Here come the holidays...

This year we decided to be both thrifty and frugal with regards to Halloween and it's festivities.  I told the kids about a month ago that we weren't going to be buying any new costumes or accessories this year.  At first, they griped...for about a minute.  Then they spent several hours rummaging through bags and bins of dress-up and play stuff, and here is what they came up with:  We have a hiker, a hunter, a hula dancer and the cutest puppy ever!

We also didn't buy any pumpkins to carve.  We had a garden full of sugar pumpkins this year, so since they are not great for carving, we let the kids paint some instead - equally entertaining!

Our main Halloween activities took place today.  We started out going to a "trunk-or-treat" this afternoon at a shopping plaza parking lot where businesses were handing out candy. 

Then, since we had a couple of hours before time for real trick-or-treating, we went to the dollar theater and saw "Toy Story 3".  (The kids already saw it with grandma and grandpa when it first came out in theaters, but Chris hadn't seen it, and the kids were more than happy to see it again - it's a great movie!)

After the movie, we headed back home where the kids had a quick pit-stop, then I took the three older kids out trick-or-treating while Chris stayed at home with Nicolas, who said, "I have enough candy, mom!"  :)

After the kids had their buckets loaded up with sweets, we went home where I made some homemade vegetarian pizza (yum!), and we watched scary movies.  As you can see, a couple of the kids didn't last too long at that point!

So, in the end, we spent:

$0.00 ~ Costumes and accessories

$10.00 ~ Gas to drive into town

$12.00 ~ Cheap movies

$0.00 ~ Pumpkins

Total = $22.00

Much less than in years past, and we still heard, "Best Halloween Ever!" from all of the children.  Now on to planning for a frugal Christmas!  :)

Most Excellent Week.

This has been a good week for our family.  We closed on our home refinance, which thanks to the currently low interest rates, is going to save us over $300 a month.  Then, since Chris had a couple of days off, we planned a special family outing, finally getting the opportunity to make use of a gift certificate we were given for a free stay in a suite at a wonderful hotel on the river in Idaho Falls.  The kids had a great time swimming and playing all day, and Chris and I both made use of the awesome Jacuzzi tub in our room.  Being gone on the weekend meant I had to do my Saturday morning 14 mile long run (www.amarathonmom2b.blogspot.com) in an unfamiliar locale, but it was totally worth it.  I was able to run along the greenway of the Snake River, with a view of the LDS Temple.  After I had my long run out of the way, we made the additional hour drive up to the Jackson Hole area of Wyoming, one of our most favorite places on earth.  We spent hours driving through the mountains, seeing tons of wildlife and enjoying the gorgeous fall foliage.  We were relaxed, happy and content to just be with each other.  If you're interested in seeing my photo album from this trip (which includes lots of really great wildlife and landscape photos), check out my Facebook page: Priscilla Bake's Facebook Profile

Family Photos.

A little help from my readers...

I'm just curious to see where we're at with our grocery budget, compared with other families with similar number and ages of children.  I created the poll on the left side of this page so that my readers can anonymously help me answer this question.  So those of you that keep a good budget, or track your monthly grocery spending accurately, I would love to get your feedback by participating in the poll.  If any of you would be willing to give me more detail, such as number of people in your family, how many times a week you go to the grocery store, or anything else that you think I might find helpful or interesting, please leave a comment.  Thanks!

Sam's Birthday and Sophie's New-Do!

 Tomorrow my sweetheart named Samuel turns 9 years old. He is such a special child, and we're so grateful for him. Last week he brought home his midterm grades; he had 5 A+'s and 2 A's, and he was asked by his teacher to have me sign it, and he was to sign it after he wrote down a goal for the rest of the term. I told him that he's doing so well, there wasn't much room for improvement. He wrote down that his goal was to get all A+'s. What a funny kid. We celebrated his birthday with cake and ice cream and his present from me and his dad. Chris has been out of town at Supervisor's Academy all week, he came home last night, but will leave again tomorrow for another week, so we decided today would be a good day to celebrate.

In other news, Sophie actually came to me and asked to have me cut her hair....short!  I was shocked.  We've been trying to grow out her bangs since the summer, and I think her new style turned our so pretty and will help get her through the "transition period".  I just love that soft, sweet face!



Before





After







So cute!





Fall is the best!

We went for a short drive on this rainy, cool afternoon.  It's so beautiful here in the fall, though I can't believe how much the colors are already changing in just the 2nd week of September.

Pocatello Marathon 2010!

Okay, well the title of this post is a little misleading, since I actually only ran the half-marathon, but still...

I posted a detailed blog about my experience running the 1/2 this morning on my other blog:

www.amarathonmom2b.blogspot.com

I just felt like putting something on this blog as well, because it was such an event for our whole family.  The kids were up early with me this morning, asking me lots of questions and telling me over and over to: "Do good, mom!"  Chris has been an awesome support as I've been doing this training, and continues to be as I now will keep on with my training for the full marathon in November.  For the marathon we will be traveling to Colorado, and it will be a whole new set of experiences.  This morning, though, after Chris took me in to where I had catch the shuttle to the starting line, he fed all the kids some breakfast, got everyone dressed, then drove to spots where he could get a few pictures of me on my run.  He then tried to get to the finish line, where he and the kids could wait to greet me, and somehow he ended up having to park about 2 miles from the finish line area.  He and the kids had walked all that way from the car, in the hot sun, then after we met up at the end of my race, we all had to walk that distance back to the car!  The kids were (apparently) doing a lot of complaining during the the "waiting" periods of my race, so I just wanted to let Chris know how much I appreciate his help and support.  He is a great dad and an especially good husband.