I have been waiting to write this post for what seems like forever. In reality it is has been 6 years. Last week Josh and I made the final payment on our car and I can say we're debt free! We're Debt Freeeeeeeeeeee! We're Debt Freeeeeeeeeeee! We're Debt Freeeeeeeeeeee! 6 years ago we took Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University at our church and began to pay off our debt. Here is an overview of what we owed. Credit Card 1: $300 Credit Card 2: $1,200 Credit Card 3: $7,500 Car 1: $7,200 Car 2: $13,500 TOTAL: $29,700 We went from having 3 credit cards and two car payments and slowly began to make more payments on the lowest credit card we had. Then we used the debt snowball to knock out our debts one by one, from smallest to largest. Once the first card was paid off we added what we were paying on it to the next debt. We have successfully completed Baby Step 1: Save $1,000 for an Emergency Fund and now Baby Step 2: Pay off Debt. And it feels so good! We … [Read more...]
How We Do Preschool at Home in the Summer
I recently shared a picture on Instagram of my kiddos sitting at our kitchen table working on their summer preschool activities. I did this with Caden last year and used the Big Preschool Workbook. I have also used the Kumon books with the kids too and really liked those as well. We send the kids to an amazing preschool and each summer the teachers send the kids home with a packet to work on over break. We usually finish these activities fairly quickly and I decided to search the internet to see if I could find more of these already created packets. Now that the kids are getting older I wanted to be able to focus more on certain topics that I wasn't able to find as many worksheets for in a store bought workbook. Thanks to google I discovered the website Teachers Pay Teachers. It has soon became my favorite go to website for finding no prep or low prep learning activities for Caden and Maisie. There are so many amazing resources available on this website. I am linking to a … [Read more...]
A Father’s Day Tribute
Dear Dad, Since you are not on social media I am not sure when you will see this. I am fairly confident Mom will fill you in about this post as soon as she reads it. And my guess would be that this will happen sometime in the next 24 hours. The purpose of this tribute is to give you the honor you deserve and to display my appreciation to God for the Dad that he gave me. With Father's Day coming up this weekend I wanted to share and express these thoughts publicly. Is it crazy that you have a 33 year old daughter? Caden just turned 5 and it is crazy to me that I have a 5 year old now. So I am assuming that this is how you feel about Evan and I. Time sure goes fast. This is why I wanted to be sure to take a moment and let you know how much I love you. Thank you for being there for me and for supplying so many fun and meaningful memories that I cherish to this day. Do you remember playing street hockey with Evan and I along with all the neighborhood kids on rollerblades? … [Read more...]
EverlyWell Breast Milk DHA Test Review
I recently had the opportunity to check the levels of DHA in my breast milk from the comfort of my own home. I am sharing my experience using the EverlyWell Breast Milk DHA test kit. Technology is seriously amazing and I think it is great that there are health and wellness tests like this available. This post was sponsored by EverlyWell through my partnership with Fit Approach. With that said, all opinions and test results are my own. #BeEverlyWell #WhyIBreastFeed WHAT IS DHA? You might be wondering why anyone would care to check the levels of DHA in their breast milk in the first place. DHA is an omega fatty acid that aids in the brain and nervous system development of children and is crucial in the first years of your child's life. It is estimated that 75% of Americans are deficient in DHA. DHA is not only crucial for your baby but it is also important for you! DHA stands for docosahexaenoic acid and is commonly referred to as omega-3. DHA along with EPA … [Read more...]
The East Valley 2017 Summer Guide for Preschoolers
This post is for all you local blog readers! I spent my youth (and college years) growing up in Tempe, whatup 85284! We currently live in Chandler but 3 years ago rented a house in Gilbert for a year, so we are also familiar with that area. And for the last 12 years Josh has worked for the City of Mesa. Having lived in the east valley for 26 out of my 33 years I feel I have a pretty good idea of the local spots that are fun, free/inexpensive, or air conditioned to hit up during the summer months. This is obviously not an exhaustive list, but this is a list of things that our kids enjoy or we think they will enjoy this summer, we enjoy doing with them, and also do not cost much money. Our kids are 4 years, 2 years, and 6 months old for reference. EAST VALLEY SPLASH PARKS Our community has so many splash parks! Many master planned neighborhoods are featuring these in the parks surrounding new homes. I know there are probably many more that I could have included in this … [Read more...]
On Becoming Babywise: 17 to 24 Weeks
I blogged about our Babywise experience with Caden and I am sharing how our experience with Babywise is going with our third baby. Here are the links to all the posts I have done in this series: On Becoming Babywise: Birth to 2 Weeks On Becoming Babywise: 3 to 6 Weeks On Becoming Babywise: 7 to 10 Weeks On Becoming Babywise: 11 to 16 Weeks This photo was taken while I was saying goodnight to Jesse and he gave me one more big smile before bed :). Baby smiles and snuggles are the best! Schedule Jesse dropped a feeding and is now nursing 5 times in 24 hours. The transition happened very naturally. He began sleeping longer for his first nap and instead of waking up at 9:30am woke up a 10am several days in row. His feedings were adjusted from there. Week 17 - 21 6:40am: Eat/Waketime, Diapering 8:30am: Nap 9:30am: Eat/Waketime, Diapering 10:30am Nap 12pm: Eat/Waketime, Diapering 1:00pm: Nap 2:30pm: Eat/Waketime, Diapering 4pm: Nap 5pm: Eat/Waketime, … [Read more...]
