2014 Christmas Advent

I'm really late getting this out. Here is our family's little bit of fun for Christmas time.  We like to do a lot of things to keep the real meaning of Christmas in mind and some of them are just for fun! I also make sure that I have our family's calendar around when I plan these so that it doesn't feel like a burden to get it in.  After all, it is supposed to be for fun!

1. Christmas count down calendar and Christmas Pajamas
2. Christmas t-shirt and make Christmas shaped chocolates
3. Decorate foam penguins
4. The Little Drummer Boy Veggie Tales DVD and Color Wonder sheets
5. Christmas tee
6. Make Reindeer Food
7. Christmas Pajamas
8. Go see Christmas Lights
9. Put up the Christmas Tree and sleep under it
10. Thomas the Train and Barbie Christmas DVDs
11. Giant Felt Tree on the wall
12. Paint ornaments
13. Wooly Willy pictures
14. Foam Snowmen
15. Gingerbread Houses
16. Velvet Coloring pictures
17. Perler Bead pictures
18. Make Christmas cards for hospital patients
19. Decorate Cookies
20. Merry Larry and the True Light of Christmas Veggie Tales and Color Wonder sheets
21. Color Nativity scenes
22. Paint Christmas tree canvases
23. Home Alone 1 & 2 and make Christmas Light candy necklaces
24. Make Birthday Cakes for Jesus (we actually eat cake and ice cream for lunch on Christmas!)
25. Matching Pajama pants that we wear practically all day long!

Because I have a lot of people that now make it as well here is our random reindeer food recipe from day 6. The idea was to look Christmas-y in color while also looking something like Kibbles and Bits!

1-box of plain Captain Crunch
1-bag of Christmas M&M's (we usually use plain but I may try peanut butter ones this year)
1-container of Honey Roasted Peanuts
1-bag of mini marshmallows
1-bag of pretzel balls (I can usually only find these at wal-mart and not even all of them at that)
1or 2- bags of Craisins- my kids love them so I do two

Cheater, Cheater, money spenders

Well, the last two weeks of no spend didn't quite go well at all as planned. The kids unexpectedly went away and for the first time in SEVEN years Ryan and I had the house to ourselves. This was also the longest I have ever been away from my kids and at just four days it felt like forever!!! Ryan and I went on a couple of dates. We hardly ever get to have dinner, just the two of us, so it felt amazing to get to sit down together and talk. The other thing we spent on during the last two weeks were a few convince meals. We were having our moving sale it was much easier to send someone to grab some lunch. Plus, I had the kids with me and Ryan was working so seriously worth it!!! Other than that we did really well for our entire month. Not 100% like we have been in the past but able to save up some money for our anniversary trip! We are also still trying to eat out of the pantry so even though something may not "sound good" it's getting used! I couple of interesting combos but overall very happy with our results! Now the question is, will you be trying 30 days of no spending???

30 days of no spending-week 2

What a week this one was!!!! By the second day of this week, I had run out of both my flat iron cream AND my curl cream. While I am certain that this is not an emergency I really wanted to make it one! That being said, if you see me with crazy frizzy hair please just smile!

 The next thing this week brought on was a cheat! Gasp, I know, but it was NEEDED. We also kind of worked it in.  We left the money for McAllister's in the budget. We've gone almost every Sunday night since Stan died. We go with Patsy and the kids LOVE it. Ryan and I love that we can guarantee that at least once a week she doesn't eat alone. Not to mention Sunday nights are crazy and the kids and I all eat off the kids meal and it's only about $10 for all of us! This week Ryan was home sick, Landon had a fever, and Rylee was saying her throat hurt. Basically, every one as miserable and cranky. The compromise?? We would all forgo our $0.99 kids drinks at dinner (the kids LOVE their tea so I wasn't sure this would work), we would all drink water and then we would all go get a $0.79 icy  after dinner.  Came out a little cheaper and all the sickies would get some relief. Hannah was next on that list just an hour or so after dinner. We all got our cold frozen drinks and went home to oil up and head to bed. Everyone was much improved in just a day or two. Following our budgeted "cheat" the next day cleaning out some last things at the old house we found an envelope that had been pushed to the back. We are calling it the Heavenly manna of $15 of Bueno, $10 of Chick-Fil-A, $5 to On Cue, $20 to 7-11, and $10 to Wal-Mart! It was like we won the lottery! We were working hard to finish up at the old house this week so we were excited to see treats! We used one of the $5 7-11 ones and it was awesome. Wednesday we decided to treat the kids because they had been cooped up so much this week so we took the Chick-Fil-A card as well as some free kids meals coupons we had. All five of us ate for only $7 out of pocket, Ryan and I got to sit and relax, and the kids played for an hour wasting LOTS of energy. Priceless!!!!!!!!!! They needed it! (so did we)

The final cheat came as the MOST unexpected. My phone rang Wednesday afternoon and it was the realator of one of my in-laws rent houses.  (The just put it on the market last week.) THANKFULLY, we go to church with this lady or we would have had no way of knowing. You see, my in laws are on vacation over 700 miles away and she was calling to tell me a car drove through the house they are selling.  The neighbor called the number on the for sale sign and when the agent couldn't get a hold of them, she called me.  Ryan and I ended up spending about 4 hours at the house. Early on we had to run to Target to get a camera card so we could leave it with them. Knowing it could be a long evening/night I opted to get us both a pretzel and a drink to hold us over. Ended up being worth it since it was after nine when we got home! Thankfully we were finally able to get a hold of them (they were in the mountains) and insurance has the house boarded up. I just hate that their relaxing vacation had added stress and that they have a mess to deal with when they get home!

Life happened to the fullest this week. Yes, we spent money. NO, we aren't upset. The key for us was to mindful of our money. It would have been easy to just cheat. Instead, we made cuts, did what got us by, and thought cheap! We could have eaten a full meal out and spent lots, but we didn't. That's what is great about no spends. You remember to be in charge of your money instead of it being in charge of you!

30 days of no spending-week 1

Week one is OVER!!! I can't tell you how happy this makes me.  I feel like when we do a "no spend" the first week is always the hardest! So, I'm sad to say we weren't totally no spend, but we did make a pretty good go at it. Here is the week one run down. The first "offense"' happened Saturday. Ryan packed his lunch for work but forgot to put it in the fridge when he got there. By the time he finally got to eat almost 8 hours later, it probably wasn't safe so he ran to the cafeteria and got some grub. I'm saying good call on this one. He avoided food poising and his blood sugar crashing! A must both ways when you are charge nurse! The very next day came instance #2. Getting ready for church we realized that my kid who is going through one crazy growth spurt (an inch and a half taller in only 10 weeks!!!!) had no church shoes that fit!!!! Fantastic.  Thankful I used Payless' BOGO and 10% off plus a credit that I had with Paypal and now there are 3 pair of church shoes and Hannah's replacement boots (1/2 off) on the way for only $33 out of our pocket.  Those were the only two bad things.  One of the things we budgeted for was the State Fair, which we had tickets to prior to deciding to do a no spend month. This was a family outing with the in laws so we were going to go. In the spirit of money saving the kids and I opted to eat dinner at home and go for dessert at the fair. Ryan lives for fair food and it the main money maker in our home so I really encouraged him to enjoy it and eat dinner and dessert at the fair! It wasn't hard to convince him...like, at all. We shared things and had bites of each others, so we got samplings of everything we wanted and for our family of five, we rang in at $42 on food. That was $18 less than our goal! I've also spend only $152.85 on groceries for the month. That's almost 3 weeks of food, 2 freezer meals for a friend that is (hopefully) just about to pop, and a couple desserts for things! All in all I think week one was a success. A little more than we planned to spend but the hubs needs to eat on what ended up being a 14 hour shift and said child can NOT go barefoot to church. (Although she sees nothing wrong with it!) Here's hoping week 2 goes off even more smoothly!

30 of no spending....day 1!!!

Ryan and I have done a "no spend" month before and we loved it.  I don't know why we don't do it more! We are not terrible at controlling our spending. To be honest, what gets us is drink stops.  We usually get the kids something and 5 drinks several times a week adds up FAST! So late last night we decided that there really is no time like the present and we will start as soon as we wake up.  Maybe I should have thought this through...as in go to the grocery store before we start. I didn't. Time to get creative.  I was not going to have a strike on day one, Since we were out of bread tuna salad for lunch gets served in hard boiled eggs. That was close! There are a few exception to our no spend. What we are learning is that pre-planned expenses aren't what gets you, it's the impulses. That being said, we will still leave the money there for the kids and I to have our weekly Sunday night dinner date with Ryan's mom (after all, all four of us usually eat for under $10). Instead of just adding this money, we will work extra hard and it will come straight out of the grocery budget which will mean cuts on unnecessary grocery items. We also already had plans to go to the fair with the family. We will take our own drinks and we are already picking out the one food item we want.  Other than that we will just enjoy the sights and let the kids have fun. Besides, people watching really is the best part of the fair. That's it. Those were the only two things allotted for and everything else will just have to wait. The only spending this month will be necessities. We will pay the bills, medical expenses (we all have dentist appointments this month) and stick to our tight $300 a month grocery budget! I'm excited to see what we do this month.

Are there really "small things"?

There is a phrase that is so common and I've probably said it myself a time or two; "It's the small things".  The more I've thought about this over the last few days, the more it has made me wonder, are there really small things.  This is all coming from something that happened this weekend.  We were eating lunch at a little restaurant in what I'm pretty sure is the smallest town in America, and then IT happened.  My Rylee lost her very first tooth. We've spent lots of time wiggling it and waiting for it to happen on its own, but with a little push of her tongue and a tricky pull by me, the once dangling by a thread tooth was now in my hand.  SO SO SO bitter sweet. My six year old snaggle-toothed baby was beaming, smiling as big as the world, and I was full TEARS!!! I'm not supposed to be on the verge of a meltdown, I'm supposed to be happy. That's when it hit me.  Maybe these aren't small things.  At that point all my Rylee wanted to do was tell and show anyone that she could that she lost a tooth.  This was HUGE to her.  If it's big to her, it's big to me.  Furthermore, these are the moments in life Ryan and I thought we would never get to enjoy.  There was a time in our marriage when the visions of rocking babies, putting band-aids on boo boos, the tooth fairy, and playing outside all seemed to be unattainable to us.  Two surgeries and a year and a half of fertility treatments later and we were no where close to having a baby. Eventually, in God's timing He did see fit to allow us to be parents and it's things like this: the "small" things, that we don't take for granted for a second.  Celebrate with your kids. Make the big things to them big things to you!!! So now for my sweet Rylee, here it is...showing the world her lost tooth!!!

 

25 Random Acts of Kindness

The goal: 25 random acts of kindness (inspired by Christmas being Dec. 25)

Sadly we didn't make it.  We only made it to 14. At first I really upset by this.  The girls were having fun, Ryan was having fun, and I was having a BLAST!  We were able to do multiple things that we wouldn't normally do, for people we should, but don't normally think of.  We baked, we gave Christmas decorations to people that didn't have any, we gave money, we gave old coats that we had way to many of in the first place, the kids made things for people. ect. It was a lot of fun. It's really true, when you give of your resources, be it a skill, time, money, whatever--it makes you feel good.  That's not why we attempted this project, but it sure wasn't a bad benefit of it.  The best part of it all is that even though we were not expecting anything in return, there were things given in return. The Lord met several needs that we had and some that we didn't know we would have.  It's been fun to teach the girls that they are not the most important things in the world.  We were able to talk about things that would otherwise be hard conversations to have.  When we told them that there were children that had nothing-no extra clothes, toys, sometimes not even enough food, my little givers filled a laundry hamper of toys they had that they wanted to give "the kids" as they referred to them.  That blessed my heart.  To make it even better they didn't pick out old toys or broken toys. They even gave some of their very favorite things! Talk about convicting to me.  I'm so quick to part with things I don't like, want, or need but what about the things that I do like? Why do I think I'm more important than someone else or that I deserve to have this more? I was a great lesson for our entire home.  Next Christmas we will try again! We will start earlier instead of starting in December so things like illness, family illnesses, or weather (it is Oklahoma, after all) don't hinder us from reaching our goal.  We've also decided to tackle one project like this each month of the year! I would love to encourage anyone who reads this to consider the same thing.  It really is worth it!

Luke 6:38
Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom. For with the same measure that you use, it will be measured back to you.”