Spring....

I love Spring. The days get longer, it stays warmer longer, and my kids put down the PSP's to go outside. Plus the bonus of not having to cook because my hubby breaks out the grill more often. Last night we did not get home from picking up the boys until 7:15. They still had time to play a game of basketball while the grill was getting ready. While David was cooking Austin & Nic played baseball, Ashlee was taking pictures, and Hayden was running around playing with his new basketball goal. I was playing with my new camera.

Yes, I said new camera. My hubby knew I had been wanting one for a while that had the sports feature so I could take action shots at the ball park. That added to the fact I start my long awaited vacation in 5 DAYS!!! He finally splurged and took me shopping. I was so excited. No I can take better pictures for my blog. LOL!!

Little Farmers

Last weekend I made the mistake of telling my FIL that Ashlee wanted to come play in his garden. He took that statement that we would help him plant his entire garden. Well once I had opened my mouth there was no taking it back. LOL!! So he told my husband to be there bright and early Saturday morning to get started. Well bright & early didn't happen because he lives 45 minutes from us. But we did get there a little before 9 am. He had already started making the rows with the tractor. So as we are pulling in Hayden saw him and started screaming "I wanna ride the tractor". We got him up on the tractor with Papa and he was set for life. That was his first BIG tractor ride. Now it is all he talks about.

Ashlee and Matthew were happy enough playing in the dirt for a while so we sat down and listened to Haywood's plan on where everything was going. We planted the majority of the things with the tractor so we were only there for about 3 hours but it was long enough for all of the kids to play in the dirt, ride the tractor, and plant a couple of rows of veggies. They were more than happy with what they accomplished.

Haywood already had the strawberry's there so the kids could see that they were almost ready to be picked. They were also able to plant 4 different kinds of tomato plants. Everything else was seed and we will have to wait until next visit to be able to see what they look like. I think this gives the kids something to look forward too later. Here is our list of what is in the garden this year. Corn, butter beans, peas, string beans, 3 kinds of watermelon, 2 kinds of cucumbers, field peas, zukes, cantaloupes, squash, & garden peas. I think that will keep Haywood busy for a while.

I don't know how much fun he had trying to work around 3 little ones, but my children have never been more dirty or more happy in their lives.

Who needs toys??

Ashlee & Haydens most favorite game is camp out. There is not much involved other than EVERY pillow in the house & ALL of the blankets out of the basket. I am not kidding when I say they can spend HOURS playing with just these two things. It does get messy, and blankets and pillows have to be washed often, but it is so worth the peace and quite that I get from it.

What games are your kids fascinated by?

Baseball season is in full swing....

I know we ALL complain about baseball season being rough running from field to field and taking up so much of our time. I am right there with you. Baseball is one of the reasons I am so far behind on my to do list. HOWEVER.....I love it. Not the baseball itself, but how it makes my kids feel. My oldest 2 LOVE it, they eat, sleep & breath baseball during baseball season. Are they the best at it? No. But they feel great about themselves when they are playing. Especially after a good tight game has been played. I feel like self confidence in children in our world today is slipping. We should all as parents do our best to build our children up not tear them down.

But there also is a fine line between supporting your child and pushing them over the line. I sit at the ball games and watch 10 year old children be berated by their parents over a mistake they made on the field. Will that child become a great baseball player because of this treatment? Some do and some don't. But either way these children look miserable. Bottom line is baseball is about fun, not winning at all cost. Over my 9 years of being a baseball mom, my children have been on teams that have won every game. But they have also been on teams that have only won 1 or 2 games a season. They have had great coaches, but they have also had coaches that went way over the line. The best thing we have found works with our boys are the talks on the way home after the game. We tell them what their strenghts were in the game, but we also discuss how to prevent the errors they might have made during the game. We also talk about the way other parents treat their children, or how the coaches acted to other children. We let them know how we feel about it & they talk about they feel about it. My children know when they make a mistake & they feel bad about it. The best thing for them is to be told how to TRY to prevent it from happening again , not yelling at them for letting the mistake happen again. I think this most likely applies to all children.

A good friend of mine, who has children a lot older than mine, once told me that the key to keeping kids out of trouble was being involved in their lives. Do not try to be their best friend, just show interest in what they do and support them in what they love. I have also heard if you keep them busy with activities they don't have time to get in trouble. I am not sure if I could handle keep ALL of them busy ALL of the time. But we put our best foot forward.

I hope that when my kids grow up they can look back at their childhood and know that they were LOVED beyond measure. All of the days and nights of sitting at ball fields in rain, freezing cold, or smoldering hot weather were done out of love. All of the hours of traveling in a cramped car for all stars, all of the take out food they had to scarf down (not that they complain), all of the sun burns that were gotten because mama forgot to put more sunscreen on when we went into over time for the 3RD time and the temps are hovering around 100. ALL of this was done out of LOVE!!!!

Feeling behind

I have been feeling a little behind lately. I can't seem to find the time to do all the things on my to do list. When I do find myself with a spare moment of rest I am exhausted. All I want to do is sit down with a good book and read. Do all mothers of multiple kids feel this way?

One of the things on my to do list is to update my blog. I have a couple of post I want to make. So bare with me today I might be posting a couple of random things.

What's for Dinner Tonight?

Well chicken of course!! LOL. I am gearing up for a OAMC project with a couple of my friends(more on that later) so I had to kick my own plans in gear for the month. I had 3 whole chickens that I wanted to get cooked and prepared for use through the month. So last night I placed 3 whole chicken in the crock pot with 1/2 cup of water and let them cook on low until I got home this afternoon. If you have never done this give it a try. It is the most moist chicken I have ever had. I took about 5 minutes to clean the chicken, put them in the crock pot, and salt and pepper them to taste. That was all it took. When I got home this afternoon I took them out and let them cool for about 15 minutes. Then it took all of 10 minutes to de-bone all 3 chickens.....now don't go throwing out the "bones & muck" just yet. Place the "bones & muck" you normally throw away back in the crock pots. Put in just enough water to cover the "bones & muck" and place the cooker back on low over night. This will give you your homemade chicken stock that you normally pay for. Just drain the liquid & toss the "bones & muck". This freezes well when placed flat in the freezer. So what did 20 minutes of my time get me.....

2 bags of 8 cups of de-boned, cooked chicken to freeze- (2 meals worth for us if we want left overs for lunches)

6 cups of cooked chicken to use tonight for chicken Quesadillas (sp??)

8-10 cups of chicken stock to freezer

I think that was worth 15 minutes of my time and $12 dollars of my money!! What do you think?

March Totals

Well since March is now over I felt I needed to go ahead and get my totals together for the month. This month turned out to be a GREAT month due partialy to Harris Teeter Triples week. So here are the totals for March 2010.

Budget as always was $600. Total spent was $440.95. That is $159.05 UNDER budget. YAY!!!! Of course we used it to purchase spring/Summer clothes for the kids. It was an awesome feeling to know exactly what all of my hard work this month went toward.

Total shelf cost for products $1,836.17
Savings with coupons -$ 836.68
Savings with Sales -$ 553.54
--------------
Total OOP was $ 440.95 - 75.99% Savings

This was the first month, since starting to keep track, that I hit my goal of 75% savings. I have tried really hard to accomplish this because I read so many blogs that say it is possible. I guess it comes down to believing I can do it and remembering "All things are possible by God". Thanks for reading. I hope you also had an awesome month of savings.