Summer Fun in the Sun

We enjoyed having family and friends over on the fourth of July. It was a small get together but fun. What a nice way to relax. The Andrews hung out all day with us. We turned on the xbox 360 to entertain their little girl and it ended up being a 6 hour Peggle fest. Everyone joined in. They ended up finishing the first series and moving through most of the challenges.

Steve and Jay did the computer thing, as computer geeks will do. ;-) Jay did get our website up and running. Now I just have to take some Frontpage classes to design the website. Hopefully by Christmas we will have itsjustforyou.com up and running.

Yesterday I had my first two presentaions for the new company I joined. I am now a referral rep for a wellness company called Melaleuca. If you are interested in products that are all natural and kid and pet safe, let me know. I can give you more information on the products. And share the success stories we have had with changing over to their vitamin products.

I am excited about my new job. I love the products and enjoy sharing them with others. Yesterday was a little interesting and lots of adventure. But in the end, I did get my first two customer refrerrals. I am happy that I get to help two more families make their homes safer for their kids, pets and the enviornment.

Financial Peace Junior

Today we started Dave Ramsey's FPU Jr. with our kids. I made checklists for the chores they need to complete. I filled out their commission trackers and explained it all to them. Now lets see how well they do.

So far, I have clean bathrooms and they are working on their bedrooms. They have been cleaning like mad since I told them how it works. I wonder how long the excitement will last. I know most of it is from the money they will earn for the chores they do.

Maybe this will eliminate some of the fighting with chores. I made the checklists to avoid the whiny voiced "I forgot" that tends to happen when they clean their rooms. No forgetting now. Although they could still forget how to read! LOL ;-)

It is raining again today so it made sense in introduce the new items today. And it helps with having our class tonight. We will have clean bathroom for when the company shows up.

Our goal is to teach the kids how not to get into debt. Let them learn from the mistakes we have made. We truly are trying to change our family tree. I love Dave Ramsey's class and feel so blessed to have the opportunity to share it with others.

Have a blessed day. I am off to vacuum the family room and to start dinner.

Summer time

Summer is definitely here. It is hot and rainy. Today the thunder is rolling and the lightening flashing. So the kids are in the kitchen. Shay made two batches of bread and helped Zach make yogurt pops.

They are planning out the dinner menu now. It is a surprise so they wont tell me what they are making only that it contains turkey burger. I only know that much because Zach asked me if we had any.

We bought yearly passes to the Brevard Zoo. We went last weekend with some friends. It was a great day. Hot but fun. Next time I have to remember to bring water bottles with us. They have a new lagoon water feature there. I think I will bring the kids up next week. I would this week but they are calling for rain all week. I can't complain though. Our trees need it.

Speaking of trees, I have a star fruit tree in the back yard. I have been babying it for about 6 months because I couldn't get it to bloom or fruit. Well, my babying paid off. I have several blooms and so far 3 fruit growing. I think out of this first set we will get 5 star fruit. The tree is young yet so I am happy with that. Once they start to fruit, they will give off 5 harvests a year. So, this is just the first of many. Now, I am waiting on my passion fruit vine to flower. Steve & the kids got it for me for Mother's Day. It has tripled in size!

That's it for now. Have a wonderful week!

Youth group Prject

Ok, I have been helping with the redecorating of our youth room. We got new t-shirts this year and the youth room is being repainted to match the shirts. It is really awesome.

My part in this - the back of the shirt tells what our youth group theme "Extreme Lives" is all about. So, instead of our wonderful artist, Mrs. Jackie, painting all those small letters, I cut them out with my cricut using an adhesive vinyl. I just finished them and turned them over to Mrs. Jackie yesterday. They will finish the letters while I am gone to North Carolina. I can't wait to see it when I get back.

Finally back

Well, it has been a very busy few months for us. It just seems I never find the time to update my blog. I have tons of pictures to upload from a few field trips we have been on. But our computer crashed last week. I am just getting things back on the hard drive.

We are leaving Friday afternoon to head to Forest City, NC for a week. My in-laws are vacationing up there and asked us to come up for Mother's Day. So we are having an early vacation this year. We are hoping to stop by my dad's place on the way up. I have to double check with him. If we can stay at his place Friday night than we will only have a 5 1/2 hour trip left on Saturday.

I am sure we will be doing some waterfall chasing again this year. I can't wait to go hiking in the woods with the kids. They need to work off some of their energy. They will still be completing some work while we are there. They kinds fell behind when I got sick a few weeks back. They decided since mom wasn't watching every move, they could take and extended spring break.... They didn't realize it would mean they would have to work through a vacation.... I bet they will get it all done next time!

Working together

Steve & I have been hard at work all weekend. We are putting together a budget for the first time. We are very excited that after four hours of eye crossing work, our budget is balanced. That is for February. The month is almost over so now we work on the March one. SHHHH I haven't broken that news to Steve yet. ;-)

Actually, we are both feeling good about it, calmer. Its hard work but so worth it. This is the first time in our married life that Steve has been really involved in our day to day finances. Its nice that he knows where we stand on everything now. And that he is helping too.

I did our taxes today too. That is a relief that its done. I always stress until its complete. We converted my MIL to Turbo Tax this year. She struggled through it, no being computer savy. But she is so happy its done and that she saved so much money. Steve figured it out and even though is took her five hours, she made $70.00 an hour tonight by not going to her accountant. Not to shabby.

We are enjoying this class we are taking. It is true, financial peace brings you closer together in unity and so freeing. I am glad we decided to take the class. I am going to save up and buy his kit for homeschooling and teach it to the kids. I believe it is valuable tool for them to have. We already got Shay a checking account. I am teaching her how to balance it and keep track of it all.

Shaylin had a big weekend. She attended a presentation 2 our church. Tony Dungee (sp) was part of it. There where 7 people to show up at our church for it and Shay was the only girl. But she really enjoyed herself. Than, she had her first youth workday for missions. They do work at peoples houses to help raise money for their mission trips. She has been saving her babysitting money for her trip. She is almost there. The ladies she babysits for slipped her a few extra dollars because they know she is saving up for it. She really has some nice ladies that she sits for.

She also learned how to mow tha lawn this weekend. She came in and told me she enjoyed doing it. I think the fact that she was doing something to help her dad made it enjoyable. There isn't much she can do for him and this was a huge help. She was black when she came in. But she felt satisfied with herself. She sure is growing up fast....

Zach got out of the work and was building a fort in the woods with his friends. typical boy stuff...

How was your weekend???

Changing it up

We are changing up the inside of our house. We have lived here for almost three years but have not made it our own. So, we are rearranging things to suit our needs. Steve is currently in the attic working on the wiring.

We are deleting our "living room" and moving our family room into its place. Than we are moving the kitchen table into the area that the family room was in. This make sense because we have an open kitchen and the family room was part of it. Now we will have a big kitchen/dinning area.

This will also give a homeschooling space. There will be enough room in the "great room" to put a table and a reading area for the kids. I am SUPER excited about this. I eventually want to get a cabinet that will hold my sewing stuff so I have a place to store it all too.

So instead of flowers or a wordy card, my husband is sweating for my Valentine's gift. Which I greatly appreciate!!! We even went yard sailing today & bought a nice table and chairs for the kids to do their school work at. It also doubles as a nice game table for the kids. :-) No more asking them to PLEASE clean off the kitchen table so we can eat at it.

Ok, I just had to share my excitement. This is the first day in a week that I have felt good and the work being done on the house is lifting me up more too. But I won't over do it. I don't want to spend another week on the couch to weak to even make lunch. YUK!!

Have a Happy Valentines Day!!!

Not Much

schooling going on here. I am very sick and have no voice. So it is hard to teach. I have been giving the kids items they can work on by themselves. I have decided to head to the doctors tomorrow. I figure that I have given this enough time to run its course and I feel worse not better. My back hurts and that worries me. Its different than the pain I live with. So I better go get it checked.

Have You Ever Heard.....

the saying that men an women have different amounts of words to speak in a day? It something like 40,000 - 60,000 for men and 60,000 to 80,000 for women. Well, if that is true, I should be going nuts about now. I woke up sick Sunday morning and had no voice. I still have no voice to speak of.

I have always disagrees with those numbers anyways. If you know my hubby than you understand. He sure blows those numbers away. And he is loud. I even bought him a t-shirt with a parent advisory on it for being loud. He proudly wears it.

Do I talk his ear off when he gets home? Sure, I spend my day with munchkins all day. I need the adult conversation. ;-)

Well, i gotta go. We are heading to Joann fabrics. It s closing in our area. :-(

Official FPU Members

Last week Steve and I started a class offered at our church, Financial Peace University. It is offered by Dave Ramsey. The one place Steve & I have struggled in is a budget. We have never been able to complete one so we have never had one. Well, we will now.

It feels good to know we are on the same page and want to work our way out of the hole we have created for ourselves. I know for a young family we have a small amount of debt. But for us it is HUGE hurdle. So now we are getting the tools we need to make our life as uncomplicated as possible.

I had a friend say to me, how can you do that when society dictates that you should shop at the mall for your clothes? He had a boss that he labeled as a "knucklehead" and the only good piece of advise that he had given him was this, if you shop at the mall you have 15 stores with what you want and several choices in color. If you shop at a "bargain" store it has one in your size, no color choice and is ill fitting.

I told him that my kids think it is fun to go shopping at the thrift store and to get a good price. Since they are spending some of their money now, they realize how much longer their money will last if we buy at yard sales and thrift stores.

Than he mentioned pride, I told him I am proud of my family. We don't need designer labels to define who we are. He gave up after that. I have furnished my home from yard sales and newspaper ads. No one would know it unless I tell them. The things we have are high quality and look nice. I just didn't pay full price for them.

It will be nice in a couple of years to say "WE ARE DEBT FREE!!" I am excited about and scared all at the same time. But I know we can do anything short term. We have in the past we can again. I just hate living pay check to pay check. It will be nice to have wiggle room.

Our first step is an emergency fund. We are 1/3 of the way there. Hopefully by this time next month we will have all of our fund in place.

Women's Night at church

We had a women's night last night and it was great. We watched some clips of female christian comedians. They were so funny!!

Check them out, they are worth a good chuckle!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dHHzcig05Sg
Anita Renfroe The mom song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38VtyrJLTfk
Chondra Pierce

What a great night of fellowship we had!

Back to Work

This week I started back to work. Not in the traditional since. I have a work from home job. And let me tell you, it is hard to block off time for work when you have kids at home that you are home schooling. There are a thousand distractions.

So today when the kids went for sewing classes, I stayed home to work. I had 1 1/2 hours of no interruptions. It was nice. I now have a completed report to turn in and one underway. I work for our local hospital. They have a foundation that raises money. And I do research for them. It is a nice job. The pay is good and I set my own time. I just have to discipline myself enough to do the work.

Steve and I had a discussion about this and he is helping me out. It is nice to have his help that way the work and the kids are not all on me. We have time set aside during the evenings when the research is to be done. And when the kids are at other functions during the day. So I will have time to squeeze it in.

I know I am doing the Lord's bidding being at home with my kids and teaching them subjects based on truth not theory. But let me tell you this, it is easier to have a job the you "leave" for. That way the beeping of the laundry and the dirty dished in the sink don't pull you away. ;-)
I am learning to adjust. I have placed the Lord in control and I will go from there. He will sustain me and continue to lead me.

Give Away

Pennyraine is giving away a fabulous book. It is called Dine on a Dime cookbok. If you visit her blog at http://pennyraine.com/blog/2009/01/spontaneous-bloggy-giveaway/
You can enter to win too. What a fabulous book to help start the year off right.

Smooth Re-entery

We started back to school today. Things got off to a rough start. Zach has it in his head that things are suppose to a certain way. Well, his agenda sheet varied from what he thought was the schedule so he decided, I don't have to follow it. So he was five minutes late starting school and his room was a mess.

Well he flew through everything today. And got his room picked up before daddy got home. So he saved himself. I was worried.

Shay did good today. She felt a bit overwhelmed and asked if she could carry over some work to tomorrow. Her language class is pretty intense. She is reading Pride & Prejudice and has to take the book apart chapter by chapter, analyze the characters, write a research paper, along with vocab sheets and spelling sheets. She struggled with it today but I told her she could work on some of it tomorrow too.

Tuesdays are our short days. They have sewing for 2 1/2 hours with Grandma Jean. So they oly have math review and penmanship to do on those days. Shay is also going to be taking a Digital photography/journalism class starting Thursday. That will be lots of fun for her. Zach and I will have to figure out something to do at that time.

Well, it is late and I am off to bed. I have been fighting a migraine for a few days now. My FMS is flaring because we are having cool nights and warm days. When the temp rises and falls like that my FMS flares. Not fun at all.

Have a good night all.