Budgets

So I know I have been asking a lot from readers lately. Christmas questions,venting about people using the word orphan, and opinions about schooling may birthday boys...I think I have been doing a lot of thinking lately. It all started when Aaron and I started talking about baby #3. We started talking a lot about bio trying and adoption. We also have been looking at and talking about purchasing a new vehicle(I love our Sienna). Wesley was also getting our attention with his star (or lack of stars) chart. Bringing to our attention the need to wait a little longer for kindergarten. As we have been hitting all of these different cross roads there has been much conversations about choices and how are we going to choose to do things as a family. It sounds silly especially since we have been married for 7 1/2 years and have 2 kids. But I feel like we kind of have always went with what was familier. What our families did in the past and what made up our different cultures. This has always been fine especially since Aaron and I both come from wonderful families and parents who did a great job. As the boys have gotten older we see more and more that we don't fit the mold of our previous cultures and it is time to be creating our own.

What does this mean? well it means figuring out schools, vehicle purchases and even new holiday traditions. It means contemplating what our family can do that brings God the most Glory. It means relying on God to direct us in the path he wants to see us go.

Wow all that to start talking about budgets...It's funny I read back through what I wrote and it actually has nothing to do with what I am about to write about. As a matter of fact I feel like I should erase it except for the fact it would then become time I wasted writing it.

Oh I remember...I am asking a lot from my readers. Well I am going to do it again. I want your budget tips! Whether it is grocery saving ideas or coupon sights to making clothes last or how to make your dog food. I love that recently a family posted a way to make your own laundry soap. Aaron and I are going to totally do this. Once I figure out how to link a sight and I ask their permission I will connect them with this post. Genius! Plus I think they said it ends up costing about .01 per load. YOU CAN'T BEAT THAT! So send me your tips...

I felt really convicted about my spending tonight after watching some documentary on large families. One family had 15 children. The family income...just under....$40,000. Excuse me. If a family of 17 can live on that income then excuse me but Aaron and I should be with some money to save.

Now I am assuming they don't use cel phones..or do they? Any way Aaron and I have committed that once our contract is up in Feb. We are decreasing our plan Way way down. I have such a pet peve when people say they "need" a cell phone. I we are all still alive coming from a generation that didn't have cell phones at all. Not my area of weakness but believe me it is probably my only area of will power.

Internet well I am guessing they have internet and well I feel like with Aaron being a pilot and checking the wheather and filing flight plans it makes his life a whole lot easier. Do we "need" it? no. Is it a luxery we are willing to sacrifice for? Yes.

Satelight: we actually have down sized our satelight from $45 a month to $10. How did we do it? Well we called to cancel our package. When Aaron called to cancel the lady pretty much begged him to continue. He continued to say we were not interested and well when it was all said and done she offered us satelight for $10 a month for a year. He said okay. I don't blame him. Sad thing is we pretty much lost all man channels and I have all awesome channels like HGTV and TLC.

Now on to my part of the budget and the area we blow out of the water everymonth. You know the weakness I was talking about earlier. Grocery shopping, household item buying, gifts, and oh the ever famous...Justification purchases. You know the ones. You're standing on the aisle at Walmart. You have just discovered that they have Little boy Pajamas on clearance $5 instead of the regular $9 price. Then you notice that not only are they on sale but low and behold they are adorned with star wars characters and they still have one 4t left. Yes isn't this providential, I mean what are the chances of Walmart having a sale and having a 4t (insert sarcastic sigh). Does Wesley need new pajamas? No. Should the discussion stop there? Yes. He doesn't need them. It should stop there. Unfortunately it doesn't. No no my friends it is just beginning. He may not need them but he would LOVE them. Oh and if he had some new ones we could get rid of one of his old pj's. Or we could get these and have another pair because it always seems like he never has any clean. Well really folks the truth is 3 warm pj's is probably all he needs. We own a washer and dryer. Yep we do. It's just right down stairs. All I would have to do is use them. All this to say if I can ask myself does he NEED them and the answer is no the justifications shouldn't matter. Actually I should tell myself that if the justifications start it should be confirmation that I must be trying to justify a purchase that doesn't need to happen.

So anyways back to the point of this post that should not have been written 1 1/2 hours after my bed time. (I apologize for the rambling). I am putting myself on a budget. $650 a month. $300 of that is our food budget and $350 is everything else(Not actual bills). Those are Aaron's jurisdiction. This means in that I have to buy Christmas, household items, clothes, haircuts, shoes, dates, babysitters, misc. gifts, Etc. It seems like enough but I am wondering if it is going to be harder then I thought.

So send me your money saving tips. PLEASE!!!

true meaning of Christmas how to start new traditions?

Grrr! It is that time of year again you know peace, joy happiness, budget issues. Ever since we had Wesley I find myself giving so much thought to the concept of the "true meaning" of Christmas. I didn't mean to put "true Meaning" in quotes as if it wasn't "true" I just used them for emphasis. Sorry for the verbal diarrhea. ANYWAY. I really struggle with what Christmas is becoming and maybe always has been. I remember as a child looking forward to Christmas. It truly is a magical time of year. Even though we didn't believe in (shield your children's eyes...) Santa I still would lay in bed at night wishing more than anything that he really was real and that something truly magical and bigger then my everyday world happened on that one special night. Looking back I realize that what made it truly special for me was that my Dad took off work. For the whole Christmas Holiday through to New Years he was home. To top it off he wasn't just "home" he was present. We would play games, go sledding, work on the family Christmas puzzle, go to the movies, and well just be...together...as a family. But one thing that sticks out in my mind is the disappointment I would feel wash over me on Christmas morning after all of the presents had been opened. I was disappointed because I didn't get what I wanted. I was just disappointed because a day I had built up with so much anticipation was over in just 30 short minutes. Pondering this on top of the "true Meaning of Christmas" has left me contemplating the Irony...the worldly Holiday leaves us with such a feeling of Sadness and emptiness where as the true meaning which gets lost and tossed out with the old wrapping paper, leaves us with lasting hope. Christmas morning is a symbol of hope and hope for better things yet to come. Christmas is the morning where things are just started to get exciting not reaching the excitement peak and plummeting before the breakfast casserole has even been consumed. This is where you come in.... I really want to start some traditions with Wesley and Liam that leaves them truly understanding the hope that begins on Christmas morning with gifts being a side note. (just wishful thinking?) I also want them to get to experience the joy and the magical time of year..Can they have both? I was thinking about us moving gift opening to New years morning, or a few days after Christmas. Another idea I had was to have Liam and Wes get only three gifts, just as the wise men brought Jesus(I know years later but we can pretend Jesus was 3 and it was on Christmas morning right?) I need some ideas...christmas is just around the corner:)

Venting read at your own risk

So there has been something on my mind for weeks well months actually and I have put it into my mind blog...(you know the one where you articulate everything as if blogging but yet it never makes it out of your brain...). I have put off blogging about it because actually I just don't know how people are going to take it. I mean I am genuinely nervous. I know that a large population of my blog readers are fellow adoptive parents. The truth is I have decided to blog about it because if anything I want to be educated on other people's opinions. I am very head strong but I am also very interested in a good discussion and if articulated well enough I may change my perspective....May....well we'll see... The controversial topic.... Orphans. I really struggle with this word being thrown around by adoptive parents as if it were,hmm a hair color, or maybe a "condition" that the child is cured from. I struggle with this word for a couple of reasons. 1. It is a label. I agree that there are some children who are "orphans" and age out of orphanages or out of the foster system without ever having a family to call their own. I do feel that this word does describe their family status. I believe that scripture calls us to care for the orphan...Again I feel this is used to talk about the child who remains family less. I do not like this label being used for my son or any child who is adopted. I will explain myself in a minute. 2. I struggle with this word because I feel like it puts the child in a neg. position that you as the adoptive parent comes in with the upper hand. You "rescued" a child. Well isn't your child lucky? Yeah that sounds totally snotty so please forgive me. But I have a very hard time with people who see Liam and they say "is he adopted?" I say "yes." They say "where from." I say "Ethiopia." Then here it comes "oh isn't he lucky," He is so blessed." I feel my blood boil. I am just as lucky as he is. I am just as lucky that he is mine as he is lucky that I am his. I am not more of a person because I live here and was able to provide a better life. He is not less of a person or less lucky because he started out life more difficult. That is a true and genuine and very priceless part of his story. NOTHING TO BE ASHAMED OF. 3. I also hate it because people throw it around so casually. "Oh he was an orphan." I even read one time that someone wanted to adopt a "full orphan." It still makes me sick. What did the child have to go through in order to be a "full orphan." Besides that it cheapens the need that every child has for a home. Whether a child has no living parents or 2, if they are not with their parents they need a home and a family. They need it just as bad. Whether a child is in foster care or "orphan care" these kids need families and families need these kids. It also boils my blood a little this particular label because I feel like parents are deterred from adopting domestically because there are "orphans" in other countries who need a family more. Excuse me where is this orphan rating chart? I want to know what Liam qualified as.... Well this brings me to my last thought. I can tell you what Liam qualified as. He qualified as a child of God and a child of mine. Before the beginning of time. Yes before the beginning of the human race God predestined Liam to be my son. So although he was born in another country, conceived by a man and woman, we will never know, He was my son. So although we went through an adoption to bring him home we were not "rescuing" an orphan. We weren't doing an act of mercy, we were bringing home our son through the labor pains of adoption. In our home Liam has never been and will never be considered an orphan. He always had a family. Any family that we have encouraged to adopt it has been with the understanding that they are not doing it to "rescue" children. Or show an act of "mercy." These are children these families are bringing home to hold a place of birth right just as any biological (don't like this label either) holds. God loved us so much as adopted sons and daughters that he was willing to sacrifice his son. Then does he continue to refer to us a orphans? No! He calls us his own. Okay I got it out. I understand there could be some opinions about this topic and I am all for hearing them. This is such a big part of Liam's story I don't want to just skip over something valuable. Please leave your feedback. Tastefully of course. Of course this time I was smart and if you chose not to be tasteful well I just won't post your comment....Hehehe

Being a stay at home mom is a working mom...

I was pondering the joys of staying at home... Waking up every morning not to an alarm that I hit snooze but to a little person crawling in my bed to snuggle, or to tell me he has a huge booger(oh and there is no snooze button). Rolling sleepily out of bed and being asked 100 times (before my feet have even hit the floor) If I want to play...my response is usually, "hey bud let momma at least go to the bathroom." Within 15 seconds of using said toilet I hear the happy giggles of my second Boss beckoning me to come attend to his schedule(said as sheduuuelll). Usually after greeting my second Boss my nose is greeted not by morning coffee breath, as some may have to deal with, but the smell of a different project that took place in a more southern region of the body. As my second Boss is being "cleaned" my first Boss is bounding down the stairs wondering where his vitamins are, asking yet again if we can play, and demanding to see exactly what the second Boss has done in his pants, involving a thorough sight and smell analysis. After the two employers seem relatively hungry we head to our employee "cafeteria." It is here that I am not only boss 1 and boss 2's #1 assistant but I am now full time cafeteria lady. boss 1 has a very difficult time staying on task of food and drink consumption and has insisted (through lack of ability on his own) that I stay on him to eat and drink a full breakfast. Boss 2 is very independent in the food and drink area but is very demanding that it comes in a timely manner. Food is often served to Boss 2 while he is so frantic he shakes his whole chair. Once food is before him his mood often lightens and he gives me a "good work my faithful servant type smile." Okay you get the idea. I just laugh sometimes when people say "what do you do?" I say "oh I stay home with the boys" they say "oh it must be nice not working..." I usually laugh at them with one of those crazy laughs that sound a bit like a hyena. You know the laugh the one where you find yourself going mad. Anyway I get what they mean (I think). Yes it is a blessing I wouldn't trade for the world getting to be a stay home mom with and for the 3 men in my life. Today was one of those mornings where I dropped Wesley off at pre-school and I looked around at the other 9 "stay at home" mom's dropping their kids off and I had to laugh.. What time do these women get up? Seriously? I was even up at 6:20 this morning which is a lot earlier then normal for me, I got in a shower before the boys were up, Yet I still dropped Wes off looking like I had just rolled out of bed. My hair half wet half dry, sweat pants and t-shirt, no make up. You know the women I am talking about and I know you are out there in blog land I have seen you in pictures. How do you do it. How do you look so put together and get places on time? You are my hero... I admire you from afar...well someday...or maybe just one day...one day in the future I will look put together...No one will admire me from afar...because everyone will be asking me what the special occasion is that I am so dressed up...You know pants, a shirt (that only has a little spit up or slobber on the sleeve), shoes not flip flops and yes completely dry hair. I won't blame them for asking...