Homemade laundry soap

When it comes to frugal ways to keep costs down for a large family, homemade laundry soap is one of my new favorites. A few years ago we tried a version that was dry. It worked okay but didn't have that clean fresh smell.

Then we tried making the liquid. The first time I tried I don't know what I did wrong, but I must have done something wrong because it was was too watery and didn't really work. So we moved on to a new recipe again. This one worked well at cleaning the clothes but didn't have that fresh smell either.

Then a friend of mine from another large family told me the best secret to make it work. Adding fabric softener right to the recipe! This last batch that I made I used the Gain Island Breeze fabric softener and boy do our clothes smell great!

Fels Naptha soap $0.99
Borax about $0.20
Washing Soda about $0.70
Gain Fabric Softener $4.20

Total about $6.10 for a huge 5 gallon bucket of soap that will last me about 3 months.

Want the recipe? Here it is:

1.Take the fels naptha bar and grate the whole thing into a saucepan. Cover with water and heat until all the soap is dissolved.
2. While dissolving the above soap add 1/2 cup borax to a 5 gallon bucket that has a lid, along with 1 cup of the washing soda.
3. Add the hot soap mixture to the 5 gallon bucket and dissolve the powders into it. Now put your bucket in the sink and fill the whole bucket almost to the top with hot tap water. (leave enough room to add your bottle of fabric softener later)
4. Put the lid on the 5 gallon bucket and let it sit overnight.
5. The next morning add the whole bottle of your favorite fabric softener to the 5 gallon bucket.
6.Now mix everything up. This will help get rid of the globs of soap that formed in the bucket and get the fabric softener all mixed well 3/4 cup to 1 cup of this liquid per load.

 We also do the Downy fabric bar in the dryer for added fluffiness and fresh smell, but you don't have to if you don't want to.  We have an old fashioned top load washing machine and we use about 3/4 cup to 1 cup of this soap per load of laundry. I believe this recipe is based loosely on the Duggar Family laundry soap recipe so if you ever wanted to try their version you could.

Date Night

I know many couples struggle with what to do to spend time with each other. And I've spoken of this before. Yet I wanted to mention how well this can work without spending any money. Friday Steve had training, which meant he was able to be home in the evening. We knew we needed some alone time together but weren't sure what to do. So we checked Netflix and found a good movie to watch.

(This is my plug for netflix too. I LOVE netflix!!! The little kids like to watch Veggie Tales and right now there are several of those movies available. And for us older ones who like to watch movies there is a wide variety too.)

 The next hurdle was what to do to keep the kids occupied so we set them up with a movie too. Some people may not agree with it but we have a tv in our bedroom for helping us have a separate haven if we need it. Next you need the idea in your head of a "date". If your attitude says "I'm just at home, this isn't a date" then you won't enjoy it. Instead you have to get in the right frame of mind. I put on makeup, did my hair, and put on a cute outfit for my husband. He set us up with popcorn and pop.

So I guess the next question you might have is: was it a fun date? Absolutely! We had a blast. We got to sit and talk.  ( Almost completely uninterrupted.  Natalia still is learning about Mommy and Daddy time. Smile.) And we got to make each other feel special.

What I've been up to...

So as you can see the crickets have been chirping on here the past few days. Meanwhile I've been busy starting physical therapy, getting kids to dentist appointments, and just in general doing those mom/homemaking/homeschooling things.

Katerina and I finally got to go see Voyage of the Dawn Treader. The new Chronicles of Narnia movie. We've been working through the entire series as a read aloud for school and I promised her we'd go see it as a field trip. We had a lot of fun! The movie theatre was completely empty except for us during the matinee. This was awesome because I could explain things to Katerina as she asked questions. The movie was really scary towards the end though so I'd be careful with young kids. Natalia was with us, of course, and she started crying a little so she ended up on my lap and was starting to fall asleep instead of watching.

Other things we've been doing is working on getting the house back into super clean mode. While it has been kept clean with our new chore system, there are still parts of deep cleaning that need to get done. I'm slowly working my way through the house. Last Friday I got the living room back to normal. This weekend I am working on the kitchen. Basically washing the fronts of cabinets and reorganizing the shelves.

Well I guess that's it for an update. See you all on Monday for Menu Plan Monday.

Scheduling 101

Today I sat for almost an hour making appointments for everyone in the household. As I did this I realized that I haven't told you about how I manage our schedules so that everyone gets where they need to be on time (or well....as close as possible to on time.) I have two calendars. One is a small one I carry with me whenever we go and the second is a bigger one that I post on our refrigerator. Both have everyone's schedules on them. They are the "Master" calendars. Other members of the house may have individual calendars and they only copy what pertains to them on their calendar but my master calendars allow me to easily see what is supposed to happen on any one day.

The beauty of this is I can see at-a-glance if I need to call in a relative to help with transportation because I am double booked, or I can see that I need to plan a picnic dinner because we may need to eat on the road in transit to another event. Some may say that for the size of our family we do too much, and maybe that's true. However we want our kids to be able to pursue their individual interests without feeling like the "family" has held them down. Thus the master calendar is an awesome tool in my homemaking toolbox.

To give you an idea of what kinds of events we have scheduled, this week we have: girls basketball practices, hockey practices, gymnastics practice, AWANA (at our church), civil war club, Church, dentist appointments, physical therapy appointments, and then of course the work schedule and school schedule for Steve. Whew. It's a lot but it's our crazy, happy life and I wouldn't trade it for anything!

Menu Plan Monday

Sunday: Breakfast- Eggs and toast
             Lunch- Leftover pot pie
             Dinner- Spaghetti

Monday: Breakfast- Cream of wheat
              Lunch- leftover spaghetti
              Dinner- Tuna casserole with green beans

Tuesday: Breakfast- Pancakes
              Lunch- leftover tuna cassesrole
              Dinner- Turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, yams with marshmellows, and green beans (don't you just love when the store are selling turkeys cheap. i grabbed this one in November for $6 and it's a 21 lb. turkey!)

Wednesday: Breakfast- Eggs and toast
                   Lunch- Turkey sandwiches with carrot sticks and applesauce
                   Dinner- Turkey soup

Thursday: Breakfast- Baked Oatmeal
                Lunch- leftover turkey soup
                Dinner- Baked chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, and green beans.

Friday: Breakfast- oatmeal
            Lunch- PB and J sandwiches with leftover turkey soup
           Dinner- Potato and ham soup

Saturday: Breakfast- Dutch babies (a cross between a quiche and pancakes)
               Lunch- leftover potato soup
               Dinner: Ham and Navy bean soup with cornbread muffins

Homeschooling check up

I know some of you homeschool and some don't, but I thought it might be fun to write down how this first big year of homeschooling is going with Katerina. Someday I will look back and read this and smile as I reminisce about how much my baby has grown.

She loves to be read to and we finished half of the books in the Chronicle of Narnia series to date. However she does not like having to learn to read. Some days it's a fight to get her to sit down and do the few pages of reading she needs to do. She's to the point that she CAN read simple things, she just doesn't want to. Yet she loves working on her Explode the Code workbooks and has only a few pages left in book C. (Every time she finishes a workbook she gets to spend a dollar at the Dollar Tree, one of our favorite stores.)

We have only a few weeks left in most of the Kindergarten curriculum and then we move to the Gallop the Globe unit study. This will finish out our year and part of next year. We are both excited for the change to something else.

It seems that I haven't quite found the right fit for her as far as history goes because she doesn't seem to interested yet. So for next year I will need to switch to a new curriculum. This choice and the decision on what to buy is driving my husband crazy since I, as a history major, love to research but can't quite decide what I want to do. So I ask him all the time for his opinion and he isn't sure what to do either. I guess tune in later in the year to find out what I choose.

Our Chore Chart

So after we sat down and discussed what exactly needed to be done in the house, we realized we needed to come up with a motivation for the kids to want to help. Enter the points. Each chore was assigned a point value and by doing your chore on your day you can earn that point value. There is also a chart listing what the points can be redeemed for.

For some kids the allure of earning money is enough and so there are a certain number of points earn $5, $10, and $25. Other kids are not as driven to earn money yet so they can earn things like extra xbox time or even a night of McDonald's or Burger King for themselves. The biggest thing for us was having someone to stay on top of the dishes each day.

Now there are only a few days that I have to hobble in to the kitchen and work on that. And when that happens it's to train the 5 year old so she one day can help. There are also ways to earn extra points. One of them is if a chore is not done promptly then it is offered to the other children. Or one of my favorite is showing Christlike behavior. You can't point to yourself and say, "I did this for him or her" but if Mom or Dad sees you doing something nice we can reward that wonderful behavior.

The results of this month old program are that the house is looking more presentable. (Not perfect mind you, I do have kids who live here. Smile.) And some of the kids are really starting to pick up a do for others attitude. Katerina will now clean up all the toys in the living room or tidy the kitchen and put a table cloth on the table (one of my favorite things to do to brighten the kitchen) just for the joy of a smile on mine or my husband's face.

It's been a long road, Part 2

So we were quickly realizing that some changes needed to be made in the basic structure of our schedules. Simply asking if anyone wanted to help clean was not working. Nor was it going to work. We had led the kids to believe that it was okay not to do much around the house. The time for them to help with the cleaning was before a big party or if their rooms were messy.

In retrospect I can't believe it took me this long to decide that something had to be done. For so long friends would tell me that I needed to get the kids to help more. I would get so stressed out that it seemed that nothing got done. And this was before the accident. Afterwards we managed to limp by until December.The kids ate a lot of highly processed foods and we ate fast food quite a bit, but we were getting by. Then Steve went back to school full time, along with working full time. I needed to let him have all his spare time for studying, not cleaning and cooking. So we sat the kids down and had a heart to heart with them. What came out of this meeting was a thing of pure beauty. A chore system that wouldn't cost us a fortune from an already tight budget in a weekly allowance, but would allow them to earn a little bit of money or some xbox time. There are also other rewards too but those are the ones the kids were excited about. (They are only allowed a half an hour of xbox per day currently.)

How does this chore chart work? Stay tuned as I discuss it more in depth tomorrow.

Menu Plan Monday

Okay so my menus run on a two week schedule but for the purposes of this I'm only going to give you this week's menu and then I'll post more next week.

Sunday: Breakfast- eggs and toast
             Lunch- leftovers or sandwiches
             Dinner- Tacos

Monday: Breakfast- Cream of wheat
              Lunch- taco salad from the leftover tacos
              Dinner- Beef Roasts with baked yams and green beans

Tuesday: Breakfast- Pancakes
              Lunch- Leftover roast or sandwiches
              Dinner- Tuna Casserole (for everyone but Savanna who has to get some teeth pulled since these baby teeth are stubborn and won't come out on their own. Poor thing, right? She gets applesauce, yogurt, and chicken soup until she is ready for solids again.)

Wednesday: Breakfast- Eggs and toast
                   Lunch- leftover tuna casserole
                   Dinner- ham and navy bean soup with cornbread muffins

Thursday: Breakfast- Baked Oatmeal
                Lunch- Leftover ham and bean soup
                Dinner- Baked Chicken, Baked potatoes, with green beans and cranberry sauce

Friday: Breakfast- oatmeal
           Lunch- PB and J sandwiches with carrot sticks and applesauce
           Dinner- Beef Stew

Saturday: Breakfast- Eggs and toast
               Lunch- Steak and pasta salad (this was given to us and needs to be used)
               Dinner- Pot pie

 

It's been a long road

The past several months have been hard months. The kind that while you are in them you feel so alone and troubled but as you start to lift out of them you realize how much God has used the difficult time to teach you so much about yourself, your spouse, your family.

We've had some really big things happening in our lives since the end of September 2010. We were presented with some difficult news and a difficult decision. We decided we had to go for custody of my stepson James. We won custody but we also lost all contact with MaKayla. My heart breaks and the tears fall as I say that the child we have raised as if she were my husband's own daughter, we are no longer allowed to see per her mother's request. We never were legally binded to her so we must now honor this request although we will still pray everday that someday our family will again be whole. Due to this at some point you may see her name removed from my list of children. She will always be our daughter but it's unrealistic to say I have six children when in fact I will now only be parenting five.

This alone was a lot to deal with and made blogging difficult as words just seemed to escape me, but then I had my accident. On October 30, 2010 I fell off a ladder at my brother's house while helping him do some painting for his softettes. For the distance I fell it's quite obvious that God watched out for me. I had a mild concussion, from knocking myself out when I hit my head twice on the ground, and I broke the talus bone in my ankle. This was a miracle. I was okay and within a few months would recover, but it would also start a journey into self discovery of how my household should run and what my role in it truly was.

 You see I was sold on the myth that the mother should be the one doing most of the cooking and cleaning and diaper changes. Yeah I would have my older children help out but I thought they needed their childhoods and to make them do too much would deprive them. Wow, what a bunch of bologna, right? The first week or two of sitting with a foggy head from pain meds and my ankle up high went okay due to a lot of friends and family stopping by to help with the cleaning and the kids. Then Steve was back at work, the friends and family were back to their lives and we needed a plan.

Stay tuned for part 2 tomorrow.

A really great cookbook!

The Jeub family is once again offering some outstanding deals on their cookbooks, Love in the Kitchen 1 and 2. I have the first one and love it! I use it at least twice a week in our menu planning. It even has recipes for some fun things for the kids like caramel popcorn, which my kids thought was awesome! The really neat thing is that now it is November and it is time to start thinking about that special person in your life who could really enjoy a new cookbook or two. I personally have the second one on my wishlist for this Christmas. So head on over and check it out! Also check out the other great resources they have.

In other news I am hanging in their and trying to obey doctor's orders with my foot and just sit still and keep it up. This makes it hard to be on the computer very often (although today I snuck on before anyone catches me. LOL.) I hope all of you are well and enjoying the pretty November days!

How to scare your family

On Saturday I was at my brother's house helping him paint his softettes on his roof when the ladder I was standing on gave way beneath me. Next thing I remember I'm in my brother's car speeding to the hospital and asking him what's going on. It was so weird to lose time like that. Turns out that when I fell I hit my left ankle first and then bounced my head on the ground twice. This knocked me out for a few seconds and scared my brother half to death. After a few hours in the emergency room we found out I had a concussion and a fractured ankle. Turns out I have a pretty hard head though because it was only mild. Feeling pretty sore and I'm not sure how often I'll be updating for the next week or two until I'm feeling better. I'm praising God that He watched over me and allowed my injuries to be very minor.

A great website full of encourgement!

Imagine getting a free book about speech and debate. Sounds like a dream, right? Nothing is free you may say, but today that isn't true. The Jeub family is offering a free book,  Jeub’s Guide to Speech & Debate right now on their website. They also tell how they make their family business work.Check it all out here. While you are there read some of the other posts on this great website. It's one of my favorites!

3 Parenting Truths about Kids and Shoes

1. Kids will always want to wear their snow boots in the dead of summer's heat. (or their dress shoes with shorts)

2. Even though it's a 50/50 shot to get the shoes on the right feet, it seems that 90% of the time they get it wrong.

3. You can have the best setup and organizing strategies but it never fails that when it's time to go, one of the shoes you need will have gone missing. This happens either through the baby trying on an older siblings shoes and "losing" them or throwing them off in the worst possible place at the worst possible time.
(case in point to this is Natalia threw her shoe out the car window the other day. Luckily we were at a gas station filling up when she did this. We all had a good laugh but I'm sure if she would have done it as we were going down the highway it wouldn't have been so funny.)

Rite Aid Deals 10/18/10

Today I went to Rite Aid and finally started the coupon game with them. I'm pretty happy with my trip. Here's the break down:
1 box Huggies diapers 19.99
3 boxes Kleenex tissues .99 each
1 crest pro-health toothpaste 3.99
Then I subtracted out a $5/$25 Rite Aid coupon, a $4/$20 Video Values coupon, a $2 Huggies Video Values coupon, two $1 Video Values coupons on any non-prescription coupon, a $1 off on 3 boxes of Kleenex Video Values coupon.

Total OOP: $10.57 and I received $6 in UP rewards coupons for next time!

(Hat tip to Passionate Penny Pincher's post on this Rite Aid deal and to Money Saving Mom who lead me to that post. Thanks!)

Puggles!

At our church we recently started a new program through AWANA for the 2 year olds called Puggles. Wednesday night the new puggles got their shirts and I just had to post how cute Natalia looked in her shirt. If you do not already attend an AWANA program I would highly recommend it. We love it and it teaches the kids so much about Jesus and the Bible. It's even teaching me so much too!

Here's Katerina at the end of the last school year when she graduated from cubbies. She was so proud and so was I. (You'll have to excuse the poor quality of the pics. One is from my old phone which doesn't have good pic quality and the new phone I am still learning how to make the pics come in more clear.)

How life can change in such a short time...

God in his providence changed our lives dramatically this past week. Without getting into too many personal details I will simply say that our prayers have been answered and my husband got custody of his son. As I sit and reflect on this moment I am in awe of how God in His mighty power can change our lives so quickly. All last week I was so worked up over the details and I had to reside in the promises of the Bible. God has told how we cannot add one minute to our lives through worry (Matthew 6:27) and how He will work everything out to His glory and His goodness.


And it strikes me how we can go through trials in our lives and feel as if we are so small and insignificant to Him but all the while He is behind the scenes doing amazing things on our behalf. I hope that this is a lesson that I can always hold fast to and can treasure forever. Through my crisis He carried me and gave His angels charge over me and never let my foot be dashed on the stones. ( Psalms 91)

Thank you Lord, Thank you! I will praise you Lord and thank you for this gift. Please bless us through this and watch over our family. And please be with all the others that are involved in this difficult but happy moment. Amen.

Our Curriculum for 2010-2011

I've been wanting to put down on here what we are using this year but it's been very busy. So I've determined that sometimes you just have to get it done. So today I'm sharing with all of you what we are using for our homeschool this year.

Katerina is in Kindergarten:

Bible: One Year of Devotions for Girls
Phonics: Explode the Code (She has been working through these since the end of last year and just finished book B)
Reading: Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons
Handwriting: A Reason for Handwriting K
Spelling: Spell Bright Level One (we are doing this only as an introduction this year, next year I will focus more on indepth learning to spell)
Science: The World God Made
Math: Saxon Math K
History: History for Little Pilgrims with coloring book
Physical Education: Gymnastics and games at home or church
Music: Starting Piano lessons
Geography: Galloping the Globe (we will be starting this near the begining of January)

Natalia- Preschool/ enjoy being an almost 2 year old
For her we are doing some of the fun things from letter of the week and from Joyful Heart Learning.

I am planning on really trying to focus on Christmas and the reason behind it this year in December so we have a lot of our school time devoted to some fun activites and hands on learning for Christmas. I can't wait!

Menu Plan Monday

So there are several blogs that I follow that post their menus on their blogs and I figure it might be a great way to encourage me to plan out a menu every week. So here it is:

Monday: B- crockpot oatmeal  L- sandwiches or leftovers D- Salsa Chicken (from Fix it Fast, Cook it Slow Cookbook)

Tuesday: B- pancakes L- Leftovers D- Tacos

Wednesday: B- eggs and toast L- Leftovers D- Beef Stroganoff

Thursday: B- Baked Oatmeal L- Leftovers D- Sloppy Joes

Friday: B- Waffles L- Leftovers D- Rotisserie Style Chicken (from Fix it Fast, Cook it slow)

Saturday: B- Eggs and toast L- Leftovers D- Hot dogs and Brownies (this is my contribution to a family reunion for the evening)

Sunday: B- Eggs and toast L- Leftovers D- Tuna Casserole (this is to take to our church's watchcare group meeting)

More pictures, because I love posting pics

This is a recent picture taken of Natalia by our friend Evelyn. She took it because she takes pictures of the kids in the nursery and posts them on the wall. She's been playing with the single color pics and I just love this one! The purple stands out so nicely against the black and white.

More from 4 Moms, 35 Kids

     I am really enjoying the topics that the bloggers for 4 Moms, 35 Kids have been discussing. This week was homeschooling, the big picture. Each article really helped me since I am new to homeschooling. It is really refreshing to read about how it doesn't have to be so focused on academics, but instead can also be focused on character training and biblical discipliship. For my husband and I this is really important to us too, for what good is it if our children are super smart but can't defend their faith or don't have the tools to grow to christian maturity. So once again I want to put in the links to 4 Moms, 35 Kids:

KimC @ Life in a Shoe
Kim @ Raising Olives
Connie @ Smockity Frocks
Deputy Headmistress @ The Common Room


Upcoming topics for 4 Moms, 35 Kids: How Moms of Many Manage:

May 6 – Picking a curriculum, method or tactics that work for a large family.
May 13 – Teaching little kids
May 20 – Teaching big kids.
May 27 – Putting it all together.
June 3 – Husbands and homeschooling.
June 10 – Keeping house while homeschooling.

It's time for the end of the year push

This is the time of the year when the kids start counting down the days until summer vacation. This is the time of the year when they are so distracted when doing homework or chores because they want to be outside. It's also the time of the year when activities get really busy due to it being almost summer. In the midst of this I am also working on the garden, homeschooling, spring cleaning, and the general things that have to be done in a busy household, like feeding everyone. I'm also still working on getting the last of Katerina's curriculum ordered and her lesson plans filled out. Oh and we have to figure out when we are going to pull the pop-up camper out to air it out and clean it for the beginning of camping season! It's a wonderful time of year though as this busyness reminds us that we are called by God to be busy and to fulfill our God given roles. Thank you God for the people whom I love that you've given to me to take care of. Thank you for these six beautiful children whom you've entrusted me to raise to praise you.

Titus 2:3-5 (New International Version)

3Likewise, teach the older women to be reverent in the way they live, not to be slanderers or addicted to much wine, but to teach what is good. 4Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, 5to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.

Having Fun!

This week has been a blast! My husband and I went on our getaway. It was so much fun getting to hang out together and spend those moments where we can talk uninterrupted by kids. I love my kids so much, but every once in a while it's so nice to get away to where it's peaceful and quiet. I even got to sleep in until 8:30am! Wow! Then Thursday we spent the rest of the day in the yard. Steve roto tilled the garden for me. He kept suggesting making it bigger here or there, so what started out already as a big garden has become a really big garden. I can't wait to get out there and start planting some of things that can be planted now. Unfortunately it's raining today. But before it started raining I went to the park with the two little girls and met up with a friend from church and her kids. It was so much fun to just let the kids play and sit and talk about mommy things. After such an exciting week I'm feeling recharged and ready to go!

I haven't posted any pics lately so I looked through the pics and saw this of Natalia. This girl knows how to enjoy her chocolate!

Super Savings Saturday

Today I hit CVS because we really needed toothpaste and shampoo and conditioner. I decided to go ahead and spend more than I usually do because we really needed to stock up on these things and a few others.

Transaction #1: Two Pantene Shampoos 2.99 each = 5.98
Two Pantene Conditioners 2.99 ea = 5.98
Stride Shift Gum 0.99
Candy for the kids from the 2/$1 section x3 = 1.50
Coupons: 2x $3/2 and $.50 ECB and $5 ECB
Total OOP $4.87 and earned a $3 ECB and a $0.99 ECB

Transaction #2: Colgate toothpaste 2.99
Skintimate Shaving Cream 3.99
Coupons: $3 and $.99 ECB from above
Total OOP $3.43 and earned $2 and $3 ECB

Transaction #3: John Freida shampoo x2 and conditioner x2 = 19.96
2 packages Playtex Sippy Cups 7.99 and 3.49 = 11.48
Charmin toliet paper 4.99 x2 = 9.98
Dawn dishwashing soap 3x 0.96 = 2.88
Coupons: $5 ECBs from above, 4x .25, .50, 2, 2.50x2, 3
Total OOP $30.57 and earned another $5 ECB

The importance of putting your marriage first

I have been told that your marriage should be something that you spend money on, but until that last month or two, I was more focused on paying off debt then I was on putting money into my marriage. I thought that date nights were something that was too "expensive". However Steve showed me that we were both feeling quite down and that marriage is something that should be cared for. So for the past month or so we have been focusing on date nights when we can and now we are planning for our first overnight getaway in three years to amish country. I cannot begin to describe what a difference this has made in our attitudes. We are both so much happier. I have heard from so many couples that say that a marriage should come first. And we've worked hard to make it so that the date nights haven't cost us much money at all. Even the weeknight away we are doing very cheaply. What we've done to help:
* Swagbucks: We've used our swagbucks to purchase resturant.com giftcards to go out to eat.
* Appitizers at a local diner. When you only purchase appitizers and pop it's pretty cheap. We've been able to do $15-20 including a generous tip.
* Go window shopping together. (Hand holding is required :)
* For the getaway we are using a giftcard I was given for a birthday present, we are packing drinks, snacks, breakfast, and a nice dinner in our cooler. Lunch is typically cheaper and so we will be doing lunch out. The place we are going to provides dishes, a grill, a refrigerator, and a microwave so we can do some basic cooking if everything else is prepared already.

I would encourage all married couples to think of your marriage and put time into it. It doesn't have to be expensive, just think outside the box. We've decided that the night away will now become a yearly thing. It is that important to us.

Ughhh...the flu

Sorry for the blogging break but Natalia was only the start of the flu bug in our house. Everyone but the three oldest got it. I managed to get thrown up on in the middle of the night once by Katerina too. Sigh. Oh well. Everyone is well now and we've had some great family time. On Tuesday we went to visit another large (larger then us) family and we all had a great time. The kids got to play with another family that understands that kids are not a curse, but that sometimes people like kids! And us adults got to enjoy some good quality adult conversations. And we learned to play a new game called Pit. It was alot of fun and we are enjoyed the time together. Then Wednesday we were given tickets to the local minor league hockey team's game. This too was a blast! The kids got a lot of Jumbo Trom time in the begining and the person running it even poked fun at Russell as he tried to take a pic of himself on the jumbo trom. The team ended up winning in the overtime shootout so that was quite an experience. I love having these times with my family and it's wonderful when God provides a way for our large family to have a night out like this and it doesn't cost much.

Birthday Party and a sick kid

Yesterday my dearest husband threw me a surprise birthday party. It was so wonderful! Truthfully I had an idea that something was up but the idea was so sweet! Then we hung out after all the family and friends left and we watched Blind Side. It was really good! I didn't care much for the lack of modesty in the dresses, but I liked the concept and that it was based on a true story. By the time Steve and I quit talking (we were having a really good conversation) it was 2 am! I couldn't believe it! So we went to sleep, only for me to have to get up about an hour and a half later because Natalia wasn't feeling good. So I brought her to my bed in the hopes of getting some sleep. Nope she fussed and fussed, and then at about 5:30 am she threw up all over me and the bed. Ugh, so after showers and cleaning up the bed I tried to go back to sleep only to wake up with the alarm at 6:45. I am sooooooo tired today. I am longing for bedtime, but I really enjoyed my party so it is worth it.

4 Moms 35 Kids, I love it!

I am really enjoying the posting by the mommy bloggers. The live blogging day was a relief. It was like a breath of fresh air for me, in that I saw that our lives are somewhat normal. I'm so used to feeling like we are weird for the six children we have that getting to peek into these four women's lives was just plain awesome! Thank you so much! Check it out.

Upcoming topics for 4 Moms 35 Kids:

•March 25 Outings/shopping with only littles
•April 1 Kitchen/food budgeting
•April 8 Menu planning/shopping
•April 15 Cooking from scratch - what you make from scratch and how you get it all done
•April 22 Recipe swap - We'll all post a couple of our favorite, budget friendly, feed a crowd recipes and a Mr. Linky so that readers can participate by contributing their own recipes. When you share your link on one of our blogs, it will show up on all 4! How fun is that?!

Past topics:

•March 18 - Live-blog day, in which all 4 of us live-blog a real day in our home. Find out what we really do all day. It's our own reality show, just for you. Who needs TV?

I don't know what to say

I still am in shock over the passing of the health care bill late on Sunday March 20, 2010. My husband and I are discussing this and it greatly saddens me. So many people have demonstrated that they were not for this bill and yet our congressmen and women ignored the will of the majority and brought this bill into place against us. Right now my husband and I are discussing ways to get involved in the tea party movement. Look into it and judge for yourself what should be done. Here's the link to their home page: http://www.teapartypatriots.org/

Lack of socialization or just plain shy

Katerina started gymnastics this past Saturday and it brought the oppurtunity for my husband and I to once again discuss how shy she is when she first enters new situations. Once she warms up to her new enviroment she does great but the first half and hour or so she is really scared. This is what happened at gymnastics. She just couldn't bring herself to participate in the beginning. I'm sure there were some people who would attribute this to the fact that she is homeschooled and not in public school. Yet really if you think about it this is just part of her personality. She eventually warmed up and then did fantastic! She really enjoyed the last half of the session and I hope she will continue to enjoy it as she goes through it.

Stress and life

I've been feeling very stressed tonight and lately. My mom is going through a lot right now and it's really hard on me, on top of just the normal everyday busy things that happen in my household. I ask for prayers for my strength to hold out and that God would grant me this strength and also the wisdom on handling this situation well.

On the positive side Katerina starts gymnastics this saturday and also on saturday is our first 4-H meeting.(Everyone will be joining) I'm excited about it and so are most of the kids. We are going to be getting chickens soon (and we've never raised them before) and we are all looking forward to spring hitting soon. The nice temps lately are really perking us up.

Rotten Spoiled

I love to hear stories of funny things kids say and I hope to preserve some of what my kids say here. So Katerina comes up to me and asks if I will make her some chocolate milk. Sure, I say. Then her comeback instead of thank you was, mommy, I'm rotten spoiled. This is all said with a big grin on her face. Oh how I love such sweet little ones. Thank you Lord for my many blessings. Please help me to raise them in your grace and will. Amen.

Different Attitudes

It's amazing to me how an event can be perceived by me. Take last night I went to Russell's blue and gold dinner for cub scouts. I only took him and the baby with me. While we were there Natalia was continuing her whiny baby stint and I was worried she was going to bother people. Instead the people I sat with doted on her, causing her to quit whining because she was interested in them and it caused me to have a wonderful evening with two of my children. It always amazes me when this happens because it seems like most people don't like children. After receiving such wonderful feed back on my children it made me feel so good. My personal reflection for this is that when I am out and about I need to watch how I respond to people and how I can uplift others to put them in a good mood too.

Birthday season

At our house we have birthday season. Starting in late Feb. we have 3 birthdays. First is Katerina's, then Savanna's is two days later. Then about a week later is James. Next is Mine which is in late March. Then we have MaKayla and Russell's whose are in the first week of April. It is a busy time of year but we love it. I like to make cupcakes for the kids to take to church or school for their friends but I got a shock this year. When I asked Savanna how many kids were in the youth group at church for making these cupcakes she found out the number is 75!!! Then there are about 5 to 7 adults. Wow that is alot of cupcakes!

Also going on at our house is Natalia trying to learn to say more and more. She keeps getting so frustrated because she doesn't get the attention immediately that she wants when she trys to tell me something so she whines. Poor baby. Oh and then my husband and I are starting to work out using the P90X tapes and we got a perfect pull up bar to do our workouts. All the kids wanted to try it. Then Natalia runs over to it and is motioning to me that she wants to try too. It is too cute.

How NOT to dye your hair.

Apparantly when you are an almost 5 year old and you see that your big sister got her hair dyed, you start to wonder how to dye your hair to be cool too. Katerina found a unique solution yesterday. She got some nail polish and put it all over her hair. I go into the bathroom to see what she is doing and there she is looking very unhappy (I guess it wasn't quite the look she was going for?). So then I'm trying to figure out how to get the nail polish out of her hair. I love the internet! After a quick search it seemed that if you put the child in the tub and get the hair wet, then apply a small amount of baby oil you can pull the nail polish out. It took a while to do, but hey it worked. Now that a day has past I can laugh, but oh was I not happy when she did it. LOL. Got to love kids.

Homeschooling

Yes some of our children our homeschooled. And I am excited about some of the things I have done to decorate our schoolroom/ youngest girl's bedroom. We've added the alphabet across the top in nice bold blue. We've also added a section to the wall that is a weather center to put labels based on the season and the current weather. I hope to add temperature charts and percipatation charts as the girls get older. Then we have our character trait papers. At the top of the wall we have the USA flag. Oh and we also have a section for hanging well done papers. It's really quite beautiful. Maybe one of these days I'll get the camera working to show you what I've done. I hope to add to this wall whenever the mood strikes me so we'll see how often that is.

PS I did go to CVS this past Saturday and when I find my receipts I will post my deals.

Trying to get it all done

It is so hard to keep up with a busy household such as ours, but there are definitely some things that can be done to make it work out better. Getting the kids to help out is one of them, but also making it a game. Making it fun. So today I am focused on trying to get the housecleaning done and clipping coupons all while having fun with my kiddos.

Meanwhile I cannot post a lot of photos on my blog of my one stepdaughter at the request of her mother. So if you notice a lack of photos of all my children, or you come up with less than six kids it is because I am honoring the wishes of her mother.

Also, I am going to try to get back into couponing and blogging about it. So we'll see if this helps with keeping me blogging more.

Swimsuits

I don't know why I put myself through such torture every year, but I do it. Every year my daughters need new bathing suits and every year I arrive home frustrated at the lack of selection. This year when I went into my rant, my husband said, "You can't be the only one fed up with this, we don't you blog about it." And so here I am. First I went into Walmart. After finding success with two adorable t-shirt/shorts combos for my two youngest I was on to find something for my older two girls.

This is where I started getting mad. I think I saw one, yes ONE one-piece. That's it. And the cutout for the legs looked like it was meant to show off far more than I want to think about my girls showing. Then I thought well maybe a cute two-piece that covered everything. Nope. Aparently two-pieces are created to show off everything but what legally has to be covered. And this is in the 4-16 section! Why do we as a society think it is cute to have our little girls look like...well you know. I found a single pair of shorts bottoms at walmart and scooped them up like gold. Then I went to target where I scored cute outfits last year. They had two styles and had only one matching set in a size I needed. But because I had grabbed the shorts from walmart I was able to pair it up to a t-shirt style top and voila. We have swimsuits for the year. (Or at least until someone grows out of them.)

Now if only I could find a good bathing suit for myself. Sigh. Maybe I'll have to look into ordering them online next year.

Learning to blog better

I'm thinking about how I can blog on a more regular basis and about how I can help people with the things I know. Sometimes it's hard for me to put anything out here because I assume that anything I have to say is boring, or just already known by others. Yet there are so many good blogs out there that seem to just put out there regular thoughts and feelings. They say what they feel like regardless of how boring or whatever else it might be. So I need to just start getting my thoughts out there. Any advice would be helpful.

More pics of the kids coming soon

It's been incredibly hectic around here lately as we are getting ready to move in a few weeks (we bought a repo that was basically guted and we've been working hard to get it fixed up so we can move in, more to come later). Also our van broke down and we may have to scrap it and buy a new-to-us one. Once we move and are settled in I am hoping to get into a new routine of blogging much more regularly.

Russell

This is Russell. Of the kids I gave birth to he is my first born. As with any first born he was the one I knew nothing about birthing but has been my guina pig (at least until I married Steve because now I have my step-children who are allowing me to learn parenting skills with them! :) He is such a happy kid. He is into Hockey (as the goalie!), Cub Scouts, and is in T&T in AWANA. Russell is always trying to build something whether it be a contraption on our wagon to hold a fold up chair or just playing with his legos, he loves to build. Right now he is wanting to get into wood-working/carpentry. Maybe someday I can have my little guy build me a nice set of bookcases.

Pics of the kids: Katerina

First of all let me say happy birthday to Katerina!! She just turned 4 a few days ago! It always amazes me how quickly the time seems to go as the kids grow. Of the babies I gave birth to Katerina is the one who made me wait the longest to meet her. I tend to have my babies on the early side and she waited until 38 and 1/2 weeks before she made her appearance. She is deffinately one who likes to do things in her own time. She thinks she is so much older than she actually is which is just funny. I like to joke that she is 4 going on 13. She is also excited because she is starting gymnastics in about a week. Katerina just can't wait! So here are her pics.

Some pics I like of the kids: Natalia

I want to start adding more pictures of the kids so I will slowly work at putting more pictures on my blog. First here are some that I like of Natalia. The pic on the left is from about a month ago. The other two are from when she was only a few days old. It's amazing how big she is getting! She is so full of smiles and is just such a calm, happy baby.

Life lessons

There are some moments in life where we need to step back and evualuate what we need to be doing in our lives. We recently had to start getting up earlier due to a change in Savanna's bus schedule and it's started me thinking about all the things I need to start doing at home on a more regular basis. So I'm trying to get into a good routine with housecleaning, homeschooling, and just basic life schedules. Yet I still need to remember to step back and laugh as well. Yesterday was a long day of taking care of sick kids. Katerina just wanted to be held all day and when she would let me I got a few things done as fast as I could, well last night I found that there was a perfect pen made handprint that Katerina had managed to put on the couch. All I could do was laugh. What else can you do in this situation? So today I encourage you all to look at the things you need to do and come up with a good plan, but then to also remember to smile!

God's blessing on us!

Yes our God is an awesome God who answers prayers! And he has answered our prayers of a house. We currently live in a single-wide mobile home, with 6 children. It was getting just a bit cramped but in His perfect time He has supplied us with a house! It is a 5 bedroom, 2 bath house which sits on almost a full acre of land! I can finally have a garden! Now, it is a repo which basically means that we have a lot of work to do, but that's all right by us. Thank you Lord! Thank you!

Cat food and Macaroni

So you know you're a parent when...you look in the cat's bowl and realize there are uncooked macaroni noodles in it. So as a good animal caretaker you pick all the noodles out. Then you ask yourself how the noodles got in there in the first place. It really is a valid question, especially when you realize that you were the one to just refill the cat's bowl. After closer inspection of the box that we keep the cat food in I realized that my 3 year old had decided to add a decent amount of macaroni noodles to the cat's food. It's funny now that I think about it, but this morning as I was slowly... slowly working my way at picking all the noodles out it wasn't that funny.

What we've been up to at our house.

It's been pretty busy around our house lately. Between the round-the-clock nursing and hockey and AWANA we always seem to be doing something. And to top it off there is Christmas to think about. My sister and I made quilt with mine and my siblings names and birthdates and all of my kids names and birthdates. It turned out so pretty. I was really quite impressed with the two of us. We've never done something like that before and it was really refreshing to see something like that turn out so well. Meanwhile I thought I'd put a pic of all the kids on here. This is my dad's staircase. We were trying to play with different poses. Enjoy!

Announcing....Natalia Joy!

She's here! I know it's been 3 weeks since she was born, but hey it's hard when you have a new little one. So here is her birth story: (written from me to her)

Okay so on Monday I thought my water had broken in a trickle so I called the Midwife, Pat, and she said to come in and get checked. My water had not broken and I was still only about 2cm and not very effaced, but very soft. I asked her if she would strip my membranes and she did. It hurt but I figured that was a good thing. The rest of the day I had contractions off and on. Aunt Vickie and I walked around Walmart in the evening and I had good contractions but by the time we got home and I got settled for the night they were gone. I woke up at about 4am with little tiny twinges but they weren't too bad. By 5am I realized that these might be decent contractions because they were coming regularly. By 6am I realized that they were about 4 minutes apart. I woke your Daddy up and told him that I thought this was it because it felt like my other labors once they were nice and established. So then he showered and by 7am he was off to vote. A few hours later we could tell that this was going to be it so we called Aunt Vickie to come watch the other kids so I could go vote and so that she could be here when the baby was born. By this point labor was starting to get strong so we asked Daddy's cousin across the street, Chrissy, to watch the older kids so that I could vote before we got too far into labor. When we arrived at the polling station the lines were kinda long but everyone was so nice when they saw me and realized I was in labor. I went straight to the front of the line and they let me vote really quickly, then I had a whole gym of people congratulating us! It was great. I started to tear up pretty good and Daddy thought that was cute. So we got home and labored some more. By this point Aunt Vickie was here and her and Daddy did basic things around the house while coaching me during the contractions. (They had spaced out to about 5 minutes but were getting stronger and longer). By about 11am I thought it might be time to go, but Daddy read through the bradley book about emotional signposts again and said he wanted to hold out until 12, maybe 1 o'clock. By this point I was pretty much tuning everyone out during contractions and in between. By noon we thought we should go in so we called the Midwife, Pat, and she said yup come in. (Daddy made the receptionist laugh because when he called she said "can I help you" and he said, "Yes, I'm in labor." She laughed pretty good.) On the way to the hospital with Aunt Vickie, Savanna, Russell, Katerina, Daddy and I, we got a low tire. Daddy pulled over and then announced it wasn't low enough to stop him. ( I think he was worried he'd have to deliver you), then he was talking to family members on the cell and missed our exit to the hospital. Looking back it's pretty funny. During though I was kinda spaced out and didn't care too much. After we arrived Pat said I was 5cm, 80% and nicely established and so we walked, and rocked in a rocking chair and stood. By this time we had Grandpa Clare, Grandma Allison and Aunt Shirley join us at the hospital so it was like a party in the room. While standing I suddenly felt weird so I thought my water was breaking, when the nurse got me on the bed I started trembling really bad. All of the sudden I knew I was in transition and I kicked everyone out of the room (except for Daddy). The nurse checked me and said I was at 8cm and fully effaced. Daddy says that she seemed to panic a little and ran off to call Pat back. It seemed like only a minute and Pat was there. When she checked me she broke my water. Up to this point I was doing great without any pain meds, but once she broke my water it got much harder to tolerate it. She kept asking if I felt like I should push yet and I kept saying I wanted to push, but wasn't sure if I should yet. Finally after throwing up 3 times I felt a tad better and she suggested trying to push. That hurt! (at this point I let Grandma Allison, Aunt Vickie, and Grandma Lila in the room to see you be born) I backed off from it for a second until Daddy and Pat said they could see your head. Then I opened my eyes and 3 more pushes later you were here! You were born at 4:14pm. You weighed in at 7lbs 9ozs. And 19 inches long. You had such a big thick umbilical cord that it was hard for Pat to get the clip on it. Your birth was beautiful! I've never used a Midwife before and I've never gone totally natural before but this time I did both and it was absoutely awesome!

It's a Girl!!!

I keep forgetting to post that we know now that the baby is a girl!!!

where have I been?

Well to answer that question: I've been camping a lot with the kids and I've been working on Katerina's curriculum for this school year. It's so hard to decide what to do with her because she is my first homeschooler. This year will be her first year in preschool and I don't want to overload her, but at the same time I want to give her a good couple of hours each day of something structured to do. I have found a lot of sites I like. www.first-school.ws is perfect for preschool things. It has so much information that you could easily become overwelmed, so I'm only using a few things from it. www.homeschoolshare.com is another awesome website! I took some ideas from there that will make up some of the basics of her curriculum. Like the alphabet lapbook! I love this idea and have had a blast coming up with fun things to do for each letter. When I get stuck on a letter I head over too www.letteroftheweek.com Also we are going to do a county a week, that begins with the letter of the week we are doing. We are building a lapbook for that too that I am calling her Geography Alphabet Lapbook. In it we are going to do simple little things like record the books we read about the countries, maybe draw some pictures or even find some neat printables or crafts to fill our book. It should be a lot of fun! The last site I'm using is www.enchantedlearning.com This is a pay for use site, but it's really cheap. I think it was about $20 for a year of use. Don't mind if I'm not here much for the next few weeks, I'm still finishing up and I'm going camping again. See you soon.

Prenatal Appt.

So I had another appt. today with my midwife. It went really well. I'm measuring right on target for my 17 weeks and baby's heartbeat was good at 140. And I've only gained a total of 6 lbs for this pregnancy thus far. I'm feeling pretty good right now! It's so nice to get back into the swing of things at home. I feel like I'm coming out of a long fog now that I'm feeling better and starting to have more energy! It's also nice to be feeling better because it's summer and the kids and I like to get out and do things. We will be going camping several times this summer along with going to the zoo and various other summertime outings. Oh and I have my ultrasound next weds. and I can't wait!! I really want to know what this baby is so I can start getting some of the clothes out of the shed to inventory. I want to get them out now but I know that's just silly. Since everyone wants to know what I "think" the baby is I'll go ahead and say boy, but really I'm not sure. Wednesday can't get here fast enough!!!

Making Your Home a Haven

Crystal at www.biblicalwomanhoodonline.com/blog.htm is hosting a refresher course for the making your home a haven series and I figured this would be a great thing to comment on. We are trying to make our home work out better for us. We were originally trying to move this summer and get a bigger van but we've decided to put these things on hold for six months to a year. So because of that we are trying to revamp our house to make it less cluttered and work better for the whole family. Plus we are trying to figure out where to put the new baby's things in the house. Not that a baby needs a whole lot, but I am hoping to find a place to store clothing, a bassinet, a swing, and maybe a changing station (which may end up housing the clothing and diapers too.). Today however I am simply trying to finish up the living room. I need to declutter it and finish reorganizing it since we took several bigger items out (like our huge entertainment stand). Between that and getting the general house back in order since we've been very busy the past four days with preparing for and operating a yard sale and then father's day with moving the big furniture around in the living room. Happy Cleaning to all who participate.

Frustrated

I'm looking for some encouragement because I'm tired of being put down for being a stay-at-home mom who doesn't "work" (regardless of the fact that I take care of our home and children and working on a home business...but no of course I don't "work") and for the size of our family. We are talking about going to get a 15 passenger van. We've found a couple we are going to go look at tonight that might be what we are looking for but apparently we don't know what we are doing because a lot of family members say well you can still fit in a mini-van, one of those 8 seaters. What they don't think about is when we have to put something other than people in said mini-van. Plus, here's where they get even more mad, we might still have more kids! What would we do then, go out and buy yet another vehicle? That's just silly. We need to get into the right size vehicle now so we can start paying it off now. Then years down the road we can just own it outright. What a novel concept wanting to own something without debt attached to it. Grrr... I'm just so frustrated. I know our life is much different than the average Americans but it's MY life not theirs. What they don't see is what is beneath the surface. Like when I'm asked when my youngest will be put into preschool in the fall. I simply told that family member, again, that I will be homeschooling her. She is already so smart and she loves to learn, I don't want that to go away. We have four older children who we have to allow the state to educate (due to our family dynamics it's not something we can do anything about). I won't allow the next one to be state educated too. Our children our blessed to have a father who loves them so much that he is willing to do all he can to give them their mother/stepmother at home with them all the time. These children don't know what it is to have to be separated from their family all the time. Plus the cost alone would make it not feasible for me to work, my income would go negative due to the daycare costs. Alright I'll stop with my rant. If anyone has any suggestions on how to handle family members who just don't understand please offer some suggestions.

It seems like I never blog anymore

I know I know. Where am I? Well I've been feeling pretty sick lately and I'm just starting to feel better now. I'm 15 weeks today and I still get queasy sometimes but I'm definitely feeling much better than I was. Plus soccer and hockey and everything season is finally over! Yeah! Now that school is almost over it's so nice to just be able to relax and enjoy the kids. Meanwhile we are looking for a new house and a new van. With this new blessing on the way we don't have any seats left in our present minivan so we need to move up to something bigger. We are hoping to get a 12 or 15 passenger van. Meanwhile we are also looking for a bigger house. Our price range is very low so it's my hope that we find something soon despite the price range.

So my big thing right now is working on getting the house super clean again (it was hard to do deep cleaning with so much going on and morning sickness). I'm trying to find a good schedule to keep on. Any ideas?

Pregnancy Brain

Okay so I've know about this new little blessing for about two weeks, and yet I still find myself dwelling on it. I'm just so excited! As of yet I'm not really too sick. I've been a little nauseous this weekend, but nothing too terrible yet. On other fronts it was a really bad weekend with S and her situation. I don't want to elaborate, but please pray for us all. Now let's see what else is going on. I currently cannot use my oven for cooking because R was acting like a monkey and a chair he was using hit the knob and broke it off the stove. Luckily I can still use the stovetop until we can order the piece we need to fix it. Well, I need to finish dinner and help the kids finish homework.

Life is always hectic

Yes it is, but let me fill you in on what has been happening in our world. First my husband's aunt and I have started our own business, Scent From Heaven Bath Works. We've been so busy making product to take to shows. It's kinda neat, it's candles, lotions, bath gels, smelly jellies, massage oils, and bath salts. I'm really enjoying looking for new products to try out and test.

Next we have my step-daughter S, now living with us. She was in a not so good situation so it is with GREAT JOY!! That she is now here with us. Praise God for that!!

Oh, and the final one, we are going to have another baby!! Blessing #6 for our family!!! I'm due November 24, 2008! I'll be looking for a cool baby countdown to put on this blog so if anyone has any ideas send them to me please. Thanks!

CVS deals

Because I know everyone loves to see the savings of CVS I am giving you a breakdown of my savings this week.

Transaction #1: 3 Palmolive dish soaps for $1.49 each - $.40 coupons each
2 Advil Cold and Sinus $5.99 each - $2 manuf. coupons each and $2 CVS coupon
Plus I used a $2 off of $10 coupon - $5 ECB = $2.06 cash + $3 and $5 ECBs

Transaction #2: 1 Palmolive dish soap $1.49 - $.40 coupon
2 Dimetapp kid's medicine $4.99 each - $1.50 coupons
Plus I used a $3 off of $15 coupon - $5 and $3 ECB = $.29 cash + $1 and $5 ECBs

Transaction #3: 1 Gillette Fusion Power Razor $9.99 - $2 coupon
Plus I used a $2/$10 coupon and a $5 ECB = $1.20 cash + $5ECB

Transaction #4: 2 Hershey's Kisses at 2 for $5 - $1.50 CVS coupon
1 Palmolive Dish Soap $1.49 - $.40 coupon
1 Gillette Venus Razor $8.99 - $2 coupon
1 Candy $.88 (My dad had to drop something off and he gave me a dollar to get the kids candy)
Plus I used a $3/ $15 coupon - $5 ECB = $1.46 cash + $4, $1, and a $3 ECBs

All in all I spent $5.01 cash and I still have $9 ECBs for next week.

Frugal Fridays

It's time for Frugal Fridays with Crystal from www.biblicalwomanhoodonline.com/blog.htm again. This week I thought I'd talk about homemade curtains. My girl's room is in desprate need of new curtains so I found some old fabric, measured it against the window (making sure to allow for seams) and stitched them to the window size. On the top I made sure to make that loop so that they could hang onto the curtain rod and voila new curtains in about an hour for absolutly no money out of pocket. Sorry I don't have any pictures but I can't find the cord to my digital camera.

How do you view children?

One thing I've been struggling with lately is the way people react to my five children. And if I mention that I really want more....well I guess that earns me a label of "crazy". BUT I don't care. Children are such blessings. I don't know what I would be without them. Each child, no matter how they came into my life (birth or marriage) is a tremendous gift to me.

 J is an aspiring chef and has such wisdom. Yet he was born when my husband was only 17 years old. I don't care. I wouldn't trade him for anything! (I'm not advicating young unwed parents, but I am saying that children are a blessing and are not reponisble for the actions of their parents, thus they deserve life after having been conceived and can truely be treasures from God as such.)

 And S is such a sweet person who tries to help. She is a bit of a dreamer but also has such fire. She will be able to go so far in life.

 M is a different child. Some would label her a difficult child, but again I don't care. She causes me to think about my parenting skills and constantly revise them to help her best. She loves helping with her younger sibilings and is awesome at Math.

R is another dreamer, but behind that is a very smart person who can do anything. He is a pleaser and wants to help me when I am down. He is also the one who will come and snuggle me or hug me when he senses I am down.

K as the current baby uses this position in life for all it's worth. I think she has not only me and dh but also the 4 older kids wrapped around her little finger. She is a bit of a temper-mental child but I've learned to love these personalities for the wonders they contain.

My heart yearns so much for another child. My dh wants another one too but feels he can't right now due to finances. This is such a hard place for us since we believe children are such blessings. I pray that someday soon God will place relief in our path and we will soon add another baby blessing to our quiverfull of children. I'm not sure who wrote this quote but I love it and it sums up how dh and I feel. In the bible God calls children a blessing and debt a curse, but in our society we apply for curses and reject blessings. Something is wrong with that picture.

Being a Step parent in the modern world.

As you may or may not know, I am the stepmom to 3 beautiful children. So many times I see children who are pushed aside by their step parents or are treated as less than equal to the biological children of that step parent. I wish I could teach those parents to see the beauty of loving that child as if he or she were their own. I may not have given birth to my three stepchildren, but I am like a mother bear with her cubs with them anyway. Another thing that is hard with being a stepmother is knowing when to back down. You must understand that there is another person who should be first in your stepchild's life and that is the mother/father. The way we handle this is we are very open in communication with the mother/father. If sewing is something that the children have never done then I call to ask if it's okay to do with the kids. It is very vital to never say anything demeaning about the other parent. Nobody is going to agree 100% of the time. Yet these are our precious children we are raising and it's so important not to put them in a difficult position. So now I would like to open up the floor and hear any comments from other parents or stepparents.

How to combat depression?

Lately I've been feeling very depressed. I feel like I am such a good wife and mother and all I want to do is be able to keep doing it. Yet due to financial difficulties it seems that may be in jeporady. Money is so tight right now. Yet I know I need to rest in God and remember that He is caring for me now, even as things seem dark. He is keeping my dh healthy and working. He is blessing my food budget so that I can make food stretch. He has even given me a wonderful business idea if only I can find some money to get it started. I want to do a homemade soap and lotion business. It could also branch out into other items, but for now those are the two things I will start with when I get my capital. Any ideas for earning a few extra dollars? Well anyway, please pray that everything gets better for us soon. Thanks, and God bless!

CVS update

Okay so I finally got to go to CVS. It's been a crazy week since I had my stepkids and got to help them do their homeschooling all week. We logged 42 hours for both of them! Whew! So anyway tonight I finally got to go to CVS and guess what...yup they were all out of the crest prohealth night toothpaste. That was the third time I've tried to get it and it is still sold out! UGH!!! Oh well, I still did pretty good. My total between the three transactions was $105.10 and I spent $20.52 out of pocket. Here's what I got:

Transaction #1: Dayquil 4.49 (-$1.50 coupon)
Tylenol under the buy $20 get $10: $26.97 ($15 in coupons)
Total: $31.46- $5 off of $30 order - coupons above - $6ECB = $5.24 + $10ECB

Transaction #2: 6 x Herbal Essences shampoo & conditioner sale 2/$8
- 2 x B2G1 free coupons = $26-8 = $16 get $6ECB
Tylenol deal again $26.97 - $15 in coupons
Total: $52.97 - $10 off of $50 order - coupons - $10ECB = $9.33 + $16 in ECBs

Transaction #3: Fructis Shampoo 7.79 (- $1 coupon) get $4ECB
4 gallons of milk at $3.29
Total: $20.95 - $4 off of $20 order - coupon - $10ECB = $5.95 + $4ECB

Grand Total: $105.10 but only spent $20.52 out of pocket! And I was so proud since when I organized this trip I was thrown for a loop by the crest prohealth not being there. But hey I did alright! I'm pretty proud of myself. It seems like I am finally starting to understand couponing a little. Oh and I did Walgreens last week as well. I spent about $29 and will recieve $19.76 back in rebates! Pretty good, huh? For that one I got the Fructis conditioner, the buy $20 get $10 for the capri suns, and the beano. I think that's all. I can't remember now. It's such a rush to be able to save so much money for my family. Now I just have to figure out how to do this coupon thing at a grocery store. It seems so much more complicated there, plus I'm nervous I'll spend more than I should since right now we only have about $165 a month for groceries for our big family. My dh is going to try to go hunting at the end of this month and God willing will bag a deer or two to help us out. Any tips on hunting would be great! Thanks.

CVS deals

Crystal at Biblicalwomanhood and her new website www.moneysavingmom.com is challenging us to show how we've done our CVS deals. I thought I'd start by what I did last week:

Transaction #1:
Energizer batteries spend $10 get $5 ECBs.
Palmolive Dish Soap $1.09 get $1 ECB
Beano $2.99 get $2.99 (I had a $1 off coupon)
Total $13.99 - $12 ECBs I had previously = $2 and I received $8.99 ECBs

Transaction #2:
Colgate Max Fresh 2.99 (I bought 3) get a total of $6 ECBs plus I had a $1.75 coupon
Lady's Speed Stick $1.99 get $1 ECB (I had a $1 off coupon)
Candy 88cents x2= $1.76 - 50 cent coupon
Total $9.50 - $8.99 ECBs I got from transaction #1 = 48 cents and I received $8.99 ECBs

Transaction #3:
Nature's Bounty Vitamins were B1G1 free. Thanks so Crystal I had 2x $2 coupons - $1 ECB from above = $2.49
I wanted to also get the Crest ProHealth Night toothpaste on this transaction but my CVS was sold out, so I've saved that for this week if they have it in.

This week I am hoping to get the Crest ProHealth, some more Nyquil as a filler (I have a $1.50 coupon), do the Tylenol spend $20 get $10 a few times (it has a limit of 5!), get the Herbal Essences shampoo and conditioner, a Garnier Fructis shampoo, and if I can get some of the coupons the Bic comfort 3 shavers. My hope is to only spend about $12 and end up with $24 in ECBs at the end of all this plus get 2 or 3 gallons of milk for practically free for fillers. Crystal has links on money saving mom that are for $10 off a purchase of $50 I hope to use. I figure I would spend about $11 buying the 3 gallons of milk anyway so anything I get on top of all this is just a huge bonus! I cannot thank Crystal enough for teaching me the skills to provide my family with medicine and other products for next to free. Her being so kind as to help all of us bloggers/readers with coupon links and such is such a huge blessing from God!

Frugal Fridays

I know this may sound really simple but when you are wondering what to do to get out of the house....go to the park. Within about 10 miles of my house there are at least 6 parks with hiking trails, playgrounds, a duck pond, even a vistor's center with an indoor playground. Pack a picnic or now that it's starting to get cold, a thermos of hot cocoa, and go outside and enjoy nature. My youngest and I did this on Wenesday and we had a blast discussing the canadian geese and their webbed feet. We took a blanket and sat and snuggled in the blanket. I know this is something special that I will remember for a long time. For more frugal friday tips go to Crystal at www.biblicalwomanhood.com/blog.htm

Frugal Fridays

Yup it's frugal friday again. This week I want to talk about how to save money on patterns and sewing. I like to make things with the kids. We recently made the girls aprons and the boys pillowcases and curtains. I am also currently helping my sister make a beautiful cloak/cape. Most patterns when bought at price are about $15. Wow at that price I don't know who can afford to do any home sewing. Luckily there is a solution. If you watch the sales ads for Joann Fabrics they have pattern sales quite often. Most of their pattern sales are $1.99. That's $13 savings on just one pattern! And the limit is 10 for one transaction. So if you need to stock up you can get 10 fun patterns for just $20 as opposed to $150! The website is www.joann.com and it will show the weekly sales. You can also sign up for their free coupon mailer which always has a 40% or 50% off one item coupon in it. The savings just add up! For more frugal fridays ideas visit www.biblicalwomanhood.com/blog.htm

Ugh...There are weeks...or days

It seems like the everyday life of a mother is a very different thing each day. Some days you feel like you are just gliding along doing so well with your chores, your children, just everything. Then there are days where you feel like it would take a month to accomplish what you need to try to do in one day. Today feels like one of those days. Well really it has been feeling like that all week long. My two stepkids who are homeschooling started school this week and it's been hard getting in that routine. They attend an umbrella charter school called Ohdela and while it's nice, it's been quite a journey helping their mom get everything set up and getting into a schedule. I'm sure that life will settle down soon. In the meantime I thought I would blog about the idea of christians and homesteading. While I see the merits of living off the land and by that token really depending on God, I can also see how there are Christians who are not able to do this and yet are still able to fully depend on God and his timing. For instance (I know it's not food but it's the same principle) we really needed a vacuum. All we had was a really cheap thing from walmart that didn't even have a beater brush. We waited and waited. We even were window shopping in walmart and found one we liked and it was on sale, but the money just wasn't there. Then my dad calls and says he has a present for us for our anniversary. It was the same exact vacuum that we had picked out! There are so many more examples of how God has provided for our family, but I only have time for this one right now. Needless to say whether you live on a farm or anywhere else God will still look after you.

Frugal Fridays

Hosted by www.biblicalwomanhoodonline.com/blog.htm Frugal Fridays are where you post an idea about something you are doing or that you have found that is frugal. So for my first Frugal Friday post I will post about homemade baby carriers. If you don't have a lot of money but you want a nice carrier for your little one you can go to Jan Andrea's site : www.sleepingbaby.net/jan/Baby/index.html and she gives you instructions on how to make your own carrier. I just made the mei tai out of a beautiful cami pattern and it turned out awesome. I love it! (Remember she asks that you only use this pattern to make it for yourself, not for a business.)

Bees and Kids

Yeah, I know I haven't blogged in a few days. Sorry about that. I have a cold that is making me tired so when I'm not doing things around the house I'm trying to rest. But to make up for the lack of blogs I will tell you two funny stories to make up for it.

Story 1: K (the 2 year old) was over by the computer desk and I notice she has something in her hands that she is putting on her lips. When I go to check on her I realize it's not chapstick. "K, you can't use a glue stick on your lips! It's not chapstick!" Well then I look at her older sister who is right next to her and I ask why she let her use it as chapstick. Her response? "I thought it was butt cream" (for those who don't know butt cream is a type of diaper rash ointment). Umm.....so it's now okay to put butt cream on your lips? Hmm......

Story 2: It's been so nice lately that we have been opening the house up to let the breeze come in. Unfortunately that means that bees and flys have also found their way in. My husband thought it would be a good idea to try to kill them with a dishrag. So he's swatting bugs and is about to go for a bee right beside me. I told him that if he missed and the bee stung me I would be upset. We laughed and he hit the bee. Then the bee flys away mad and lands on my arm and stings me as it is dying. Ugh!!!! It was actually kinda funny too, even if it did hurt.

Where were you?

It's that anniversary again, Sept. 11, 2001. The day of our generation that no one will forget. I was driving home from my honeymoon, ready to enjoy one last day with my new hubby before he shipped out to Navy boot camp. We arrived home to my grandfather watching the tv and eating his cereal. I asked him what was happening and he said he wasn't sure, he had just turned it on but it seemed that some planes flew into the World Trade Center buildings. I can remember watching the news as the next plane hit the Pentegon. I remember being so scared for my husband. Yet after that day everyone seemed so united. I can remember being so proud that my dh was going to be in the Navy and serve our country. His recruiter said that many young men and women were calling and trying to go fight the "people who did this". What a time, and to think it was six years ago. Sometimes it seems like just yesterday. I hope that everyone can stop and say a prayer for those families who lost so much on this day. And I also hope that you can say a prayer for our brave servicemen and women who continue to put their lives on the line so that we can have freedom and fight in this war on terrorism. Sept. 11, 2001 We will not forget!

Menu Plan Monday

I saw on lily of the valley's website this Menu Plan Monday and I figured I would post my menu as well.
Mon. Hamburger Green Bean Dish with Rice and a salad

Tues. Leftovers

Weds. Tacos

Thurs. Beef 'N Shrooms with Veggies

Fri. Leftovers

Sat. and Sun. a big Roast

I do leftovers a lot because some of these recipes are from the MOMYS cookbook and they are made to feed an army. Since I only have, oh, half an army the meals last me a little bit which is nice because I watch two little kids every weekday and it's nice to have some of the meals precooked.

The things kids do

You have to love the things your kids do to you. The kids were in a rare mood today. Basically it was...oh it's mom and dad's anniversary? well that means we should act as wild as possible! And for my anniversary what do I get to do? I get to send my husband off to work and stay home and clean. I jokingly told him that he would have to call off because I was leaving for a vacation. Oh on a side note I've found the best way to get kids to clean--buy a new vacuum. My dad got Steve and I a new vacuum for an anniversary present (and an air matress for camping! I am moving up in the world now!! :) All the kids were present for the opening of the box and they were all fighting over who got to use the vacuum first. Of course that only lasted about five minutes. What did I get to do tonight for my anniversary? I took a bath. Yup. I layed K down for a nap, let the others play and I enjoyed a bath. For those of you who don't have kids let me tell you how hard it is to get to enjoy a nice hot bath. Take today for instance. I started by arguing with my 2 year old that naptimes are not a punishment but are mandatory. After getting her to lay down I did some laundry and some other chores. I draw the bath and find a good book. I was in there for about ten minutes when K comes in and announces "I awake!....That hot water? I take a bath?" This is why mom's don't get to take baths very often. Oh, and all this isn't even mentioning the desitin that she found earlier today and thought would make a great polish for the front door and for her hands. Now she's standing here telling me her brother took her sock. The best part is she has the sock in her hand. Okay one more funny moment for you. So S is telling me about school and looking at the United States map we have on our kitchen table and she announces that she didn't know Montana was a state until a few days ago. I looked at her astonished and asked "what did you think it was?" her answer was "I thought it was like Wyoming" "Well what is Wyoming?" " A state, duh" I just sat there scratching my head and looking at her. Okay well K is trying to go potty in the living room so I've got to go.

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Okay, so I haven't posted in awhile

But here I am. I've been enjoying my hubby and kids. Yesterday for example K decided to take a pen while I was folding laundry and use the pen to draw on the new (to us) couch. Then when I was cleaning that up she went into the bedroom and dumped the baby oil all over the bed.
On a different note I've decided to use this blog as a launching point for small scale money making. It would be nice to be able to bring in a few extra dollars for my family. Any ideas? please leave me a comment. Thanks. Welcome back those who read my blog.