Pioneer Woman comes to Salt Lake City!!

All the chaos over this beautifully, wonderful, cookbook. I paid full retail price for this

book in the bookstore the night of the signing. I would do it again in a heartbeat,

the pictures and cute things in this book are worth every penny. The recipes are wonderful and

fattening. I would STRONGLY recommend getting on Amazon.com and getting this cookbook for yourself if not as a GREAT XMas gift for someone you love. This is a guaranteed hit for

a gift for anyone. So worth the 5 hrs of standing and waiting and having my miserable pregnant

body screaming at me the whole time. Fun times!

This is the picture that PW posted on her blog. Notice my sister and

I sitting on the floor in the bottom left corner.


She is as genuine and sweet as she seems on her blog. Trust me, I got to talk
to her... and Missy, and Ladd's mother (PW's mother-in-law). All so so sweet.

When The Pioneer Woman arrived with Missy and her mother-in-law the room exploded with applause and loud cheers. The room was packed to the max! Ree spoke to the group and answered questions from the audience. She talked for about 20 minutes. A few of the highlights: she did her Ethel Merman impression, talked about wearing "spanks," and of course told a few funny ranch stories. She also told all of her kids names and MM's name. Someone asked if they
were a secret she laughed and said No. MM's name is Ladd, then her girls are Alex and ? and her boys are Todd and Bryce.


This was the crowd outside the bookstore WITH tickets.

This was the crowd in the gallery waiting for PW to make her appearance.

See the back of my head and my cute sister in the bottom left corner, we were right

in front of the pulpit, her shoes were right next to mine while she talked.

3 hrs. into her signing

Missy and cute Nanna.

I was ticket E... and E was too long for me. Let alone Z or L or whatever

the last ticket was. Wow. They passed out a letter for every 20 people. So their

were 100 infront of us and seriously 1000 behind us. Then people started even showing

up without tickets and they waited until ALL the letters were done. I have no

idea if they even got in.

You can read from Pioneer Woman's post here: http://thepioneerwoman.com/blog/2009/11/a_recap/

Cheap Baby Bedding... soo excited

SoHo Baby Bedding is on major sale Here. You don’t always see prices this low. Save AT LEAST 60% off! I wasn't sure what I was going to do for this babies room, but I knew I didn't want to spend $200-$300 on it. These prices, I think, are totally reasonable and most of them are 10 piece sets! There are tons of cute boy AND girl sets. Now just to choose one. Decisions, decisions.

Leap Frog Alphabet Pal .49 cents!!! Hurry!!!

If you have a Target near you.... you need to jump on this! Here is what you need to do....

Toys R Us will be having a 2-Day Sale this Friday and Saturday (11/13 and 11/14.) One of their doorbusters is the Leap Frog Alphabet Pal for $10.49. This doorbuster is good Friday 3PM – 12AM, and Sat 7AM – 1PM). Get your hands on the Toys R Us Sales flyer and then take that flyer to Target for their price match policy – go during the SAME hours. Use the Target $10 coupon printable (Target Coupon Generator) and get the pal for $.49!

If you are worried about being able to use a Target coupon and a price match, check out Nicole’s Post Here. I would print this when you go shopping. You can also email Target and ask them their coupon policy to have your own personalized copy when you go shopping.

If you don't have a Toys R Us ad from your paper, I just went online and printed off the ad for the 2 Day Doorbuster Sale. It shows the Alphabet Pal on the front page for 50% off From $19.99 marked down to $10.49. That should work for showing the price for Target to match. Then with the $10 off Target coupon makes it .49 cents total. Cool huh!! Also in the Target Generator there are TONS of other great coupons that may interest you for Xmas.

Target has Up and Up Diaper Wipes, they are $1.50 a tub, and there is $1 OFF coupon in the generator you can print as well making the diaper wipes .50 Cents for a tub. I have not tried the Up and Up brand but I surely am willing to for .50 cents.

** You might have to ask for a Manager to ring you up and everything, but this IS their policy the will match competitors ads but not their coupons. And the $10 off coupon is a Target coupon. Also per the email you can take in they will accept a price match AND the coupon together.

Woo HOO!!

Stock up on blankets Wow!!

Plush Microfiber Down Blanket in 6 Colors. Reg $129-$149

on Sale for $59.99 Any Size!

Twin V 720-3023

Full/Queen V 720-3024

King V720-3025

Ever Soft Blanket in 6 Colors (these are on backorder

until December FYI at least the Fulls are) Regular $29-$59 on Sale now for $19.99 any SIZE!

However I did find if you want the twin size in a different catalog it is $14.99

Twin 66X90 V 720-3077 $14.99

Full 80X90 J 720-3078 $19.99

Queen 90X90 J 720-3078 $19.99

King 108X90 J 720-3080 $19.99

Plush Blanket & Throw

100% polyester microplush. Self-binding on four sides. Washable.

All Sizes $19.99

Twin J720-3017

Full J 720-3018

Queen J 720-3019

King J 720-3020

Throw 50X70 J 720-2000 $9.99

Ok I thought I would just quickly share with you what I just ordered because I am really excited about the great deal I got on everything. We don't have a ton of blankets in my house... lots of bedspreads and quilts but not warm blankets. I went to toss out a JC Penney catalog last week and noticed on the back that they had some way nice blankets ANY SIZE for $19.99. So I set it aside thinking I would look at it more later. Well.... its an awesome deal. I also bought a down blanket too. Like I said we don't have many blankets in this house and I took advantage of this sale PLUS there is more.....

Here is what I did... I ordered 6 blankets. 1 Down King blanket, 1 King Plush blanket, 2 Ever Soft Blankets for my kids beds and 2 Queen Plush blankets just to have on hand and for the extra bedrooms. Then I did a search and found a 30% off your entire order coupon code only good through Thursday. (FULL30) This is only usable if you use your JC Penney card. I had intended on just ordering using this awesome sale and then I have some Free Shipping offers. Then i found this 30% off code and couldn't not use it. However you cannot use a coupon code AND a free shipping offer. So I had to figure out which would be the best way to go which of course was the 30% off. Here is how I ended up. All the $19.99 blankets with 30% off ended up being $13.99. My down blanket went from $59.99 to $41.99. With the 30% off promo AND the sale on the blankets I saved $307.00!!!! That is totally worth rejoicing over. My shipping was $19, but with the 30% off it was worth paying shipping. My total for 6 blankets, shipping and tax was $138.26. I don't feel bad about that one stinkin bit.

Now I am not advertising charging and using credit cards or anything like that... I just know that sometimes when you have a store card it is well, well worth using it, but please be sure to pay it off ASAP and not accumulate debt because of me. :) Also for JC Penney card members.. after I had placed my order I found an email in that I had gotten for me to sign up for their rewards program. Its free. I signed up and they gave me a $10 off rewards code. I called the customer service dept and they applied that $10 credit to my order. Rewards CAN be used with other coupon codes. SOOOO I ended up really only paying $128.26 for 6 blankets. WOOO HOOO!!! Well really only $124 after my ebates cash back.

If you don't have a JC Penney Card this is still a great, awesome sale. You can still order the blankets and get FREE shipping using the code TREND49. You have to spend $49 or more to get the FREE shipping though. Also if you google JC Penney coupon codes you will get a bunch of websites with codes. There are quite a few 15% off coupon codes out there and depending on your order usinga 15% off code might save you more than using the free shipping code. Just thought I would pass this on.

Also if you need/want electric blankets all of them are 50% off. You can just go to jcpenney.com and search for them. The source code for the catalog that the best prices came out of is J9222 it will ask you for that so it knows what prices to reflect.

LASTLY: I know I am getting a little long here. If you have an ebates.com account don't forget to use them to put through your JC Penney order and you will get an additional 3% cash back from them on your next pay out. I saved a little over $4 more dollars through ebates. If you don't have an ebates account SHAME ON YOU... go get signed up right away. Its free money guys. Its free to sign up. Its silly not to have one. Go to ebates.com, or here is a quick link to the sign up page https://www.ebates.com/editUserInfos.do?navigation_id=18574. You just enter your email address and a password and it asks for who referred you. You get $5 free just for signing up! If you would, please put my email address down for the referral I will get $5 too. sammi_nickel@yahoo.com . Then you just start shopping. There are 100's of stores that you get credit for going through ebates. You just click the store and ebates routes you to their website then they can track your spending and send you a check every 3 months for your cash back that you earned. It adds up fast. Since I signed up over two years ago my cash back total is $327.59. There's the proof.

Happy Shopping!! :)

FREE Carnation Holiday Recipe Guide

The FREE CARNATION Holiday Recipe Guide is themust-have resource for delicious ideas this season. Itincludes recipes for potluck, appetizers, brunch/breakfast,game day and even leftovers. Order yours today so you have it in time for your next get-together! While supplies Last!! FREE HOLIDAY RECIPE GUIDE. I just ordered mine you can download it or have it mailed to you. Either way it looks fun and its FREE. Also there are coupons online for Carnation milk and other things so take advantage of them as well!

I am so glad the Holidays are HERE!!! Yay!

Halloween 09

Don't judge me, these 3 pictures are the only ones I took of my kids the whole Halloween night. What the heck is wrong with me!?!?

We had a fun first in our little family this year. Kade and I have been married going on 8 years now, and we have never carved pumpkins together or with Kadence either. We both had done it when we were younger, but never had the desire to do it together. We were always too busy going to haunted houses and other things when we were childless. This year my mom gave us two pumpkins from one of the hunters at Deseret, and then we decided to buy 2 more so that we could all do them as a family. It made for a very enjoyable FHE, and the kids and even Kade and I had a great time. The kids drew all over theirs and that was their funnest part. For Kadences, Kade ended up cutting out some of her actual drawings and it turned out to be a really cute pumpkin. The kids are now very sad that the pumpkins are wilting and needing to go to the garbage.

Kadence's, mine, Kade's, and Kash's.
Wow its great to be able to catch up a little on life for the past couple weeks. We have had a great October.. busy but great. The kids have had an absolute blast this month. We have filled our time lately with, ranch work, butchering beef, Hogle Zoo (went back to see the babies), a visit to Great-Grandma, a visit to the witches at Gardner Village, visits with friends, doctors appts, photography sessions, church callings, lessons, talks in church, pink eye, family picnics, Halloween trunk or treat, cookies, Halloween parties, and Halloween itself. Geez no wonder I was so exhausted all the time!! I was not sad to have Halloween over and get all the decorations put away. I was way burned out this year by the time we finished up with everything.

I have really slacked this month on pictures though.. I have no idea what my problem was. I hardly took any of Halloween night, my sister and mom thank heavens took pics at the trunk or treat, zoo, and Gardner Village. I have vowed to be better for the next upcoming months.

Kash wanted nothing to do with a Halloween costume. He only wanted to wear his regular clothes so he became a "cowboy" pretty easily. He carried his gun, stick horse, and rope around for the first 4 or 5 houses but slowly started leaving his accessories in the car. Kadence wanted to be Sleeping Beauty this year and she was darling. They both got way too much candy and had a great time though and that is all that matters I think.

Finally.... A Photography Blog

Finally I have taken the time to set up what will be my photography blog. You can check it out at http://www.nicolemartinphotography.blogspot.com/.
Warning: It is very generic and boring right now. The blog only has about 30% of the pictures it will have and hopefully by the end of the year it will be full of what I have done.I hope sometime soon to be able to "beautify" it, but I have no idea when that will be. Thanks again or all your love, support, and encouragement.