Friday night's "Family Party" at Noah's school was very nice. Mom came in Jamie's place since Jamie was at Agape. The table had placemats which Noah had drawn, a book by Noah about our family, and a potted flower we got to bring home. We had some sandwiches and cake and watched the kids sing a few songs. The kids all got to bring home baseball caps with the school's name on them, and we made a couple of crafts also. Very cute.

Got up early Sat. morning for organizational band contests. We got a first!!! I never know what kind of scores to expect at these things, even if we are super prepared. So, I was extremely pleased. It was a good morning all around. The kids were super well behaved and everything just went really smoothly. Yay!

Made my weekly CVS trip Sunday. I bought 6 12-packs of Coke products, a case of bottled water, 3 boxes of cereal, and a newspaper. I spent $11 out of pocket, and got $16 Extra Care Bucks back. My goal is to spend nothing or almost nothing out of pocket, but I don't feel too bad because I got grocery items, not toiletries, and got good deals on them, too. The soda came out to less than $2 a 12-pack, and the cereal was about .67 a box. Woohoo!

In other news, I had some bloodwork done last week and found out I have an underactive thyroid. I haven't been back to the dr. yet, but she did start me on some meds. I have been on them since last Tues. and can really tell a difference in my energy level and hunger level. I really feel good today-well rested, energized, etc. I am not glad that I have this condition, but I praise God that it was found and is being treated! I will continue to post on how this is going.

Well, I recently started "CVSing" at the recommendation of a friend (thanks Jasmine!). I never realized the great deals you could get by shopping their sales. Of course, it's even better when you stack the sales with a coupon, which started me couponing, too. Jamie bought me a coupon organizer right after I started collecting them, which I promptly filled to capacity. You would think Dave Ramsey would expect people to use a lot of coupons and offer a huge coupon holder, but evidently not.

I wasn't sure if I'd make it to CVS this week, so I went on my lunch hour today. They were out of a lot of the things I was looking for, so I didn't get much. However, I did get an $8.99 Schick Intuition razor, two deodorants, and a Diet Coke for $1.18 out of pocket. In addition, I received $7 back in Extra Care Bucks that I can use like cash at CVS! I had a $4 coupon for the razor, .75 off the deodorant, and used a $10 Extra Care Bucks from my last trip.

I am accumulating quite the stockpile of hair products, deodorants, toothpaste, and razors. If I can get stuff for free or almost free, though, why not? I would love to hear about any of your great deals and freebies that you find-so keep me posted!

OK...obviously from my layout I have no idea what I'm doing. If anyone knows how to get rid of the big "Undefined" text from my layout or how to make my Bible verse gadget wider, let me know. That's what I get for trying to change my layout.

Well, I'm not really sure what I'm doing on here, or if anyone is really interested, but I've been interested in starting a blog lately, so here goes. I thought it would be a good way to document things that I don't want to forget about later.

So, here's where we are right now. I teach Jr. High band and Music Appreciation in Hillsboro, IL. Jamie is youth pastor at 1st Baptist Church in Carlyle, IL. Our son Noah turned 4 in March. We live in Vandalia, which is not really close to either of these places, so we're hoping to move before too long.

I am home with Noah today, who is sick. He started "frowing up" on Sunday and had a fever through Monday night. All that is gone now but he is still not back to his normal self. We have all been sick a lot this spring, so hopefully this will be the last of it for a while. We have a busy weekend planned, so I'm glad this came early in the week. Jamie will be at the Agape music festival in Greenville with the youth this weekend. Noah has a program at his school on Friday, and I have organizational contests on Saturday. My mom is coming on Friday and staying with Noah while we are both gone on Saturday.

More posts to come later after I figure out what kind of stuff people care to read about on here.