budgeting

So, Norm and I are big Dave Ramsey fans. We actually did a lot of what he teaches even before we'd ever heard of him, but we had kind of fallen off the budgeting bandwagon for a while. When I started listening to him in the car whenever I had errands to run in the afternoons, we became inspired to begin budgeting again. The kids have really been very cooperative about the whole thing by not whining and asking for things that we tell them aren't in the budget. It helps that at this point we have some room for fun things in the budget, but, still, they've been great about it.

Today, I took them shopping to get some things for each other for Christmas. I started out with Avonlea. She and I had talked about how much she could spend (which wasn't much) and agreed that I would pay half and she would pay half out of her spending money. The first three gifts were easy and under budget so that she actually had a little extra for the other two if she wanted, but not very much. Those two were harder, and we walked around the store for a while looking at things. Over and over she would look at something and see the price and say, "That doesn't fit my budget." I loved it! I kept feeling tempted to tell her she could spend a little more, but I didn't do it because I think that the lesson in not spending more than you have is more valuable than any of the presents she could have bought. Later, I headed out with both Felicity and Elisabeth. Both of them bought all their presents with their own money this time, and they both decided how much to spend before we entered the store and stuck to it. Christmases past have usually involved spending Mom and Dad's money for presents for each other with only a loose price limit, so this was just so great to see. And I even think that the recipients will all like their gifts.

In other great news for today, I cleaned my room! I usually like to keep it clean (just because it's one of the few rooms that doesn't get messed up again in five minutes), but it had gotten pretty cluttered. It's hard to retreat for a few minutes of rest at any point in the day if my room is at all messy. So, today I took a break from the Christmas preparations and renewed my retreat. I didn't relax at all today, but I feel so much more relaxed just because there is one clean room in the house!

exercise your brain

Growing up, my identity really centered around the fact that I got good grades. "Smart" was who I was, and it was a big adjustment for me when I finished college and became a stay at home mom and no one cared anymore what my GPA was. Sometimes I still like to do little quizzes and games to make me feel smart, and according to this website, doing things like that can help keep your brain fit. Of course, as I play some of these, I realize that I'm not as smart as I used to be. :)

scriptures and prayer--twin style

Today Isaac was saying the blessing on the food. Well, let me back up and say that Isaac has been excited about Christmas for about two months now--ever since the subject came up as Christmas things began to appear in the stores and I started to ask the kids what they might like for Christmas this year. He's been begging for a Christmas tree all this time, and one of his most frequent things to say has been, "Christmas not yet." Well, yesterday we finally got the tree out. It's not decorated yet, but it's prelit, so it still looks Christmassy with the lights on. So, today, here's what Isaac prayed (remember, he's supposed to be blessing the food), "Dear Heavenly Father, please bless the Christmas tree and....bless the Christmas tree...." I whisper, "Bless the food." So he says, "Please bless the food and the Christmas tree. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen." Do you think he likes the tree? I wonder what's going to happen when we have to take it down!

Tabitha wanted to "read" from the scriptures tonight. We have an extra set that she likes to call her own, so she gets that out, opens it up and begins, "And it came to pass..." so far so good. Obviously, she's been listening some of the time when we read scriptures. "And it came to pass that there was a guy...and he had an eye and he had another eye. And it came to pass that this guy had another eye." By that point we were all laughing so hard that she stopped "reading" to see what was so funny. One of the girls suggested that she meant the letter 'I' instead of the word 'eye' because she recently learned to write 'I', but, even though she kept pointing at the page when she said, "eye" I don't think she was looking for the letter 'I' because the scriptures she likes to call her own happen to be written in Japanese. They're Norm's old missionary scriptures. It might be a while before she can really read them. :)

Elisabeth made this delicious apple pie for Thanksgiving. She truly did it almost entirely by herself. I can never decide if she's going to be a great musician, a great linguist or a great cook when she grows up. :)

Here's Felicity with her great facial mask on on her birthday when I did her facial and her nails. I'm sure this picture will be a favorite for years to come.

Here you can see her hair. It's hard to see the highlights because they're subtle. They just make her hair look a little bit lighter really. She likes it though.

Once a month blogging

You know how some people do once a month cooking? I think I should try once a month blogging. That would mean that I am right on time since my last post was exactly one month ago.

We had a really quiet Thanksgiving here. It was just us, and it was so peaceful. I did spend a lot of time cooking, but we ate and had things cleaned up by about 3:00, so then I had the rest of the day free to do other things--mainly enjoy our families current obsession: Stargate. We've now finished all of the SG-1 series, including the two movies and have moved on to Atlantis. We've had such a busy time this semester with so many classes and lessons, that I felt especially thankful for the time I got to spend with Norm and the kids.

I have to say, I just love having a babysitting age daughter. It is such a joy to me to be able to go to the store without taking five kids along. I think I may survive raising all of these little crazies after all.

OK, Tabitha has long been known in our family as the shyest kid ever. When she and Isaac were babies and I would take them shopping with me, everyone would want to look at them just because they were twins. Isaac always totally ate up the attention, but Tabitha would start screaming the second anyone looked at her. But now all of a sudden, she's so chatty with everyone. She is still shy in some situations, but she'll talk to more and more people all the time, and when she talks, she really talks. I mean, she wants to tell you the story of her whole day--or what she imagines her day to be, sometimes it's a little bit hard to tell. The truly great thing about it though, is that she has the funniest facial expressions and gestures when she talks. She's obviously trying to imitate the rest of us, but my facial expressions look really funny on her face.

Avonlea is one of the most flexible kids I've ever seen--especially through her back. She has now taught herself to do back kick overs and she can make her feet touch her head while bending backwards. She is just learning so much in her tumbling class this year. I wasn't too sure how much she would like going to tumbling since both of the older girls dropped it this year, but she's doing great with it. If she wants to keep doing it, I may have to move her to a real gymnastics place instead of a dance studio that teaches one tumbling class.

I hate trying to come up with an ending for blog posts and emails and letters, so this one is just ending...right now.