Category Archives: Kendall

5 Things Friday 6/21

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Today is the official first day of summer and it marks the end of my first week of summer break! Lily and Kendall left for church camp early Monday morning. I have some really cool pictures to post from Kendall including rock climbing and archery. Lily did mange to sprain her thumb but still sounds like she is having a great time.

2. The square foot garden is continuing to grow the best I can remember. This week we have picked green beans and peppers. My cucumber plants finally look like they are growing! I did break down and buy both cucumbers and peaches from the farmers market this week.

3. Several years ago, I decided to attempt to create an edible landscape. This year both the apple and pear trees are large enough to produce fruit. We added 2 pecan trees that grew in my mother’s flower beads that are thriving as well. My third attempt at a peach tree has 3 leaves. I decided to try something new and planted 5 pits from the peaches I bought this week. I will be thrilled to grow even one as they are very expensive from the nursery. I also have started a blueberry blind. Yesterday, we planted another plant to replace several that died this year. The exciting news is that we also managed to find and tie up two other plants that I assumed were dead! The kids really enjoying picking and eating the blueberries and I am hopefully that 3 years from now some may actually make it inside.

4. I have spent $30 on groceries this week, including items from the farmers market and bagels on sale at Alidi. We also have not spent any money on gas which is exciting decrease from 3 tanks a week.

5. I feel like I am achieving a good balance, keeping things caught up and extra cleaning at home while enjoying time at the pool, reading and relaxing as week. I wonder if this will change next week when the girls return?

5 Things Friday

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  1. Today is the last day of school. This week has been a whirlwind of activities and events to mark the end. Today, Kendall has her 5th grade graduation! Zach’s awards day was on Thursday. He has maintained an A average for the year. My mother is correct in her statement that I really deserve the awards as much as we struggle each week in spelling. Zach was also voted “Future President”. I hope this means he has a charismatic personality!
  2. We are starting to harvest several items from the garden, We have several LARGE zucchini, a couple of handfuls of snap beads, a random pepper about once a week and of course dill and basil. I am really excited to see some blossoms on our cucumber plants!
  3. Kendall has decide that she wants to cheer next year. I signed her up at the booster club. They will be cheering for football and basketball. The season runs from July to February. I am excited that she wants to cheer but also know it will mean some juggling of our schedule.
  4. The kids are planning to attend several camps this summer. Lily is going both to camp and a national youth event. Zach has baseball camp, and arts discovery camp. Kendall is going to church camp and already has several other days planned around middle school chorus. We, as a family, are planning a 5 day missions trip in addition to our annual beach trip.
  5. I have four and half days of work left! 9 weeks of summer vacation is starting to sound shorter and shorter! But I am so excited!

Clothing

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Beside groceries, you could easily suspect that clothing is one of our bigger expenses. Especially given the fact that prior to last fall, I wore scrubs four days a week. I probably spent less than $100 total on work clothing in those 12 years. Matt also has transitioned from wearing jeans and t-shirts to a more traditional work outfit. However, we have definitely been blessed over the years in the areas and we continue to receive blessing.

The girls often, at least once every 3 or 4 month have received bags of hand me down clothes over the years. Zach, since starting school has been gifted with clothing over and above any wants he could have. During the past several weeks, I began to notice that Kendall’s jeans were getting shorter and shorter and then ankle short. Lily has also been complaining about not have any “public” long sleeve shirts or sweaters to wear. Last Sunday, in fact, she ended up borrowing a sweater to wear to church from Kendall.  Matt and I decided that we really needed a trip to Goodwill and that we also need to take a good inventory of what clothing we had and what we needed.

At Goodwill, Kendall was able to locate a pair of jeans and a pair of capris that she really liked and Lily found 2 sweaters that she could use for layering.  The total spent was $14. We were also blessed by one of Lily’s  friend who after hearing Lily says she borrowed a shirt decided to clean out her closet and passed two huge bags of clothes down for the girls. I have been working on cleaning out my closet over the past several weeks and am actually at the point were most if not all the clothes that are left are unstained and something I have worn in the last year.  The kids all spent last Sunday afternoon and some time this week, going through and cleaning up their closets. I am so happy to report that each of the kids  has enough clothes not only for the rest of winter and spring but also the summer. Kendall “found” 3 additional swim suits in her closet that were the perfect size for Lily to finish out our needs list.

Matt and I have also been slowly, replacing some of our more worn out clothes, and updating some clothes as well. He needs mainly pants as his shirt collection is huge and I need more “professional” clothing as t-shirts are only allowed on Fridays. I receive lots of advertisements from multiple clothing stores on a daily basis. Today, I noticed that Old Navy was running a sale on dresses and jeans. I have been saving my Verizon rewards for the past couple of months and had two $5 gift cards from them.   I even remember to shop via Swagbucks. I am super pleased with the outcome. I purchased a pair of jeans for Matt, a pair of Khakis for Matt, 3 simple long sleeve dresses for me and a pair of bike shorts for either Lily or Kendall. I added the shorts for $2.08 in order to receive free shipping. I used $10 gift cards and spent a total of $45. I did receive $20 in super cash and another $5.69 from Swagbucks!

Kendall’s Glass

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I have already shared how we spent much more than anticipated in the month of January. So far we are starting the month of February off with a bang as well.  On the way home from work, Friday afternoon. I get a text from Kendall that said “I broke my glasses at school today.”  I asked for pictures and got the followingAt this point, I knew four things. 1. These probably were not fixable.  2. Kendall’s prescription for her glasses expired in March. 3. I did not plan to take the kids to the eye doctor til at least July, when my new vision insurance starts. 4. Kendall only has one set of glasses with her current prescription.

I did some quick research and called Matt to have him meet us in Winston- Salem at the closest Vision Works store. I was very fortunate that Vison Works currently had two specials. The first is a Buy One Get One Free and the second was 2 pair of kids glass for $99.  Unfortunately the $99 special was for frame that cost $69 and did not include transition lens.  We decided to purchase two pair for Kendall with the transitional lens for $299.  Ouch but at least now we should be able to make it to July or later without new glasses. Kendall is also requesting contacts so this may be a very long term pair of glasses.

Lily and Zach both have multiple pair of glasses but they both located $69 frames they LOVED and did not need the transition lens since they already have several pairs at home. I did purchase the additional pairs for $99.

$400 and 4 pair of glass later… all I could say is welcome to February!