December Pictures

Our whole family went to the hospital for a tour before Lamb 2's nose surgery in December. Lamb 1 was too "cool" to do some of the activities but Lamb 2 and Lamb 3 enjoyed the tour. Here are a few pictures we took that day.

All 3 Lambs weigh a total of 175.8

Lamb 2 and Lamb 3 got a hair net and mask to practice with and keep

It was so nice of the hospital to let the Lambs know what to expect on the day of Lamb 2's surgery. They do surgery tours by appointment and I was glad that we asked for a tour.

Lamb 2 had a checkup in January and the doctor thought everything looked good. He had to continue the nasal spray for one more week after his appointment. Then he was finished with Dr. appointments and medicine.

He seems to take less breaths while talking. I am very curious how swim lessons go for him this summer after this surgery. I am glad we had the surgery for Lamb 2 now.

Picture of the Day

Our 2015 Grocery Budget

When we lived in MN we went grocery shopping at a big store about once a month. I had no grocery budget, it was more important to buy items when we got to the city. It was not unusual for us to spend $400 at Costco because we only went to Costco about 3 times a year. When we got to a big grocery store we usually spent over $200. We did weekly trips over the border to SD to buy produce. We had to buy special items to feed Lamb 1 a dairy free diet. One good part was most of the time we lived in MN we received WIC. Also the members were very generous at Christmas time with giving us meat. I remember talking to a Looper then and being embarrassed because I had no idea how much we spent on groceries. Our pantry was always very well stocked, but I had no idea how much we spent to stock it.

When we moved here we are so close to Costco that it is not unusual to go to Costco every week or two. Thankfully those trips are usually under $30 since we go so often. I'm so close to stores that each week I usually shop at two different stores to get the best prices. I began in 2013 keeping track of what we spend. I didn't have a budget during 2013 or 2014, just kept track of what we actually spent.

I broke down what we spend into specific categories. The grocery category is just for what we eat and drink. It does not include items used in the bathroom (toilet paper, soap etc.), items used for cleaning (laundry soap, dishwasher soap, etc.) or items like baggies. It does include food I buy to take to church potlucks or church fundraisers which is often some parts of the year (Advent and Lent). It does include berries and produce for canning  even though I give most of that jam away as gifts. It does include treats like candy for the Lambs and when I occasionally buy pop to have with homemade pizza. If I ever participate in rebates those are subtracted from what we spend. Usually we end up using our yearly Costco rebate from American Express on food, but I do not subtract that from the total-I'm looking to see how much we spent on food. It does not matter where we purchase the food-whether I buy it at the grocery store or farmer's market-if it is something we eat or drink it gets recorded in the grocery category.

Especially when we began eating closer to Paleo I knew groceries were going to cost us more. I also knew the cost of groceries went up. I'm happy to report that I saved an average of $15 per month in 2014 vs. 2013.

Ram and I had a long discussion about our grocery budget in January. We decided to set the grocery budget the same as we spent in 2014 with a few differences. I have kept track of how much I spent on food and how much sales tax on food cost me separately. This is because we get a $100 tax credit per person in our house because we have sales tax on food. I was curious if we spent more than $500 a year on sales tax. In 2014 we spent $444 on sales tax on food. So we "made" $56 from the state of ID. This made me think if we could spend less on groceries we would spend less on sales tax and we could "make" even more money on this.

So my grocery budget for 2015 is the same as we spent last year but will include sales tax this year. If we spent the same as last year I would have $37 less a month even though the amount is the same as we spent last year.

I don't want to blog how much my amount is. It is quite large each month because I want to have dollars budgeted when I buy meat from Zaycon or when the entire health food side of the grocery store is 25% off (usually twice a year) or when Costco has something on sale that we use often and could stock up on. Many of my friends in the Midwest would think the amount is way too high. But we no longer get many food gifts from members. We don't have a garden here. We pay more for groceries here than we did in the Midwest too.

Ram and I decided that I am not ever allowed to go over my monthly budget since it is so large. What I do not spend in that month is not rolled over to the next month. So I do need to watch my monthly budget closely especially if I want to buy Zaycon that month. If I do spend the entire amount then we will eat out of the pantry until the beginning of the next month.

Each quarter we are going to total how much I was under budget and donate that to charity. This is a big incentive to me to stay under budget. At the end of 2014 I wanted to donate to several LCMS missionaries that are our friends. In January I was $59 under budget so that will be given to charity.

I am going to need to watch my budget closely in February. Lent suppers begin and our preschool fundraiser is this month. I know I will buy Zaycon chicken this month. Today I did grocery shopping and spent almost 1/4 of this month's budget.

I know everyone does their budgets differently. I'm a little ashamed to admit that I didn't have a budget for my first 13 years of marriage. So far our 2015 plan is working very well for us.

Legislative Day 2015

Since we moved to ID I have wanted to take the Lambs to our state capitol building. We have stood on the steps during the March for Life, but we hadn't been inside. Yesterday was Legislative Day for home educators so we attended. It was interesting to see what they did and perhaps in a few years we will also participate. All the Lambs enjoyed seeing the capitol building. Lamb 3 insisted that we take the steps to go to every level to see as much as we could.

I forgot to have them take their coats off, but we dressed up to go to this. The students presenting wore business attire. Lamb 2 wore a bow tie and Lamb 3 wore a tie. Lamb 1 wore what he wears almost every Sunday!

Students had displays all the way around the 4th floor. This one was a Hobbit scene. He asked the Lambs if they had read the book and told them he highly recommended it. Then he explained how he made the display-it was much more complicated than it looked. The boys were very interested in this display because it had Legos. It was definitely a boy kind of book report. This is the kind of display I see my Lambs doing in a few years. The students were friendly and ready to share about their displays. Socialization was no problem for these homeschooled students!

This is one of the reasons why homeschooling is so easy for us in ID. Homemade pies were provided those that serve us at the Capitol. They even had gluten free and sugar free pies. Lamb 3 really wanted a piece of pumpkin pie but they weren't for us. I'm sure the lawmakers remember their piece of pie when it comes time to vote for education laws.

They also had homeschooled students playing piano and other musicians throughout the day. Perhaps that will be a possibility for Lamb 1 to play piano for this.

Looking at the ceiling from the ground floor. There are stars in the middle.

The second level had displays of the history of home education in ID. It was interesting to me that the "dark times" of home education were exactly when Ram was being home educated in ID. We are so thankful to the brave home educators that fought for our rights that we have today. It was also a good reminder to not take homeschooling for granted.

Also it was interesting to me that I would not be required to teach Lamb 3 until he turns 7 and with a spring birthday that wouldn't be until next school year. 

Standing on the bottom floor looking at the ceiling.

Afterwards we took the Lambs out to eat for pie since we couldn't have any there. Lamb 3 had chocolate cream, Lamb 2 had cherry a la mode, and Lamb 1 had blueberry a la mode. Trying to decide what kind of pie was almost as good as eating the pie!

The Lambs weren't thrilled about this field trip, but they cooperated and made the best of the afternoon. It accomplished what I wanted it to-they saw where the governor's office is, saw the capitol, and saw what is done on Legislative Day. Perhaps we can participate or at least make a pie in future years.

*Note for my homeschool friends in other states: ID is a very friendly state for homeschooling. We need to educate our children from ages 7-16 in the subjects that are usually taught in the public schools. That is it. There is no paperwork to fill out each year. There are no required hours of instruction. There is no mandatory standardized testing. Curriculum is decided by the parent. We are given tremendous freedom but I take that seriously. We occasionally have field trips or take a day off, but from September-May they do school work 4-5 days a week. They do all the school subjects routinely taught in the public schools plus religion and Latin. I think I am stricter on this than many ID homeschoolers after coming from MN and after teaching in the classroom. We are thankful for the freedom especially last year while Lamb 2 had so much therapy that some of his schoolwork was postponed. This year all three of them are doing more school work than last year.

It is worth asking questions

When Ram had his major surgery in 2010, Ram's dad gave us the advice to never pay a medical bill until we also had a statement from the insurance company that matched that amount.

Recently a lot of blogs I read have talked about little ways to save money. I was reminded of this advice from Ram's dad as another way to save money. We met our deductible last year in March because of Lamb 2's therapy. Almost all doctor visits should have been completely free for our family from April-December. Once January began we started receiving bills from hospitals and doctors a few times a week. Each time I receive one of these bills we call the doctor or insurance about it. So far we haven't owed for any of these bills. Either the doctor didn't file it with insurance, didn't file the correct number with insurance, or didn't wait long enough for insurance to pay it.

The one exception is a bill from October 2013 that I did receive a statement that insurance would not pay it so I paid it. The doctor says that the insurance told her they would pay it. Since it became so confusing the doctor refunded half of my money I paid. If insurance pays it I will get more of a refund. I don't think insurance is going to pay it though. In this case I took the time to write a letter to the doctor's office about what was happening. The doctor considered my case and refunded half of my money which was better than none.

I have learned it is worth the time to make that phone call to either the doctor or insurance or both. Don't automatically pay medical bills. If you do and you deserve a refund, it will take a long time to get that refund. And if you don't make that phone call and it wasn't filed with insurance correctly, they won't even know if it was incorrect.

Also, don't panic when you receive an $800 bill. Call and ask about it before trying to figure out how you are going to get money to pay that bill. Ask all your questions when you make that phone call instead of getting stressed. (Of course I'm telling you about this as an example, not that I would get stressed out about an $800 ER bill for Lamb 1!)

If you find out that you really do owe for that bill after talking to insurance, be sure to pay the bill promptly or you will owe more. If you are unable to pay the full bill talk to the billing office. I have found hospitals bend over backwards to help you make your payments. When I knew that we were going to have a lot of bills for Lamb 2's OT and speech therapy, I talked to the finance office before 2014 began. Lamb 2 and 3 ended up getting a scholarship for their therapy. This was another time that a phone call and filling out some forms paid off.

While we are on this topic, I kept track of every medical mile we had last year for tax purposes. One round trip to vision therapy was only 4.6 miles but times $0.235 times 90 VT sessions equals almost $100. That's only VT, not speech or OT or other routine doctor visits. It took discipline to record this each doctor visit and time to type it up at the end of the year. I will continue this even though we don't have nearly the amount of therapy as we did last year. Every little bits helps!

Christmas Photos

I heard one time that you should take down all your Christmas decorations before the Presentation of our Lord Feast Day which is today. When our Lambs were younger it took the pressure off of me to give myself that long. I decided that I should probably post Christmas photos today too.

Lamb 1 was Joseph. This will probably be the last year that he dresses up as a character at our church. Next year he will be in confirmation class. He will probably be a reader, but not in costume.

2014 Sunday School Christmas Program

Shepherd-Lamb 3

Shepherd-Lamb 2

Just for fun-Rudolph-Lamb 3

Christmas Eve 2014 at our church

Start Times

The local elementary schools don't begin school until after 9am due to the bus schedule. I was so surprised last fall when the neighbor kids came over to play with my boys at 8am on school days. I did allow it at the beginning of school because the kids get home from school so late that there isn't much time to play after school. Once the weather cooled down that morning play time stopped. I'm not sure what I will do when it warms up again because I like to get going on our school day.

Our church is at 10am with Sunday School following. Eventually we would like to add an early service but we are not there yet. We don't get out of there until after noon. I have to serve a big breakfast on Sundays before church or my boys can't make it through church.

Every day of the week we could sleep in and begin everything we do later. It is frustrating to me to not get going earlier though. It becomes a rush to get lunch on the table when everyone is starving. If we don't begin early enough, we can't finish our school work until after lunch.

It makes me want to force myself to get up early and get work done. I'm going to have to make myself a to do list to try to accomplish before going to church on Sundays so the entire morning doesn't get wasted before church. That seems wrong, we shouldn't be doing chores on the Sabbath Day. I'm not sure what the answer is for Sunday mornings until we add an early service.

The worst is when we have doctor appointments early in the morning. The nurses usually laugh when I say 9am appointments are early for me. I usually begin school in my pajamas and get dressed later in the morning during a short school break. So to be dressed and drive to the doctor in the morning is a challenge for everyone in our house.

Living here is such a contrast to living in MN. They were farmers that fought over having the early or middle service time, no one wanted late service. Here not much begins before 9am.