2 years ago today

I didn't want this day to end without remembering. Two years ago today, our little Matthew was born just in time to say goodbye. Our lives are forever changed. We understand better the plan our Father in Heaven has for us because of this special baby of ours. Thank you, Matthew! Our hope now is to live worthy so that we may be a family forever with you as our son!

Christmas morning 2009

We like to take a few traditional pictures of our Christmas morning.... we always take a picture of the kids before they descend the stairs and see all the goodies Santa left out for them. (Poor Becca was sick on Christmas Eve, she was still really tired in this pic.)

And we always have the kids cover their eyes on their way down, maybe a little dangerous, but essential on Christmas morning! (I'm really liking that big curl on the top of my head.)

Just a couple of cute things the girls got. Matching sweaters from Santa.

And quilts by the elves. Rumor has it they put in a few late nights to get these finished! We had wonderful, simple Christmas this year!

And now onto the "Happy New Year!"

This is why I do what I do...

Christmas came a little early today for me.... 37 items for $12.48! It was a double coupon day today at a local store. I think Santa is one of the managers. :p I've decided that my blog is all about bragging, thanks for looking!

"Say hello to friends you know..."

Allison's concert performance at the Ogden Tabernacle Saturday night!

A very musical Christmas season!

Wow! We had an amazing Sunday morning, to say the least! My awesome aunt Natalie is a member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. After we lost out (again!) from getting tickets online to the Christmas concerts, she called on Thanksgiving Day and said she had tickets available for the Sunday morning concert! Were we interested?

Let's see, what was our favorite part? It might have been Natalie Cole, the children's choir or the bells? Was it the orchestra, David McCoullough or the dancers? The decorations or the tabernacle choir? I think our favorite part was being 6 rows away from President Monson as he walked to his seat! We were able to watch him during the show, also.

The show was amazing! It truly was an experience never to be forgotten! The music was magnificent, everything was perfectly timed. It was hard not to applaud until after the 1st half hour while they recorded Music and the Spoken Word. When the recording was finally completed, the audience applauded for about 5 minutes! I was so glad that Allison and Rebecca were able to witness such amazing talent. They performed a "mini concert" after the 30 minute recording. They were still recording parts for the PBS special next year and asked us not to applaud for certain songs. Some people still forgot, even though Lloyd Newell asked them extra nice!

President Monson went up on the stage after the show with President Mac Christensen and presented gifts to Natalie Cole and David McCoullough. He said that he'd like to say to them the 5 most important word in the English language, "We're proud of you." And the 2 most important words in the English language, "Thank you." Ms. Cole and Mr. McCoullough were very gracious. They both mentioned the "special feeling" that they had while they spent time in Salt Lake City. Hmmm.... I wonder if President Monson explained to them afterward what they special feeling was? If we get nothing else for Christmas, this present was more than enough for us this year!

That being said, our favorite concert of the week was one of much smaller proportion. Becca's! She had her first violin recital yesterday and we think she did very well for only 3 months of lessons! Here she is, in a duet with her teacher, playing "Ode to Joy" by Ludwig van Beethoven. It's very short and very sweet! Way to go, Becca!

Our December so far....

Santa came to our house early this year!

....and he looked just like a peddler opening his pack!

Allison performed in more concerts, this choir really is amazing! Here's another clip for my parents!! Love you!

We've had snow, snow and more snow! The kids had to get their winter boots a little early, we couldn't wait for Santa!

Christmas turkeys? There were 3 of these guys and they had the whole place to themselves at the Ogden Nature Center. I'm very grateful for bloggers that let me know when these wonderful places are open for free. They have a huge collection of handmade birdhouses there, this was our favorite one- a little birdhouse old west town. Tommy was hilarious while we were there last Saturday. He went on a field trip with his Kindergarten class a few weeks ago, so he was the expert on the nature center. We saw the "Happy Owl." And he saw "the biggest bird I've never seen!" While driving home, we saw a train moving very slowly. He said it was going slow because it was too cold. I laughed all day. Allison and Tommy accompanied me on a super bargain trip to Target where I bought 4 boxes of Frosted Flakes, 2 4-packs of lightbulbs and some Clean and Clear face wash all for $1.24! Ha ha, it does take some planning and a lot of strategy for those kind of trips!

And, last, but not least- Christmas cookies! I thought Tommy looked extra nice in the gingerbread apron! Here he is picking out the Christmas cookie cutters.

Cutting it just right.....

Got it! Yum, yum! I hope you all are having a fantastic Christmas season!

*I realize this post has a serious lack of Becca. She has been busy going to ice skating parties, playing her violin, making crafts out of paper towel tubes and cleaning her room!

City trees and lights

This last weekend, we had a night in the city of Ogden! There are many beautiful things to see at Christmastime. We went to the annual Christmas Tree Festival, and that's where we met Santa. There's more to the story of the picture I posted last time. After we took the pictures, got the candy canes and chatted to Santa and Mrs. Claus for a little bit, we walked away and Tommy started crying like his heart had broken! :( We realized he didn't get to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas! "Oh no, Tommy! You can always write Santa a letter!" Well, this wouldn't really do, he kept hugging me and crying. So... we backed up into the line again and told Santa that Tommy missed his turn to tell him what he wanted for Christmas. Santa listened to Tommy and then handed us a card to tell us that we could write to him and he would send us a picture of himself feeding Rudolph! The address.... well, it's top secret of course, but we're sending our letter to Harrisville!

Allison joined a children's choir a few months ago, "Kids Are Music" and they had their first performance last night at the Joseph Smith Memorial Building! Hey... we know someone that works there everyday!

Grandma Ryan!


The choir sounded beautiful and I'm so happy for Allison, she always performs with confidence and smiles! She got a small solo part singing "Holly Jolly Christmas" with two other girls.




We recorded a video for the family that won't be able to make it to the other performances. All the rest are in the Ogden area! And, lucky me, one of them is for our Relief Society Christmas Party! This song is so beautiful, titled "Adeste Fideles" and is mostly in Latin in case you're wondering what in the world they are saying! ;) (Allison is on the 2nd row, about 3rd from the left and has her hair pulled back in a bun.)

Why We Believe

Yes, Santa, yes! We believe in you! We know that those who don't will get coal in their shoe! (Or something like that.)

You make childhood magical, remember going to bed on Christmas Eve being filled with excitement? You knew that Santa and his reindeer would be there soon ready to fill your stocking!

You inspired my children to write darling letters such as these.

You are a great motivational reminder when my children are being "naughty"- the elves are watching you all year long, didn't you know?

We love you, Santa and we believe! Do you believe, too?

Happy Thanksgiving from the Ryans!

We hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

We love you and we feel overwhelmed with the many blessings our Father in Heaven has given to us. Have a fantastic day!

President Hinckley

So, I heard the funniest stories about President Hinckley last week... I wanted to share a few! I got these from a speaker on the BYU channel, his talk was about how our weaknesses can become our strengths.

• Sister Hinckley had always wanted to see the ocean. She finally had her chance later in life when she was traveling on assignment with her husband. When they got to the ocean, they got out of the car and Pres. Hinckley said, "Okay, now you've seen the ocean, let's go."
• The Hinckley family always went to visit the cemeteries on Memorial Day at 7:30 a.m. The reason? So they could beat "the crowds."
• "The crowds" to President Hinckley meant about 10 cars at a time in any given place, parking lot, etc.
• President and Sister Hinckley always went to wedding receptions 30 minutes before they started. Again, they didn't want to get caught in the crowds. The speaker inserted here that he was sure that the wedding party was still setting up the reception when the Hinckleys arrived.
• Once a summer, the Hinckleys would load the family into their car and go to the drive-in movie. But, the family never stayed to see the end of the movies! Again, President Hinckley just had to leave early so he wouldn't get "boxed in" and not be able to drive out right after the movie was over!

What? President Hinckley wasn't perfect? From the stories told, he was a little bit impatient about getting things done. But.... this is where the lesson came in. President Hinckley liked to get things done and do it in a hurry and with efficiency and precision. There were 47 temples in 1995 when he was sustained as the President of the Church. It took the church 165 years to build these temples. In the next 5 years, 55 more temples were dedicated. Amazing! All because of an amazing prophet, blessed to be able to make his weaknesses his strengths, Gordon B. Hinckley.

Excellence

Allison had her first Young Women's 'Night of Excellence' tonight! John and I are still wondering how we got into this situation.... This is her little display table, we used pictures from The Sound of Music and Peter Pan and also the music that she plays and sings. We are so proud of our excellent Young Woman!

Beautiful November and great big planes

The last week in October was snowy, the first week in November- we were playing in the sand! The kids had a day off last week, so we went to the park just to play.

We also went to the Air Force Museum (love it, because it's free!) and saw some really big (and some really small and some in between) planes! We even got special permission to go inside one:

This is the biggest of the big planes, the wheels were taller than my kids!

This video is nothing spectacular, it's just all about SILLY!

Couponing 101

Sorry this taken me awhile to get to. I'll get right to it for those of you ready to coupon! (Some of you may or may not be surprised to find out how crazy I am.)

Step 1: Order the newspaper.

Several Sunday copies- 4 to be exact, or more if you can get them. (The Daily Herald in Utah County for example.) They say the rule of thumb is to have as many papers as you have people in your family. The reason? For the coupon inserts, of course! And, so you won't have to pay full price for items you regularly use. You can stock up on items when they are at rock bottom prices.

I ordered my paper through a salesman I met at Smith's. I had 2 Tribunes and 2 Deseret Morning News coming on Sundays. Each paper each month was $5.85, or $23.40 a month. Since doing this however, I have found better deals through bloggers, so I cancelled my papers and I'm going to order through them! Check here or here to get your papers ordered for the best possible price!

Step 2: Check into Grocery Smarts.com

This is their link: http://www.grocerysmarts.com/ and this is the Utah password: g84chs

The password can be shared with everyone, so feel free to pass it along! Once you've logged in once, save the page as a 'Favorite' then you won't have to type in the password each time.

This site allows you to look at the current shopping lists in most stores in Utah. You can double your savings with sale items that currently have coupons available for them. It's sweet!

Step 3: Read some coupon blogs.

You may have noticed that I had a bunch on my blog list. I recently moved them to 'Favorites' websites instead, because I felt the need to read everything they were posting! You don't have to read everything or feel like you have to get every deal.

These are some you may want to follow:

StretchingABuck and CouponCravings

These are both blogs in other states, but they follow Walgreen's, Rite Aid, and Target really well. Plus they let you know about many other freebies!

pinchingyourpennies - I believe this is a Utah blog, they let you know of MANY online deals!

PLUS- These are some purely Utah blogs that I recently found and I love!

OneCheapChick UtahDealDiva SheShopsSmart

Save these on your blog list or your favorites so you can check them often!

Step 4: Clip and organize.

You may think this is over the top, but this is how I organize my coupons:

This is a photo album. (I bought this with a 40% off coupon at JoAnn's, so it was $6.) It has plenty of pockets, as you can see below and the pockets are big enough to keep the coupons you print at home. This way I can easily see my coupons and I don't have to ruffle through a big stack when I get to the store. I also use it to plan my shopping trips by labeling the pockets at the front with the name of the store and pulling the coupons I'm going to use at that store, so they are ready to go!I've roughly organized the coupons into categories, so all cereals are in a section, yogurts, shampoos and soaps, and so on. I sometimes wonder if alphabetical would be better?? It's all about saving money AND time! I do carry it with me anytime I go to the store, I usually stumble into a deal or two and I'm so glad I have my coupons with me! (P.S. Yes, I know, I probably look dorky carrying a photo album with me everywhere I go... I've been a mom for 12 years now, so I'm so over it!)

Step 5: Shop!

Start slow until you feel comfortable using coupons. When I first started, I would get nervous walking up to check out! I was wondering if they would really work like they're supposed to, or if I was going to get in trouble for saving so much money! Then I remembered a fact from the old days when I worked as a checker at Macey's: the manufacturer pays the bill for you! They want you to try their product, so they pay the store and you don't have to. Phew! I didn't worry about getting in trouble again.
That being said, the only time I couldn't get a store to accept a coupon was at Macey's. They are very wary of printed coupons at the store here. They will not accept 2 coupons with the same bar code in the same transaction, even though you may print each coupon twice from home. Just something to keep in mind.

Is it all worth it? I would say that it definitely is, YES! I will say that my life is pretty low-key right now, all my kids are in school and I have no toddlers or baby in the house. So, it was easier for me to get started. But, I will always do this no matter how crazy my life gets because it is so worth it! Here are a few scenarios of deals I've been able to get the past few months:

1. This was a $40 trip to Walgreen's. (Please note the Opti-Free, contact lense wearers know this is pricey! I have to buy double now that Alli is wearing contacts!) And, there are 2 boxes of the legos missing from this picture. I think Santa had something to do with it! ;) Altogether, 21 items= about $1.95 per item on average.

2. This was a $13 shopping spree combined at Albertson's and Target. I counted 25 items here= $.52 each on average.

3. I spent $19.50 for 20 boxes of cereal at Target (in 4 separate trips) and got $20 of gift cards back! I actually made 50 cents and got 20 free boxes of cereal! Plus, 15 of the boxes had box tops, so my kids' school made $1.50!

4. I spent $8.25 for 10 boxes of Kellogg's cereals at Albertson's, then sent in my receipt to Kellogg's to get a $10 check back! Another money maker.

We moved to South Ogden 4 months ago.... our short term food storage basically totally depleted! I started shopping to build it up ever since and our 3 month supply is back! And not just food, we have 3 months supply of razors, shampoos, conditioners, toothpaste, toothbrushes, feminine products, laundry detergent, etc. I don't think I "saved" a lot of money (aka: putting more cash in the bank), I spent the same amount from our regular budget, we just were able to get a lot more for the amount we spent!

If you 'endured to the end' of this post (hee hee), here's a bonus for you! To help get you started on couponing, here are some links to some FREE things! (They all involve coupons you can print at home!)

1. FREE bakery items at SuperTarget: here

(You can use several coupons in one transaction, all my kids chose a bakery item for a treat last week. The 99 cent items are free, they don't have to be a full $1 to use the coupon.)

2. FREE Connect 4 mini game at Target: here

(Just pay 35 cents each for tax, you can print the coupon twice! These are the mini games found near the luggage area, they are NOT in the games)

3. 2 FREE cans Campbell's Tomato soup + 3 FREE Hunt's tomato sauce at Walgreen's: here

Have FUN!! :) Let me know if you have questions or suggestions!

Treats galore

A BIG thank you goes out to Lindsay and fam for the vampire teeth! You saved my weekend! ;)
At the school Halloween parade. My two guys- are they cute or what?

Becca- the sweet little witch!Allison was having too much fun to pose for a picture!

Chicky baby- riding in style for trick or treating!

My cute grandma with my kids and their cousins! What a fun night- thanks, Melissa!

We have so many treats that some are being turned into sculpture. Can you guess who made this little guy? :)

Allison and chicky baby couldn't keep up with the boys and Becca sprinting between doors! It's just as well...... hope you all had a Happy Halloween!

What a difference a day makes!

This was taken the morning after we took our fall pictures! Goodbye fall! Hello winter! Tommy loves the snow because he knows that Christmas is coming soon.

This was a fun skate party we were invited to. Allison is in a performance choir and they had a party at Classic in Layton. They all have colored hair because my friend cut their hair that day and likes to let the kids choose pink or blue hair spray just for fun when they're finished! The little guy with the blue hair wore me out at the rink- he's never been on skates before, but he was really acting like hot stuff! He was even jumping in his skates. Becca had a couple of bad falls. :( I told her the next time we go skating, she can tie a pillow around her bottom for a soft landing. She's not too hip on that idea.
Our trunk or treat last night! If you can see our basket in the car, we gave apples as our treat! :)

Fall family pictures

We took our own fall family pictures this year- we are all we could afford! :) Hopefully they didn't turn out too bad. We took all of these in our yard and in a yard across the street. Ogden is, believe it or not, a very beautiful place!

Here's just a couple of our outtakes (each of them has one common factor!):

Tommy is patting our heads in this one!