Simple Things

Earlier this week Sam's teacher came up to talk to me after school and passed on a compliment from the Vice Principal about my kids. She said my kids were as beautiful on the inside as they were on the outside :) Then they were saying how we have so many kids, yet there are some who only have 1 child and they don't know what to do with them. They wondered how we did it. Well, at this point I felt the Spirit welling up inside me and I had to tell her, "It's because we're Mormon and we live it!" I know I am nowhere near to being a perfect mom, and my kids are anything but perfect themselves, but I am so grateful for the gospel that teaches us to do our best, pick ourselves up when we make mistakes and never give up. Through and with Christ all things are possible!

When I stand back I realize how blessed we really are, and I can't help but feel grateful for all the little things that are so big to me.... for example... I am SOOO excited that last month I was under budget in EVERY spending category! I don't think I have ever done this before and I cannot begin to tell you how good that felt. The cash thing is totally working!

Another little thing that is huge to me is our "Page a Day". For about 4 years now I started reading a page a day out of the Book of Mormon with the kids. As schools and schedules have changed we've had to adjust our reading times, and what works now is as soon as all their breakfast is served and they start eating, I start reading. I give a brief review of where we're at and we stop and talk about new words and concepts. We're almost through the Book of Mormon for the 2nd time (obviously we've missed lots of days in those 4 years ;) and I love getting a small slice of gospel pie each day with them. I never get my breakfast warm and there are always a few "pass the syrup" interruptions, but it has worked. They are getting a little older though, and 3 of them can read on their own, so it's time to step it up another notch and I think we're going to start the 6am pj readings on the couch next week. Should be good.

The next thing I'm trying to figure out is how to get them to keep their rooms clean! Screaming is not working, reminding them a million times is not working, the whole "go pick up 10 things" prodding is not making enough of a dent so I think it's time to start the Gunny Bag. I'm not quite sure how to approach it though... specific times of the day it comes, 5 minute warning. I don't know, so give me your ideas of what you would try or what's worked for you! I would so appreciate it.

Lastly today I have to share my little lemon bar miracle. I'm working on getting the kids into the magnet schools in our area (like a charter they have to test into) and I've gone to one of them a couple times to check on things and I told them I'd bring treats the next time I came. So a couple of weeks ago, completely out of the blue, I felt the words "lemon bars to Vial". (Vial is the school). Weird, but ok, so I wrote it on my menu board and the next Sunday I made lemon bars. Which, by the way, the kids hated, but that's ok, more for me. The next day I took a small box of them into Vial and handed them to one of the secretaries and the other secretary said to her, "Oh, lemon bars, your favorite!" No kidding, lemon bars ended up being her favorite! I don't know why it mattered, and by no means does it affect the outcome for my children, but apparently God wanted her to know that she was love and He wanted me to learn to trust and listen. I was so overwhelmed and happy and grateful! Now to her I'll be the lemon bar lady, and I'm ok with that.

So budgets and cooking - I can credit staying within my food budget last month because I shopped from my menu. First I looked at my leftovers, figured what I could re-make them into, then checked out my pantry, then made my shopping list. It worked great, now this month I'm going to step it up by adding a bit of ad-shopping and simple couponing. But I thought I'd share with you my menu idea I look at when I'm trying to remember what to make. So here's the list of dinners that we like and I can refer to when planning my menu:

Menu Ideas

Chicken Basics:
Season-All Baked
Chicken Cordon Bleu
Ritz Chicken
Parmesan Chicken
Chicken & Rice
BBQ Chicken
Hawaiian Haystacks
Hawaiian Chicken
Broccoli Casserole
Chicken Pillows

Beefy Basics:
Stroganoff
Hamburgers
Meatballs (Pasta/Sub)
Meatloaf
BBQ Casserole
Pot Roast

Ham Basics:
Ham Fried Rice
Ham Roll/Strombolli
Bean Soup/Lentils
Hawaiian Chicken
Chicken Cordon Bleu
Chef Salad
Ham & Funeral Potatoes

Mexican:
Chili Plus
Hard/Soft Tacos
Taco Salad
Taco Soup
Enchiladas/Cass
Calavacita
Migas/Mexi-Rice
Tostadas
Chicken Tacos
Quinoa & Bk Beans

Soup/Salad:
Beefy Veg. Soup
Taco Soup
Baked Potato Soup
Lentils & Rice
Chowder Clam/Pot/Corn
Chicken & Rice Soup
Chicken Noodle Soup
Minestrone
Thai Salad
Strwberry Summer Salad
Chef Salad
Oriental Chicken Salad
Spinach/Pasta Salad

Italian:
Alfredo
Gnocci
Pasta & Red Sauce
Lasagna
Leftover Pasta Bake
Tortellini
Pizza
Chicken Parmesan

Asian:
Chicken Curry
Sweet & Sour Chicken
Ham/Chicken Fried Rice
Stir Fry
Thai Salad
Beef & Broccoli
Teriyaki Chicken

Veg to Remember:
Brussel Sprouts

Balance

I find myself over the last couple of days spinning again with all the errands, the clutter, trying to work in business and maybe find some pleasure and I'm not doing so good at it all. Today was a deep clean and re-group day and my kitchen and floors are shiny and I feel so much better. I'm so grateful for all our blessings. Life is good :)

A couple of weeks ago Ben texted from work about a great bike trail, so here's a pic as we took a break on the way back from our biking outing. We had such a good time... and yes, Emily is missing in the pic, only because she was strapped to my front ;)

She's growing so big! Almost 6 months but happy as can be.

I'm feeling my age... Ben entered his first Science Fair this year with a flower dying experiment. It was a lot of fun to help him with. We did all the different colors and even split one of the flowers into 4 different colors... awesome.

Money, money, money by the pound :)

So I'm nearly finished reading The Total Money Makeover and I'm kind of sad to be almost done. I found myself really enjoying the bits in the morning and evening that got my mind thinking and helped me feel so motivated to be better with our money. As I was reading it though, I did realize how the scriptures should hold that sort of a place in my heart as well. So I started to read a little from my church magazine before I broke out the money book and now I'm doubly benefiting.

I've started to realize how I've been slowly rationalizing our way down to hell (aka financial bondage). I've read about spiritual bondage but I'd never thought about how satan's played his part on me when it's come to finances. I've believed his lies about "Oh, a little spending won't hurt" and "we'll never be out of debt so we might as well enjoy what we can" and so on. I'm starting to realize that every little bit counts and it WILL make a difference. I'm coming up with our game plan and excited about the goals we're working on. Meanwhile, it's Jan 20th and I still have about half of my monthly cash budget left! So for once, I'm right on track. It may even be the first month I won't go over on my budget.... that would be incredible. Even better, I'm not feeling strangled.

One of the questions the book poses is, is 5 years of sacrifice worth it to change your financial destiny for the rest of your life? (aka, being debt free and in the process of building wealth) It got me thinking about what I've learned from the gospel as well and on to my next new mantra.... Sacrifice brings blessings! I know it's not magic that makes it happen, but I've seen it as we've paid our tithing and it feels magical. When times are really tight and we choose to pay our tithing blessings are poured out. Somehow the numbers become more than they were. So even though our debt is so large, I'm putting faith in the fact that Sacrifice Brings Blessings, and trusting that God will help us find a way!

January Ramblings

I used to fight routines like crazy. I felt constricted by them, but over the last couple years they've become my lifesaver. I don't stick to them exactly but I use them as a general guide to keep me on track. Last year my theme was getting my home in order. I wanted it to look nice and run smoothly all the time, not just when guests come ;) I still have a long way to go, but I'm getting so much better at it. Really I have to give credit to my friend for repeatedly pushing me towards FlyLady.net. Wow, the baby steps from Fly Lady makes it like a game and breaks it down into small steps so it's easy and fun to plan, clean and de-clutter. My mantra through the whole thing was "Maintain and Add a Little". When I'd feel behind and overwhelmed I'd tell that to myself over and over and I'd have a little more hope.

Now that we're all moved in and Christmas is cleaned up and put away I've been feeling a new burst of energy and a new theme coming on. This year is time to tackle the finances. Ben's graduated to a big boy job now, so it's time to face our student loans head on. There are two parts to that. First of all the know-how... a.k.a. knowing what order and how much we'll need to pay while still planning and saving for the future. 20 years from now I don't want our only financial accomplishment to be that we're finally back to zero! Secondly the means to do so. Ben loves his job, but he definitely did not choose it because of its amazing earning potential. From the very beginning we knew his happiness in a career would be more important than being rich.

So the way I see it, we have a couple of options; either spend less or earn more. With so many young children my job has been to work on the spending less portion. So Tori told me about a book she read in her high school finance class, The Richest Man in Babylon. I thought it sounded cool, so I picked it up from the library along with Dave Ramsey's Total Money Makeover. I finished the first already and am a quarter of the way through the next and I love it! What I liked so far:

• Save 10% of your income (this is repeated over and over again). So you can have "a couple of gold coins to rub against one another."
  
• Live on only 70% of your income
• Use the remaining 20% to put toward your debts
• Put your savings to work so that it earns and its earnings earn
• Finances are 80% behavior and 20% know-how
  
• Debt is not necessary, and it is possible to have all the luxuries and be debt-free.
  

I would STRONGLY recommend both of these books! Wow, I'm looking at finances in a whole new light. I'm also realizing all the lies that have become acceptable about debt and financing. As well as all the bad information and advice that gets passed around even by myself. You hear things enough and you figure they're true, whether they are or not... scary.

So this year's mantra is "No Time Like the Present!" I'm working on the know-how, refining my budget and going to the "Cash Method" of paying for things. So in order to make it a little more FUNctional, I made these cute envelopes:

I made them by taking a regular envelope, sealing it shut, and cutting off the two sides just below the width of the bills. They were easy to label and fit in my wallet so I don't fall back to my card.

This morning someone mentioned that when you have a plan and it's what God wants, He helps make it happen. Well managing our money would only take care of half the problem, and I knew one key to this being successful was for me to supplement our income and my goal was to start work in January. I hadn't decided what it would be yet, but in the last 3 weeks I've had 3 different opportunities come up where I could earn some money. One of those was a woman wanting to hire me to decorate and help furnish her home. I'm really excited and kind of nervous too. I'm so grateful I have a skill that can help others and provide for our family, but I'm nervous about being able to balance. Before I get too deep I'm trying to make a plan so that I can have the right kind of focus towards work and keep my family and home first priority.

I'm excited about the prospects of my business starting again, but I also know I want to do things a little different this time. I want to offer more of the whole package, while still specializing in window treatments, but I don't want to sew my own. I know that here in Dallas I'll have every resource available to me, I'm just not sure where they are or how exactly I'll find them. I just feel so blessed to have this fall into my lap. Word of mouth is the only way I've gotten business before and it's been the best and I know this is the beginning. It will snowball out from here and I just need to make sure I have the plan in place so I don't get trapped into it taking over my life.

So these are the things going on in my brain these days. Family, Home, Kids School, Finances, Work. It's good to be alive and it's nice to know that God is watching over us. We may have approached this the stupid way, but it was right for us and we're being blessed because of it. "My strength is as the strength of ten because my heart is pure." -- Tennyson

Ben's Birthday and New Years Eve

Ben turns 10... finally BEN 10!


Our New Year's Eve shindig... having a big family is soooo much fun, it's a party everyday, but to make the night special we made sure to have the spattering of yummy food. Tori and Blu came by and joined us later for games until midnight. We were the only ones in our neighborhood outside banging pots and pans. Hopefully we didn't give any old people heart attacks :)While us girls played games the boys played video games... little Ben was inadvertently teaching Ryan that while playing video games one must jump up and down uncontrollably ;) You wonder why little Ben's screen name is jitters?

Christmas 2011

We were blessed to have someone do the 12 days of Christmas for us at the beginning of the month, and then Christmas Eve someone Secret Santa'd us leaving some great presents for all of us, including the American Girl dolls for Alaura and Sam. It was their favorite present for sure. I've never actually seen theses dolls in person before this, but they are really well made, you can style their hair without it getting yucky and the size and weight are everything you want in a doll. I think we may need to get more of these for the other girls some day.

December 2011

Visiting a mini-train display at the North Park Mall in Dallas... umm, scary.... we were walking past stores like Gucci and Coach... "don't let the kids breathe on them". And I didn't realize how sheltered we've kept our kids, the younger ones had no idea how to maneuver an escalator :)The week before Christmas we got an awesome rain storm on the cusp of a warm front so we rolled up our pant legs and played in the gutter... it was so much fun. I even got in, and the fact that I let them do it made me "the best mom in the world!"


The older kids helped me out with an enrichment activity by being a live nativity.
I broke down and we made ravioli to have for Christmas Eve dinner.

Dad practicing the balancing act with Emily who is now 4 months old!