Teaching Tithing

If you take a peak at Facebook on occasion, you know we've had trouble keeping our eldest in bed at night. A marvelous friend gave us:

The Penny Suggestion 

Place two pennies outside the door. Each time he comes out, he looses a penny. 

Well, The Boy is no dummy and he caught on pretty quickly. He's also smart enough to make sure we put out pennies every night. 

We had a bit of trouble getting him to keep track of his pennies. A hole in the lid of the jar and the lesson that money can buy things seemed to fix the problem.
Last week we let him "buy" a date at the movies for ten pennies. He's already got more than 10 pennies this week and he wants to go buy a hot dog (not just ANY hot dog, but the kind that come on a stick).

Now that he's figured out money buys things he wants, I figure it's a great time to teach about tithing.
The Hubs and I are big fans of the Law of The Tithe, what with it's accompanying blessings and all. :D

I found three ideas on line which I think I'll incorporate along with the whys and hows of tithing throughout the coming week. In addition, we're going to go over splitting our money up into "tithe" "save" and "spend".

I wonder if any of you have some suggestions for me? Because this is the first time we're teaching a new principle, I'd like to do it right!

Doctors

I went to the doctor this week.

She thinks I have a metabolic disorder.

Um, y'think? 

Because there is no possible way I can do two hours of cardio six days a week, 

lift weights three days a week, 

keep my diet at under 1600 calories a day: 

AND NOT LOSE WEIGHT.

Other than

  METABOLIC DISORDER.

(Like I would go to the doctor without knowing what was wrong)

So she ordered a bunch of labs my insurance doesn't cover to find out WHICH metabolic disorder. 

Stay tuned. 

Oh,and if you think this news has made me not care about what goes in my mouth, because like it matters anyway, you'd be right. 

Oh, did I mention my hair is falling out (again)?

Or that Metabolic Disorders can make a person really whiny? 

No??

It is, and they do (apparently).

They also make you use the "center text button".

I'm Thinking....I'm Thinking...

I've been thinking about THIS:

a LOT lately.

(Stina, I'm justifying right for you.)

Sorry ADD moment. What was I saying? Oh yeah.

Babies.

Everyone is doing it. Having babies that is. Oh my. You know what I mean. 

So it occurs to me that MY baby is the age The Boy was when I had her. 

That worked out,

sort of.

So maybe it's time to be hearing the pitter-patter of little feet around our house again.

Then again, maybe I'm nuts.

Here are the Pros and Cons

PROS

Babies are nice 

Babies are cuddly

that whole "multiply and replenish" thing hasn't been repealed

we *might* be able to afford another kid

pregnancy is the only way to stop my hair falling out (that I've found so far)

We have all the clothes for either gender

I like nursing

CONS

pregnancy makes me tired

I like sleep, babies don't

no maternity health insurance coverage

I JUST had the carpets cleaned

we'd need a new car

So I feel like The Thinking Man in Night at the Museum (the second one).

He looks all smart and like he has all the answers, but really he just says, "I'm thinking....I'm thinking..."

The County Fair

We decided to take our kiddos to the county fair. I LOVED the fair as a young person (not that I'm old NOW or anything), and I thought my kiddos would enjoy it. 

I was right. (I love it when that happens!)

We saw lots of animals

Fed lots of animals (which I didn't manage to get even one picture of, since I was holding the feed)

Visited the train shed

Rode a few rides

And managed to escape the fair without eating ONE SINGLE ITEM of fair food.

I'm pretty proud of that fact. :D

One of the funniest moments was when We took The Baby on her very first ride. She LOVED it, of course, but screamed bloody murder when we took her off the ride! We showed her EVERYONE had to get off, but she still screamed.

Next ride, same story. 

It took three rides for her to get the fact that Mom was not, in fact, being incredibly cruel by removing her from the ride. 

It was a super fabulous way to spend a Monday. 

Math

I am scared of Math.

When I say scared, I mean right before my first math test this semester I had a full-on panic attack. 

I don't DO panic attacks.

And yet, there I was panicking. 

I blame Third Grade.

In third grade one is supposed to learn one's multiplication tables. 

I did not.

And then I didn't learn fractions 

and it snowballed from there.

So I find myself nearly, well, old

and back in school learning math all over again.

At some point I did manage to learn multiplication tables and fractions and algebra...

BUT

(and that's the very largest "but" I could make, which is significant)

I'm still scared of math.

Which brings us to today.

I had math class today. We started a new concept. 

I was not good at this concept.

My teacher made me feel about two nanometers tall.

He made me feel stupid.

He made me feel insignificant. 

And then I took a math test.

Today sucked.

Dear Coach (that's my math teacher),

I am NOT dumb. I am brilliant. My IQ is 132. (yes, really.)

I am smarter than 98.4% of EVERYONE. *

I am funny and kind and gosh darn it, people like me (well, not my family, but people generally).

Why don't you?

I feel JUST this big after today. 

*(Not that I place a lot of value on IQ tests because some of the most brilliant minds EVER would fail a stupid IQ test, and it also doesn't measure the most important thing: courage. All they really prove is that you're good at taking tests, just trying to prove a point here.)

My Kiddos

I keep wondering what I should write about. Serious, serious writer's block.

So I've decided on the old stand-by, The Babies. 

Except, I'm really mad at The Boy today. 

He was VERY naughty at nursery, taking toys, pushing, stealing marshmallows....I sent him to Daddy-twice. Daddy sent him back. Then I was mad at The Hubs. 

But now they are both napping and so I like them better.

THE BABY

My Baby is the sweetest little girl, mostly. 

She cuddles, she loves to sing, 

and she has this really cute habit of babbling a lot of things only she understands and adding a word we know at the very end.

"badabadabada bankie."

"badabadabada sippie!"

She loves shoes and putting on her own pants and scissors. 

She loves Daddy and her brother (I don't even know why, he's so mean to her)

She loves Mommy

Today at church she kept pulling out the hymnal and saying 

"SONG!" 

and

"badabadababada SONG!"

really loud, during the talks.

It was cute.

THE BOY

My son is very into knights, dragons, fire birds and castles.

His auntie keeps buying him knights, dragons and fire birds and making him cardboard castles.

Now at bedtime he doesn't want a normal book, he wants a 

"pretend story" wherein he's the Star, Sir The Boy.

And we, the parents, have to come up with new and interesting story lines 

EVERY

NIGHT.

Last night it was my turn.

The story starts out with King Daddy and Draco (the good dragon) getting lost.

Queen Mommy, Sir The Boy, Baby and Buttercup go looking.

Prince Humperdink has captured Daddy and Draco. 

He wants Buttercup.

Queen Mommy has a plan.

But she needs a wheel barrow and a Holocaust Cloak. 

King Daddy and Draco are saved. 

The End

 

 

SIXTH ANNIVERSARY

So, I've been married six years. Yeah, I never thought it'd last this long, either. 

Just kidding! 

Sort of. 

I'm kinda attached to The Hubs at this point. It turns out not only was he a good first husband, he's going to be a fantastic ONLY husband, which I think is brilliant news. (He's pleased as well.)

We're going on a major trip in November, so we played it pretty low key this weekend. Saturday morning we took a pretty hike around the Snake River Canyon, back behind Hidden Lake and around to other other side.

 We accidentally missed our turn and ended up scaling some rocks.

But not these rocks, 

which is what we were faced with at first glance. 

(Going down, not up. I took the picture AFTER we had safely descended.) 

The hike itself was fun and we did it in an hour, which included an orange-eating break. Here's how we ACTUALLY got down.

We liked this hike so well we took the whole family the next day. 

     Saturday night we took our buy-one-get-one-coupon to Canyon Crest Restaurant, supposedly the best restaurant in town. My humble opinion is the only thing they are "best" at is charging lots of money for OK food, and possibly the view. Matt's steak was pretty good, my fish was pretty good, but not $20+ a plate, good. Glad I had that 2-for-1! We ate on the balcony so our view looked like this,

AMAZING.

Watching the base jumpers taking leaps off the bridge all night was also pretty cool.

After dinner we went home and put our kids to bed, since I hadn't seen them very much this week. Our day finished off at the church, de-lousing the nursery, since the week before there'd been a case of lice and it took that long to get permission to disinfect it.

A pretty good day. I'll take it. :)

AND THE WINNER IS...

A few weeks ago I put up a blog give-away for one of these fabulous capes.
We picked the winner with the totally scientific method of me writing names on sticky notes,

putting them in the bowl and having The Grandma pick a name. 

(Thanks Mom, for being a good sport about this part.)

 I know, right? Good thing there weren't more entries. Eh hem.

Anyway...

CONGRATULATIONS

HOLLI JO!!!

Shoot me an email with your address and I'll get that shipped pronto. Please send me a picture to post of your little guy wearing his Super Cape! It's a good thing you won, because I have no idea who Rebecca is, even though she claims to be my kids' aunt. It's a little weird, honestly.