Love the Library

I really really love my library. We are lucky enough to live in an area where there are many libraries. And our library has EVERYTHING. Today we borrowed three movies, one cd (for the rugrats), three books for me and five books for the rugrats. The only way it costs me anything is if I forget to return things on time. And this does happen on occasion. I just think of it as a donation for all the things I get for free.
But seriously, I love that I can borrow these books and if I hate them, nothing is lost. I am attemtping to start thematic units with big rugrat. Our first venture will be gardening. In order to do this in the way I want to, I need access to many story books. I don't want to buy them all, so we went over to borrow a few today. I also stumbled upon the homeschooling section. While I don't plan on homeschooling in the long run I do plan on keeping big rugrat out of school for at least another year (she will be three this weekend). BUT I don't want her to fall behind, or enter at age four lacking skills that other kids have. So I am reading about homeschooling.
In my previous lifetime (before rugrats) I taught first grade. But I do not have much experience with preschool so it is a learning game. I had originally planned on the Montessori approach, but the more I read about it the more I find that it doesn't fit with my personal teaching philosophy. As much as I like many of the methods and activities, I will not be going full Montessori.
Back to the free- we will be going to the library for story time (once a week) and we also will be going there weekly to choose new books. One library nearby also has themed backpacks, so if I can find the garden theme for the next two weeks I cut MY workload down with the planning end. I can borrow puppets for pretend play, cd's for dancing and movies for when mama just needs some downtime.
We also can borrow passes to our nearbye museums, but I know I have mentioned that before.

Not much else going on around here. We have been battling earache after earache, it is birthday month right now (4 birthdays within the extended family) and big rugrat's party this weekend. I am not good with budgeting for birthday parties, at least I have learned this. Big rugrat's birthday is not as cheap as I would like, but not as expensive as it could be. We are using a local children's museum that I volunteer at so there is no room fee. We are ordering subs from a local grocery store, I am baking the cake (I do this for pleasure as well as for budget reasons) and I am going to a local store to make a simple craft for the kids to do. All in all it could be more expensive, but I feel like I could be more frugal. Ah well, one of these days I will get it.