Weekend Recap

Today is Claire's last day of spring break. Honestly, I really enjoyed having her home all week - not having to worry about the bus, making lunches and doing homework. We filled our week with a trip to the park, the Science Center, errands, the library a couple of times, playing outside on the ONE nice day last week, play group, hanging out with friends, a trip to the doctor's office, church and most importantly, working and playing at home.

We had a great Easter weekend. The kids hunted for eggs Sunday morning and then we had stake conference. There were some great talks (I like the one by Elder Oaks) and afterwords, we had a nice Easter dinner of Hungarian Goulash (we are not ham people). Then it was egg salad sandwiches for dinner.

I love this picture - William eating chocolate, holding his new toothbrush - nice.

Dying eggs

Despite William getting some sort of lymph node infection and Rose and I getting a cold, it was a great spring break.

As I'm sure most of you are, we are making cut-backs in our spending for many reasons. Every year at about this time, I get a sense of budgetary renewal. I get determined to cut back to the bare bones and save, save, save. Well, what always ends up happening is one of two things - something major breaks and we have to spend all of the money we saved fixing it, or I get so fed up with watching every penny I spend that I give up for the most part and just do what I can without really thinking about where the money is going. Thankfully, we are in not in any type of financial trouble (just the usual house and student stuff). However, instead of looking at this cutting back as a burden, I try to look at as a game.

For your sake, I won't get detailed about what I'm doing here, but my point is, I have found that my attitude is what makes such a HUGE difference in how I go about this. Also knowing that Ryan will not be a student forever (only 1-2 more years), helps me endure the challenges of being a student's wife.

The other half of this quest is that I am determined to quit buying junk from the big-box stores and hunt for bargains and vintage stuff online and in thrift stores, etc. We found Claire awesome bike on Craig's list and today when I needed to buy a mixing bowl since my cheap one from K-mart I bought when I was single finally cracked, I didn't run over to Target as I normally would, but I wend to a second-hand/antique store and bought a beautiful white glass mixing bowl.

Claire's bike which is solid and works great - she learned to ride it last week.
She just needs a little help getting started.

Shopping takes a little longer this way, but it's like a treasure hunt and it feels good knowing that what I'm buying keeps it from going into a landfill and it's not wasting materials making new things. Hopefully I don't get tired of this game and it will eventually turn into a way of life, not a passing fancy.

Hope everyone had a happy Easter!