School supplies

 

I have a love/hate relationship with school supplies. Everyone loves new pens, shiny new binders and fresh notebooks. Not to mention the clothes, shoes, and new stuff needed for school and it gets expensive. I have to buy stuff in chunks so it is not so much at once. I start in the beginning of July looking for new shoes and clothes. Then later do school supplies. I try to catch stuff on sale and buy for the whole school year. 

Today we went and saw Ant Man. It was better than I expected. We went to the orthodontist and then home for dinner   I then made chicken broccoli cheese casserole and it was so good. I made it with homemade cream of chicken soup. Yummy. 

A trip to the beach.

These kids really enjoy being together. Yes we sometimes get on each other's nerves but it is to be expected. We do live together. Sometimes someone is teenagerie acting and needs a moment but generally they enjoy each other. 

We didn't do much at the beach but relax. We are not big lay on the beach people. We are too pale, but we do enjoy swimming in the ocean. We also like walking on the beach at night. 

The kids played lots of cards and games of clue. I cooked seafood a few times. We did go out for ice cream but not out to dinner. It is too expensive to take 6 out at a resort. At least for us it is. 

All in all we had a good time and had some down time. School starts for me next Monday. Yikes!

 

These are some pictures from Emma's birthday.  My baby girl is 13.  What is even harder to believe is that my oldest girl is 17 and a senior.  Crazy. 

 

Our summer has been busy.  We have had VBS, Youth Camp, trips to the beach, and various play dates and work.  I have been canning like crazy.  If I can find some pictures I will post them.



Beans Beans Everywhere

We had friends that told us that they were done picking beans in their garden and that we could pick some.  We have planted some in our garden, but they are not ready yet.  We got our garden in late because of all of the wet weather.  Here is what we picked last night in under an hour.

We will snap them today and I hope to can them tomorrow.  I like to have about 50-75 cans of beans to last the winter. We eat them about once a week and I always bring them when someone has a need for a meal.  Fresh beans are yummy.

I have to buckle down and get some schoolwork done.  I am enjoying the summer break too much.  We spent all yesterday afternoon by the pool and had a great time.  Oh well, it is summer and I am enjoying my summer.

I have also been walking.  I enjoy walking down the country dirt road near my house.  Here is what the view looks like.

Isn't that lovely.  We have been living here for about five years and we love the country.  Sometimes the kids miss having kids in the neighborhood nearby, but we import plenty and we love our quiet time.  I love socializing with others, but at heart I love just being at home with my family.

I guess I am going to go walk.  Evan wants to go with me and do some running.  He wants to get ready for soccer.  Gotta love some kids who like to be active.

Summer Begins Now

Well I was supposed to go to some training today and my summer was supposed to start tomorrow, but I got an email that it had been cancelled so now my summer starts.  We are going to do some cleaning and putting away today and go shopping this afternoon.  Ashley needs some shorts.  We are going to start at Plato's Closet.  If you haven't been there it is a great consignment store.  It mostly sells teen clothes, but sometimes we find mom jeans and shirts.  They have name brand stuff at good prices, so we will start there.  If we don't find much then we will go to Kohls.  We always have coupons for them and they have decent prices.

We had  deacon's dinner at our church last night.  We had smoked chicken and everyone brought sides.  Sometimes I am asked how do we afford not only to feed our family, but to bring dishes to church event, bring other families meals, and have others over all the time.  One way is to have some tried and true recipes that are cost efficient and can be made with bulk items that I keep in stock.  One of our favorites is crock pot mac and cheese.

This is easy.  I cook about three cups of macaroni noodles in boiling water.  In the crock pot I add half a stick of butter, about a cup of milk, three eggs, about three cups of shredded cheese, and a teaspoon of salt.  I mix it all up a cook on low for a few hours.  I like to add some Velveeta if I have it.  If it starts looking dry I add more milk.  This gets eaten every time I bring it somewhere.

I buy macaroni noodles in five pound bags and cheese in five pound bags from Sams so I usually have them on hand.  Having main ingredients for several basic dishes makes bringing a dish somewhere easy, especially if you work full time and don't have time to go to the store.

Well, I have to get off the computer and do some exercise.  My goal is to walk in the mornings and swim in the afternoons.  I have gotten soft this winter and eaten way too much junk.  Time to do something about that!

 

I know I haven't posted in forever.  There has been so much going on that I don't know where to start.  We had the death of a close friend a few month ago and while his wife was trying to get her feet back under her we got custody of there kids.  They have four kids and we have four kids so that made eight kids at my house.  Couple that with working full time, going to school at night, and everything else in my life, we have been pretty busy.  Now at last things are settling down and we only have our kids at home now.  Don't they look lovely.

 

 

I have only one more day of school work and then it is officially my summer break.  I am taking one college level class this summer, but besides that I am free.  If you don't count VBS, youth camp, and various other things that we like to participate in.

 

I have missed posting pictures. Here are some prom pictures.  I think Ashley was beautiful but I am biased.

 



These two are beautiful inside and out.  They both have a love of Christ and a heart for missions. 

Well, we have one more day of training then here comes summer.  Yeah!

Pantry Challenge update January 2

I went and did some shopping today.  Normally Wal-Mart is not my first choice for grocery shopping.  I don't think that they always have the best prices, but our little town only has a Wal-Mart and an Ingles and I wanted to get a few things to round out meals for the next week or so.  It was raining and I couldn't justify making the 15 mile trip to the bigger city so I went to Wal-Mart and got a few things.

I spent about $45 today.  I hate that the little pack of ground beef was $7.00 but I will mix it with some ground deer meat and make a meat loaf and some hamburger patties.  The bag of chicken was also $10.00 but at least it had 5 pounds of meat in it.  I wasn't planning on buying 8 pounds of pinto beans but it was such a good price at $6.00 that I couldn't pass it up.  I am hopping that we can put together about 10 meals from this and what we have on hand and that next weekend all I will need to get is some more fruit and some milk.  We will see.