Bread Dough Experiment

I've been trying to save some money by making our own bread. It actually has been coming out really yummy (you have to use bread flour for good bread dough - took me years to figure this part out), but the biggest hassle is always having the time to make it when we run out. I just searched online to find out exactly how to do it. There seems to be no one set way to do it, except the general consensus is to defrost overnight in the fridge before allowing to rise at room temp. Since school is still out today, I think I'll do the big bread dough experiment...I'll let you know how it turns out!

Snow Day...finally!

We've been waiting all winter for it and it finally came! We got about six inches of snow over the last 24 hours, closing schools all over Indianapolis. We had fun this morning, I shoveled the driveway and the kids played/cried in the snow. Keltsy is not a fan of cold, but she SO wanted to play. The snow came up to her waist and she couldn't really walk around in it and just got frustrated and cried. I showed her how to find snow that had already been stepped in to get around. Our neighbor friends were also outside shoveling, and they had kid sized shovels, making play time even more fun. Isaac climbed "the biggest snow mountain ever!". He wanted to have a snowball fight, me and him against Keltsy. Too bad the snow isn't sticky, it just falls apart, so we couldn't do snowballs or make a snowman. It was a lot of fun, though...and then hot chocolate tops off the day!

My Laptop DIED!

I am so bummed...our laptop went on the fritz about two weeks ago. We hurried and copied all our files to our desktop so we could reconfigure everything, but it's still not working. It sort of figures, on the heals of becoming re-energized about our budget something unexpected would come up. Jesse thinks if we get a new "ram" for it (whatever that is...) that it may fix it, and he thinks that's not too big of an expense, so we'll be trying that. Mostly, it's just such a pain, because I used to check our email 50 times a day, check people's blogs, work on my etsy shop, stop into some message boards, etc. throughout the day. It's really not very convenient having our desktop in our bedroom...in fact I can hear my kids screaming right now and I've got to go settle some battle...

Okay, battle settled. See, with a laptop I could just look over and yell much more convincingly than when I'm WAY up stairs and not within sight, sigh...hopefully we'll get our laptop back and I'll be more active in keeping up with all this again!

BUT, I have used this mini laptop break to learn how to knit! I'll post pics soon, the hat I made looks a little rough, I dropped a few stitches, but the booties turned out really cute! I'm excited to experiment with the different stitches. There's a lot more I can do with knitting than crochet. It's kind of fun to increase my "skills" (as Napolean Dynamite would say).

New Year...New Numbers...

That's it...it's final...our budget for 2008 is calculated and we definitly need to reevaluate our spending habits and make some cuts. I'm not complaining about our finances, we've been extremely blessed and I truly believe that we've been protected and blessed due to our tithing contributions. BUT, this is a wake up call to once again go through our finances and see that we have places where we can dramatically cut in our spending.

We have been good about a lot of things: we still live in the stone age of not having a cell phone, we're on basic cable (mainly for the internet), we don't have any debt except for our mortgage, we have eaten out maybe five times this year...really though, that just makes me more ashamed that we don't have better control of what's going out.

For 2009 we have a New Year and new goals! I am setting a goal for 2009 to sharply cut our spending. With Jesse's contract with Lilly running out in August, our future is a bit uncertain when it comes to employment and with the status of the economy I think it's prudent to be a little more urgent with our savings goals for this year. If I find any great money saving tips, I'll definitly be keeping you all posted...I'm all about cutting costs whenever possible.

Two Birth Celebrations

This last week was a lot of fun. First we celebrated Isaac's Birthday, he turned five and seems to think this is a very big milestone. He has told everyone we meet that he is five and "just had a birthday this December!" His party was fun, it was his first "friend party". Usually we just do a family party, but this year we decided five was a bit of a milestone and we would invite a few friends. We ended up not doing anything structured and the kids ran around and played and had fun. Then we did the cake and ice cream thing along with the gift opening, which I suspect was Isaac's favorite part...

The second birth was of course the birth of our Savior! Christmas is always such a beautiful time of year. We had a beautiful Christmas Eve with the kids. We have had fun blending the traditions from both mine and Jesse's families, as well as coming up with a few of our own as well. Every Christmas Eve we do homemade hamburgers and fries (a tradition from Jesse's side), we read the story of Jesus's birth from the Bible (both families do this), as we read each part the kids put up the corresponding pieces for the nativity. Then we watched the LDS Video "Joy to the World". We opened one gift on Christmas Eve, which is always Christmas jammies! This year Mommy and Keltsy matched and Daddy and Isaac matched. We put on our jammies, then we heard Santa's Sleigh bells coming!!!! Hurry, hurry, put out the reindeer food, the cookies and milk, and get into bed (at this Keltsy burst into tears...a little too exciting I think).

Christmas morning was so much fun. Our kids are at such fun ages where they are so grateful for everything, the candy cane is as exciting as the Play-Doh. It was fun to see them with their faces full of surprise and excitement. Of course the toys weren't the only thing that kept them entertained that day...

We had a lot of fun, spending time with each other and remembering the birth of Christ. I hope we can take these memories throughout the next year and remember to slow down, remember the important things in this life, and strive to partake of the blessings of the Atonement.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas is just a few days away! I am always excited this time of year, now that our kids are getting bigger it just makes the magic of Christmas even more exciting. We took our annual Christmas picture by the Christmas tree, and even I'm impressed with how well it turned out. I did a little tweeking with Picasa and love the way it turned out.

This year we'll be spending Christmas just us as home. We took two family vacations, once to visit my family in Washington State, and then we tagged along with Jesse on a business trip to Washington D.C. and the kids and I had a great time seeing the sights. So, no big plans for Christmas. Just us, at home, relaxing, doing a few projects around the house, etc.

We are also getting ready for Isaac's birthday on Tues. He is turning five years old (already?!) and will have his first party with friends. We usually do a family birthday with just us going to dinner and doing the cake and ice cream/present thing at home...but this year we felt like five was a big deal so he's having a few friends over. We're going to play "snowball fight", which he did in his preschool P.E. class. It's just a game using plastic grocery bags balled up (use tape to keep them together) and you throw them at each other. Sort of like dodge-ball. I picked up a few party favors, but for the most part - although it's a friend party - this will be a very low key party.

Keltsy is also getting big, she starts Sunbeams in January! I think that means we're ready (or way past ready) to have another baby. That's probably MY Christmas wish this year, ha ha!

Our family wish this year is that everyone is happy, healthy, filled with the Spirit, and able to provide for themselves, their families, and help those they know in need. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Happy Birthday To ME!!!

Happy Birthday! Today is my birthday and it's already been a great one. Hubby let me sleep in AND made breakfast for me and the kids. He's promised to take the kids all day, I can tell it's going to be a great day!