Beckys Blog

Because I have not blogged in a couple years, I never wrote up Philemon's birth story.  Maybe I put it off because it was a difficult birth and I was hoping I would forget.  Whatever the reason, when he is older, he deserves to have the ability to read his story too. The weekend of July 13, 2013, my mom came down to visit and help with some cleaning before the new baby was born.  Of course, since she was down here, it would have been a wonderful time to go into labor.  I cleaned and cleaned, and walked and walked.  We were able to get a few contractions going, but nothing more than my usual strong braxton hicks.  After walking down to the farmers market and back (12 blocks), Thad and I went to a movie.  We wanted to fit one last date in before having another new baby.  About half way through "Man of Steel," contractions started becoming regular and more painful.  I'm not sure what happened in the last 45 min of the movie because it was taki...

I haven't written in a while, but as I start to toy with the idea of moving away from facebook, I find myself toying with the idea of reactivating this old blog.  I'm not sure what direction it will take.  Perhaps an overview of things I am learning?  Perhaps cute stories about the kids and every day life?  Maybe an occasional allergy friendly recipe... I don't know.  For now, I am a firm believer in life long learning and mentorship.  I strive to discipline my brain and my personal development daily with books I read, what I watch or listen to, Bible studies, and people I hang out with.  I just finished reading the book "The Dream Giver" by Bruce Wilkinson, the author of "The Prayer of Jabez."  I was surprised at how much I really enjoyed this  book! A short overview.  "The Dream Giver" is about a "nobody" named "Ordinary" who lives in the land of "familiar."  Every day, he wakes up and goes to the same job.  ...

I haven't written in a couple months.  After my last post, I really struggled with writers block.  I didn't have anything nice to say at first, so I didn't say anything at all.  I am doing much better now.  So much has happened since then.  Kezzy turned 3, Annabelle is growing like crazy, Christmas, New Years, Dr apts, and the list goes on. Right now, we seem to have finally joined all the sickies that seem to surround us.  This cold season, we have stayed relatively healthy, until now.  Annabelle is struggling with repeat ear infections, Raquelle is coughing, and Kezzy and Titus both have pinkeye.  We found out that Raquelle's cough is asthma / allergy related, so we are thankful that she is not sick, but she looks, sounds, and feels sick.  New inhalers for her.  Kez and Ty should bounce back pretty quick with their eye drops.  Annabelle is on the 3rd re-occurrence of her ear infection in the last 6 weeks.  We are praying th...

Another week into October, and another week of being frugal....sort of.  After 2 weeks in a row of spending less then $50 on food for a family of 6, we are bound to eventually spend more.  For week 3, I actually spent all but $20 of our normal weekly budget, however, that included $40 worth of new jars!  We were given about 120 lbs (my estimate by comparing the boxes to Titus) of free apples, and I only had a few empty jars left, so I had to buy more.  Even though that isn't technically food, it comes out of the food budget.  If you look at just food, we spent $60 this week + jars = $100.  On just food (not diapers or jars or canning supplies) we have spent $120 in the last 3 weeks.  If I include the diapers and canning supplies, we are still $150 below budget for this point in the month!  Yay!  So I went shopping! I have never been very good at holding onto money when I have extra available to me.  Since we had extra, we agreed to buy...

I don't want to forget to blog about the kids!  When we have a new baby, I love to be able to look back and see how their growth and milestones compare to their siblings! Annabelle is 11 weeks old today.  She had her 2 month check up last week.  We are battling thrush again just like we did with the first 3.  She does NOT nurse well (still),  but I haven't had to go to formula yet.  Every day, feeding her is a struggle and it feels like a long uphill battle. Her 2 month stats - Height - 23.75" Weight - 12 lbs 8 oz She is way ahead on her social milestones.  She already imitates me and will track objects and turn her head to keep following them when they go out of her line of sight. She doesn't tolerate tummy time very well though, so she hasn't built up as much strength as her oldest sibling had by this age.  She is still right on track with what is normal though.  I don't have her paper in front of me now, but she is right about 7...

We made it through last week with no supplemental grocery runs!  Once again, I made a meal plan for the week.  I took inventory of the pantry and freezer before making it.  I made a very specific list with very specific meals in mind, and then went shopping.  I spent $45 for this weeks groceries, and that included a bag of diapers.  (Bell has a rash so I had to get disposables for until it clears up, then back to cloth.)  So far, for 2 weeks of groceries, I am $141 below our normal budget!  I rewarded myself for staying on track with a new shirt off the clearance rack at Fred Meyer ($10), so that makes our actual savings so far $131. It is interesting to see how much better we ate last week too!  Because I had a meal plan, I knew what was for dinner first thing in the morning instead of standing in front of the fridge with a blank stare at 5:30 PM.  We ate beef stew, tacos, spaghetti, chicken and dumplings...all with very little effort beca...

This month, I am trying to do a better job utilizing what God provides instead of buying so much.  This week, I have an over abundance of tomatoes and I don't have time to can them.  I have so many they are starting to go bad before I can get to them.  So last night, we had spaghetti for dinner.  I made our sauce from scratch with the tomatoes in my garden.  To make my sauce as inexpensive as possible, I only used 1 lb of meat (usually use 2) and added grated zucchini as a filler (also from my garden).  It turned out absolutely delicious.  We ate it with home canned cherries and home canned carrots.  So I spent no money on dinner tonight.  Everything was either in my garden, freezer, or pantry.  (Technically we did buy 1/4 of a cow back in July to put in the freezer, that is why I don't have to buy meat each week.)   That only utilized about 1/3 of the tomatoes I had, so today I am making beef stew.  I usually put 1 jar ...