5 Things Friday

  1. The goal for this weekend is to rest and prepare. We are looking at 3 of the busiest weeks starting on Monday!  I need to get a game plan for food and make sure nothing is missing.  Kendall and Zach have a youth group activity next Friday night and a parent meeting for summer swim next Sunday.
  2. Lily is currently at Disney with her friend Izzy!  She will spend the weekend with Haley and fly home late on Monday.
  3. Zach has his first official baseball game on Monday night.  He has practice Tuesday through Friday nights. Next Saturday is a all day school fieldtrip. With his MPA band performance on the following Tuesday.
  4. Kendall started with year round swimming this week. She has practice Monday thru Thursday evenings form 5:00pm to 6:00pm. She also is preparing and planning to start community college classes next fall.
  5. I am planning to make a complete garden update on Sunday. But we have been seed starting for the past three weeks!

5 Things Friday- Travel Edition

  1. My mom, Granny, Amanda, Braxton, Lily, Izzy (Lily best friend), Kendall, Zach, Matt and I headed to Haley’s in Florida with the camper on Thursday December 28th.  The trip down started at 4;45 and we arrived around 6:30pm so a 14 hour trip including stops for gas, breakfast and lunch. We headed home on January 2nd.  Lily and Izzy were in the car with Granny as Amanda had flown home on Sunday. We started the trip around 8:15 am. and arrived home at 11:30, a 16 hour trip. It took us 6 hours to get out of Florida instead of 4.   This was I felt like our longest and slowest trip ever.  After much discussion, we are not exactly sure what we could have done differently to make the trip shorter.
  2. Everyone included David and Haley headed to Disney Springs on Friday December 29th, which was Granny’s birthday.  Braxton got his face painted as well!
  3. Saturday was our Christmas celebration. I spent a couple of hours at Urgent Care.  After dinner, Kendall, Izzy, Lily and I headed to the camper. I went to sleep, and the girls enjoyed a girls game which included lots of giggles. Matt and Zach stayed and watched a football game at Haley and David’s. Zach ended up staying at Haley’s for Saturday, Sunday and Monday night. He and Ryder played lots of video games.
  4. Sunday, New Year’s Eve was spent eating and laughing and just hanging out! The girls headed to do a little bit of shopping at Target and Ross. Lots of football was watched as well. I ended up back at the camper early. But everyone else set off fireworks and played with sparkers! It is always nice to spend time with family.
  5. Monday s adventure included a cold trip to the beach! I put my toes in the water, it was cold. Zach and Braxton played in the water. Everyone else watched them as the water was too cold. We all enjoyed just being on a beach the first day of 2024!

Wordless Wednesday- Trip

One of our favorite things to do when we travel is EAT!  Our recent trip to Florida was even better because some of the time David cooked some of the best food I have ever eaten!

Cracker Barrel is our first traditional stop on a trip!

We celebrated Granny’s birthday at Disney Springs at Earl of Sandwich-one of our absolute favorites!

 

We also ate at Texas Roadhouse for dinner!

Our Best place that we ate is also our newest favorite place!  This will be a definite stop each trip to see Haley! These are called Bento boxes!

Thanksgiving

This year was the most relax and uneventful holiday in a long time. However, it was not without illness as Lily caught a stomach bug! Hopefully she does not share with the rest of us.

We were very happy and surprised that Haley and David ended up spending the holiday with us.  Unplanned but fun!

Thursday, we have lunch at my brothers with all the family and lots of food. We were in charge of the turkey, stuffing and 3 deserts.  I was very glad to have leftovers and even planned on snacking most of the evening!

Friday, we worked on getting our Christmas decorations up for most of the day and took things a little bit slower paced.  I decided to treat everyone, and we ended up going out to eat at a Japanese steak house.  The food was awesome, and we all enjoyed it!

After dropping Braxton off, most of us decided to head out for some Black Friday shopping. Our biggest purchase of the evening? pillows!

 

5 Things Friday

  1. Lily comes home from Florida tomorrow. She has spent 2 weeks with Haley.
  2. The weather has definitely changed!  The heat is on and the leaves are starting to change color and fall. The high temperature has not been above 70 since Lily left!
  3. Zach has 2 football games and Braxton has 1 game of Fall baseball left. Next up is swim season!
  4. I have been very very proud of Kendall, once she got a schedule for swimming she has already started training. Her goal is to make it to the State meet.  Can’t wait to watch my mermaid this year!
  5. We are working on getting the garden closed up for winter.  Although we are still getting some tomato and we have moved the green peppers to the greenhouse!

 

Sunday Catch- Up

Life is busy, difficult, busy, and overwhelming this month. Hopefully I can get catch up and spend a little bit more time with blogging. I also really want to be consistent but at during this season I will just do what I can and give myself some grace!

Financially, I feel like we have recovered from Matt’s short period of unemployment this summer. I am working on finishing the year strong but also starting to look at some changes and plans I want to make for next year.  Credit card debit has really creeped up on me, so trying to balance paying that off and saving and enjoying the few short years of kids at home is a balance that takes a lot of mental energy.  Groceries have always been one of the biggest expenses for us.  My plan and goal for November and December is to pay for what we get and then use any remaining money to pay down the credit card debit. Starting in January, I would like to start saving to purchase another whole cow in the summer. Ideally, I would put $500 a month in a saving account for six months to make this happen.   We have a ton of food in multiple locations and I am really working on keeping it organized and to work through the food that is here before buying new things.  I have found a couple of “guidelines” that are helping with making plan a little bit easier. First we are having a “breakfast casserole” every Sunday morning. This makes getting ready for church much easier and quicker. Soup for Sunday dinner is also going well with occasional leftovers for the week. I am finding that I must cook 3 meals on Saturday or we end up eating out.  Freezer meal are awesome and I already know that I need to have many more in the freezer during the summer.

Kids- Lily is currently in Florida spending two weeks with Haley and David. She has finished her first eight weeks of college classes and is struggling to balance work and school.  She also will need a loan to fully pay for her second semester of college. Zach is playing football which means practice Monday, Tuesday and Thursday with games on Wednesday. Braxton is playing baseball which is one game a week. Kendall is anticipating swim season and has started swimming at least 3 days a week.  We are also currently struggling to get her permit.  Kendall decided very quickly that she did not want to and could not handle working along with school

Chickens- We are getting between 2 and 6 eggs a day. I don’t understand but we have not had to buy any eggs so that is a plus.   We have switched the bedding from paper to wood shaving.  It is more expensive but the eggs are cleaner.  We have purchased another automatic door which is working perfectly. We also still have at least one possum and one racoon who visit once a week. This is a significant decrease from daily so something is working.

Garden- I have probably 3 galloons of tomatoes currently in the freezer. I actually have still been collecting tomatoes this week. We are attempting to keep peppers alive int eh green house. We planted onions and asparagus but that is all for the fall. A couple of beds have paper mulch on them but I would like to move some planters and mulch a couple more beds but again just am struggling with the time.

The word for my job is intense. I really enjoy both the kids and my co-workers but my mental capacities are being exhausted regularly.  I am also struggling with some health issues. Nothing major buy annoying.

We do have several trips planned more details to come!

5 Things Friday

  1. The month of September ends this weekend! It was definitely a month of change and a month of catch up. I will share more in our monthly update but I am very hopeful that we are going to be on solid financial ground moving forward.
  2. Last Saturday, we ended up clothes shopping. It was definitely time to buy some new jeans and long pants. We still have a couple of small needs but I am hoping to stop shopping in November for everything but food!
  3. Haley and David will be coming up to NC next weekend.  Lily is going to return to Florida for 2 weeks. It should be an experience for everyone!  I am sure that Kendall is going to have the hardest time with Lily not here.
  4. We are still harvesting a small amount from the garden. I also received some onion starts and asparagus in the mail today that I need to get planted.
  5. Our rooster is crowing and all the hens appear to be laying however we are only averaging 4-5 eggs a day from 7 hens….. this is an increase from 3-4 a day but we have enough eggs to eat and share so that is good enough!