Christmas Day

We had a great Christmas Day! We actually had to wake Sienna up at 8:00 to see what Santa brought for her. She was very excited to open each present. She just asked for a little help to get the wrapping paper started. We had many family visitors and went over to my parents for brunch. It was very nice to not have to travel everywhere for the entire day. We all got a nice 2 hour nap it too! That was the best gift of all!

The beginning of opening the loot-new Shrek movie, Candyland, baby Doll, Moon dough, and Little People airport were just a few of her presents

Even Santa knows Sienna needs the essential new panties

Cruz opening his first present for his first Christmas

Our little Santa and his helper

Hanging out at my parents for brunch and presents

Enjoying the time off

This month has been so nice to have time off work! I'm planning on taking 8 weeks of maternity leave and go back to work part-time in February. I know it will go by so fast! I've really been trying to take in the little moments with Cruz. Luckily he's such a good cuddler and hardly ever cries! But he is a grunter! A noisy grunter! Its been an adjustment for all of us, especially with the lack of sleep. It's been nice to have my little helper Sienna. She is such a little Mommy and always checks on Cruz the moment he makes any noise. I hope we will always remember how special this Christmas season was and enjoy our little gift from heaven.

We watched every Christmas special together. I think we've seen Santa's Coming to Town over 20 times this month!

Can't get enough snuggling in with this boy!

Cruz with his cousin Fisher (who is 3 months older). I'm sure they will be best buds.

Announcing......CRUZ

On Friday December 3rd, we welcomed our new baby boy's arrival! Cruz Samuel Archuleta came into our lives at 5:39 pm, weighing 6 lbs 11 oz and was 18 1/2 inches long. It has been a long wait and I was so excited once I was able to hear that cry! The sense of relief when they finally put him on your belly is priceless. I know everyone says that they have the cutest kids, but I think Cruz came out perfect! So far he has been such a good boy, hardly crying, eating good, and sleeping well. Well at least during the day. I can't believe how our little family has grown and become so much fun! Welcome to the family Cruz!!!

Proud big sister-She was a little bit in shock when she first saw him, but after taking a tour to the glass window to see all the other babies, she came back to the room and said, "Can we take baby brother home now?" and "He's one smart kid." I think she will be a helper for mom.

Santa RUN

On Saturday, Ogden had their annual Santa Run downtown. Unfortunately, I had to work so I wasn't able to see Sam and the other 700 Santa's run. It was a 5k and Sam ran it with Sienna, his sister Alexis and her son Griffin. Looked like a lot of fun and a lot of cold. Luckily the kids didn't mind it. What a great way to start out the holidays babe!

Sam in his sexy Santa suit included in the fee to run

All the other crazy Santa runners


Nice beard

Sam's sister Alexis and Griffin

Sienna is under her favorite blanket somewhere!

Really lady? You can run in high heels!

BURRRRRRR!!!

Christmas village

Both kids enjoying the light parade and fireworks after the race

Potty field trip

Sienna has finally been doing so well with the potty training, we decided to take her on her first train ride for her "big girl" reward. She loves trains and had a lot of fun looking out the window and going "super fast". We took the front runner to the Children's museum in Salt Lake. Its so fun to see their faces and expressions when they are doing something for the first time. Hopefully she can keep up the good pottying and be done with those dang pull-ups!

Waiting for the train to leave from Ogden

At the Children's museum. She loves helping in the kitchen and pretended to crack and cook eggs over and over.

Fun with the big apron at the water activity

The mini grocery store was her favorite. She made sure that every item was rung up with the register-including the 30 pieces of asparagus she had in her cart. So cute!!!

At the food court enjoying a Happy Meal

Riding the trax from the train to Gateway. She loved every moment of our outing and keeps asking to go ride the train again every time she potties. Such a smart girl!

This is Halloween

We had a very fun Halloween this year. Sienna loved carving pumpkins and handing out the candy to the trick or treaters. Sienna has been into fairies lately so we decided on Tinkerbell this year. It was a little rough getting her hair "blonde" but we used a gold hair spray that worked pretty good. The yellow hair spray made it look green. Still she was a cute little fairy. Love this time of year and all the holidays around it.

The pumpkin goo did not scare her away from carving pumpkins


Our masterpiece pumpkins of a lion, Dora, some sort of monster and scary face

After we put her wings on her she ran around the house as fast as she could. She kept saying, "I can't fly. I can't fly!" So cute she thought her wings would make her fly! Wish we had real pixie dust for her.

Our beautiful theme of Peter Pan- Captain Hook, Shmee, andTinkerbell.

Fall pregnant pics

I was debating on whether to get pregnancy pictures again with this baby. I knew if I didn't I would regret it, so we had them done. We went to Riverdale parkway and also got a few family pics in, which turned out great! I just knew this time I didn't want to show my bare belly! It looks a lot different with the second pregnancy! My outie is outrageous! Only 7 more weeks to go until our baby boy is here! Can't wait!!!

Grocery Smart!

Ever since I had Sienna I have only been working part-time as a nurse. It's a perfect balance of staying home with her but still keeping my nursing license and having adult conversations once in a while. I feel like I'm not missing out on seeing her grow up and I can still work and contribute to our household. Now that I've been making less money, I've been trying to find ways to make up for that paycheck. I have been saving money like crazy this past year! AND it's all thanks to the website Grocerysmarts.com.

What this website does is it gives you every store's weekly ads and rates them on a scale of 3 to 5 stars. The stores range from every grocery store to even Target and Walgreens. It then gives you a place that you can add coupons to the sales of the week and save even more money. There are Internet coupons but I use most of mine from the Sunday newspapers. I get 2 Sunday newspapers and often get my mom's and mother in laws coupons as well. That means I have at least 4 coupons to use on top of the sales. It's a great way to stock up on items that go on sale. For instance this past week I got razors from Smith's for $0.88 each! No joke! 4 Schick disposable razors with the 3 blades. Our favorite! Another example is at Riteaid a few weeks ago they had Huggies Pure and Natural diapers on sale. I got 4 packs of diapers (for the baby boy to come) for $12. They are usually $10 a piece. I get a little jolt of energy every time I walk out of the store and I know I just a got a HUGE deal!!! I have received many looks of cashiers like"How did you just do that?" You would think they would get this all time with Utah momma's trying to save a buck or two.

I had a "coupon saving" class in February and learned a great way to save on groceries and other things. I also follow about 3 different blogs that give you crazy deals on food, toiletries, diapers, toys, movies, restaurants, etc.

Before I used this website I used to shop at Walmart and sometimes Albertson's (Wal-marts meat and produce sometimes isn't that great.) Now that Albertson's is gone and the new Fresh Market is not that impressive to me, I have found the best deals to be at Smith's. According to my most recent receipt I have saved $1,115.74 this year just shopping at Smith's. (This does not include coupons that I use on top of that savings.) Not too bad for 10 months of groceries.

This past week my grand total of groceries was $148.49. I then gave the cashier my Smith's Value card and coupons to go with my items and my new total was $63.65! That saved me 60% on my groceries! I've done better, but this week felt awesome to walk away with 53 items and only pay $63 bucks! I saved $61.26 from my fresh values card and $23.55 in coupons. Plus I earned reward points which turn into cash later and I get fuel rewards too. I never thought Smith's would be the store I love to shop at.

I know this is a horrible picture of groceries but as you can see it is not all junk food I am buying. A few of the items I got---

Bananas eggs 5 Kraft cream cheeses bread 2 pkg instant pudding

Bag of potatoes 2 bags choc. chips 4 coffee creamers brownies

grapes 3 Kraft bbq sauce 1 Starbucks coffee 2 L. Coke and Fanta

2 frozen California pizza's 4 instant mac and cheese 2 refrig. cookies flour

1 frozen Digorno pizza 2 lunch meat pkgs 5 vitamin waters Velveeta

If anyone wants to learn how to do this and is impressed at the savings let me know! I can give you the password of the free site and if interested have a coupon class too! You will be hooked like me, I promise!

Brad Paisley concert

We went to the Brad Paisley concert at the USANA amphitheater. I've never seen him in concert and have always wanted to. We went with our friends Matt and Brooke to celebrate all of our September birthdays. Country concerts always bring in an interesting bunch of people. It's like the airport where you just watch people and your entertained for hours. It was a fun last night of summer outings. We will definitely go again.

Darius Rucker or "Hootie" from Hootie and the Blowfish opened for Brad Paisley. He's gone country and sounded really good in concert.

Our seats were pretty close to the stage. We were in the middle section and could see him really well. It's not often we buy seats at the USANA, but at the time I bought them they were the same price as the lawn section so WHY NOT! I usually like hanging out on the blanket in the lawn, but being pregnant the seats were much better.


He had a wide variety of guitars which he jammed on!!! He also did some talking between songs, which normally annoys me when artists do that. We came for the music not your opinion on politics! Luckily he did not do that and he could be a comedian if the music ever fails. His jokes were very funny! If you ever listen to his lyrics they are pretty honest and entertaining. One of my favorite country concerts.

He came out in the audience and serenaded the crowd. I wished he would have played my favorite song of his, "When I get where I'm going" with Dolly Parton. But that didn't happen. There's always next time!

Friends Brooke, Matt, Sam, and me sporting my new Paisley football uniform! It got a little chilly and my hubby was the best and let me buy an expensive concert shirt! It was a night to remember!