positivity is key

a big thing that matt and i are dealing with right now is money and how we don't have any.

sometimes it makes me wear a very sad face but most of the time i try to stay chipper.

both Matt and myself are pretty positive people, instead of looking at our situation in a very negative way we like to make it fun by trying new things like shopping sales and using coupons, cooking crazy meals ourselves instead of going out to eat and making up new date ideas instead of going out on the weekend.

my big sister Christy is the master of coupons/sales.

she is trying her best to pass her wisdom on to me and drill into my head that walmart is not the best place to go.

i still kinda secretly think it is but today almost changed my mind.

Christy was nice enough to give me some coupons on things i really wanted/needed including 3 coupons for Chex Mix because Matt is madly in love with them and when it's in the house he basically turns into a Chex Mix monster and eats nothing else.

i think he's even eating them right now...yes he is.

so we went to use those coupons today and we got 6 bags for only $3!

Matt was a little bit in shock when i told him he can choose all the different flavors and when we got to the register and i paid the $3 he practically grabbed the grocery bag and ran out the door like they had made a mistake ringing us up and we better get out of there before they realized what they did.

but seriously, all this for $3?

that is a steal!

and when i went shopping with Christy yesterday at Fry's i even got stuff for free because of sales and coupons combined.

now that's the way to do it!

hopefully if i follow Christy around enough stores i'll get this whole shopping thing down and it'll save us oodles and oodles!

Now something that Matt and i actually like to do is cook and try new recipes.

some of my favorites that we've made from scratch are fried chicken, lemon chicken, crock pot burritos, stir fry and last week matt actually made spicy macaroni and cheese all by himself!

it was so crazy!

i asked him to make me some mac and cheese because i was busy working and i love mac and cheese but he doesn't love it all that much so when i get downstairs my mac and cheese is ready for me but the kitchen is a total mess.

(Matt has no idea how to cook without taking every single item out of the cupboards and putting it on the counter)

but he was putting a bunch of things in a casserole dish that he later put in the oven and it turned out to be spicy mac and cheese which was really tasty!

and even TASTIER the next day for some reason.

i give him total kudos for not running to fresh and easy and buying their spicy mac and cheese that he loves so much and making his own instead!

date nights can actually be really fun when you have no money, that's what we found out.

and Matt and i are a little on the kooky side so our date nights are SUPER fun.

like one time we built a fort that covered our entire family room and we stayed in it for 2 days while we watched all the star wars movies in a row.

and one time we dressed up like star wars characters and ate star wars food and watched the family guy star wars movies.

and it kinda seems like all we do is star wars stuff but really we don't.

we like to do crafts together and walk around stores and take funny pictures and pretend to make music videos.

this weekend our grand idea was to paint and design our office!

i was super psyched about this because i'm in that office all day long, every single day and i'm sick of looking at boring white walls.

i decided that it should be a "pacific northwest" themed room, that way i can pretend that i'm there instead of in ridiculously hot arizona.

i picked a super cool minty green for the walls that would match good with all the brown accents like the curtains and the rug that i've been drooling over but can't get until my birthday.

so Matt and i went and got the paint friday night so we could spend saturday painting together.

how cute are we?

he ended up having to go to work super early saturday morning so i started painting by myself.

i started by putting a little bit of paint on one wall to make sure the color was right but i really wish i hadn't done that because i ended up not liking how it looked.

i was totally bummed but i decided i'd try painting a whole wall with it just so i could get the real feel of it and see how it looked.

sadly, i still wasn't lovin it.

this is my "not lovin it" face.

but then i told myself that i bought that whole can of paint so by golly i was going to use it whether i liked it or not!

so i kept painting and painting and painting and painting and if you're wondering why i haven't talked about Matt painting it's because he didn't paint with me, AT ALL!

that little booger tricked me into painting the whole room by myself while he went off to work in the morning and went to see iron man 2 with his dad that afternoon.

so basically i had a date with myself this weekend.

but i'm not complaining because i painted the room all by myself!

who's the bomb? i'm the bomb! THAT'S RIGHT!

and i'm happy to report that once the room was covered in minty green i actually really liked it!

i'm so glad!

once i start bringing in all the "pacific northwest" elements into the room it's going to look amazing!

i can't waaaaaait!

the only bad thing is that now that i painted this room all by myself Matt has gotten this crazy idea in his head that the whole rest of the house needs to be painted too and that i can do it since i got mad painting skills.

bummer.

Happy Birthday to Trey

i have the best nieces and nephews ever!

they are all so cute and so funny!

this past friday my nephew Trey turned 5 years old and for his present Matt and i took him to the dollar store to pick out his own presents.

that sounds kinda lame but if you knew this little boy you would know that it was exactly what he wanted.

so here's how the day went...

we picked Trey up from his house in my car, not Matt's car because the window is loud and hurts his ears.

on the way to the dollar store i put in a cd to play Trey's favorite song and tried to get him to sing along but he was being shy around Matt.

i guess he didn't want Matt to know that the love for Lady Gaga runs in the family.

so Matt asked him what another one of his favorite songs is and this is what he said...

then we found the song and sang the whole thing all over again!

"that's the end!"

he is too cute!

then we got to the dollar store and we had to practically chase him around the whole store because he was so excited!

he got $3 so we told him he got to pick 3 things and he found his first present within 5 seconds of walking in.

that's got to be a record or something.

so many toys.

he had to pick up everything and try it on.

then he decided on his 3 things: a big butterfly net, a squirt gun and a little car.

but then we walked by a whole lot of toy cars and he tried to put some extra cars into his net while we weren't looking.

little sneak!

i had to remind him he only had $3 so he could only get 3 things.

after being upset with me for a bit he got over it and ended up ditching the butterfly net and getting the squirt gun, a toy car and a bow and arrow.

all very good choices!

after the dollar store we took him to McDonalds for an ice cream cone and i decided that watching a little kid eat an ice cream cone is one of the funniest things in the world.

first of all, it takes them for-e-ver to eat it.

and second of all, they can't make it more than 2 minutes without getting ice cream on some part of their body.

but they look dang cute eating them!

when he got sick of the ice cream cone he begged us to play in the play area and we just couldn't say no to that little face.

we had a great time hanging out with Trey!

on the way back to his house we asked him if he had fun and he said "a little bit but i wanted to play on the playground some more."

mental note for next year: take him to McDonalds and let him play on the playground the whole time.

may the 4th be with you

i think matt has a new favorite holiday.

it's kinda like how one of my favorite holidays is shark week which isn't really a holiday but so is at the same time.

so matt's new favorite holiday is may 4th or national star wars day.

who wouldn't love that right?

so i decided that we were gonna really make this the best holiday ever!

first of all...i dressed up. and made matt dress up too.

that means that i wore my padme costume which is highly embarrassing and totally unbelievably amazing at the same time.

and the doggy padme and i took pictures together because it's a law to do that when you have the same name.

she didn't like me since she's the real thing and i'm not.

she called me a poser.

we bought matt a brown snuggie this past winter because

A. he was completely obsessed with snuggies and

B. because a brown snuggie looks like a jedi robe if you wear it like a robe and not like a snuggie which defeats the purpose but that doesn't matter when you look like a jedi, duh!

here we are being totally amazing on stars wars day!

we are making the funniest faces in this picture because we're being totally hardcore.

especially matt.

i'm kinda nervous our neighbors saw us through our window and thought we were freaks.

or thought we were the coolest people they had ever seen! BOOYAH!

after we were done taking hardcore pictures we ate our star wars dinner.

yeah i'm not kidding.

we had HAN-burgers and BOBA FETT fries.

while drinking DARK SIDE drinks (in star wars cups of course).

and for dessert we had JAWA JIVE milkshakes.

which were so good i might make them again tonight just for the heck of it!

how did i get these amazing food ideas you ask?

well the HAN-burgers and JAWA JIVE milkshake ideas came from the greatest cookbook in the world that i got for matt for his birthday or christmas or something.

you know you want it.

but the BOBA FETT fries and DARK SIDE drinks were 100% our creation.

meaning they are just sweet potato fries and mountain dew that we gave star wars names.

and as if dressing up and eating themed food wasn't enough we also watched both family guy star wars episodes!

they were crazy funny!

i mean who wouldn't want to watch this?

that's what i thought.

and again to prove our level of nerdiness

(because the rest of the night clearly wasn't enough)

we played star wars guess who!

A LOT because matt didn't want to give up without beating me and he was having a tough time doing that.

so basically may the 4th is the greatest holiday ever!

and matt and i are the best at celebrating it ever!

(so much cooler than all those lame people who just posted 500 million quotes on facebook all day long)

and i looked way better in my padme costume than natalie portman.

no joke.

the good and the bad

matt is so good to me.

since i've been working from home i hardly ever leave the house.

this is good because...

1. i get to stay in my comfy clothes and jammies all day long

2. i don't really have to put make up on unless i want to

3. i get to eat snacks

but it's bad because...

1. i don't get to see/talk to anybody

2. i get bored of doing the same thing over and over

3. sometimes i actually want to get dressed and leave the house for a change

this is where matt is so nice.

sometimes he'll get home from work and even though he's tired and wants to rest for a bit he'll come home and take me out instead.

what a sweetie pie!

so after a week of not leaving the house matt decided that this weekend he would take me a couple places.

first thing we did was go to a bunch of stores looking for mother's day gifts.

then we remembered how awful we are at finding mother's day gifts and i texted my mom to ask her what she wanted.

instead of wanting us to buy her something she asked us to make her dinner and matt got super psyched about making her some brazilian meal.

we'll probably end up doing the dinner thing with matt's mom too so i guess mother's day is covered!

while we were searching for mother's day gifts i found a gift for myself and matt bought it for me!

he said i had to consider it as part of my birthday gift but come on, my birthday is a whole month away, he'll forget about it by then!

how cute is this little hootie??

you don't have to answer, i know how adorable he is.

he's so cute and chubby and he likes to sit on my desk and make me smile!

see? and padme likes my new hootie too!

so that part of the weekend was suuuuuper good thanks to matt!

but then we had to take padme to get her annual shots.

we found a low cost vaccination clinic that goes around to different pet stores in the area and decided that would be a good place to go so we could save some money.

padme was ridiculously scared there because she hates other dogs and there were some crazy dogs there.

i wasn't a big fan of the vet but he did what he had to do quickly and we moved on and everything seemed fine.

we took padme home and went to get something to eat and then when we got home she all of a sudden started throwing up a bunch.

i've never seen her so sick before and it scared the heck out of me!

she threw up all over and then laid down and wouldn't get up and could barely even open her eyes.

i kinda freaked and called the place we went to ask the vet what to do.

they told me to keep her hydrated and keep a close eye on her and if she gets any worse to take her to an emergency clinic.

we couldn't get her to drink out of her bowl so the next best thing was getting her to lick ice cubes.

look how sad she looks. i hate it.

the ice did help her though.

after finishing one and a half ice cubes she actually stood up and drank from her water bowl and she drank a LOT of water.

the poor thing!

and as we speak she is laying in her little bed next to matt trying to sleep everything off.

i don't like to see my little baby so sick.

i really hope she's better by tomorrow or i'm going to kill that vet who hurt her!

that's right, that was a threat! beware!

forks, washington is the bomb!

this past week matt and i watched a very funny movie, it is called...

Twilight in Forks The Saga of the Real Town.

just the title should tell you how amazing this movie is!

it'll make you love twilight all over again and also make you remember how crazy people are about it, seriously.

while i was watching i couldn't stop thinking about the trip that matt and i took up there and how we are amazingly amazing trend setters for doing it before everyone else in the entire world did.

the twilight in forks movie was made in 2009 and matt and i went in 2008.

in just that one short year forks became sort of a twilight theme park.

they have bella's truck out in front of their chamber of commerce.

they have signs on practically all the windows and in front of their stores showing their vampire spirit.

they have a whole store dedicated to twilight.

they even have a twilight tour where you can go around and see the buildings they've picked out that most resemble the places in the books.

(thank you girls in the picture who i do not know for the picture i found on google images)

they even have a parking spot reserved at the hospital for dr. cullen.

the place has gone bonkers for twilight and it is so awesome!

they have done so many other things there to make that place exactly what the tourists are hoping for.

heck, they even have stephenie meyer day celebrated on bella's birthday!

when matt and i went to forks all the books weren't even out yet.

i can even guarantee that 50% of forks had no idea what twilight was so our trip didn't have fancy twilight signs and tours everywhere.

we got to see what forks is really truly like.

you drive through the most beautiful forest.

and pretend to be vampires by the most beautiful lake.

do a funny pose in front of the cool forks welcome sign.

drive all through town, seeing maybe 10 people the whole time, taking pictures of places from the books.

go to la push because we are

TEAM JACOB

all the way.

watch matt pretend to be a buff werewolf.

kiss because we love each other.

then go to port angeles and do it all over again!

i won't post every single picture from port angeles but i will say that we did have dinner at bella italia and it was probably the best italian food i have ever eaten in my life!

i would go back to port angeles just to eat there again!

when our trip was over i was so sad to say goodbye to forks and port angeles.

i really do hope that we can go there again sometime and see all the crazy twilighters at their best!

maybe we'll even go on stephenie meyer day!!

but the moral of the story is...

1. matt and i totally started the trend to vacation in forks.

2. we are true twilight lovers because we had a blast even though the place wasn't decked out in twilight stuff.

3. we saw a real vampire and werewolf while we were there. it's true. watch the videos.

(this vampire even came out of forks high school so you know it's the real deal!)

(it is so NOT a pig! it is a giant werewolf! matt doesn't know what he's talking about)

highlight of my week

well this has been quite a week.

first major thing that happened is matt and i got new phones.

yay!!

i love new phone time!

verizon was having this smokin' deal with their palm pre plus phone, get 2 for $50 and matt talked me into it.

this phone is so unlike any other phone i've ever had.

i've never had a phone with internet or games or one that exclusively has a keyboard instead of the number keypad.

i didn't think i was going to like it as much as my old one but i do, i so do!

it's super sleek and cute and i love it!

the only downside is that i haven't quite got the hang of the keyboard yet.

i always liked texting with T9 and now i can't do that.

and who can text on a keyboard while driving a stick shift car?? not me!

guess i'm going to have to learn to not text when i'm driving.

bummer.

next thing that happened this week is i'm sick...again.

i have this grossy gross tonsil problem and it makes me sick every couple months.

i'm thinking about actually going to the doctor and telling them to cut them out to stop this insanity.

its so not fun being sick over and over again.

that brings me to saturday, the best day!

my big sister's neighborhood had a community garage sale and she told me to bring anything i wanted to get rid of.

matt and i were psyched!

we had 4 big items we were DYING to sell.

a wooden entertainment center, a loveseat sofa, a tv stand and probably the heaviest tv known to man.

it took us for-e-ver to get everything over to my sister's house.

the tv had to be dragged on top of a cardboard box all the way down our stairs, across our living room, out the door and out to the car because it was too heavy to pick up but after making several frustrating trips back and forth we finally got everything over there friday night so they'd be ready to sell early the next morning.

i am happy to report that the ridiculously heavy tv and the entertainment center both sold!

yay!

and we ended up giving the couch away for free to one of my sister's neighbors that wanted it.

we didn't make that much money but i'm just so happy to finally be able to pull my car into our garage and not have to worry about if i pulled in far enough so the garage door won't come down on top of my trunk.

it's a great feeling!

and now we can maybe actually organize the garage since we can finally walk around in there!

i love how successful this garage sale was!

so it's been a pretty eventful week but wanna know what the highlight of my week was?

matt singing shania twain in the shower on saturday morning.

no joke.