Bike Riding

Dan's grandmother passed away when he was deployed.  She left the grandchildren a little bit of money and Dan told me he wanted it to go to the kids activities.  He said he felt that because she never got to meet them that she could still be involved in their lives that way.  I thought that was so sweet.  I know she would have loved to meet them and was such a sweet lady the couple of times I talked to her.  And we will meet her in heaven because she loved Jesus! 

The older boys have been waiting very patiently for us to find them used bikes for a long time.  Dan decided that his grandmother's money could pay for those so they could all go bike riding together.  We went to the BX and they each picked out a bike they liked and Dan picked out a bike trailor so that he could pull Gid and Mareea.  I was really excited because now all six kids can go bike riding together.  Dan got the trailor put together that night and took the kids for a ride first thing Sunday morning.  Mama got some wonderful quiet time and made breakfast while they were gone.  Bliss for me! 

The little ones in the trailor and ready to go.

Posing for mama before they ride.

They're off!

33 Weeks!

Today I am thinking...

Today I am thinking about a time, not too long ago, where I drove a 10 year old sedan with no air conditioning and worked part time at a Children's resale shop for $6 an hour. 

My new husband and I lived in a 720 square foot, 2 bedroom apartment.

We spent $80 every 2 weeks on groceries at the commissary. 

I was pregnant and bought my few maternity clothes from the resale shop down the street from work. 
Thank the Lord my boss blessed us with a stroller and my mom found a nice car seat at her neighbor's garage sale.  When my parents came to visit they brought my brother's and my old crib for us to use. 

I worked for "store credit" to earn Q's clothes and clothes for the baby.  I got my crib bedding set from work for $17.17. 

At Walmart we would chose a cheaper item even if it only saved us six cents. 

I babysat for a stripper and a single mom to earn extra money. 

Dan was in college and came home for lunch.  He was home every evening and we played board games in our little living room.  Over the summer he painted houses to buy us a new computer. 

Our washer and dryer were out in the hall of our apartment and we washed dishes by hand. 

When the baby came I quit working.  We had always planned for me to stay home after we had kids. 

I'm so thankful that our "roots" are a little apartment and no extra money. 

Such a simple, slow and precious time.  Best first year of marriage I could have asked for. 

Grocery shopping

Today we went to the commissary to "get a few things".  We literally had 9 things on our shopping list.  Somehow we spent $77.  It was so discouraging to me.  We did a big grocery shopping trip last week for $177 and did a small grocery shopping trip this weekend for $60.  So to spend ANOTHER $77 just made me plain mad.  But we eat...they eat...and I want them to have fruit and yogurt and eggs.  We could all get by on fruit loops, PBJ on white bread and mac and cheese, but I just cannot do that to them...to their bones and teeth and especially their brains. 
Where's my farm with the big garden and milk cow???

Peace in the home.

I hate to nag, but I seem to do it a lot.  Lately, a ton of the nagging was about after dinner chores.  The children have had the same chores after meals for months, but seemed to always "forget" something or do a poor job even after being reminded over and over again.  I thought of Homeschooling with a Meek and Quiet Spirit and how Teri Maxwell talks about finding solutions to things that steal your peace.  This is my solution!!  After each meal, the children are responsible for doing their chores and marking off the box with a dry erase marker.  If they fail to do the job or mark it off after it's been done, they have to sit for 10 minutes that evening before playing.  I can't believe how much faster our chores get done after meals now!  And the best part is that I'm not chasing down kids nagging them.  AND...I made this chart for free with printer paper, a sharpie and contact paper :) 

Here's a couple of pictures of a fun activity the girls and I did this week.  I got the idea from the Imagination Tree Blog.  Because we already had a ton of foam it was a free activity!  I cut out lots of different shapes and pictures from the foam and the girls "painted" water onto the back of them and stuck them to the windows.  Thea made a really neat beach theme and had me cut her out a surf board.  Mareea made a cat and was quite serious about getting all her shapes up in a row.  The sun made taking pictures hard, but you can kind of get the idea from these. 

Poor Giddy had to be put in the kitchen to put his shapes up on the side of the stove.  His sisters did not appreciate his attempts at redecorating their shape pictures.  He worked at getting the water on them for a few minutes, then dumped the water out and had a great time playing in it. 

My heartburn has gotten bad enough that I can no longer have pizza of spaghetti.  This is what I made for myself when my family was having those things.  Lots of green leaf lettuce that I bought and cut myself, a tomato, 1/2 an avocado, some mozzarella cheese chunks, leftover black bean dip and lite lime dressing.  Wonderful...just as good as any salad at a restaurant. 

This is what I came downstairs to Sunday morning.  Q is browning sausage and Thea is cracking all the eggs.  I was so glad he let her help.

Mareea's first piggy tails.  So super cute!  She's giving me a funny face though. 

This is what our house looked like the morning after library day.

Sweet Mareea reading to Gideon. 

The mei tai I made.

Action shot

Our back yard is not shaded at all so we had been talking about getting a shelter for it.  However, they're expensive!  Coming home from church we saw this one in someone's front yard with a "free" sign on it.  We were so thankful!!

Cutest face ever!!!  He fell outside if you notice the scratches. 

About mid June

Here it is, June 13th already!  I kind of want to report that I'm a "no spend" failure, but that is really not the case at all.  I started out with $100 of cash that I had been saving for something good for a log time and decided it would be used for this month's spending.  I added $50 to that when I sold our old, but never used, food processor.  I still have $55 left in my wallet.  Now, I guess to some spending $95 in 13 days is a lot, but to me it's really, really low.  90% of what I bought was groceries and gas and the other 10% was spend on a trip to the thrift store for helmets and a little bike for Mareea ($2.50) and at a garage sale for a $1 clothes hamper I had been planning to buy anyway and some workbooks for the girls.  The $2.50 bike was such a good investment.  Every night the kids go out and ride their bikes in the little alley behind our house with the neighbors.  Gid and Mareea had to share a bike and now she has her own.  She rides it at least once a day and loves it. 

I had to make another big trip to the grocery store yesterday.  I had hoped I could last until Saturday, but I had totally forgotten how much food this family goes through when we are not going out to eat.  Holy massive food consumption, Batman.  I dare say that I'm *almost* getting used to the prep and clean up afterwards also.  Yesterday's grocery trip was $177.  I kind of felt like it was a rebound from trying to save so much on the grocery trip on the 1st.  I only bought the bare minimum so by the time I went back we were cleaned out of everything and I had to restock completely.  This time I bought a little more "stock" for the pantry and hopefully won't have to rebuy everything when I go again in a couple of weeks.  I also went back to buying the organic yogurt and caged free eggs (it killed me to buy non-organic!!) so I know that uped the price also.  I was pretty bummed when the total came up at the register, but reminded myself that $177 is what our large family would spend going out to eat just 3 times at a sit down restaurant.  And if it was a nicer restaurant we could spend that much in just two trips.

I sold a custom mei tai to a mama I am in a babywearing facebook group with.  I'm excited that it will bring in another $46 for our family.  I am trying to decide if it should just go in the wallet for groceries/gas or if I should use it for Landon's birthday on the 30th.  We already ordered him a lego set, but I would like to make this science kit for him.  I know he would love it.  We bought cake mix and mac and cheese for him and he says he wants pizza and a movie for his activity.  The movie we already have and we'll do the Little Cesar's carry out $7 pizzas. 

We are fairly certain we have renters.  They were supposed to sign the lease Monday, but it got changed to Tuesday.  On Tuesday, renter Dad got called into work so renter Mom said she would sign for him.  The property manager told them "not to worry about it" and they could sign Friday when they move in.  Dan and I were pretty upset, but the locks are being changed Friday because he is so sure they are moving in.  I am trying hard to have peace about it and today I'm doing much better than I was yesterday. 

Here's something sort of funny.  I've making a list this month of things that we need/want to buy when we can spend again.  I've even been praying about them.  Here's the list so far

grass fed beef from a local farm
shower curtain/bath mat/toothbrush holder for girls' bathroom
set of glass bowls (all of ours were broken in the move)
bikes for Q and A...have NO luck finding these used
a basketball for the hoop out back
a magnetic dry erase board to write down our meals, memory verse, prayer request and activities (old one got broken in the move)
a swing set or trampoline for the back yard 
A kitchen tool caddy for my big spoons, forks, etc. that are lying on my counter.  The old one was a sugar jar that was turned into a fish bowl. 
A couple of decorative pot holders to hang on my kitchen wall.

I plan to stay out of stores after this month is over.  I also plan to do a lot of thinking before I buy anything!  The kids have started to become more creative and enjoy being at home.  Today they did a paper airplane show for me with different kinds of paper airplanes they had learned to make from a library book.  The girls are really getting into using my old Stampin' Up! supplies that have been sitting for years in bins.  I tried to sell them with no bites so I think it'd be better for them to get used by us.  A friend of mine said that anything can become anything with a little bit of imagination and I really want to teach my children that.  I want them to be content with what they have and not always acquiring things or even always wanting things. 

No spend update

This whole thing has been a challenge for me.  For the most part, I just don't go to stores and so I dont' spend.  That part has been really easy.  Sometimes I'll wish that I could go get something for our new house like a shower curtain, but the moment passes and I don't worry about it too much.  However, not being able to get fast food has been really hard for me.  It's a full time job to cook and clean up after 7/8 people three times a day.  We keep things pretty easy and the kids help out a lot, but it's still quite the production.  I used to say, "wow!  We didn't go out to eat at all today!" and be really excited about it.  Now we never go out to eat.  I know it's saving a lot of money.  I have had to run to the commissary a couple of times to pick up things, but it's nothing compared to the cost of a BK or Moe's lunch. 

We're going through food like crazy.  I we polished off a huge Costco size baby spinach container and almost 5 lbs. of baby carrots since Saturday!  Our cereal stash is about gone and I'm hoping what we have will last for the next 3 cereal days until I do another shopping trip. 

One thing that is surprising me is how much more physical work I feel like I do when we're not browsing stores or eating out.  I can't really put my finger on why, but I feel like I'm going more laundry, more cleaning, more baby washing, etc.  Maybe it's because Dan is gone?  LOL

I had planned on giving up soda during this month, but it was not working.  The 20 oz. bottles are $1.65 and one of those a day can really add up.  I went out and bought a 12 pack of cans for less than $5 which means I'll drink less a day and spent way less for it.  So far I've spent $25 at the commissary on top of the $120 I spent originally.  I'm hoping to not have to go again until next weekend.  It's all come out of my $100 cash that I hope to only spend this month. 

Since we have started this, three of my friends have told me that they are doing the same thing this month!  I had no idea it was such a popular thing to do. 
The boys are loving soccer camp.  It's really close to the house and a very easy drive for me.  I'm loving spending time with the little ones.  Salt dough was a great time and free because we had the materials already.  Here they are making it

and playing with it

I cooked them all and we'll need to paint them soon.  Today we could not because I had two showings at the Ewa house.  Hooray!  One of the families actually turned in an application on it and said they wanted it, but really want the property manager to paint first.  I am praying that everything will actually go through this time and we will have a renter.  God has been good to provide for us and I am learning to patiently wait on His timing. 

Tomorrow we have plans to go to the beach.  I am so tired tonight that I'm worried I won't be able to swing it, but I think the littles will insist and help out.

Gideon 18 months

We love this little man!  He is so much fun.  Here he is determined to stay at soccer camp with his big brothers.  He's saying lots of words including: ball, quack, bird, bike, goat, moo, baby, hot, mine, ouch, dada, mama, poo poo, baaaa, apple, banana (nana), Thea, flower, gone, leaf, nose, ROAR!, monkey (moemoe) and foot. 

He is in love with ducks, balls and monkeys.  He will carry around a marble in his hand all day if you let him and quacks at anything with wings.  He loves his daddy so much and will literally jump up and down when he comes home from work.  Any man is dada and at church he was yelling dada at the pastor LOL...it can be kind of embarrassing, but it's so cute anyway.  He also quacked very loudly at a picture of an eagle during the closing prayer. 

He loves to sleep with his stuffed monkey every night and gets really excited whenever he sees a picture of a monkey.  He loves books so much.  He only sits still when someone is reading him a book.  My favorite time with him is before bed when we read.  He gets so excited pointing at the pictures and saying what they are.  His favorite books have pictures of things that he can say.  He loves Baby Day, Peek a Who, Winnie the Pooh Opposites and Barnyard Dance. 

In our new house we put a small chair next to the window so he can climb up and look at all the birds outside.  It's his favorite place to be and we listen to him saying, "bird, bird" and watch him make the sign for bird. 

I think he's going to be another one of the athletic Bonds.  He's very tall and lean and has great balance.  He kicks a ball so well!  He also gives the best baby kisses ever. 

He seems to need more sleep than my others did at this age.  I'm pretty sure he would still take 2 naps if I let him.  Lately he's been taking a very long afternoon nap.  Most of the time he gets a morning cat nap in the car if we're going somewhere.   

He's a great eater for the most part.  He loves beans as much as his mama which is a lot!  None of my others would eat beans, but Gideon sure does. 

Everyone just dotes on him.  I am so, so thankful I had him.  He is a blessing and a joy!!

Making Dinner

This was what I got to watch while making dinner for my family last night. 

Q and A had gotten wet while washing the car for daddy so they are shirtless...not a normal thing around here!

Yes, that's Thea wearing her soccer cleats with her church dress.  Q and A were breaking in their new cleats and she ran to get the pair we had found for her at Savers.  The girl is dying to play soccer.  She asks about it all the time!

While most of the children played outside, Mareea came in and helped me.  We made homemade hamburger buns, BBQ beef and potato wedges.  I am so sad I didn't get a picture of her in her little apron rolling and kneading the dough.  Here are the buns

These took a little work.  Not too bad, but more than I'm used to putting into a dinner.  I rolled these out a little thin so they're sort of flat, but I love it because it's "low carb" and it made way more buns.  I have about 8 in the freezer for using later.  Saving money does take more work in the kitchen, but spending it with sweet Mareea made it totally worth it.  She even went out and picked us some Hibiscus to make a pretty and free centerpiece with. 

And this was our yummy dinner.  Lots more work than I'm used to, but very inexpensive.  Having a salad and potatoes meant that I have 1/2 the BBQ beef in the freezer for another meal for only about $1.40.  The potato wedges were a huge hit!  They're my favorite, too. 

And here's my hard working hubby talking to a potential renter.  Photo credit to Mareea :)

This week in summer school

We are finishing up our end of the year testing and then taking a couple of months off of formal schooling to have lots of time for fun summer activities.  Here's some "light learning" we will be doing this week.

Bible memory verse: 1 John 1:6-7

Hymn memorization: verse 2 of Be Thou My Vision

Vocab. words of the week: admonish and jeer

Poem memorization: verse 3 of Wynken, Blynken and Nod

Artist study: Monet

Family read aloud: Finish Ramona Forever and start Old Yeller.  1 John

Science read aloud:  Gorillas Zoobook magazine and How Animals Sleep

Art Activity: Salt dough

Field trips/activities: Soccer camp for older boys and park with friends for the girls.  Possibly a beach trip one morning.

Individual reading:
Q-Ten P's in a Pod, The Signers
A-Yankee Doodle Boy, The Periodic Table
L-Hello Miss Piggle Wiggle, Great Explorers

Math facts: addition 1-3's. 

No spend Days 1 and 2

I can't say that I'll blog about each day this month, but I'd like to try and document this journey!  I'm also thinking I should call it "spend very little" June because I am buying groceries and things we absolutely need.  Oh well, it just does not have a great ring to it. 

Day 1:
We saved money by shopping the thrift stores for bikes helmets ($3.50 for all 3 that we needed).  I used cash in my wallet for that. 

Instead of making frozen pizza or ordering pizza, Quintin made ours.  It costs about $4.50 to make a huge pizza that feeds our entire family.  Frozen pizza in Hawaii is super expensive.  Even the cheap Tombstone's are almost $5 each at the commissary.  Because we need 3, we would have to pay $15 for frozen pizza!  Ordering pizza for everyone costs about $30 here.  I have yet to find a super cheap pick up deal here.  Obviously $4.50 is the winner here...not to mention it is healthier and I even like how it tastes better! 

We got our movie night at the library instead of the redbox. 

After movie night we enjoyed a park visit and riding bikes/scooters on the trail across the street thanks to our new helmets. 

Day 2:
Grocery shopping day!  Yikes!  This was discouraging for me.  Hawaii is just plain expensive for food.
I made a menu for breakfast, lunch and dinner for the next 2 weeks.  This took up way more brain power than I'm used to using.  I got some ideas off of the Angel Navy Wife blog for cheap meals.  However, I know it helped save a ton of money.

When we got to the store, I stopped at the front and was able to find $2 worth of coupons for things I was going to buy anyway.  (It payed for goldfish for the babies for being so good during an hour long grocery shopping trip!)  It does not sound like much, but every dollar counts I'm beginning to see. 

I bought yogurt that was not organic and less than 1/2 of the price of organic yogurt.  This was the most painful part of the trip!  I only use it in smoothies and not that much, but still.  Yucky hormones. 

The total for the groceries, surcharge, and bagger tip was $125.  I was anticipating it being way more as I filled up the grocery cart, and am thankful for the low cost of beans and potatoes!  I will need to go back a few times to get lettuce, but it's only $1.30.  I had just done a big COSTCO shopping trip and have quite a stockpile of cereal so that was a big help in keeping the cost low. 

Our menu for the next to weeks (breakfast and lunch repeat)
Breakfast
M-eggs with spinach and feta and toast
T-oatmeal with walnuts and raisins
W-cereal and almond milk
Th-oatmeal with walnuts and raisins
F-banana bread and fruit smoothies
S-eggs and sausage or bacon
S-cereal and almond mild

Lunch
M-PBJ and veggies
T-pinto bean and rice burritos
W-lunch meat and cheese sandwiches
Th-black bean dip and chips
F-Calico rice
S-manwich mixed with rice to stretch the beef
S-enchiladas with beef, rice and pintos (crock pot)

Dinner week 1
M-Cilantro lime rice, refried bean burritos with guacamole dip and tomatoes
T-mac and cheese with hot dogs (can you tell daddy's gone?) and salad
W-pintos and rice with leftover Quac dip and salad
Th-sloppy joe's with homemade hamburger buns and salad
F-pizza and baby carrots
S-cranberry chicken, cilantro lime rice and salad with tomatoes and cucumbers
S-BBQ beef sandwiches, homemade buns and potato wedges

Dinner week 2
M-spaghetti and broccoli
T-chicken rice soup and homemade honey wheat bread
W-lentils on rice and salad with tomatoes and cucumbers
Th-chicken and rice casserole with broccoli
F-pizza and baby carrots
S-black bean over rice
S-Sandwiches and fruit smoothies

This afternoon we are heading to the base pool and then home to enjoy what's cooking in the crock pot. 

No spend June

It's June!  We have moved onto the Air Force base and we love it.  I seriously love everything about it.  The house is not a fancy as our other house, but I don't care!!  This house meets our needs 100% more than the other one did and I have to admit I like the old fashioned refrigerator with a freezer on top instead of side by side with the fridge.  Open floor plans?  Hate them!  All it did was make it impossible to keep my toddler tornado out of anything!  Our new house also has this old fashioned stuff called carpet.  It's wonderful!  It keeps the sound of 6 children from echoing all over the house and killing my ears.  AND...we have a great yard with a view of the water, a walking trail along said water, and this wonderful covered lanai (back sun porch) where the big kids can play without their lego ships or chess pieces being disturbed.  The beach is less than 2 miles away, the pool and library less than a mile away and I can drive a quick five minutes to the commissary and BX.  Dan is loving being able to ride his bike to work in just over five minutes. 
However, we did not find a renter to take over our lease at the old house.  We were very, very close about 3 times and they fell through.  We have also found that our property manager has not been helping us out very much or working well with people that want to try and rent the property.  This means that we are having to pay the rent there and here.  It's a lot of money and it's going to be a challenge to live on what we have left over. 
So the kids and I have decided that this June we won't spend any money!  OK, so we'll still have to buy groceries and possibly gas, but for the most part we will try to not spend.  We still have lots of options open to us for things to do so I don't think anyone will even notice.  The pool, beach and library are free and the those are their favorite places to go.  I'm thinking about doing one big shopping trip at the beginning of this month to try and save money on groceries.  I just have to make a menu first which is a huge deal for me!  I do have some cash in my wallet which I will use for random things that we need.  Today we went to the thrift store to look for bike helmets for the children.  Now that we're on base they're required to have helmets when riding bikes or scooters so they have not been able to ride their bikes since we got here.  We were so blessed...the thrift store had helmets for the kids that needed them for $1 and $2 each.  I was so very, very thankful.  We also "splurged" and got an ice cream maker for $2.50.  We had been planning on getting one anyway, but now there was no way we could.  However, seeing it there for so cheap we decided to go for it.  I'm a little worried that the ingredients will be pricey, but we'll see. 
We will have to give up ballet and tumbling class for the girls this summer.  I'm a little upset about that, but I would much, much, much rather live here and give up dance than live back in our old house!  Dan and I are discussing if there's some way we can make soccer camp and swimming lessons work.  Maybe if I become an extreme couponer and can get our groceries for $6.72 a week!  Landon's birthday is also this month and I've already been thinking about how we can have a great celebration without much money.  We can make the cake at home ($2), have mac and cheese for lunch and go fishing for his activity.  The boys made fishing poles from sticks and string.  We're going to be checking out the thrift store for presents, too. 

I am thinking about getting out my mei tai material again and trying to sell a few.  It would really help with some extra money! 

While this "challenge" is certainly not something I would have picked to do, I'm thankful for it.  It will give me a time to really reflect on how I spend our money that God has provided for us.  I'm so thankful that living on base means we do not have to pay power or water bills!  I also will not need to hire the house cleaner now that we're living in a smaller house with CARPET!  That's about $650 a month right there depending on utilities for the month. 

That's what we're up to.  Can't wait to post pictures of our new place!!