Cheerleading Competition 2009

The day after Homecoming was Lil' C's Cheerleading Competition. Luckily, it was in town this year, so we didn't have to be up early & traveling. Interestingly enough, cheer competitions are a lot of hurry up and wait. The girls have to be there early to check in, get your hair fixed, practice, etc. The rest of the family....waiting. There's short breaks between teams, then long breaks between age groups, and then a super long wait for the awards ceremony. The good news is, when the girls are actually performing, it's good fun. All of the team's did a good job. Our girls really looked good, and I think if they received more than participation medals at this age, they would have taken first place. The older girls are especially fun to watch, because they throw in lots of gymnastics & lifts. Lil' C loves cheerleading, they performed really well, and we all had a great day!

Cheer Competition Pix

Homecoming 2009

Last Saturday was Homecoming for Bug & Lil' Coconut. The day started off chilly, but warmed up so much that we all got sunburned. It was a good game though. It started off rocky, with the other team scoring the first points, but we came back to beat them 42-19! As for the ceremonies, the cheerleaders escorted the football players by twos, and circled back around to escort more because there are only 10 cheerleaders, but 30 football players. They exchanged gifts with each other. Aren't they so cute? Bug & Lil' C had to walk together, and Bug asked one of the moms, "Do I have to touch her? She's my sister." :) Do you see the kid in the #1 jersey? When he makes the NFL in 10 years, I'll be back to shout out his name and say "See! My son played with him & my daughter escorted him at homecoming! See, see, SEE!" Seriously, though...he's that good. It's crazy. Of course, my son is also doing well. I think he deserves "Most Improved Player" because he's getting so much better. And my Lil' Coconut? She was "Cheer Diva" of the week! She got to wear the sash and be all cute. Anyway, the girls did their competition routine on the field at half time, and it was overall a very good day.

Homecoming 2009 Photos

The Field Trip That Almost Wasn't

A few weeks ago, our homeschool group took a trip 3 hours away to go to a pumpkin patch/apple orchard that had all sorts of fun things to do. Our day started out around 530am in the middle of a torrential downpour and thunderstorm. It rained for most of the trip, but just when got near the pumpkin patch, the sky cleared up a bit & the sun began to shine. We were highly disappointed to pull up and find it closed! :( We went to the little store owned by the same people & tried to sweet talk them into opening up for us since we had just driven three hours to see them, but it was a no go. I did get a couple pix of the kids playing games in the store's cafe while they waited. It was finally decided that we would drive back to San Antonio to visit the Witte Museum. Our family had never been there, although we'd gone by it on the zoo train before. The museum turned out to be great fun! There was something for everyone: dinosaurs, movies, art, live animals, and a science "treehouse" that was fun for everyone. I'd like to go back some day because we didn't get to see everything, and I think everyone would enjoy it again.

Museum Pictures

$75 Grocery Challenge Conclusion

It's over. We made it. Not on budget, but we made it. We've learned a lot, too: Living on a budget won't kill us, we need to make weekly menus & STICK to them, we eat out WAY too much, we need to learn the art of stockpiling (food...I've got everything else covered), and challenging ourselves is kind of fun. This pay period we are challenging ourselves to not eat out at all. I'm hoping this carries over through the next pay period as well, but we're taking it slow for now. My goal is to lower our spending substantially so that we can save more and pay off our sizeable debts. I'm thankful for finding Mary's website, challenge, and spendthrift wisdom.

Here's the results:
Monthly Budget: $475.00
Total Spent: $526.79
Amount Over: $50.79

Halloween Background

I created this super cute background and header with Summer Driggs FREE digital scrapbook goodies. She has tons of them & they are gorgeous! Only when I got it on here did I realize that it was too dark for the fonts. Then I couldn't figure out how to change the colors on my special fonts. So, they're all staying the way they are because it's only a few days until Halloween and I hope you can read everything. I'm sure I can design something else for next week!

Great Giveaway!

I forgot to mention that Mary over at Owlhaven (the one who started this whole $75 a week thing) is giving away 3 sets of THREE copies each of her book Family Feasts for $75 a Week. I seriously want this book. I'm sure you will too, so head on over to her website to enter the contest, or just hop on over to Amazon to order one for me...I mean you. Even if you don't win, I know you'll love reading her blog!

$75 Grocery Challenge Update

We are 3 weeks into our grocery challenge. It's been thought provoking, enlightening & challenging so far. I haven't made a menu plan for last week or this one, so that hasn't helped. I'm thinking I probably should though, because we have one week to go and are down to only $50.73. This will be especially difficult considering we will be spending the majority of Saturday and Sunday at Homecoming & Cheer Competition. I'm going to have to get creative. We have already decided that we will try this again next month. We are also going to work on not eating out so much (we've spent almost as much on eating out as on groceries & household goods :0 ). I've also got to work on my menu planning and STICKING TO IT!!

Monthly Budget: $475.00
Total Spent: $424.27
Total Remaining: $50.73

Family Pictures

A few weeks ago, we had our family pictures professionally taken for the first time in almost 3 1/2 years. Pinky Lee was 2 weeks old the last time. So it was certainly time for a new one. But seriously, why do my kids have to be so darn cute that I'm forced into buying ALL the pictures? Especially when I'm trying to spend less money? The good news is we only let the photographer take these three poses, so that cut down on the final cost. Still, we spent twice what I had budgeted for. Here they are!Aren't they adorable???
And only because the photographer forced us into it...

Rah! Rah! Rah!

As promised, here are the pics of Lil' Coconut from the cheerleading photo session. Once again, I took the photos. And I wasn't alone. Most of the parents had their cameras, and we ended up doing much more than the photographers did, and if I do say so myself, a much better job. In the slideshow below, the only pose the photographers arranged was the team picture with the megaphone. All the rest were arranged by me or the parents as a whole. I chose my favorites for this layout. Golly, my kids are cute!

Also for you enjoyment(if you're a grandparent!), I have included another slideshow of the last football games.

Lil' Coconut's Cheerleading Pics

Football Game Pictures 2