blowing bubbles!

Ciao amici! How is your weekend going?

We have been so busy! Friday night Derrick and I went on a date (yeah!) although I will admit we spent an hour of it shopping for the girls for Christmas. We are almost done though! It is certainly much harder to do so when they are old enough to remember what you've bought. We went to dinner and saw the movie "Death Race." The movie, incase you live in a land of no previews such as myself, is about the future when prison are taken over by giant corporations. They are all about profit, of course, so they start web casts of prisoners driving around a track, nascar style, to the death. Joan Allen plays the prison warden(? is that the word) Anyway it is honestly like a video game in which the cars can drive over circles for bullets, shields, insane weapons you can only think of on a game. However what keeps you wanting to watch is the main character who wants to get out of prison to see his little girl, and his only way out is by winning the race. I wanted to leave within about ten minutes; however, I'm glad I stuck it out. While extremely violent (extremely), it is so thought provoking and it had a great ending. I actually recommend it, but it will stir up some anger and the girls will squeam a few times. We were still discussing it the next morning though, so it was a good choice (not that we had one!) :)

Enough of that. Yesterday we had a going away party (boo) and a birthday party! We were very tired last night and I'm a bit sick today with a sore throat,etc. but I took the girls to the park to let them blow bubbles while Daddy went to church. We have a nice 4 day weekend and then Derrick leaves for a week or two for a job. We'll have to plan some girlie fun while the boy is out of the house!

Enjoy your weekend! .. and Happy Veteran's Day a little early!

That is Mt. Etna in the background, the top half covered in clouds. I was hoping to catch it but it warmed up. Motta is the little brown spot to the left of Val's head almost to the bottom of the hill. That's about a 25 min drive from our house. (For some of you who asked, to put things in perspective of where we are, which is in the middle of no where!) :)

Sunday Motta Shoot

Sunday I did a shoot for one of our great babysitters, Jayden, and her family who are friends of ours from church. They let me get some practice in despite the cloudy/hazy day and unfortunately Mt. Etna was out of sight which we had hoped to get in the background. Here are a few favorites:

You will probably notice the watermark on each photo. My website is now up and running! There are a few areas under construction due to our upcoming move and the uncertainty of how everything will lay out once we are settled. For right now, I am simply practicing on my wonderful friends and family who let me use them as guinea pigs. Who wouldn't want to take advantage of such a gorgeous setting while it's still there? So check back in the future, pay no attention if colors change, galleries are added, etc. It's a work in progress!

lindsay powell photography

Penny Pinchers!!!

I think we are all feeling a little squeeze in our wallets right now. I have been cutting coupons to help save on our grocery bill and I thought I'd share some sites I love to look at for deals and ideas!

couponmom.com - has lots of great coupons to print for free as well as other ideas. (i'm talking $1 off things, not 25 cents!)

http://justlintinmypocket.blogspot.com/ always has coupons, coupon codes, and freebies she finds in stores!

http://dealfindingmom.blogspot.com/ another great money saving blog!

naughtycodes.com (yes it sounds like a weird name.. but it's not sexy naughty!) You can look up codes by alphabetical order for almost any site out there. Sometimes you can find free shipping codes, or sale flyer coupons that you may not know about to shop online! I have used this for gap, children's place, you name it.

restaurant.com has gift cards you can buy at a fraction of the price so you are paying essentially sometimes half price for your meal out!

http://bargainshopperlady.com/ She is one of my favorites, she always has amazing deals and some how figures out how to use the coupon codes to get things nearly for free from places like V.Secret, Starbucks, and Coldwater Creek!

.. until next time. :)

Fall Fest

Today we went to the annual Fall Festival on base here at Sigonella. The festival has lots of food, crafts to buy, wine to taste, and rides for the kids. There was an adult Fear Factor type game, a live band, and kiddie games. A good time was had by all!

Kylan and Ellie playing with the EOD robots
Valerie navigating with Daddy

They had a fundraiser where they were locking people in jail, to be bailed with money of course. Ellie voluntarily went in several times.

The American Red Cross had a booth where you could search for random body parts in a thing of 'gook' for $1.. guaranteed a prize. Say no more, we're in! Ellie got an eyeball.. only later to be exchanged for a little toy ghost. I think Val ended up finding an ear.. she traded it for a squirt gun (great) Notice she had to use a glove. That's our little miss Val.

and of course, rides!

Trick or Treat!

We had a fun night of trick or treating with friends tonight and our usual pot of chili/cornbread. One thing I love about living in military housing is that everyone sits outside and visits during trick or treating, but this year it was windy and cold!! The festival was also going on, so it wasn't the best night for trick or treating but we had a good time. I'm about to attempt kitchen clean up but here are a few pics for the grandma's

..Val being her obvious ballerina (had to put a sweater on though.. too cold) and Ellie being the bee that Val was last year. The bee costume was handed down to us from my Aunt Janel! (thanks! as you can see.. it got two years of use!) :) ... although Ellie was *screaming* when she put it on for the first 10 minutes or so... but we bribed her with a sucker.

The girls with Kylan (Buzz Lightyear!) I let the girls sponge paint/finger paint plain orange gift bags last week.. hence the 'smears'

Can't forget baby Westin and his insanely gorgeous mother, Lovie!Ellie ran down the street for awhile before finally giving into the wagon

getting the goods from our neighbor and friend Blake!

Pumpkin Carving!

Thank you for all the well wishes on baby #3! We are very excited that Derrick will actually be around for one of them. Val is already drawing pictures for "her baby" and insists that it's a baby brother, but she wants a girl. I don't quite think she understands the word brother. Her little friend just got a baby brother so of course, that is all the rage. We shall see! I don't think we are going to find out the sex!

This past weekend we carved pumpkins. Notice they are both in overalls. They also both wore green dresses and brown boots to church on Sunday. One of them gets dressed first and then the other always wants to wear the same thing. It's pretty funny.

We are looking forward to this coming weekend for trick-or-treating and the annual Fall Festival here on base. It's a large base with carnival rides, food booths, a craft tent, and inflatables! Derrick and I are both working at a booth for awhile on Saturday for our job/organization so it's going to be busy around here until next week!

Happy Halloween!

pardon the blurry pics below, I didn't feel like getting out the tripod. you get the idea

Ellie's: (goofy face)

Val's: "Pumpkin kitty cat" It's hard to see but the eye cut outs were stuck on to make ears!

Party of Five

... we will soon be!

The 3rd little (and last) little Powell will be arriving sometime around 7.7ish.09!