green smoothies

My kids are pretty good eaters most of the time. And while they're not crazy about vegetables they'll eat what's required of them. But let's be honest, what kid is begging for more spinach? Now, I'll be the first to admidt that cooked spinch is definitely not on my list of favorite vegetables of all time (unless of course it's mixed with sour cream, parmesean cheese and artichokes!) I just can't get over the texture of cooked leaves. I think it's because I lived in New Guinea and had to eat hairy cooked pumpkin leaves, cold, on several occasions.

At any rate, I have found a way to get my kids, myself and yes, even my husband, to take in massive amounts of healthy green spinach. Green smoothies. I got the recipie from a friend at bookgroup and you HAVE to try them. So, here's what you do

Fill a blender full of fresh spinach
Add one bag of frozen strawberries (or any fruit you like, we've tried adding blueberries and bananas, but strawberries are our favorite)
Pour in about 1-2 cups of 100% apple juice

Blend it all together and you'll NEVER know that you are eating spinach. Plus, you are getting a lot more spinach then you would get just eating a salad, because it's all juiced down.

Try them, you'll like them and so will your kids. Yeah, you can all thank me when you're kids are begging for spinach smootheis! :)

NOTE: You may not want to mention to your children (or husband) what exactly is going into these smoothies until you've got them hooked! :)

schooling

FINALLY a decision has been made!

For the past year Chris and I have been discussing where Hannah would be going to school for Kindergarten. I had a brief (OK, it was about 6 months) period where I seriously considered homeschooling. Chris and I feel that we have a HUGE responsibility to train up our children in God's ways. We also knew it would be a big money saver to keep her a home, even if it was just kindergarten, rather then sending her to private school. However, after much praying, discussing and talking with families from our church who are homeschooling now, we have decided that is not for us. While we still believe that we need to be training out children at all times, as Duet 6 talks about, we don't believe that our children need to be ONLY trained by us. We will definitely still be training her when she is at home, which will still be the majority of the time! We also want Hannah to learn to work with others, something that you don't get an opportunity to do as often with homeschooling.

Next we had to decide whether to send her to public school or Christian school. Chris and I both went to Christian schools most of our lives, however I did attend a public school in Dallas Texas for a year and LOVED it!

I think that the first question we had to answer was whether we were running AWAY from public school or TOWARD Christian school. We didn't want our decision to be made out of fear. We believe it is so important that Hannah be salt and light in this world, but we also believe it is so important for her to have a solid Biblical worldview and be trained by teachers who care about her heart issues. So again, more praying and talking with families who've sent their kids to public and private schools.

We finally decided that the best place for Hannah to grow and learn right now is at Trinity Christian school. I talked to a good friend of mine who reminded me that Hannah IS salt and light RIGHT NOW, she doesn't have to be in public school for that. She has many neighborhood friends, soccer team friends, preschool friends who she is shining the light of Christ to.

Our decision really came down to a Biblical worldview. When we meet with the administrator at Trinity Christian he talked about how their curriculum is geared toward Biblical worldview in all their classes, not just a Bible verse at the top of a math sheet, not just during Bible class, but how all of life is seen through the lens of our faith. We also talked to many families who have sent their children to Trinity and they all kept on saying that they just LOVED the teachers. We were also impressed with how established Trinity was as a school, they have an excellent music program (that was important to me, not so much to Chris), drama program, computer lab, library etc.

Right now we're taking it one year at a time. Honestly I don't know how we're going to pay for years of Christian school, I only know that if God wants Hannah at Trinity he'll continue to provide the finances.

I am SO glad that God uses children is ALL schools for His glory. I'm SO thankful that there are kids getting an amazing education at home and being knit so closely to their families. I'm SO thankful that God is using kids to be a shining light for Him in public schools. And I am SO thankful that there are kids, like Hannah, who go to Christian school and have a solid Biblical worldview being taught to them.

I am excited and a little apprehensive about this new schooling journey, thankfully I still have a couple more months to prepare! :) It's just another step in faith, letting go of having my little girl with me almost all day and seeing how God is going to use Hannah for His Kingdom!

Hannah's prayer

OK, I do NOT want to forget this. I just tucked Hannah in bed and here are the direct quotes from her prayer...the ones I remember.

"And God you are just SOOO wonderful. Would you please just go through our money when we're not looking and give some of it to the poor people. And would you please help the poor people to ask for money and would you help them to go to the Open Door Mission. That would just be WONDERFUL God."

"And God, you made EVERYTHING just by speaking words. You said "supplies" and there were supplies. You made birdies tweet and you made lions grr and bite. It's just SO precious Lord; It's so precious and we don't want to give you away."

And last night she prayed,

"God would you please, please, please, please, please, please, please let Mrs. Fletcher get better. Because God if she's half dieing then she can't get back here again."

Out of the blue Hannah decided to make a card for Mrs. Fletcher. She has been working so hard on it, the poor girl has been tormented over whether or not to give her valentines tattoo to Mrs. Fletcher or keep it for herself. Anyway, yesterday she said, "Mom, Mrs. Fletcher is so lucky because she gets to go up to Heaven and be with Jesus!"

Out of the mouth of babes....

I need my nose

You know how when you were little your parents use to grab your nose and pretend their thumb was your nose?? I totally remember my dad doing that I thinking "that's not my nose, it's your thumb." Well, apparently Caden is too young to realize that his nose is not actually being taken off. Chris and I do this on a regular basis to him because...well...it just cracks us up. Here, take a look for yourself.

grocery budget

Recently I've had several people ask me how we keep our grocery budget so low. Right now we're spending about $75 a week on groceries, and that includes cleaning supplies, personal hygiene products and diapers.

So, I've done some thinking about how we're able to spend so little. (I still have no idea how money saving mom only spends $40.00 a week on groceries.) Oh, and let me start by saying that we were spending about $100 a week and I remember thinking "there is no way I could spend less then that." Then I realized that if I could shave off $25 per week that would be $100 a month!

Here's how we do it. First of all, I think WHERE you shop makes a big difference, so I do most of my shopping at Walmart. The only store that I have found to be less expensive is Aldi, and actually the only thing I can get there for less is dairy products. And since the closest Aldi is 30 min away, I'm sticking with Walmart. Even if everything you buy at another store only costs between .10 and .25 cents more, when you're buying 100 items that really ads up.

Anyways, the great thing about Walmart is that they pricematch, which is another way that I save money each month. It only takes me about 10 min each week to look through the add and find out what's on sale, I then try to plan my meals around the sales. I probably save about $10 a week using pricematch, which seems small, but when you're on a tight budget an extra $40 a month comes in handy.

I think the biggest way I've saved money is to SIMPLY my meal plans. I usually have one main dish, some fruit, a vegetable and maybe some home-made rolls (which is also a BIG money saver.) I realized that I was making fancy dishes that my kids didn't like and they were costing me a fortune. That doesn't mean that I still don't enjoy trying new dishes, I do, but I try to stick to a couple new recipes a month.

I also checkout moneysavingmom.com each week for deals on deodorant, toothpaste, contact solution and many other things. Combining a sale with a coupon I can get most of these items for free or nearly free, and even if I don't need them at the time, I buy them, b/c I know I'll eventually use them and then I don't end of paying full price.

Another thing that I do is a pantry challenge. I got the idea from moneysavingmom and it's been awesome. I generally have one or two meals a week that I planned on making but for whatever reason didn't get around to. So every couple weeks I try to have a pantry challenge, using up all the extra food I have stashed in my pantry has been a big money saver. That way we can save $75 a week by not buying groceries...I then save that money and if we're throwing a party or I'm hosting bookclub I never worry about spending the extra money because I know I have it in my grocery budget.

OK, this post is getting really long but one last trick that I learned is to put a basket in your grocery cart and every impulse buy you pick up put in your grocery basket, then at the end of the trip, take out the basket and don't buy all the extra things you don't really need. Also use cash when paying for your groceries, it's a lot harder to part with cold hard cash then to just swipe your credit card, and it's easier to keep track of how much you're spending too.

You may wonder what we're eating every month but I assure you that we have a very healthy and varied diet. I know this doesn't work for everyone, we all have seasons of life when we are WAY to busy to spend time clipping coupons and comparing adds. Just sharing what has worked for our family, and because of all the little ways we save money I'm able to stay home with our kids and out of debt.

Experiences

I guess I should have proof read my last blog title before posting...oops!

Now that I've cleared that up, unto my next thought.

Every tax season I fly with the kids down to Florida for a week or two to visit my parents. Why? One, because hello, it's WARM! But mostly because Chris is busy working and it's a great break for us, gives us something to look forward to, and I love that my kids get to see their grandparents and aunt and uncle and build their relationship with them.

But, every year I go to book the tickets (which get more expensive every year) and I question whether or not we should go. I think, "it's so much money and we could use that money for _________ " fill in the blank. Chris and I have had many discussions about money and how to spend it over the past eight years of our marriage and you know what we always decide, that we value experiences/relationships over things. We just don't know how long we'll be around or our parents will be around, or how many years we're actually going to be able to afford taking trips to Florida so we're going to enjoy them while we can.

OK, I am totally not saying that you should take out your life savings and fly to Tahiti for a week (although that is sounding better and better). I think it's important to be wise with the resources God has given us. But I also think that sometimes we spend too much time being consumed with saving every penny we make for the future. I don't know what the future holds. What I do know is that I have my family RIGHT NOW and I'm gonna enjoy them RIGHT NOW and spend time with them for as long as God allows me! So I'm gonna book those tickets to Florida and I'm not gonna feel guilty about it and I'm not gonna wonder how I could have spent that money more "wisely" and I'm going to hold on to those memories of taking my kids with me every tax season to see their Grammy and Papa. And I think I just wrote the longest sentence ever, but that's beside the point!

Andrea, if you're reading this I hope that you have an AMAZING time in California, I am SO excited for you guys. I know your kids will remember that trip for a long time and I'm sure you and Steve will never forget it! PS--I hope you don't mind me telling the world your vacation plans! :)

What Hannah loves about her Dadyd

Last night before bed Chris asked Hannah what she loved about her daddy.

She said

"That you love Jesus and that you give mommy kisses!"