10 Free or Cheap Summer Activities for Families

1. Classic Car Shows - Many of these shows are free to attend. We like to pick out cars that remind us of each other and family members. 

2. Build Sand Castles - You can turn it into a healthy competition or make it a group activity. Look online for actual pictures of castles and do your best as a family to "replicate" the castle using sand and other free or cheap odds and ends. 

3. Ice Cream Sundae Bar - Make your own Ice Cream sundae bar. Purchase inexpensive ice cream, sprinkles, chocolate syrup and crush candy bars up for additional toppings.  If you want to make it extra special you can even make your own ice cream the night before. 

4. Squirt Gun Fun - You can have your traditional squirt gun fight as a family or you can set up a target. Stack plastic cups and see if they can shoot them down. Give out little prizes to the best marksmen. 

5. Fly a Kite - Buy an inexpensive kite and see how high in the sky you can fly it. You can always try to make one and decorate it as a family. 

6. Build with Rocks - This could be an ongoing summer project. Draw out a design and when ever your out and about look for rocks that would add to your masterpiece. You could construct a building or a whole village. When your done you can even demolish it as a family. 

7. Outdoor Bowling - Set up bottles and see who can get the highest score. For added fun add glow sticks to the bottles and bowl at night!

8. Nature Scavenger Hunt - Make a list of nature related items to find. Split your family into teams and see who can find the items first. 

9. Reinvent S'mores - Try to put your own twist on traditional s'mores. Try different chocolate combinations instead of your usual Hershey bar, or switch out graham crackers for cookies.

10. Potluck Picnic - Have everyone from the family make a dish to bring. Even have the little kids join in by having them package up berries in zip-lock baggies for each family member or have them decorate dessert with sprinkles. 

5 Items To Buy for After Labor

1. Sanitary Napkins – Lots of them and in different sizes. I personally used the overnights then switched to regular ultra thin and then panty liners. (Ask the hospital for an extra pack you will need it)
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
2. Nursing Pads – You may not need them the first few days but once your milk comes in you will leak all over.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. Nightgown or Top with a built in bra - These will help hold the nursing pads in place while you sleep so you don't wake up in a puddle of milk.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
4. Freezer meals - Whether you make meals ahead of time or just buy some tv dinners they will be blessing. You will have no desire to or time to cook the first few weeks.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. Laundry Detergent - Between spit-up, pee, poop and milk leaking you are going to be doing a lot of laundry. Either stockpile some before hand or make your own. Like the Recipe I have Posted Here.

5 Items Every New Mom Should Have

1. Nursing Pillow – I put this pillow on my registry thinking it might be somewhat useful. Little did I know that I would literally use this pillow everyday for the past three months and in multiple ways. Nursing and tummy time are just a few uses. See My Post on 7 Different Uses for your Nursing Pillow!
   
   
   
2. Nuk brand pacifiers – I purchased and was given a few different pacifiers as gifts and Nuk seems to work the best for us. The generic ones that are one size fits all were to big and seemed to look dirty after I had washed them. The Avent soothies seem to fall out of his mouth easily.
   
   
   
   
   

3. 
   

   Gripe Water - I would describe this as liquid gold, I was recommended this by another parent who swore it got him through his daughters colic. If your baby is having a fit and milk and a diaper change aren't doing the trick this stuff immediately calms them. 

   
   
   
   
   
   

4. Sleep Sacks - They make diaper changes a breeze. Not having to take the pants off or unbutton the onesie, just unzip it change the diaper and zip them back up!
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

5. Button Front Outfits - This is a must have for doctors visits. This is one thing it took me a few visits to learn. You don't have to slip it over their head and it takes half the time to get them dressed and undressed which you will do at almost every appointment in the first few months.

Seven Uses for your Nursing Pillow

 

1. Nursing - The most obvious use for a nursing pillow. Setting it around you while your baby lays on it nursing.

2. Bottle Feeding - You can sit your child in the pillow as shown in the image and feed them a bottle with one hand. This is nice because sometimes you want to multitask with the other hand.

3. Burping - Lay the child on the pillow so their head is facing down, with arms draped over the center of the pillow, then gently pat their back. Sometimes I don't even need to pat Harrison's back the position alone is an instant burper.

4. Tummy Time - Lay it on the floor in the same position you would for burping and put something in front of the child to amuse them.

5. Holding Helper - When little ones or even some elderly want to hold your super little one you can put this pillow on their lap to help hold the baby and add extra support.

6. Relaxing Seat - Let your baby lay in the nursing pillow and enjoy quiet time with mom.

7. Recovery Doughnut - If you had a difficult labor you can use this pillow to help ease some of your pain. From personal experience this made sitting a lot less painful and it was one of the few things that eased my discomfort.

Please note that for your child's safety you should never leave them unattended in a nursing pillow.

Our House Fund - THE PLAN

After Harrison was born we realized how important it is to start saving for our families future. A house wasn't just a dream for Kyle and myself anymore but a dream for our son and future children. But how do you save for a home when you make little money and when you have medical debt and student loan debt? Most people would say you should pay off your debt first. Which probably works for most people but after much discussion we have decided this is not the route we want to take. We are sick of paying rent and having it go towards nothing. The rent we pay would be more than most mortgages because of the area we live in. Our dream is to pay for our home in cash, that way we aren't piling on more debt. Whether this dream is obtainable on our income is yet to be determined.

Here is our plan for saving money towards a home. As time goes on I am sure the plan will be adjusted but here is our first attempt.

(Our dream is to own a cheery yellow home similar to the one above)
 Beautiful Photo Originated From Here

Saving Up for A Home - The Plan

1. Sell what we don't need. Our house is full of clutter ranging from clothing that no longer fits us that books we will never read again. Over the next year we will be using Ebay, Craigslist, Garage Sales and Facebook Groups to earn a little money towards our future home.

2. Pick up those Cans! We live in NY State which has a bottle deposit. So for every can or bottle we return we earn 5 cents! Okay 5 cents doesn't seem like much but eventually they will add up.

3. Odd Jobs. We are going to put the word out that we can help people with odd jobs from pet sitting, mowing lawns to moving. For a small amount of our time we can add a little bit more money to our house fund.

4. Sell Baked Goods. I enjoy baking so I will most likely sell bake goods around the holidays.

5. Change Jar. Oh yeah we are saving every penny we find and putting it towards our future home. Often times people see change on the ground and walk past it. We intend to pick up every single penny we see to put towards our goal.

6. Couponing. For every $1 off coupon that I have for something I actually use I will put $1 in the house fund. 

7. Educate Ourselves. There are several classes out there that educate first time buyers. By educating ourselves hopefully we can save money in the long run.

DIY - Laundry Detergent

In today's economy it is important to save every cent you can. A firm believer in the do it yourself philosophy; I decided to try and find a recipe for laundry detergent. I read several variations and after much thought landed on the recipe below. The original recipe comes from the blog http://duggarsblog.blogspot.com/2011/03/duggar-recipe-liquid-laundry-soap.html. Although the ingredients are the same, I added to the instructions based on my own personal experience. My first attempt at making the detergent went quite smoothly. I was impressed with how well this detergent cleaned our clothes and how it left them smelling fresh. Hopefully my experience and the recipe below inspires those reading this article to try some of their own do it yourself projects to save some money.

Liquid Laundry Soap Recipe

(Picture above is only half of the laundry soap!)

Ingredients

1 Bar Fels-Naptha (97 cents at my local Walmart)
1 Cup Arm & Hammer Super Washing Soda (55 oz box approx. 3.50 at my local Walmart)
1/2 Cup Borax (76 oz box approx. 3.50 at my local Walmart)
Tap Water (Free)

Helpful Tools

Cheese Grater
Medium Size Pot
Long Wooden Spoon
5 Gallon Bucket with Top (Can be found at Walmart in the paint section)
Funnel
Ladle
Old Laundry Detergent Bottles

Directions

Step 1 Prepare and Melt your soap
Using your cheese grater shred the bar of Fels-Naptha into your Medium sized pot.
Next, add enough water to cover your soap in the pot.
Over Medium heat melt your soap, stirring continuously until it is a uniform liquid.



Step 2 Combine your Ingredients
Fill half of your 5 gallon bucket with hot water.
Next, add the melted soap, washing soda and borax to bucket.
Fill the bucket with more hot water so that it is almost full. Note that if you fill it to close to the top of the bucket you will have a great deal of spilling when you try to stir.
Stir until the soap and water is thoroughly mixed.
Place the cover on the bucket and allow it to sit over night. This will allow your soap mixture to thicken.



Step 3 Fill the containers with your new Laundry Detergent
When you remove the cover it may look like gelatin.
Stir the contents until the lumpy gelatin is blended, this will take a great amount of stirring.
Ladle the mixture into an empty detergent bottle, the funnel will help you to avoid spilling.
Ladle enough of the soap into the container until it's half full.
Next, you will add hot water until the container is full.
This next step is very important, you must shake the containers to combine the soap and water.
Over time, the contents may try to separate. This can be prevented by occasionally shaking the containers.

The Week After leaving the Hospital: Eight not so fun things you might not expect after giving birth

1. You still have a touch of the pregnancy brain.

The lack of sleep will cause you to be forgetful and absent minded. I took a nice long hot shower my third day home and it felt wonderful, about ten minutes in I realized I was still wearing my glasses. You might forget which boob your baby just nursed on. (yes another personal absent minded experience of mine.)

2. Those crazy pregnancy hormones ain't got nothing on emotions post birth.

I thought that my emotions hit rock bottom when on the day before my induction I threw a book at my fiance for eating the last cookie. (To be fair they were homemade and he knew that I had set that cookie aside for myself) However they don't even come close to emotions after birth. In the past two days I have praised my fiance for being an amazing partner and father, Also I have also accused him of not being attracted to me anymore and called him names for always saying the wrong thing. To clarify he is the amazing partner and father I was just being super sensitive.

3. You might lose your appetite and gain nausea.

I love food especially the unhealthy tasty kind. After giving birth I had no appetite and nothing tasted satisfying to me. I forced myself to eat three meals a day because I knew I had to take care of myself but it was not as enjoyable as it had been to me in the past. Another fun side effect was that anything I ate made me nauseous so not only did I not desire to eat but I knew that once I did eat I would be hit with a not so pleasant wave of nausea immediately following it. 

4. Your stomach wont just look fat it will look weird.

They say you will still look 6 months pregnant when you leave the hospital, this is true. In the days and weeks that follow your stomach will change and look like a deflated basketball. The weird part is the transitional period between the bump and basketball. The half preggo half deflated stomach is disturbing looking. On day 8 I had the bump up top and deflated basketball on the bottom. Not the kind of curves that make you feel sexy.

5. Your hands and feet will be huge.

I figured that once you give birth it would take awhile for the swelling to go down. What I didn't expect was for my hands and feet to be more swollen then they were my entire pregnancy. It seriously looked like I had elephantiasis, the only shoes that would fit me were my slippers and even they were snug. The swelling took about a week to go down to somewhat normal size.

6. Your bathroom trashcan will be overflowing with giant pads.

You will go through tons of pads and will not have the motivation to empty the tiny bathroom trashcan every time its full. I recommend either getting a medium sized covered trashcan to use for the first few weeks or hiding a bag where you can dispose of your icky pads under the sink. Since you will most likely be having people stop by the last thing you want them to see is THAT kind of trash.

7. You pretty much leak from everywhere.

Not only will you have to deal with what feels like a never ending period, but you will have other fun leaks too. You might still be leaking pee or feel like you are doing a pee dance just holding it in long enough to fill up your peribottle. You might wake up with a shirt soaked in your own milk or better yet when you get out of the shower your boobs just start leaking all over your clean body like a faucet. You might also have menopause like sweats where one moment you feel like the house is an oven and the next your in the arctic.

8. You may not recover as fast as you thought.

I thought I had done a lot of research prior to giving birth about what to expect. I went out and bought tucks and extra long pads and thought I was prepared. However my labor wasn't as easy as I thought it would be, there were a few complications which lead to a 2^nd degree tear. When you think about pregnancy you think about pain during labor but not so much the pain after labor. During labor at least you know that once the baby is out the majority of the pain will stop. However when you are recovering from a tear or labor in general you just have to be patient and hope you heal fast. I am not patient, I do not like “taking it easy” and I hate having people wait on me. So try to mentally prepare yourself for pain when you sit, stand, walk, pee and poop. When you get out of the hospital all you want to do is take care of your beautiful baby and enjoy your time with them, but doing this while in pain takes away a bit of the joy. So I gotta say recovery after labor STINKS.

Just try to keep in mind that eventually things will get better and you created a beautiful baby who you get to spend your life with. For every not so fun thing there is a wonderful moment such as watching your child sleep.