Monthly Archives: October 2010

October in Review

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Blogging- Goal is 5 times a week or 20 a month. I am staying steady in this area, I have blogged a total of 17 times this month, one less than September. We are finally achieving the balance that allows me time to do things I enjoy.

Reading my Bible- Holding stead in this area as well. I am reading a devotion at least 3 times a week. The goal is for me to have a devotional time 5-6 times a week. One of the things that we are trying to add is a couple devotional time. We had done so twice this week but I would hope this becomes at least 3 times a week.

Preschool with Lily and Kendall- This continues to be an area of excellence in our house. I am spending about 2 hours a week getting everything set up. I also get to “teach” usually one day a week. A school readiness person started coming to the house 2x a month to work with all 3 little ones. Matt really enjoyed this time and learned alot from Mrs. Melissa. Lily is work on numbers to 100, she is also learning about money, so far she has learned pennies and nickels. I checked her on the Kindergarten sight word list this past week. Lily recognizes/ reads 7 of the 30 words. Matt continues to work on reading with her in the evenings as well. Kendall is learning by leaps and bounds now. She recognizes a circle and counts to 10. She has started to memorize the ABC song.

Budget-Overall we did well on budget this month. Groceries still remain a huge challenge for us but after looking at it realistically we will be increase the monthly grocery budget to 800 or 26 a person per week. During October I spent around 550 so that is below the budgeted 600 even. We are continuing to eat out of the pantry until at least we leave for MI.

Halloween… Lily style

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Lily and Kendall both LOVE to dress up! The can spend hours at a time changing and playing dress up. Thanks to a wonderful couple at church, we have probably close to 15 outfits not counting various shoes and accessories.

Lily is have a blast this year because she was given 3 chance to dress up and “go out in public.” Wednesday night, the kids club had a Princess and Pirate party. Lily chose to go as “Sleeping Beauty.” Tonight the initial plan was to go with our friends to a Halloween carnival and then to several “Trunk or treats” but both Zach and Kendall were sick. We decide with the cooler weather it would be best to keep them at home tonight so that we could possible enjoy the church event. But our friends took Haley and Lily with them. Lily was a Barbie cheerleader tonight and return with a bucket of candy.

I have personally never been a fan of Halloween and until the past couple of years just avoid the whole thing. But Matt enjoys making costumes as well as apply just the right make up so he likes to have several people to work on. Lily and Kendall both like nothing better so Halloween is now a fun time just because we get to all dress up. This year our church is have a “family” costume contest and we are going as The Wizard of OZ. Amanda is Dorthy, Kendall is Toto, Zach is the Tin Man, Haley is the Scarecrow, Lily is the “cotton candy” good witch Glenda, Matt is the “wizard behind the curtain’ and I am the yellow brick road. I hope to get a couple of awesome pictures to post.

PINK IT UP!

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Yeap, I know that is not grammatically correct and sounds strange to boot but that is what today was officially known as at least that Haley’s High School. I am very proud of her today and wanted to share just how awesome she is.

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness month. No one in our immediate family has been affected by this disease but Haley has several friends who have been. She was upset to learn that her school had no intention of doing anything to acknowledge this month so she decided to do something about it. She went to the principal and talked about it. This was the first of several meeting with the principal, followed by meeting with student government. Haley was able to not only convince her principal to acknowledge this day but she even worked out that anyone who was wearing pink today in support got an extra break. Haley is still amazed that she is given 100% of the credit for this event and she was excited to take part it in today.

Congratulations Haley, I know that once you can about something you are not ashamed to stand up and be recognized!

Random Thoughts Tuesday

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Boy do I have alot of these….

We are going to enter the family costume contest at the church on Sunday night. I can’t give away too much but all seven of us are going and we have a theme. I promise pictures next week for sure.

I am working ALOT this week. When I say alot I mean that I am schedule for both the hospital and the nursing home every day this week. This will not last long as of next week I am down to 2 days a week at the nursing home until December. With the change of rehab directors I am unsure how much of the schedule will last but at least for this week I can complain of being tired.

Matt and I are starting a couple’s devotional time. We hope this will help deepen our faith and keep our marriage strong.

I have already started a list of things that need to get done before our trip and it appears that it just may be a smooth transition because of the busy week is the one just prior to our trip so I have to get as much done ahead of time as possible.

Potty training with Kendall is frustrating. We think she is starting to get the idea then then she pees in her panties 3 times in an hour. GRRRRR I was so hoping to have her trained prior to the trip but I seriously wonder if this is possible.

Kendall and Zach are now in the same room. We are only using the room for sleeping so it is not a big deal. Nap times are a nightmare. But after falling asleep they both slept at least 8 hour straight last night which is better than average prior to moving them in the same room.

I have decided that we are all are affected by the dreary weather because the mood around here tonight is YUCKY!

Grocery Budget…the good…bad and ugly

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I have been really trying to get us on a strict budget this year. One of the areas that I seem to continual struggle in is grocery shopping. As you know, Matt and I decided to clean out our cupboard/freezer starting exactly a month ago. I have been sticking to shopping only for things we are out of and of course CVS. Unfortunately on Thursday we were in town with Costco and went to pick up the items on the list. I can say that we stuck very closely to the list and only add things after discussion. The one exception was “gluten free” crackers we found and bought but Zach because they are delicious and he loves to have crunch foods. We bought drinks for Haley and I at lunch, cleaning wipes, swiffers, milk, eggs, bread, bananas and bacon. Our total was $120 that pushes the total for the month to $420 and with the $40 Matt just took to Walmart for Formula and creamer and diet coke. We are pushing $500 for the month. At this point we are starting to consider if the budget of $600 a month is realistic or should be increase that to $800. At $800 that is approximately $125 a person or $29 a week per person. Looking at the number $800 sounds like a lot but when you take that down to $30 a person a week that seems reasonable, especially when you include diapers for 2, formula and Gluten free foods for Zach and household cleaning products. So I am pretty convinced that I will again increase the budget to set it at $800 a month. But since finding 5 lbs of Hamburger and getting Angel Food in this week. we are also both convinced that we will continue to eat out of the freezers/cupboard until we leave for our trip at Thanksgiving. I am planning on having the first Monday off after arriving home and we most like will make a HUGE trip to Costco at that time unless we realize that we have enough food to go another week. 🙂 Any thoughts or suggestions?

Eye Appointment

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Today, both Lily and Kendall had an eye appointment with the specialist in Greensboro. Both the girls were awesome and for the most part well behaved. Kendall is so young that basically they look at her eyes and nothing has changed with her. We are to return in 9 months, when she can hopefully read the charts and we can get a better idea of what she is seeing. On the down side, she managed to break a pair of glasses in half on the way home.

Lily is a different story. It has been a year since her vision has been checked. At that point she was 3 and they were uncertain if she was reading the chart right. Today, we were asked if she knew all her letters. She does and is accurate all the time if she is seeing correctly. Matt and I both were concerned when at 60 she could not read the chart with her right eye in glasses. After doing some testing with her, the doctor determined that her vision has gotten worse. Personally, I am unsure if it has gotten worse or they were wrong the first time with her. Both eyes have changed by +2.70. Her prescription is now a +8.5 and +9. This is only increasing her prescription by +1.5. The doctor also wants us to patch Lily’s good(left) eye for 4 hours a day. We were given a princess patch to use today. I asked several questions but still am not sure of the answers I got. Basically, I know that she is far sighted, according to this doctor this is going to worsen. The patching is to strengthen her bad eye and should be short in duration. Far sightedness does not correspond to 20/20 or 20/40. We should only be concerned if her corrected vision is not 20/40. After talking with my mother tonight, Matt and I are in agreement that we are going to seek a second opinion just to make us feel better. We should get this arranged in the next week or so.

One of the problems we have is that the doctor asked us to remove Kendall and Zach because he did not want to talk over them. We don’t have a problem with that but he was rude in the way he asked/ told us he would not continue until they were gone. He also was offended that I asked at what point does Lily have a visual impairment.

The other problem is my personal thought about patching. I don’t like the idea of limiting her sight. I don’t think she should be punished because she is not seeing. I understand the principle but don’t agree with it. So hopefully another doctor will be more helpful. Or at least I can say that this is definitely the way things need to be done.

Randon Thoughts Tuesday

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I am so glad I get to post this tonight. I have ALOT of Random thoughts right now.

Square Foot Gardening is over. Tonight we ended up going and pulling up the remaining watermelon plants as parts were dead. We left the pepper plants as they still have blooms on them and some small peppers. I also left the basil it is starting to flower but it smells so good that I will just go out and smell it. We definitely learned alot and hopefully next year will expand to 3 boxes and actually grow enough to enjoy several times. The key things for us to remember is water water water and we need to start the new plants inside in January.

Zach is so proud of himself for two reasons today. First he has learned to climb. He can climb in the small rocking chair, on Kendall’s bed and of course on top of the toys. He also has discovered he can drive out of Kendall’s cup. We are very careful that it has only water or juice but he is so happy just to get it.

Our eat out of the pantry challenge may end a week sooner than we originally hoped for and 4 weeks then my dream. The reason is that we are starting to run out of food such as bacon and juice. Haley also needs more Fruit2Os for school. I know that we will probably end up going to Costco on Thursday while we are in Greensboro. If we can buy only the items we are out of then I will be very very excited and happy. Maybe if we make a small trip then continue with the plan it will work out.

I have decided that I really really really dislike working at the Nursing home. I feel like I go in and really just loose track of time and never seem to get out at a decent time. I have already scheduled myself through the end of the year. I am hoping that I can at that point stop doing it on a regular basis but that will me a lot more work at the hospital. It is just so hard to juggle to two jobs. I have been scheduled to work every day at the nursing home next week so hopefuls that will keep me motivated to get our budget down.