I’ve updated my list.  Check it out!

I’m making a list of books that I want to read.  I’ve seen many of these lists around the blogosphere.  My list will not be like most of those.  I mainly want to do this because I usually find out about books on the web and I don’t write them down.  I lose track and drive myself nuts trying to figure out what it was! I don’t want to put a time limit on it, I just want them to get read.  I’ll post reviews after each one is finished.  I find that I have terrible memory when it comes to books so I think the reviews will help with that too. 

* Means currently reading

Mere Christanity by C.S. Lewis * – I’ve read most of this book in bits and pieces here and there.  I want to read it in it’s entirety.  I really have to have my thinking cap on to read him.

The Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis *

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis – We have read the first two.

After Anne by Roxanne Henke

Somebody’s Gotta Say It by Neal Boortz

October Song by Beverly Lewis

Teaching the Trivium by The Bluedorn’s (re-read)

Educating the WholeHearted Child by Clay and Sally Clarkson *

My mom is always crocheting something.  She takes it with her when she has to wait somewhere for a while.  She takes in on trips.  She does it while she watching TV.  She’s done it as long as I can remember.

Her godmother taught her this art when she was 13 and now she is teaching me.  I only know how to chain stitch and add rows to that but I can’t do the turns very well.  What I have done so far (just practicing the stitch I know) resembles a canoe because I don’t know how to turn.  I’m hoping she can show me more, Sunday after supper.

I think it will be something I find addicting.  I already have a small list of projects that I want to try.  A granny square blanket is one of them.

Do you crochet?  Have any pictures on blog?  Leave me a message if you do.  I’d like to be inspired! 

My friend, Amy has taken up knitting and I have to say that she is running with it!  She’s got some pictures of a couple of her knits and a few sewing projects as well.  Even if you don’t care for the projects the pictures of her girls are worth peeking at…they’re adorable!  Visit her at Amy’s Knits. 

My son and I have both made “101 in 1001″ lists.  If you’d like to look at them, look to the left or the top under “pages”.  You’ll find them there.  Let me know if you do one or already have one on your blog.  I’d like to read it!

    I know this will not be a popular idea but just in case there’s someone out there who actually likes hand-washing dishes or has a dishwasher on the fritz, this may be something you haven’t thought about.

When I am hand-washing dishes I use my dishwasher as a drying rack.  There are a couple of reasons why this works for me.  I’ll list them below:

1 – It huge!  It will fit all the dishes, pots and pans.

2 – It keeps my counter tops clear.  I used to have a counter top full of drying dishes.  We don’t usually dry by hand and put away.  We air dry them.

3 - I can close it up.  The dishes are out of sight!  I do leave the door cracked a bit for air to circulate.

4 – When you go to unload the dishwasher in a couple of hours there will be nothing with water pooled on it.  This is a huge plus if you have your kids put the dishes away.  Somehow that water ends up on my floor!

For more Works For Me tips visit Shannon at Rocks In My Dryer. 

So, I’ve been MIA for quite a while.  I don’t think I have any readers so I doubt anyone noticed and it seems the world continued on without my idle blog chatter.  Shocker.  Really. 

Well, I see that my last post was about Abel eating his first few bites of cereal.  He has really gotten the hang of eating now.  We’re up to about 4 jars a day! 

With my last 2 children I made their food myself.  I started Abel with the jars though.  This morning I was feeling all Urban Homemakerish (I don’t even know if she makes baby food but that’s who I think of when I’m doing something healthy, food-wise) and cut up and smashed an Avacodo.  No one in our house eats Avacodo’s.  Aaron did when he was a baby but he must have forgotten because he took a bite this morning and said “That’s eeewww, Mommy.”  I’ll spare you the visual of what my 10 year described it as but I will tell you that my husband agreed with him.  I reminded them that it’s a very healthly first baby food that most babies enjoy.

Well, guess who didn’t.  Abel took his first bite, promptly pushed it out and made a cute (although objectionable) face.  We did this a few more times.  I thought I would mix it with some pears.  That should do the trick, right?  Wrong.  After all was said and done – he wouldn’t even eat the pears alone.  I think I may have ruined his appetite for the morning.  *SIGH*  I’m sure my kids and my husband feel a slight sense of victory over me today.  They were right and I was wrong.  I just hope that I haven’t gotten him used to the jar food and now he won’t like anything fresh.  Surely not. 

If you are interested in making your own baby food – I know I just gave a great promotion for it! – there are several good books on it.  It’s very easy and usually cheaper.  My favorite is Super Baby Foods.  If you want to feed your baby meats you’ll need another book because SBF doesn’t agree with feeding them meats.  The idea of pureed meats gives me the heebie-jeebies anyway, so I just want until they can eat it shredded.

 Well, I know my little man is hungry so I’m off to try again!

This morning my 4 month old had cereal for the first time. *sniff*  I mean really, must they grow so fast?

It was just a month ago that I almost had a meltdown because within a 7 day span my, then, 3 month old rolled over for the first time.  My 6 year old daughter lost her 1st tooth and I had to buy my 10 year old his first stick of deodorant.  As if that wasn’t enough to push any nearly insane Mom over the edge…I found my first grey hair.  (side note:  doesn’t g-r-e-y look so much more sophisticated that g-r-a-y.  I have greying hair   

Back to our milestone.  The past 4 nights Abel has been waking up around 4 a.m.  This is after he had been sleeping from 8:30 – 6:30ish.  We have exclusively breastfed up until this point.  It seems that maybe he needs a little more food in his tummy.  I usually make our baby food but I found that Gerber has an Organic Rice Cereal.  I plan on giving him a couple of tablespoons full with a spoon just before bedtime.  Then in a couple of months we’ll move on to the good stuff.

Yet again, we reached a new milestone.  My baby is growing up.  As frustrating as things can be taking care of 4 children at home all day, I pray that I cherish each of these children.  They are simply too delicious not to.  This time shall pass.  I don’t want merely get through the days. I want to enjoy them.

Meet my youngest, Abel.

(picture won’t load properly. I’ll try again later!)

I rarely buy my very own shaving cream.  I would usually grab my husband’s before heading to the shower.  One day I was taking a bath and had forgotten to get the shaving cream.  I didn’t want to get up (I know, call me lazy!) so I just used conditioner.  It worked like a charm and left my legs silky smooth!

For more Frugal tips, visit Biblical Womenhood.

I never enjoyed keeping track of our expenses in the register that comes with your box of checks.  It’s too small for me.  Besides that, my husband usually had a book of check with him and I had one too.  We had too much to keep track of! 

We ditched the little ones.  The kids have fun playing with them.  We make copies of a full size check register.  Ours came from Larry Burkette’s Financial workbook but there are several online.  We keep the register in a 3-ring binder.  It’s simple too keep up with because we have duplicate checks and we can just record what was spent on bill paying day.  There is plenty of room to write and you can see it better.  The front of the binder has a clear pocket and we keep an ongoing list of all of our important passwords and log-in information since we pay most of our bills online now.

Another good idea is to designate a place for all of your receipts.  We don’t write many checks anymore, we use our debit cards.  Having place to empty our wallets of receipts has been great for us.

For more Works For Me Wednesday ideas, visit Rocks In My Dryer. 

If you have a Lifeway Christian store near you, check out this deal.  They have the “Good Manners for Boys” and “Good Manners for Girls” books by Bob and Emilie Barnes for $.99!  They’re normally $9.99.  I picked up one of each.  We have enjoyed them.  The illustrations are cute too.  I think the sale ends around Valentines Day.

Sorry, I couldn’t find a photo! 

Side note.  How in the world do you underline?  I couldn’t find the tab!  Can anyone help me?