Wordless Wednesday- Zach’s First Soccer Game
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Author Archives: Sheila
Lily and Kendall Mime Team
Both Lily and Kendall have been working since Christmas as part of the mime team at church. The other girls are in middle school, so I am extremely proud of both Lily and Kendall for learning the song. This performance was part of a “Youth Lead Worship Night.” Here is the link if you do not see the video below, Mime team
5 Things Friday
1. On top of our already busy schedule, Zach started spring soccer this week. That means at least 2 practices and one game a week.
2. Over the past month, the car that Amanda drove has started to fall apart. The car had 282,000 miles but after $500 in repairs it finally died yesterday. Today, we received $150 for the scrap value.
3.In good news, the weather has turned warm quickly. We turned off our heat and based on the forecast for the next week, we should be able to keep it off for a couple of weeks. I will be amazed if we are able to not turn it back on but every penny counts and our electric bill jumped almost $100 for the month of February.
4. We have made absolutely no progress in the kitchen this week. I am hopefully to get some painting done tomorrow night but that is even doubtful.
5. The one area of our budget that I have managed to keep great control of is our groceries. I am continuing to cut the grocery budget this month by using a “credit” from American Express. I was able to purchase all the items on my list for less than $50 using this credit.
Monday Menu Planning
March is going to an interesting month to say the least. First, I am once again planning to keep the grocery budget extremely low. One of the biggest way that this is happening is that we receive our American Express “reward” in the form of a Costco check. My goal for the month is to restock using this reward and $150. I am excited to say that so far I have spent less than $75.
Now on to menu planning: This weekend was different for us as we spent most of Saturday and all of Sunday out of town. We ate only 2 paid meals out. In more good news, I was able to restock some of our breakfast foods!
Breakfast– Saturday-French toast, Sunday- hotel. Choice of muffins, toast, cereal or pop-tarts, French toast, grits, baked oatmeal and breakfast burrito.
Lunch-I was able to get the kids lunches packed in addition to a couple of salads for my lunch as well. I have been purchasing lunch several days a week the past couple of weeks but this week it is back to packing from home!
Dinner- Saturday- Lunch- PF Changs . Dinner- Wraps and chips
Sunday- Lunch- Crackers, chips and cookies. Dinner- Cracker Barrel
Monday- Salisbury Steak, rice and green beans
Tuesday-Cheeseburger Pie
Wednesday- Paula Deen Mac and cheese, Grilled Spam
Thursday- Shrimp alfredo or Turkey breast
Friday- Green Chicken Enchilla
Back to a plan!
Saturday Fun
We are traveling for cheerleading this weekend, so we decided to throw in some fun! We started with lunch at one of my absolute favorite resturants, PF Changs . Excuse the blurry picture cleaned the lens after see it.
We also stopped for some desert at Diary Queen. Most of the afternoon was spent playing in the pool at our hotel.
We ended by eating chips, wraps and cookies while watching a movie!
Kitchen Progress-03/03/2016
This week has been about painting and cleaning. I am so excited because it appears that we once again have a functional kitchen. This is most like the last time this month that a visual difference will be seen. Next up is installing the cabinets and working on moving plumbing. But this week huge changes have occurred. The play room/dinning room is finished except for painting of the cabinets that have been relocated.
This is the “old front door” which now is a closet. I LOVE the gray color!
Looking from our bedroom door, we have the keyboard and kids television.
View from standing in the door of kitchen, you can see where the wall was.
View from door from Living room.
We also were able to hang pictures
If you want to see just how far our progress has come check out these post:
Wordless Wednesday- Siblings
February in Review
Personal-
1. Blogging– Post 20 per month. Fail. This is post number 14. Stress, stress and busy are my reasons.
2.Weight Loss– 175#. I managed to lose 8 of the pounds that I gained between Disney and Christmas so I guess this is a start.
3. Spiritual– Spend at least 5 days a week, reading and studying The Bible. Goal Met. I have made huge strides this month and plan to continue.
Small steps of improvement mean really long term change.
Financial-
1. Set aside money each month in every budget category. Fail-even with our income tax return. February has been a most expensive month
2. Establish and maintain Emergency Fund- Fail.
3. Groceries: Goal is for $700. SUCCES- Total spending for the month is $509! So I am at this point spending 50% less than I budgeted. I really thing is an area that I am going to be able to control much better this year. Part of the reason is monthly menu planning.
4. Gas: Spend $400 a month- Fail. We had to purchase tires for my van and a small repair to the car.
5. Pay off all Credit Card debit by December 2016- Fail. Our overall debt increased by $800 this month.
Not exactly the wonderful report I had hope to give but I am being honest.
Menu Planning
The month of February has been a lot off in many ways and I am looking forward to the new month! I have to admit that we had two rules for eating in February: 1) leftover clean out and 2) convient. Last week we ended up eating pizza bites and cheese sticks one night followed by Hamburger Helper the next. This weekend although busy, I feel like we have gotten back on track. Matt and I spent some time this afternoon making a new menu plan for the month. . The most impressive part is that we only repeated a couple of meals and I have at least 2 new meals to try out.
The Plan:
Breakfast– Saturday-donuts/poptarts, Sunday- Bacon-Egg and cheese biscuits. Choice of muffins, toast, cereal or pop-tarts. I need to restock the breakfast choices over the next couple of weeks because we have really been cleaning out. One disadvantage for this week is that we currently have 2 eggs left in the fridge. I plan to either go to Aldi or Costco on Thursday depending on how the week shapes up. Until then we will be eating something just not eggs.
Lunch-I was able to get the kids lunches packed in addition to a couple of salads for my lunch as well
Dinner- Saturday- Lunch- East Coast Wings (after Cheer Competition) . Dinner- Leftover s
Sunday- Lunch- Baked potatoes Dinner- Picnic dinner provided by my parents.
Monday- Hamburger and French fries
Tuesday-Chicken pot pie
Wednesday- pork chops, frozen flavor broccoli and fruit
Thursday- Shrimp alfredo
Friday- Grilled Chicken.
As you will see in the update tomorrow, we have managed to keep the grocery budget for the month to $510 which means a total of $700 for the year. We are definitely telling a difference in the cabinets and freezers. But with a month of planning already complete, we should be able to keep the budget low again!
Slow but Steady Progress-2/27/2016
This week has been so busy and stressful, I was not sure we would have any progress to show but I am THRILLED to post this update. I am not including any pictures of the dinning/playroom because with only one coat of paint it looks worse than when we started. Hopefully a second coat will go on Monday and we can get most of it back together as well. I have always said that the hardest part of remodeling is living around it. So first up Matt designed and built both a shelf for the microwave but also a shelf to hold the Keurig. I LOVE this shelf and it actually not only adds space but let us move the Keurig back to the kitchen from Matt’s office.
He was also able to finish out the trim for the window and door that faces the living room.
I know the next couple of weeks will be slow as far as progress goes because a lot of the next steps are adding the plumbing that is needed to move the sink. But we are moving along!
Here is the other post to show just how far we have come.