This was always a time I absolutely DREADED when I was a kid! When the weather started cooling off, my mom would pull out the huge bins of winter clothes, and we'd have to try EVERYTHING on to see what still fit and what needed to go to Goodwill, so we could figure out what we had to buy for the season. Now it's time to do it with my kids, and I still hate it!!! I pulled out everything today, and the good thing is that I have nice winter coats for the kids that fit great, so that is one thing I won't have to buy this year - yay!!! I was able to find several outfits for Laynie when I was out shopping yesterday, so I shouldn't have to buy too much for her, they're both set for winter jammies, and I think Jared is good to go. He may need a couple of new pairs of jeans, but I think that's all - shew! This year looks like it will be pretty easy in this department.
Well, I'd better scoot. Church is tonight, so I need to get J's Patch Club outfit ironed, and figure out what Laynie and I are going to wear to see if anything else needs to be ironed! Maybe...just MAYBE, I'll have time to squeeze in a little nap today!
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Tuesday, September 29, 2009
Homeschooling has begun!!
Well, we finally got school started for Jared - yay!! He's doing well with 1st grade, and enjoying his new teacher. We still feel like he isn't being challenged enough in the reading part of his videos, so I decided to remedy the problem! I called my mom (who is a teacher at a Christian school), and got the reading list for their 4th graders, and we're going to start working through it. Right now he's reading Charlotte's Web, and it's going great. This is definitely more of a healthy challenge for him, and we feel like he is learning more this way.
I just started today teaching Laynie to read. I'm using a book that worked really well with Jared, called "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons." The first few lessons are super easy, so we did the first 3 today, and she absolutely loved it! She's a little on the young side (not quite 3 1/2), so we'll probably go pretty slow, but since we are starting so early, we have plenty of time!
We also did some "Mommy/Daughter" shopping today - it was a lot of fun! Laynie is in desperate need of shoes (I swear the child's feet NEVER stop growing - she grows out of shoes so fast!!). So we hit 2 children's consignment stores and Payless. I ended up finding 3 pairs of shoes for her, plus several wintery outfits (since her legs also seem to never stop growing, and her dresses get too short before I can even blink my eyes!). She did get a little frustrated that I wouldn't let her buy flip flops at Payless. Crazy kid - she has such an obsession with flip flops! She couldn't understand that pretty soon it would be too chilly to wear them - they were pink and sparkly, so she thought she needed them!
Speaking of shopping, I NEED to go shopping for some things for myself. Seriously...my wardrobe is seriously lacking...the thing that stinks is that my absolute FAVORITE clothing store - CATO, doesn't have any branches close to me. Well, there is one that is 40 minutes away, so I'll probably just have to bite the bullet and make the drive out there. They have such cute things for so cheap!! If anyone knows of any other good clothing stores, let me know! I like stores that have cute modest clothes at reasonable prices. I'm NOT one to spend $20 on one shirt - I know that doesn't sound like a lot to some people, but it is to me, and I just can't spend that. So any suggestions would be great!!
Oh! We also found out yesterday that we will be having a baby NIECE in February!! We are so excited! Justin and Jacqueline went in yesterday to have the gender ultrasound, and from what they could see (or rather, COULDN'T see, hehehe...) they predict that the baby is a girl! I can't wait to meet her - I just love love LOVE babies!!!
Ok, enough babbling for now! Hope everyone is having a great week! :)
I just started today teaching Laynie to read. I'm using a book that worked really well with Jared, called "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons." The first few lessons are super easy, so we did the first 3 today, and she absolutely loved it! She's a little on the young side (not quite 3 1/2), so we'll probably go pretty slow, but since we are starting so early, we have plenty of time!
We also did some "Mommy/Daughter" shopping today - it was a lot of fun! Laynie is in desperate need of shoes (I swear the child's feet NEVER stop growing - she grows out of shoes so fast!!). So we hit 2 children's consignment stores and Payless. I ended up finding 3 pairs of shoes for her, plus several wintery outfits (since her legs also seem to never stop growing, and her dresses get too short before I can even blink my eyes!). She did get a little frustrated that I wouldn't let her buy flip flops at Payless. Crazy kid - she has such an obsession with flip flops! She couldn't understand that pretty soon it would be too chilly to wear them - they were pink and sparkly, so she thought she needed them!
Speaking of shopping, I NEED to go shopping for some things for myself. Seriously...my wardrobe is seriously lacking...the thing that stinks is that my absolute FAVORITE clothing store - CATO, doesn't have any branches close to me. Well, there is one that is 40 minutes away, so I'll probably just have to bite the bullet and make the drive out there. They have such cute things for so cheap!! If anyone knows of any other good clothing stores, let me know! I like stores that have cute modest clothes at reasonable prices. I'm NOT one to spend $20 on one shirt - I know that doesn't sound like a lot to some people, but it is to me, and I just can't spend that. So any suggestions would be great!!
Oh! We also found out yesterday that we will be having a baby NIECE in February!! We are so excited! Justin and Jacqueline went in yesterday to have the gender ultrasound, and from what they could see (or rather, COULDN'T see, hehehe...) they predict that the baby is a girl! I can't wait to meet her - I just love love LOVE babies!!!
Ok, enough babbling for now! Hope everyone is having a great week! :)
Thursday, September 10, 2009
Homeless no More - praise the Lord!!!
Shew! We now have a home! The Lord gave us an absolutely AWESOME house - yes, I said HOUSE!! Not an apartment - wonderful! Also, since our church is in a pretty nice area, we had pretty much resigned ourselves to the fact that in order to be close to church, we'd have to go w/a 2 bedroom in order to find something in our price range. Miraculously, we found a THREE BEDROOM house with a huuuuuuuuuuuge yard and tons and tons of storage in our price range!! Granted, it was at the tippy top of our price range, but when we went to sign the lease papers, our landlord told us, that he and his wife had decided to drop the rent to lower than what they originally told us! Can you believe that?!?! We hadn't even asked if they'd be willing to take less - we were just so thankful to find something so wonderful that was w/in the price range. God is so good to us!
The last couple of weeks we have gone about furnishing our house. The only furniture we had was a dining room table (no chairs), a mattress and box springs for the master bedroom, and a bed for each of the kids (though no mattresses for them). We had pretty much gotten rid of everything when we moved out of our apartment back in January, because we had decided to use Michael's signing bonus to treat ourselves to some new furniture. (Something we've never had in 9+ yrs of marriage!) Over the last couple of weeks, we've hit Craigslist and yardsales, and gotten some AWESOME stuff!! I'm telling you - the stuff we have found may as well be brand new, and we've gotten it for a FRACTION of the cost! I am just amazed at the wonderful deals the Lord has dropped in our laps! I tallied up everything - figured out how much it would have cost to buy everything we have brand new from the furniture store - it came up to just under $6000 - we have spent only $675!!! We have a beeeeeeautiful armoire entertainment center (the kind that has doors you can close, which is what I've always wanted!), a beige microfiber dual reclining love seat, a beige microfiber couch, a burgundy rocker recliner (something else I've always wanted and never had before!), an antique desk that we are using for a computer desk, as well as two freestanding islands and a very nice solid wood (heavy!) toy chest for Jared's room! I'll try to take pics in the next couple of days and post them!
So that has been our lives the last couple of weeks. I finally got Jared's school stuff ordered, and it all came in yesterday, so we will be starting school on Monday! Not too bad - just about a week behind when I wanted to start, so I'm pretty pleased w/that.
The last couple of weeks we have gone about furnishing our house. The only furniture we had was a dining room table (no chairs), a mattress and box springs for the master bedroom, and a bed for each of the kids (though no mattresses for them). We had pretty much gotten rid of everything when we moved out of our apartment back in January, because we had decided to use Michael's signing bonus to treat ourselves to some new furniture. (Something we've never had in 9+ yrs of marriage!) Over the last couple of weeks, we've hit Craigslist and yardsales, and gotten some AWESOME stuff!! I'm telling you - the stuff we have found may as well be brand new, and we've gotten it for a FRACTION of the cost! I am just amazed at the wonderful deals the Lord has dropped in our laps! I tallied up everything - figured out how much it would have cost to buy everything we have brand new from the furniture store - it came up to just under $6000 - we have spent only $675!!! We have a beeeeeeautiful armoire entertainment center (the kind that has doors you can close, which is what I've always wanted!), a beige microfiber dual reclining love seat, a beige microfiber couch, a burgundy rocker recliner (something else I've always wanted and never had before!), an antique desk that we are using for a computer desk, as well as two freestanding islands and a very nice solid wood (heavy!) toy chest for Jared's room! I'll try to take pics in the next couple of days and post them!
So that has been our lives the last couple of weeks. I finally got Jared's school stuff ordered, and it all came in yesterday, so we will be starting school on Monday! Not too bad - just about a week behind when I wanted to start, so I'm pretty pleased w/that.
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