St. Patrick's Day & Vacation Thoughts

Well, today is St. Patrick's Day. It's Green Day for Andy in Kindergarten, and they are having a "party" at lunch- they'll be fed pizza, fruit and etc.

My thoughts are on Money, as usual. We went nuts this weekend. Looking back, I wish we would have just stayed home. It all started out with a Friday trip to the dollar store, where I spent $21.00. (on what??) Then on Saturday, we had a birthday party to go to. $20.00 for the gift/gift bag / birthday card. $20.00 cash for my other cousin, who had a birthday a couple weeks ago, but we couldn't go because I had a migraine that day. Kroger after the birthday party, where we spent another $42.00 on groceries. Sunday- that was our big money spending day. And the day I wish we would have just stayed home! $27.00 at Panera, (lunch for me, Josh, and Andy) $210.00 at Target (mostly clothes for Andy, but a pair of shoes and a t-shirt for me, a pair of Dora shoes for Makayla, socks for Josh, 3 polo shirts for Andy, a t-shirt for him too, a short-sleeve button up shirt, a pair of Khaki cargo pants, a pair of sandals, and a Transformer toy, oh, and a baseball cap, and an Army-print windbreaker- all for the little man) As if that weren't enough! Then we went on to Meijer, spending another $120.00!! Groceries, pop, pantyhose, knee-highs, and 2 packages of socks for me, and tons of assorted groceries like eggs, cream cheese, butter, Kraft Cheese slices, 3 containers of apple juice, etc. etc. etc.

We have been completely out of control for the past several weeks. And it's time to stop. I need to stop. We all need to stop!

We're not going to have any spending money for vacation at the rate we're going!

Right now, we have $512.00 in the vacation fund. Adding another $500.00 at the end of this month. And another $500.00 next month. That leaves us with $1512.00 for vacation. Minus the Sheraton in Cocoa beach ( - $299.70) and minus the Enterprise Car Rental ( - $377.44). That leaves us with about $834.86 for gas money, any extra rental car charges, food, and other vacation expenses. Is that going to be enough??? I hope so!

I'm thinking about not sending so much $$ to Gardner White next month. Then, whatever is left from our vacation money after we get back, I'll send that to Gardner White. That sounds like a good plan to me, actually- since GW has already gotten $1000.00 from us last week and another $100.00 from us this week. I was planning on sending GW $576.00 next month. But I'll take that $500.00 and put it toward our vacation. This is our first vacation and I don't want any worries about whether we have enough money for fun or now.

On top of that, we currently have $500.00 in the EF, and I'm planning to sock away another $225.00 in the EF next month. We're covered on that end, at least!

I want this to be a fun, relaxing, guilt-free vacation... this is our escape! This is our family vacation! (minus Makayla, but we will make sure to take her with when she gets older- if and when we take another family vacation! I'm just afraid that she would have a really hard time being away from her Mom that long... but as she gets older, we're definitely going to give it a try.)

So... it is done!!

As long as there's no more spending from now until vacation time, we will be set!

I was thinking about tanning before we went down there, but I'm not sure now. I certainly don't want to burn up in that hot Florida sun. That would make for a bad thing to happen on vacation!

I'll have to talk to Josh and see what he thinks. I already know what he'll say- he'll tell me to go for it! Bless his heart, he never wants to deny me anything. Even if it means that he has to go without to keep me happy, he would do it and not think twice about it.

Weekend rewind- we had a lot of fun this weekend. Friday night we did our usual thing- watched movies, ate snacks, etc. I made mac & cheese and cut-up hot dogs for the kids. Then they watched Disney's The Haunted Mansion. Both kids were so scared from the movie that they were both crying. Our original plan, in the beginning of the evening, was to have both kids sleep on a pallet on our bedroom floor so Josh could actually sleep in our bed for a change on Friday night. That plan crashed and burned! He ended up sleeping on the couch with Makayla and Andy ended up sleeping with me in my bed.

This whole bedtime routine with Makayla is the biggest challenge for us. She absolutely refuses to sleep in her own bed, and we know why. We know that Makayla's Mom won't work with her on getting her to sleep in her own bed at home. And since Kayla's only with us on weekends, we can't really make any progress because when she goes home to her Mom, it starts all over again. Josh and I both keep saying that it will get better as she gets older. And it will. We leave that concern with the Lord, and He will take care of it in His own time.

Very very soon it will be time to start thinking about the kids' birthdays. I really want to simplify it this year. We may have just one party for each child. We'll have Makayla's birthday party up north (she has requested this!! she's so excited about it, what a sweetie,,, LOL) and we can have Andy's party down here. Probably at Chuck E. Cheese's. I would like to invite his kindergarten friends this year. I'd better get invitations out soon. Still, that's something I will need to talk with Josh about so we can make a decision together.