Halloween Costume is Here!!!

Last year Connor was a monkey- a very adorable little monkey of course.

We were trying to decide what for him to do this year, as he is blissfully unable to make too many preferences about his costume right now (and this will soon change :)

I have a friend whose son Jackson was a dragon last year- this was the costume I really wanted for Connor last year that had been sold out.

So guess who is borrowing it this year?? Me of course!!!!

We got it in the mail this morning, and he demanded to try it on immediately. It fits perfectly!

My little dragon-boy

Wings and tail.

the tail sticks out in the back.

he really liked the claws, btw.

Oh and please excuse the weird picture sizes- i'm learning to blog directly from picasa.

He's obsessed ....with trucks!!!!

At dentist, originally uploaded by Makclair.

Our son is obsessed these days with trucks.

It used to be dogs- everything for the last few months was woof-woof. He would see a stuffed animal- woofwoof. See a dog- woofwoof. Cat-woofwoof. Animals at the zoo- woofwoof. Well, finally I think he figured it out. Now, large animals - Mewwwww (moo). This includes large dogs, much to our embarassment when he moo-ed at several great danes downtown last weekend. Their owners didn't seem to mind. He also calls small animals "tats" (ha) which means cats, and this includes small dogs. In between animals are still woof-woofs, but he's starting to say dog. I learned about this way of thinking when I was in college in child development (and can't remember what it is called, but it is interesting to see it play out in your own kid!)

So now we're obsessed with the trucks. He's always loved those little tonka trucks- he owns basically an entire fleet of vehicles. He also loves his school bus and sometimes the smaller trucks get to ride in the school bus. Now he's saying "truck" more often and he uses it for everything.
In the morning he's talking about truck-truck which is daddy's car . When we're going somewhere in my car (honda pilot) he calls it truck-truck-truck and he prefers my car as I guess it is more truck-like. He points to riding lawnmowers and regular lawnmowers and yells TRUCK!. One of the more exciting mornings of his life so far was going to my office when he was sick with a fever (to get a strep test) but the garbage truck happened to be there and he actually got to witness the dumpster being dumped in action. He would not stop talking about the "dump truck!"

So anyway, I have completely re-vamped my ideas for his birthday party now. I originally was going to do Yo-Gabba-Gabba (google it) because he loves the music. Well, now we have mr-truck-obsessed. We're doing a truck theme party! Yes, I know it is in Dec, but you know how busy work is at that time of year, so i'm already starting the planning. We'll do truck decorations, a truck cake and I think it will be super cute. Very boy-ish.

I've already started finding ideas!
Wouldn't these be awesome party hats??

I feel like this design is a little too big boy for him, but it is the only thing I can really find.

Or this one?????

What do you think???

Fall is (almost) here!!!

So, it is September, as hard as it is to believe!!!
Finally starting to cool down a little, can actually enjoy the outdoors these days, pumpkins starting to appear at the grocery store and thinking about the apple orchard. Of course, it is full swing on strep/colds/sinus infections/allergies/school avoidance these days as well!!!!

But back to the good stuff:

I've gone ahead and started decorating for Fall. At this time last year I was studying for boards so I didn't really do a lot as far as putting up stuff this time of year. But I've already started this year!!!

I've had this wreath forever- since I lived in that old house in downtown Macon- and it has held up pretty well. I got it at Hobby Lobby originally, i think.



On our mantle, I put up some autumnal garland, a glass jar of cinnamon sticks, apple-cinnamon potpouri and I got a super cute little pumpkin picture frame! ((((HobbyLobby))))

This is our "candy bucket" but I think i'm going to put some pinecones in it for now. The last thing we need is a bucket of candy sitting there for the next 6 weeks!!!


Still to come- I want to get a few more outdoorsy type decorations- maybe some mums next to our front door, a hay bale and a scarecrow:)

Labor Day Weekend Update

I'm working all weekend/on call so I hope I have nothing exciting to share about this weekend- Last weekend was Labor Day and we were all off from school/work so we did a lot of fun things. I'm a little behind on uploading pics, so i'll go ahead and write this post, and then add in more pics or write an update blog when I get more pics up!

We grilled out several times over the weekend- we did burgers/sweet potato fries/grilled corn and then the next night we did London Broil on the grill- Yum!

This boy loves sweet potato fries!

We spent a lot of time just hangin out, reading, dancing at home. Connor just got this new book (yo gabba gabba -Party in my tummy). He has tons of books, but currently he's obsessed with this one and any book of his that has trucks in it- especially Richard Scarry's "Cars and Trucks and Things that Go")

I also got a little bit crafty and made my first diaper wreath for a coworker who is due with a little boy. I need to attach a few little things on here, but i'm pretty happy with my first creation.

We also stayed busy over the weekend- attended a birthday party for Connor's classmate Peyton and we went Cleveland Park/downtown twice and also went to the zoo!!! More pics to come!

cvs deals this week! (Saved about 60%)

cvs deals this week!, originally uploaded by Makclair.

So i've been holding on to an aveeno raincheck for a long time, waiting for them to get more diaper cream and lotion in stock so I could use it. Finally! I would have preferred to get all diaper cream (the aveeno kind is MAGIC!) but i had some printable coupons that were about to expire. So I had to get other stuff which we can definately use as well.

Deals: 2 pack body wash 3.99 with one ECB offer - $2 coupon from the red machine= 1.99 with one ECB back.
Gummy Vitamins:7.50 BOGO and 1.00 coupon off each bottle.
Gain soap:1.39 - free coupon = FREE
Aveeno baby products: Raincheck for 3.99 and buy 20/get 10 back in ECB. Plus I had three printable coupons for 1.00.
I had only 1.99 in ecb to spend

Total 31 something and I got 11 back in ECB. sweet!

All for 16.90 at Publix! Saved 32 dollars!! (65%)

All for 16.90, originally uploaded by Makclair.

I haven't posted a good savings wrap up on my blog lately, but I took a pic with my phone and wanted to share it!

I caught all these deals on the last day of the sale this past weekend at Publix.

Right guard men's Deodorant- normally 3.99 each, on sale BOGO so 2.00 each. Then I had 1.50 off each printable coupons- which made them 50 cents each!

Huggies Wipes- normally 19.99 for the big box- I had a 5.00 off store coupon as well as a 2.00 manufactuer's coupon- which made it 12.99.

Huggies Wipes (3 normal sized packs)- normally 6.99 and I had a 2.00 off store coupon as well as a 2.00 off manufactuer's coupon, making it 2.99.

Campbell's soup- normally 2.40, on sale for 1.19 and then I had a 1.00 off coupon- 19cents!

This made a total of 21.90, and I have a mail in rebate for a 5 dollar publix gc for the diapers/wipes! Net of 16.90 for all!

Clean carpet!!!

Hello out there!!! Anybody?
I've been terrible about blogging, I realized that the last post was 2 months ago! So i'm going to try to get back on the game asap!!! And here we go- I have a lot to catch up on!

This weekend, we had lots to do-

First, Saturday morning we met up with a friend Janis and her husband and daughter Hannah at Cleveland Park. We've never played there before as it has been So So Hot lately, but we found out that Connor loves it!





Connor and Hannah after our walk:



We had a great lunch out together as a family at Copper River and then went to the grocery store and picked up a Rug Doctor.


Now, lately i've been feeling really grossed out by our carpet. we have discussions back and forth. Should we just rip it out and put in hardwoods? get tile throughout? Just leave it because Connor is messy? Put in new carpet? Hire stanley steamer?
So after all that we've just lived with the nasty carpet for months. It continues to get grosser as we have *someone* who insists on spilling things constantly.
Well i finally gave up and we were going to spend the money to have professionals clean the carpet, but I decided to give the Rug Doctor a try- so of course I found a coupon online, and off to Publix we went! Renting the machine was easy and was only 20 bucks after the coupon. I did buy some cleaning solution as well, but later on I ended up having more success with oxyclean. It took several hours and a lot of physical labor as you have to constantly empty and fill the machine. BUT- it got our carpet really clean, and i'm very happy. I'm not embarassed of our carpet anymore!!!!





Sunday afternoon after we returned the rug doctor, I met another friend at Barnes and Noble for coffee, then we came home and trimmed branches in the yard. We actually ended up tearing down this horrible dead bush that was in the edge of our yard , and i'm sure our neighbors will send us a thank you card. LOL.
Connor colored with sidewalk chalk and then ran around hitting bushes with cut branches.


A busy weekend, but not all good :

Unfortunately, there was some poison ivy buried in that old bush- so I just made my husband a doctor's appointment :)