Adding to our family

This is the year we've decided to add to our family. We've been thinking about it for awhile now and decided that the time is right. We're going to get a cat! Technically, I think we bought a cat when we bought our house. You may remember that the former owners of our house left their cat behind. His name is Punkin and I think he's still roaming the neighborhood. Our neighbor down the street has been feeding a stray orange cat so it may be him. We didn't keep this cat for many reasons. We only saw him twice. He's more of an outdoor scaredy cat. AND our house smelled so badly of animal urine we weren't taking any chances. The former owners had a few dogs in addition to Punkin so it could've been any of them. I still think I might smell something in the stairway on the way down to the basement and in the basement itself. My only concern is that our new little kitty's nose will sniff out any remaining smell and then add to it. In our search for a kitty we're looking for a girl that is a few years old (no kittens, thanks!) and has been around kids. If you happen to know of anyone looking to rehome a great cat let us know. This is how we found our last cat, Maya (pictures to come soon).

Arizona fun

Looks like Harrison is having a great time in Arizona with Grandma and Grandpa! Wish I were there also to enjoy the warm weather.

Cousins

What a deal; or shall I say steal?

I bought this really great coat for Harrison at Old Navy yesterday. It was $40 with 60% off. Since I have a Gap card I get rewards back for money spent. I had a $20 reward to use and I got this coat for $.76! Can you even believe it?! It's super cute and warm. He loves it!

Lately, I have become *obsessed* with all of these frugal blogs. I've been saving money left and right. But then again I guess it's money I wouldn't have spent in the first place if I didn't learn about these deals on these blogs. SO.. am I really saving money? Check the sidebar for my favorite blogs. Happy shopping!

Ta-da!

The graffiti is gone.

Christmas has been cancelled

So not really Christmas itself but Christmas dinner has been cancelled. In light of this recent event (http://ournewbluehouse.blogspot.com/2009/12/seriously.html) we cancelled dinner. Normally, we swap Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner with the Cudes. This year we swapped holidays and we even included others. Thanksgiving was wonderful and we enjoyed spending time with the Cudes, their friends and my mom too! For our dinner we decided to also include other friends. It was going to be the same crowd that was at our house a little over a week ago. But after having someone write all over our door with a marker I realized I didn't want 6 kids on the loose in my house again. So it's just the 3 of us this year. We're still trying to figure out what we're going to eat.

In the past we spent Christmas Eve at the Brandals home. We loved celebrating with their family. But then Hans and Cindi moved to Boston in February and we knew we'd be on our own this year. Until I got an email from their daughter, Amanda, a few days ago. We've been invited to spend the evening with them again this year sans Hans and Cindi. We're VERY excited to be included and can't wait for tomorrow!

Hans, Harrison, Cindi in August

Here he comes...

Telling Santa what he wants.