How Do You Eat Your Nachos?

Budgeting can be fun.....at least we have tried to make it that way in our household. When Grayson came along, we, like most people who go from 2 incomes to 1, had to find ways to cut back. Upon looking at the budget, I was amazed at how much we ate out. It seemed to be an easy way to cut back, although not necessarily a fun one. So, we reverted to our childhoods and remembered how to use our imaginations. Saturday night became our "night out." When we had hamburgers, we pretended we were at Fuddruckers or Sonic; we made Cabana bowls; Italian food from our favorite Italian place. It's been a lot of fun to make up Smith family names for our eating "out."

Then there is Sunday - a fun time to fellowship (and eat out) after church. However, we now had a child and naps to schedule around. One Sunday, I had a bunch of random Mexican leftovers and decided to throw some nachos together for our Sunday at home lunch. Call it Taco Jen's. The surprising thing to me is that it stuck. Almost every Sunday we go out to the Taqueria Jen's and have a super healthy lunch of nachos.

Tonight Grayson entertained us with the various ways that you can eat nachos.

Option 1: The Traditional Way....From the Side of the Chip

Option 2....Topping Only - Lick the Topping Off the Top and Try to Feed Mom the Remaining Chip

Option 3....In One Big Bite

Does this remind you of the "How do you eat your Reese's peanut butter cup?" commercial yet? So, how do you eat your nachos?

Or better yet, how do you make bugeting fun?

Tradition

As a mom, I have pondered, what kind of traditions do I want to have for my family? Jamison and I have talked about it some and his idea is that they just happen. Being the planner that I am, I want well thought out, reasoned ideas of things we do each year that our children will remember. I know, those of you who know me are not the least bit surprised. For instance, I want on Christmas Eve for the Christmas story to be read and the family to sing carols together. J suggested that I put together a Smith Family Christmas Carol book – which reminds me I need to get going on it! We did manage this year to sing Hark the Harold Angels Sing every night in an effort to get the song imprinted on little Grayson’s heart. What a great carol! Another tradition we started in ’07 was for Grayson’s first birthday we bought him a book called Hymns for a Child’s Heart (which by the way comes complete with a CD). It is excellent. My idea was that we could get him one special book on each birthday and he would have them to not only learn from but to eventually pass down to his children.

I suppose you think I am going to write about our Easter traditions, which again, I need to work on. However, this post is about the Smith Family Mother’s Day tradition. We are celebrating a bit early this year. Last year Jamison and Grayson came up with a brilliant plan for Mother’s Day which we agreed would definitely become tradition in our household. Instead of buying me a bunch of flowers or having some sent to me, they bought me a gift card to Cornelius. I continually say that I love flowers, but since they last such a short amount of time, it hardly seems worth it. So by giving the gift card, I was then able to pick out and purchase my flowers. The boys planted them just outside my back window where I could enjoy them throughout the summer. As a surprise for this weekend, Jamison, Grayson and I packed up and made our second annual trip to the nursery for me to pick out my flowers. Apparently this is the proper time of year to be planting them. I am excited as they will be in full bloom by the time Mother’s Day rolls around and I will already be enjoying them.

Thanks to my boys! Pictures to come soon!