spiderman

Grae has discovered how to climb the wall and wanted me to take a picture of him doing it. Please excuse the quality. It was raining here and I struggled to get enough light in the room without using the flash.

what my daughter made me...

I needed something for my mantle and I like fresh flowers but wow, can that get expensive. My 14 year old taught herself origami flower making so I commissioned her to make me a vase full.

They are lovely and go perfectly with my new old mirror that I will show soon.

(the rocks in the picture were put there by 6 year old Ellie. She really wants them somewhere).

our meals this week

We're on a tight budget. We paid off all credit card/vehicle debt two years ago and have not used any credit cards in that time. It was hard at first. I felt like we didn't have any money but now it is so freeing. We don't buy it if we don't have the money - as simple as that. We now have a growing savings account and are adding at least $500 to it a month with my businesses. We finally have enough money saved to buy Brian a used car when our van dies (which will be soon I'm sure).

We can credit our generous God who provides for all our of needs and many of our wants as well as following the Dave Ramsey plan. I would highly recommend it to anyone wanting to take control of their finances, especially his Total Money Makeover book. Get it at your library.

Anyway, part of living within our budget means we can only spend $750 a month on groceries and household items (laundry, cleaning supplies, toothpaste, shampoo, etc). I'm sure many of you can put me to shame and live on way less and I would welcome your tips. This money feeds all 8 of us comfortably (including my low-carb diet). We make almost all of our food from scratch and don't buy prepackaged meals or snacks and rarely go out to eat.

So I had $100 left over this week for groceries. I wrote out a meal plan for dinners and we went shopping at Winco. I only spent $76 (of which a couple of $$ were for some candy since Grae was with us) so I have some left over to buy milk, eggs and whatnot this week. (we go through 3 dz eggs and 6 gallons of milk a week).

Breakfasts for the kids are usually oatmeal, homemade pancakes or muffins or cereal if I can get it for under $1.00/lb. Lunches for the kids are sandwiches, mac -n-cheese, yogurt with sunflower seeds/fruit, leftovers, etc. I'm a little different in that I low carb. So I eat 2 eggs with ham & veggies for breakfast. Lunch is a low carb tortilla with cheese, avacado, lettuce or just a bowl of cottage cheese. You get the picture.

Dinner tonight:
Low Carb Lasagna (made with roasted zucchini instead of noodles. Yes the kids eat it and like it.) Side salad. Grapes for the kids and blueberries for Brian and I.

Wed:
Bean and Bacon soup with white beans I bought yesterday. I LOVE white beans. *I better get them out so I can soak them tomorrow.* Homemade bread for the family. None for me. Throw some type of veggie in the soup as well. Maybe chopped peppers, broccoli and carrots?

Thurs:
Low carb quiche (just no crust) with sausage, bacon and broccoli. Homemade pancakes or french toast for the family. Low carb bread french toast for me (so good!). Some type of fruit.

Friday:
Leftover bean soup with turkey sandwiches on homemade bread. Lettuce, tomatoes, etc.
Salad?

Saturday:
Leftovers or whatever the kids fix.

Sunday:
Too stuffed from eating a big meal at church. Brian sometimes makes fried potatoes and we have it with cheese and some type of deli meat.

So that's my plan. I didn't have to buy any household items this week. I'm still super stocked up on free toothpaste, shampoo and enough free deodorant to last for another year. Thanks to the Grocery Game (http://www.thegrocerygame.com).

So now that I've typed for like 30 minutes, I actually need to go prep for dinner. I have to roast the zucchini first and let it sit to drain. Oh and need to finish diaper laundry or Molly will have nothing to wear when she wakes up. Oops.

furniture feature friday

I love this feature at Miss Mustard Seed's blog. I've recently just found her blog and have spent hours looking through posts. Such inspiration!

I entered my chandelier redo on her feature page. Be sure to check out the other creative projects!

redo: kitchen

Before our 6th child, Molly, was born we did a quick redo of our kitchen. Here are the posts: "Kitchen". We painted the cabinets, replaced hardware, sink and fixtures. We never finished putting up moulding or painting the existing moulding.

So last Saturday we finally put the finishing touches. I repainted the faux brick to a sea green/blue color, repainted the paneled walls a cream color, we put up and painted all the moulding as well as repainted the ceiling a bright semi gloss white. The kitchen looks so much better now. This is a temporary fix until we can tear the kitchen out and do a proper renovation.

So before:


You can see our crazy floor that I love but I'm convinced the next home owners will rip it out. After:










I found this paint by number bird a few years ago. I picked the wall color without even thinking about this painting and it matches. I really like this color. (proof here: schoolroom)



So overall I'm happy with the way it turned out. I can certainly live with it for a year or two until we save up enough money to redo the kitchen. Next up for the blog: my living room redo and my amazing hallway redo.

redo: kids room

Remember this?. This was my office/sewing room before. We decided to turn it into Grae and Molly's room. It has a disgusting carpet, no light fixture and a door that didn't open without brute force.

Here is the now. This is right when you walk in.


This is standing by their beds. Notice the dresser. Brian built a wardrobe on top because there is no closet in the room.


This is Molly's side.


And my first quilt. I even free motion quilted it (my first time!).


Graedon's side:


Grae's robot/rocket ship quilt I made.


I took those cheapy crates from Joann's and painted them school bus yellow. We used the curtain wire from Ikea to hang his pictures. The superhero pictures are the fronts of comic books.


We replaced the door with this fiberglass door. You can't see but the upper half of the door is windows (hence the amazing light pouring in).


And finally, here is the view from the backdoor. The pictures Ava made.


I'm very pleased out how the room turned out. It was hard designing something for both a girl and boy but they both love it.

I'll show you some pictures of our cheap kitchen redo as well as the new living room design in a few days.

overheard

Me: "And Jesus sat on the Mt. of Olives to teach."

Grae: "Olives? Did he squish them?"

Me: "What? No."

Grae: "Were they super strong olives?"

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Grae: "Mommy?".

Me: "Yes Grae."

Grae: "How does Ironman wipe his nose when he's in his suit?".

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Grae: "When you throw garbage on the ground, it's called glittering."

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Me: "Girls, Obama won the Peace Prize!"

Lauren: "Why are you surprised, he does command the wind and waves and heals oceans you know."

Me: "Oh yeah, I forgot he was The One."

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regency

The girls were invited to a costume party a few weeks ago and requested to be Eleanor and Marianne Dashwood from Sense and Sensibility. We started by watching the new version put out by the BBC and then went to Joanns for fabric. Lauren found a great purple striped fabric and Maddie went with a bright and cheerful pink with a print for the underlayer.

The dresses went together pretty quickly after I did a test bodice with muslin. I'm glad I did as Maddie's dress needed some tweaking.

This was taken a few minutes before they left for the party. I made them purses out of wool interlock and lace scraps.








I love the backs of the regency gowns.






They had lots of fun and hope to be able to wear the dresses sometime soon.