Afternoon fun…or afternoon mess

After a nap time this week, Grace still had a few things that I wanted her to do for school so I had to find something for the little kids to do.  I pulled out the bag of split peas and barley that I have for the kids to play with.  Both Josiah and Hannah love to pour and dump so I knew that this activity would be a hit!  They also love making messes so I had to prepare myself for the mess to come! 

                                         

There were many squeals of delight and joy!

                    

When Grace finished her work, she joined the fun… and spiced things up a little with a twist or two of her own (which made a BIGGER mess)!

                        

They made a HUGE mess, but they had a lot of fun!  I loved seeing them together… all doing the same thing at the same time.  I can’t believe that Josiah is able to do things that the girls are doing… he seems so grown up.  I am thankful that they all genuinely love each other and care for each other. 

Thanks, Dave!

It is no secret that Danny and I are Dave Ramsey fans… we have really learned a lot from his program and continue to live with one income and 3 (almost 4) children with money to give and save.  We want to teach these things to our children as well, so we began a new plan for their chores this new year.  The girls have jobs around the house to do – according to their age and ability – and they get to check off when they do those things on the job chart.  If they do those things and the other jobs that we ask of them throughout the week, they are given money.  We have divided their earnings from before the first of the year into three jars: Give, Save, and Spend.   Now when they are earning money, they must put at least ten percent of their earnings in the Give Jar, some in the Save Jar and the rest in Spend Jar.  We have found that it is easier to give the girls their money in small coins so they can divide it easily.

Give Jar – this jar is meant to encourage them to be “cheerful givers” as the Bible commends.  We want them to know that all of what we have and what we earn comes from the Lord, it is a privilege to give back to Him, and all we have is His anyway.  We have seen that kids are great givers;  both of our daughters had NO PROBLEM putting the required amount into this jar – they even put MORE than that!  How rewarding to us as parents! 

Save Jar – this jar is meant to encourage them be patient and delay gratification for a season.  We want them to work for their wants and know that items cost money.  It will be hard to save and save until they can get enough money for some of their wants as time goes on, but this is an important quality that we desire to build within our children. 

Spend Jar – this jar is meant to encourage them to work hard and get rewarded for it; buying is fun!  It is rewarding to go to a store and get something that you want.  We want our children to make wise choices in what they spend, but to work hard without everything being handed to them.    

Thank you, Dave, for all of the great ideas and encouragement to start our children early teaching them the basics of money and money management!  

Pretty Lunches

I have a hard time being creative when it comes to what to serve the kids for lunch… I usually am stuck in a rut, but the kids don’t seem to care.  There are things that they LOVE and they don’t mind eating them over and over.  Some things I think they would eat every day!  They don’t seem to be bored, but to make the same things a little more exciting, I some times put the same food in different packaging. 

So… last week, I made the same yogurt with fruit and granola, but I put it in GLASS mugs to make it look pretty.  The girls loved my extra effort to make things look good and they ate every last spoonful. 

                     

PS I have been trying new things and new ways to present the old meals… Pinterest helps!

Zoo Review

We have come to the point in our home school year that it is now time for a little review.  We have been very diligent in the first half of the year in our studies, so we are taking a break for review and more fun!  For the next two weeks we are going to review while studying a unit about the Zoo!  Grace has been doing SO well in reading that she challenges herself to read sentences backwards!  What a kid!  She reads whole books and rarely asks for help.  Hannah is more interested in learning letters and numbers, so I am going to capitalize on that immediately! 

We started off the week on Monday with a fun game that the girls wanted to play over and over and over.  I gathered many different Fisher Price animals that you would find in the zoo and made name cards for each one.  I hid the animals around the room and put the cards in a basket.  The girls took turns taking one of the cards out.  After reading the card, they both searched for the animals around the room and put them with their card on the stairs.  If they got a card with the word “zoo” then they had to lose a turn!  BUMMER! 

    

                                                

We have many special things planned for this unit.  Today we learned about Zookeepers and the jobs they do for the animals at the zoo.  If you would ask my precious girls about it, they would just talk about scooping up poopie. Yup… I hope other things sink in!  We also reviewed a lot with numbers by having Hannah add animals to her cages to correspond to the number that I said while Grace finished number sentences with her animals’ help.  She also created number families by using 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, or 10 animals to help her.  For example, she made    0+5   1+4   2+3   3+2  4+1   5+0.  It was fun!  What will we do tomorrow?

Savor every bite…

It has been a tradition just about every weekend for me to make homemade pizza for the family.  Danny has been getting into it recently and making it himself with his special blend of herbs and spices (aka Italian seasoning).  We love this meal especially when we have lots of veggies on the top!  YUMMY!  Until a few weeks ago, we only had chicken wings occasionally, but Danny has been anxious to use his new deep fryer (RIP WING MAKER from James and Bethany!  You were so faithful and made such yummy wings, but you were getting harder and harder to clean!)  Now our girls are really into wings… we have to make at least 2 for each of them.  I pull the meat off of them for Hannah but Grace is now a Pro at eating them herself… and she gets as messy as her Daddy in the process!  

      

Hannah stuffing her mouth with pizza while Josiah is playing with the crushed red pepper flakes

Still saving money

Yes, I have made a resolution to save money again this year.  I think once you have started saving, it will always be on your heart and mind.  I want to save MORE than I did last year, so I am excited to hear what a PROFESSIONAL has to say about couponing at our next MOPS meeting.  We have Katie Kitterman coming.  She is from here in Iowa and is going to share her secrets to saving in our meeting.  She gives seminars in our area.

One of the chief ways that I save money is buying meat in bulk.  Fareway grocery store is the best place for me to find chicken.  I am able to get 10 pound bags of chicken for 39-49 cents a pound (it is hindquarters – legs with thighs)WOW!  Then I take it home and divide it up into dinner portions for our family.  I am able to get about 4 dinners from a 10 pound bag.  AWESOME!  I usually get 4-6 bags when it goes on sale like this!

I also just got a HUGE pork tenderloin (about 21 inches long) from HyVee for $14 with a Hormel coupon.  I took it home and divided it into 2 large pork roasts, and then several meals of THICK pork chops for our family! I was able to get over 6 meals for us for $14 (I know that we will have LO roast!)!

Just wanted to show you what I do…. Maybe it will inspire YOU! 

              

 

                

Hannah learns to write H!

Hannah has been much more hesitant than Grace to learn!  It is so hard NOT to compare the two girls, especially since Grace is an OVER ACHIEVER and WAY BEYOND HER YEARS!  Poor Hannah!  She is a really smart cookie, but she doesn’t get much credit because of her sister’s talents.  BUT we have made a break through.  She wants to read like Grace and has now identified every initial letter from our names – M for Mommy, D for Daddy, G for Grace, H for Hannah, J for Josiah and N for Nanna!  She knows a few others as well!  She is so proud of herself and RUNS to show me the letters that she finds in books!  I LOVE IT!  What a smartie! 

Last week, she was writing on a mirror down in the school room with her special window markers while Grace and I were working.  She started writing Hs – “Down, down, across!”  She kept repeating it over and over out loud as she wrote each stroke!  Just ADORABLE!  She is so proud of herself for being able to make Hs… the first letter in her name.  Now she is marking everything with an H.  I need to make doubly sure that she does NOT write on walls, books, etc. to mark them with her sign! 

Here is the proof… can you see the pride in her smile?!

                              

 

Swings

We have had some unseasonably warm weather in the last two weeks, so the kids and I have been outside every chance we can!  We love being outside, and as I am writing this the temperature has dropped and we are getting flurries!  The wind is supposed to be around 40 MPH tonight... BRRRRR!!  We are finally getting some winter.

While the warm lasted, we got outside and enjoyed the new swings that the girls got for Christmas!  They are working great!  Thank you, PopPop and MomMom.

                                         

A baby BOY is on the way!

Of course Danny and I have been praying for a healthy baby growing inside of me.  We have been name planning and trying to figure out who will sleep where when the baby comes.  But deep down both of us were really hoping for another boy.  Grace and Hannah are great friends (most of the time), so we were hoping that Josiah could have his own brother for a playmate.  God has granted us our desire.

We went to the doctors as a family last Friday and ALL went in to see the ultrasound.  The kids sat in chairs and ate fruit snacks while I laid on the table.  Danny attended to them.  They oohed  at all of the pictures of the baby. They loved seeing the heart beat, the little arms, legs, head, belly, etc.  They were so funny.  Hannah was a little more concerned with the jelly stuff on my belly than anything else.

The technician asked us to close our eyes while she decided what the gender of the baby was.  We gave her an envelop to put her decision in.  When I was all finished, Hannah climbed up on the table just like me.  The Tech was so nice... she did a little ultrasound of Hannah!  She got to see her own kidneys!  She LOVED the cool jelly on her tummy.  What a brave little girl!

When we left the doctors, we went right to lunch where we opened the envelope to reveal that we were having a boy.  I will not post the pictures that show the proof, but it is obvious!  :)

We are already praying for this little life -- BY NAME  -- and asking the Lord for him to be a man of God, one who loves the Word of God and desires to serve Him all of the days of his life.  What a honor to raise another boy to make an eternal difference!

PS.. After we opened the envelop and cheered, I resumed eating only to be interrupted by Danny's comment: "But I really liked the girl's name we had picked, too!"  Oh, Danny!  I nearly choked on my food!  :)

Favorites from Vacation

I don’t have the pictures from the Lightner Christmas PA loaded onto our computer yet; I just got the CD of the pictures from Vicki this weekend.  I will be loading them soon and then blogging about them, but I need to get some of these posts written for the scores of you who are just waiting by your computer and refreshing this blog every hour!  HA!

On the Friday before Christmas we went to see our great friends Brett and Jamie and their son Judah.  They are the type of friends that you see only once a year, but you pick up right where you left.  We talked about family, ministry, friendships, our relationships with the Lord and more.  It was great to see them.  They also had my buddy Rachel and Tim, too!  We are so happy for them and their relationship.  They are really growing and we can’t wait to see what the Lord has for them!  What a story of the Lord’s faithfulness!

The day after Christmas we loaded in the van really early – 6:30am – to drive to VA for the Chase Christmas.  On the way we had plans to stop at Cracker Barrel to visit with Brad and Karen and their kids!  I was so excited that I could hardly sleep and I was all jittery when I knew that we were getting close! We had an amazing time from the first hugs and tears to the goodbye hugs and tears.  It was so special seeing them again and getting connected to friends that we truly care about like family.  We had never met Jadon and they had never met Josiah so that was a special time.   Our girls and Sadie chatted, sang, acted, and just had some great girl time…. it was like they had been friends forever.  I think that they sensed the deep friendship of their moms and dad and just knew that each other were special!  Danny and I felt even more blessed that they agreed to come because it was Sadie’s birthday and they planned their day around seeing us!!  I am glad that we will not have to wait another 20 months to see them!!  We will see them in September!  

After we left the Illians – with hardly a dry eye – we still had about 3 hours to go to my aunt’s in Virginia!  We didn’t have to stop for lunch or gas, and we knew the kids were tired from being up early.  I was hoping for GREAT naps by the time we reached the mountains – AND THEY DID!  

When we arrived we were greeted with lots of hugs and kisses. The kids dove into playing with the kids and loved being out of the car.  Hannah was most looking forward to playing with Bella – my 2 year old cousin. 

Here are some of the adventures while in VA…

 

Coloring on the HUGE cardboard castle and space shuttle that Grampa and Nanna bought for the kids:

                     

 

Meeting Mr. Justin Waples… in person!

Seeing all of the kids play with each other and the grandparents and great-grandparents lovin’ on them!

Seeing my brothers and their families… my girls LOVED their Uncle Adam!!!

                         

We even played a lot outside.  Going for this walk in the woods was FUN!

      

 

                                                       

 

                        

 

 

 

      

              

Bowling…. the cheers throughout the alley made it obvious where the Chases were!

                                                

 

                        

 

                        

 

                   

 

The Chase Gang… minus KK!  We had a great time…