A Week of Free

Looking back over our week, we have packed it full of activities.  We are completing lots of our summer fun things and some of our acts of service from our list we made at the beginning of summer.  

Once we got through Monday and getting Laila's braids done, we hit the ground running with some fun things most of which were FREE.  Can I just tell you what a  love affair I have with saving money and getting stuff for FREE.  Some of it is out of necessity, but honestly it makes me so excited to be able to do fun things for my kids and not have to pay for them.  

Tuesday started off with Abby's piano lesson and "summer job."  Her piano teacher is an amazing woman that I aspire to be like when I grow up.  Even though she is in her 80s, she is active and vibrant with the most positive attitude despite the many difficult circumstances she has faced throughout her life.  She has the most amazing garden in her back yard.  Because Abby is passionate about gardening, she volunteered to help her teacher for a couple of hours each week after her lesson.  Not only did her teacher take her up on the offer, but felt very strongly about paying her so she could have that experience as well.  She is just learning all kinds of things through this opportunity.  She is getting the wisdom of life and gardening experience from her teacher and she is learning what it means to earn money and do a good job for someone other than her parents.  

Abby in the garden entrance

 Speaking of gardens, Abby is beginning to see some of the fruit of her labor.  We have eaten cilantro form her garden.  

Here is one of her cute little peppers growing.

 I have a whole blog post running through my head about gardening and its applications to life.  I have never been a gardening person, but God is showing me some life lessons through this experience with Abby.  More of that to come.

While Abby was gardening, I took Sam to pick up his football gear.  Yep, he is going to try out football in the fall.  Can I just say how adorable he looks in his pads and pants!  He created an obstacle course in the back yard to help himself train for the season.  I will have to get some pictures of that to share.

I love the summer reading program.  Not only does it encourage my kids to read, but we get FREE stuff.  Each day after lunch, we have "reading time" in our house.  They have all earned their first level of prizes which was a coupon sheet with lots of FREE stuff.  We used some of those coupons on Tuesday.

First stop, FREE pizza and soda at Louie's pizza 

 Next stop was a free candy or caramel popcorn snack at a local Sweet Shop.  Then, we made a trip to the grocery with the bribery, "if you do a good job, we will get our FREE junior Frosties afterwards.

6 FREE Frosties, comin' right up!

Lauren and Abby had a double sleepover(one night at a friend's house and the next night with that same friend at our house) for Tuesday night and Wednesday nights.  So, I let the 3 "littles" have a sleepover in the the boys room.  

This is how I found them sleeping:

 Wednesday started out with some fun for me.  A dear friend took me out to breakfast to celebrate my Birthday.  It was such a sweet time.  She even blessed me with a plant and some of my favorite salted chocolates!!  Then, we met friends at a local Splashground(once again, FREE!)  I was sitting their talking to my friends saying, "I really should take some pictures of the kids."  Ellen looked at me and said, "Let's just enjoy this time to talk."  She was exactly right.  Some times you just gotta put the camera away and live life.  Then, my friend, Laura said, "Well, I think I did that a little too much.  I was living in the moment so much with my kids I can barely remember what they looked like when they were little and I don't have many pictures to look at."  I love those ladies!

Next stop:  Free Slurpees!!  7-11 gives Free 7.11 oz Slurpees on 7/11.

Cody has been spending lots of time doing youth activities and going to the park to play bball with friends.  He did Ultimate Frisbee with the youth group on Tuesday night and Ice Blocking on Wednesday with some of the youth group guys.  He spent 3 hours on Thursday playing basketball.

We have also been taking advantage of FREE checkout of movies and video games at the library.  Our library has what Lauren likes to call "Blackbox."  It is just like Redbox, but black and FREE and all the same movies and games are on it!!

 The next thing we did was FREE, but I am not so sure the girls enjoyed it.  Lauren and Laila went in for their yearly checkups.  (Our insurance pays completely for checkups, so we didn't even have to make a copay!!)  Laila was so cute at the dr. office.  I had to fill out a questionnaire about her development at 4 years and ask her lots of questions.  At one point, I said, "Do you know your phone number?"  She said, "Yes," very proudly, "It is 9114!"  I guess she has heard people say 911 for emergencies and she is 4 so she assumed that must be her phone number.  She has had a huge growth spurt.  She went from 75% in height to 95%.  That explains why she is as big as her brother who is 18 months older than her and she is wearing size 5 clothes!!

 Lauren had to get 2 shots.  Laila was so sweet to hold her hand.

Cereal was on sale at the store.  I let each kid pick out their own box.  They loved that!  I know it is not healthy, but you gotta have a little fun!  It's summer!

Notice they are all wearing winter jammies.  When I came down this morning they were talking about how cold they are.  Seriously, it is hot and they don't have air conditioning in their rooms!!  My crazy kids!

We had some FREE entertainment in our back yard last night.  5 raccoons walked across our fence.  It was crazy.  I have no idea where they came from, but that is something you don't see every day.  

That concludes our week of FREE.  I could handle a few more of these!!