And played.

And played.

It was wonderful.

*sigh*
For years I have sat down at the piano when I am happy, sad, frustrated, tired, mad...the list goes on and on. I had forgotten in recent years how much I benefit from that release. I underestimated its importance. After a long day, I feel human again and I know my time at the piano helped me unwind and "come back"!

I learned yesterday that the wood is Tiger Oak. Sounds fancy. :) But the cabinet and the wood are both beautiful and I am excited at the possibility of polishing/re-lacquering it.

And on the girls playing -- It is magical, soothing, reassuring, reaffirming (this is a big one...makes me feel kindly toward them after difficult stretches), and just awesome to watch them each discover it in their own ways.

I don't even have to be in the room to know who is playing. Esther is gung-ho. She just goes at it. Heidi is more thoughtful. One note at a time. Searching it out. Autumn plays like a virtuoso (not technically at all...but in the "drama" of how she plays). Eric and I have joked that Esther will be the pianist, Heidi the composer, and Autumn the singer. There are elements of each that we hear reflected in their approaches to the piano.

Autumn helped me go through my coupons this week to get rid of the expired ones. There was a running commentary of:
"You really like Shout, don't you?"
or
"Oh! These are good ones."
or
"Glade is good, isn't it?"
or
"Oh Mom, I like these ones."

And for the past few days, each time I print a coupon she says, "You really like coupons don't you Mom?"

So I am officially a coupon nerd, or whatever they call it. It's always been the little things in life that make me happy and couponing is no different. A few cents here and there really add up as you go along.

I know it's going to be a good month.
I keep smiling every time I think about how:

• I paid 0.76/box of Mini-Wheats, Cinnamon Struesel, regular, strawberry, blueberry, chocolate (and bought 20 of them for a total of $15.20)

• I am sending in for a Kellogg's rebate of $10 on the above Mini-Wheats which means I actually only paid $5.20 for TWENTY boxes of cereal! (As long as I use the rebate on things we regularly buy :)) That works out to 0.26 per box. And it comes with a $70 Dell Coupon Code. I think I'm going to be getting a new printer/scanner!

• I paid $5.49/pack of HUGGIES diapers that are usually $9.99/pack.

• I finally buckled down and bought a few months worth of diapers at that low of a price.

• I paid NOTHING for four rolls of Scott paper towels! I hate how things like paper towels and toilet paper add so much to my budget...and while I realize I could do without the paper towels, I love having them and love it even more when I can get them for FREE!
  

I'm discovering I love sales and I love seeing how far I can stretch my grocery budget when I match up coupons to sales or match manufacturer's coupons with store coupons!

So what kind of things are you nerdy about?

Look at this link and mark your calendars. Saturday, September 26th is Smithsonian Magazine Day and tons of museums nationwide will be offering free admission. I'm marking my calendar and going to the California Science Center! I saw this place before we even moved here and knew we would love it. So, where are you going to go? And does anyone in SoCal want to join our family?

If you don't use Google Reader or some other RSS Feed program, you may be missing some of my new posts. They're in order chronologically even though I'm playing catch-up. If you'd like links to new ones, let me know. If enough people are reading but NOT using Reader or something similar, I'll post them all at the top and fix the order later.

:D

I'm glad to be back guys! Ready to get back into the swing of things.

Okay, I keep trying to email friends about this but for some reason my cut/paste function is not working correctly in gmail. Makes it hard when I'm trying to share a link. So here's the gist of the email -- for anyone interested.

All Targets have toys on clearance now.
Some have marked down Leap Frog's TAG pen to $24.99 (from $49.99).
The link here will take you to a $10 coupon on the TAG pen.
It's recommended for ages 4-8.

There.

Urgh. Technology at it's finest huh?

And yes, I'll be back soon. Getting there. I have SO much to post about...

6/30/09
Eric read Mouse in Love to Esther today. Apparently it stuck with her because later while wrapping her baby in a towel, she was softly saying:
"I love her yeah.
I love her not.
I love her yeah.
I love her not."

7/20/09
Esther in her tiny voice as we walked into the dark bathroom:
"Can you turn on the light in here? I can't see what I'm doing."

We hear this on a regular basis. If you ask Esther, everyone's middle name is "Rose". "And that's Heidi Rose Hanson, Autumn Rose Hanson, Becca Rose Hanson, Mommy Rose Hanson, and Daddy Rose Hanson."

E: Mom, I woke up baby Becca.
A: You did? Did you go in her room?
E: No. I flushed the toilet.
A: Oh! No, it's okay sweetie! You didn't wake her up. She just woke up because she's hungry.

As she was running circles in the house she paused and said, "Do you hear that noise? It's raining on my shirt and in my house!

8/6/09
As we've been visiting Rae, Esther has coined a new word: bunch + bundle = BUNCHLE. And she uses it all the time! It's so funny.

She also loves Reed's ukulele but calls it an "unk-uh-lay-dee".

Okay, this is going to take some time. And I do mean "some time", not "sometime".(For some reason I always have to think that through when I type that phrase. Guess it's the grammar geek in me.) I have pictures to post from the last couple of months and things to say about what we've been up to and I just re-realized I haven't even posted pictures from Autumn & Heidi's birthdays back in SEPTEMBER and OCTOBER!! How did those slip through the cracks?? Oh well...the blog will always be here. In the meantime, posts will be coming but they'll be all over the place. If you're expecting order, you'll have to go visit Martha Stewart! The best I can promise is that my post dates will match when things actually happened.

So, as we were packing up to leave Florida I got bit by this serious crafting bug. I don't know what happened but suddenly there was all this STUFF I wanted to do and I really, really, really wanted it to happen before I moved.

My neighbor Misty made a nursing cover ("Hooter Hider", "Udder Cover"....) and a matching wipes case and changing pad. [Why is it that right as we moved we got awesome new neighbors?]

I loved the idea and then our ward's (church group's) sewing group decided to do nursing covers in July. So I jumped on the chance to make one and bought a little extra fabric to do the other items as well.



The cover was really simple and I could see making more as gifts for friends. I love that this pattern included a pocket on the inside corner for nursing pads.



The wipes case wasn't nearly as simple. Relatively speaking, it was simple. But it was also more work than it was worth! I had to cut the fabric as close to the size of the wipes case and then once I had glued it on I had to cut the rest of the way. That was tricky. I like having it but I wouldn't make one again. Not any time soon at least.

The diaper changing pad will have to wait. But of the three, I think I'm MOST excited about the changing pad. I'll share pictures when it's done.


A little mod-podge fun. Covering composition notebooks with scrapbook paper and buttons. Don't know what I'm doing with this notebook yet, but who cares?! It was fun to make.

And below are some of Autumn's play-doh creations. When I showed her pictures from the play-doh booklets that came with our kits, she went crazy recreating the images. I wish I had gotten pictures of the first masterpieces. She did Spongebob Squarepants. These are his cousins, or something like that!