captured

I recently started my official photography business. I have always loved taking pictures and after I had children I got to take tons! I learned I love photographing children especially. Children grow so quickly. Their personalities evolve constantly. When I learned that I could just sit behind the camera and wait a while for a true life moment to happen and capture it, I got addicted. Before, portraiture was all "look here and smile!". Now, It's so fun and creative for me. You never know what you are going to get when you just let the children run the show. Little brains are way more interesting. Here are a few examples of totally unplanned shots I just got of one family.

Now, I know these girls and these pictures portray them exactly. This brings me pure joy and encourages me to continue my dream. :)

Extreme couponer?

So I not only hate the Extreme couponing show because they aren't teaching people a realistic approach to saving money, but I now hate it because I think it gives people that clip coupons a bad reputation of being hoarders. I seriously got stared down for buying 10 packs of capri suns. WHAT IF IT WAS FOR MY KIDS BIRTHDAY PARTY OR SOMETHING??
I get asked at least once, even if I have only 10 coupons in my hand, "Are you one of those extreme couponers?" (in a very judgy, eye-rolly tone). Maybe they spotted my coupon binder... At first I didn't know how to respond because I thought I was extreme couponing compared to my life before coupons and then the show came out and I don't think I'm that extreme. I thought about saying I had 7 kids at home just so they'd think twice about pre-judging someones reasoning of using coupons and buying more than 1 of an item since it's at it's lowest price and I happen to have a coupon for each item I'm purchasing, but I don't wanna lie. So my  genius response to them is "What is that?". Then they have to explain to me the crazy show and I say... "Oh wow, that's extreme!".
Ta-da!  

What's been going on...

This summer I have been getting on a new track. My husband got me an early birthday present which I have been working on diligently..... K, he got me a website!! 

carmenwalkerphotography.com !!

YAY! Next, I have been planning my next homeschooling year. 1st grade and preschool! I have ALOT of new ideas and I got a laminator! I'm like an official teacher!! I'm going to post my homeschooling style and plans and also things I'm making for teaching next week when I'm through. 

Jude turned 1! He is 1. I want to put my kids pictures on my blog somewhere. It will give a nice idea of what I got running around here all day. So I gotta get movin and catch up on this thing!

I sold a painting!

I painted this picture last year and gave it to my tree-fetished sister for Christmas. Then I needed another one so I painted this one in the picture. It came out way different and I want to try again. So I thought I could try selling it and get money for new materials!. I had 3 people inquire about it on the first day I posted it!

Cory Asbury - Faithful To The End

Frozen Pancakes

I had some pancake mix about to expire so I had to make them. Of course I had a ton too many so I thought about freezing them. I mean they sell them in the stores. I used the bread bag I had just emptied at lunchtime. Stacked them up and stuck them in the freezer.

HCG Diet

Our family has found the "miracle diet".In April of 2009 Philip and I came across some information on HCG. HCG- Human chorionic gonadotropin is the hormone found in pregnant women. It's main purpose is to provide nutrients for the placenta out of what the mother eats. If the mother doesn't get enough to eat the HCG will use her fat to make nutrients. Well, now technology has allowed us to extract the hormone from pregnant women's pee (sounds gross but it's not) and turn it into a solution to use on non-pregnant people. The effect is that when HCG is in your system, your blood is saturated with nutrients.  When this happens, a person can be able to be on a 500 calorie diet and not be hungry OR become catabolic and go into starvation mode whereas a person with no HCG would quickly become weak.

Anyways, that is the basics. So Philip tried it. The protocol is 23 days on the HCG and 500calorie diet. Then you go on no carb for 3 weeks to lock it in. This is called a cycle. During the HCG phase Philip lost  36lbs. He went on 2 more cycles and by the time our youngest was born April 2010, He had lost 65lbs!

12/2008

4/2010

Here is the PDF about HCG. I can answer any questions too.http://www.hcgbodyshaper.com/simeon.pdf

FREE colgate at CVS

I have a deal that can be done NOW with no coupons. Ready?


Colgate Sensitive 6-oz or Total Advanced 5.8 oz is $3.79
After you buy it. then a $3.79 ECB(cvs money) will print out.
Now, you just got free toothpaste. But wait the limit is 2!! So buy another one.
This time, pay with your 3.79 ECB. And pay tax and then..... Your going to get 
Another 3.79 ECB!! so you can walk out with 2 free toothpaste and 3.79 ECB. 
So, CVS paid you for getting toothpaste! You have until Saturday to do it.


For my couponers: use your 
-$1 from 1/30 or 2/6 SS on each transaction
and make $2 extra!


Let me know if you got some!!

song sunday!

I felt like posting a song today because Sundays I'm always in such a singing mood. A singing mood, a writing mood, just a very spiritual mood. Being in a social environment around other positive Jesus lovers just boosts my mood. I think that is why church is so important to our family. Jesus knew church would be for our good. We go for God, but he gives us so much when we go. God actually blesses us with encouragement, feeds our soul with the word and  our spirit with worship.
So I am going to post a new song every Sunday. Partly for myself so I can have a nice collection of songs that were on my heart. Also I have my mom and other family and friends that just love uplifting songs.

This is Jesus in His glory

camera

So after saving and praying I finally ordered my new DSLR camera! I have no idea how to use it, but I plan on watching alot of YouTube video tutorials. PS- if any people would like to help me, I'll so let you!! I got the Canon 500D which we picked because it has the HD video! Soooooo....YEAH!

God's timing :)

My goal is to eventually help provide for our family with my photography business. Philip and I have even talked about eventually doing a team thing where I do still photos and he does video. I'd like to take a class on it- But I am afraid a class is going to be focused on the "rules" and "technical" points of a good photo. Then I'll loose the fun I have judging with my own personal eye on what looks good. But I'm probably wrong and it's not like that.

For now I'm going to continue down this path I know God is leading me. I have so much support and confirmation from friends and family. This year is going to be awesome!

my baby girl

All moved

Well, we are finally all moved into our new place. I plan to take pictures once I have it decorated like I want it. We had a lot of memories in 2713. I took a picture during the winter storm that happened right in time for us to load  and unload all our stuff.

pretty :)

So to update my blog... obviously I have some deals to share that I got. Good ones too. 

This is a picture of the wisk senario I blogged about. Here after sales and coupons and using my extra bucks(cvs credit) I payed $13 out of pocket! --------the girl in the back was a FREE gift from God!

Saturday I went and got this Maalox deal at Walgreen's. The deal they were running was buy $20 worth of antacid get $5 RR (Walgreen cash) or buy $30 and get $10.

WELL, I had 10 Maalox coupons for $5 off and the Maalox was $5.09. So I did 2 transactions...

#1- 6 Maalox=30.54

- 6 $5coupons

payed .54 plus tax

got back $10 RR

#2- 4 Maalox=20.36

-4 $5coupons

payed .36 plus tax

got back $5 RR

Now, I ordered those 10 coupons on eBay for $5 once I saw there was this awesome deal so I pretty much made like $10 to buy Maalox. We never used it before but it'll replace our Tums for now.

I'm pretty much caught up for now. 

4 papers

I chose "4" as our number of papers to get every sunday. This amount has worked out perfect so far. You want to get multiple coupons because you never know what coupon will match up with a good sale. when you find something that works out for free you want to stock up. Four of something will usually hold us over for 6-8weeks.

Keep in mind EVERYTHING will go on sale and everything is it's lowest price about every 6-8 weeks. I already notice cycles at my stores. It's crazy to me to think how Philip and I used to just go and throw nice looking things in our carts. Then pay. grrrrr to that!

Another reason you may need multiples of a coupon is to qualify for promotions stores have. Like $4 off when you buy 4... OH or this week at CVS when you buy $25 worth of Wisk laundry detergent you get $10 back in store bucks.

So I'm going to buy 5 wisk at $5each, and get $10 back. But wait I have 5 $2off coupons to use on each one. So that makes my total $1 each detergent!!!

BTW I bought those coupons on ebay-20 for $2!! i do that for a really good deal!

4 works for us.

Best Kroger trip so far!

Before sales and coupons=100.42

here's what I paid:

3 pumpkin spice coffee mate = .69 ea

3 lean cuisine 4 lean pockets= 1.19 ea

1 swiss miss = free

2 dawn hand renewal= .59 for both

2 Pillsbury flour= .80 ea

1 crest pro health toothpaste= free

1 oralB cross action toothbrush= free

1 mahatama yellow rice= free

1 veet hair removal= 1.49

4 vitamin waters= .50 ea

8 domino sugar= .41 ea

6 Reynolds baking cups=free

4 rotel= .75 ea

4 wholly guacamole = .99 ea

1 seventh generation dishwasher detergent=1.99

Total after tax= 29.75! saved 72%

for my coupon matchups I went to Iheartkroger.com

Deal!

My latest couponing deal was Saturday. After Philip and I walked away we were actually laughing cause it seemed so crazy. Heres what we did.

OK Kroger has a promotion on P&G products: Buy 4 get $4 off.

So

I bought 4 deodorants (2.29ea) and 4 body washes(3.85ea)=23.16

-$4 promotion

-$4 promotion

= 15.16

then I had (4) buy old spice deodorant get a free body wash so

-3.50

-3.50

-3.50

-3.50

STOP- notice my coupon automatically rang up 3.50 off. They only cost 2.85ea after the promotion-yay!

Then I had (2) $1 off 2 old spice deoderant coupons

-1

-1

=.16

Now I also had a $1 off 2 deoderant e-coupon loaded on my kroger plus card and it just comes off automatically.

so after tax they gave me .78 back. I have never gotten money back before so I'm stoked!

Shout out to George our Kroger cashier! He is always there when we go to Kroger with our stack of coupons after the kids are asleep and Philip gets off work at 11pm .

:) that's "our quality time"

To learn how to coupon read my couponing post for some sites.

couponing

:::Thinking about my first free deal using coupons....:::

I started couponing in August 2010. I started when I saw this penny pincher

Then I was like.. ok if she can do this then I want to do it! So after youtubing "coupons" all day I found some great information. I also found Jenny at Southernsavers.com. There is where I started going everyday. Her videos on coupons were SO my speed. I started out by getting 4 papers every Sunday. From my first Sunday papers I got (4)$4 off air wick imotion starter kits and there was a sale at Walgreens 50% off airwick imotion starter kits. The sale made them made them $4 each. So I went and bought 4 for free after coupons were scanned!!! I was hooked- and my house smelled awesome!! I have saved hundreds of dollars a month since I started and am getting to where i can skip a week of deals if I want to.

Jenny at Southernsavers.com puts all the deals together for you! I just read, make my list, clip my coupons and go shop. I spend about 2 hours a week preping for my grocery deals and drugstore deals. We treat it like an income.

Now there are tons of coupon matching blogs out there. I have 2 or 3 now that I HAVE to check daily.

southernsavers.com

athriftymom.com

iheartkroger.com

These work for me personally for my area. If you would like to tell me your grocery store I can recommend you a good site if these don't cover it.

Also I can help with any questions. I know it can seem overwhelming when just getting started.

MPBtoday

Hey everyone! As you know our family has grown alot these past 2 years. With Philip working 44 hours a week already I have been trying to think of a way I can make some extra money and still stay home with the babies and home school. SO I started couponing! It is amazing! I never knew coupons were cash! But this is not actually what I'm sharing about today. There is a business called MPBtoday. MPB stands for My Premier Business. MPB Today is the national marketing affiliate for a grocery home delivery company located in Pensacola,FL called Southeastern Delivery. So first! I went and joined practically free. I paid my $210 and just received my $200 gift card for Walmart. $10 was for my own website. The Walmart gift card is an alternative to ordering the groceries online since I'm not in Pensacola and would have to pay a small shipping fee. AND I will probably spend it on Christmas gifts anyways. You could use it on gas also. Anyways, now that I am in the business I can continue to make money when anyone else wants to join. So I've lost nothing and I get to have a business! Here is my website link that will explain the details of their compensation plan. Explore it and then if you want your own business click on 'join as an affiliate' and get started.

www.mpbtoday.com/PandCMPB

peanut butter cups

SO. After I made that brown color crayon yesterday, it looked so much like a Reese's I got a craving. Since I'm waiting for the after-Halloween-candy sales I thought I'd make my own. We had all the stuff since my husband collects chocolate. I'm not kidding. I will soon post a whole blog of his collection(s). Anyways these were amazing!

I broke up 6 candy bars

melted it in the microwave 30 seconds at a time

then I spread it all around and up the walls of muffin liners

then i put it in the freezer to harden while i mixed the peanut butter

1 cup of peanut butter and 1 cup of powdered sugar

it was thick enough i just rolled it into balls then pressed into the bottom chocolate shell.

and spread more chocolate on top

then in the freezer it went once more - it's the impatient way.

wow. these were great and free!

photography?

life is worship

Brayden

Jude

Marissa

I have a vision for photography in my life. I am drawn to it. I've had confirmation about it. I have just not had professional training. I'd looove to go to school for it but it's obvious it's not the time. Maybe one day. Or not. Here's one recent shoot of my kids- my favorite subjects.

candy crayons

Instead of eating a TON of candy this Halloween-why not make some eye candy?

This is how we recreate our old crayons into new ones.

peel the paper off

and peel

we soaked the hard-to-peel crayons in water

I line a muffin tin (if i had a fancier one I'd use it)

I like to sort them with like colors but you could also mix them all up for more craziness

bake at 350 for 5-10 min

stick them in the freezer to cool them faster

When they are hardened they look like this

So neat! Looks sweet! (but don't eat, lol)

have fun!