Princess Four is Student Body President this year. One of the first things she was told about the year is that they are in the hole about $1,200. I guess when they ordered shirts for last year, the teacher that was supposed to sign off on the shirts ordered double the amount than they usually order. This was a disaster since the years were put on the shirts and of course if the kids all have one shirt, they won't buy the same shirt for the next year especially with the wrong year printed on it.
This news stressed Princess Four out as she starts the year out with no money and has to try and catch up and make some money before they can do anything fun for the year. The office did say they would help find some other sources of money but I put on my thinking cap and came up with a few suggestions to try and make up some of that money back that was lost on the shirts.
I suggested that they turn the shirts inside out and get someone to silk screen "We turn the competition inside out" and just have everyone wear the shirts inside out. However, that would cost about $2 a shirt for the new silk screen. Even if we could sell the shirts for $4, we still only get $2 back per shirt. I was hoping for more so I came up with the idea to allow the students to pay $5 and get out of class ten minutes early and pay to "shred" a shirt for homecoming.
The theme for Homecoming can be, "Shred the competition." The kids seemed to like this idea so I pulled some old shirts out of the rag bin and started experimenting by shredding them in different ways.
I have this cloth shredder for rags and tried that on the shirts but I didn't like the way it pulled and rolled the fabric. It would work for a boys shirt but really trashes the shirt.
You can see it is uneven and looks shredded. I kind of liked the more organized but shredded look when we used the scissors and made the strips a bit more even.
I tried three different types of styles on my scrap shirts. Then, I had Princess Four and Five look at them and decide how we should cut up the actual shirts to show as examples of ways the students can shred them for the parade and game.
They liked the cut strips for one and did like the shredded look for a boy style. Having all girls, it is not always easy to take that perspective. However, the girls tend to know what the boys like so hopefully we have that covered.
Here is my favorite one that I practiced on. I am glad the girls liked the idea as this way, they will get $5 a shirt and hopefully make up the deficit quickly.
She presented it to the student body government and they all liked the idea so I will have to show you how we shredded the shirts tomorrow.
I can't remember how much I have shared about Princess Three and what she is up to recently. She stayed at college this summer and ended up working three jobs. She made lots of money for this upcoming year but also, she was able to make a few close friends as she moved into a different place for summer housing. She LOVES her new friends and that is good since her best friend is gone for the next 18 months serving as a missionary.
She contacted me many times this summer making sure I was able to come help her move into her new housing for Fall. I started collecting birthday items as her birthday is the first few weeks of school and I know it would be really hard for us all to get together for it so I made sure that Princess Four and Five could come the day we moved her into her new housing to celebrate it then.
Because she has been asked to be the Vice-President for the ambassadors at the college, she was offered free housing at one of the nicest places in town. As you can see here, it is a nice community with great gardens and a club house etc. The housing is repainted each semester and is in great repair with all utilities included. So, she saved almost $2000 on housing and utilities by being an ambassador. Also, the ambassadors used to get $600 over scholarship money as an incentive each semester. They gave them raises and she will be getting $1000 over scholarship money to do that work.
We moved her from her old place to the new one and it was SO hot since she was the first to move in, the air conditioning hadn't been turned on so we were moving her into a back, upstairs apartment that was HOT!
I was so red and hot after moving her in that her birthday celebration wasn't the best. I had taken Icee pops in a cooler but they didn't do much to help as we were all extremely hot. She opened her gifts and was very happy with "The Hobbit" movie as she hadn't had the chance to see it yet having worked all summer in a small town. She also go a new dress and necklace along with a few other smaller items but I know those three items were her favorite. She got all moved in other than the kitchen and food items she was moving herself the next day. We then were headed out to get pizza and COLD drinks when I had the thought, "I didn't find any money today, I usually find something on big days like today." Just then, I looked where I was driving out of her parking lot and the sun was starting to set and there was a shiny item in the driveway, I laughed and laughed as I stopped the car right next to it, opened the door and picked up a dime. The girls just shook their heads as it always happens.
I had to take a picture of the dime as a reminder to her when she reads this that God reminded us to "Trust in Him" continually. How can we not trust in Him? He gave her a scholarship, gave her a great job working for the finance department in two different positions, gave her the ambassador position, helped her get a leadership position which gave her a chance to move into the best place in town, Payments on top of that for doing the ambassador position and she is having so much fun at college. Really coming out of her comfort zone and enjoying friends.
I'd say that Trusting "Him" has worked well for us in the past and I pray we continually trust in Him. He takes very good care of his daughters. I have everything I could ask for in my life as far as things go. He has blessed me with amazing family and daughters. I am blessed!
Princess Four gave a wonderful presentation today at the local Rotary club. They gave her about $400 to help her go on her service mission. It was so kind of them to donate to her cause.
On the flip side, the Rotary club in Thailand sponsored the group there as well. She did a wonderful slide show and had it well organized from the beginning at fund raising, to the middle where she had to do 80 service hours to go to mission.
She showed them slides from the first days and then had some where she highlighted the service they were allowed to do as well as some of the teaching moments.
In the end, she showed them some of the touring they did to the Buddhist temples and tourist sites. She told them her favorite thing of the trip and her second favorite parts of the trip and ended the entire thing with a big "Thank You" to the Rotary club.
She brought them back some candy that was popular in Thailand to share. She also showed them the scarf that the Rotary club in Thailand gave all the students. She is wearing it in most of the pictures.
She also wore her pieced pants and her Thailand t-shirt. In the bottom photo, she is showing the bag that the students made for each of them in Thailand. I didn't know about that before and enjoyed her presentation as well as she hadn't talked about all the opportunities she had while there with me as her summer was so full.
When they were announcing her at the club, they were giving a little blurb about her and talking about her service and the other Rotary leadership conferences she had attended and about her being the student body president and I thought about how blessed I am to be able to have such amazing daughters who stand for good in the world when so many are choosing other paths.
On Facebook today, people were talking about Miley Cyrus and her choices on the MVA show. There were so many comments that I actually went and watched her performance and think how sad it is that she has all the money and fame in the world and has chosen to spend her time doing that. She could make such a difference in her position. I hope she can overcome the pressures placed upon her to actually use her influence to make a difference in the world.
Or should I say, a "different" difference than she is making now. I can't imagine that she is finding true joy in her life to need to get the shock factor she is from people with that performance.
Perhaps being in a small town and in a small school is giving my girls a better foundation than I thought. I am so grateful for living where I do and for having good role models for the girls to follow. I am grateful that my older girls are making good choices for the younger girls to follow.
How blessed are we to live in a country where both Miley and my girls can make choice freely? I intent to pray for the youth of the country and the world and hope that the world doesn't think that all the youth in America are that way.
It seems that most teen stars can't take the pressures that go with being in the light of the press. I think they all need our prayers.
God Bless America and it's youth!
I took several photos of this game and the names people used for the game and have searched everywhere and can't find them so I am thinking I lost an SD card or something somewhere. I am going to post it with these pictures and explain the game as I have carried it forward for a few months now looking for the photos.
I also have one heck of a Barometer headache going on. It has been such a busy week, and storms over and over have made it one "not so enjoyable" week driving across the state, up and down along with the storms, I have had a headache daily for two weeks. (Here is a post about the headaches.)
Anyway, The Name Game. You can play with as many people as you like. Everyone in the room gets a piece of paper and a pen. They each write the name of anyone that others would know on the paper. It can be someone in the room or someone famous or a character everyone would know. If there are children playing, it would have to be someone like "Mickey Mouse" etc.
There is one person picked to read the papers. If it is a small group, they only read the names on the paper once.
Everyone should try to use the same color pen and write in a block lettering so that the person reading the papers can't figure the name the person wrote by looking at the hand writing.
If there is a large group, you can read off the names on the paper twice.
You start with the youngest player and have them pick one of the names that was read off and say the name read off was "Kermit the Frog," she could ask Princess number Four if she wrote the name, "Kermit" down. The key is to try and know things about the people in the room. She would ask Princess Four if she is Kermit because she probably would know that Princess Four collects old Muppet items. (See here for a post about that.)
If Princess Four was "Kermit," she would then join the team of the person that guess her "name" correctly. Those two then become one team.
They continue to guess until they get someone wrong. The key to the game, is to remember who has been asked what person and to remember all the names that were written down. You can't write anything down to help you remember.
I found that making a story about all the names that were written down helped me remember all the names that could be guessed. My problem in the game was that I don't watch sports or politics that often unless it is a big election or a play off game so I had a hard time with all the men and boys in the room putting those types of names. I did much better with the girls who put pop stars etc down.
We had people like "Gandhi, Bobby Kennedy, Taylor Swift, Harry Potter, Sponge Bob, Bob Marley, etc."
In the end, there were two of us not in groups and I lost on the last guess. The winner is the person that is alone last. Everyone else is on a different team and the winner of the game gets to guess first the next game. You can make your own game buy putting pens and small pieces of paper in a pencil box. That is about all it takes to play. I thought it was a brilliant way to keep everyone involved and paying attention d in the game as you need to remember who has been asked and remembering what names haven't been asked yet.
I played it with the girls during our last visit together just to teach them how to play it so they could use it at college. Some of the girls had played it before but it was still fun to play.
Hope you get a chase to play the NAME GAME soon.
I have shown you how amazing my sister is with paper flowers and fabric or lace flowers with the two wedding bouquets she made.
Last night, we had a bit of an emergency and she came through and opened herself up to an entirely new line of product.
Here is a link to the bouquet she made for my Princess One and here is a link to the bouquet she did for her daughters wedding.
As soon as we found out my aunt died, I talked to my cousin about her mom ordering flowers for the funeral from all the "siblings" of my aunt. The "cousins" were going to donate to the charity my aunt started almost 20 years ago that provides Christmas gifts to the womans prison each year. I went ahead and donated to the organization and told my cousin I would have my mom pay them for her part of the flowers but since my mothers accident a few years ago, she doesn't remember things well so I knew she wasn't able to order flowers.
I guess there was a communication error but now, looking back, I am sure it was meant to be. My cousin called me last night, (the funeral was this morning) saying her mother didn't order the flowers and it was late enough that we couldn't order them so my poor aunt was feeling horrible as there weren't going to be many flowers due to the donating to her charity.
I called my sister the amazing flower whiz and mentioned the problem and told her I had to leave earlier than expected to find some flowers for the funeral. She asked me if I thought she could make a wreath or something instead and work on it during the night for the morning. I told her I thought that would be great as it could be an heirloom for the family to keep.
I texted my cousin and asked what her mothers favorite flowers were and her favorite colors of those flowers. She texted back saying that her mother "loved yellow, purple and white too - Think but for sure yellow. She loved mums, spider and regular. Also sunflowers."
My amazingly talented youngest sister stayed up most of the night and made this beautiful wreath with a photo of my aunt in the middle. She had a stand to put it on and used paper, ribbons, lace and buttons to make a wreath in all her favorite colors and flowers.
My uncle is planning on hanging it on the wall. She made a small card to hang from the wreath that my mom and her sister signed.
I really think there could be a market for that as most of the real flowers end up dead at the cemetery and the plants often are more than someone can take care of especially for a man. This is a reminder of her favorite colors, flowers and I loved that she put a picture in the center.
Once again, she amazed me with her talent. I love my family!
My older sister stayed up most of the night (or possibly all night, I didn't ask) making a video and slide show for the funeral. It was BEAUTIFUL and I may post about that later if I can figure out how to break it down. She put it to appropriate songs, my aunts favorite songs and her son's (he passed away) favorite song and it brought tears to my eyes and many other eyes.
Lastly, many of us were able to sing at the funeral and we had one on the piano, two on violins and many singing a beautiful rendition of "Be Thou Humble" which happens to be one of my favorite hymns as well. I was grateful to be able to participate that way. Truly, I am blessed with an amazingly talented and loving family. I am so sad for those who are only children or have lost all their family. They add so much to my life.
Goodbye Aunt S. You are forever ours!
Princess Three and Four have both had some wonderful opportunities to go to different camps and missions. One of Princess Three's favorite was a leadership camp for Student Body Presidents and Senior Class Presidents around the state.
The local National Guard Unit (camp) puts on a week camp for the leaders. They get to do anything and everything that would or could be fun. They get to shoot cannons, shoot AK-47 and other rifles.
They got to do a free fall/repel and a high wall repel, they got to move high buckets up and down with them in it, they got to be in the cockpit of huge planes, helicopters, drive dirt moving tractors, try on "space suits."
They met the governor, got to go to one of the local news rooms and take a tour and meet a news caster, they did a very intense ropes course used to train the military, hold a bazooka, tour the capitol and tour the legislative rooms, have "boot camp" training, be in "family" groups, meet the leaders of every other school in the state, have inspirational speakers, go swimming and have a dance.
I am sure I am forgetting some of the fun things she shared but at the end, they have a graduation and invite all the parents.
They have a great motivational speaker and and awards ceremony and have the talent contest winners perform and the "speech" contest winner give their winning speech.
You can see why Princess Three thought it was one of the best weeks in her teen years. Princess Four would probably agree but she hasn't stood still long enough to tell me much of anything. I got most of what I did from the ending video where they show pictures from the week and each day. They had flag ceremony each day and Princess really enjoyed the opportunity she had to participate in that.
Here is my post about Princess Three going.
She only got a paragraph about her camp but then again, she isn't a big picture taker either. In her entire life, I would guess she has taken less than 100 pictures. Perhaps if I got her a smart phone.... Or not. :-)
She actually tried to give her camera away this week. She says that she can just collect pictures of everything that others take off face book. The sad part about that is that the other people are focused on them and not her so she doesn't have as many cute photos of just her. Oh well, they are all so different and then just when I think I have them figured out, they go and change. Princess Two used to love taking pictures and asked for a camera at a young age, now she doesn't own one.
A few years ago, I wrote about Princess One refinishing a dresser with me. (Here is a link to that post.) Life got crazy about the time we were working on it and we never quite finished it together. I felt horrible dumping and an unfinished dresser onto her just after getting married but I was in need of garage space with everything that was happening with her moving out, marrying, Princess Two being sick etc.
I took it to her home and she finished it on her own. I hadn't had the opportunity to see it finished until this summer as they usually visit me or meet us places, we don't often go to their home.
I was so thrilled with her ability to look up options online and finish it herself. She did a reddish oriental color on the front and top and then put a high gloss lacquer on the drawer fronts to keep the wood that is fine and carved from catching and breaking off.
On the top, she put a thick plastic cover that is cut to the top size to keep it clean. My nephew is staying with her at the moment and you can see it is a bit dirty on the plastic but I am glad she chose to put that on there or the top of her dresser may have gotten water rings on the finish.
I probably should have washed the top before taking a photo but it was really late after the girls danced on the fourth so I was just glad to see the finished product and take a few pictures after sliding my nephews belongings to one side.
Well done Princess One. Keep up the good work!
For over 20 years now, I have made money paying my bills. It started when I got a Discover Card and they gave cash back when you would use their card to purchase things. The more you used their card, the more money you would get back. It was a small amount but any money back was good in my eyes.
As they years progressed, other cards started offering cash back for using their cards. There were several I really enjoyed that gave 5% on everything you purchased. I made lots of money during those years.
Fast forward, they were giving away a bit too much money so the credit card companies made a stupid move (in my opinion) by making you have to call in quarterly and you will get 5% on one through four different catagories for that quarter. However, I don't use rental cars or hotels often so some of the catagories don't really do much for me.
American Express, not wanting to lost its customers, followed suit but I am THRILLED with their options to keep the same categories and not rotate them as the other credit card companies do.
I have one that pays 3% on gas all the time and a few more percent on a few things and another one that pays 3% on groceries all the time. Of course, I use those cards for those items unless the cash back bonus catagories happen to be 5% on gas.
I have all my cards in my wallet upside down and I use a small piece of masking tape to write what the cash back bonus is for that card on the tape. That way, I can see at a glance which card would be the best to use for that purchase.
Sometimes they will give a 1/2 percent back on-top of all purchases for a month. Or, Discover will send me notices saying if I use the card at two different stores in the next month, they will give me $20 bonus, or some other great offers.
As you can see, I have almost enough here to pay for the girls dance fees at the school. I used to pay my house taxes every year by using the cards in the right order, I could build up enough for that at Thanksgiving when the taxes were due.
Some cards have a limit on the cash back rewards you can earn in a year. One card will only allow you to earn $300 for the year. I keep track as it will tell you what your rewards are each month on your bill. When I reach the $300 mark, I just start using a different card.
I have two other rewards checks that come as checks to a specific store. You can also buy gift cards for forty dollars that are worth $50 to the store of your choice. There are also some cards that allow you to purchase items through their "redemption store."
I always take the cash back as we don't have many restaurants around and don't eat out much.
I laughed to myself today when two checks that came from Chase had 111 in the item numbers.
I had another Chase card with money on it that has almost $100 cash back but if I order it now, I only get $50 as they only do $50 incraments. You can see that Citi Card will send you what you actually have in the account. So, I am using that particular card this month to get the reward up to the $100 cash back and will then order my check from them.
With that $100, and the American Express Checks, along with these, I am close to $1,000 cash back. I am going to be using it to help pay off the girls dance fees. I love that my Heavenly Father has shown me ways to make money to help pay for my girls to be able to develop their talents. I am so GRATEFUL that I have been able to pay off my credit cards monthly and that He blessed me with the knowledge and talents of being good with finances. I have been so blessed over the years to always be able to pay my bills.
If you have read this blog, you will know that many times He sheds His miraculous blessing on my family in ways no one could foresee allowing us to be able to make our payments and bills on time. I am GRATEFUL I have this blog that allows me to share HIS blessings to me with others.
I know the "111" in the checks were just for me. I called on the other cash back bonus checks about two weeks before the others, had I called on that same day, I doubt I would have had those number items. I am so blessed that He loves my girls enough to show me how to get enough funds for them to participate in the fun camps, missions, tours, choirs and teams that give them the confidence to face the world head on.
This week started with Princess Five's friend staying for four or five days while her parents picked up her brother from Basic Training out of state. She left, I get the house back to order and get a call that night from a friend who moved away a year ago saying her brother is in the hospital. She stayed for three nights and left the day we left to move Princess Three into her new apartment at school. We arrived home late and got calls early the next morning as it was my nieces wedding. We got up and drove to the city of the wedding, did the luncheon and hurried back to get the reception ready.
While setting up the reception, I get a call from one of my best friends who was here from Iowa dropping her daughter off at school. I was trying to hurry so I could visit with them at dinner but by the time I got things done, they had finished and my sister needed me to go to the hardware store here and help her get some paint I purchased for her retinted. My friend met us there with her daughter and we visited while she was getting the paint tinted. They left, I dropped of Princess Four at a Back-to-School sleep over at a friends who never gets sleep overs and then rushed to the reception to help serve the food etc. I was the last one cleaning up at the reception at my sisters late that night and got a text from my friend saying she and her son would be at my house the next morning to stay the weekend.
The saddest part of this crazy week was that at the reception, we got a text that my Aunt S had passed away that evening just before the reception. "Thank you" to all who said a prayer in her behalf.
I was on the phone most of the day on Saturday with my cousins and Uncle working some things out and with house company, it was a bit crazy.
My friend was sick today, I had her son and took him to church and we arrived home to do lunch, then we had an orientation this evening for Princess Five going into High School Seminary and two men from our church came over after that to give my Princesses some back to school blessings.
Princess Four hasn't seen her best friend but once this summer with all her fun activities and tonight her friend came over to see the finished product of her amazing talent. Her best friend drew this cute logo for the shirts this year. If you remember, Princess's theme for running for Student Body President was, "Don't you forget about me." and she told them in her speech that she didn't want anyone to be left out and that this years theme was, "Don't you forget about US!" so she had her friend draw this cute logo for the spirit shirts for the year. Her friend hadn't seen them yet and so she came over and tried on the sweat shirt and I took a picture of the two of them and then one of the shirt. Here is a link to the post about her campaign.
Forgive me if the posts this week are a bit lame. The kids starts school soon, we have the funeral, I have about five birthdays in my family in the next two weeks and most of the things are out of town for me. Princess Four is working on driving hours for her license and I think I have heat stroke from moving Princess Three and helping set up for the wedding etc.
I sure hope next week is better. I am glad I have lots of friends and that they come visit me but I think I am ready for some down time after such a crazy summer. I hope to post about some of these events during the week in more detail but who knows how it will go with everything going on this week. I hope your end of summer is calm and that the start of the new school year is a pleasant one!
While we were camping last week, it rained one afternoon. We had the pavilion to sit beneath and play games while it stormed.
My oldest brother got a group of the kids together and played a game using words.It is similar to hang man and mastermind.
The person that is "it" picks a word. Write the alphabet across the top of the paper.
The people playing, take turns guessing words that it could be. The person that is "it" tells them how many of the letters are in the word he chose out of the word they guessed.
You can see that someone guessed the word "Shark" and there was one letter in the word "Shark" that was in the word the "It" person picked.
The game continues with people guessing words and deducing what letters are in the "word" the "it" person picked until they have all the letters in the word circled in the alphabet. The letters that they know are not in the word slowly get crossed off the alphabet at the top of the page.
In the end, there are only the letter in the "word" left. Then, they need to figure out what the word is by putting together the remaining letters.
You can see to the right that the letters that were left were ptrni. In this case, the word my brother chose was "print."
I thought it was a clever way to play a game with just a paper and pen and a group of people. Whoever guesses the "Word" gets to pick the next word and the game continues.
Prince and Princess number one bought our family a city pass. I have mentioned it before and one of the fun places on the pass is a large water park.
We decided since we were all together, we would spend the day at the park. We went in the afternoon after Prince one got home from work.
You can't take in flotation devices so when there, you have to get their tubes. They had one, two and three person tubes. They are quite expensive to rent. Since we went in the afternoon, we were able to offer two or three dollars to each person returning their tubes. They don't get anything for returning their tubes and so they were happy to get a few dollars for them and we got tubes for all of us for about $15.
I wish we had more time at the park but we had fun until it started to rain towards evening. It was quite hot for most of the afternoon and we found a cool spot in the shade of one of the rides. Some of the princesses wanted to be in the sun so we enjoyed visiting while we shared a snack.
One of the girls won a gift card for the food area so we shared a few orders of fries. All in all, it was a fun, yet fairly inexpensive day at the water park.
Here is a picture of how it looks just hanging. You could also just put beads on the bottom of the fringe that is hanging. 
