We Finally Got One..

A library card that is!!

I know that doesn't seem like a big deal and well, it probably isn't. We live outside the city limits and do not pay any taxes into the library, therefore it is not free to us. So I am excited that we finally took the plunge.

Now that the kiddos are getting older and enjoying reading and I can enjoy cool reads of my own, we figured now is just as good of a time as any. Before we relied on thrift stores, garage sales, book sales, etc. for our books and I will still look there for books, but I just like having a library card.

Wanna know what books I checked out on our first trip?

Of course you do!!!

Miserly Moms by by Jonni McCoy - Love it already
Frugal Families by Jonni McCoy - Very useful information, alot of which we already do though.

"I Can't Believe I Get Paid To Do This!" by Stacey Mayo - Not real sure why I chose this one, I had never heard of it before. We will see how it goes.

October Song by Beverly Lewis - Because I have a fascination with the Amish and their lifestyle.

From Amish and Mennonite Kitchens by Phyllis Pellman Good & Rachel Thomas Pellman - Seriously, I love the Amish! Actually, I just love the simplicity of their lives, their minimalist way of living and since they pretty much bake everything from scratch, I figure that these recipes have to be yummy..at least I hope!

I have a list going on of books I want to read, but I have to pace myself, right?!

My Vacation Challenge To Myself

I love a challenge, don't you?

My family and by "my" I mean my family (husband, kids and I), my mom, my sister and her family & my brother and his family, try to a vacation all together every other summer or every couple of summers.

We decided that this summer would be "our" summer to go. We are an ocean/beach family. There is something about standing on the shoreline, looking out into the open water and thinking abour our Creator. I am in awe at His creation of our world everytime.

ok..ok back to the challenge.

My sister and her husband graciously offered to take care of everyone's lodging.

I know, right?

That is probably the biggest expense when it comes to vacations.

She rented each family a condo in Myrtle Beach, SC.

Yes, she is an awesome big sis!!

Well, as you may remember my husband and I at the beginning of the year made some financial goals and we would like to stick to them, so I knew that I needed to become creative in how I was going to save for our vacation.

With us all staying in condos, for the most part we will be eating in, with each family taking turns hosting dinner. So I will be using my regularly budgeted grocery money that week for food. There will be a few meals eaten out however.

Gas will be the same, we will use our regularly budgeted gas money that week + a little more. Not sure how much more, it will depend on the price of gas.

So we need to come up with our "fun" money. There are some attractions that we know that we would like to do while there which involve purchasing tickets. Multiply that times six and some of the adventures can be pretty costly.

But we want to do them.

So I have made it my mission challenge to have these completely paid for before we leave.

I do this so that we do not touch any savings.

I do this so we can stay on track with our goals.

I do this because it is fun - I love challenges.

A couple of weeks ago, I went online to get prices for what we are hoping to do while there..other than spend a ton of time on the beach.

I came up with the total....gulp...$498.70..YIKES!!!

After digesting that..I went online to find coupons..surely there are coupons or at least group rates, right?!

There were coupons for all, but with one activity it was cheaper to do a group rate.

I brought my $498.70 down to $440.70.

Still alot of money.

But I knew/know I could do this, so I started last week.

I amazingly came up with $97.34!!!

I am almost a quarter of the way there!!

YEAH!!
Here is how it broke down:

$9.60 - Ebates

$17.33 - Ebay (I reflects ebay/paypal charges already subtracted)

$66.00 - Writing Projects

$4.41 - I am not sure where it came from!

I will let you know how I continue to do....

Celebration Weekend

This weekend was a celebration of my daughter, my oldest child's birthday.

She turned 12.

She smiles alot...

She makes crazy faces....

She is convinced that she is a 12 year old trapped in a 16 year old's body. oops that doesn't make sense, now does it?
I meant she is convinced that she a 16 year old trapped in a 12 year old's body...ok better.

Sometimes I think the same thing.

It was a wonderful weekend that we pretty much celebtrated all weekend long. We reminisced about the day she was born. We talked reluctantly about the fact that we will have a teenager in the house next year.

Where does the time go?

As I was thinking about her this weekend, remembering all the firsts with her, I realized how much she has taught me.

It was with her that I experienced a true taste of unconditional love..I finally was able to understand in my earthly mind a taste of what our Heavenly Father feels towards us.

I remember how naive I was as a first time soon to be mom. When I was only 12 weeks along, I went to the doctor for a check up, he was trying to listen to the heartbeat.

He couldn't find one.

He retrieved a mobile ultrasound machine to find her and to make sure all was alright..although he never mentioned that all may not be right.

Not. One. Time. did it occur to me that something could be wrong. I was just excited because I was going to see my baby!!

Two miscarriages later, never again would I take a positive pregnancy test for granted or the heartbeat of my unborn child. I understand the fragility of life now.

I grew up a lot with her.

I love her so much!!

Happy Birthday..baby girl!

The Summer is Coming to an End..

Only 18 days left of summer for my kiddos. Boo.

We just returned from church camp, the one I attended as a child. I have not been there in almost 20 years. While they have updated the actual campgrounds, the spiritual feel remains unchanged. The Holy Spirit moved just as always and souls were saved. Our plan is to go back next year. My camera did not work for me properly, I think it was bad batteries, so I only have a few pics from my phone. Another boo.


We still have one more trip planned before the summer ends. We are going to Kentucky for a weekend. We go because of a family reunion that occurs on a Sunday afternoon, but we always go down a day or two earlier for a little shopping and recreation!

Hope everyone is having a great summer!! Enjoy!!!

Locks of Love and Other Fun Summer Stuff....

At the start of our summer, my eight year old decided it was not only time to cut her hair, but to cut it short enough to make a donation to Locks of Love

Before...






After...





Because she made the donation, her haircut was free!!!


Also at the beginning of our summer we went to the St. Louis Zoo. Never before I had I walked so much in a single day. We were with our family, so we looked at everything, rode the train, saw the sea lion show, petted the sting rays, fed baby goats, you name it we did it and had loads of fun!!!










Here are my four with my neice and nephew..great looking bunch!!



We also had the opportunity to go see Beauty and the Beast performed. Unfortunately, that day we went started off alright, went bad, then was great again, however, during the brief bad time, I forgot my camera..so this is all I have for you!!!





While we still have several things on our plates to do this summer, including trips to Chicago and Kentucky to see family and dare I say, I am working up the courage to take all four of my kiddos to church camp - yikes!! This has been the best summer we have had in a long time..it is all about making memories that will last forever.

Toy Story 3 and Shrek the Final Chapter....

My son had really been looking forward to seeing Toy Story 3. He had received Toy Story & Toy Story 2 (Blu-Ray, nonetheless) for Easter, thanks to a great deal that I, mom, I mean the Easter Bunny found. Each of the dvds came with a free ticket to see Toy Story 3 and an interactive game for the computer. The two tickets were supposed to be for him and dad to have a guys night out.

Well.......what was supposed to be a guys night out, turned into a family night out...







We ended up going to our local drive in and for $18 all six of us saw Toy Story 3 and Shrek 4. If you need help with that, it equals $1.50 per movie for each of us. We made popcorn before we left and brought some other snacks. We also made a big jug of ice sweet tea. The only drawback was that the first movie didn't start until 8:15, but it was a Friday night, so no biggie. It turned out to be a great night. The youngest didn't make it through all of Toy Story 3, our son made it through all of Toy Story and most of Shrek. Our oldest two made it fine through both.



Oh and just so you know son and dad have other things planned to make up for their Toy Story 3 guys night out. They were great sports though and didn't mind us girls tagging along!!!

Kansas City Trip Part 3: Deanna Rose Farmstead

In trying not to be completely waterlogged, we decided to take an afternoon and visit the Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead in Overland Park.

"Designed to depict a turn-of-the-century family farm, the Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead has almost 200 animals and birds of prey, vegetable and flower gardens, a one-room country schoolhouse, an old-time fishing pond, pony rides and more" .

My kids love this sort of thing. They are nature lovers and animal lovers. My six year old son's dream is to own his own farm or even his own zoo. The girls equally love the outdoors. We have had a variety of animals throughout the years, including a blue haired rat...yes, you read that right and yes, we actually paid for it. It has gone on to rat heaven though..sniff...sniff. (Read that as sarcastically as possible!!) They have even used their saved money to purchase their own plants for the garden. So visiting this Farmstead was a must on our vacation.


This is our oldest enjoying her pony ride...our son also rode a pony, but every picture I took had some little girls head bobbin up...





Our eight year old bottle feeding the goats. This was something all of the kids really enjoyed, even our two year old. I think it was the fact that she was feeding them with a baby bottle, just like she does her babies..well almost.




Pretending to milk a cow...





Sitting on a cow....




This was a fun thing too..here they are mining for gem stones. They were allowed to keep whatever they found...




Our two year old conversing with the chickens...





I definitely recommend visiting the Deanna Rose Children's Farmstead if ever in the area. Admission is free. There is a cost to do the various things, but they are very inexpensive - we are talking $3.

It was also very informative. In each area there was a staff member there to give a little history lesson and to answer questions. For instance, did you know that there are really not any wild buffalo in North America? We actually have bison. Buffalo and bison are similar, however, buffalo are native to Asia and Africa, where bison are native to North and South America.

Go ahead google it..you know you want to...I did...LOL

Kansas City Trip Part 2: T-Rex Cafe

My husband is a deal maker, especially with our kiddos. The "big" deal on this trip was with our six year old son....isn't he a cutie?!


The deal was that he if he would go down one of the big slides (provided he was permitted)we would then go to the T-Rex Cafe for lunch or dinner one day. That was all our dinosaur lovin' little guy needed to hear. Within the first five minutes of entering the waterpark, my son and husband had gone down the big blue slide..I wish I had a picture. As soon as he was up out of the water, he confirmed that we would be going to the T-Rex Cafe.

We did.

He loved it.







Unfortunately, our youngest was not quite as excited to see these creatures, ok, not only was she not excited, she was plain ole' scared. She stuck close to mom and Oma on this outing. Our oldest, well, she, of course, is entirely too cool to even begin thinking that this dinosaur restaurant was remotely exciting. She still had a good time though, inspite of the uncoolness of it all!!!



Edited to add:
Prices were a little on the high side, however, the amount of food you receive was unbelievable. We took our leftovers back to the Lodge with us and had them for dinner that night. All in all, it was worth it.

Summer Fun At Great Wolf Lodge

This week we had the privilege of spending four days and three nights at the Great Wolf Lodge in Kansas City.

IT. WAS. AWESOME!!!

If you are not familiar with the Great Wolf Lodge Resorts, they are a very large indoor waterpark. I loved the fact that while they did have an outdoor pool area, the actual waterpark was indoors, which means weather and sunscreen were not worries.

Below are pictures of the waterpark and our stay at the lodge....enjoy!

This is what you see right when you walk into the waterpark area..pretty cool, huh?! There are a total of five slides, three of which are partly outside.


This is one of the pool areas, my two youngest daughters spent a good deal of time here, they even made friends!! The deepest part was 4'3" - which was perfect. My two year old wore her Coast Guard regulated swimming vest that the Lodge has available.




Cute, huh?!


Every five minutes, that large bucket dumps 1,000 gallons of water on the crazy water lovin' people below.



This is the area just before you enter the waterpark. There is one of the two shops on the grounds. This one is primarily for those items that maybe you left at home...like swimsuits (lol), goggles, batteries, etc. This is also wear they check the height of the kiddos to determine what or where they can play in the waterpark. Fortunately, with the exception of our two year old, there was not really anything that they could not do.




Once you are done pruning for the day, you can hit the arcade located near the entrance to the waterpark. You can earn tickets to turn in for prizes, which we did. Each one of our children eneded up with 230 tickets a piece to spend... we might as well have sent them to the dollar store with one dollar to spend, yes, it was that painful. The attendant had the patience of Job and did not seem to mind, probably just thankful that we only had four kids!!




There were certainly other non-water activities available to guests including storytime, which we somehow managed to miss every night, Cub Club Crafts, my wonderful husband took the kids to do this activity while his mom and I shopped at the Legends outlet mall.. yup... you read it right, the Lodge in Kansas City is right next to a huge outlet mall!!!

Overall our family gives the Great Wolf Lodge two thumbs up.. it is a great family getaway and while initially the prices can seem to be high, when you consider that it includes lodging plus the use of the waterpark, it really is not bad. The employees were fantastic and the customer service really could not have been better. There were numerous life guards on duty at any given time and they were all very well trained, never did you see them standing around talking, but rather always were walking around their given area, watching the swimmers.


**Believe it or not, I was not compensated in any way for the above review and it is my opinion only**

I Just Have to Share...

what a wonderful weekend we are having!!

We took the kids to Our Lady of the Snows shrine Friday night. My oldest rode a camel, while my son rode a donkey. The other two enjoyed watching them ride, but were a little unsure that they need any other transportation other than their own to feet or mom & dad's van.

We drove through the Way of Lights and tested each other's knowledge on the true meaning of Christmas. I am proud to say we passed!!






Yesterday I was able to get up early, sneak out of the house and go Christmas shopping with my mom. We had a great time.

Then last night Brian and I decided to make a cake using fondant for a family Christmas get together that we are going to today. We enlisted the kids for help, ok actually they volunteered.. Ace of Cakes and Cake Boss is a family fave in our house. While we won't be having our own show anytime soon, I think our collective effort made for a pretty cute cake and certainly made for some great family fun!! Take a look...






As if our weekend was not filling enough, after church we will be heading to a get together with Brian's family for some food and games!!

I hope you had a wonderful weekend too!! Enjoy!

What a Weekend....

This three day weekend was so busy! Filled with fun though!
My sister and her family who live in Chicago visited this weekend and as usual we had a really great time.

We went to two parades, went to the Barnyard Olympics at Eckerts Farm and then apple picking! The best part of this fun filled weekend, other than getting to spend time with our family, is that most of it was free - we obviosly had to pay for our apples that we picked!!! I love being able to do things with the kids, but since we are really trying to watch our pennies, we really rely on community activities that are free or almost free - the bottom line is the kids are having fun, we are making memories, they don't care or even know if it is free or not.

I have included some pics of our eventful weekend






She really isn't as high maintenance as she looks!!!



My beautiful neice Amber!