Spring At Our House

On March 1 we moved for the third time in 18 months! Not #1 on my list of fun things to do with three small children!  But, we LOVE our new house (fenced in backyard!!), and we only have a few things left to unpack. Moving and unpacking have taken up most of our long awaited Springtime, so I’m just starting to get outside with the kids on a regular basis. Otherwise, I am still completely unorganized since the move, and I’m amazed that I have gotten anything done at all in the past month and a half. Transition isn’t easy on kids, (even good transition) and that manifested itself in none of our
kids sleeping through the night anymore for about a month. Nathan still isn’t (although, to be fair, he is still nursing at night), and Lylah still wakes up probably three nights a week. I have a fantastic husband, but he works nights, which leaves night duty completely up to me, and I.am.exhausted. But we serve an amazing God, who so wonderfully reminded me on Easter that my help comes from Him (Psalm 121:2), so what in the world do I have to complain about? Not a thing.
As soon as I get a regular routine back down I want to post about it and post my goals for the rest of the year, so that I stay accountable. I tend to have lots of grand ideas and no follow through, so I’m hoping that by putting myself out there online that it will keep me motivated 🙂 We’ll see, anyway! Does anyone have any tips or tricks to getting things done and staying motivated on very little sleep? (Besides copious amounts of coffee? 😉 )

On Goals And Good Intentions

Goodness it’s been a long time since I’ve written anything!
We had an extra busy holiday season, with my Mother-in-Law visiting us for three weeks over Christmas & the New Year; then soon after she left all of us came down with a yucky cold, and then just as we were all starting to feel better I threw my back out last Friday and am just starting to feel better. Whew! I keep waiting for life to slow down, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I’m going to have to make it slow down, because as I wait it just keeps getting more hectic!

I have had a New Year’s Goals post running around my head since Christmas, but as things kept happening I kept not getting it posted, and now it’s almost February! In past years that would have totally stopped me, & I would have felt like a failure or like I was playing catch up for the whole year. I tend to have grand ideas and love lists and planning, but I am not so good at the follow through. If I miss a day (or in this case, weeks), I feel like I am not good enough (again) and throw in the towel, because in my dreams and planning I don’t leave margin or allow that life is going to happen! And with three children three and under, LOTS of life is happening in our house! So this year? I am giving myself grace & embracing our chaos. It is okay to be writing my New Year post three weeks late. It is okay that I haven’t implemented our new routine yet because we’ve all been sick. It’s okay that we’ve been eating meals in the living room again because my back can’t handle the dining room chairs.  Those, and a million other things that were going to be different *this* year are all okay, because tomorrow is another new day, and by the grace of God His mercies are new every morning!!
I have read a great, brand new book on getting out of survival mode (which I think I’ve been in since my oldest, Hayden, was born almost four years ago!), and I will be writing a review post soon. I have completely overhauled my homemaking notebook (which is something else I felt like a failure about until I read the book in question), and am going to post about that, along with my 2014 goals, soon as well. But I wanted to say a quick “hi”, & to hopefully encourage any others of you who have felt like me in the past-that it is okay if you are behind where you wanted to be already this year, give yourself grace and start again tomorrow! Or the next hour, or the next minute, because it is never too late to start over again!

5 Things I Do to Save Money (That I’d Do Even If I Were Rich)

First, an apology 🙂 I’m sorry I’ve been MIA for most of October. My 15 month old is getting all.four.molars. at once, & my 3 month old is fighting his first cold. Lylah can’t understand why she’s in so much pain, & Nathan can’t understand why breathing is so much harder than normal, which means I do a lot of holding my sick babies, & not a lot of anything else! But I am so priveleged to be have them to hold and it is so amazing that I have little people who seek me (me!) for comfort, so I don’t mind, most of the time. Sometimes I am ready to cry right along with them, but with God’s grace I am getting better about that.
Okay, now that that’s out of the way, Matt (my husband) and I were talking the other day about how high the Power Ball was getting and how different whoever wins it’s life was going to be, and I started thinking about what I would do differently if I were rich, & what I would keep the same. So here are five things I do that save us so much money; that I would still do no matter what! (Some of these I started to save money, some because I wanted to reduce our use of chemicals, & some I just wanted to do.)

1.Cloth Diaper
I have cloth diapered our children since our 3 & 1/2 year old daughter Hayden had just turned one. (I say I cloth diaper, & not “we” cloth diaper, because the diapers Matt changes are few and far between, but that was our deal when I convinced him to try switching from disposables. Although he dunked many a poopy diaper in the toilet for me when I was so sick from morning sickness just the thought would make me sick!)
Modern cloth diapering is nothing like cloth diapering of the past, unless you want it to be. I am fortunate enough that right before Nathan was born a dear (& very generous) friend gave us all of her sons’ old diapers, which are all Fuzzi Bunz pocket diapers and Green Mountain Diapers prefold diapers. For those of you who don’t know, both of these brands are top of the line diapers, & I could never have afforded them if they hadn’t been given to us. But before that I used Just Simply Baby,  pocket diapers which are also high quality but much cheaper than the aforementioned brands. I used the same diapers with both girls (they were size adjustable so they could fit both girls) and while the investment was a lot of money for us (in full disclosure, I bought them with money given to us from Hayden’s first birthday) from February of 2010 to June of 2013 the broken down cost only ended up being about $2.00 a month. (And the savings were even more than that because they were used on both girls.) Pocket diapers use snaps or velcro to fasten (ours use snaps) and have a pocket in the back that you stuff with absorbent inserts. Our prefolds look like “old fashioned” cloth diapers, and you fold them around the baby and fasten with either a snappi (really cool plastic grippy thing) or diaper pins and then put a diaper cover over top. These are just the two types of diapers I use; I’m not going to go into all the different types of diapers or how to care for them in this post, if anyone is interested in knowing just exactly what we do, then please let me know and I will write a separate post! 🙂 I would continue to cloth diaper our children even if we had more money because I love that there’s no waste, they can be used on all of our children at once (Hayden only wears one at night now), and according to Hayden they are much more comfortable. (I can imagine! How would you like to wear plastic underwear?). Also, I LOVE knowing that there are no chemicals against my children’s skin!

2.Make my own laundry detergent
I use a mix of a few different methods I’ve seen (and am going to do a tutorial soon, I am almost out and want to take pictures as I make more), and have only spent roughly $30 on it since October of 2011. That breaks down to only $1.25 a month! It takes about 5 minutes to make and lasts roughly a month (& I do a load of laundry every day, plus a load of diapers every other day).I have had a slight problem with our whites not getting bright white. I do not use bleach, & oxi-clean can get expensive, so I found I can use about 1/2 C of Super Washing Soda (which I always have on hand because I use it in our detergent) & 1/2 C hydrogen peroxide and soak for several hours to overnight & it really whitens things up again. I also always use white vinegar in the rinse. The vinegar helps to whiten, & also means you don’t have to use commercial fabric softener. (And none of our clothes smell like vinegar, ever!) I will always continue to make our own detergent, because I am not putting harsh dyes & chemicals onto our clothing. Plus I just love making things myself :).

3. Make my own cleaning products
There are countless recipes for cleaning products on Pinterest, (many of which I have pinned and rarely if ever used), and about as many books/ebooks (which I own several of). However, many of them call for expensive essential oils. I know that, just like cloth diapers, there is really only a “start up” cost to buying essential oils, (because you use such a small amount per recipe) but right now I cannot justify that expense when what I am doing works just as well. (Although you better believe, if we did suddenly have more expendable income eo’s are one of the first things I’d buy!) So what do I use the most? White vinegar, & baking soda (together and separately). I have a spray bottle of 50/50 white vinegar and water that I use for 99% of my cleaning. It cleans, disinfects, works on just about every surface, & is super cheap! I stock up on several gallons at a time and start to get antsy when my supply dwindles, because I use it for almost everything! Baking soda works great for scouring (mixed with a small amount of water) while being non-abrasive to surfaces (always check first though, because I would hate for you to try it on a surface type I don’t have in my home & have it scratch!), & I always have it on hand because I love to bake. Mix it with white vinegar and you have a powerful foamy cleaner that will clean your toilet or unclog your drain with almost no elbow grease from you. I love letting my three year old help me clean and knowing that nothing will be harsh to her skin if she touches it, & that no fumes will get into my children’s  lungs!

4.Nurse my babies
This is one I would have done no matter what, because the health & bonding benefits for baby & mommy both are amazing. With that being said, both of my girls had formula as well, and they both are healthy, happy, & thriving, so I am not here to vilify formula, or to vilify you if you choose to/have to use it. I nursed Hayden for 7 months, while supplementing with formula here & there. However, I damaged my supply in the beginning by trying to put her on a schedule inmediately (honestly, from my experience, I urge you to please consider feeding on demand for the first few months if you can-it is more work but I have had more content babies with my second & third doing that, & plentiful milk) and by the time she was seven months my milk just wasn’t sufficient enough anymore and I switched her to full formula. With Lylah I exclusively nursed her for 5 months, (she had never even had a bottle with breastmilk in it), but when I got pregnant with Nathan my milk started drying up and I had to switch her to formula as well. So, having nursed and used formula both, I can attest that breastfeeding is infinitely less expensive! (Just in case you are wondering, I am currently exclusively nursing our three month old son Nathan on demand, & am hoping that I will not have to ever switch him to formula.)

5.Use my Kindle
You probably won’t see this last one on many “how I save money” lists, but I LOVE to read. As in, the first thing I used to do every single paycheck was buy books. Lots of them. But God has been working with me alot on being a better steward of our resources, & of our limited space. I have purged so many books that in our last move I only had 11 boxes of books. That may seem like a massive amount to some of you, but it’s less than half that I had in our move last year! I bought my Kindle two Christmases ago with a gift card, & it may be my favorite thing I have ever bought for myself. I still love holding a paper book in my hand, but there are thousands of free books for your kindle. You read that right-thousands. And they don’t take up a bit of space in our tiny apartment. *happy dance*! You don’t even need a Kindle, you can download an app for your phone or your computer, for free! Now, I do buy some books for mine, but most of my hundreds of books on there were free. You can go on Amazon and search (classic books are most prevalent), or there are a few companies that do the legwork for you! I subscribe to Inspired Reads, eReader Girl, & Free Homeschool Deals, and I get an email every day with free and discounted books listed. It is fantastic! Now all of these are Christian based sites, but if that’s not your cup of tea I’m sure a quick search on Google would give you other sites with your genre in mind! 🙂

So, those are just a few of my favorite ways to save money, what are some of yours?

What do Halloween and Santa Claus have in common? (And what we do in our house)

In the Christian community (ESPECIALLY online) there is a lot of controversy over celebrating Halloween, and whether or not to “do” Santa Claus.

In our house Matt (my husband) and I have compromised (which is what Halloween & Santa have in common 🙂 ) on what and how we celebrate. Our children are still very young (3.5, 15 months & 2 months), so this is the first time that we have really had to make a decision. Matt grew up celebrating Halloween, going trick or treating, and believing in Santa; I did not. I went trick or treating one time, when I was three years old (And I was an incredibly cute Barbie, thankyouverymuch, complete with the late 80’s plastic mask), and I have always known the truth about Santa Claus. My parents told me about Saint Nicholas and that it was lots of fun to pretend, but that Christmas is about Jesus’ birth. And (very importantly) NOT to tell other children that Santa doesn’t exist, because it’s up to their parents to talk to them about it.

When Matt and I sat down to talk about what we would do as a family he assumed we would do things the way he always had, and I assumed we would do things the way I always had. In the end though, following my husband’s leadership in our home, while still expressing how strongly I felt about things, was much more important than simply having my way. So what do we do? I gave in on Halloween and he gave in on Christmas :). The children may dress up and go trick or treating (the picture at the top of this post is the girls being ladybugs on Halloween last year, even though we didn’t go anywhere), and we explain to them about Saint Nicholas (real), and Santa Claus (pretend). We don’t do anything scary for Halloween (witches, ghosts, etc), and we focus on Jesus at Christmas, while still reading Christmas books & watching DVD’s where Santa is the main character, just for fun.

(The girls & my parents, Christmas 2012)

I want to make sure to say-this is what works for our family; what you do in your family may be very, very different on either end of the spectrum, and you will get no judgement from me whatsoever!  I just wanted to share what works for us in this season that is approaching where so many are conflicted about what to do. I encourage you to pray about the matter, and then stand firm in your decision no matter what opposition you may recieve! How do you celebrate Halloween and Christmas? (And why?) Please leave a comment, I would love to know! (Or if you have any questions about the details of how we came to our decision then ask away-I didn’t want to make the post too long!)

First post ever…and I’m a little nervous :)

I have started this post in my head a thousand times, yet stopped it again. I’ve been too nervous to start, afraid that my words won’t be good enough, that my pictures won’t be clear enough (this is all done from my phone), that my ideas won’t be helpful enough…mainly that I just won’t be enough. But then two of my favorite bloggers hit the nail on the head. Courtney wrote about embarrassment, and Lisa-Jo wrote  about fear, and I felt God giving me a nudge (okay, a great big push) in both posts. 🙂 So here I am, without a clue as to what I am doing, but hoping you will read anyway and that I will be able to encourage you or help you in some way. I’m not even going to attempt to “build a brand” like so many big bloggers do, but I am going to share my life as a wife, Momma to three littles, & homemaker with you, and I’m delighted that you stopped by! I’d also love it if you followed me on Pinterest and Instagram; and if you knit or crochet I’d like to be friends on Ravelry.