Blogging: I definitely increased over April with 12 total post. Matt is complaining that one or so didn’t count because it was a picture of the garden but hey at least it is an improvement. The goal is 15.
Devotions: I sucked this month. I am honestly ashamed of how little time I have spent. So this is number one on the improvement list for June. Goal: 3 per week.

Financially: Catching up from April so nothing new paid.

Weight– Have not even stepped on the scale!

I have been really torn today, I knew I would have time to write a post tonight and realized that trying to get two written would probably be near impossible. So I needed to decide rather to talk about the past week and keep a record of what is going on or work on the post I want to make of alot of the stuff I want to remember from Disney. Then came the light bulb moment. My plan is to put together a Disney scrapbook, so I can make sure everything goes in there. So now I can just focus on keeping up to date here and if I get the chance then do a Disney post.

I have been working quite a bit this week, 32 hours to be exact. The only time I had off was Thursday afternoon but it was nice to be home to pick up Haley and get the kids up from nap. I did have to work really late of Friday. Next week should be easier with two half day planned off at the moment. I also have been slowly adding to our stockpile. I made a third trip to Harris Teeter on Sunday as well as a trip to CVS. Food Lion was a stop on Monday as well as Lowes. I also made a late night trip to use coupons on Friday night to Walmart. My sights are now set on a trip to Food Lion tonight for another great deal. We did not order Angel Food in April due to our vacation and I realized tonight that we are going to be running close on meat over the next two weeks but we are hopefully that we can at least make it 7 days til we can go to Costco.

After much talk and debate, we made the decision on Monday to attempt square foot gardening again the same size as last year. In addition we have joined a food co-op that will be providing a box of veggies starting the end of May til September. I hope to be able to use all these veggies in some form and start to freeze some. The other change we made this year was to purchase our plants instead of growing from seeds. I had attempted to start some seeds but only 2 lived through vacation. We made a quick trip to Lowes, Monday night and purchased cucumbers, watermelon, squash, snap peas, green peppers, banana peppers, pineapple sage, basil, cilantro as well as a couple of other herbs. The $72 cost for these will be a part of the grocery budget this month as well as the $200 for the food co-op. This is a major investment of approximately half of our grocery budget for the month but in the long run we hope it lowers our cost over the year. It is amazing at how well the plants are growing. I need to get a picture just to show how cool it looks already.
Tuesday was church, Wednesday cheerleading, Thursday night tutoring. We decided to spend most of the day Saturday outside. The weather was awesome 70 and sunny. We got the yard mowed and in presentable fashion. Added mulch to the playground and one of our flower beds, trimmed the bushes in the others and weeded. I am very pleased with the results. Hopefully in the next several weeks we get the rest of our back yard taken care of.
Today (Sunday) is Mother’s Day. EVERYONE attended church today and then we all went to my brother’s for lunch it was nice. I am so happy to be a mother and have decided that God’s plan for my life is awesome!

April where did it go? DISNEY WORLD!
Hopefully more pictures and blog about that soon!

Blogging: 6 is the official number. Honestly, I had anticipated that I would be able to post at least a couple of blogs from vacation but instead we stay out and enjoyed the parks. I am hoping to hit my goal of 15 this month much of which will be pictures from Disney!
Devotions: I am trying but I still have not met consistently 3x a week with a higher goal of 5 times a week. This was better than blogging but I still have not found the established time to do this
Couponing/Grocery Budgeting: My grocery budget actually came in at $500 for the month but that did not include Disney food. I have been able to stock up with some items this past week with 3 trips to Harris Teeter for “Super Doubles” and a trip to Food Lion for stocking.
Financially: Disney enough said!
Weight– Haven’t checked because of vacation,back to the real world in May!

7 days- till we leave for Disney. I am so excited. Today is all about getting ready for the trip. My plan for today is to pack all three of the little ones as well as get a good start on my own packing. Our church Easter Egg hunt is at 3pm this afternoon. I am planning on taking the kids. Matt is currently driving a group of quizzers to Raliegh for practice. He should be home around 6pm this evening. I have several topic for blogging in my head this morning. They include “why I blog” including the idea that my blog allows me to read other very quickly, “my unplanned trip to CVS” where I saved a bunch (probably get this one put together today or tommorow), and lastly and the least likely to ever get written, “why Zac is running around the house naked this morning.” Our schedule for the next week is as busy as I can ever remember it. Monday-Zac has an appointment at Brenners. Wednesday-Lily has the school readiness person coming, Thursday-Matt has Angel food ordering and Friday- School readiness Easter party. I am not working on Monday so I have two long day Wednesday and Tuesday. I am working half a day Thursday and Friday-I have a continuing Education class from 8:30 to 3:30. We also have our small group on Friday night, which I need to finish the “gifts survey” prior to this. Tuesday night is church night and Wednesday night is Cheerleading for Lily. So I seriously need to get packing!

I know I have talked about how important sleep is to me in the past but what a better day to post about it again. We thought we have solved most of the sleep issues when we moved Kendall in the room with Lily, which in turn left Zach in his room alone. But over the last few weeks, sleep has become an issue again. Zach is starting to wake himself up in the middle of the night on a regular basis. Last night after being awake twice prior to one am, he was again awake. Zach ended up calling every name he could think off including the cats, followed by an all out tratum that ended with him completely silent for aobut 5 minutes before starting the snobs again. It took almost 2 hours for him to go completely back asleep. But at 6:05am he was wide awake and in one of his best moods. Matt and I are hoping that after one or two night of completely ignoring him that he will stop waking up for attention at night. Kendall and Lily have decided that they are going to advoid naps if at all possible. It is honestly to the point that in order for one or both to be quiet for 30 minutes you have to spank, and/or separate and spank again. Today I moved Kendall to my bed thinking Lily would be quiet, no she actually is much worse than Kendall crying and whining. I just want to sleep!

I have been asked several times “how in the world can we afford to take a family of seven to Disney World?” In fact, I had one person tell me that I must be rich. The truth is quite the opposite, we are not rich but we make choices based on what is best for our family based on what we think is biblical.

We started talking and planning this trip about a year ago. This was a major help in I started thinking of ways to add to our money. One advantage to having such a long time to plan is that we were able to pay for some things way ahead of time. I was also able to “stock up” on things I knew we would need for the trip. Some examples of this include stocking up on soda when they were on sale in January, buying swim diaper end of season last year. We made reservation for Cinderella’s Royal Table in October. I knew that we would be receiving a nice Tax Refund this year because of having all the kids at home. In fact this will probably be the last year that we receive a large refund because we have changed our dependents to increase our take home pay. We used our refund to buy tickets to both Sea World and Disney and to pay for our house. These were the major expenses besides transportation. We have debated for several month on whether we purchase an older van to use for traveling or rent. Finally we decided to rent based on up front cost as well as the idea of maintenance on 3 older vehicles on a regular basis. The van we purchased right after we were married was paid off in February so we used the “car payment ” for March and April to rent the van.

Now on to the current budget, I am hoping this allows us plenty of “wiggle room”and will plan a post after our trip to confirm this. I am using a modified envelope system. I plan to carry cash and use except for the gas and the additional hotel. We currently are planning on 3 special meals at Disney; Monday- The Royal Table, Thursday- Dinner at Prime Time Cafe for Matt’s birthday and Friday Lunch with Disney Junior characters. As I mentioned above the first has already been paid for. I am budgeting $150 a meal for the other two. Our plan is to have 4 evenings of meal at the house which we are sharing with another family. We also plan to take lunch with us everyday in the parks. I have planned $800 for all food. Currently at least $100 of that will be spent at Costco for convenience foods for lunch. This is the area with the most play since I have purchased alot of food and items on our regular budget to take with us. The girls have planned on going to the “Bipbopity Boutique”. Haley will be paying for her own and I am paying for the girls. We have budgeted $300 for Gas which is based on 2 tanks each way and an additional tank in Fla. Our plan is to leave at 1 am on Saturday night and travel to our rental house, this eliminated one night in a hotel which is a huge expense when you have to purchase 2 rooms. We will be stopping in Atlanta on the trip home to spend some time with Matt’s sister. Our budget is for $250 for the hotel. In addition, we have $300 for “spending” money and souvenirs. Amanda and Haley are responsbile for anything they purchase besides meals. I am planning on bringing in one soda a piece as well as water bottles will be available. Lily has saved some money and will probably purchase one or two souvenirs.
I am actually pleased to say that now that I have written it out it sounds very doable!

April 1st, typically known as “April Fool’s Day” had a way different feeling at our house this year. It marked for me the beginning of the countdown til our massive vacation to Fla. I am so excited, Haley is as well. The little girls and Zach have no idea what it means or how much fun it will be so I wanted to build some excitement. I decided that I would turn this into a family activity, I was going to make a “countdown” chain. We had, yesterday, 15 days until leaving for Fla. I asked Matt to take 2 sheets of construction paper and divide them into eight pieces with line. Lily practiced cutting on a pencil line and I help Kendall cut the other lines that I made larger using a marker. The rest is simple fold and staple. Zach tried to help by handing me the pieces. The chain is hanging on the kitchen curtain rod and each day we get to talk about the trip and cut off a link. This morning it was so cool to hear Kendall ask to take a chain off and then we all got excited about our trip. The countdown chain did inspire me to work on a packing list and budget (firm) for the trip. I am planning a more detailed post of this hopefully tomorrow.