Simplify & enjoy life at home with littles.
Oh. Em. Gee. I recently tried the new-ish Walmart Grocery Online Order & Pickup Service and it’s a grocery shopping game changer, y’all. Especially if you have little kids, or are pressed for time. I love it. I almost gave the Walmart lady a hug while she was loading groceries into my …
Several months ago, I started working through This Reading Mama’s Reading the Alphabet Curriculum with our 3 year old. (Get it for FREE here.) It’s designed for preschoolers, so she’s a little young, but she expressed so much interest in learning to read, I decided to go for it! Here’s how …
Meal planning is by far the number one way to save money on groceries. Surely you’ve heard that before… You plan for what you eat and buy what you NEED based on the plan. In turn, you waste less food (and less money). Meal planning also makes it easier to avoid …
I recently wrote about how I got sloppy at budgeting towards the end of my pregnancy with our 3rd baby. Especially with our grocery budget! Oddly enough, even with 3 kiddos under 3.5, I have way more energy and mental stamina to think about budgeting (and blogging) again now that I’m …
About a month before Emma turned 2, I finished making her Mixbook Baby Book. Better late than never! Originally, I ordered a Lucy Darling one to fill in for her because I love the way a hand-written one looks. The Lucy Darling baby books are super cute!! But there were so many “first …
My dear friends, readers & budget nerds, I have a confession to make: I have sucked at sticking to our budget the past few months. Not for lack of knowledge, mind you. Remember, that one time I wrote a post called, “How to Actually Stick to Your Budget“? I think I’ll …
If you don’t know what platforms, self-hosting and domain are, you can read this other post that will help you understand all that. If you just want to get going, this initial blog setup process will take you about 30 minutes. Easy! (Designing everything just the way you want it …
Okay, so you want to start a blog. I’ve read several articles that say, “start a blog for $3 with these 3 easy steps in 15 minutes.” Honestly, that’s kinda bogus. BUT, for the average user of technology, I would say the process of actually getting a blog with a …
Most toddlers are clumsy, I assume, but I think my 3 year old is particularly so. She comes by it honestly… I may or may not have broken 6 phones in 3 years. (Death by toilet, glasses of milk, roof of car, etc.) I remind little miss to move slower, watch what she’s doing, …
Our favorite thing to eat in the summer is meat off the grill. Grilling usually means quick, easy, and healthy… what’s not to love!? We bought a $99 gas grill from home depot a couple years ago plus a $50 propane tank that lasted us 2 years of grilling. Worth it! You …
If you’re accustomed to exchanging extravagant gifts with your spouse, skipping gifts for a year may seem extreme. But, hey, when you really want to get out of debt, it has to be a little extreme. Plus, it’s just one year. I guarantee that in 5 or 10 or 20 years, …
I’ve been working on Emma’s baby book and thinking about what a newborn really needs. Looking through pictures from her first year brought me back in time… I was remembering the craziness surrounding the month she was born. It was a couple of our hardest months. There was a cross …
I recently read “The Power of Habit,” by Charles Duhigg. Besides being full of fascinating insight about the habits of our brains, our corporations, and our society, it also gave me some key realizations about what some of my personal habits are, and how to truly change some of them. I hadn’t …
I decided to organize my house in January 2016, along with everyone else in the world. Once and for all! (Okay, maybe it was the 3rd pregnancy nesting kicking in.) Having heard about the new-at-the-time Marie Kondo hype, I picked up “The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art …
BIG UPDATE!! I have a whole brand new site dedicated to helping you get started with homeschool in the little years. As of this year, 2022, we have our 4th preschooler at home. I have learned & adjusted SOOOO much of what we do with this age at home. My new site as …
I’m trying something a little different with my monthly menu plan for March: freezer cooking & cooking for more leftovers. I’ve been planning & shopping for monthly meals instead of weekly for a while, and I’m still loving it. (Read more about why I love monthly meal planning and how I plan …
BIG UPDATE!! I have a whole brand new site dedicated to helping you get started with homeschool in the little years. As of this year, 2021, we have our 3rd at home preschooler. I have learned & adjusted SOOOO much of what we do with this age at home. My …
I’ve been thinking about comparison lately. Even after I think I’ve gotten over it once and for all, it still comes back sometimes. It creeps in slowly until I realize I’ve been comparing myself (or my house, or my achievements, or my kids, or my whatever) with others. I used to …
My simplest solution for how to stop yelling at kids is to practice an idea I call “one-downing.” One-downing is the opposite of one-upping. You’ve heard of one-upping, right? You know… First Mom: “I make my own granola.”Second Mom: “Oh well I make organic granola AND use essential oils.”Third Mom: …
For a long time, Ben and I would sit down at the end of every month and look at our budget. We had categories in a spreadsheet with budgeted amounts assigned. Then, we’d try to play catch up on figuring out where all our money went that month. As we categorized all …