Happy Birthday!

Today is my oldest daughter's 20th birthday.  Wow!  This one is one of those that seems like a big one.  She was born at 6:34 on a Saturday night, and weighed a whopping 6 lb. 7 oz.  The night before we spent secretly timing contractions between cheering at our local high school football game.  My parents sat next to us and never knew!  Contractions has started around 10:00 that morning.  We went to the ER at about 3:30 the next morning, but at about 7 they sent me back home--told me I was probably in false labor.  Later that evening around 5:30, we went back to the hospital with contractions just a few minutes apart.  (I was so little when I was pregnant with Ashley--partially hidden by my height--that they didn't believe me when I told them I was in labor.  They asked my due date, and when I told them last week, they got hopping.)  I had not been there long with the monitors in place before panic set in.  Alarms went off, nurses started running up and down the hallway, yelling to page the dr.  They flipped me on my side, put an oxygen mask on, and I had a nurse on each side of me racing to see who could get the drip in my rolling veins first.  We had no idea what was going on.  They began to explain to us that her heart rate was dropping dangerously low, then shooting back up.  She was in what I believe they called tri-cardiac arrest, possibly caused from the stress of trying to come for so long.  I had been having contractions for 32 hours, and was still only 3 cm.  Within minutes I was being prepped for an emergency C-section.  We know God's blessing has been on Ashley since the beginning.  This had actually happened earlier that morning when we had been at the hospital, and we asked about it.  An obviously untrained nurse told us it was just the baby moving around and away from the monitor.  Praise God that He protected Ashley throughout the day until we could get back.  She came out screaming and didn't stop for about an hour.  Her cries were the talk of the nursery and ob floor!  I guess she got it all out of her system, because she has been my quiet child ever since. 

She is such a joy and a blessing.  She has a beautiful, gentle, and quiet spirit.  Her heart for serving the Lord and others is an inspiration to me.  Please go by and wish Ashley a Happy Birthday!  Check out her "What I Love" section in her sidebar to get a glimpse of my beautiful daughter. 

By the way, if we look awfully young in these baby pictures, it's because I was only 15 months older than Ashley is now!!  That's scary.

This is after 5 days in the hospital, and we're going home.

First ballet recital-4 years old

Senior ballet

      Happy Birthday Ashley

Sisters-Friends

Please visit my daughter's blog today, and read her post about her sister.  These girls are so absolutely precious to me. 

Letitia

Budgets for Children

Last month Tia asked me to give the Tip of the Day over on the Company Porch.  It was a lot of fun, although challenging to come up with tips that might be a new idea to someone.  One of the tips that seemed to bless a few people was on budgets for your children, so I decided to share it here.  I may share a few others along the way, too. 

Tip of the Day ~ Budgets for Children

11:07 AM, Sep. 8, 2006

Teach your children early the importance of spending on a budget.   First and most important, when our children are very young and they earn money, we teach them to set aside their tithe.  They know that even if they earn a dime helping out, they take a penny or more from their regular bank and put it in their "giving bank".  The next step is teaching them to put money aside for savings.

   As your child grows, give him more responsibility with his money, and teach him  how to use it wisely.  You want to gradually build up to your teen being able to keep a budget.  Sit down with them and realistically figure out how much you spend on that child for clothes and other items.  The categories that we set up were:  tithes, clothes, Christmas gifts, other gifts, savings, and misc. (this is the fun stuff-CDs, books, etc.).  We increased their allowance dramatically.  It is not based on their chores.  It is based on how much we reasonably expect them to live off of.  This is about teaching them how to budget.  We are not spending anymore money on them than we were otherwise, but now it is putting the responsibility of how that money is used in their hands.  You will have to decide for your own family what you expect your child to work for, and what you will give him as an allowance.  Help them decide how much should go into each category weekly, and make adjustments later as you both see necessary.  You will also want to teach them the "dangers" of borrowing from one category to pay for something in another.  The exception would be if they want to spend some of their misc. fun money on a gift for someone else or something of that nature. 

    As your young adult grows, you can add more categories if you want to include personal care items or others.  As their savings grows, begin teaching them they ways to invest that money.  As soon as they are ready, open them a checking account and teach them how to keep it balanced.   

   Our goal is to provide for them knowledge, wisdom, and responsibility on how to care for the money God has entrusted to them.  This is something that will affect the rest of their lives.  As they grow up and have families of their own, they will be prepared to give and save and spend wisely, avoiding debt.  They will learn quickly the value of money, and hopefully the discipline to stay on that budget.  If we start with them early it will be fun for them, and as they grow these principles will be instilled in them.

Some sites for resources on budgeting are:

www.crown.og

www.daveramsey.com

 

Letitia

Confessions of a Really Strange Addiction

Okay.  Here it is.  My hidden addiction.  I am addicted to cardboard boxes!  There.  I said it.  Now everyone knows.  I told Ashley and Briana a few days ago, and they got a good laugh at me.  You see, it absolutely kills me to throw away a good cardboard box.  It used to be little boxes--"Oh, I could wrap a gift in that."  Or, "I can mail a package in that one."  I have gotten a little better with the smaller ones, although I still whince to throw it in the garbage pile, and sometimes have to talk to myself to do so.  (If any of you know of a recycle center close to my house, let me know!!)  My problem now, is big boxes!    I know when it all started.  A little over 5 years ago,we bought a piece of property, and we thought we would be moving within the year.  So, I started breaking down boxes we would get in.  And, we get a LOT of boxes.  We buy cereal in  bulk, which comes in boxes, not to mention all the boxes that come when books or Christmas gifts are ordered.  Okay, so we didn't move that soon.  We didn't move the next year, or the next one.  In fact,  here we are right in the same place we were 5 years ago (and 15 years ago).  For the longest time I kept thinking, "Boy by the time we move, maybe I'll have a bunch!"  And, I do.  The only problem is I don't know if we'll ever move.  But, in the meantime, I've developed a weird, and very strong, attachment to boxes.  If it's a sturdy, clean, medium size box, I just absolutely cannot throw it away. Really, I can't.  I've tried.   If it has tears or BIG dents in it, I do relenquish it, although, very reluctantly.  Can an attic floor collapse from the weight of empty cardboard boxes????

Do you all have any strange addictions (or is it just me?  Please don't tell me it's just me! )

On a more normal front, we didn't have much "school" today.  I have decided to let Wed. be our craft/art day for the younger ones.  We will do Bible/devotions in the morning, and this morning we read, too, since Marissa is really into the book we're reading (Little House in the Big Woods). Otherwise, we will do different projects and art work.  Supposedly, I will have a little bit shorter day on Wed., but that didn't happen.  Today we painted t-shirts.  It started out kind of frustrating, because all of the fabric paint had dried up.  We did finally manage to get enough of it to work.  We didn't get finished yet, because of our slow start, and we need to go buy 2 more colors, but they are coming along great.  We had fun working on them. 

Also being Wed., I have the house to myself for about 2 hours every week.  Well, Ashley will be here most of the time, but at 19 she's not usually too roudy!  I'm off to do some scheduling.

Letitia

Vacation Photos

We did get to go back out to the island after being evacuated, and we had a quiet, fun week.  Here are some of the highlights.  Unfortunately not all of the scenic pictures show up as beautiful as they were. 

 

Daniella contemplating

Marissa

 

Manatee we saw in the harbor

The next 2 are views from our balcony.  Except for the weekend, it was pretty much quiet like that the whole time.  You might see only 4 people all day out on the beach, since we were there during off (read hurricane!) season.

Our girls.

We found several large whelks, but since they were still alive we had to put them back.  We did bring home a few about 1/2 that size, along with some tiny ones.  We also got lots of sand dollars, and some other unusual to us shells. 

This is island transportation.  No cars, except for fire trucks.

This is one of the "roads".  We loved being in the "old Florida". 

One of about 4 rainbows we saw that week.

Fishing with Dad

This doesn't show up as beautiful as it really was.  Huge grey and white drift wood and old trees, and the water was crystal clear.  This was in the bird sanctuary at the end of the island.

I was walking down the beach with Marissa, and we were carrying a bucket of seashells.  All of a sudden, I looked down, and this little guy was crawling around in my bucket!  Talking about a surprise.  I didn't even know they were in the Gulf. We actually ended up finding another one a little bigger later in the week.  In case you can't tell, yes, it is a little octopus.

Dad and Ashley kayaking.

About 2 days after the storm, we had some doozy of some waves.

Can you see the cringe on her face because she knows she's about to get wiped out?

Hope you enjoyed a peek into our trip to North Captiva, Florida.

Letitia