My New Storage Room

So those of you who know me, know that my husband and I are huge Dave Ramsey fans. This means as a stay at home mom it is my job to stretch every penny that my wonderful other half works so hard for. Because we pay for everything with cash my kids are very accustomed to second hand clothes.  I love the thrill of  finding a great deal by searching garage sales, consignment sales, clearance  racks, and occastional friend hand me downs. Over time my storage  bins have become filled with fantastic bargains. My oldest is three and yet I have her outfited for size 4s already at fraction of the cost. My clothing budget has greatly decreased with this method because I only have to fill in the gaps at local department stores.

These bargins have helped to shrink my budget as well as the storage space in my home. However, a year ago my husband and I embarked on a fantastic journey by putting an addition on our home. Again because we do things in cash this has been a crazy and sometimes stressful ride. We are doing much of the work ourselves and have become almost professional DIYers. When we began our expansion we  took alot of time to plan out our space and how it would best suit our family. The gentleman did our blueprints had drawn us in a "sitting room" and while it would have been beautiful it would not have been practical for a home full of kids. We decided to do some moving of walls and  building a storage room for all my clothing totes!


I LOVE this room and it really has my blood, sweat, and tears in it since I have  done everything since the walls were just  studs. Here are some pictures of it.

Though I still have some tweaking to do I could not be more happy of the way in turned out. Each tote is easy to find. When my daughter outgrows her current size I got get the tote for that size and empty her drawers. Then I retrieve the next size up and refill her drawers. There is no panic or stress that my child needs new clothes and that they are not in the budget. Also, works perfects since I have 2 girls. Hand me down storage is built in.

For anyone intersted the shelving was purchased at Home Depot.

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The Cost Of Kids

I would like to prelude this by saying that I did NOT write this myself. However, the author is unknown to me, but another very special mom shared this with me when my oldest daughter was a baby and I just loved it so much that it has hung on my refrigerator ever since. I was reading it again today and thought it would be nice to share.

The Cost Of Kids

It seems that many try to breakdown the cost of raising a child from birth to 18. They came up with $160,140 for a middle income family. Talk about sticker shock!!! That does not include college tuition. But $160,140 isn't so bad if you break it down: $8,896.66/year, $741.38/month and only $24.37/day!!! Just over a dollar an hour... and still some may think that the best financial advice is to never have children if you want to be rich!

Its really just the opposite... Look at what you get for you $160,140.

Naming rights. First, middle, and last!

Glimpses of God every day

Giggles under the covers every night

More love than your heart can hold

Butterfly kisses and Velcro hugs

A hand to hold, usually covered with jam

A partner for blowing bubbles, flying kites, building sand castles, and skipping down sidewalks in the pouring rain.

Someone to laugh yourself silly with no matter what the boss said or how your stocks performed that day

For $160,140, you never have to grow up

You get to finger-paint, carve pumpkins, play hide-and-seek, catch lightning bugs, and never stop believing in Santa Claus

You have an excuse to keep :reading the Adventures of Piglet and Pooh, watching Saturday morning cartoons, going to Disney movies, and wishing on stars.

You get to frame rainbows, hearts, and flowers under refrigerator magnets and  collect spray painted noodle wreaths for Christmas, hand prints set in clay for Mother's Day, and cards with backwards letters for Father's Day.

For $160,140, there is no greater bang for your buck

You get to be a hero just for retrieving a Frisbee of the garage roof, taking the training wheels off the bike, removing a splinter, filling a wading pool, coaxing a wad of gum out of bangs, and coaching a baseball team that never wins but always get treated to ice cream regardless

You get a front row seat to history to witness the first step, first word, first bra, first date, and first time behind the wheel.

You will be immortal

You get another branch added to your family tree and if your lucky, a long list of limbs to your obituary called grandchildren.

You get an education in psychology, nursing, criminal justice, communications, and human sexuality that no college can match.

In the eyes of a  child, you rank right up there with God

You have the power to heal a boo-boo, scare away the monsters under the bed, patch a broken heart, police a slumber party, ground them forever, and love them without limits, so one day they will, like you love without counting the cost

Cherish the moments, time is so fleeting.

Pinspired~ Fine Motor Skills for Toddlers and Preschoolers

I have had the joy of staying home with my girls this week and have been looking for some neat activities to do with them. I remembered a few months back I had found an idea involving pipe cleaners and strainer for my preschooler. I picked up some pipe cleaners last week(Jo Ann fabrics by the way couldn't find them at regular mass merchandise stores such as Kmart and Target).

Here is my preschooler placing both sides of a pipe cleaner through the holes of the strainer. She absolutely loved it and thought it was so much fun (as I truly believe learning should be).I also asked her colors as she was putting them in so we could practice those.

I don't know how many of you have multiple children, but we have 2 girls and my younger daughter always wants to do what her sister is doing. She is 16 months old so I took a smaller bowl and a few pipe cleaners and gave them to her to use. You will notice the bowl she is using  has narrow long slits opposed to small individual holes. This bowl worked great as it gave her more "wiggle room" to put her pipe cleaner through. She was unable to use her sisters bowl when she tried at the end but had no problem with this smaller one(for me it was the bowl out of my Pampered Chef Berry Spinner).

This is a simple $1-$2 activity that teaches your children while keeping them busy. My kids loved this idea and I just straightened the pipe cleaners out so we can use them again on another day.

Children... (How To Love A Child)... To Good Not To Share

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