1 Month In

2010- the year I've purposed to be a better steward of our time, money, bodies...the list could go on. By my lack of blogging so far this year I hope you can tell I'm working on that. *smile*


The goals I have already accomplished this year are: 

• making bread from scratch. Well, rolls actually.
• going a 2 week period without spending any money. 
• making a baby gift instead of buying it. Working on 2 more for the next month as well!
• making my own baby food.
• Getting caught up on laundry! How hard is that?! 

And, my personal favorite accomplishment to date this year is......

Cloth Diapering!!

I'm just a {little} excited about cloth diapering. Can you tell? I've wanted to cloth diaper for a long time just never had the guts, time, laundry caught up enough to where I felt I could handle adding MORE loads. 

But, a few weeks ago I got completely caught up on laundry and allowed myself to pull out the cloth diapers and give them a shot. 

I am fortunate that my friend, Brandee, let us borrow her cloth diaper stash until/if she needs them again.  If she doesn't then I can eventually just buy these from her. For now though, they're on loan to us.

I figure until Audrey is fully potty trained-which is soon I hope- we'll be saving about $100 a month on diapers. Wowza-thats a lot of money! We're just cloth diapering at home, not when we're out, so I'm still buying some diapers for on the go. But, I am so proud of myself. And, yes, I feel a bit more accomplished as a mother while doing this for some reason. 

On a side note- my friend Stephanie started blogging. You should give it a read. 

 

6 months ago

6 months ago today, our family was forever changed. 

The Lord answered the prayers of one hard praying dad and saw fit to grace our lives with just about the sweetest little guy we could ask for.

 

  

  

I've never let him take a bath alone. 

Today was his first time.  

What is this? Bubbles, you say?

  

  Splish-Splash!

  

I'm lovin' this!

  

 Hmm....do my crawlin' skills work in here?

 

The more productive I am.....

This was just the status update of Matthew West-

It seems the more productive I am, the less I update my twitter/facebook. So, yeah, I've been pretty productive lately...

It seemed fitting to put that here on my blog...that I have been neglecting lately. 

Ive been trying to be a better steward of my time, and not eat the bread of idleness, so its been lacking in the blogging department. 

I do have some stuff I want to share though! Just need to find the time to share it all!

Hot Water, How I Love Thee

I've been MIA for a few days longer then normal this week. We're almost done with our No Spending 2 Weeks and we've learned some pretty important lessons.

First- when planning on not spending anything for 2 weeks, plan on spending something. As Dave Ramsey says (well something to this affect) Once you get gazelle intense Murphy WILL come knocking.

Second- our wonderful, sweet children are addicted to spending...just like we are. 

Third- we have learned just how much we rely on running water. Hot, running water specifically. 

Last week a terribly cold spell hit Texas, along with most of the rest of the country. The wind chills where we live were hitting BELOW zero. I, honestly, don't think I've ever been that cold in my.entire.life. It was sooo cold! The first night that the (actual) temps were around 10 degrees we left our water running (a no brainer, right?) BUT we made one HUGE, AWFUL mistake. We only left our cold water running! 
I know, I know...what on earth were we thinking?! Derek woke that morning and took a nice hot shower and thought nothing of it. I woke to take a nice hot shower and....only cold, ice cold mind you, water would come out. No.hot.water. Apparently, he used the remaining water in the hot water heater for his shower and that was it. 
He got home from work and, in the 10 degree weather (I checked the temp), he went under our house (which is on pier and beam) to see if he could help thaw out the frozen pipe. Well, where he *thought* it was frozen. There was one section where the dogs had managed to get under the house one summer and tear off the insulation. No amount of blow drying that darn pipe worked.

Fast forward 3 days and the temps get high enough that we *hope* the pipes will thaw. And thaw they did. Along with bursting in 3 places. Nice. Since this happened toward the end of the day Derek didn't have enough day light to fix the problem. So, not only did I lose hot water I lost ALL water. Ugh. Not fun with 4 kids and a house to maintain!

Derek was able to fix the water yesterday and for only 30 cents!! Thank you, Lord!!! He had all the parts he needed except he was short 1 coupling (I think). 

Never again will I take hot, running water for granted. I didn't realize how much we depend on it until I had to function without it for almost 4 days. We were able to shower at Derek’s parents so that was good. But, I couldn't do laundry because the water was ICE cold. I couldn't really wash dishes because the water was ICE cold. Even boiling water and adding it to the tap water was taking pots and pots of boiling water to even warm it up. It was just so cold. 

Due to our lack of hot water, and eventually water at all, we spent some money this weekend. We had to take showers at Derek's parents’ house and make it to a birthday party an hour and 15 minutes away by 2 o'clock. Through all my stressing of getting everyone and everything ready to take to grandma and grandpas and then getting ready to get to the party on time I totally forgot about planning for lunch! 
My kids need to eat...what??? 
So, with sick feelings in our stomachs we had to spend money grabbing food on the way to the party. Trust me, we felt sick. Like..Completely blowing, wasting money since we had been doing so well! Boo!

We have also come to the realization that our kids are as addicted to spending money as we are. We told them our plan but as soon we got into town almost every time this past week and a half they have started with the "I'm hungry. I'm thirsty" whines. Fortunately, I was prepared and offered them the snacks and drinks I had waiting for times when I knew those whines would start. (Score one mom point for me!) They begged and pleaded that it was just Sonic Happy Hour so it wouldn't be that much money. But, I stood my ground and gave a firm no. Even though I wanted just as much, if not more, a nice, cold Sonic Dr Pepper. 

All in all I think we've done really well. Now 2 days from our goal date of spending no money we've spent probably a total of what we'd normally spend in 1 day. Looking at our bank account and seeing the money that is STILL IN THERE makes us really happy and pleased with the self-control we've exercised. 
While we didn't make our goal of spending no money we did realize that we can do it...if nothing unexpected arises. And, we've learned to expect the unexpected because it WILL happen. If no other time then when you're trying your hardest not to spend money, it will happen. 
We also feel like we've broken our addiction to spending money every time we leave the house. So, we're going to continue with the same mentality going forward.
 

Rock a BiBaby

I have a sweet friends baby shower this weekend. Celebrating the birth of their first boy! I'm pretty sure she has no clue this blog exists so I'm going to show you the gift I made her!! 

Idea # 40 in this book suggests you use your hands, or talent, to create a gift for someone. The gift you give them will be more meaningful and show them they were worth taking time to make them something special. Not to say that just because you don't make something doesn't mean its not special.Any gift with thought put into it is special. 

Even though Christmas is over there are still plenty of ideas in the book that you can put into practice. Which is exactly what we're doing. Trying to make giving a lifestyle year round, not just at Christmas.

I ran across a tutorial for a guitar bib and knew this would be the perfect gift for this new blessing! Their doing his nursery in guitars; so it was perfect! 

I added 2 burp cloths and 2 onesies to match as well. For the tie onesie I browsed through Etsy and then chose the ones I like best and duplicated a template like that. For the J, well I just drew that as well. I used Wonder Under for the appliques on the onesies. I didn't use it for the bib though. As a tip if you're thinking about making the bib, I don't recommend using terry cloth. Its kinda hard to sew. Maybe I'm just not an experienced seamstress but it's too stretchy or something. 


Here is the final result-

Also, the website I linked to above, where you can find the bib, also has a tutorial for EASY peasant tops. Here is an example of some I've made from that tutorial.

 

  

This is the same tutorial I just lengthened it to make it a dress.

Bible Memory Challenge!

Since it appears as though we're starting the year with new challenges I though I'd add a new one to the mix! 
 

Scripture Adventures, remember them from here? Well, they are, once again, giving away another FREE download!! 

This time it's a 21 Bible Memory Challenge! Pretty cool if you ask me! 

A friend and I were just talking today about how important Bible memorization is and different ways we could do it. Well...here it is for us! Thanks God! 

How are we doing?

I've had several people ask how we're doing. So, I thought since we're a week into this adventure I'd give an update.

We have eaten every meal at home. Not paid a dime to eat out. This is a big accomplishment for us. Usually we grab fast food at least once per week. Even if it's just 2 $5 Little Caesars pizzas on the way home from church. My mom did bring us BBQ yesterday though. Not because we were dying for something other then home cooked food but because she just offered to pick something up on her way out here. So, we had BBQ last night. 
It doesn't feel like I've been cooking a ton though. Last Friday night we celebrated Derek's sisters birthday so we had dinner at his parents house. Saturday I already posted on what I made for the entire weekend. Monday is one of the days I've gotten into the habit of grabbing food. We have our small group Bible study that night and its family night at Chick-Fil-A. The kids eat free so I figure I only have to buy 2 adult meals so its a steal. I also feel like its worth it not to be stressing about getting dinner made and everyone fed AND to small group on time. This week had other plans though.
Our small group was canceled for lack of a place to hold it. It was suggested we all meet up for dinner one night this week. Oh no...spending money! I knew we wouldn't be able to participate so I just decided to invite everyone out here for dinner and fellowship. This is not something I would normally do because the house is never clean enough. Or I don't have enough to feed everyone or....you get the idea. But, I figured if we don't ever just bite the bullet and do it...it'll never happen. Most of the families couldn't come, for various reasons, but 2 other families did come. And, we had a great time fellowshipping. (spell check is telling this isn't a word. I think it is!) Honestly, I was kinda worried about our budgeted items (read: food and drinks) for the next 2 weeks. But, then I decided if we run out of food and drinks because we opened our home up to friends then it was a worthy enough cause to run out of stuff :)
Tuesday, my brought dinner and last night we had leftovers. (Yeah, I know. I said we don't have leftover nights. I was wrong) So, with tonight, there is a week of meals and no eating out! *woot-woot!* 
Now I've told you we haven't spent any money on eating out. How about other stuff? Well, I can not lie. Derek spent some money. Not a lot; but some. Heres the story. (I feel like a kid getting ready to explain away a sin, lol) 
Derek's company started allowing them to wear jeans about a month or two ago. Derek had 2 pairs of jeans he wore regularly. One pair being a grayish denim. Friday his regular blue jeans got a hole in the knee. Uh-oh. He could  the next 2 weeks without buying new jeans. But, they would be the grayish colored ones and it would be quite obvious he was wearing the same.pair.every.day. Then we remembered my grandma gave us a $25 gift card to JcPennys for CHristmas. Whew, we'd only have to spend a little bit to cover the rest of the jeans. He wears Levi's that usually cost around $50. But, his style are always on sale at one of the dept stores. So, we figured they would be there too. 
We were wrong. 
And, we are not pay full price people. 
The difference of the card and the price of the jeans was $23. We couldn't spend $23. Thats for sure. A couple dollars, maybe. $23? No. 

Derek called me and we talked about it and then he decided to wait and not get any. Ten minutes later he called back and told me he had found his exact style of jeans, his exact size (which usually is hard to find) marked down on clearance!! Only $24.99!!!! Of all the styles and sizes it happened to be his style and size. Thank you, Lord!! How awesome is that!? So, with the gift card he ended only up having to pay tax which was $2.05. 
We both settled that spending $2.05, even during our No Spending 2 Weeks, was worth it. These are jeans for work....and he does need to be in compliance with dress code. Pretty important if you ask me. :)


Another funny has happened this week. People don't often never ask us to go out to dinner with them. I'm sure it has nothing to do with the fact that we have 4 kids, two of which are 2 and under.;) For most people I'm sure that doesn't sound like their idea of an enjoying dinner out. And, that's ok. We know that buy choosing to have a large family there are things, like this, that come with it. And we're good with that. 
Anyways, from Sunday till Wednesday night we had 4, yes FOUR, invitations to go out to eat with friends. All of which we turned down because we set our goal of not spending any money, especially eating out. I explained that to each person and said we'd make plans to have dinner, in 2 weeks. Derek and both thought this was pretty hilarious. 4 times in 4 days, really? LOL Talk about someone sending temptation our way. 


So, all in all I feel we're doing really well 1 week into this adventure. If all we've spent is $2.05, even though we didn't want to spend any, I'll call week 1 a success!

On something totally unrelated. I like comments. My comments section feels a bit lonely. All you friends who are posting comments on my links on Facebook, Post some comments here so these comments sections don't look so bare. K? Ok, thanks :) lol