Great giveaway

I am so excited!! I won the Smart Mom jewelry. When I receive it, I will have to take a picture of it and post it.

Now maybe I can make it all Sunday without having to take off my necklace

funny quote of the day

This week Number 1 was invited to a birthday party a Chuck E. Cheese. We decided to make a family night out of it and have dinner there.

Princess has always been afraid of the guy in the Chuck E. Cheese costume, but she loves going to Chuck E. Cheese. So the whole time there she is on the look out for him.

Well while we were there she was sitting in my lap while we were waiting on Daddy to order our pizza and get some tokens. She turned and looked at me and said, "Mommy I am not just scared of Chuck E., I am afraid of him."

Busy Days

It has been very busy around here. We started school this week and so far both kids are excited about their new school work. Princess loves getting to do her own schoolwork and Number 1's work is just a review right now. His work is so easy for him that I am having him do more than one page in his books.

We also had a garage sale this weekend. We got rid of quite a bit of stuff, but we still have quite a bit more to go. My Mother in Law said she is going to have a sale later this month. She told us to box everything up and put it in her sale. I am thinking about just taking it to Goodwill. Some of this stuff has been around for three sales now.

This next week is the kids consignment sale in our city. I have been busy getting clothes ready to sell there. I also will have a busy week this next week with that. If you volunteer to work at it, then you get to shop first. So I will be working Tuesday night and then shopping on Wednesday. I love to buy my kids clothes there. I can buy all of their clothes for the season and get name brand clothes for a lot less.

We also have a field trip with our homeschool group on Tuesday. We are going to visit a canning plant. They can pickled watermelon rinds. I have never had a pickled watermelon rind. It is not something I think I want to try. I have been told that they give away the fruit part of the watermelon for free. My kids will be trying to load up the car with watermelon. I will try and get some pictures of that!

baked oatmeal

My family loves this baked oatmeal. I found the recipe over at Money Saving Mom. I thought I would put a link to it on my blog, because I can never seem to remember if it is at Money Saving Mom or Biblical Womanhood.

http://www.moneysavingmom.com/money_saving_mom/2008/08/frugal-breakfas.html

great giveaway

I just found out about a great necklace that your baby can chew on. They are giving one away over at Thrifty & Chic Mom.

http://thriftyandchicmom.blogspot.com/2008/08/giveaway.html

Anti-Procrastination Day

Well today at Biblical Womanhood it is Anti-Procrastination Day. I decided to take the challenge. Since we have moved in our new house I have had a lot of things I have been putting off.

One is the continual pile of mail that has been sitting at the end of our bar. Now instead of one big out of control pile, it is two small piles. One pile is bills that need to be paid and the other is papers that my husband need to go through. Well cleaning off that area meant a lot of things got stacked up on my desk. So then I cleaned up my desk.

My next chore was to finish tagging clothes for the Growing Kids Sale. There is a kids clothes sale in our town twice a year. I am usually able to sell enough clothes to pay for the clothes I buy. I do not think that is going to happen this year. I am saving most of Number 1 son's clothes for baby and I am going to be buying more clothes this year with three kids to buy for.

My next procrastination chore was the kids toy closet. When we moved in I just had the kids take toys to the toy closet and their rooms. I did not have the time or energy to sort through toys in the middle of moving with a 6 week old. Well then when I would have them clean up their toys they never cleaned up very well. So today I tackled the toy closet!! Here are the pictures to prove it!!


before

after

They Are Here!!

Look what the UPS man brought today. We know what that means. It is time to start school!

my sweet kids

Last night number 1 son and princess went to new classes at church. Number 1 went to Sparkies and princess went to Adventure Land.

In Sparkies they earn "money" for memorizing Bible verses and bringing friends. The first friend he thought of to bring was his sister. They really are becoming best friends.

That is one of the advantages to homeschooling. They spend everyday all day together, so they have to be good friends. If they were not they would have no one to play with.

Princess loved her new class too because they sung songs. Anything to do with music and she loves it!!

And Baby got to stay with me. He has been teething and he ran a slight fever on Wednesday. So he got to go learn about home management. He was pretty good in there. I hope he did not distract too many.

school

Well school started today for public school in our city, but not in our house. Our new school books have not come in yet. One of my friends, that homeschools, said she is waiting until after Labor Day. Maybe I should do that? It would probably be better for me to just jump in as soon as we get the books in.

There are many times I doubt myself about homeschooling. Am I warping my kids? Am I stunting their academic growth? Am I a good enough teacher for them? Should I just give up and send them to public school?

Then I have to go back in my mind to why we decided to do this. To protect our kids. To teach them the things that we want to teach them. To teach them not only to read and write, but to teach them to love God with their whole heart.

I can only do this with God's strength, guidance, wisdom, and grace.

Being a Stay at Home Mom

I recently read a great article on a blog that I love reading. She expressed so many of my thoughts about being a Stay at Home Mom. So many people think it is easy and we do it because that is all we are qualified to do. Or we do it because our husbands make a lot of money and we do not need to work. We do it because we believe with our whole heart that it is what is best for our child!!

Read the article here at Biblical Womanhood: http://www.biblicalwomanhoodonline.com/labels/Mothering.html

funny quote of the day

As we were watching the Olympics the men's diving came on. K.B. looks at the guys in their speedos and says "Why are those boys wearing panties?"

It is never a dull moment around here!

Me time

Lately I have been contemplating "me time." I used to have it, but now I do not. Is it that important for a Mom to have me time?

My children used to go to Mother's Day Out at our church 2 days a week from 9:00 - 2:00. I would spend those days running myself to death. I would either run all over town to get all of my errands taken care of or I would clean my house from top to bottom. Then after I picked my kids up I was either so tired I could not stay awake or I did not want to bring the kids home because I did not want them to mess up the house.

Now my oldest is too old for Mother's Day Out and we have started homeschooling and we moved to the other side of town and I would spend 30 minutes taking and picking up kids.

So in order to have "me time" I would have to put my oldest in school and my two others in Mother's Day Out. But what would this mean for my kids. It would mean that my oldest would be in public school. My husband and I would lose all control over what he is taught. We would lose all control over the influences in his life. It would mean that my two oldest children would not spend as much time together and their friendship would probably suffer. It would mean that my baby would grow up not having his loving brother and sister hovering over him all the time. It would also mean that I would have to pay $36 a week for childcare plus the gas it would cost to get to Mother's Day Out.

Is that worth it for "me time." I do not think so. I was recently reading a book called Passionate Housewives Desperate for Christ. It makes the point that as Christian we no longer own our lives or our time. We are bond servants of Christ and my job for Christ right now is to make sure my children grow up learning all they can about Christ all day long.

So for now I will try to focus on the time I get with my kids while they still want to be around me. And not focus on my toenails that desperately need a pedicure or my gray hair that needs to be covered. I will focus on the beautiful smiles I get to see everyday.

Food Glorious Food

We started our baby on food last night. On Wednesday we went for his 4 month check up. The doctor said we could start him on cereal anytime between now and 6 months. We decided since he was so big we would go ahead and start on cereal now.

I was not sure how he would do, but he has been very interested in food lately. My first child I waited until 6 months for food. My second I waited until about 5 months. So I wondered if he was really ready.

Well he was. He gobbled down that cereal. A lot of what went in his mouth actually stayed in his mouth. I was pretty surprised. I think he actually enjoyed it.

Walgreens great deal

I read this morning on one of my favorite blogs that there is a glitch in the Walgreens RR. The Kelloggs RR are printing out 2. Even though I have a strict policy of not taking my kids to Walgreens, I could not pass up this opportunity. So I loaded up the car and off to Walgreens we went. On the way there the kids got a speech about how we were only buying certain things and to not beg for anything and we were not looking at toys. Well the kids were really good especially when they saw what I was buying. I do not usually buy these kinds of treats. I figure my kids get enough sugar and do not need any sugary treats.

So here is what I bought:
2 boxes of Cheese-Its
2 boxes of Rice Crispy Treats
1 box of Pop tarts
2 boxes of dried cranberries
1 coke

I did not have any coupons, unfortunately.
I spent $14.67 and got back 2 $5 RR.
I was so excited I called my husband and asked him to stop buy and buy so more!

The blog I read about this on is www.moneycommonsense.blogspot.com.

6 years

Our 1st baby is six years old now!! Grant had a birthday on August 2nd. I does not seem like he should be 6. I am learning how important it is to enjoy each day, because before you know it they will be in 1st Grade.

Today we went and ordered books for the new school year. It seems unreal that we are ordering 1st grade books. It seems unreal that he will be able to do all of the things in these books by the end of the year.

So in two weeks, ready or not Grant, we will start 1st grade!!

Recipe flops

I tried some new recipes last night. They did not get quite the praise I was hoping for. Chris and I liked them, but the kids did not. Chris said they may not be keepers because we couldn't get the kids to eat.

This month's issue of Southern living has some recipes for vegetable plates. I thought I would try them because I keep reading that one way to cut your grocery bill is to not have meat every meal. I made Not Yo' Mamma's Mac and Cheese, Squash Casserole, and green beans.

The Mac and Cheese is very rich!! The kids did not like it at all. It makes a big casserole size dish. So with Chris and I being the only one eating it, we have a whole lot of mac and cheese left.

The kids did like the squash casserole, but not the green beans.

We usually eat leftovers every other night, so tonight the kids will have sandwiches with squash casserole. Chris and I will have a whole lot of mac and cheese!