Making A Guest Room from Your Spare Room

When family visits a few times a year, we make up our spare room into a semi-functionally guest room. We do not have an extra bed nor a sleeper sofa (bed that pops out of a couch). We simply have a section of our old couch upstairs.

I normally clean up the extra junk, like baby items and bigger toys, out a few days prior to family coming out. Then I take a Cal-King bedspread we had in our master before we downsized to a Queen mattress, and I cover the couch cushions and the back of the couch (and tuck it in so it doesn't fall off). I take a Twin bedspread from my oldest and a flat sheet for the covers. Then I place a guest pillow and an over sized couch pillow on top with their rolled guest towels. I leave out an extra blanket in case they need it and an extension cord for their phone chargers.

A few homey touches like a chair to place their suitcase on or hang a jacket on, a hook on the wall for their purse or jacket or towels, an over sized ottoman they can use as a seat or side table or suitcase stand, and a pop-up laundry hamper for their dirty clothes to keep the room clean.

I also add a small caddy basket (from Thirty One) with all kinds of travel toiletries they might have forgotten: body wash, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, mouthwash, toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, earplugs, face wipes, lotion, fingernail clippers, nail file, sewing kit, body spray, Ferebreze spray, etc.

 I also framed our Wi-Fi code so our guests didn't have to come downstairs for it, added some tissues and an air-freshener so the room would smell inviting. Our spare room also has our old Xbox 360 and a smaller TV in so our guests can watch Hulu, Netficks or use it for DVDs.

Simple transformation for maximum guest comfort in our home! We don't see family often and we love that they decide to stay with us in our house instead of at a hotel! Our sons love waking up and having a family member eat breakfast with them and be there all day and tucking them in at night. The fun never stops because the family member doesn't have to leave for the night! I am very fortunate to have the extra room for our family to stay in!

Happy Mommy-ing!

Happy New Year!

It's a new year which means a lot of people are changing and making resolutions to be better in the coming year. Common resolutions are: eat better, lose weight, less time on social media, quit a bad habit. This is when can diets skyrocket and gym memberships soar. For me it's a bit different. Sure I could lose that last few pounds from my sons, I could eat better because I eat too much sugar, I could go back to college and get a degree. I, however, wanted to focus more on how I interact with people, mostly my kids and my husband. 

1. I want to laugh more with my kids: I'm too serious most of the time. I like things planned out, I thrive when things are organized and when everything falls into place. Enter in kids... absolutely nothing about them goes as planned! Normally that stresses me out and everyone knows a stressed out mom is not something you want to be around. So how will I do this? How will I go against what comes naturally to be a happier mom? While we were visiting California my mom taught me how to pick and choose my fights with my kids and when to stop and allow natural consequences to happen. For example: if my 5 year old son refuses what is for dinner, he goes to bed hungry and has to wait for breakfast the following morning (of course we're not talking feeding him liver and onions! I try very hard to have at least 1 thing on the table I know my kids will eat). That's a natural consequence, instead of sitting there yelling at him to eat which causes stress on everyone. Now, of course there are some things I can't allow to slide because of his age. Things like doing: his homework, brushing his teeth, picking up his room, feeding his cat... if I allowed natural consequences for those things I might end up with a call from his teacher because he's fallen behind in school, a huge dentist bill for cavities, toys missing and walking hazards during the middle of the night when he screams from a bad dream, and a dead cat or a new chore for me. Obviously his age is a major factor with natural consequences because his maturity level is not there yet. But it works for some things and I'll be better at picking those battles worth fighting rather than fighting them all.

2. Budget better because that will lead to better things: My husband and I were fortunate enough to take the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace class from my parents' church almost a decade ago and it has helped us financially in so many ways! It's worked well for many years except a few areas. We live very far from our families and we were budgeting out more money twice a month for when they visit only 3 times a year but we were budgeting very little for our own family entertainment per month. So that was a pretty easy fix, we just switch around the amounts so we had more money as a family per month and made new rules for the "family in town" money. It's only to be used when a family member is in town, we go back home to visit, or birthday gifts for family members if we do not have money elsewhere. That's it. Another thing we did in the budget was create a "kids fund". Both my husband and I get allowances per paycheck but most of the time I use my portion to buy things for the kids whether it was shoes or a school function or medicine, it's almost always for the kids. While my husband uses his money on him so it created lot of resentment between us. I got mad at the fact I never had any money but he always had money. He always seemed happier while I was using my money for things the kids needed. So we decided we could afford to set some money aside every paycheck to dedicate for our kids. Things like field trips, growth spurts in either clothes or shoes, and medications. Or little prizes, we are taking them to see Paw Patrol Live! this weekend and we have money budgeted out for each of them to be able to pick out a souvenir so that will come out of the kids fund so it doesn't have to come out of our regular fund. That also means that my money I can use on me and for the first time in about 5 years I have purchased shoes that I needed instead of waiting for my birthday or getting cheap knock-offs.

3. Be more productive without adding too much stress: I have binge watch entire seasons of shows on Netflix. My current obsession is Grey's Anatomy and it's super easy to just sit on the couch and watch episode after episode without doing anything, especially school days and during nap time. No one bothers me, my husband is normally at work, my oldest is at school and my youngest is in his room either sleeping or resting in his crib. So I could easily watch 2 or 3 episodes without being interrupted. The trouble is during that time, I'm eating or crocheting and doing nothing else. So I've decided to try to get more done while still binging. I can unload/load the dishwasher while the tea kettle is heating up and most of the time I'm done by the time it's done boiling, of course we all know you can hold laundry while watching tv. I can sweep up or get my little hand vacuum to clean up little messes during the credits and start of a new show or dust during a show. My kids will now pick up before dinner and a fan before bed (if they play after dinner instead of getting baths) and my youngest will pick up, with my help, before nap. With all that, there's not much that needs to be done!

So if I'm picking my battles better, managing our money better, and tidying our house while watching my show that all equals up to a much happier me!

What's your New Year's Resolutions?

Happy Mommy-ing!

DIY Toddler Family Photo Album

We are going home a little over 30 days. I am going to be flying, by myself, with a 5 year old and a 2 year old... boy am I crazy! So in preparation for my journey home on at 6 hour plus, by myself with two young kids, I have been doing multiple posts on what I'm taking in my carry on (post coming later), and my "Busy Bag" items that I am doing for my kids. This idea came to me when I saw a Pin where a lady took a photo album and had alphabet letters like roads for her kids to trace with cars (link here). There's also tons of ideas on Pinterest making family photo albums that are kid-friendly [again link here].
Both of my sons have those Sassy books of "Who Loves Baby?". It's squishy, and you can put photos in but it only holds 7 pictures.

My mom made me a photo album of me with my grandparents and uncles when I was about five or six and I still have it to this day. I love it so I decided to make a version of it for my kids for on the airplane.
I found pictures on Facebook, Instagram and my phone of all are different family members from both sides of the family and even some pets, used my photo editor on my phone to put labels on it to say who the person was in the picture:

Uploaded them to Sam's Club to have a printed (cheapest thing $0.17 a picture):

I found a photo album for a dollar:

Filled it:

Added Scrapbook Paper to the front cover: 

Done! Plain and simple!
Now I can quiz my kids on who everybody is, especially our two-year-old. He kind of knows everybody but it takes him a little bit to get comfortable with everybody. He seemed to love it! And he learned a few new faces 😁