Celebrating the Amish...GIRL that is!

  It's birthday time again at It's a Lacy Life!  Yep, we celebrated our sweet Amish Girl turning 13 about 2 weeks ago!  It hardly seems possible that she is 13 years old...a teenager!  Let alone the fact that I now have TWO teen aged children in my house!  Lord, tell me...where does the time go???  Sigh... 

  It is with great humility and admiration for the things of God that we celebrate this child whom has recently turned 13 years old!  WOW!  I still can't wrap my mind around that fact! Long ago, when this child was growing up and getting older, I told her, with that hesitation that a mom has about her children getting older, that it's okay for her to grow up, but to just stay sweet!  Well, she reminds me of that often when she makes the comment; "Mom, remember when you said it's okay to grow up, just make sure you stay sweet", and asks the question; "Am I still sweet?"  And I always reply a confident "Yes, daughter, I remember, and yes, you are still my sweet girl!" :)

  This child is such a blessing in my life.  Of course, all of my/our children bless us, "sharpen" us, and challenge us in this way or that way, and all of my children are a blessing to me, and I have no favorite child, as I love them all with all of my heart, but in different ways for the different things they bring into our family.  But this relationship is a little different, and I will tell you why. 

  This child has such a sweet spirit, a positive outlook/attitude, and a heart of love, joy, and compassion.  Don't get me wrong, it's not all sunshine and roses, she doesn't walk around happy and smiley and joyful ALL the time (but most of the time), and we do have our "moments" as mother and daughter, but I'm talking about an overall disposition, here.  Some may call it innocence and naivete, and I'm sure there is some of that in her, too, but there is just a sweetness that could only have come from the heart of God that this child has, it's not one with a selfish ambition or a manipulative motivation.  She's sweet because that's just simply the way God made her (and I tend to think it's what I needed).  :) 

  She has the kind of sweetness about her that I NEVER thought I would WANT nor have a NEED for in my life before I became a Christian.  Truth be told, I was always a little (okay, maybe a lot) "rough around the edges" for the years of my life BC (Before Christ),  and I still can be at times.  I think that the world, life, and circumstances makes us jaded when we go through things in our lives, and therefore molds us and shapes us in many ways, some positive and some negative.  There is a "hardness", a callus, if you will, as a sort of defense mechanism, as a result of going through the things that happens to us in our lives.  In my own personal experience, I felt I had to be "strong" or "tough" so I wouldn't get hurt by people and the world.  Not only did I not see the NEED for being sweet, but I didn't see the point in it, really.  But, in the interest of not making this post about me, that is all I will say about myself.  I only mention it as a sort of comparison/contrast to myself, as an opposite, if you will, to the way this particular child is.  

  But God has a sense of humor, let me tell you, and He loves to challenge his children and change us and mold us into how HE wants us to be.  Frankly, I believe that is why God gives us our children, with all of their unique personalities and temperaments, because if we let HIM and if we let them, they will help us to SEE HIM through them!  :)  This child has helped me to see what a "sweet" spirit from the heart of God is all about, how it affects and changes the people around them, and how valuable these people are to God and our world.  This child has a heart to serve and be a servant, and has blessed me in so many ways.  I don't want to go on and on and gush over her, but I do want to express my appreciation to God for her, and mention that she is always there to lift me up when I am down, or rub a hurting child's back when they are hurt, or give you hugs and smiles when you are going through a really tough time, and on and on.

  Okay, now that I have everyone feeling all sentimental (just kidding), I will share some fun pictures, and talk about what we did for her birthday celebration!  The day started off with special breakfast treats and blueberry pancakes, per her request, with the Happy Birthday song and a candle, of course.  Okay, so she wasn't all by herself, as it may look in this picture, she was just the first one to eat, and we all gathered around her on the other side of the table to sing to her.  :)

  Then, our whole family took her to lunch, which seems to have become the tradition for the 13th birthday (a restaurant of HER choosing, of course, a family favorite), along with some of her grandparents (my mom, my dad, and my step-mom) and my aunt (my moms sister).  We promised her (cut out a picture to put it into her card) a laptop for her birthday gift, which we had to order, and should be here on Tuesday.  Here are some pictures at the restaurant and of her opening her gifts and cards.  I didn't get a picture of her food, but she had a salad, cheese ravioli with garlic bread, and Paninos fries, which are awesome!  But, I did manage to get a picture of her delicious "Mud Pie", which is fabulous!  :)


Think she's excited about her laptop?

  Another thing we did on her actual birthday, was to go shopping, as per her request, of course.  We went to the Goodwill, Target, and the Half-Priced Book store.  I found some great finds, that I will have to share another time, this IS a birthday post, after all.  :)

  The most exciting thing we did (according to her) was that she REALLY wanted to got to the concert of a Christian artist by the name of Jamie Grace.  It was scheduled for just 2 days before her birthday, and it was called "Girls Night Out", so we decided to go, and invite some girlfriends along, and make it a mother/daughter night out.  Not all of her friends we invited were able to make it, but we had a BLAST with the ones that were able to come, and we even went out for desert afterwards and celebrated a little more.  Thank you ladies SO much for coming out, and for making the day SO special, and thanks for the memories...you know who you are!  :)

  What a great time we had celebrating this special member of our family.  Thank you to all of you who went out of your way to celebrate with us, and thank God for this precious member of our family!  Much love from your mommy (and family) to you...Sugar Plum/Amish Girl!  :)

Hoping you are enjoying your family, too,

It's a Lacy Life

What a Deal #4

  This week was a bust for garage sales, mostly because it rained ALL DAY on Thursday, and after that I pretty much lost the desire to go at all.  I've had a very productive (almost) 3 days at home without going anywhere from Tuesday night about 10p.m. through Friday at about 6:30p.m., and frankly, I just didn't want to leave the house at all!  :)  BUT, never fear... I do have some things from previous weeks I didn't get to share yet, and so I do have some fun bargains to share with you in spite of not being able to go out on Thursday.

  Here is some of what I found about a month ago at 2 different garage sales.  The overall snow pants were from the same sale I found the clothes that I talked about last week, and I have a funny story about that movie.  The overalls were $3.00, and were just like new.  The movie is called Icecastles, and if you are a child of the 70's, you may remember it, too.  The funny story about that movie goes like this: That movie was one of my very favorite movies growing up, but I bought it for another reason altogether.  When I bought it, my kiddos asked me, "Mom, why did you buy that movie?", and my reply was "Cause dad said he was IN that movie, and it was my favorite movie growing up, and I want to see if we can find him in there."  To which they replied a very LOUD and in sync "WHAT?!?!?  DAD WAS IN A MOVIE?!?!?"  So the story goes... and now we have to watch it and try to find him in there.  (He was an extra in the crowd-should be interesting to try and find him.)  :)  I paid .50 cents for the movie.

  Here are some more great finds that I found during an impromptu garage sale excursion a while back.  Those candlesticks were only $3.00 for the set of 3, plus 3 really nice smelling (half-used) candles.  I love the candlesticks, and I'll try and get a little use out of the candles, but if I can't, my husband uses my old candles to make fire starters for our fireplace.  Beats buying them, right?  Then theres a basket, I must admit I am a bit of a "nut" for a nice basket, especially at just .50 cents, which is what I paid for that one.  And I usually like square or rectangle baskets to put books in in our schoolroom or our living room.  I took off the liner and washed it, and am using it without it now.  Those 2 CD's were brand new with wrappers on them still, and $1.00 each.  They are very nice instrumental Praise CD's, perfect for background music during quiet time or during school.  Underneath that stuff is a long black skirt with beads that was so cute, I just couldn't pass it up at just .50 cents, and it is a size smaller than what I currently wear (down a size from what I was wearing), so it's cheap incentive to keep loosing weight.  :)

  Here we have another basket for .50 cents, and each of those movies was just .25 cents each!  Most were VHS, but one was a DVD, and several were from the "Feature Films for Families" series, one was "The Waltons", one "Adventures in Odyssey", one "Animated Stories from the Bible", and a few OLDER Disney movies.  I can't really get with the new Disney stuff.  :) 

  In this next picture, there are 2 games, at .50 cents for each, and that Solitaire Frenzy game, which I believe was $1-2.00 (it does include about 6 complete decks of cards in different colors, which we will use a lot, if nothing else) and a few puzzles, which I already have a plan for, and were .50 cents each.  All of those CD's were either .25 or .50 cents, and will be great if we like them, and if we don't, we will find a nice home for them as all are Christian music.  Now the Lorie Line CD was a whopping dollar, but we gladly paid that for it, because I think our other Lorie Line CD's are just about worn out (not literally)!  If you don't know who she is, she is a very talented musician and pianist, who does some really wonderful adaptations of popular Christmas music (at least on the CD's we have, it's Christmas music) that are just wonderful!  One of the CD'sYay!

  Alright, that's all I have to share this time, hopefully next week I will be able to actually "go out" garage sale-ing, and will find some useful and "fun" stuff.

Blessings on your day,

It's a Lacy Life

What a deal! #3

  Would you believe me if I told you that I wrote this post like 2 weeks ago to link up with my good friend over at My Life on a Taffy Pull, and just before I went to publish it, I somehow deleted it?!?  Can you believe that?!?  I spent ALL that time on it, and then for that to happen!  UGH!  How annoying!  What a waste of my time!  I've been on somewhat of a "rebellion" from my blog, for that reason!  Oh well, I'm over in now, and I am going to try and re-create, and re-post what I had written back then, just know that this was from about 2 weeks ago.


  So, I didn't really do any garage sale-ing this week, well, okay, I didn't PLAN on going to any garage sales this week, but after my chiropractic appointment, and while waiting to meet my DH for lunch with the family, I had a little bit of time to waste, and what better thing to waste a little time in a "productive" sort-of-way, than to see what I could find for my family at some garage sales?  We ended up only finding like 4 sales, and I only bought a few things.  Here is a picture:

  I found all of these fun science experiment kits that were brand new at a garage sale where the lady was also a homeschooler, but she had the job of going into the public schools and doing science and science experiments with the children in the schools with these kits.  I got these for just .25 cents a piece.  And can you believe it, I ONLY bought one book this time, that was from a different sale, and that was .50 cents. The two 3-ringed binders are full of science curriculum that the other homeschool mom gave to me for free.  That was all I managed to find while out and about during our short time.

  So, with that in mind, I thought I could show you a few things that I found about a month ago, that I never posted about.  I found these shorts that match this shirt we already had for All Star Boy for $1.00.  What a handsome model he is!!!  :) 

  And all of these outfits below (both tops and bottoms) for Nature Girl were from another garage sale, and were either .50 or .75 cents, except for the shoes in the picture that was taken outside, which were brand new and $1.00.  Isn't she such a cute model???  :)

  At the same sale I found all of the clothes for Nature Girl at, I found this cute short dress/long shirt for Amish Girl for $2, which didn't look as if it had even ever been worn.  It's just perfect with some leggings, and those sandals she is wearing, my mom found for her at a thrift store we tried out a couple of months ago, and I believe they were $3.00.  A whole outfit, including shoes, for $10, because those leggings were bought a while back at Target for $5.00.  Again... don't you like the beautiful model?!?  :)

  This same week, we also had a used-curriculum sale that I both sold at and bought from, so I will talk about those bargains as well.  I am so excited I FINALLY found Teaching Textbooks Algebra 1 for my oldest child for next year!  YAY!  Okay, so I actually paid what may seem like a lot of money, especially since I was just talking garage sale prices at fifty cents and a dollar, etc., BUT I assure you that this was a good deal, not a GREAT deal, but a good deal!  I paid $100 for this, which is the new version of this Math curriculum, and therefore it has self-correcting software built into it.  Consider the fact that it includes both CD-ROM's (there are, I think, 10 CD's in that packet), a textbook, and an answer key/teachers book in there.  Also, it is a computer based math curriculum, that the children do on the computer and it will just simply tell me their grades in their "grade book" to all their daily work as well as their tests, and I will use it for all 4 children, that's just $25 a year for a WHOLE years worth of upper-level math, now that's a good deal!  AND further more, it retails for about $185 brand new.  And this is the NEW version of this, as the older version doesn't have the built in grade book, you have to do all of that correcting yourself. 

  Also in the picture is an English book that is required for our next year's school unit study curriculum, I paid $2 for that.  The boys in the family meet with other boys/dads and 2 of those books are books we are using as a guide for our time together, so those will come in handy, they were either $1 of .50 cents each.  A couple of books for "fun" and /or enrichment at between .25 to $1 each, and then there is an Apologia Physical Science book and test booklet/teachers guide that I only paid $8 for!  That will be for 9th grade science, and I already have the interactive teaching CD-ROM for extra help and enrichment activities.  It is the older edition, but it isn't that old, and nothing has really changed about physical science.  Oh, and I can't forget, those other 2 books are gifts for my dad and my husband for Fathers Day, they were brand new, still in the book wrappers, and at just .25 cents each, what a bargain!  It's a book paralleling hunting and God, and what this hunter learned from nature and hunting about God.  Should be a good "manly" read for them!  :)

  Okay, last but not least, is my favorite "fun" purchase.  I have been eye-balling these beauties for years, and finally they were the right price at the right time.  They retail for, I think, about $50 a book normally.  These are character sketches from nature and they have wonderful stories and illustrations from nature that correlate to the bible, and illustrate biblical character through nature.  I've NEVER, ever seen these at a used-curriculum sale, I think people just keep them to refer to time and time again throughout their life, and therefore keep them forever.  What a "gem" and a great addition to our home library for bible study.  I paid $18 for the pair of books, Volumes 1 and 2.

  Okay, there you have it, I hope you've enjoyed reading about my finds, and I hope you are enjoying searching for bargains for your families as well.

God bless you!

It's a Lacy Life

What a deal #2.

  We had a blast garage sale-ing last week at an all-city garage sale yearly event!  Imagine sales, sales, and more sales, in fact, so many sales than you can't even go to nearly all of them in a 2 day period!  We actually spent the better part of 2 days out there and didn't even get to nearly all of the sales, in fact, probably not even half of them.  We had a great time, packed a lunch and snacks each day, and had picnic's both days as well.  Without further ado, here is some of what I found...

  I was going to save the best for last, but I decided to show the best and most expensive thing first!  This is already being well used, as you can clearly see.  I did already have a organization system in place in the garage for the kiddos things, but not only was it overflowing and spilling all over the garage floor and making a mess, but it was also not as organized and easy as this beauty!  I paid $15, and retail they are about $90, I believe.  It's made of heavy-duty metal, heavy duty mesh, and canvas materials.  You can actually just remove those colored "bags" and close them up with the draw strings to take along with you to your sports practice, outdoor event, or whatever, if you choose to use it that way. 

  Someone had all of these crafting materials in a bag for just $2, and we will have use for most of what was in there.  Those wooden ornaments will be painted and handed out as Christmas gifts, that bag full of beautiful ribbon was totally exciting for the girls, as they will use them to decorate their tambourines.  The tape will come in handy for a particular child of mind whom I have dubbed "the tape thief".  I'll probably just give them to him, so he will leave mine alone for a while!  :)  And all those googly eyes will be lots of fun for us to use on homemade birthday cards, crafts, and, well,  just for the fun of it.  We've actually already used some of them on Mothers Day cards and birthday cards for family members.  :)

  Okay, so this might seem like a bit of a "mixed bag" of things, and it is.  I already have plans for the 3-ring binder dividers, as we need them for our homeschool curriculum, they were .25 cents each.  We also have a guitar case in the picture complete with a guitar strap inside for $2, which will come in handy for the children, all of whom play the guitar, and we have 4 guitars, and only one case.  There is laminating paper, which I paid .50 cents for the small ones, and $1.00 for the large roll.  I had recently had the idea of laminating some of my recipe cards, so that when they get messy from being near the cooking, I can just wipe them off, instead of having dirty looking recipe cards.   Currently, every time I look at some of my most often used recipe cards, I want to re-copy them because they look gross from food spills on them.  I often find myself wishing I could laminate other random things for our homeschool, so I know those will get good use.  As well, I'm pretty sure that the homeschool curriculum we use has the laminating paper on their supplies list for next year as well, so it's great to buy it for so cheap!  Those candle holders caught my eye, I really appreciate different and unique candle holders, especially at $1 each!  Then, when I am tired of them, I don't feel bad getting rid of them, because I didn't pay much for them!  I will put new candles in them and pitch those ones, but...aren't they pretty?... and they totally match my living room!

  There are some kitchen miscellaneous items, a tong, which always come in handy in the kitchen when serving food, for .50 cents, a small colander for .25 cents, which I often find myself wishing I had, a small glass Pyrex bowl, which I use almost daily for snacks for the kiddos for .25 cents, and those shakers, which I am going to use for my spices that I buy in bulk (and come in a plastic bags) and which I use often for .25 cents each, and then there are those squeeze bottles were .25 cents each and will come in handy for this homemade salad dressing I am going to start making, and for ketchup and mustard at picnics, which we participate in a lot of over the summer. 

  It may seem kind of weird to buy toiletries at a garage sale, but when you have a large family and you go through things such as lotion as fast as we do, it's a blessing to find stuff like that for a fraction of the cost.  As well, us ladies like to smell nice, and I am able to try out many of the "name brand" mall store and high end products for pennies on the dollar.  The brands that I found were all either "Bath and Body Works", "Victorias Secret", or "Mary Kay", except for the "Johnsons" baby powder,which always comes in handy, too.  I always check to make sure things look sealed and/or new and unused.  Pictured are 3 purse sized Bath and Body Works lotions, which just happened to be brand new and in some of my favorite fragrances, and just .25 cents each.  Also, there are 2 body sprays, one is Bath and Body Works and one is Victorias Secret, and both are in the scent of "Cucumber Melon".  These were not new, but will come in handy as a bathroom room freshener, and at just .25 cents and .50 cents each, they are cheaper than buying it at the dollar store!  Also pictured is a "Satin Hands" set from Mary Kay, which will be greatly appreciated by our designated dishwashers to get their dish-pan hands nice and soft again!  LOL!  These were a bargain at .50 cents and .75 cents.  The other 2 are a scented lotion by Mary Kay and a jar of wonderful smelling cocoa butter-body butter, oh that was a Kohls brand-oops!  These were .50 cents and .75 cents.

  Okay, so the thing under all of the lotions is a clipboard, which always seem to come in handy around our house.  Whether it's nature journaling or doing school outside or in the car sometimes, or using a clip board to keep lists on while out and about shopping or at a book sale, or coaching sports for the kiddos (my husband), it seems we find many uses for clipboards.  So I buy them when I find them cheap, I think that one was a quarter.  There is also a card game in there, which my family loves to play games, especially card games, which are portable and travel well, for when we have to go places where the kiddos might have to wait a while, I paid .50 cents for that card game.  Last but not least, there is a box of staples there that just happen to fit my stapler and I just happened to run out of staples a couple of weeks ago, and haven't have a chance to buy a new box yet, the staples were .50 cents.

  These last 2 pictures are of books and games.  Some of the games are educational, which really helps when learning, and they ranged from $2.00 for that Cadoo game, which will be great for Family Game Night at our house, and the Boggle game will be a spelling "school game" for learning, and there is a states and capitals game, which were each a dollar.  The license plate card game, for .25 cents, is our favorite game to play on road trips, and this will help us to remember which states we've found, and which we have yet to find, instead of MOM having to try and keep track for us all the time!  :)  More books include homeschool supplies, (map workbooks, critical thinking, reading practice, world history, Spanish, science) biographies, historical fiction, including a few books for me and a few books just for fun.  Those Mad Libs are great for developing English skills in the real world, where the children create their own silly stories by filling in words that are either nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc.  They help children learn story telling, creating stories, as well as learning working definitions of nouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, etc.  Pretty much every book was between .10-.75 cents, except for that Reading Pyramids book which was $2, and a couple others were $1 each (over half of them were just a quarter at a church sale).

  Well, that's what I found two weeks ago at our once-a-year garage sale excursion to a particular neighborhood around here, I think I am garage sale-ed out for a little while!  But rest assured, I will continue to link up, because I have many other garage sale bargains I haven't yet shared from previous weeks, and I didn't get a chance to take pictures of the clothes I bought for my family from during THIS garage sale-ing trip either, so I will still link up and have plenty to share with you even if I don't go for a couple of weeks.  :)

Happy bargain shopping!

It's a Lacy Life

Happy Mothers Day to all of you precious mothers out there!

Praise the Lord with Dancing!

  "Let them praise His name with the dance; Let them sing praises to Him with the timbrel and harp." Psalms 149:3

  Today, May 1st our 2 girls had their "Evening of Worship" performance for their Praise Dance/Tambourine classes.  What a sweet time of worship this is for both the performers and the audience.  It is such a blessing for us parents to witness our children usher us into the sweet presence of the Lord with their worship dance and tambourine. 

  I am so proud of my daughters (and all of the other daughters that participated as well) for their hard work and dedication to learning these dances and the sweet spirit they have about praising the Lord in this way.  I am also very thankful for their teacher who teaches them for free, and is so patient and dedicated to teaching our daughters this form of worship.

  I have no more words, but I do have pictures to share...

Praising the Lord for His goodness!

It's a Lacy Life

Happy Birthday to the Entertainer!!!

  My sweet little boy, my youngest child has turned 9 on the 28th of April.  Most days it doesn't even seem possible that my "baby" of all my "babies" has grown up so much already!  It seems like just the other day that my oldest son was begging us and praying to God for a little brother.  The Entertainer is such a friendly and happy child, and can make anyone smile with his presence and his contagious smile.

  The Entertainer had a few requests for his birthday.  You see, around here, we have a tradition of making the day special for the birthday child by taking the birthday child out alone, with the parent of their choice, to a special dinner date, and then out and about to wherever they want to go, as well as letting that child pick the meals for the day.  For his birthday he wanted daddy to make him apple pancakes (dad is the pancake maker around here), he wanted to go to the Rainforest Cafe in the Mall of America, he wanted to go to the Lego Store in Mall of America, and he also wanted to have a play date at the park with some of his friends.  So, we indulged him.  :) 

  Here he is enjoying his apple pancakes, complete with candle and a Happy Birthday song, sung by his family...

And here he is at the Rainforest Cafe...

  And here he is at the park play date with some of his friends (the ones that were able to come), complete with the "shoe toss" game that he requested to play...

 Rest assured, although I didn't get a picture of it, he also got to go to the Lego Store, as requested!  :)

  What a great day and what a blessing and an answer to prayer this sweet little boy is to this grateful family!  :)

Blessings to you as you celebrate your family,

It's a Lacy Life

P.S.  Sorry I was a little low on pictures, I kept forgetting to take them at the park, it was actually pretty cold that day, and all the people who weren't running around (read adults) were freezing and trying to stay warm!  :)