Nothing Quite Like It!

Johnny was out sick all last week with the flu. Poor little guy! He finished reading a "Molly Moon" book, which is at the upper end of his reading level. He's not "supposed to" read at that level, according to his AR score, but his teacher told him he could try since he has good reading comprehension and vocabulary. He finished it and took the AR test on Monday when he returned. He received a perfect score! He's already gotten 125% of the AR points he needs for this quarter. Now he's on to the next book of Molly Moon. And when he asked if he could check out a particular book from the library for AR, his teacher told him with his AR score, he could read ANY book he wanted. He was so pleased, his grin stretched from ear to ear! He's reading at almost a sixth grade reading level, and even reads above that from time to time. Not too shabby for a boy in 3rd grade. He's already been accepted to Manchester GATE next year, and we can hardly wait. Mrs. Lazarus is one of the best teachers at Gibson, and I'm glad he has her this year!

Menu Planning, Budgeting

Today I examined my budget for where I could find an extra $60/month for my daughter to take Piano lessons. I actually have three children who would like to take them, but I can only do one right now. I decided that we're going to have to figure out how to trim money from our food budget. I don't want to interrupt the current flow of money because the budget is tight and it's working for me. I'm slowly accumulating savings, paying off a little debt I acquired while things were rough for a few years, and keeping a close eye on all my expenses. I've already cut my food budget in half since four years ago, and I'm going to try to cut it by another 25%. What's not used for piano lessons will go to build up my emergency food storage.

People are always shocked when I tell them how much I cut. I'm ashamed to admit that most of the time, I spent more than I needed to. I didn't care where I bought food as long as it was convenient, and FoodMax was a lot of things, but convenient wasn't one of them. I also wasted a lot of food...we had spoilage like crazy. Now I'm vigilant...I know what's in the fridge and I try to use it before it spoils. I plan my menus to carefully use what I purchase. I try to buy the highest quality, least expensive foods that I can. I would prefer to buy all organic, but it's not in the budget, so I grow as many foods as I can. We even have 9 chickens in our backyard so we can have eggs without hormones and antibiotics.

So now I'm wondering...how am I going to cut it down even more? I already make pretty much everything from scratch, but I'm determined that there must be a way to do it and still maintain high quality, low cost food. I'm querying my friends to find out how to make our money stretch even further and improve our diet to boot. This is going to be fun!

Balloon Festival!

Okay, so Kelly was a bit grumpy when I told her that I wanted her to get up at 5:30 on one of the only two days of the week that she gets to sleep in. Still, I managed to get the four kids plus our sleep over guest, Sydney, to get up early and be to the Clovis Rodeo grounds by 6:15. We walked onto the grounds and saw trucks and balloons in various stages of readiness. The kids were saying...well, this is exciting...with sarcasm dripping from their lips. That was the case til someone hit the burners on their baskets, breaking the dawn with the sound of rushing fire. All the kids were hooked from that moment on. As fans turned on to blow air into the balloons, the grounds began to look magical. The kids peeked inside of inflating balloons, Kelly snapped pictures excitedly, the sky began to lighten and suddenly, all around us were balloons. Not quite on par with what I saw when I went to the Albuquerque balloon festival, but still fun and amazing. We all had a great time, and came home to donuts (<> - I know....bad mom). And the best part? The Balloon Festival was FREE!!

And Here's a Message from Our Advertisers.....

Who knew my next post would be a commercial? Yet when I saw this Thai pantene commercial, I thought, wow!! It literally moved me to tears. I couldn't help but pass it along. Talk about overcoming adversity, and finding something within yourself that is stunning! I pray that each of us never gives up on our dreams...we all have a spark of the divinity in us....let it shine!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Um9KsrH377A

Unabashed Jonas Fan

My little Laine just adores the Jonas Brothers. So imagine her shock and throes of excitement when she was invited to attend their concert here in Fresno by her best friend, Sydney, as a late Birthday present. She could hardly wait and kept asking, when do we leave? Can we go now? Mom, how much longer!?! Then, they were invited to go back stage (one of the benefits when your best friend's mom happens to be the mayor, I guess.) where they had their photo taken with the Jonas Brothers. Laine was bouncing off the walls when she came home and looked like she was going to faint when she told me that Kevin had his arm on her shoulder during the picture. LOL So cute. :-)

Late photos of Kelly's 8th grade graduation

(((sigh))) I admit it. I'm a bad mother. We have been so busy this summer and with all of our computers down frequently, I just haven't been blogging. Here are some photos of Kelly's 8th grade graduation!

Camping at Soquel Creek

Last week we decided to go camping! We took our new tent, Erin & Nick, and lots of water with us. The campground is over 5000 feet in elevation, nice and cool, and has a creek nearby that the kids had a blast in. The best part is it's only 45 minutes away. Here are some photos of the adventure. We have others, but since they are on Nick's camera....LOL The next day we went up to Yosemite and played in the Merced River and hiked up to the Bridal Veil waterfall. It was fun, but very busy there.

New Puppy

We were blessed with a new puppy this summer...and she keeps blessing my floors, too. We call her Syrah. We inherited her from an elderly couple in our ward who couldn't keep her...they inherited her from family members who couldn't keep her, and that family had adpoted her from the SPCA. So she has some habits that need breaking, but she's a very sweet and docile dog most of the time. She's a beagle mix (Kelly calls her her bagle) and she's best friends with our cat. I'm thinking of having her teeth filed so she'll stop chewing through her leashes. Just kidding...I wouldn't do that. Besides, I'm lucky that her leashes and toys are the only things she seems to chew. She's a good companion for Abby, but I worry that they play a bit rough, so I'm trying to break that habit, too. She'll pee on the pad and outside, but if she has to go number two and we don't get her out on time, she'll do it anywhere. (sigh) Beagles are notoriously hard to potty train, but I've been known to be pretty stubborn myself. :-)

Sierra Endangered Cat Haven

The kids and I had a great time visiting the Sierra Endangered Cat Haven. It was amazing! The walking tour was very informative and fun, despite the hottest temps we've had in the area. I had a few favorites....I loved the Snow Leopard (who apparently in the wild is so afraid of people that you can pull her by the tail and she'll just run away), and the lion, as well as my personal favorite, the Tigers. I have to admit that all of the 24 exhibits were pretty cool.

The funnest part was as we were looking at the young 400 pound lion, who still has 200 more pounds of growth before he's considered full grown. He refused to come down for proper viewing. The docent asked who was the youngest/smallest in the group. That happened to be Johnny. She took Johnny by the hand and walked up the path by the cage. As soon as the lion caught sight of Johnny, he was instantly alert, and three seconds later had reached the side of the cage in just a few leaps. He then followed Johnny down the path toward the crowd, and we all got to see him up close. He didn't take his eyes off of Johnny the whole time, and laid down by the front of the cage where Johnny was standing.

We loved the tigers, too...they were very playful and played hide and go seek with the keepers. They are such beautiful animals. We learned a lot, and now all of us wish we could afford the $6000 price tag to go on safari with this group...they take people every year. ((sigh)) Maybe when I get rich and famous.

Pinewood Derby Delight

Hooray! Johnny's turning 8 on Saturday and he got to participate in his first Pinewood Derby! He selected a design, sanded it (boy, does he love to work the sandpaper!), painted it all black, added some blue designs, and put the wheels on. Then he borrowed Joe's old scout shirt and eagerly went to weigh in his little car.

It was fun to see how excited the kids were. My own children were excited to see Johnny's car race. All in all, it was a study in opposites. There was order and chaos, happiness and disappointment.

I enjoyed watching Johnny get into it. He analyzed the tracks to see which one was faster. He watched to be sure his friends' cars were winning, but not TOO well, because he himself wanted to win. He eagerly ran to put his own car on the track, and watched me as he ran back to make sure I was watching. It was WAY too cute.

At the end of the contest, Johnny's car had won twice and lost twice. He won the "Best of Show" award, 3rd place. And he ate two cupcakes, a candybar and several cookies. I think he's looking forward to being in Scouts!

As a side note, I asked him this morning if he wanted to stick with just a family party after the baptism, or if he wanted to have a friend party next week sometime. He misunderstood and thought I meant he had to choose one or the other. Before I realized that, though, he told me that he really, really wanted to do the baptism thing. When I finally got it, it brought tears to my eyes that he would rather be baptized than have all his friends over for a party. How sweet!!!! When I told him he could have his friends over AND still get baptized, that I really just wanted to know if he wanted a friend party this year, he was very surprised.

Yup, I've got a good one here. :-)