Friday 5

I saw this on another mama blog and thought it was fun!

Sharing my favorite 5 things from Pinterest, blogs or wherever.

 

 

1.

 

This outfit!! I am SO ready for fall and I love everything about this, just the right amount of comfy and cute!

 

2.

Pinterest in General is my #2  I am just thankful for so much I have learned and been able to track down for future use. My Things I Should Know board is getting some use!

 

3.

 

 

Great read and such a good reminder. I have more on busyness coming soon!

 Her whole site is full of good reads!

 

4.

 These muffins! SO good!

 

Lastly #5 is Ruum.com

 

CUTE kids clothes, with some amazing discount codes right now, Labor40, Redbook20 and Welcome15 can all be used. Swimsuits for 3.99 before discount!

Just finished my order.. all deals for next summer besides that cute sweater!!

 

 

We will see how many Fridays I can get to this. Anyway, it was fun!

 

Bed Sharing

So these little boys, they have my heart and they also usually have 1/3-1/2 our bed!

  

They don't really wake up and make a fuss, they just climb in all stealth like and quiet, and by the time I realize I have no blanket and no room I am too tired to try and carry either one of them back to their beds. So there they stay hogging the bed, kicking, waking, snoring, teeth grinding and I toss and turn on my tiny portion of the bed.

 

That has gotta change! School starts soon, we all need sleep, good uninterrupted sleep and no one is getting that with 4-5 of us in a queen size bed.

 

Our kids like their chore packs, and I was thinking they would like a punch card that they can cash in when it's full, like a coffee punch card, for a hot cocoa, or treat at the football game.

 

Found a couple on etsy but thought I could probably DIY and save the money.

Decided to use some Rhonna Designs, and My Memories Suite.. Here is what I ended up with

Just gonna print a few of these and see how it works.

 

If you don't have MyMemoriesSuite yet, go get it! I use it all the time!

For teacher gifts, Christmas Tags, Scrap booking, Party Supplies. Totally worth it, and I have a coupon code, just enter STMMMS87586 for a discount at checkout.

 

Wish us luck on sleeping with no kidlets!

 



Back to School Fairy '13

It's almost that time! Time for the Back to School Fairy to stop by and leave a little treat and note for kids who are off to school in a week and a half!

 

I have concentrated on reminding them to be good students and good friends at school. This year will be the same but I think the fairy might need to remind them to help their mama after school one of the days!

 

As much as I really wanted to could have blown our Back to School Budget for the Back to School Fairy, I didn't!  Kept things really pretty mild but things I know they either needed or wanted.

 

Carsyn got a dress, the only dress I bought her for Back to School, a shirt for Ramsey

 

A couple little Legos I already had on hand, some hair glitter, new toothbrushes
And they each got a box of granola bars, those are a real treat for our kids, they don't get them often.
And Finnley has a Starbucks gift card for his first day of Preschool!

 Couple other little things, nothing too major but they will like them!

 

I know this tradition isn't for everyone and some people would rather just give the kids something from them and not the Back to School Fairy, but we started with the Back to School Fairy and I love that our kids remember it and ask about it throughout the year.

 

Check out past years here!

Who else is doing this, or something similar?
 

Almost 8 months over

 

I totally forgot to update our goals in the beginning of August! So now that it's over half over.. I am going to keep it short and sweet.

 

 

~Family~

~I have been HORRIBLE about eating at the table, honestly I am lucky if I eat dinner at all. We will never do 4 weeks of swimming lessons at 6 pm again, ever. Lesson learned.

 

~We have been having fun doing other stuff, golf, drive in movies, checking out old pictures and a couple parades with friends.

 

 

~Self~

~Hardly been to the gym at all this month, once or twice is it!

 

~Been doing super on my water drinking and not spending time on relationships that are 1 way. Back to reading some more too!

 

~Finances~

 

~I have a new method for my coffee, I only buy a gift card every few weeks, and not for very much. Once it's gone, it's gone. I don't really have cravings for it and the lack of sleep is not an issue as much. I could go completely without if we needed to. And I always buy the gift card at a store that offers gas rewards with 5x the points on gift cards, that way when I buy my $15 gift card for the month I get 75 points which is almost 10 cents off per gallon it only comes to about 2.50 savings but I will take it. 

 

~Step 2 of Dave Ramsey Snowball plan.. almost HALF done! I don't know how it happened, but it's working and it is SUCH a relief! Even with everything going on in our little world right now, I feel confident we will be done with step 2 sooner than I expected and much easier than I anticipated it being.

I use a little notebook like this and am keeping track of every months balances.

Some months it feels like there is hardly any change in those balances which is CRAZY because I know how much of a payment we make, and really out of that payment that is ALL it brings the balance down. Gross!

 

~I've been to Target more often than I should but when I do go, I am not spending like I was before. Our office is moving and now Target is not close so I don't think I will be there nearly as much.

 

~I haven't been vigilant about using Swagbucks, but we have been cashing them in for gift cards when we do have enough, and moving those right to savings! I know Christmas FEELS like forever away but the insane shopping season starts in 90 days. Not going overboard, just preparing as best we can. I found a couple of things we were getting anyway on clearance for less than half price, already wrapped those up! 

 

~Home~

 

~I think we have taken more out of our house in the last 6 months than we have the last 6 years! I know I am being better about not shopping because we are continually out of grocery bags, when before we had too many for the container.

I have bags all over the house and when they are full I load 'em in the car. They really are all over, it's kind of annoying but I think it's working.

 

 

~Hubby is making this great laundry basket holder, I am sure you have seen one on Pinterest. We moved the boys in together in 1 room, have plans to paint and do as much as we can to keep things around here work for us, but I am ready to sell this house! We are just waiting until the time is right and doing what we can until then to get things ready.

 

~Life~

 

~I am enjoying my job, missing my kids when I am there and know they are having fun with Daddy at home for now.

 

~Ryan has been home for a month now, not sure it is what he was expecting, but I like that we get more time together!

 

~Kids have grown SO much this summer, especially this last month. Not just height (although that happened a ton) Finally have a couple swimmers, ditched some training wheels and there is more reading going on than I can keep up with! 

 

 

Goodness, for that being "short" it sure isn't! But that's what's new with our goals since the beginning of July!



Back to School Projects

 

With just under 3 weeks until the first day of school, I just really started thinking about everything that needs to be done for ME to prep for Back to School!

 

Snack Prep
~Last year I shared this, and we still do something similar, but out daughter has her own box with Gluten Free Snacks.

 

Lunch Supply Prep
~I just need to make sure our fridge is more organized. The kids pick their dairy and fruit/veggie for lunch boxes and if it's not organized it doesn't go well.
 

Clothing Routine
~I have tried so many ways of rotating clothes so everything gets worn and so far nothing has worked as well as I want it to! The kids obviously have their favorites and those seem to end up on top of the pile more often. I have a couple weeks to figure something out. Any ideas?


Chore Packs
~I might need to add a few more to the big kids packs, and I haven't even made one for Finnley yet!
That is a must do.  We are still using the same method and they work GREAT, when the kids use them. It's a constant reminder but I think most parenting jobs are not a 1 time reminder, so we will keep up with this and hope it gets a little easier every day.
 

 

 

Starting on the Thursday before school starts I am going to start waking the kids up and going through the motions of getting ready for the day, just to get them back in the routine. Hoping those early morning days will make them a little more tired at night and make the transition to falling asleep before 10 a little easier.


A lot of that is this weekends project.
Who else has a list to do before school starts?


Room Sharing!

After a year of a certain little boy never sleeping in his own bed or playing with his own toys that often, we decided to move him in with our oldest.

 

Bunk bed ordered and put together!

All in time for a new routine for school, think we are a little bit crazy!

 

But it sure gives them a lot more room to play than the big bed we had in there before.

 

 

Now we have a room to re-do!

It needs some major paint help and then we need to decide what to do in here!

It's not big but it's big enough to do something with!

 

We do use the closet for some hung clothes, and off season clothes.

Other than that it's free for us to do whatever with.
Right now it has a disassembled washer and dryer pedestal.. someone (oops) measured wrong.. so it was all built and just a little too tall.

 

I have already moved a little bit of my crafting stuff in the closet.

We will see if that is where it stays?!

 



Back to School Supplies

 

I know there are some great deals on things like crayons, glue sticks and pencils right now, here is my dilemma..

 

Is it worth the savings NOW to have to deal with storing them?

 

I was really struggling, because on one hand I love a good deal and there is a good chance we will need crayons again before next August. On the other hand, I am on a mission to have less stuff!!

 

So do I get it just because it's a good deal? It's not a necessity, I don't look at it the same as I would food storage or medicine. 

 

Not just with crayons but with all things lately I have a few rules I follow before buying something.

 

1. Is it a good price (if not, it will wait)

2. Do we need it, or just want it?

3. Will we use it (WHEN will we use it, now or in 6 months?)

4. Will it be on sale again before we need/want to use it?

5. Do we have somewhere to store it? (convenient and pretty required)

 

It's been hard, and I have left some great clearance items at Target and garage sale steals where they were, in an attempt to be better at not buying just to buy and following our rules.

 

As far as crayons and glue sticks go. I set a limit. I have this box in our "office" cupboard and that's it. If it doesn't fit in here it's not coming home. We won't need THAT many crayons or glue sticks over the year, and if I am wrong, the 75 cent increase in price is worth my sanity of having a place for everything.

And after taking this, I really need to show y'all how our office cupboard ended up. It really is pretty perfect for us.

 

 

 

 

We get to close it all up and not see it when it's not needed. Everything we use often is in here, the printer is stored just below in another cabinet.