Hello Everyone!
As usual, we are long overdue for an update. I’ll give you a rundown of things.
Work:
Things are good. We have 4 girls ranging from K-5th grade. We are still enjoying what we do here on “the Hill”. We’ve been here for 8 months now. Two of the girls have been here since we started and the other two came in February. At the beginning of February we had 6 girls, but then two of them left, and we were back to four by the end of February. I feel that we’re really beginning to form a good bond with the girls. I am especially close to the youngest, but I suppose that is to be expected. Looking back we can see how each of the girls has made gains over the course of the school year. Even the two that just came in February are not the same as when they first got here. There are still daily challenges with each of them. They’re all at different places and even though they take a step back every now and then, the overall trend is one of progress. They all went home for the weekend, as we all had Good Friday off. I need to make it a point to let each of them know that we see their progress and are proud of them. An illustration: the K-2 students had a big Easter egg hunt on Thursday at school. They brought home a couple of cascarones (confetti eggs). The kindergartener gave me one and I broke it over her head. She of course had confetti all stuck in her hair and it was all over the floor. We laughed about it and then, without me saying a word, she turns around, goes and gets a broom from the cupboard, and starts sweeping it up. One of the moms was here picking up her girls and her jaw about hit the floor, she was so impressed. I helped her to finish cleaning it up and gave her lots of praise for that. I also made sure to let Aaron know about it in front of her so that he could tell her how impressed he was too. We have just five weeks left of school, which is hard to believe. We get 3 1/2 weeks off at the beginning of summer break and then 2 more in July. They’re going to be having a summer enrichment program that will have 3 sessions. I will be teaching a session in the third session about college prep finance. I’ll teach the basics of personal finance the first week and then the second week I’ll be teaching about financial aid and explaining the process of finding and applying for scholarships/grants/loans and a few other college-related money issues. I’m excited about it.
Money update:
Things have slowed a bit on the debt payoff front. We’re still chipping away, just at a slower pace than we first thought. It sure was nice not to have the car payment this month though! We put some of that toward the medical bills and the rest in savings. I still feel good about where we are and where we’re headed. Every now and then opportunities arise for us to make a little extra money. Aaron has taken male students to their Dr/eye/dentist appointments a few times and I’ve subbed for the school nurse a few hours on a couple of occasions. The summer course that I teach will also be extra income. It isn’t a whole lot of extra money, but it goes toward our debts and every little bit helps. I have also been working hard at the budget. I still have yet to get it just right, but I think my plan for May is good. We’re going back to the envelope system. It really is just way too easy to swipe the debit card and blow the budget for one area. I’ve also been clipping coupons and using a few great websites to help save money and score great deals on groceries and household items. My favorites are Money Saving Mom and Mint. On MSM, she does coupon matchups for great deals on groceries, has lots of ideas for frugal living, and it’s free! I’ve seen a couple of sites that charge to do the coupon matchup and even checked them out, but they didn’t have the stores that I needed/were too expensive to justify. Mint is a money management site (also free). I like it because I can see my cash flow. I have been able to track all of my expenses, see my debt to income ratio, and set goals. Although, now that we’re going back to the cash envelope system this won’t be as useful for us. It helped me a lot to see where our money was going in order to create a budget.
Family:
We’re doing good. My mom has moved in with us. Times are hard but I’m glad that we’re able to be here to help out. She is getting to enjoy time with her granddaughter and Elizabeth is getting lots of quality grandma time, which is really great for both of them. It’s also nice because we have someone who can watch her when we both have our hands full with work or want to step out for a little bit. We’re praying that she gets into the CNA training program that she applied to. If so, the local nursing home in Glen Rose has already told her she has a job when she finishes at the end of May. We should know about the course this coming week. After that it will just be a matter of figuring out the transportation since we only have one car and it’s a standard, which Mom can’t drive.
Elizabeth is 7 months old already. It’s hard to believe how quickly time is flying. She knows the sign for milk, finally has some hair up top, has two teeth on the bottom, is sort of crawling (more like a half army crawl, half belly flop and usually backward), is pulling up on us, and just this week started calling Aaron “da da” and I’m “ma ma”. She’s been babbling “da da” for quite some time, but only saying “ma” when she was mad. This week I guess it clicked that they actually mean us. I think it’s going to be a while before she can get a “grandma” out though 🙂
Things are good here at Casa de Evans. We are blessed. Hope you have/had a wonderful Easter. I will definitely be taking some pictures of Elizabeth in her Easter dress after service.
-Tori
Check out the following post for lots of pictures
aarontori
The Evans Four 