A love affair with Benjamin

Before I get into this funny tale about my 'middlest', let's prep you with some background information.

As you may recall, our family went to the Great Wolf Lodge back on March 1st.

Also, as you may recall, Reese quickly became attached to the wristbands.

Lots of people ask her if they could take them off, I was even given suggestions on ways to trick her into taking them off. I however know Reese and she is self driven. She does what SHE wants because that is what SHE thinks is best. I knew she wouldn't go to college with them on so I just let them be. Just scroll through the last three months of blog posts... you will see a bright orange wristband in every picture. She even got a tan line under it.



Okay, now back to present day. GP (paternal grandfather) was being silly (like always) and trying to offer money up for Reese to do certain things. GP has a history of this, the first time was when Brady wasn't even crawling yet, and he tried to get her to crawl to a twenty dollar bill. Sometimes he is trying to buy a sibling or pet from them. He enjoys getting a raise out of them.

Reese was sitting on a new ride-on toy for Elli for about 10 minutes.

GP "You really like Elli's toy! I will buy from you for $100"

Reese "NO!"

GP "You won't give me that piece of junk for $100?"

Reese "NO!"

imagine the same conversation going on for a while.

Then GP changes his tune. "I will pay $100 if you let me cut off that orange armband."

Reese "Hold on, I have to get something."

You best believe that girl entered the room with a pair of scissors. She is no dummy and caught him in his bluff!

So after three months and one week, the armband is G. O. N. E.!!!

Reese was caught proud of herself. We got a pretty good laugh from the whole thing. GP, well, he walked away with one less bill in his wallet, but a memory to last a lifetime.

Reese is planning on buying an American Girl doll with the money (because the seven we have in storage isn't enough).

Our Baby Business Woman

Our family had a yard sale this past weekend. I had been preparing for it for a while so the girls we very aware of what was going on and how it all worked. I decided to let them get involved. Karl and I use credit for everything these days and they need to learn what money is and where it comes from.

The day or two before the yard sale we baked cookies (from scratch  and made lemonade (from crystal light powder). They were very eager to have their first lemonade stand.

I told Karl we would start setting up at 6am so that we would be ready at 7am. I my alram was set for 6am, I woke up threw on a jacket and headed out. Karl had already set up half the stuff and the girls were both awake, ready to sale lemonade. It was like it was Christmas morning for them and they couldn't sleep in anticipation. Brady and Reese got their stand all set up and sat in their chairs in the dark waiting for a 'bite'.

Apparently 'early birds' don't get the worm (or cookies and lemonade). Even though we had a steady flow of costumers in the first hour, none of them showed any interest in the girls whatsoever. I had to be their first costumer. This bored Reese and she went inside for the rest of the morning. Brady, however, was determined. Patience paid off.

 After all was said and done Brady sold about $20 of cookies and lemonade by noon. She was very proud of herself, and often bragged about her success to people stopping by to check out the yard sale. Occasionally I would hear "I have LOTS of money" being sung to visiting costumers. We had a little mini lesson about bragging.

Brady came in with her cash and Reese immediately went after the money assuming she got half of it. Insert another teachable moment...you have to work for your money. Reese was quite upset that she didn't get to have money even though she didn't work for it.

We brought Brady out to use her money for whatever she would like. She choose Doc McStuffins play set and Lego Friends doll.

Brady we are so proud of you for working hard for your money!

Pixie Dust under the pillow

On Tuesday morning, Brady woke up and her tooth looked like this...

We tried to convince her to let us pull in, but she SWORE it was still not ready! She wouldn't let us touch it, but she just kept playing with it with her tongue. Sure enough about two minutes after I snapped the above picture, there was the tooth sitting on her tongue. She immediately (at 6:30 am) got into a giggly fit. Pure joy and elation as she ran around the house giggling, wanting so badly for Reese to be awake to show her. Look at just how happy she was...still brings tears to my eyes!

I recorded the video below about five minutes after she lost the tooth. She can see just how giddy she was. The laugh she does at about 18 seconds into the video is what she spent the first 5 minutes doing non-stop. 

She placed the tooth in the trinket box Karl bought from Bahrain so that it wouldn't get lost during the day.

She had to wait all day for night time so that the tooth fairy could come. After school she even checked under her pillow to see if the tooth-fairy might have come during the day. She was more giddy going to bed then she has ever been on Christmas Eve. 

Guess what the tooth fairy delivered...a dollar covered in pixie dust! The pixie dust also got all over Brady's pillow and sheets...oh my!

Budget priorities…What It Says About Your Values

I have been thinking about this and wanted to hear what everyone else does.

 

2011 is the year of budgeting for the Orthners. We are keeping all the receipts, categorizing, etc. to see where we spend our money and where we need to make cut backs. So I have even cut back how much I allot myself to spend on groceries: $650 per month. This past month (it had 5 Sundays in it, my grocery day) I had to limit the last week’s groceries to stay within budget. But meanwhile, we are paying a $750 preschool bill every month.

 

This is what I am getting at… I want to buy organic milk and meat. However, I don’t have the extra $32 a month to make the switch for milk, and I haven’t even figured out how much extra the meat would be. So I just try to forget what is in the milk and meat and buy the regular stuff. However, I would never consider sending my kids to any other preschool in Pensacola, I just really feel like this is the fit for them.

 

I realized the other day, that obliviously I have a much higher priority for education than I do for long-term health. I found this interesting since I hadn’t really realized it until I thought about it in this perspective.

 

So I want to know, what do YOU personally value more…long-term health or quality education?  I know that most people have a balance between the two, but want to hear what you do.