savings

My favorite savings for the day was:
*free cat food from Purina(4# bag)
*free chex mix plus 11 cents(this is my 5th free bag they all went into our emergency stock as it's not something we usually eat but occasionally snack on)
*yogurt-I got a pack of 6 for $.69 not a brand I usually get and it was hard to find a yogurt in that brand without corn syrup and other junk, just yogurt please.
*yogurt in 4 packs for $.45
*V8 juice-46oz for $.15

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#3 was crying or whining the whole trip out today. I hope he's not trying to get sick. #2 has her follow up ultrasound tomorrow. I think I have childcare arranged for the others. She has the US and then 4 hours later we meet with the doctor to get the results. I fully expect the second appointment to be about 5 minutes with the doc just releasing us from her care.

Happy Father's Day!

The plan was to have a picture right here with dad and kids but that pictures has yet to be taken:) We had a nice relaxing day, which is what the dad wanted. Went to church, came home and I read the paper while the children napped/rested, had a mid day grill fest, kids wrestled and played games with dad, then we all went and played outside, read books and off to bed. It had been a busy work week for James so it was an extra nice day for all of us.


I've been working on memorizing this verse for the week. Every time I read it I think about the country I live in and how important it is to pray for our country.

2 Chronicles 7:14

....if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear them from heaven and will forgive their sins and will heal their land.


In the paper today was an article about saving money on groceries. I was excited as there were a couple websites I haven't looked at yet. So I checked them out and was a bit disappointed. I live in a state that just doesn't have much in the way of sales. I'm not sure I'll ever get better than a 40% savings. But I have been able to get some free stuff and I have to say that's soo FUN! so I'll keep plugging away at it:)

Roasting Deer

Sounds like a strange title for me. Let me explain a bit. My plan today was to go to bible study then take the kids to a park and have lunch and play around since we'd be out anyway. Good plan. While I was talking to the ladies at church about different things I'd like to do this summer and what I was doing after class someone mentioned that we should go to the park up the hill. No, I said we're going to go on base, they have lots of nice parks(playgrounds) there. Then I decided that sounded boring, who wants to go to a playground when you could go somewhere to explore! So up the hill we go. Usually when we go to this park we go hiking-that's not on the schedule today- so we eat our lunch in a camping area(no campers) and I tell the children they are free to play as long as I can see them. They start building 'fires' in the pits and hunting in the woods. They designate #3 to kill the deer and then the others roast it. Grandpa Tony, they ate the deer fur and all-I told them that they'd have to talk to you about how to dress a deer.
They found big stick that made good bows, tromped up and down the hillside inspected all the moss and fruits that have fallen from the trees and let there imaginations guide them.
This was so much more fun then climbing on play equipment and sliding down slides. Here there were built in slides when the hillside is covered in fallen leaves! #4 had his share of falls-he begin to have fun with it! Although if he was going a big distance he'd ask to hold my hand.
It was a good day-tiring but a good reminder of all the things that this area has to offer us and not to get stuck in a rut of the same ole easy stuff.
Btw, we don't really have deer in Hawaii(I believe they have been introduced but I have never seen one) so I'm not sure why they thought to pretend about deer today. Find that quite interesting!

Heart of the Matter

So I was going to join in the meme this week at Heart of the Matter. I am a little limited on the photos I have as my last computer crashed and the photos are still in the hard drive.

So I thought I could use this photo. This was taken on a sunset cruise after James got home from his last deployment. The only pictures I have on the laptop are from our trip(s)



I kept looking to see if i had anything else and this one had me cracking up!! But that's off subject......


Well, if you can stop laughing now.....


James, whether it's hiking around the islands, getting the children to laugh themselves silly or reading them a story before bed. You are so caring and loving and we're so glad we have you to call daddy. Love you babe!

our new van

We have a pincher in the family. a biter too. He only seems to do it to his siblings and only when mom and dad aren't looking. But I've seen the evidence, it's not pretty. A good time to use his weapons of choice is in the van, where he is seated right next to his brother(#3). So we've been debating on how to rearrange the children to keep this nonsense down. We have a 8 seater van, but we decided the best thing to do was make it a 7 seater. This seemed this simplest solution but where would we store the seat? We really lack the storage out here. James found room in the shed and we will work on "geco proofing" the chair so it's not covered in poo next time we need it. We removed the middle seat in the middle row so now no one is sitting next to each other. It seems so roomy now! Like a whole new van!

Now to work on that little guy. He must learn to use words not action and the others must learn to listen to him and not ignore. He is very cute and sweet and loud and into everything!

Helping mom

#4 likes to help. It's one of the good influences from the others. Of course at his age it's sometimes hard to find things for him to do that are actually helpful and don't create more work. But since we want to encourage this, we do our best to find things for him. Today it was vacuuming. It was very cute to watch, he required the vacuum to be on while he pushed it around. Now again because of his size he was pushing it on the back two wheels so all it was sucking was air but he was having a grand ole time pushing it around the living room while I was finishing dinner. He had a big smile on his face the whole time-I love happy helpers!

James has been working some shift work lately which means I've been getting the children down for bed. Tonight has been a long night. I believe the blame is lack of physical activity. Day's like this I am dreaming of a big yard for the children to run around in. We were going to go to the park in the a.m. but one child was dragging their feet on some work. Then I planned to take them swimming after naps but 2 children decided to take a 3hour nap and the pool is too crowded by then and it's time to work on supper......
then the crazy shenanigans happen and I realize I have a headache and it's now too dark to run this energy out! Must make this a priority tomorrow!!

Good news-James found the camera charger today! It was hiding in the printer.

Camera charger, camera charger where art thou?

We reorganized our computer area and we now have a missing camera charger. Of course the camera is on it's last little bit of life so I really need to figure out where it got misplaced!



It was this one's birthday yesterday(June 6th, I actually started this post a few days ago).


He's the Big Number 4!!!

These are some cards the older two made for him. Aren't they neat pop up cards? I really like having all the Usborne craft books around. The kids are constantly getting great ideas from them!



We took a cake to bible study and sang to him. He had been a little more cuddly than usual before we brought the cake out-not sure why. But he did try to blow the candles out but they insisted on staying lit! This upset him quite a bit(I believe the picture of him and cake is after his attempt at the candles) so his sis blew the candles out for him. After he got his piece of cake to eat he was as happy as a plum!
He got a little black and decker tool set like daddies. It's really quite cute. Daddies stuff has the rechargeable battery that you slide on each piece, #3's has this piece too(although his isn't actually rechargeable-it does need a battery)
Today we picked up a scooter and helmet for him. He hasn't quite figured it out, I think he walked it more then rode it.
He's a very happy and healthy young boy-we are so blessed to have him in our lives!!

If you are interested in our cake recipe we used this for the chocolate cake. This was the icing-I used some odds and ends of colors I had left over from other events. It was really yummy!
#3 was helping me roll out the pie crust for our chicken pot pie this week. Now he's use to rolling out the pizza dough which is a little tougher for him to roll out. With the pie crust I had to keep telling him to go easy-then I finally realized he was use to the different consistency and was having fun with how pliable it was.
At the park today.

I blame this headless shot on the fact that they kept walking, while I was trying to zoom in a little on the fact that #4 was holding out a flower for me.