The Name Game.....

Today, I'm linking up with Miss Amanda to talk names.  Since I haven't named 5 beautiful girls (and I don't plan to) like she has, I'll give you the two names that my husband and I have picked for our 3 year old, and the one currently in my belly.

Naming our kids happened before Cooper was born.  I wanted to have both a girl name and a boy name picked out before we found out what that Cooper was a boy.  That way we could name him or her immediately.  I loved the idea of calling baby their official name as soon as we found out.  So, we did.  The girl name was easy for us at the time, but the boy's name wasn't.......

Cooper James - I remember when I was pregnant with this fella, writing a list of names down that I really really liked.  Now I can only remember Coop's name and one other name.  Oliver Matthew.  Tim did NOT like Oliver, and he liked Cooper a lot.  At the time, we didn't have a middle name for Cooper.  It took us awhile to come up with his middle name actually.  I scoured the baby names pages and put all kinds of names after Cooper - and when I found James, I really liked it.  So I asked Tim and he did too.  So - that was it.   And funny thing is, my cousin had her little boy about 6 weeks before Cooper was born and they named him Oliver Matthew, so it was probably a good thing that Tim didn't like that name. 

Kathryn Elisabeth - Katy's name came easy.  I have loved the name Kate for as long as I can remember.  And I love the name Katy (Katie) too.  One of my friends from high school's name was Katie and her parents called her Katiebug.  I loved it!  So..... I proposed it to Tim and he liked it too.  Katy's middle name is based upon Tim's Mom's middle name, Elizabeth.  But.... I wanted to change it up a bit, because Tim's sister's daughter's (our niece) name is Elizabeth.  I asked Tim if he'd be ok with Elisabeth instead of Elizabeth and he was.   So when we found out our second bundle of joy was a girl, we had only thought of one other name that we really liked, and we did ponder it for a good long while..... Charley Jo, but in the end, we just loved Kathryn Elisabeth more.  So, Miss Katy has had her name since before her big brother was born!

So.... What's the story behind your kid's names??  Link up and share! :)

Meal Plan Monday

This post is going to be short and sweet.  I’m exhausted from this weekend, and I hope to recap it for you later.  We did a meal plan this week, so sharing it with ya today.

This week when making my meal plan – I wanted to go for meals where we had everything in the pantry already.  I had about 1/3 of my two week grocery budget left, so I had plenty to buy with, but I wanted to stock up on diapers and baby products for the new baby with that money, so I got creative (sort of) and just planned from the stuff we currently had on hand.  (I was glad I had stocked up on some stuff in previous weeks!!)

**Please note the days of these meals is subject to changed based on this lady’s mood.

Monday – Grilled Salmon with sautéed broccoli and couscous.

Tuesday – Breakfast foods (eggs, pancakes, turkey bacon or turkey sausage)

Wednesday – Kielbasa, potato and onion skillet and green beans (for the kielbasa skillet, we slice onions, dice potatoes and slice the kielbasa, add to the skillet with a couple of tablespoons olive oil and some Weber Grill Chicago Steak dry seasoning)  It’s delicious, you should try!

Thursday – Baked or Grilled Chicken, corn and some Lipton rice & sauce package

Friday – Spaghetti with Turkey Italian Sausage and salad.

That’s it!  What’s on your meal plan for this week?

Baby Johnson: 21 Weeks

21 Weeks down, 17 more to go!  Each new week it seems that I cannot believe how fast this pregnancy is progressing!

New stuff this week:

• My sleep has been better, let’s say that much.  I’m up from about 4am on each day.  For whatever reason, after that I cannot seem to go back to sleep.  It was 5am previously, but I guess my body is getting me ready for the lack of sleep that I’ll be enduring once baby girl arrives.
• Abdomen pain is gone, but I am finding it more difficult to bend over to pick things up and tie my shoes with each week that goes by.  I have a feeling Tim will be tying my shoes before too long!
• Cooper is no longer sitting on my lap while we read books – I sit with my legs open and he sits between my legs, but no more lap.  It was just too uncomfortable for me and for him.  I miss it already.
• Baby girl is moving more – but still not crazily.  Once in a while, she surprises me when she moves, like I don’t remember she’s there, then she kicks abruptly and reminds me.  :)
• We worked on Katy’s room quite a bit last weekend, getting our current “storage”/Cooper’s play room cleaned out.  It was not fun, but we made some major progress.  I am hoping to pick out paint colors this weekend.  Crossing my fingers on that one.

That’s it.  Nothing for the record books, which is a-ok with me! :)

Happy Weekend Everyone!  I’ll leave you with the weekly collage.

Coupon Queen (sometimes)

Do you coupon?  Well, I am an on again off again coupon-er, and right now, I’m BIG time into it.  Especially for TARGET.

Check this out.  Did you know…. That at the bottom of Target’s website, they have Target Store Coupons???  If you did know that, did you know that you can combine these with manufacturer’s coupons to get extra savings???  For instance…. I have a Huggies Diaper coupon from the paper for $2 off diapers.  Target has another “Target coupon” for $3.50 off of Huggies Diapers…. That means I can save $5.50 off the same box of diapers.  Genius!!

And while I love Target for everyday shopping, I do not grocery shop there.  I know lots of people who do, and they love it.  But for me, I cannot get the variety that I like and I’ve found it to be more expensive comparatively speaking to other grocery stores.  So, I shop mostly at Meijer.  Granted it is not the cheapest either, but they have this GREAT couponing program called m-perks.  With this program, you can also combine coupons.  You sign up with your mobile phone number, go online, “clip” coupons and they are automatically saved to your phone number.  When you get to the store, use the credit card swiper to enter your m-perks member info, and voila!  Your coupons are taken off during check-out, plus, you can use actual manufacturer coupons for the same products. 

Now, there are lots of other online places to look for coupons also.  Smartsource.com, redplum.com, and coupons.com are my top favorites.  Then, there are people who run websites that have “coupon databases”……  These people are my friends!  If I am looking for a coupon for something specific, you can usually type in a search box and see if there is a coupon out there for it.  My Indiana favorites are Bargain Briana & In Good Cents for some others not from Indiana, there is the Krazy Coupon Lady, Coupon Mom, Money Saving Mom, & Coupon Divas. 

Now, as far as coupon organizers, you can go really crazy and have big coupon binders or go as simple as having an envelope to stash your coupons in.  I have this coupon keeper called the Couponizer.    This thing has pockets divided up like a normal grocery store is divided, it gives extra pockets for coupons you are going to use during your next trip, and a pocket to keep the coupons for items you’ve already got in your cart.  It gives you a shopping list, and even a handy sorting device for clipping coupons from the paper.  I rarely utilize all of the great aspects of this thing, but I highly recommend it.  I bought mine off of Amazon.

  

Of course, there are always the coupons from the newspapers on Sundays.  I get the Thursday and Sunday newspaper for the coupons and the ads.  Those two days of the paper each month cost me $10 and I save wayyy more than $10 by couponing, so I think it’s worth it.  Now, I am NOT one of those people you see on the TLC show Extreme Couponing.  I do not get my groceries for free.  We buy too much produce for that.  But… I do save where I can, and taking a little time each week to coupon and review the ads for great deals is worth it to my family.  Two weeks ago, by being a member of m-perks, I got a gallon of milk for free, just because I was a member.  That right there saved me $2.69! 

Do you coupon?  Do you have any couponing tips for me?  I’d love to learn more and become a better coupon-er!   Have a great Thursday!