One year ago I started my blog. LOL I guess it would be much more exciting had I actually been blogging recently! :-P It seems that I'm just too busy to either sit down and write or to even THINK about what I WANT to sit down and write!

But thanks for putting up with me anyway. ;-)

So on this momentous occasion, I'd like to have a mish-mash post of sorts. :-D

Dh and I are in a Sunday School class that is going through the book of Acts. It's been quite neat! One thing the teacher suggested is to read through the book of Acts and then as Paul gets to the different cities/churches to whom he has written letters that are Scripture, to then read those books. I thought this was a neat idea, and I'm looking forward to it! (So far I'm just up to his first missionary journey, and he hasn't gone anywhere that has a letter I can read yet LOL!) I think it will help me get a better perspective on what the people in that particular church were dealing with, what was going on in the community, etc.

Which reminds me...have y'all ever heard of the That the World May Know series by Focus on the Family? WOW WOW WOW. We have a couple of the videos, and they are just phenomenal. Teacher and historian Ray Vander Laan takes us to the different locations where different events in the Bible occurred and then teaches us about the culture, politics, etc. of the day, to give us more insight and better understanding of just what these events/parables/etc. MEANT. For example, I had no idea until these videos that to the people waving the palm branches as Jesus entered Jerusalem, it was just like waving an American flag. I always thought that the palm branches had some sort of spiritual significance, but really the people thought that Jesus was a POLITICAL leader, and the palm branches were a political symbol. WOW! That just opens up a whole new realm of understanding what was going on at that time!

Anyway! They have a new series that is about to come out. I think dh and I are going to use some of our tax refund money to get some more of the DVDs.

Speaking of tax refund money, ours is going to be way too big. Yes, I'm thankful for having a large chunk of change to apply toward bills and such, but it kills me that the government has been using it all year interest-free. I knew dh's withholding amounts needed to be changed, but GOODNESS! They REALLY needed to be changed!!! The IRS Withholding Calculator helped me calculate just how many exemptions dh needs to claim on his W-4. We still took fewer exemptions than this calculator said to, since we'd rather err on the side of a refund than OWING money, but our refund won't be as large next year. Plus it increased his net pay by almost $100 every 2 weeks! We definitely could use that money now!

Thanks to The Grocery Game I have averaged about $325/month for food the last 3 months. We feed SEVEN people on that! They have recently expanded to several different areas, so be sure to check and see if they are now in your area, ESPECIALLY if your coupon section is decent. Our coupon section STINKS, and I'm still able to save that much. Prior to the GG, my monthly average was $550, and that was with the standard advice of creating a meal plan, shopping to my meal plan, and sticking to my meal plan. If you do try the GG, please let them know that razorbackmama AT hotmail DOT com referred you! :-)

Another thing that has saved me money in shopping recently is PAYING IN CASH. We have been doing somewhat of a My Total Money Makeover thing, and I've been using Dave Ramsey's worksheets to budget and allocate the money dh earns. Dh's income is sort of strange in that he earns a salary, but it goes toward pretty much all bills. He travels a lot too, and his travel reimbursements are what pay for the other things we need (once they cover his travel expenses, of course!). So I've had to finagle Dave's method to work for our situation, but they are helping a lot. The cash is sort of a pain to work with, but our spending has decreased SIGNIFICANTLY since I started this new method. Thanks Dave!!!

Little S is almost 17 months old now. It is hard to believe that this is how old G was when C was born. G seemed like such a big boy at the time, but now I see he was just a BABY! Boo hoo!!! S talks all the time, and she is actually COMMUNICATING with us! She can say the following words (and mean them, and we can understand what she means!): Daddy, Mommy, J (his name), baby, Barbie (she calls all Little People type dolls Barbie too LOL), cup, juice, night-night, bye, cracker, please, go (this is usually said YELLING and pushing someone away LOL), no, mine, shoe, sock, and there is probably more that she can say that I'm just forgetting. She sings and dances, and she gives great kisses: "mmmmmmm-AH." She is just SO FUNNY!!!

It has been so warm here lately, and winter has been sort of a bummer. I moved here expecting it to be WINTRY LOL! We had a long, cold spell in November, but since then it's been in the upper 30s/low 40s. Blech! But FINALLY the last couple of days it's been in the single digits and night and still below freezing during the day. It's only supposed to last about a week though. Sigh. I sure hope we can get some snow - I just bought the kids new sleds this winter! ;-)

We received a neat blessing yesterday. A friend of mine moved recently. She uses HomeSat for homeschooling also, so while she moved I recorded a couple of classes for her. As a thank you she sent us a digital camera/camcorder!!! I told dh maybe I need to record ALL her classes for her! LOL!!! So I may be able to post some more pictures of interesting things from time to time now. Bwahahahahahaha.

Now that I have a digital camera, I can sell the stuff on ebay that I've been needing to. It's getting to be that time of year: CURRICULUM BUYING TIME!!! :-D

Well, sorry for the disjointed post...told ya it'd be mish-mash. Thanks for sticking with me this past year! :-)