Teaching Self Government

A friend of mine has had an extraordinary journey to get her to where she is at. She has been a foster mom for the teenagers that everybody had given up on. The wild teenagers that had every issue imaginable. She also teaches parents how to have their family self govern. It is an amazing process that helps kids see the potential of themselves and for the family to see the long term vision of the family. A couple of years ago I hosted one of her seminars locally and it was an amazing experience that I am so glad I was able to be part of.
Anyway, this past spring the BBC contacted her to be part of a reality series. The series involved sending 2 extremely rebellious teenagers to her home to live with her family for 10 days. Well, it is a very profound episode. In such a short amount of time, her family was able to really help the kids.
I want to share her episode with everyone I can. So I posting it here. :--) Nicholeen has a website that has lots of good information and tips on parenting. She also has a book coming out soon. Woo! Can't wait for it!
Thanks Nicholeen!

Grocery savings

Its been a while since I have posted about my grocery adventures. I am not able to spend a day going to all of the grocery stores very much. Last night, late last night, I was able to get to Smiths to take advantage of their sale. This is a sampling of what I was able to get.

Ziplock vacuum starter kit
2 Snuggle fabric softner
Downy ball
14 cans of Carnation evaporated milk .49 each
8 boxes of tylenol
4 coffee mate creamer--Its for hot chocolate..mmmm yummmy...
2 packages of Keebler Cookies
2 loaves of bread
5 packages of cream cheese

Before sales and coupons: $111.52
Actual amount paid: $35.70
It was a lot of fun and it was really fun to watch the numbers keep going down. With Christmas coming right around the corner, we need to save every penny we can!

Happy day after Halloween!

Ugh...no more candy! I'm not even eating it but I'm SO tired of it everywhere! Well..correction..I'm tired of the wrappers everywhere! Thankfully, my boys detected my disdain and they cleaned up those wrappers. It was a fun quiet evening. The boys and I hung out, had pizza, and watched movies. This was the first year that I let the older boys go out on their own.




Luke was..no not a character from Star Wars..but he was..Hamlet! Ok so we've been reading a lot of Shakespeare lately. When people asked him " So what are you suppose to be?" he would reply " To be or not to be...that is the question!"

James was the evil Darth Vader! Ok he wasn't very evil, he was probably the first sweet Vader, but he still had fun.


Ben was O-B-1-Kanobe...yeah I don't know how to spell that one..lol..



I made this robe for Cory 3 or 4 years ago. Every Halloween since the first thing he says when he wakes up on Halloween is" "Woo hoo! Today I get to dress up as a Jedi!" It makes my day every time!


Mark and myself didn't dress up. Normal was scary enough.