Easter..

Today I am thankful for a Jesus who died for my sins. I am thankful for Easter.

We had an amazing service last evening at church. Today we will our own little celebration here at home. We were unable to travel to out of town family and are choosing to celebrate here at home.


We have lots of eggs to dye and good food to eat. We hope to visit Grandma E this afternoon.

But most importantly, we want to focus on what Jesus did for us. We don't want the Easter bunny crashing the celebration of our Savior.

Have a Blessed Easter! 

Budget Challenge

I am motivated by life challenges. So we are doing several  "do without" challenges.

 Last summer we started a with not eating out. at all. for a month. It turned into not eating out hardly ever. The same thing with buying coffee. It takes thinking ahead but truly saves so much money. For ex. I will prep a meal before we leave the house or I will make a coffee to go as I am leaving. Both these steps help us to save money.

So I decided to get serious about these challenges, trying to a do a different challenge each month.

The month of Feb. we hung all our laundry out to dry and switched to cloth diapers. I finally caved at the end of the month and allowed a friend to bless us with a wonderful dryer. (I am still using cloth diapers, much to the shock of those around me) ;)
I was so thankful for the dryer that I totally quit hanging out laundry! lol So not sure that one was really helpful long term!


I skipped the challenge in March...

For April, my challenge was to use up all the meat in the freezer and  go a month without using burger.

I have 3 freezers. Currently 1 is empty, a second is only half full and the third is almost full. (mostly fruits and veggies)  It is time to turn our steer into beef. But I wanted to fatten him up a bit more. So we decided to do a, clean out the freezer challenge. It has proven to be quite the challenge to cook gluten free with  the meat from the bottom of the freezer and no burger.

My friend ended up blessing us with a large of amount of meat, chicken, grillers, canned meat etc.. my children were thankful that this challenge did not last more then a week. They love their meat!


When I first started the challenge in Feb. I was sharing with a friend that while we were doing well and God was abundantly blessing us, I felt like this  challenge was important for my finances. So when my explorer needed replaced (some insurance money), my large van needed a good bit of work, my dryer died, my printer crashed, my hard drive died, and my kids burned up 2 tanks of oil in March,  we were ahead of the game because we had saved up.

There are days when I look around me in awe. Several people have told me recently that I am not getting "what I deserve" from several financial resources. That I really should be fighting for more. But I rest in that God directs every aspect of my life. My obedience in tithing and in never fighting over money, has brought back ten fold blessings.

My children and I pray over our finances. I explain how and why we can afford things. I make sure they pray AND acknowledge the answered prayers. You can't teach this in Sunday school. This is the real deal. Real life where God hears and answers.

Have you ever done a "do without challenge"?

Life

We so enjoyed recharging on our staycation.

We are getting deep into schoolbooks, trying to hurry through our books. This year was one of the best homeschooling years ever. I love the curriculum we are using. It is thorough and easy to for the kids to do on their own. It teaches lots of basic fundamental skills etc.. However, it does not flow easily with our "go with the flow" schedule and I am struggling with how to wrap up the year.

Someone washed my camera in the bathroom sink.. I think that possibly with the help of a bowl full of rice, it may work again.

We are so wishing for warm weather. We are itching to get outside. I did rake up sticks and weeds in the yard tonight. I spring cleaned my basement and am thinking of starting upstairs. But I need sunshine for motivation!

We purchased a baby goat named Daisy. She is the cutest little thing and loves to run and play with the kids.

Life is slowing down. We had no appointments this week, altho I did have to take the mini van to get a tire fix. I also had to get a new drivers license. But other then that we have been home, doing school, babysitting, hanging out.

My son wants to go hiking on the Appalachian trail. So he is currently "training".  I am proud of his willingness to work hard.


Sometimes homeschooling is extremely frustrating and I feel like certain children of mine will never ever catch up. I think I shall ship them all off to private school. But then I talk to my friends who have kids in private school and I decide that I would rather have my own problems.

April is coming up.. It is always a bittersweet month. We are currently praying for another April miracle.

I am sooo dreaming of summer already. We will not do fulltime babysitting but will keep enough hours to cover what we need. We will be doing summer school for Nesiah and summer camp for the others.. Now if I can just coordinate all their schedules I may have some free time.


But first before summer, all 6 of my kids have medical or dental appointments. I like to get all the major appointments for everyone, out of the way before summer. July and August should be completely free of scheduled medical appointments.

These are the ramblings of my mind. No major drama this week, no major appointments, no major anything. My life feels downright normal!