Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

This is the digital photo album I sent out for our Chrismas card this year.  I decided it was time to go digital and save a tree.  Hope you like it!

Digital scrapbooking design created with Smilebox

entrepreneurial Family

Lately, the kids and I have been very crafty with ways to make extra spending money.  Well, the money I make goes towards bills right now.  But for the kids ~ they are loving seeing their goals be attainable quickly.

Quinn and Sloane have started walking the neighbors dogs for a dollar a day.  They each get paid $5 on Fridays.  Quinn did some clean up work for our other neighbor this morning for $20.  For the same neighbor, Connor is transferring VHS tapes to DVD for money.  Not sure what that will bring.  Hey!  Maybe he can start a business!  You know anybody who needs VHS tapes transferred to DVD?  Let us know.  Connor can help!  :o)

Dave is also doing estimates for a concrete guy for extra income.  We have to bridge the gap somehow until the Insurance gig kicks in.

Oh!  And I am babysitting a neighbor's 2yo during the week.  His name is Rece and he is sooo cute!  He fits right in with the family.  That was one of my stipulations to watching him.  He had to be able to go with us.  I didn't want to be tied down to the house.  We as a homeschooling family are out and about quite a bit.  That is the beauty of homeschooling, afterall.

This Labor Day weekend, I watched another neighbor's dog, Jax.  Jax is a Shih-tzu mix and is just the cutest, mellowest dog you have ever seen.  Emma, our dog, who doesn't like other dogs, lived quite happily this weekend sharing her space with another dog.  It was good for her to have to get along.  Emma didn't let Jax do anything at first.  She would follow him around and snip at him for no reason.  Then by today, they were best of friends.

So, we are all finding ways to buy the things we want even if we don't have family money readily available.  I am really proud of us.  Before Dave got laid off of work in May, we were still not grasping just HOW much money we really DON'T have.  But now we know that we can have anything.  All it takes is a little creativity and some hard work.

Yay us!!

Unconscious Mutterings

Want to play?  Go here.

1. Gangs ::  of New York
2. Contact :: paper
3. Surprisingly ::  delicious!
4. Penciled ::  in
5. Ignore ::  what I just said
6. Let’s go! ::  play
7. Cornerstone ::  bakery
8. Influential ::  people
9. Holistic :: healer
10. Lovesick ::  for chocolate

Coming Home from camp

Such a beautiful place.

Connor is saying goodbye to Laura, the camp director.

I think he's happy to be going home.  This is at the airport.

Brothers.

Connor finally got home last night.  :o)  I loved the Welcome Home sign.  In this picture, he is showing us his new mustache he got from camp.  Isn't it nice?  LOL

He's coming HOME!

(Click picture to enlarge)

I made this banner for Connor.  He comes home today!  Yea!!!  :o)  We are all so excited.  He has been at camp all week and we MISS him.  I have talked with him briefly this morning after Dave and Quinn picked him up.  But I didn't get much in the way of information out of him.  I think I'm just going to have to be patient and let it come out over time.  He did tell Dave that he would like to go again next year.  Well, that must mean he had a good time.  Right?

It's harder than it looks

We got some coupons for bowling in my email box today.  And Sloane took to the idea RIGHT away.  :o)  She felt the absolute NEED to go bowling...TODAY.  I tried to get her to wait until Wednesday when we could go with our homeschool friends.  But she wanted to go NOW.  :o)  And...since she and I were here by ourselves today with nothing else to do.  I said "Why Not!"  Let's go!  :o)  So we packed our coupons and our socks and away we went.

When we got there, Sloane presented our coupons to the kind gentleman behind the desk and at first, he said we couldn't use both of them because they both had my name on them.  Then he looked again and realized that they are student coupons.  He said (pointing at me) "but you're not a student.  Oh well, I'll give it to you anyway."  Yippee!  We only had to pay for our shoes.  $6 is all it cost for two people to bowl one game and for both people to rent shoes.  Not bad, I'd say.  :o)

Sloane even took a picture of me.  We had such fun.  I haven't bowled in I can't tell you how long.  But I DID get three strikes!  My game was only 101.  But fun was on our agenda and FUN is what we had.  :o)