Party Week

The week of Valentine's Day was a crazy, fun, fun week. We had my mom's birthday party, a Valentine's Day Party, my dad's birthday party, a girl's night out, and a wedding reception. Then there were all the normal things, and an evening preschool board meeting thrown in, just for good measure. It was a great week, but I also wasn't sorry for a little less stress the next week.

We started off with Mom's birthday at Renee and Mickey's house on Monday. They put a number "25" instead of "52" on the cake. How kind.

Hannah really liked the cake.

 

So did Ben...

 

Tuesday night we had 8 extra kids over for a cookie decorating party.

Ben didn't decorate a cookie, he just ate the marshmallow and chocolate chip toppings.

The little boys got to be boys and smash trucks together (not to imply that Hannah is a boy, she just happened to be there.)

And the girls got to be girls and play dress up (again, not implying that Nathan is a girl.)

All the littler kids thought they wanted to play in Josh's bouncer.

Devan took good care of the babies. I'm so lucky that he is so good with kids and he's such a good sport when I want to do crazy things.

And, even though I tried not to let them, they all curled up with pillows, blankets, and popcorn and watched a movie for a while. The quiet was nice. Here is the proof of 11 kids and 2 adults in my 900 square foot apartment.

It was such a fun night. I think I figured out the age breakdown to be 9, 7, 5, two 3 year olds, two 2 year olds, two 1 year olds, and two under 1. I love having a house full of kids! Everyone was so polite and well behaved. It was a wonderful night for everyone.

Wednesday was a break, only leaving for little while to play basketball after the kids went to bed.

Thursday night we celebrated my dad's birthday. We each made individual pizzas for dinner. They were so good, and I used the leftover toppings to feed my family pizza for the next 3 meals. Then we had a gigantic Costco chocolate cake for dessert.

After that party was over and the kids were in bed, I went to an "Alice in Wonderland" themed tea party. It was the most creative girl's night I've ever been to. I have a couple of pictures off my phone, but it was dark and they really don't do it justice. The chairs were arranged in varying heights and the food was all delicious and beautiful.  

An assortment of drinks.

My favorite part (and I'm kicking myself for not taking a picture) was a full skirt and Alice legs hanging from the ceiling. Like she's in the process of falling down the rabbit hole. It was so fun and I stayed out later than I probably ever have as a married person.

Friday I slept. I slept in, took a nap, and went to bed early.

Saturday was Brenda Pogue's wedding reception. It was '50s themed and so fun. I threw together a simple poodle dog skirt for Hannah and I wore a dress that I already had that I think is '50s inspired. We danced and ate hamburgers and by the end I was tired and my feet hurt and I was thoroughly happy and worn out.

A Little Scary

I saw a cute idea on Pinterest to take pictures of your daughter in your wedding dress and then display the pictures on her wedding day. One evening we were bored, so I pulled out the dress and the camera. Then I did a little editing with free online programs and this is what we came up with. Very amateur, but so fun!

This is our old fashioned picture

Innocent little bride

Tough girl



Where did January Go?

I really can't remember what we did in the month of January. Probably just recovered from Christmas. And we didn't spend any money, so I imagine we watched a lot of TV. I know that I started February feeling refreshed, so that's a good thing. I was asked to be the Young Women's Basketball coach, which completely terrified me, so Tuesday nights and Saturday mornings I had practice and games. I figured I needed to learn how to play basketball if I was going to try to teach it, so I joined our church women's basketball team and played on Wednesday nights. I'm without a doubt the worst player on the team, but I had so much fun and met some great ladies. Other than that we just kept busy with preschool and some playdates here and there. I feel like we're FINALLY getting into a good grove for the first time since moving here. I'm glad things seem to be coming together a bit.

One day we went to the new children's museum with Aunt Renee. I really love it. There aren't as many toys there as other children's museums I've been to and I like that. It's mostly things you can climb on and things to manipulate with your hands, which are the favorite activities of Hannah and Ben, respectively.

Hannah and Ben both love the water tables, but Ben especially. He could play in the water FOREVER!

Hannah running around in their really cool boat.

Ben trying to follow her across the rope bridge. She's too fast for him.

Ben loves this one. It's a series of tubes that you put scarves in and they shoot out somewhere else. The place you put the scarves in is too tall for little kids though, so he needs help.

Josh hung out and was a good sport through it all.

Can you tell Hannah dressed herself that day? I actually think she looks pretty cute.

Hannah rocking her baby brother. He didn't like it much.

Luckily he escaped.

They have an amazing art studio. One of the things they can do is paint on the wall. We enjoyed that.

Our Christmas

The day after we got home from our Christmas trip to Utah, we gave our kids their Christmas presents. I'd wanted to do a big "Christmas Morning" but I got too excited. So we did our Christmas morning at night. I made a simple dinner of breakfast foods and we all got in our pajamas.

I got the kids camping chairs during summer clearance and was finally able to give them to them. I can't wait until we can go camping again!

We got Hannah these sparkley blue shoes. She is a shoe girl. I tried to get her to try them on, but she said, "I'm wearing pajamas. These are church shoes. I'm going to go put them in the shoe basket," and she left to put them away. She's so funny!

I think her very favorite present was a baby stroller that I got at a thrift store for $2. Sorry, holiday Barbie.

I got some new additions to my nutcracker collection. I also got a George Foreman grill, upon which I have been making daily grilled sandwiches.

Josh got the traditional engraved ornament for his first Christmas.

I'm a lame-o wife and Devan got things like Beef Jerky, Oreos, and Nutella for Christmas. Luckily, he got some gift cards from other people so he could pick out some toys for himself.

Ben's main present was a set of 5 Yo Gabba Gabba (his favorite show) Beanie Babies. He was so excited. It made me so happy, because at one, you don't really expect a kid to care about anything you get for him. He opened them and started yelling, "Ga!" for Gabba. He still can't say, "Dad," but he knows the name of his favorite show.

We got Josh a box of a few small things. It's hard because we know he doesn't have any idea what's going on, but we wanted to make sure we showed how much we love him.

The kids with all their presents. Looking at this, I feel like I went overboard. I try to never get them anything unless there is a reason like birthday or Christmas or they've earned it in some way. So, all year long, when I see something I really want to get for them, I just save it for Christmas. It turns into a lot of presents sitting in my closet all year. Devan hates that about me. He thinks we should never get them presents during the year AND not get them presents for Christmas.

It was a good Christmas.

No Spend January

We got home from Christmas, looked at our bank account and freaked out. We decided we needed to do something drastic to get our spending under control. And with that, our "No Spend" month was born. We set a few rules:

1. We can pay bills (of course) and put gas in the car as needed. I also decided that any preschool related expenses were fine too. For example, we didn't have to go on this month's field trip that cost $11, but we decided not to punish Hannah in our experiment.

2. We agreed that we'd buy milk, eggs and a few leafy greens every week. I didn't want my stomach to fall out or anything from not getting anything fresh for a month. I also broke down and bought 2 pounds of cheese when I ran out of cheese the first week. There is no way I can go a month without cheese.

And that was about it. No spending other than that. No eating out. No impulse buys at the supermarket. Cut off.

Now, I feel I need to tell you that I am a food hoarder. Our church encourages us to have a food storage and I love it. I love to buy things when they're on sale and know that if troubles befall us, we'll still be able to eat. We bought half of an organic cow this fall for a screaming deal --$3 a pound. You can barely get ground beef for $3 a pound around here and this meat was 1/3 ground beef, 1/3 steaks and 1/3 roast. So, we're set with meat for the year. We have so much pasta and wheat and flour and sugar. We really are set. The problem is, there have been times when we haven't had money for food, but rather than use the food I have stored, I've continued to buy more on a credit card. I just couldn't bring myself to dip into my safety net of food. Well, I decided that I need to use it for what it's for, and a month where we only make $600 is a month when we probably shouldn't be spending any money on anything. And we didn't

We did well. We made it the entire month of January only spending money on our bills, gas, and our few predetermined perishables. It was so good for us. We started making bread again. We got more serious about cloth diapering. When we ran out of something I had to either go without or learn how to make it myself. I learned how to make tortillas, granola bars, and ice cream in a freezer bag. I feel like we had more time together as a family too, not having to run to the store 2-3 evenings a week. I lost 5 pounds which was really surprising for me since I was eating far more simple carbohydrates (at meals) and far fewer fruits and vegetables than I was used to. The difference was, this month I didn't have store bought sweets or snacks to binge on at night and I wasn't eating fast food a couple of times a week. If I wanted something I had to make it. So, I did eat popcorn and cookies and I even made potato chips. But let me tell you, if you're making your own potato chips, you are not going to eat them everyday. They took me 3 hours to make 4 cups.  But we sure did enjoy those chips and it made them taste even better knowing that my hard work went into them and knowing that feeding my family potatoes with a little oil and salt was so much better for them than anything out of a bag. I learned that almost anything homemade is better than store-bought and it's always cheaper. Tastes better and costs less...hmm...

We were invited to a couple of birthday parties and baby showers. Instead of running out to buy a gift, I had to find things around the house to make things. I felt like it actually took some pressure off. I had to make due with what I had, and if it wasn’t perfect, too bad. I did a ton of sewing. I learned how to make raggy quilts and made 3 in the month of January. I also made superhero capes for the two preschool boys whose birthdays we went to.

My first quilt with my third baby.



This month we're back to spending money and it's hard to find a balance. I'm so much better at quitting something than I am at doing it in moderation. I've slipped back into some old habits, but I feel like January made me more mindful of what I spend my money on and what is actually a necessity.