Kids Clothes- Little Budget Does Not Have To Mean Little Style

I know we are all short on cash but I have found ways to feed my monogram addiction in a recession! I am inspired by a lot of other frugal mom's out there in the blog world and wanted to pass on some saving... Just because you have a little budget does not mean you have little style.

I am sure you could do the same thing with boys stuff too but TJ won't let me put anything monogrammed or smocked on him so I just have done stuff for Karoline!

If you LOVE smocked dresses and stuff as much as me but CANNOT and WILL NOT pay $50+ check out EBAY! And shop well known brands at the end of the season and buy for the next year. That's what I always do and the savings is AMAZING!

Also, I LOVE monogrammed beach towels but PBK's are like $35 so here is my solution... Walmart as some cute beach towels that we got for $5.75 and you could add a monogram and it would be about $13.

If YOU have any more $$ saving tips please let me know... I always love to learn how to save!

First is dresses: Target has the CUTEST dresses and since Karoline wakes up everyday (no lie!) and asks to wear a dress I shop their sales. I do look for dresses that can be monogrammed and then take them to my sweet lady who usually monograms for $5 or $6... makes a $12.00 Target dress fabulous! Much better than the $50 dresses I usually see in boutiques and catalogs. I did 4 dresses for the summer season. Here is one of them she wore the other night...


"I DON'T want you to take a picture Mommy!"

I did it with bathing suits too... I LOVED the monogrammed bathing suits I saw in a catalog I got but $40 for a monogrammed bathing suit- NO! How about $6.99 at suit sale at Target and a $5 monogram= $11.99... Much better! I did 2 suits for the season. Also makes a great gift, right Emily :)

Our family day at the pool today...



Not so sure he wants to get in...



Hanging on for dear life... He is always so scared at first...

Crazy hair little man...

They love us...

Shameless Plug

I NEED YOUR HELP!

I started a blog for my real estate business. I would do a website but it cost money and websites are much too complicated for me at this time. PLUS blogs are a better/ easier way for me to get to the top of the list when people do a google search like "Myrtle Beach Real Estate"...

So here is what I NEED YOU TO DO:

Go to my blog www.century21myrtlebeach.blogspot.com and on the right hand side a little says down it will say "Followers of Beth Goff". Then click FOLLOW!

Basically I need all of you to make me look popular! :) Kind of silly but it works! And the more hits I get the better my chances for moving up the google search list.

Also, if you use TWITTER there is an option on the right side of the blog to follow me on twitter.

Referrals
Also, don't forget that no matter where you live you can help my business by letting me find an agent for you in your area. Or if you have a friend or family member in need send them my way. I have helped two friends of mine so far and we have a great system that helps us find the best Century 21 agents near you and if your house sells for if your a buyer and you find a home I get a referral commission. This will help me so much! Just keep me in mind as I am trying to grow my business!

THANKS!!

Washerfluid

Okay... I don't have a blog post on washer fluid but I do want to announce that my BROTHER, Brent, has started a blog....

Let me repeat myself... My BROTHER, Brent, has started a blog!

I have to say that I am excited about this... I think that he is a VERY wise man of God and I LOVE to read what he writes. His blog is titled Washerfluid. You will have to find out why when you read his blog.

Visit his blog at www.washerfluid.wordpress.com or click HERE!

Spring Is In The Air...

I LOVE SPRING! It's my second favorite time of year (fall is first because of Auburn football). When we moved into our horribly neglected foreclosure/beautiful home we purchased we had no idea what dead as doornail plants would come back or if they were gone forever. Well as you can see some roses survived and they are beautiful. I am really enjoying them and hope more and more of them bloom. Last weekend we also planted a few summer flowers in the front... I love all the color.

We also discovered today a butterfly coming out of his cocoon drying his wings on our wreath at the front door. It was such a beautiful sight to see up close. We have TONS of butterflies around and Karoline calls them "friends"... she said "Look mommy, my friend". Cute!

Speaking of cute... these two are pretty cute! I had to take a few pics before leaving for church. Which brings me to another point... WHY DO I SPEND TIME GETTING READY FOR CHURCH? By the time I wrestle my two kids to get them dressed and in the car I am in a FULL sweat and look horrible! This humidity is killing me already! Anyway, we had a GREAT day at Wellspring today! I will post about it on our Wellspring blog tomorrow I hope.



I had an open house today and met some great people and have a few really good leads for future business. After we went to a friends birthday party and then to my parents for a little. It was a great Sunday.

Tomorrow Trey and TJ head off for 4 days... a conference and then a few days of them planning for the summer. I know they will have a good time and I ask that you pray for them safe travel and that God would really speak to them and how them His vision for Wellspring as we begin to focus on planning for our launch in the fall.

Love to all...

The Fires

You probably already know about the Myrtle Beach wildfires that have burned over 19,000 acres in Myrtle Beach but I wanted to just post a few pictures I took with my cell phone camera. We have been SO scared. Okay, well TJ has not been but I have...

It all started around the time I left for work yesterday around 12 noon... In my rear view mirror I started to see black smoke and I called TJ. See our house backs up to a HUGE area of protected woods and the fire was in those woods. The wind blew the fire towards North Myrtle and MANY houses were burned!

When we woke up this morning everything looked great until about 1pm. TJ said he started seeing smoke again from woods behind our home. I left work so I could go home and prepare to possibly evacuate. We did pack up our cars with scrapbooks, guitars, clothes, etc. and I did call the insurance company to make sure we had all the coverage we needed.

Many neighbors started watering their lawns(we did too)and packing their cars. We were not told to leave but to be ready. The news said "The only thing standing between The Farm and the fire is a forest"... not a good thing!

Thankfully the wind died down and so did the fires at that point. Mom and I had to go get something from the store and on the way home we stopped at the fire station because a guy was standing out by the road. He said the fire was still burning behind our houses and the wind could change during the night. He also told us what would happen if they do evacuate us. He was very friendly.

It was kind of crazy having to go through our house choosing what we would take with us and what we would leave. It is something I hope I never have to do again but I did find comfort in knowing that other than my family & my photos everything else can be replaced and it's just STUFF. I just had to pray for God's comfort in reminding me that God will comfort us and provide for us no matter if our house burns to the ground or it's still standing. God is so good!

So I think we will be fine but please pray for all of those who lost their homes in this fire, I think around 70 homes destoryed. At work today we had clients call and say that their houses that were listed were GONE! Crazy! Thankfully NO lives have been lost. What a blessing. Thanks for your phone calls, emails, and prayers!

** If you want to see more pictures check out our local news website... WMBF.

The view when I was leaving work yesterday (Wednesday)...

View from close to the entrance of our neighborhood. Our house is about a 1/2 mile straight ahead...

The views last night from the bridge close to our house...

Happy 18 Months Little Man

It is SO hard to believe that my baby is 18 months old!

At this age Karoline was already in her big girl bed and had been for a month or so and I was 6 weeks away from having Anderson! To me in some ways he has grown up slower than Karoline. I am thankful for that because we are 99.9% sure he is our last baby. I say that because with birth control there is always that.1% chance! :)

Karoline and I when she was 18 months old...


Anyway, Anderson is such a wonderful little boy. He is my cuddly child for sure. He still loves to cuddle and read then rock a little before bed. He always gives the best hugs during the day, and if he would have his way he would probably be held half the day. The other half of the day he spends sorting and stacking things. He LOVES to move crayons and chalk from one container to the next, putting together puzzles, and LOVES stacking blocks or Lego's. He really enjoys playing with toys and is also a great help at cleaning up. He actually thinks cleaning up is fun. Little man also loves to be outside... he LOVES to swing!

On the other side of things he has been quite the little grump bug lately. I found out why... little man has 7 teeth coming through right now. He has not had any new teeth since a year old except one molar and now they are ALL coming in... I feel SO bad for him! At least this will pass.

Anderson is talking more and more each day. He just started saying "mommy" instead of "mama" and "I love you". I love it! And he is starting to say "Karo" for Karoline. I would say he probably has about 30-40 words/ phrases down that he uses regularly, probably more if I actually had the time to sit down and try and think of them all... He also LOVES to sing. He tries to sing all kind of songs and I am ashamed to say that "Dead and Gone" is one of his favorites. But don't worry, "How Great Is Our God" is his other favorite!

Here are some pictures of our little man...

Playing in Karoline's room... he loves to play with her kitchen stuff and especially her little green buckets...





Playing in the back yard with his chalk...

Having one of his fits...

This pretty much describes his mood these days because of the 7 teeth coming in...

Anderson's loves getting his teeth brushed at the end of the day...

Reactions To The Car Wash...

Do y'all know what a Twitpic is? If you are on twitter you probably do, but most of you are not I don't think. Anyway, these were my twitpics today but just had to share them... they are from my cell phone so excuse the quality!

HOLE IN ONE!

Thursday Tammie and I took Karoline to play mini-golf. We drive by the big pirate ship ALL the time and Karoline was SO excited to get to go ON the pirate ship. She lasted about 9 holes and then didn't want to play... Here is the amazing thing though... She scored a hole in one!

On the last hole she was messing around and I was trying to put my ball down and play. Karoline stepped in front of me, spun around, hit my ball with her club while spinning and got a HOLE IN ONE! We were so proud of her!!





Karoline did NOT like the pirates cave... DID NOT!

I Found...

... Anderson's stash of socks!! I have wondered where they were... I should have known. (cell phone pic- sorry)

Busy- Visitors- Boxes

This past week was SO BUSY, we had VISITORS in town and unpacked BOXES all week! I'm tired! Between work, Tammie visiting from California, my mom's friend Debbie visiting from Texas, and helping mom unpack, sick kids, etc. I am exhausted! But it's been a FUN week! Lots of pictures below...

Besides my parents we really are enjoying Prissy being around. She is so cute and cuddly! Buster likes her a lot but she hides from him under the table...



My friend Amanda called me and told me I was famous. I had no idea what she was talking about but she said I was in the paper. With this and Wellspring on the news it's been a media filled week for us...

The kids are SO happy to have a swing set again. We have yet to find a park here with swings!!!... isn't that strange!? Thanks to the grandparents TJ got to put together another swing set making it two in almost one years time. We got this one at Walmart... they have GREAT prices if you are in the market (this past week some other friends and my niece Ella got one from Walmart too and they both love what they got). We sold the other one in California to our sweet friends and when Karoline would ask about it we tell her that Shasta is playing on it now. Well after we put this together Karoline told me that this one was NOT allowed to be taken away. I promised her it would not :) She is swinging like a big girl now... and we swing all day long some days! So on this beautiful day Tammie and I played with the kids outside...





If he is not wanting to swing he wants to play with the sidewalk chalk. He could spend hours taking the chalk in and out of the bucket! It's so funny...


GiGi said that just because my parents live here now I cannot stop blogging :) I won't... PROMISE (you know me- picture crazy girl here!)

Also, putt-putt pictures are coming soon. They are on my other camera so I'll upload them tomorrow...

Wellspring Made The News...

Trey was interviewed today about how we got BUSTED on Easter Sunday... Check it out!

The video is kind of cut off b/c my format is not correct so if you want click HERE...