So this is the second in my post from the weekend. Friday night was a BAD night in terms of sleep. I don’t remember all the blurry details but I do know that Zach woke up around 3:30 and it was 5ish before we (see next sentence) got him to sleep. I was so tired that I asked Matt to get up with him at around 4ish but ended up having to get up to clean his nose. So at 7ish Matt got back up with him and then brought him back to me. He felt hot so I took his temperature it was 103.4. Of course I had to take him to the walk in clinic. Matt and Haley had practice for their play at 10am. Amanda was off being Amanda. So I called and asked if Papaw and Granny would watch Lily and Kendall while I took Zach. Of course all four of them had a great time! Zach has a double ear infection. So after I got home; dropped and picked up Zach’s prescriptions and both the girls. I talked with Matt and decided that I would get the girls a nap and then head to Winston. I got both the girls in the car with snacks and picked up Haley from quiz practice. The trip was a success, we purchased Zach a new carseat and about 6 new outfits in 6-9 months. We also went to Costco for our bi-monthly shopping trip. By the time we got home, had dinner, baths and made a desert it was 9:40 time for bed!

I didn’t post a Friday final last week but I am official done with grocery shopping this month according to my monthly budget. I probably will make a couple of small trip to CVS and if Harris Teeter has a special coupon event then I will head there as well. Otherwise I am planning to not spend any more on groceries this month. IF I am able to do this then I will be at my monthly average for last year!

I am so glad it is Monday, it was a long (insert crazy busy with no down time) weekend. Everyone is in school today and Matt left early for work. I decided to break the weekend into two separate post. I am going to work on this post first because it is the most fun!
For the past 4 or 5 years we have a fun tradition at our house for Super Bowl Sunday. I prepare and fix ALOT of junk food and allow the kids to eat it in front of the living room TV while watching the Super Bowl and/or the commercials. The reason we started this was because it was easier to have food here than trying to run one or both of the older girls to different parties to hang out with their friends. On Saturday, I thought it would be fun to invite the Pierces over to share in the fun. Haley decided not to go to the youth party since Andrea was coming and Lily and Isabella disappeared to Lily’s room to play all night. I extended the “junk” food yesterday to use the 3lbs of hamburger that I had bought to make Taco Rice, Chimichangas and chili. The first two are from 30 Day Gourmet, they did not even get touched so I froze the Chimichangas and we will have the Taco Rice for dinner today with Salsa corn bread! For deserts we had Frozen Peanut Butter Bars from the same website and Haley made Chocolate Chip cookies. Chili is something everyone usually loves so I made it for either a chili, chips and cheese dinner or on hot dogs or as lunch! I fried some mozzarella cheese sticks and made Buffalo wings in 3 flavors, hot, mild and BBQ. Matt was most impressed with these because this is the first time I have made these for him! We had Taco Dip, cocktail weenies, Re-fried beans and Sausage Dip. Matt made some Pigs in a blankets and crescent rolls for the girls. Sounds like alot of food and it took most of the afternoon to fix and clean up afterwards but I am really glad to have several meals already prepared for the week. In addition both Matt and Amanda took leftovers for lunch today!
2 future post that I am going to try… first one about Saturday and Zach. IF I have time today I would also like to do a menu planning post/ look at the week ahead!

Not much going on here. Haley was out of school again today, that is four days out of five this week. Matt was also home all day. He is on call this weekend so he may or may not be at home at any given time. We are hoping that he is able to get up ALOT of the backer board in the bath area. I would love for us to get it all complete but I seriously doubt that will happen with everything else going on! Our federal income taxes are suppose to arrive next Friday, with our states to arrive shortly there after hopefully! We are planning on using this money along with Matt’s bonus to complete the bath area and get the room inspected. I am so ready for this to be done. I want my new master bedroom suite with a big comfortable bed, HUGE tub that I can soak in and a nice neat organized closet! Matt and I have spent several hours talking and planning the last several weeks to get our financial situation back on track. I must confess that he is doing better in this area than I am. I am just tired of being poor. But I know in the end it will be worth it! I am really hoping that once we get this room finished it will be easier to get and stay on a budget!

The Murphy I am referring to in the title is in no way related to my sister in law! I am talking about Murphy’s law that says things usually go wrong in set of three and always when you can’t afford to fix all of them! Yesterday when Matt was checking on things under the house he discovered that our chest freezer had stopped working. After thinking back on this it was probably last Sunday when the motor actually died. This freezer is probably 25 or more years old. I had purchased it at a yard sale with Amanda and Haley’s dad. I paid $20 for it 12 years ago and it was old at the time. Luckily, we only lost about $5 of meat (Angel Food popcorn chicken) but mostly it was vegetables and stews that I had frozen last summer. I was slowly using this food in anticipation that I would restock it this summer with things we grow from our first real garden. The bigger issues will be first of all emptying and physically moving the freezer to the dump, followed by replacing it. Most likely, we will keep an eye on both Matt’s boards and craigslist to find an inexpensive chest or stand up freezer. I really like having the freezer but it is definitely not worth the expense of a new one! So now are you wondering what the other 2 broken things are in January? They both occurred on the same day. First the transmission in my van started acting up. Luckily, we used a transmission fix and that has solved the problem for at least the present but we are going to have to seriously ponder a decision on whether we have the transmission repair or replaced or we purchase a new vehicle for me to drive. Lastly our cable and phone connections messed up. They are currently working well 🙂

I like organization and a major part of my organization is lists. So we are really close to the end of the month and since I went ahead and pulled the coupons expiring on the 31st from my book, I thought I would review this month and my goals for this year and see where I stand.

Blogging- I started this blog on 1/7 and currently have 19 post. Not too bad, but I know that several of these post are in the same day but hey I am trying. One of the reason that I started blog was to help me stay out of surviving mood. Looking back I realize that for the first 4-6 months after giving birth my main goal is to survive and to keep up with life. I distinctly remember this last year after Kendall. It was also around the same time I found out that I was pregnant with Zach. So that feeling of now I can start enjoying didn’t last long! I did make the major decision to stop working part time and work a little (less than 5 hours a month). I know without a doubt that this was the right decision. Finally almost a year later, I am feeling like I am beginning to establish a routine. I can ENJOY my days at home with the kids and enjoying them as well as keep up with everyday life and not go crazy. By blogging I am also able to go back and remember and keep these memories so that 5 years from now when Zach goes to school, I want to look back and know that I not only was home with the kids but actually accomplished ALOT while doing it!

Financial- Well as I have posted in the past, we have WELL exceeded the monthly grocery budget but I expected as much this month. I am hoping that each month this will go down and by the end of the year I will have reduced the average by 1/4. I am getting into the swing of couponing and learning that I need to ask for rainchecks and save coupons even if I “might” use them!

Preschool- I don’t think that I have blogged about this but one of the goals I had for this year is to be more consistent with “preschool” with Lily. She LOVES to learn and is always eager. My goal is to do “preschool” with her at least 3 times a week. We started this again in September and have been luck to get 6 a month in. Well this month has been awesome. Two weeks ago, we had home “preschool” 3 times,last week 4 time and so far this week 4 as well. Lily has already requested that she go to real Preschool in the Fall. I am still undecided. Part of me knows she would LOVE it but I also don’t like to have to get out of the house every day to take or pick her up! I am also concerned about the cost of a 2 or 3 day a week preschool. I am hoping that by doing more home preschool she will not be too disappointed if we decide not to enroll her!

Bible reading- I probably have done the worst at this. But even this is an improvement than the past. I have been able to read 20 Psalms so far. I am going to work on improving this next month.

Diet- Matt and I started the Atkins- I have managed to lost 3-4lbs in combination with my cheapness and cheat days!

Yes, you read that right..Socks are EVIL! You should realize by now that I place a high value on sleep. Unfortunately my children don’t feel the same. Lily has always woken up several times a night. We FINALLY got her out of our bed just prior to Zach’s birth. She still sleeps in our floor 3+ nights a week. Kendall is by far my best sleeper most night she sleeps 12 hours however she has to be in her bed for this to happen and she has the cutest position, butt up in the air and ankles crossed. We discovered on our trip to Illinois that she also does not like her socks on when she sleeps. Unless she is in a one piece sleeper she takes her socks off before going to sleep. As of yesterday Zach has discovered that taking his socks off by pushing is fun as well. SOCKS ARE EVIL!

So last night I was exhausted. I was in bed by 9:30pm. I was woken by this small voice “MOMMY, the sock monster has taken my socks”, repeated several times. “Lily go to sleep it will be ok.” “NO mommy, I NEED my other socks.” After several minutes of crying I get up to hand her another pair of socks. SOCKS are EVIL! I barely got back to bed and I hear Zach crying. I checked and it was 3am so he was hungry. Of course he also had managed to lose both of his socks. So after feeding him, I was forced to turn on the light to find the missing socks for his feet! SOCKS are EVIL! So after finally getting his socks back on I went back to bed. Kendall woke up at 6am this morning crying why? Because her feet were cold.. SOCKS are EVIL!

One of the reason that I felt I should start this blog was MckMama and her ongoing discussion about blogging boldly not just the happy easy stuff. You would think this would be easier for me as I only have a few people who will ever read this but that is not the case. I had intended to blog everyday and yesterday was the second day I missed. I had composed a blog post in my head Monday night but then it hit me; “I have a goal to blog everyday but not to spend time in Scriptures.” Ouch, where are my priorities at, my blog before God. So I decided that until I figured out a realistic time for me to at least read and pray everyday I would not blog. I know myself and if I don’t figure out where something fits in my routine it won’t happen on a regular basis. So now I have decided that I will have my personal devotion time at night right before I go to bed. This worked last night and I am hoping to make it a habit. I am hoping to post another post(the one in my head) later today but who knows as we are heading to Walmart for pictures this morning!

Okay so I have already missed one day of blogging. But hey that is life and Sunday (yesterday) was so busy that I just did not have time :P.

This weeks looks really busy from the outside but I keep telling myself that it is normal and I have more time than I think. I pray this is the truth. Today, my BFF came over this morning to hang out before she had to go to work. It was awesome, I enjoyed talking to her and we got to catch up on things. For the rest of the day, I need to do at least 3 loads of laundry, working on getting the snow village down so I can clean the living room, make the peanut butter desert for Sunday. Tuesday, I have to start working on organizing Tax information which includes a major cleaning of the file cabinets. I also need to get the chocolate crackers made for the Dedication. The weather is predicting flurries so Haley may be at home. Wednesday, finish up the stuff I didn’t get to on Monday or Tuesday and clean the house! Thursday most of the day is spent on Angel Food. I will be at the church from 10-1 and then Matt is there from 5-6. Friday, Nancy is coming to watch the kids in the morning so I can cook…….

Ok I can do it 🙂