Celebrating Fall and Being 5

For your viewing pleasure, here's my girl.

You can live vicariously through her for the next few minutes if you'd like! :)

This was fun. Just me and Sophie - harder to do these days. She had fun and so did I. Love it.

Money Motivation

I've tried a lot of things over the years when it comes to gaining control of my money, but I think Dave Ramsey may be on to something here.

This afternoon I had an hour or so to myself and worked on the last step to October's budget. Usually I don't get to this part. It's the step where you look at what you ACTUALLY spent compared to what you INTENDED to spend. Yeah, it doesn't take much to figure out why I always avoid this part and just start "fresh" on next month.

But I've been trying really hard the last few months and today I sat down to take note. So it turned out that I didn't stick to the numbers in each category, but I DID stay within the overall budget!! This is a big deal. We have very little expendable income, but something always comes up. This month "it" was $90 for Tamaflu for Clare. I'm sure there were other bigger costs not exactly planned for. But I didn't have to borrow money from other accounts or anything. And I'm motivated by this.

Ramsey is right about needing to take things in small steps so as not to get discouraged. And even though we really really have to watch every penny, it's starting to get kindof fun. Since I'm home a lot I have the opportunity to find a way to make it work. Praise the Lord!

Clare on Camera

Here is a LINK to a video that Aunt Alicia made. It's suppose to be of Chloe reading a book, but Clare (and Aubrey) decide they should be in on it too. It's cute.

Fun with Clare

In case you haven't seen her in action, Clare's favorite thing - for a few months now - has been buttons. Yep, buttons. She has added loose change and stamps to this collection, but the buttons are the key element. It started one day when I was scrapping. She had started a habit of opening small containers of tiny things like brads and eyelets or flowers, and dumping them and moving them from one container to another. The day she found the buttons I was thrilled, because I'd much rather help her pick up buttons than these other tiny things. She piled them into a small purse and off she went.

Since then she moves them in and out of whatever small containers she can find. Sometimes it's toy kitchen dishes, sometimes it's purses, and other times it is socks or mittens. One night she moved her pile into at least 6 different vessels. She spends a lot of focused time doing this. While my 6 year old can't seem to do anything without me for more than 10 minutes, Clare can be found playing with her buttons for 30 minutes at a time.

I'm glad I finally got some pictures of it. I've been wanting to make sure I recorded this funny little fixation she has. My sweet funny Clare!

A basement floor. MY basement floor!

Look! A floor in my basement! Well, ok, half a floor.

Like Amanda said today, it's nice to celebrate all the little points of progress.. otherwise [you'll] go crazy.

Yep.

So this is what it looks like when you pour a basement floor (with radiant heat underneath it). Half at a time. They had a little leftover for a stoop at the existing garage walkdoor and half of the footings for the new garage. Very cool.

The next step is to finish some plumbing things in the basement including plumbing for a bathroom down there (someday). That plumbing has to be inspected and approved and then the rest of the floor can be prepped.

Sophia enjoyed watching and asking questions about the process. It was good. Even Clare seemed to be interested.

Mommy was VERY interested and excited about what she saw. And trying to not get ahead of herself in enthusiasm. We have a long way to go.

A Good Work

When we moved away from our big awesome house and my job and my friends, and came here with a new baby and a new plan.. I think it is safe to say that it signified a new phase in our lives. :) As this stage developed it challenged me to change in a lot of ways. I’ve always been a big fan of reflection and evaluation, but this was pretty deep stuff.

Learning to stay home more, to be happy with less, to get a better grasp on parenthood – has sent me off to read books, pray endlessly, and – what do you know? To make some changes.

It’s hard to change! I’ve been praying the words to a Ginny Owens song for years – “Lord, change me, mold me, own me.” And recently it has occurred to me that there has been some progress.

So often the focus continues to be on our weaknesses, on what we’re doing wrong and on what we haven’t learned yet. Conversations with my friends frequently seemed centered on our frustrations. We talk thru them, helping each other along the way and giving support and much needed encouragement. This is good.

But all of us need to celebrate what we’ve learned too! We all need to take inventory of how we’ve moved forward as a person, or a parent, or a friend.

Here are a couple of things I’m excited about:

- I’m starting to figure out the difference between things that really are a big deal, and things that aren’t… that I might have made a big deal in the past. (Now you aren’t suppose to be thinking thru the things that I’ve overdramatized in the past. J) My kids have helped teach me this. A spill, a mess, a setback in the morning – I’m getting better at not freaking out, at holding my tongue, and giving grace a lot quicker than I have in the past. I’m starting to apply this to adults, but for some reason it’s taking longer to master that one.

- When I quit my job and my primary profession became taking care of my kids and my house, I started taking time – a lot of time – hanging out with my kids. (It turns out old men are right: they do grow up fast.) This means the kitchen isn’t usually clean the tables always need cleaned off, and vacuuming is not at the top of my list. So be it. I know what Clare’s favorite puzzles are, and I know the names of Sophie’s horses. I’m available to Sophia when she says something like, “I think that the sun is for the devil and the moon is from Jesus because the sun is so, so.. hot, and the moon is nice and pretty!” Uh, ok, we need to talk about what the devil is.. and who made the sun. And we did. And it was good.

- I’m making progress when it comes to being a responsible adult. J I hate money and it hates me. But I’ve come a long way and I’ve taken dramatic steps to getting better with it. My expectations are more reasonable and I can be patient with the situation. I have very little expendable income, and most of the time I feel sortof ok with that. The rest of my family is not as ok with it, but that’s another issue.

This isn’t a list of blessings. I can make one of those too. I should do a list of things I celebrate like my talented children, and the evolution in communication within my marriage. But we all need to identify ways in which we have personally grown, ways that God has changed my heart and my mind because I’ve been willing to change. I think He wants me to recognize those accomplishments so that I can be encouraged to continue on.

“Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners – of whom I am the worst. But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe in him and receive eternal life.. “ I Timothy 1:15,16 “…being confident of this, that he who began a good work in [me] will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” Philippians 1:6

“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:12-14

Clare + Camera = Ham

These pictures of Clare are hilarious so I'm sharing. When there is a camera around she thinks it's fun to make a series of funny faces for the pictures and then look at the camera to see herself. :) It always includes a fish face, tongue-sticking-out, a kissy face, and other various looks she can come up with before the camera disappears again. She does this with pretend cameras also, AND will request that I make these faces for pictures she takes of me with her "camera" as well. :) quite amusing.