I Heart My MIL!

I have somehow managed to lose BOTH of Julia's blankies in a 12 hour period. (This all happened between pickup at preschool and the pumpkin farm!?) Of course, this happens when Jeff is set to take off for New York and leave me to single parent this stressed out 2 year old!

My neighbor, Trina, crocheted these blankies for Julia when she was born...and out of all the blankets we bought/were gifted, this was the one which she fell in love.

Fortunately, Trina still had some of the yarn...and picked up some more for me today. (THANK YOU!)

Grandma is a big HERO here, whipping out a little substitute (which I am happy to report Julia is taking to quite well!) in one afternoon...while somehow also baking cookies with the kids. THANK YOU, GRANDMA!

Pumpkin Farm

My neighbor, Carrie was bringing her kids to the pumpkin farm this afternoon and invited us to join them...it was a perfect weather day...I'm so glad it worked out!

The kids picked these apples off a tree...and chomped on them the entire way home...this was all that was left of Julia's. She ate the core?!

Erica is...

listening/watching Julia, who is in the shower and picking up each individual fish tub toy ...squeezing it tight to her tummy, patting it, and saying: "It's ok. It's ok. Don't be scared. There are no monsters in your room."

My Snuggle-Bugs

Boys and Talent?

You know, having a 4 year old boy in the house has introduced conversations I have both been a part of and overheard that I never envisioned as a part of motherhood. For example:

Ryan (screaming from bathroom): Hey, Andrew, wanna come look at this HUGE poop I just made?"

Brunch and Bling

Today I hosted a "Brunch and Bling" event for the preschool moms. Julia was in total awe when she came downstairs and saw all the jewels. She didn't want to leave the dining room! =)

Candy?!

Julia kicked out of class; Tyler's not talking

From last Thursday:
Our princess woke up hours earlier than normal today--scared to death by the thunder outside. So by the time preschool started, she probably would have taken a nap had I kept her home! She was super sleepy when I dropped the kids off. And clingy. I should have known this could lead to something more..

A note in Julia's backpack read "Sat out with Ms. Christy (director) for throwing a fit."

I have tried to piece together the pieces of this...tough when you are getting details from a 2 yr old! She seems to have a mark on her face (bite mark? or nothing?)

Me: Julia, why did you have to go to Ms. Christy's today? Did you get in a fight?
Julia: (Shakes her head yes)
Me: (Showing her the school picture) Show me who you fought with.
Julia: (Pointing) Tyler
Me: Did you hit Tyler?
Julia: (Shakes her head yes)
Me: And then he bit you?
Julia: (Shakes her head yes)
Me: Did you cry?
Julia (Shakes her head no) I am a tough girl, Mommy.

Of course, I called Krista to see if she could get Tyler's side of the story. It is completely different-no such hitting or biting. Krista asked him if Julia went to time out and he said, "No, Julia went for a walk today."

It's all a mystery! I have a strong feeling Tyler is the innocent party here. He tries so hard to love on Julia at school, and she is doing a great job of teaching him how to respond someday to those girls who play "hard to get."

Gas Station Candy

We spent a fun extended weekend down at the lake with Uncle Jeff and Aunt Amy! Keeping with tradition, Amy and Jeff brought the kids down the street to get candy for breakfast. Yea for a nutritional way to start the day! =)

Hunger Challenge, Finale

Long story short, we failed the financial part of this challenge. We went over the budgeted allowance for this Hunger Challenge on Friday. After that, we basically threw it all out the window. (We are traveling this weekend too, so eating out much more!!). We could have brought the PB&J along and survived, had this been necessary. However, we felt like we've experienced enough of this challenge to take away some positives.

What I learned:

You really can't judge someone until you've walked a day in their shoes. Cliche, but true. While I realize this might sound really mean, I didn't have too much empathy (ok, almost none) for people living on our country's welfare system (who are capable of working). Or those collecting unemployment who really aren't job seeking. Or those who collect disability yet seem perfectly fine to be working. I do realize that in some cases, these programs are completely needed. Typically temporarily.

But I sometimes find myself thinking about how responsible we are, and why, because when we are retiring our government will probably just swoop in and "rescue" all our generation who lived beyond their means, and has no retirement savings.

This challenge has given me some empathy for those living on food stamps. They aren't just living the "high life" with the bill footed by our tax dollars. I understand, firsthand now, that going to bed hungry is a reality for many in our country. 35 million Americans are on food stamps--this is roughly 12% of our country's population. And spending $1.37/person per meal really doesn't leave one much flex room! We certainly didn't pull it off!

Overall, I feel really blessed we aren't actually in a situation to have to live like this every week like so many are these days!

My Julia Child =)

Hunger Challenge, Day 4

Breakfast: Cereal, coffee, Pepsi Max, eggs $1.50

Lunch: Peanut butter crackers, Beef roast sandwiches $8, yogurt

Dinner: Pancakes $4 (with sprinkles-I am not "charging" us for those..an unnecessary "fun" for the kids), syrup $4, eggs

Snacks: Ice cream bars, pecans $3

Total: $21.50 Which leaves us with a whopping $3.68 left until Sunday. Yikes...I really feel like we've been "skimping" and yet "success" at living within these means just maybe won't happen!

Hunger Challenge, Day 3

Breakfast: cereal, milk, breakfast bars

Snack: Rice Krispie Treats $3 (I NEEDED these to distract Julia during Ry's OT this morning!)

Lunch: Chicken Nuggets $3.90, Chinese $7 (Jeff said he just had a craving!! Eek!)

Dinner: Grandma fed the kids at her house, we had cereal

Lesson learned: Eating out really isn't as cost effective as eating at home. (I could have bought a BAG of frozen nuggets for $5) However, if you MUST, buying the 10 piece nuggets saves about half price over 2 Happy Meal purchases...but no milk or apples.

Total today - $13.90. WOW, this is actually UNDER our challenge budget for the day. However, we ate all leftovers and the kids spent most of the day with grandma.

Total left for the week = $25.18

Hunger Challenge, Day 2

Breakfast: PepsiMax, breakfast bar $3, cereal $3, milk $3

Lunch: PB&J $5, yogurt, oatmeal cookies grandma made, Jeff nacho @ work $2.

Dinner: Pizza $2 with added cheese and tomato $2, oranges $2.

Snack: Ice cream bars $3.

Total for today is $25.

Lesson learned: So far, this is MUCH tougher than I'd imagined. I mean, look at what we ate today--not much!! And we are still over our $16.52 average per day allowance.

Ryan also had his friend Charlie over this afternoon, and he stayed for our (cheap!) pizza. Aldi has a $2 pizza and I bought one of those and "jazzed" it up with the extras.

Think we can survive the rest of the week on $39.08?

Hunger Challenge, Day1

Today I woke up and reminded Jeff that today was Day#1 of our hunger challenge. ie, do not stop for any fancy coffee drinks on the way to work or we won't be eating come this weekend. We do have leftovers from yesterday's dinner party, which we will be consuming this week, so I'll assign a $$ value to them as we do so as to not "cheat" the system here...=)

So, here is a recap of the day:

Breakfast:
Kids: $0 (they spent the night at grandma/pa's house and ate there before I picked them up this am).
Me: $3 PepsiMax (case)
Jeff: $10 Coffee and cereal here (which hopefully will last him the entire week!).

Lunch:
Kids: $0 (we totally lucked out again...Julia ate lunch when we stopped by Aunt Krista's house, and Ryan at his friend Izzy's house).
Me: $0 (I ate at Krista's also, and had a PepsiMax leftover from my breakfast case).
Jeff: Shrimp fried rice $5

Dinner:
Strawberries $1.79, cheese $4.58, yogurt $3.98, salad $5.99, bruschetta $7, broccoli $2.99, veggie dip $6.23.


Lessons learned: This morning during Ryan's tennis lesson Julia asked me for some water. I had forgotten her sippy cup in the car and really hate the kids trying to drink out of the fountains (germs & mess!) and so I absentmindedly grabbed $1 out of my purse. I didn't even think as I paid $1 for something we really could have gotten free.

Eating at other people's houses really saved us today! Thanks for letting us be your guests!!!

If you remember, we get $16.52/day for our family of 4 in this challenge. We spent a whopping $51.56. (And that was eating out breakfast and some of us lunch for free!) EEK! Hopefully, things will even out a bit the rest of the week as we have absorbed much of the cost today, and will be able to continue eating for "free" on these items then in the upcoming days! Let's hope!