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About Me
My name is Tami and I live in central Illinois with my husband, Larry and three children, Caleb (5), Camden (3) and Emma Grace (10 months). I hope you'll enjoy reading about my life as a wife/mother and about our family's adventures.
Piano by Joel
One of my husband’s co-worker has recently released a CD of classic hymns. We’ve been listening to it at home and have really enjoyed it. The music is very relaxing. Check out Piano by Joel: Works in Progress or listen to some of his music here.
Family Day - A Day To Eat Dinner With Your Children
September 25 is Family Day, when parents are encouraged to eat dinner with their children. Family Day is a “national effort to promote engagement as a simple, effective way to reduce substance abuse by children and teens and raise healthier children.” It encourages families to make family dinners a regular part of their lives.
Here are some suggestions from CASA:
- start the pattern of family dinners when children are young
- encourage your children to create menu ideas and participate in meal preparation
- turn off the TV and let your answering machine answer calls during dinnertime
- talk about what happened in everyone’s day: school, work, extracurricular activities or current events
- establish a routine to start and end each meal – light candles, say grace or tell a story
- after dinner play a board game or serve dessert to encourage the family to continue the conversation
- keep conversation positive and make sure everyone gets a chance to speak
Our family really enjoys playing games together. Here are some fun card games to encourage conversation at the dinner table:
- Food For Talk
- Kid Talk: Conversation Cards
- Table Topics Conversation Cards – Family Edition (there is an original edition, teen edition and a couples edition)
Tags: Family Day, card games, conversation
The Best Time To Buy Everything
This is an interesting article on the best time to buy everything from SmartMoney.com. Here are some of the things they list:
- Airplane Tickets – on a Wednesday, 21 days (or a couple of days earlier) before your flight
- Appliances – during a holiday weekend
- Broadway Tickets – hours before the curtain rises
- Cars – weekday mornings in September
- Clothing – Thursday evenings, six to eight weeks after an item arrives in stores
- Computers and Electronics – just after a new model is launched
- Gas – early morning or late evening on a weekday
- Groceries – Sunday evenings
- Shrubs, Trees and Other Plants – fall
- Televisions – six to 12 months after a particular model is launched
- Wedding Dresses – between Thanksgiving and Christmas
Check the article out to see other things they list and why.
Tags: Smart Money
Fall Into Reading
Non-Fiction
- The Five Love Languages – Gary Chapman (reading with my husband)
- Sheet Music – Kevin Leman
- Lincoln – David Herbert Donald
- Children in the Holocaust and World War II: Their Secret Diaries – Laurel Holliday
Fiction
- Light From Heaven – Jan Karon
- The Brethren – Annie’s People – Beverly Lewis
Bible Studies
- Falling In Love With Jesus – Dee Brestin & Kathy Troccoli
- Focus on the Family: Essentials of Discipline – Dr. James Dobson
Read-Aloud with Caleb & Camden
- Meet Abraham Lincoln – Patricia A. Pingry
- God & Me: 365 Daily Devotions – Penny Boschoff
- The Tale of Three Trees – Angela Elwell Hunt
Tags: books, reading, Fall into Reading
The Painting Continues
The painting continues in our house. I have been painting for almost 2 months now. That may seem like a long time until you realize I usually only paint one day a week (when my boys are at grandmas). I have completed the living room, dining room (next week) and the hallway. The stairwell is being contracted out as the ceiling is too high. I have contacted someone to come give a bid. Hopefully, it is in our budget range. He has painted for a friend of mine and he sounds like he is reasonable.
I just started on our family room and kitchen today. My husband and I picked a bold color for us. We usually do pretty muted colors. We picked American Tradition Prairie Grass. We wanted to paint the rooms in a green, this is just darker than we were initially going for.
Once this project is done, I will post pictures of the completed rooms.
Tags: painting, American Tradition paint
Homemade Stickers
Here is a great craft idea for your kids artwork. Instead of stashing the artwork away, create stickers out of it. This is also great for kids who like stickers. Stickers are one of my 3 year olds favorite activities, even before coloring. Now that he has entered preschool, the artwork is in abundance.
Some artwork will need to be cut down to size to fit on whatever the project is-lunch bags, notebooks and cards.
What you’ll need:
- small bowls
- flavored jell-o powder
- boiling water
- spoon
- your child’s artwork
- scissors
- paintbrush
In a small bowl (mom), pour 2 tbs. boiling water over 1 tbs. jell-o powder. Gently stir until powder is completely dissolved. Let cool. Have your child brush jell-o mixture onto precut pieces of their artwork. Let dry until gelatin sets (about one hour). Let her lick the stickers and attach them to lunch bags, notebooks and cards. They’ll taste the jell-o and have a fun surprise.
from Parents September 2006
Tags: children, crafts, stickers
Works For Me Wednesday - Recycling Totes
These recycling bags from Design Within Reach have proven to be perfect for us. The bags are made of “industrial-strength tarpaulin, a heavy double-warp fabric, that is plastic coated.” They are waterproof, color coded, have velcro tabs to attach the bags together and handles to make for easy carrying.
I can usually go a couple of weeks before I have to take the recycling in since they hold so much. I place them on our basement stairs to stay out of the way. Our 3 year old son can even help with this. He knows which tote to put the recyclables in based on the color and is always excited to help.
Go read more Works For Me Wednesday tips at Rocks in My Dryer.
Tags: recycling, organization
My September 11 Story
My husband and I had been married for almost 10 months. We were getting ready to move into our first home and preparing to celebrate our 1st wedding anniversary. We were extremely happy and then…
I was driving to work and listening to the radio. I remember hearing that a plane had crashed into the WTC. At the time they were reporting that it was a small aircraft. I didn’t think much of it and when I got to work, I did get on the internet to find our what was happening. A little while later a co-worker came in and said that another plane had crashed into the other tower.
From that moment on, we were glued to CNN. It was hard to concentrate on anything work related that day. We just sat around all day talking and trying to comprehend what was happening to our country. The thought of all of those people dying is still hard to get my mind around. That evening, our church participated with other churches and held a prayer vigil.
My most vivid memory is of a lady in our office (she was a client that was at our office for a meeting that day) that was on the phone most of the day. She was from Virginia and her husband worked in Washington D.C. She was frantically trying to get ahold of him most of the day. She finally did reach him and he was safe.
One year later, I was on a plane going to Tampa for a business trip and 7 weeks pregnant with our first child.
Tags: 9-11
Works For Me Wednesday - Savings Spreadsheet
My husband and I took a Financial Peace University class this spring at our church. We do fairly well with managing our money, but were hoping to get some additional tips to improve even more. After hearing all of Dave Ramsey’s tips for money management, we modified some of his principles to work for our family. One way was to set up a savings spreadsheet. Here is an example of ours, with modified numbers.
I have it set up by month and fund. The first two funds are:
- emergency fund ($1000)
- 3-6 months of living expenses (not there yet)
We also put money in our savings every month for infrequent expenses:
- insurance
- car tags
- homeowners dues
- auto repair/maintenance
- clothing
- gifts
- home improvements
- school tuition/expenses
- vacation
Additional funds are added as we feel they are needed. We put money into our savings every paycheck for the second emergency fund (3-6 months) and our infrequent expenses and specific items we are saving for (a new computer or a vacation). When a bill is due or we have made a purchase from one of the infrequent purchase categories, we know the money is there. The money is then deducted from whatever the specific category is. For instance, we recently had an unexpected car repair and we were able to use the money in our emergency fund to pay for it.
This is still a work in progress for our family and we hope for it to improve over time. We have only been using this for about 6 months, but have already seen an improvement in how our money is managed.
Go read more Works For Me Wednesday tips at Rocks in My Dryer.
Tags: Dave Ramsey, Financial Peace University
First Day of School
Heading off to school.
Painting.
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Miscellaneous
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