Nine years already?

Attempt 101

I am attempting again to slow life down and really analyze what we spend our money on at the grocery store. Over at the grocery cart challenge, this mom spends only $60 a week on groceries. I have recently ran out of the beef we bought a year or two ago and have no freezer meals left. I jumped couponing ship when I had Ike a year and half ago. It was one thing it life that I just couldn't find time for. Now I am completely motivated to analyze our grocery spending each week in order to be a fulltime mom with a part time job versus the other way around. As soon as school starts I hope to have time to grocery shop by myself. A great friend who has been at this frugal shopping for a long time stated that shopping for deals is like a job. You can't bring children with you when attempting to keep everything straight. August first is coming quick. I hope (cross my fingers) I can blog my purchases each week to maybe motivate someone else to do the same. If you are in, let me know. Happy shopping.

Yes day?

Not sure if I posted about my yes project or it was yet another blog post gone, but here's a story.

In a discipline talk that a friend had recently ( I wasn't able to go but I got the cliff notes from my aunt Kendra), one major point was to tell your children yes more than you tell them no. This child my friends is my yes project. He is super sweet but so is the devil.... No Payton isn't evil, he just knows how to push all of mommy's correct buttons.

Tonight patton comes down stairs ( btw he is not aware that he is my yes project) and asks, "mom is today yes day." see this attitude isn't new. His annual Christmas book from
Me for the theme for the past year was "yes day!". He loves that book and thinks it is so funny. So tonight he asks is it yes day? I thought before speaking and stated why? Because I was going to ask if we can stay up late tonight. See the schemer he is, ha ha. In the spirit of my yes project I simply stated, you may watch a cartoon. I didn't state no, but guided him in better direction. Here's to the first yes day.

Fun with food

Meal planning monday

Breakfast and lunch at our house are fend for yourselves. We often have leftovers, pb and j sandwiches, sandwich meat, Mac and cheese, cereal. I used to think I needed to mix things up all the time, but am finding
My boys could eat the same thing all the time. Therefore why stress out over breakfast and lunches and focus on suppers. I make sure my cupboards or freezer has something easy to make. With living in the country, having this type of meal plan is ok. If I lived near a fast food restaurant... I might need to think of another plan.

So this will only be suppers for the exception of weekends.

Monday: mini pizza w hoagie buns and lettuce salad
Tuesday: crockpot cola ham with side of cheesy potatoes on the grill
Wednesday: chicken enchiladas with homemade refried beans
Thursday: we will be coming home from aurora from corn day so I am sure we might grab something on the way home.
Friday: grilled pizza yummy w the new grill pizza pan from pampered chef:)
Saturday: L: star city shores swim
Party in the am, so it might be fun for a picnic or just come home and eat sandwiches.
D: BLTs with cheesy broccoli
Sunday: L:leftovers or breakfast for lunch
D: Kenna's bday party in the afternoon, but I was planning on beef
Fillets and sweet corn.

Happy meal planning Monday to you!

New Olympic sport

I had just emptied the laundry baskets. I was getting supper ready when i heard this outrageous laughter, which can only mean one thing... TROuBLE I turned the corner and saw my eldest son fly down the small staircase to see his two little brothers watching from the bottom of the stairs. Watching Olympics + empty laundry baskets + bike helmets = basket sledding. Safety first...

In the words of Patton, do not try this at home mom. Well in that case lets stop this now. Kenner also pointed out that they had a another new sport, basket tipping. Maybe I don't want them to watch gymnastics. This could be a l long 17 days or I will resort to watching the Olympics after bedtime.

Budget, boys, blogging

Thanks to my aunt Kendra and having a job where I am in the car for 3 hours a day, I have found new motivation to live life a little different. Budget: do I have one? Yes have we lived and breathed by it? No. We just kind of do what we want and it somewhat follows the budget. Our family has truly been blessed by two great jobs. Two you ask...yes I am still working part time, but in the world of PRN SLP working half the time I did working full time equals the same amount in return. Only huge downfall is tha I am not guaranteed those hours...so with the craziness of having hours and not, I don't want to just waste away all our extra earnings. I want to follow more closely on how to live by the budget. Also inspired by the Dave Ramsey show, it would be fun to not have any debt. Now that our endless jobs on the house are through we can better see and save for other projects in the future. So I refigured the budget and we will be using cash for groceries, eating out/entertainment, and clothing aka the envelope system. Yes I am aware of the myevelope system where you don't actually have cash but it keeps track of everything for you....but Casey and I need the actual cash in order to really see what we have left. I had to add clothing not because I spend alot of clothes, but I shop at stores where you can get both groceries and clothes therefore taking away from my grocery budget. Big question: do you budget and how do you stay within your budget? Boys: I had a friend who had a bunch of moms over to take Godly discipline. Major points: say yes more than you do no, use a rod or spanking the first rule breaking and you will find your kids will be better choice makers, and to follow through the first time. No if you don't do this then...then after saying 6 times you didn't follow through with any of the things yu said. Hard....yes! But in the three days I have used it, the boys have been listening much much more. Blogging: I love love to blog, but for some reason Facebook gets more of my time. I find myself more accountable if I blog and I can share stories of the boys more...so here is try one million to blog more. Have a great day! Off to the YMCA pool!

Kenner's 7th bday

Kenner got in his Sunday best and combed his hair so we could go to red robin tonight with Kendra, Trevor, Kenna, Bob, and Marilyn. He was so excited. I am anxious to see what tomorrow holds as he was super disappointed two days ago that I hadn't sent out the invitations yet. Oh boy... This big birthday party every 5 years is harder to live by. I have to keep my word as I like to go a bit above and beyond with birthday parties. Happy birthday Kenner. You are such a great big brother, friend, reader and son. I love you very much!

Making photo books

I can't beloved how easy it has been to do cute photo books without taking a lot of time. Don't get me wrong, it still takes a lot of time. It is all about organization of the photos and deleting the extra pictures you don't need. I have sorted my photos in months. Then I created an album on shutterfly for each child and a year. I.e Kenner 1st year, Kenner 2nd year, etc. I also created a family album so that I can make a book of just family highlights. When the boys take theirs, I won't have anything therefore I made one for Casey and I.

Once I have their year albums complete, then I use the album to make the year book. Shutterfly has a great way to make a book that is customized but not difficult to make it yours. I used the simple path at first, but it really limited your ability to move pics around. Today I tried the custom path and I am in love! I have used several different computer programs for digital scrapbooking. This allows you to digitally scrapbook by adding embellishments but also have it right in the book that you are actually publishing. Love!!!

Yes this is going to be a hefty bill, but the glory is that I have them organized and maybe even done so that I can order when my bank account allows me to or wait for killer sales.

No I have not gotten anything from shutterfly to write this...but I really should. Haha

Depriving the last born

I really didn't mean to put all the toys in the basement in which little Ike never gets to go. It wasn't until last week that I discovered that he really doesn't have many toys to play with upstairs except balls. Hence the reason he loves loves loves balls. He is in toy heaven today getting to play with all his big brothers toys without them interfering. I am thinking that he thinks this single kid life is pretty good.

Shared photo book from Rhiannon

Click here to view this photo book larger

Click here to create your own Shutterfly photo book.

Play while big boys are away

I believe this little man schemed to wrap himself in his blanket last night so that he woke up this morning with a low grade fever keeping him from daycare and a fun day at home with mommy. He was also super lucky to find a lunchable hidden in the fridge so he can enjoy a juice box and the whole lunchable to himself rather than having to eat what his big brothers don't steal from him. Oh the joys of being the baby!!

So thankful that the two big boys are in aurora at vbs week 2. It is quite odd that our vbs last week was on the journey of Moses and they are 75 miles away and doing the tabernacle this week. Picked up where they left off last week. God's timing is remarkable!

Vbs - 10 commandments moses

For the ten commandments, we made an origami pyramid "mountain" and the kids glued "10" for 10 commandments, "40" for the 40 days he was on the mountain, picture of Moses, and a picture of the tablets. We had they dab a cotton ball on top for either smoke or clouds on the mountain. I got this idea off of Pinterest.

Vbs - 10 plagues craft

Oh boy the 10 plagues had me dreaming of ideas since I first found out that we were to reach 10 plagues in one day. I found several ideas on pinterest, but only had 20 minutes to have the kids create and do something to help them. It took one pinterest idea and several trips to the sticker departments all over to generate ideas for the different plagues. This is what we ended up doing.

Pharaoh was decorated with sticker stars
Water to blood was colored
Frogs was stickers
Dust to lice was tape dipped in wheat germ or rice
Flies was either silver flower stickers w two petals plucked off or a bee stamp of black
Dead livestock was farm animal stickers upside down with lines noting the rotten smell
Locusts was beetle stickers
Hail storm was silver bling w rain drop stickers
Boils were a bandaid
Darkness was a black square of paper
Death of firstborn was a simple drawing of a baby w a red x over it.

I staples them into books so they can take them home and read it over and over again.

Vbs -burning bush craft

This was a simple tissue paper craft.

Vacation bible school crafts- Moses woven paper badket

I had an opportunity to minister to many kids this past week through something I love to do.... Crafts. Our theme this week was journey through Moses. Monday was Moses baby in a basket. I could not find anywhere the template for weaving a basket out of paper bags. It is custom for our kids to use a paper bag to collect their crafts for the week and take it home on Friday. So I just modified the plain paper bag into a woven basket.

New bike helmets

After a near huge TBI, I decided to refit the boy's helmets. I found put that Kenner fits into the 14 tearing and older heads... New he had a big head, but didn't realize it was that big. Did you know your helmet needs to be as low on your forehead to only allow 2 fingers to lay above your eyebrows. This is the reason for the bump on patton's head. Kenner got a new helmet tonight and seeing if patton's fits into kenner's old one. Reality check tonight that I was super lucky that Patton only had a bump and not a bigger problem.

Couponing: the life or death of me

Have I lived the coupon life of cvs and walgreens walking away with a lot of items for nearly nothing? Have I scoured the weekly grocery ads to only purchase the must buy items and plan my meals around them? Have I done freezer cooking and not cared what the prices were only to get it done and to have an easy meal for my family to eat or else fast food? Have I gotten frustrated with all the time involved with couponing, raising 3 kids, working full time, selling pampered chef, and having a loving military husband who is gone more than half the year and thrown everything frugal I knew out the door? Yes yes and yes. This past year since the birth of my youngest I have lived in a life of price and frugal torture. I lived the frugal life for a year and did quite well (if I do say so myself). Then my lovely Ike came around and out went the time. I have also relied on chicks dig deals to tell me the greatest deals only to find that when you don't find them yourself you lose the "game" part of it. If anyone of you know me, being competitive assists in all areas of my life to keep me on track. I have truly desired to be the frugal
Mom again but the world hasn't developed an 8 day week yet. It wasn't until my sister's challenge that I have found the desire to not only put myself first but to also put my role as a mom and housekeeper first before all the other millions hats i wear. I must say not having a full time job has also helped in this area (although I have worked more last week than I did the past month. I think PRN status gives me freedom to not be connected to a facility instead I clock in and out and not stick my head in all the other areas( ok another post for this one).

With putting my family first I have found room and a desire to coupon again. Below you will see 2 methods ibhave attempted in the past. The first and best option for me is my coupon binder....yes I take this into the stores with me. The option I tried was to staple the coupons together to follow chicks dig deals and cut them
Out when I needed them. The second option didn't work for me as again there isn't any ownership in stapling. You aren't familiar with the coupons instead relying on someone else to hold your hand and tell me what rondo. I am making a revision to the coupon binder that I had during my frugal times. I am only cutting coupons for things that we use. This way I am not able to be lured into all the other fabulous cvs and walgreens deals that we don't need and are a good deal. Yes yes I did donate tons of new things I got for free, but that takes time and space. I would rather give in other ways. I am excited to use this method again. Tonight is the night I decided to clean the ole binder out and put the new in. What is your most frugal part of your day?

This is the way we layout our clothes

When reading the title you must sing it. Haha

Call me a dork but I have been wanting to post the organization to getting ready in the morning with implementing independence but also having your child use all their clothes in their closet and look decent without wasting hours. I start by organizing the closet with the boys' clothes organized by sleeve length. I also put the clean clothes in the back of their particular section ( this is how I get them to rotate their clothes.) Every saturday (preferably) morning, I put together 5 outfits for the week. I also pick out church clothes including shoes to wear for sunday morning. I pick out of the front end of the clothes to keep clothes and pants rotated. I put them in a drawer in their room that only has these outfits in them. This way there isn't confusion nor a mess of picking out THE outfit for the day. Saturdays are a pick your own clothes day. Therefore I have answered your question of "who dressed them" if you see us on a Saturday.

This has been a saving grace to getting everyone and myself ready for work each morning. If I find an outfit that is too little, I have a constant box for once upon a child/city mission/next size down depending on if they are kenner's clothes, patton's or ike's.

Enough of the boring details.... Thought I'd share.

Wonder why

Wonder why I haven't posted any pics lately? Well this is why.... 3 boys always doing 3 different things. We have had fun at home the past couple weeks without dad around but are so so so looking forward to having dad around again!!!! I have set some big goals with my sister since my Boise trip. 1) drink 8 glasses of water a day 2) do something active for 30 minutes each day 3) only have firsts, not seconds or thirds or fourths ( not that I ever had fourths..... But really I gotta stop eating like I am pregnant that ended over a year ago. ) weightloss is a behavior modification plan. If you embrace it, life is good. If you go through it with a poor me attitude it stinks. Therefore this week has given me an extra half hour of my day that I didn't think I had. It is also amazing that if you put yourself as the priority how everything just comes with you. Here's a journey to a 5 k and feeling better with the way I look. Note: I didn't say losing an amount of weight....just want to feel better in my clothes however that might be.