...those 4 things alone were about $65 of the $177. This was my first time really trying to coupon shop and make it work, so I know many have done way better...but it was a lot of fun!

Restaurant.com

Have you ever heard of Restaurant.com? Me neither. But I got a discount code and tried it out, and now I'm hooked! DONT PAY FULL PRICE EVER AGAIN when you go out to eat! So here is the deal:

• Go to Restaurant.com
• Enter your zip code
• Choose the gift certificate amount you wish to buy, click checkout
• Enter the word EXCLUSIVE (good through 1/19/09)
  
• Be amazed

Example: So I clicked on purchasing a $100 gift certificate to the Melting Pot downtown. It regularly would only cost me $40 on this site. Thats pretty dang good. But I entered my coupon word EXCLUSIVE and my cost dropped to $16.00. WHAT? SERIOUSLY! Awesome.

**Note the small print: Each gift certificate is to be used on a minimum amount...so, the $100 Melting Pot certificate is for a $200 purchase. You could buy a $50 value for $20 instead to be used on a $100 purchase ($8 with the discount). That's $100 to the melting pot for $8!

If you're in Meridian, the 83646 zip code doesn't work...try 83642,

You can also view menus and make reservations from the site.

Isn't she beautiful

I just had to post this...isn't she beautiful?

Christmas break in McCall

The day after Christmas, the whole Yorgason family went to my parents cabin in McCall. We usually go twice a year as a family, more if we can, and we always look forward to those times. We weren't sure what the snow would be like up there, but it was perfect the whole time. We usually went out each day and rode snowmobiles, tubed behind the snowmobiles, built snowmen, made sledding hills, played snow football...it is so much fun. Their yard is perfect for all for these things. I think it's the only place on the lake you can snowmobile from...the water drops low enough that there is a huge area to ride out into the lake area. New Years Eve is fun b/c we usually get the kids dressed in their gear and head out around 8 or 9 and spend a few hours out there. It's something we all look forward to each year!

One of the funnest things the kids did was ride from the steps at the cabin on a tube, all the way through the yard down the hill into where the lake was. It was slippery enough they could do that, and then Ryan would pick them up on the snowmobile, he'd carry their tube, and they'd ride behind the snowmobile back to the cabin. They did this for hours and Ryan was so good to drive all the grand kids, and even a few of the "big kids" around.

Avery with her cousin Brooklyn - they are the best of friends
A lot of the gang out enjoying the snow
Avery doing what she does best in the snow - eating it
Avery getting her first haircut from Andrew's wife Kelli


Avery tubing behind the snowmobile with Grandma Yorgason.
View from the cabin
Greg wearing his gag gift from Dave and Lucy...footed pj's
Caden and his best buddy/cousin Gabe
Caden and Avery ready to ride the tube

Avery riding with crazy uncle Greg...it's like he's from Chicago or something wearing those shorts with Sorels
Caden and Max