Happy Hour Anyone???

How much do we love Sonic?? How sad is it when you are out somewhere and its close to 2pm and your kids start asking "Can we go to Happy Hour?". You get those weird looks from others that don't understand what they mean!!

Here is a free sandwich with a purchase of a large drink! I think Happy Hour is calling now!!

What do you do when you only have $3 in your wallet ?....

You call your super cool friend Kim and go shopping!!! I can not tell you how much fun I am having with these coupon shopping trips!! I LOVE TO SHOP! But have been curbed due to our new household budget that is very long overdue!! Now, I have always felt like I was a pretty good bargain shopper. I hardly ever buy things full price. I shop at consignment stores and look at the grocery sale adds and buy what is on sale. I have even been known to price match a Wal-Mart and felt like I was hard core for doing so. Until I met Kim!!! Wow can that girl shop!! It is a lot of work for her but she has a gift! She can even add and do the percentage off in her head! Now that's talent!!

So yesterday the boys went with our neighbors across the street to the lake to celebrate Jasper's 8th bday. Kim's son went too and so we had a couple of hours with nothing to do. I was going to finish up some laundry, ironing, etc but Kim called and asked "Do you want to go shopping?" I told her I only had $3 in my wallet and she said that was plenty! So off to Kroger and Wal-Mart we went!!



My Loot was...

3 bags of chips
2 packages of Wholly Salsa
1 large bottle of Dawn dishwashing liquid
1 Candy bar (this was extra b/c my coupons were so good, Kroger owed me money!!!)

The original price $16.94...
I spent .24... after all of my coupons, Kroger owed me .25, so I bought a candy bar for fun!!

At Wal-Mart my loot was...

4 packages of Kotex
1 16oz bottle of Kraft Italian Dressing
2 tubes of Colgate toothpaste

The original price was $11.96... I paid .95

So all together I paid $1.19 for $28.90 worth of stuff!! WOW! We are such geeks(not nerds :) but what fun!! Steve laughs every time I come home. He doesn't understand my excitement over toothpaste but loves the savings!! The best part is that I still have $2 left in my purse! Check out my friends Kim's blog here she loves to share her wealth of knowledge!!

I will leave you with a few pix of the boys at the lake with the Burklins. Although Linda said it was a little precarious at times b/c of the weather... the boys couldn't stop talking about all the fun they had! Thanks Linda for braving the lake with 7 little kids!!!

This was sent to me by a friend! Oh how I miss after ELO Chick-fil-A!!

April in Review

Our April has been pretty busy!! I am just now updating pictures from this month.

Let's see.... The first pictures of from Easter. The boys woke up and enjoyed a basket of goodies. Ethan's big gift was a circuit board clock, Isaac's was a lava lamp. We partook in a "Candy Fling" where we took left over Easter candy and flung it out in my friend Laura's yard! Very fun!! The boys trip to California with my parent's. I still don't have all of the pictures my mom took. I hope to share those soon!! Mine and Steve's staycation where mostly we vegged but we did a little landscaping and home improvements too. We squeezed in a trip to a new vineyard, Enoch's Stomp, in between our movie watching!! We got a treat also when a hot air balloon that landed at LETU. The boys competed in a local piano competition and both received blue ribbons. We actually made it to one of Suzy Q's softball games!! She did AWESOME!!! Our neighborhood lemonade stand a few of the kids put together along with a neighborhood caped adventure with clone troopers and towel capes!! I just love living in our neighborhood!! And just to be a homeschool mom, I included pictures of my container and herb gardens. They both are doing really well!!

I hope you enjoy.....

Make an on-line slideshow at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Bargain Day At Bakery Means Strata Dinner Tonight - Frugal Challenge

I love Hillbilly Housewife!! This may be a great idea for those lean weeks!! Do we have a bread store locally?

Bargain Day At Bakery Means Strata Dinner Tonight - Frugal Challenge

Posted using ShareThis

Making Your Home Sing Monday : Perseverance

WHEW!! We have had a busy weekend!! Fun activities but busy. Sometimes Mondays are hard to get started. I would love to sit in my pj's all morning drinking coffee, reading the paper or blog-stalking, slowly waking up and enjoying nothingness!! Of course that is not how life plays out on Monday or any day for that matter!!

So my commitment for the day is perseverance. To be steadfast, diligent, determined to complete the tasks that are before me today. Laundry, schooling the boys, coupon clipping and organizing, meal preparation, etc, etc, etc.... I may even try to have a good attitude with it!! Now, that would be an accomplishment!!

Friday Photo Flashback

Normally I do a MHR post on most Fridays but I saw this idea and thought I would join in on the fun!!

Okay some background info. Just in case you didn't know, Steve and I met when we were in high school. I had just turned 16, he was close to 16. I was driving ( a very cute and sporty PURPLE VW bug) and Steve had no taken his driver's test yet. So, yes, we were babies.

We dated for 3 years and then were engaged for a year. This picture was taken when he and I and his family went to visit their Colorado family in 1992. We had just gotten engaged and both were around 18.



My scanner wasn't working so I had to take a picture of this picture but you get the idea!! Sadly enough the thing I am most excited about in this picture is that my legs look a little tan!! I guess that's when we were still young enough to stay outside in the scorching Texas heat!!!

Okay now.... be nice with the comments!

I opened a new storefront on Amazon trying to sell all of my piles and piles of books! Mostly childrens books and curriculum.

Check it out here.

Pro Lifers Domestic Terrorists?

Read this article and watch this video!! I don't know what else to say other than sign the petition and pray!!

Making Your Home Sing Monday - Appreciation

My boys arrived from California safe and sound last night around 8:30pm. They were exhausted and full of stories. Steve and I were so excited about them coming home. We had such a relaxing time (we watched 7 movies and a season and a half of Eureka; it rained ALOT!!). I will post pictures as soon as I get them from my mom!!

All that said, my goal for the day is appreciation. I want to appreciate my family today and everyday! I want them to know they are valued, significant in my life. I want to spend quality time with them. Learn all about each one of them so I can love them in they way that is meaningful to them individually!! That is easy to say because it is so easy for me to get caught up in my own stuff!! I sometimes forget that its not all about me and how my family relates to me or how they can better my life. Serve, Serve, Serve needs to be my mantra.

I would love to expound of this topic but I am busy, busy today! Unpacking my kiddos, laundry, meals, and getting ready for our homeschool book sale tonight!!

Thanks momstheword for your post! It really hit home!!

From the Mind of Ethan

Okay... I wasn't able to upload Ethan's edited version of "LMN News". He took several videos and spliced and edited them in Movie Maker. It was great! The entire video was 10 minutes but worth every minute!!

For any of you that don't know Ethan very well, I think its fair to say he is a little scatter brained. His nickname around here is "Absent-Minded Professor or AMP". He is very cerebral but not so good with the street smarts!! We pretty much everyday get a good belly laugh at his confusion with the most simple of daily tasks!! Most of time I don't think he knows what we are laughing at! We of course assure him that we are not making fun of him, he just amuses us!!

So the best I could do with the videos he made is add a couple independently to share. The whole thing in Movie Maker runs very smoothly transitioning from newscast to commercial to interviews!! The only problem is that poor Beth Rose, who is holding the camera in a few shots, is laughing so hard that the camera is shaking!! I think there is a snort in there somewhere too! The best part to me and Steve is Ethan's focus! He is NEVER focused in homeschooling but when he applies himself, its really great! I am really proud of him! I can see a real future in this!!

So without further ado......

The Opening News Cast


The First Commercial



The Interview



Oh by the way.... my parent's are surprising my boys with a trip to San Diego, CA tomorrow. My dad is speaking at a conference and my mom is taking the kids to visit the zoo, beach maybe even Legoland, etc... they will be gone Thursday-Sunday. So, needless to say, I won't be blogging for a few days!! The hubby and I are taking a much needed "Staycation". We will be lazing around, watching movies, gardening, eating ALOT, having a picnic at the local vineyard/winery and just enjoying each others company!!

So enjoy the vidoes and I will blog ya later!!

From the Mouth of Isaac : Take 2

I wanted to have a little series on my blog that were titled "From the Mind of Ethan" and "From the Mouth of Isaac" periodically b/c some funny stuff goes on around here. I think I may have done it a couple of times in the past year but definitely not as much as I could have. Most of the time something will happen and I have a hard time remembering what was said. I have been trying to upload a video that Ethan produced last week. He wants to make movies when he grows up and he is actually very good at them. He, Isaac and our neighbor Beth Rose made news broadcast with interviews, weather, and commercials. It was great but I think too big to upload. We are trying to work out the kinks!

So... I have a second installment of "From the Mouth of Isaac". A little background. We were invited to eat at the Akin's last night. Isaac got in trouble, of course, and on the way home said...

Isaac: "Mama, I am sorry that I did wrong tonight".

Me: " Isaac, I know you are. Daddy and I are here to help you understand better what is right and wrong. We know you will get in trouble, we just hope that you learn from your mistakes."

Isaac: " You know Mama.... I used to be a liar. I started lying in my 3's but stopped when I hit my mid-3"s. I think I grew out of it".

From the Mouth of Isaac

Steve - "Isaac if you had to use one word to describe your mama what would it be?"


Isaac - " DRA....MA....TIC!!!!!"

The End of Christian America

I got this article off the the Answers In Genesis website. Very telling and scary!! Although I believe we as Christians that we are to love people of our world , when we start compromising The Truth that is Jesus Christ, we are in a sad state. God warns over and over how His anger will be poured out on a nation that turns their back on Him.

This was the title of last week’s Newsweek cover story commenting on recent statistics about Christianity in America. I personally believe the Answers in Genesis/Creation Museum ministries are raised up by God for this era of history—for this time. There is no doubt America has changed—changed its foundation from a Christian worldview founded on God’s Word to an increasing secular worldview built on fallible man’s autonomous human reason.

Sadly, this change has happened in much of the church, as many Christian leaders (in churches, colleges, seminaries, etc.) have compromised the Word of God beginning in Genesis—thus undermining the authority of the entire Word of God. And that is what has been eroded in this nation (and in fact the entire previously Christianized West)—the authority of the Word of God.

If we were listening carefully recently, the president of the United States, Barack Obama, told the population that America is no longer a Christian nation—no longer a nation under one God, but a nation of many gods! In his inauguration address, the President made a similar quote to that as was made in his autobiography published just before the election. In that book he stated:

Whatever we once were, we are no longer just a Christian nation; we are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, a Buddhist nation, a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers.

When the President announces this to the nation—one knows we are in big trouble—big trouble spiritually (the economic woes pales into insignificance compared to the spiritual state of this nation).

The Newsweek article–with a stark cover (and its title’s words were placed in the form of a cross)—begins:

RELIGION . . . The End of Christian America

The percentage of self-identified Christians has fallen 10 points in the past two decades. How that statistic explains who we are now—and what, as a nation, we are about to become.

By Jon Meacham | NEWSWEEK
Published Apr 4, 2009
From the magazine issue dated Apr 13, 2009

It was a small detail, a point of comparison buried in the fifth paragraph on the 17th page of a 24-page summary of the 2009 American Religious Identification Survey. But as R. Albert Mohler Jr.—president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, one of the largest on earth—read over the document after its release in March, he was struck by a single sentence. For a believer like Mohler—a starched, unflinchingly conservative Christian, steeped in the theology of his particular province of the faith, devoted to producing ministers who will preach the inerrancy of the Bible and the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the only means to eternal life—the central news of the survey was troubling enough: the number of Americans who claim no religious affiliation has nearly doubled since 1990, rising from 8 to 15 percent. Then came the point he could not get out of his mind: while the unaffiliated have historically been concentrated in the Pacific Northwest, the report said,“this pattern has now changed, and the Northeast emerged in 2008 as the new stronghold of the religiously unidentified.” As Mohler saw it, the historic foundation of America’s religious culture was cracking.

You can read more at this link:

http://www.newsweek.com/id/192583/page/1

Pray for this nation—and pray for the church, that leaders will give up their compromise with the secular religion of the day (evolution, millions of years, etc.) and get back to the authority of the Word of God.

Making Your Home Sing Monday

This is a new post I am hoping to keep up with along with MHR Friday. I got the idea from a blog follow momstheword (you can click on the link above to read her motivation behind this). Basically it is a post every Monday about how you are going to make your home better for that day. It can be words, attitudes, crafts, baking, etc. So here goes.....

We have been so busy lately. We really thought since the dining hall project was over, that our lives would slow down and be more "normal". I don't think I even know what that word means anymore!! With work, homeschooling, visiting relatives, home projects, planting a vineyard, work, cooking cleaning, etc, etc, etc, what is normal anyway? I realized however in the midst of feeling overwhelmed and too busy, that maybe this IS normal and I need to change my attitude toward it!! Life is busy, unpredictable, exciting, slow and boring all in the same day!! What makes it a good day or a horrible day is MY attitude!! Mom makes the home sing not circumstances!! I have to roll with it sometimes. That is hard for me when I like to have my home clean and running smoothly by the time I go to bed at night!! I can be so uptight by the end of the day, I can't enjoy the small moments I get with my husband alone! I know he hates that!

So my goal today is no matter what... "Have A Good Attitude". Toward my children, my husband, my chores and whomever or whatever may come my way. Say kind things, hug and kiss my family alot and tell them how much they are loved!! Because they are so loved!! I can do that!! That's not too hard!! It's a privilege to be able to that!!

Without Easter

Without Easter,

there would be no hope of heaven.
Without the hope of heaven,
there would be no repentance,
no personal transformation,
no attempt to follow biblical principles.
Without Easter,
the world would be in chaos
and darkness.
Jesus’ death and resurrection
means we can be reborn,
to live better, to do better,
to shine light into the shadows.

Hallelujah!
Happy, Happy Easter.

My Husband Rocks Friday

My husband rocks because he bought this shirt all by himself (I didn't know he did until it came in the mail) and he wore it last night to dinner!! He is so fun.

Oh..... he also put the swing that he is sitting on together this week so I could watch the kids play in the neighborhood in comfort!

Love ya babe!!!

Feelin Frugal

Okay... so last night was my first official CVS/Walgreens/Wal-Mart shopping spree with Kim and Steph!! I have been wanting to go for weeks but circumstances have not allowed! Kim called me at 7:00 as she was pulling out of her driveway and said "I know this is last minute but I am in the driveway, so let's go shopping!!" I love last minute, on the fly kinda outings, so in my pajamas I went!!!

Since this was my first time, I was a little nervous. It all seems so overwhelming with the coupons and extra bucks from CVS and Walgreens, store matching prices and sales. But Kim is so organized and such a good teacher that I got through the evening feeling very educated! I am even going back today to try to get some free stuff that I didn't have coupons for last night.

All that to say that up top is a picture of my goodies. I got 2 tubes of Colgate Total, 2 Skintamate shave creams, Edge shave cream, Fabreeze Vanilla candle, 2 Glade air fresheners, Palmolive, a gallon of milk and for fun, some pink polish for my much needed pedicure. I got the pizza sauce extra but it was only a $1. The grand total was $9.82 minus $3.50 Walgreens bucks and $3.49 CVS bucks its like I spent $3.33!! The original price was $26.65!! Score!! Steve was very amused at my excitement! He has never seen me so excited about toothpaste and air freshener!!

Now Kim and Steph got a whole lot more but I know I will get better at this!! Even if I don't... the evening was fun just hanging with girlfriends!!

Ode To A Homeschool Mom

Ode to a Homeschool Mom

As a wife, mother, and home educator
You are the embodiment of life, love, and laughter.
Even at times when you do not feel respected,
You are adored by the children you’ve directed.

Your chosen career means there is much to do,
For you are your children’s best teacher, too–
Training them to walk, to talk and say “please,”
Plus reading, writing, math, and social studies.

Gathering books from the library, you strive
To read aloud and bring history alive.
You take kids on field trips and nature hikes,
Arrange play days and set up movie nights.

You are a modern “Renaissance woman,”
Instructing every one of your children
In all of the fine arts and sciences
While you also pursue your own interests.

You are a housekeeper, nurse, cook, janitor,
Counselor, cheerleader, and a whole lot more.
You can give a lesson and bake a cake
While tying a shoe and mending a break.

You teach your children for most of the day,
And carefully listen to what they have to say.
Rather than measuring by height, grade or year,
You track their growth by the character they wear.

You routinely put your family first
And do your best to fix every hurt.
Your heart is full of compassion showing
You are quite wise and always knowing.

Your life is not as glorious as some,
With many days taken up by tedium.
You rarely get what you truly deserve,
As anyone else would surely observe.

But even amid the worst of all days,
Happiness is found in a special way.
God is your strength and Jesus is your mentor;
As you honor Him, He blesses your endeavor.

This time of the year is hard for me. I have never been good with "finishing up" the school year. I am already planning for next year, getting excited about all the new curriculum we will be studying. Bored with what we are doing now!! Someone sent this to me and it helped encourage me... I hope it helps any other homeschooling mom out there too!! What we do is important! Even though sometimes it doesn't feel like it is!!

Have a blessed day!!

Family, Firsts and Fun

Our Spring Break was taken a little later than everyone else around here. We were waiting on the arrival of my MIL or Oma as the kids call her. She is a school teacher( a really fabulous one at that) in Colorado and her Spring Break fell on the last week in March. We picked her up from the airport on Saturday, I forgot my camera, in Dallas. We ate lunch at Saltgrass and came home for a quiet first evening with some Bluebell Mint Chocolate Chip and catch up time. Sunday we slept in and went to late service. Lunch was our treat or LETU's treat, at the new dining hall so Steve could show off what he was busy doing all of last year. Because Oma's Spring Break was after ours here, she was able to enjoy all of normal weekly activities. So Sunday night was AWANA and Wednesday was ELO. I forgot to mention that her bag was not on the flight with her and we struggled to find it for 3 days. On Tuesday, however, we learned that her bag was put on a plane to Cabo San Lucas and had a 2 day beach vacation without her. Since Steve grew up in Longview and his family moved back to Colorado after we were married, we always have to eat at all of the Longview favs when the Hill's come down. So we ate ALOT!! Papacitas, Bodacious, Dudley's were a few. We even managed to plant all of our grapevines in our newly expanded vineyard. We ate dinner out with my parent's and my mom, Oma and I made dinner for the boys while Steve. Ethan, Isaac, my dad and Uncle Mickey planted. The week was full of fun and family. The boys were terribly sad to see her leave on Thursday but a quick trip to the Galleria and two bags of candy from Candyland helped eased the pain some.

Last night we had our ELO open house. This was a really fun way for all of the families, really just the dad's, to see what the kiddos have been doing every Wednesday for the past year. Ethan's group (3rd-6th grades) put on a musical "Splash Kingdom". It was really cute and all of the kids did a great job! After the show we went over to the gym where all of the kids work was displayed. Nanny and BB came and both were really impressed with the work the boys had done.

I am going to leave you with a few videos of our past week!!

Isaac's first solo bike ride....



Opening Song in Splash Kingdom.....



And... I may get in trouble for this one... but I couldn't resist!! Jessi looked like she was having so much fun, I had to share... this is why we love her, she can make anytime a blast!!

Beware of the Dog House

I am currently downloading pics of Oma's visit and Isaac's first solo bike ride w/out training wheels but I found this video and had to share. It circulated around Christmas time and I belly laughed when I watched it!! If you read my MHR posts you know this is not the kind of man I live with... especially lately but sooo funny.

Enjoy...