October 12, 2008

After all the pictures and exciting posts, this one will be pictureless, so maybe a bit more boring. We thoroughly enjoyed conference last week. This week, we are back to regular church meetings. I am looking forward to it.

This week really raced by. I have been walking with one of my friends in the mornings after I drop Matt and Kara off at school. Lindsay and Seth seem to really enjoy our walks. Kara's teacher talked to me one day as I was picking her up. Kara is really getting used to the routine and how things work in Kindergarten. She seems to be doing very well. I am so happy. They went on a field trip this week to the Boerner Botanical Gardens, and they learned about trees.

Matthew has been doing well at piano praciting. I don't have to ever remind him. He seems to enjoy playing. He is also not so much bored at school. We are going to see what types of testing they will try this week. I am hoping to really get the ball rolling with this, so he will really enjoy school and be challenged.

Lindsay is getting so independent. I don't even have to ask her very often to get dressed in the mornings. We are just getting used to dressing for the weather. Shorts are not very appropriate when the temp is 50, and it is cloudy and a bit windy. She is happy about changing though. She is a very happy girl.

Seth is getting so good at walking. He loves to practice. He can walk across the room now. He also is getting good about sleeping through the night. He was starting to wake up two times a night instead of one. I let him cry it out two nights. The first night, it was about an hour he cried, and the second maybe a half hour of not hard crying. Then the past couple of nights, he only mildly calls for maybe 15 minutes, and then goes right back to sleep. In the mornings, he doesn't even act really starving. I was worried (of course needlessly) that he was hungry or thirsty. But, he really is fine. He is such a good happy baby. I can't believe he is almost one. I got out some of Matt's baby clothes, and they already fit Seth. It is funny because I remember Matt being so big when he was this age.

Brian is doing well in school. He is very busy with it. He has been busy with scouts too. He has some training meetings to go to. Hopefully he will get some good information from them. We also have been slowly but surely getting our house ready. We still have more little projects to work on. Hopefully we'll get all the outside stuff done before winter hits.

I am going to try an experiment. I have a friend who really does well with budgeting. She only spends 200-250 a month on groceries, diapers, TP, medicine, and stuff like that. I spend way more than that, and it seems like it has been increasing exponentially. Anyway, she says her secret is that she only buys stuff that is on sale that she has a coupon for. She also only goes to one grocery store and then CVS and Walgreens for pharmacy and diapers. That seems like it would be doable. It seems like people that I've known before have done the coupon thing and gone to twelve different stores, and it would take so much time. Her plan seems simple. We'll see how it works. I know it will take a few weeks to build up coupons, but hopefully I'll get the hang of it, and it will save us at least a little money every month. I doubt I will get down to her level, but then I have two more kids than she does. Anyway, I will let you know how it goes.