Continually working on the house

Sorry this was the best "BEFORE" pic I had

This past week I decided to do a little project during the day while Josh was at work. We have a built in cabinet in our hallway that we used for towels, linens and to hide all that stuff you don't know where to put (you know you have that place in your house :-) hehe) Well, it had not yet been painted from when we moved in so I finally got around to painting it. It was hard work but fun. However, during the painting I decided the bottom cabinet would be a good toy nook, as Annaliese's toys were in the floor behind the couch. So I left the doors off of it and made her little place to put her toys.

Are you on the Up&Up on diapers??

As a mom I am always on the search for good cheap diapers. I think every mom understands this. Well, as much as I would like to cloth diaper it was just not possible to do with Annaliese, maybe with the next one. Well, for a long while we were able to use diapers that were given to us as shower gifts and/or buy diapers with gift cards given as shower gifts. The last several months however we have had to buy our own. Even after using coupons and searching out the cheapest stores we were spending $30-$40 a month on diapers, and diapers come out of our grocery budget.

We were in target this past month because they were having a sale on a name brand that I had a coupon for, however, my husband happened to look over at the Target Brand "Up&UP" diapers and for a box of 96 size 3 diapers it is $13.49. This is around $4.00 cheaper than the next leading brand. So, we bought a small bag to try. I didn't wanna end up with a box of bad leaky diapers. I found that they are AWESOME!!!!

They work just as well as any leading brand I have ever used and I have used them all. I also like that they don't have cartoon characters on them. They have a cute dot print.

The pictures show a Target size 3 diaper compared to a Huggies size 4 (some that were gifts but she isn't in size 4 yet). As you can see, they are made basically the same. They are the same thickness and of basically the same quality.

I just wanted to share this so even if you don't have little ones in diapers you can pass this on to others you may now. It has been a great savings tip for our family!!

1st Birthday Fun

Playing her Piano on her birthdayOpening Gifts

GOOD CAKE!!

Birthday "Smash" Cake I made for her

Here around our house we have recently been running around like crazy with the 1st birthday fun!! Annaliese turned one on July 6th. We had her party at the church on the 5th. She had alot of fun, received a bunch of VERY nice gifts (Thank You Everyone!), and ate a big cake :-) I thought it turned out very nice and though she won't remember it, it was a very big deal. Anyways, All in All it was a great day. The next day (on her birthday) we went to the doctor for her check up. She is a very tall and skinny baby girl! She only weighed 18 lbs. 3 oz., but she is a very healthy happy girl. The doctor was impressed for her vocabulary at 1 year old. She says and recognizes mama, dada, Amy, Josh (our names), dog, duck, ball, bye bye, nay nay (nursing), and others that I can't think of at the moment ;-) She also sings the Bible Book Bop song. We are very excited to have had 1 year with our wonderful little girl who is the light in our life.