All Star Baseball

Nolan made the 8U All Star Baseball Team and for the past 2 months, that’s what our life has been!  We were at the baseball field 3 or 4 times a week for practice, plus games and a little travel here and there for tournaments.

I had a GREAT time watching this little 8U team battle through their season and enjoy the game while learning so much!  It’s really amazing to see how far they came through the little time they played together!

There was lots of pop fly practice….

Some ground ball experience.

A little bit of catching.  In 100 degree HEAT.


More than a few “at-bats”.


The whole team after a double-header in 100 degree heat one Saturday afternoon.  WHEW!  It was HOT!  The coaches had a big bucket full of ice water and the kids were just dipping rags in it to keep their heads cold. 
I have to tell you, we had some of the best, most well-behaved kids ever!  They were a real joy to watch!

Nolan crossing home plate!

Sitting the bench waiting for his turn.

Coach Justin breaking it down for Nolan at third base.  Not sure what they’re strategizing, but it looks serious.  HA!

After their last game, their coach, Coach Troy (who I’m sure even when Nolan is 15 will still be called “Coach Troy”) gave out medals, awards, and baseball cards!

Nolan and his friend Trey!

What a fun two months it was.  I was sad to see it end!
Go AllStars!

~CB~

Disney Bucket

   
I talked about my new Disney Fund here, and wanted to show you what the actual bucket looked like AND give you a $$$ update on the fund!
I started with a clear paint bucket from Michaels (which I purchased months ago with a coupon of course).

I had a sheet of Disney stickers and decided to use those around the bucket rather than paper because the paper was going to be too hard to cut and configure.

I picked out the sticker strips I liked the most and stuck them to the bucket starting at the bottom……


Then…the finished product!  We have $1.16 saved in our fund so far.
  THE DISNEY FUND BUCKET!

~CB~

Last Day of School

Nolan’s last day of first grade was a few weeks ago and his teacher had some CUTE activities planned for “her” kids.  She cooked them breakfast in her room, then they signed yearbooks, watched a movie, ate popcorn, and had their “good-bye” time.

Nolan loved his teacher and she is wonderful!  Here is Nolan and Mrs. W on the last day of school….

and Nolan and Mrs. W on Meet the Teacher day at the beginning of the year……you can tell how much taller he is.  She is on her knees in both pictures and in the top one (last day of school) he is right at the top of her head.  In the one below (beginning of school) he’s not quite to the top of her head.  I KNEW he grew this year!  ha!

Goodbye First Grade, Hello SECOND!

~CB~

First Grade Program

 The First Grade at N’s school had a program in late May (I know, this is a LATE post) and the theme was Oceans of Fun.

Nolan had a speaking part and also got to sing in the microphone!  All the kids did GREAT with their parts!

Nolan and his wonderful teacher, Mrs. W.  We were so blessed to have her this year!

Nolan and his friend Trey, after the program.

Each class was able to take center stage for one song.  What a wonderful way to show off the First Grade talent!

~CB~

Pre-K Graduation, Carter

The summer is passing by so quickly!!  I did want to share with you some pictures from Carter’s Pre-K graduation!

He graduated from Pre-K the first week of June and oh was it sweet!  The kids said the Pledge of Allegiance (both the Christian and the traditional) and sang a song.  Just melted my heart!

Carter just LOVED his teacher!  “Mrs. Lisa” as the children affectionately call her is wonderful and amazing!!  We will certainly miss her! 

Here they were singing a song and doing sign language…JUST PRECIOUS!!!

Receiving his certificate!

A quick family photo after the ceremony…..

And of course, no milestone event would be complete without Patricia, the babysitter, and “second mother” to the boys!

Carter is becoming such a big boy! No longer the “baby” that’s for sure!  We are very excited for him to begin a “new chapter” in KINDERGARTEN!

~CB~

The Disney Fund

Many of you know our quest this past year was to get out of as much DEBT as possible.  We've scrimped and saved and aren't NEARLY debt-free, but we are sure working on it!  I have a blog post planned for September and the numbers I'll be able to share with you are astounding!

Many of you also know one of my favorite places on earth happens to be Disney as evidenced by my past posts here, here, and here.   (There were other posts about Disney but I was too lazy to keep going backwards to find them! ha-ha)

Due to our "debt-free" motto, we decided to let our Disney passes expire back in January as one way to save money.  It has been SO HARD not to get on Disney's website and purchase those annual passes (this is the first time in over 3 years we've been without passes), but I know we will enjoy our time at Disney so much more when we can go debt-free!

All of the above leads me to my solution for Disney debt-free!  We started a Disney fund.  I saw this idea on several Disney blogs I read and decided it was high-time I start one myself.  So far......hold on to your seat.....we have a whopping three cents (that would be 3 pennies) in our fund.  I told you to hold on.  Now you can stop laughing.  hahahahahahaha!

I should let you know that we only officially started the fund a few days ago, but I plan to give you regular updates on our growing Disney fund!  My plan is to put spare change (money I find in the washing machine) and/or non-expected money into the fund.  For example, Cecil got a $20 Sports Authority gift card in the mail for Father's Day and the boys and I spent 19.97; they gave me change of .03 so that's where the three cents in our fund came from.  If I clean out my car and find change on the floor, it will go in the Disney fund.  So on and so forth.

Do YOU have a fund set up for something fun?

~CB~

Weekly Deal

This is a weekly deal that I got WEEKS ago, but still wanted to share with you!

Below is 1 bottle of Hidden Valley Ranch dressing, 3 bottles of Wisk laundry detergent, 2 bags of M&Ms, 3 Dove bars, 3 containers of Reach Floss, 11 Reach toothbrushes, and 1 tube of Almay waterproof mascara!

The Wisk I bought for $2.00 per bottle at CVS (great deal), along with the Hidden Valley Ranch, which I got for FREE because I had 2.00 in extra care bucks and the dressing was 1.99.

Everything else was purchased at Walgreens for a TOTAL of about 3.00, however, I walked out with $4.00 in Register Rewards!  WHOO HOO!  Nope—we don’t need toothbrushes for a LONG time!

~CB~

Our Life Right Now

From this....

To this.....

Takes lots of time, MONEY, energy, TIME, more TIME, and hard work!

We're up to our eyeballs right now in melons!!  Only about another week and it's all over though!

~CB~

Catching Up

Lest you feel like I've fallen off the face of the earth, I DO have some posts in progress, I just haven't made it around to posting them yet.  I'll update you over the next few days, but here's what we've done....

We've been up to some of this

And this

And especially this

More to come.....

~CB~