Birthday Comparison

Each year I like to do a comparison of Lillian in pictures from her birthdays. I find it so amazing to see the ways she has changed. Sometimes when I am looking through baby pictures from the very early days I find myself, already, not even remembering that stage which is sad. The stages we are enjoying now however are so fun, so wonderful, so marveling that I wouldnt trade it for the world. Each new thing she learns and each new stage she gets to I think to myself "ok now THIS is my favorite" but it keeps getting better......I have heard that will end one of these days, by the double digits.....if not sooner so I am counting my blessings!

Without further ado here is my last years review in pictures: http://jnhfamilyblog.blogspot.com/2008/12/year-in-pictures.html

Surprised birthday girl just getting a look at her princess room!

 January sledding

 Valentine's dinner with Great Grandma Jan

3 generation picuture at my baptism breakfast.

 visiting with one of her favorite people in April

 getting ready for her first canoe trip, she was not a fan

 her and Taryn had so much fun on that swing

at a park in Indiana

 time with grandma and grandpa H

 her first manicure as part of a mommy daughter day--she was a bit pleased

 witch Lillian

 Lillian loves the christening gown Grandma Donna made, she thinks she looks like an angel or a princess

Visit with Santa

Frugal family Fun

So recently we upped our weekly allowance for 'entertainment' to $25.....which is becoming really big spenders since we started at zero, then upped it to $10, and just recently after almost two years to $25. For those not familiar with our budget system we use envelopes and we have set amount for each category and we pull out the money each week and put it into the respective envelopes. We have envelopes for clothing, entertainment, gifts, food, and Jared and I each get spending money. We have a sinking savings account/envelope system for house and car money for repairs and maintenance items.

Anyway on to the point of the story. I wanted to make sure Jared and I were still taking the time to go out on dates since we have neglected that for a while and thus the increase, we are trying to do an adult only date once per month. This past weekend though we had a nice family weekend and had alot of fun for $25.

First on saturday was the air zoo. General admission is free and Jared already has a yearly pass. So we paid for Lillian and I to get the Jr.Co-Pilot ride pass for $7 each. We also took my niece and nephew who turns 5 in a few days (this was out of the gift fund for those interested since it was for his birthday LOL) and met some friends and their son. Then we went out to dinner with a gift certificate we had gotten for Christmas and ended up owing $10 which came out of the grocery fund because every once in a while we get crazy frivalous with the budget LOL.

Sunday Lillian and I went to church while Jared went to a clients house to earn a bit more money to go towards our debt snowball! After church we went tubing at a park her that requests a $1 donation per person. We had alot of fun that was $3 well spent, we will definately go again I cant believe I didnt know about it before. After tubing we grabbed a $6 hot and ready pizza for Jared and Lillian and stopped by the library for a free movie rental. What better way to warm up than pizza and a movie.......of course tubing was hard work so I am pretty sure we were all sweaty by that point.

So all in all we had $14+3+6=$23 plus to be fair we spent $14 out of the gift fund and $10 from grocery.......still a winning weekend in my book-----and our pocket book!

Dr. Lillian

Lillian latest claim is that she wants to be a doctor but only after she goes to little girl school and then big girl school and goes to college and plays and is a princess too......oh and dont forget wanting to be an animal doctor LOL.

She has been wanting to play doctor alot and she uses little scraps of paper or whatever she finds around imrpovising. I told her she could save up money to buy a kit and she agreed she wanted to. As she was again pretending and I thought about it I realized those little kits are 10-20 dollars for junk when we have plenty of realistic stuff around here. I had just received a stethoscope in the mail that I had ordered because I wanted to try listening to my own lungs for signs of problems brewing. I asked her if she wanted to make one out of some stuff and she was very excited.

So her 'official' kit contents for now are:
box of bandaids, nasal spray, bottle of homeopathic teething tablets (all empty)
gauze pad & an ace bandage
medicine droppers and cups
and empty plastic syringe that just had saline in it
the plastic part of an inhaler without medicine cylinder
a little device you breathe into that I no longer use for treatments
and of course the stethoscope

She has all her accessories in a little zip up bag and carries it around with her stethoscope its too cute. I have two roles that I have to pretend I either get to be the broken girl or the sick girl! She uses her stethoscope to listen to everything from your head to your ankle and then normally you have to drink 'really yucky medicine' and get a shot that will 'only hurt a little bit'.

This morning I got to be the sick girl so I decided to act like I was afraid of the doctor and I told her that she had to explain everything to me so I wouldnt be scared. I was very impressed with her logic when it came time for me to blow into the little breathing treatment thing. She said "you need to this so you can get more air in and you will feel better" which is such a good thought pattern for her little age I thought. I dont believe its because of my lung disease or treatments because we never talk about that stuff just that I have to do my medicine so I dont get sick. Sometimes I forget that all this pretend play can actually teach them something.