Cleaning up the garden

 This is the before picture.  It doesn't look terrible, but trust me it was  a mess.

 Finished.  It took about 4 hours to get it all cleaned up.  I still need to put some Preen down and pull a few weeds, but it is ready for my little flowers to grow.

Ethan's B-day party

Ethan turns 17 tomorrow, but we celebrated on Saturday.

Life

Ethan has had a few more tennis meets.  He is still playing doubles with Riley.  Wednesday's meet was SO cold and windy.  All the players were having a difficult time getting their hard serves in.  The wind just took the ball.  The boys are looking better and Ethan is enjoying himself.

Tucker has been busy messing up his hand this week.  The boys removed the studs from Ethan's extra set of tires last week and they decided to do them all at once in about 20 minutes.  Tucker managed to dig a little hole into the palm of his throwing hand.  I get home from town to take him to practice and this is what I see...

A little overboard perhaps, but it did keep the dirt out and he was able to practice.  lol  Kinda creative actually.  

Saturday he was at it again.   He went up to the field with Rusty for Field Day and ended up practicing on another team.  He took a bad hop and the ball caught the end of his finger.  It peeled the skin back from the nail.  Apparently it was quite bloody and nasty.  By the time I saw it that night it looked okay.  Thankfully a couple of friends, one being a Dr. were at the field and fixed him up.  It is looking pretty good so hopefully he will be able to play soon.  

My exciting score this week.  I have several coupon blogs that I follow and one local blog was running a contest.  For the contest Cheryl took $20 and everything she purchased with that $20 over a months time was put into the giveaway.   Well she purchased well over $400 worth of merchandise and won it all.  I was SO excited.  So on Friday I met up with Cheryl to collect my haul.  It was SO much stuff.  She is such a sweet lady and I really enjoyed meeting and talking coupons with her.  

There is so much there that you can't see so I will bore you with a list:

3-Lay's Stax                                  

2- Up Ibprofen

4- Hunt's Ketchup                         

tweezers

4- Hunt's BBQ sauce                   

2- Clairol Hair Color

2- Italian Dressing                       

Glade Plug In

3- Ronzoni Pasta                           

2- Finish Power Balls

5- Tuscan Butter                            

4- Colgate Toothpaste

Desitin                                           

2- Colgate Toothpaste- travel

Johnson's Baby Lotion                  

4- Peter Pan peanut butter

Johnson's Baby Shampoo              

1- Skippy peanut butter

3- Nail Polish                                 

2- Gain Dish Soap

2- Floss                                          

2- Taster's Choice Coffee

2- Nivea Lip Gloss                        

2- Lipton Tea

Dove Shampoo and Conditioner   

10- Cat Treats

Suave Shampoo and Conditioner  

3-  Top Ramen

8- Dove Deo.                                 

4- Yakisoba

2- Degree Deo.                              

10- Snack Pack Pudding

Purex Fabric Softner                       

2- Fruit Roll-Ups

6- Gain Fabric Softner                    

7- Gushers

1- Up Softner                                  

16- Hot Cocoa

3- Up Pantiliners                              

2- Quaker Oatmeal

2- Huggies Travel Wipes                 

5- Gummies

1- Fiber One bars                              

2- Pure Protein Bars

6- Kool-Aid                                     

32- Healthy Choice Soups

6- Hunt's Pasta Sauce                     

4- Quaker Oatmeal Squares Cereal

2- Motrin PM                                  

3- Jeans

4- Crispix Cereal                             

2- Corn Flakes

2- Gallon of Milk

Pretty impressive for $20.

Tucker's ready to hunt

Tucker had his Range Day for Hunter's Ed today.  He is officially finished and able to get his license.  Turkey season is open soon so he is bugging  Rusty to take him.  Yum Yum!!!! Fresh turkey!

Ethan's first tennis meet

I don't have any good pictures so this will have to do.  I took some video with Ethan's flip camera, but it is too long to try to upload.  He played twice.  They lost the first set and won the second.  Sadly, I missed the second because he didn't know he was playing again.

I'm a terrible blogger

I just haven't had much to blog as far as pictures so I haven't gotten on here.  Not to mention that I have been obsessed with couponing.  It is just a game to see HOW much money I can save, but I need to chill out.  lol

So family news:

Ethan is playing tennis this year.  Rusty and I went to the parent meeting on Friday.  The coach seems very nice and genuinely excited to teach the kids tennis.  Saskia is the assistant coach, which is awesome cuz Ethan knows her so well.  I am really excited and hope that he makes Varsity or JV.  This is his first year and also his first sport in forever.  They have a C team also so no one gets cut, but the C team doesn't go to the matches.
Ethan also made honor roll again the first semester.  He is doing awesome this year and is really proving to be a good student.  Thank God he is understanding Geometry because I told him during the first quarter I didn't think I would be able to help him.  He has a great instructor that does very thorough lessons for the kids.

Tucker had his last basketball game this weekend.  Tucker tried to remember how many baskets he scored each game and he thinks he scored @59 points for the season.  Woohoo!!  I am sad it is done, but ready for baseball.  Try-outs were this weekend also (in the gym of course since we still have snow) and we will find out tomorrow whose team he is on.  
Tucker is still loving Garwood and has lots of friends.  His is doing well in school, but I have had to "ride" him a bit about English and Reading.  I hate being the nagging mom.  He gets all his work done in class and never brings any home even if he doesn't quite understand.  We are working on that.  They are doing LOTS of parts of speech right now and it can be confusing.

Rusty and I are boring so no big updates on us.  He is busy at work trying to get jobs lined up for the year.

I will try to get some pictures this week.  My teen boys do love to let me take their pictures.  NOT

My moose

This cow and her calf hung around for 2 days.  I was sad to see they left.  They are such amazing creatures and I love to just watch them.

Another obsession

A friend mentioned on Facebook how much money she saves using coupons.  Well Rusty and I had looked over our grocery budget at the end of the year and it is crazy what we spend on groceries so I thought I'd try to cut some costs.   I got all this for $119.  Most was on coupons or sales, but the chicken and veggies do drive the price up.  So far I have saved 50% on the groceries and toiletries I've purchased.  It is time consuming, but it is kinda of a game and since I don't work I might as well work at saving some money.

More basketball pictures

Basketball Season

Basketball has started and Tucker has come a long way since last year.  He is really getting in there and getting the rebounds.  He is shooting the ball too.  We love watching him play.  

Kinda blurry as I was taking pics with my phone.  Tucker got the jump!