Snow Days

On Sunday evening my wonderful husband was called and told that work was cancelled!  We were all so excited!  Anytime Daddy is home it is a good thing!

On Monday he was called and told that work was can cancelled on Tuesday as well!  We had him for two extra days.

Unfortunately, he did have to go back to the world of working outside the home, but we had a great time with him.

We have been reading the Little House on the Prairie series since we gave up television as a family for Lent.  It has been really nice, and educational. 

Now, I know the amount of snow and ice we have had doesn't compare to the East Coast, but I thought I would share some pictures.  The first picture is the one of the rabbit hutch that we received as a gift for Christmas.  We will be buying some meat bunnies soon!

May God bless you all.

A House of Illness

Wow, we have been sick for weeks and I really do mean weeks! 

Siena was the first to go down and Brandon was the last!  He is still not feeling 100%, but he did venture out into the world today. 

We had some sort of nasty upper respiratory virus possibly the flu.  Fevers, coughing, headaches(awful headaches), congestion, runny noses, exhaustion, etc. 

I am happy to report that most of us are back to normal, but we do have a few that still are not up to par.

We have started school back up, which some of us are not thrilled about, but once we get back into the swing of things we will be pushing through! 

I hope that you all have a wonderful and blessed day.  May God bless you always.

Happy Feast Day of The Epiphany

Happy Feast of the Epiphany!  Today we celebrate the 3 wise men(Magi) coming to visit Our Lord after he was born.  Here are some links about this wonderful feast day.  First here is some information on the eve of the Epiphany which is the last day of Christmas.  http://www.fisheaters.com/epiphanyeve.html then this link is of the actual feast day http://www.fisheaters.com/customschristmas8.html 

Trinity made the Kings cake for us.  It was delicious! 

Tyme found the baby Jesus, and will be making the King cake next year!

Happy New Year!!

Happy New Year!  I hope that God blesses each one of you with all of your needs and some nice little extras along the way.

Yesterday we went to Mass.  It was a Holy Day of Obligation after all.  It started off a bit rough.  It was cold and raining.  Betsy was covered in ice, and we couldn't find the snow/ice scraper that we had in the old van when we lived in Colorado.  I believe that it may have been removed by a younger child who saw it as a sword.  I could be wrong though, but I have seen it used that way before.  Haha  Anyway, we were about 5 min. late for Mass, but oh it was beautiful.  I feel so blessed to have started off our New Year with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.  To be able to have Our Lord dwelling with in was such a blessing and a wonderful gift.  Thank you God for all your goodness and love that you have for each one of us!  I love you so much!

While we were at Mass we ran into some dear friends and they invited us over.  So, we stopped by and had such a wonderful time visiting.  They are such a wonderful family, and I feel blessed to have them in our lives and as God parents for little Joseph Kolbe. 

 
Here is a picture of Betsy.  She has a few dents and dings, but really I think that is just the norm for a family that has a 15 passenger van!   One of my favorite things about Betsy is that she is low to the ground!  This was good news for this mama with short legs!

I hope that you all have a wonderful and blessed day!!!

New To Us 15 Passenger Van

Merry 3rd day of Christmas!

I was going to take a picture, but well the sun went down before I had the time to take a picture.
Today, we bought a new to us 15 passenger van!  A wonderful family that goes to the church we used to attend before moving further west was willing to part with "Betsy".  She is younger than the van that another wonderful family at the church we went to in Colorado gifted to us.  Which by the way she lasted quite a while, but she is now at the point of we fix one thing and then two other things start acting up.  So, we had to look for another vehicle.  Anyway, Betsy is great.  She is worn and torn, but her engine is really good, and she rides much smoother.  We are all happy and feel so blessed that someone was willing to part with a vehicle they no longer needed. 

I hope that you all had a wonderful Christmas, and continue to enjoy the Christmas season. 

May God bless you all!

Frugal or Bust!

That is my goal for 2015!  We do okay, but I know we can do much better.  So, I am going to go crazy and be a penny pincher/frugal zealot!

One way to start is by picking up a book called The Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn(sounds like decision).  My husbands Granny bought this for me one Christmas many years ago, and we used it.  Somewhere along the way and many children later I feel that we have slipped back into our bad habits.  So I am rereading this book.  You can purchase this book, but see if your library has it first if you want to really be frugal.

Second, I am rereading the book Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey.  We just love this guy.  He is straight forward and has a ton of great advice. 

Third and one of my favorite resources is to go to a wonderful website called Frugal Families  They have fourms that are very friendly and helpful.  They are a nice group of ladies.  I just love them to pieces.

One thing I have to say is that we did go back to disposable diapers.  Our water bill drastically dropped.  I know we have a regular top loading washer and that is probably why, but I wasn't happy with our front loader at washing cloth diapers when we had one.  I ended up doing diapers all day long, and I mean all day long.  Then I started soaking them in the bathtub for an hour then washing and it was fine, but it still took up a lot of time.  I need that time to do other things like teach the kids their daily lessons.  So, something had to give, and it was the cloth diapers.

Some other little quick tidbits would be to unplug everything that still sucks energy even when it is off.  Example, the television, the coffee maker that has a clock on it, the microwave with the clock, etc.  Start cooking from scratch after you get the hang of it is doesn't take much longer than opening up the box mix that you used to use.  It is cold right now check your doors and windows to make sure that you are not losing any heat, fix it if you have leaks and watch your electric/gas bill go down as well.  Make and stick to a budget.  That has been a real life saver many times for us.  We haven't been good about the sticking part lately, but we sat down and made one the other day.  Now we just need to make each other stick to it.  Have the whole family be involved.  Make it a game! See how low you can get the electric bill this month by turning off lights in rooms that are not being used, or opening blinds on a sunny day!  Be creative and let the kids run wild. 

I will be sharing our frugal journey with you all and hope that you will find at least one idea you can use!

May God bless you all and have a Merry Christmas!!!!  Our Lords birthday is tomorrow!!!!!!!!

Recess

Just wanted to post some pictures of some of the kid outside during recess. 

The first one is of Joseph before his nap.