Buying Kids Clothes- Clearance Edition

Hello!  I am pretty darn excited to talk about today's post because it involves one of my most favorite things.  Shopping!  So fun right?  Well most of the time.  But when it comes to kids clothes it can sometimes be a slight pain to have to buy new clothes every few months since they grow so fast.  Thankfully (we have been really blessed to find great deals) for the past two years when my kids have out grown their clothes all I had to do was go into the basement and grab the next size box and we were good to go. 

Our little cowgirl with a bag full of clothes behind her.

I had started collecting clothes from the day that I found out that Adalyn was a girl and those clothes have carried us through.  I also have collected clothes for Jensen since we found out he was a boy.  But now...Jensen has enough clothes to last him for another size, but Adalyn has nothing in her "next size up box".  As a planner, this lack of clothing for the next size was starting to make me nervous. 

In the past we have bought/recieved children's clothes from multiple different places, the majority being garage sales.  But we also got them from...

 -thrift stores
-Once Upon a Child (used kids clothes place here in our city)
-Grandmas
-Gifts
-Clearance
-I even bought some in bulk from McKay's coworker and a ward member. 
-A few hand-me-downs (got to love cousins)

I had assumed that we would do lots of Garage Sales this summer and restock our supply, but we haven't been as dedicated to the garage sale scene this year and children's clothes seem to be scarce when we do go.  So a started to come up a new plan. 

I don't need them to have tons of clothes.  We are trying to dejunk our house right now and the last thing they need is TONS of clothes, but they DO need the essentials.  I also wanted whatever plan that I came up with to be long term.  I used to shop a lot for fun, but these days it is very low on my priority list since it isn't so "fun" with two babies in tow.  I wanted it to become a no brainer thing that was just a part of our schedule.  So here here is the "operation outfit the children" plan that I came up with....

1. Shop for kids clothes twice a year- I will shop in July and March/April (not sure which month yet.   I will just have to watch for the sales this coming year).  In July I will shop for summer clothes for the next year and in March I will shop for winter clothes for the following year.  I will do the bulk of the shopping online in the clearance sections of stores like Target, Old Navy, Kohls, ShopKo, Walmart, Children's Place (their clearance is the bomb!).  These stores always have great clearance sales at the end of the season when they are getting ready to put out the new winter/summer clothes.  As long as I get free shipping I think shopping online is better than shopping in stores because they have a wider selection and different sizes. 

2. How many clothes do they need?- I sat down and came up with a list for what they need each season.  The list isn't fancy it is just a couple pages in my notebook.  (My notebook I use for everything from grocery lists to decorating ideas.  Someday maybe I will update it to be electronic but for now it works.)  For example I decided that each child NEEDED about 10 shirts and 5 pants/shorts for next summer.  So under each of their names I wrote out "shirt" 10 times and "pants" 10 times.  I wrote "dress" a few times under Adalyn's name for church and "pants/shirt" under Jensen's name for his church clothes.  They each need 3 pairs of shoes for next summer- church, tennis, and sandals.  So I wrote those out by their names too.  I have no idea what size Jensen will be wearing next summer so I will not be buying him shoes until later.  The last items on their summer lists are 1 swimsuit, a light jacket, 3-4 pairs of PJ's and socks.  With my list in hand, I checked through the things we already had.  I crossed out those items on my list to remind me not to buy those things.

3.Cost-  I will share with you the budget that I created for kids clothes.  It has worked well for us this first time and  hopefully will continue to work in the future.  Obviously everyone is different so this probably would not be the same for you.  I am not great at finding the best deals out there and rather than stress myself out I just adjusted our budget.  For our kids clothing budget we set aside $45 each month.  Then when March or July roll around I pull out the money to buy the clothes.  That gives us about $270 for clothing/shoes for both kids each season. 

4. Try it out-  I tried it out this past week, did some summer clearance shopping things, AND things went really well!  I was able to find a lot of great basic clothes at good prices and it didn't take months and months of running around to garage sales.  The shirts I bought were about $2-$5 and pants were never more than $10 each (usually were about $7, even church clothes).  Shoes were around $5 each too.  With a few nights of online shopping and 1 trip to Kohls and Walmart the kids are about set with just a couple more things on each of their lists.  

Hopefully I guessed the right size for each of them otherwise we are in trouble! :)

I definitely had fun buying new stuff and was really excited to stock the next box with new clothes.

We will still try to go to garage sales, welcome hand-me-downs, and buy used clothes when we see them because in the end I think those ways are the cheapest ways to clothe your children, but clearance shopping is definitely working out as our last resort.  And new clothes are always fun :)

 

So any suggestions? 
Is my plan going to work?  Only time will tell?
Any great Clearance shoppers out there?
Libby, we need a Savers in Idaho.  :)

Have a good day!      

Chicago Vacation 2013

So happy to be able to write that title!  McKay, Jensen and I just got back from a very fun trip to Chicago.  We left Adalyn at Grandma's house in SLC, and I will talk about her fun there in another post. 

We really aren't traveling kind of people, we are mostly just content to stay close to home (as in within driving distance) but I have always had this desire to see Chicago.  After all it is tons of movies, one of the biggest cities in the U.S., and another bonus for this trip was that we have family in Chicago to visit.  So when McKay told me that he would be heading there for work this June (so work would be paying for EVERYTHING for him) it was too good of an opportunity for me to pass up.  Of course I am still nursing Jensen full time and since he is only 6 months (didn't want him to be done yet) he got to come too.  But honestly I NEVER want to have to take a toddler on a plane so Adalyn was not welcome to come too.  But don't worry she had lots of fun still. :)

The plan for McKay was to leave Sunday June 24th from SLC to be there for work (His company needed him to do an audit on a company out there for a project they are working on) on Monday.  Unfortunately his flight got canceled and he ended up not leaving until Monday morning, so he missed the first full day of the Audit, but it seemed to have turned out ok.

I just hung out at my parents house for a few days (Sunday until Wednesday) and then met up with him Wednesday evening in Chicago.  My first flight with a baby was not that great.  Nothing went wrong per say, but I was just so darn nervous that I think I made it worse for myself.  Nursing Jensen in a busy airport and on a small plane was terrible.  He is so wiggly and hates the nursing cover over him so it was crazy trying to keep myself covered up.  :P  I think I tried to feed him like 3 times before he was actually able to fully eat.  Can you say stressed out mama?!  The second time around (meaning on the way home) I decided to just go in the family restroom at the airport (they really should have nursing rooms), lock the door, and nurse him standing up (gross germs right?  you do what you have to).  That worked tons better because I was able to just relax and actually get some milk out :)  He also is the type of kid that does not love being held all the time so he was SO done being in my arms by the time our 3 hour flight was over and fell asleep fast in his car seat on the way to the hotel.  In the end we survived and got to Chicago safely. 

Now I am going to break our adventures up by days just to keep things in order. 

Thursday:

Thursday may have been one of my favorite days.  Why?  Because I didn't HAVE to do anything.  I got up with McKay in the morning and ate breakfast with him (I didn't even half to cook it) and then sent him off to work.  Then Jensen and I slept on and off until 2 pm.  Crazy nice right?!  Loved it!  We then watched a little TV, did a little shopping, and then went out to dinner with McKay and his work buddies.  After dinner McKay and I headed out on our own to drive around town.  We were a ways from the actual city at this point so we didn't do anything too big.  In the end we found this cute little part of town that had benches decorated with characters from different movies and nursery rhymes.  Here are a few pictures...

 

After our little scenic walk we went to Culvers because I had heard on a blog that they had good frozen custard (we had never been there before).  OH BOY I am an ice cream lover so I was in heaven!  It was SO delicious.  We loved it so much that we made sure to go to one again on the last night we were there.  So wish that we had a Culvers in Idaho...  If you have one near you, go and get a Turtle sundae.  You can thank me later.  :)

 

Friday:

McKay had his last day of work so I spent the morning packing us up to leave the hotel then I went and met up with him at a Chicago pizza buffet for lunch.  I definitely got lost on the way to the restaurant, but thanks to the GPS I finally made it there to meet him.  The pizza was yummy and I am glad that we got to have a Chicago deep dish pizza while in Chicago.  I also got to try my first hush puppy, another delicious creation.  :)

 

That afternoon we drove to my cousins, Brian and Holly's house.  They live north of Chicago so we got to drive through the city on our way there.  Unfortunately we only got to spend Friday evening WITH them because they were leaving Saturday for Connecticut for a family reunion.  But they were very kind and let us stay at their house while they were gone.  Staying at their house was MUCH nicer then staying in a hotel.  They have twin boys that are Adalyn's age so they already had all of the baby gear/stuff that we needed for Jensen.  Also Jensen was able to sleep in his own room for his naps so that we didn't have to be super quiet while he slept.  Thank you Thank you Brian and Holly for letting us stay at your house!  They were so kind to us and holly can make some delicious pizza!  Since Friday night was the only time we would see them we had a fun little party.  McKay's cousin Jennie also lives in Chicago with her husband and two little girls.  They used to be in Brian and Holly's ward so Holly was kind and invited them over Friday night too so that we could all get together.  Talk about a small world!  It was such a fun night chatting and catching up with each other's lives.  I was a little sad that Adalyn couldn't be there that night because she would have loved playing with all of the kids.  Here are all of the "cousins"

 

From left to right- Clare, Emily (holding Jensen), Carter, Owen

Don't mind that they are all half dressed, it was late

 

 

Here is McKay with his cousin Jennie.  We think she is a pretty amazing woman so we were really excited to be able to spend some time with her and her girls.  Her husband had to work so he wasn't able to come. 

 

The girls (and Brian and Holly's baby boy #3)

 

 

 

Saturday:

 

 Holly made us a yummy breakfast (we were spoiled), and then we headed out for the city.  Our first stop was Millennium Park and Michigan Ave.  We walked around Millennium Park for a while and looked at the fountains and made sure to get our picture with "the Bean"  or I think it is called the cloud. 

 

 

Can you see us in that last picture?

 

After the park we window shopped through Michigan Ave and stopped at a little soup/sandwich place for lunch.  We wished we would have had time for the museums but we had tickets for a White Sox game that afternoon that we had to get to.  So we loaded up after lunch and headed to the south side of Chicago for the game.  Definitely different feel to the south side than the north side, but everything went great and we loved the game.  Jensen even got a soft baseball to remember his first major leagues baseball game by.  The White Sox played the Cleavland Indians that night, but we aren't sure who ended up winning because we had to leave in the 8th inning because Jensen was done.  They were tied when we left so it could have gone either way. 

 

Also, I must also take just a moment and say the weather while we were in Chicago was perfect.  While the west was having a major heat wave we were enjoying lovely weather in Chicago.  Not too hot with a small breeze most of the time.  The night of the game I wished that I had packed a jacket, but in the end it wasn't super cold so I was fine.  Seriously it was SO nice each day as we went sight seeing.  I feel like the weather can sometimes make or break a trip and this weather definitely made this trip.  :)

 

 

Saturday night after the game we just watched a movie and relaxed at the house so that Jensen could get a good night's sleep. 

 

Sunday:

 

While visiting with Jennie on Friday night she invited us to her house on Sunday for church and dinner.  It happened to also be her birthday so it was super nice that she let us crash their Birthday party and she even made US dinner.  Thank you Jennie and Devin we had a ton of fun!  Their daughter Emily is SO funny and cute and Clare is so sweet.  It was their first week at their new ward in church so I am sure people were confused about who was who and if we were just visiting or staying. 

Jennie and I follow each others blogs and we both write fairly often so we felt like we already knew each other pretty well so it was fun to talk more in person.  This was only my 4th time visiting with her and my first time meeting Devin but we all clicked right away and had fun talking about Pace family memories and our lives. (sorry I didn't grab any pictures on Sunday)

 

 

Monday:

 

Our last full day in Chicago :(  We started out our day by heading to the Hancock Observatory for some lunch.  This is dorky but on our way there we saw the American Girl Doll store (and the millions of little girls in there with their parents) and I forced McKay to go in there with me.  I loved playing with the American girl dolls as a kid.  My friend Courtney had almost all of the historical dolls (Molly, Samantha, Kit, etc.) and I love their books and magazines.  So fun to watch the excitement in the little girls eyes and they shopped around and took their doll to the doll beauty palor (yes there was a doll beauty Parlor).  I was SO close to breaking down and buy a look-a-like doll for Adalyn.  But in the end I talked myself out of it since she is still so little and really loves any doll (doesn't have to cost $100+) .  Maybe in the future... 

Once we finally made it to the Observatory we rode up in an elevator to the 96th floor and enjoyed a lovely lunch with fantastic views of the city. 

 

The restaurant was a fun way to relax and enjoy the city.  Yes I was a little nervous to be up that high, reminded me of when we climbed to the top of the Statue of Liberty.   

 

After lunch we headed to Navy Pier to see what all of the fun was about.  :)  On our way we ran into a small beach area for lake Michigan so we stopped and enjoyed the view.  McKay had wanted to walk along the shore the whole trip so I was glad that he got his chance.  Jensen slept the whole time on the beach so it was relaxing for us.

 

 

Once we got over to Navy pier we were pretty tired and we knew that we still wanted to go to the Lincoln Park Zoo (we parked by the zoo) so we only walked around for a little while and didn't end up riding any of the rides.  We both get motion sickness so it didn't sound appealing to either of us.  

 

It was still worth the trip over to the pier to see Lake Michigan up close and personal.  We even took the scenic route back to the zoo so that we could enjoy it more.  There were tons of people out biking and running on the path.  Seriously a runners dream.  I kept wishing that I had brought my running clothes. :)  But alas I hadn't and had just stuffed my face with a steak sandwich so we stuck to walking. 

 

Our last tourist stop was the zoo.  It is a free zoo that they have there and so that fact alone made it awesome.  The animals were pretty tired by the time we showed up so we just saw a few.  My favorites were the apes.  There were darling baby apes that were SO interested in all of the people so they kept looking at you with these big curious eyes.  Melt.my.heart.

 

Here is McKay at the entrance posing :) 

 

 Mama Ape hanging out by the babies through the wall...

 

That night we headed back to the house and ate more custard.  mmmm...

 

Tuesday:

 

Big travel day.  We started out not flying on the same flight, but ended up being together in the end (yay!).  The flight home went perfectly and I even got to start my book on the plane since McKay was there to help wrestle Jensen.

 

Once we landed in SLC we got to see Adalyn again.  She was really excited to see us as was I to see her.  She learned a million new words while we were gone and grew up tons (longest we had been apart) and I was happy to spend my days with her again.  Thank you thank you mom for watching her!  We ate dinner at my parents house and then headed home to Idaho.  LONG day, but we were happy to be in our own beds for a night or two.  (we headed to Island Park two days later). 

 So grateful that we got the chance to visit Chicago.  Never could be a big city girl though.  After we got home we realized just how small town Idaho is, but we are happy to be here.  :)  Well, bonus points if you read that whole thing!  Hope you are all having a great summer!  Good night! 

Mexican Twice Baked Sweet Potatoes

Hello there!  Been awhile.  We had a crazy busy June and I am just starting to get caught back up on blogging.  Currently I am in the middle of writing a lengthy post all about our fun trip to Chicago for our private family blog (email me if you want an invite) but today I felt like taking a break from that post and writing something a little simpler and shorter.   

Recently I made a few meals for my family when we were visiting Salt Lake and they loved them so I thought I would share one of them with you today. 

I made this at their house because they have air conditioning and this recipe involves leaving on the oven for a few hours.   Currently we are in crock pot or raw food mode since the oven is not allowed to be on if the house is over 73 degrees.  lol ok so maybe I just made up that rule... but really we try to not turn the oven on at all these days. 

The recipe is Twice baked Sweet Potatoes Yummy!

We LOVE sweet potatoes at our house and they are SO good for you.  Even though we live in Idaho (potato central) we have almost given up on regular potatoes in exchange for sweet potatoes.  Here are a few facts about why we choose sweet potatoes. We most commonly just bake them in the oven and then put cinnamon and butter on top and use them as a side dish, but this recipe gives a little kick of spicy and sweet that is delicious! 

Ok one last thing before we get started...  Before last year I had never bought a raw sweet potato (had only seem them in cans with little marshmallows on top hehe!) so I was a little clueless when I headed to the store for the first time to buy one.  After a little trial and error I have found that instead of buying an actual sweet potato, which is lighter in color then the "sweet potatoes" that I am used to, I buy a JEWEL YAM.  It has the darker orange color and tastes really good.
  
I saw a few different recipes for twice baked sweet potatoes so I decided to just kind of combine the things that I liked from each of the recipes into one.  This meal IS a little spicy so if you have kids (Adalyn really likes it) I would leave to pepper jack cheese off of their potato and they should be good to go. 

Twice Baked Sweet Potatoes

(Adapted from this recipe.  you can see a picture of what they look like there too.)  

 

Ingredients:

4 Sweet Potatoes (I buy Jewel yams)

1 cup Frozen corn

1 can Black Beans

1/4-1/2 yellow onion chopped

olive oil

1/2 tsp Red pepper flakes

1/4 cup full fat greek yogurt

1 ounce cream cheese

3/4ish cup Pepper Jack Cheese (to sprinkle on top)

 

Directions:

Cook your sweet potato in the oven or maybe you could do the crock pot (haven't tried it yet).  I bake mine at 350 degrees for about 1 hour, sometimes longer depending on the size of the potato.  After they are done, let them cool for a few minutes.

-While sweet potatoes cook roast corn with some salt on stove. let corn roast for about 10 minutes and then add diced onions and 1 TBSP Olive oil to the pan.  Sauté onions until they turn translucent.  Place onions, corn, and black beans in a bowl. 

-Carefully slice cooled sweet potato horizontally and scrap out flesh into bowl with black beans, roasted corn and sautéed onions.   (save the skins for later!)

-Add Cream cheese, greek yogurt, and red pepper flakes to potato/corn mixture and stir gently. 

-Once everything is mixed together.  Carefully scoop the mixture back into the skins.  Filling each one. 

-Top each potato with Pepper Jack cheese. 

-Put potatoes back in the over for about 10 minutes or until cheese is fully melted. 

-Enjoy!  

 

Hope you like it!  And since no post is ever complete without a picture.  Here are the kiddos in their 4th of July cuteness!  Look for more posts, hopefully I will update stuff soon!  Have a great day!

 

 

   

Great Example

I love to blog.  I like sharing my life with others and in turn reading about other people's lives.  I feel uplifted and encouraged by sharing my struggles and victories with others, so thank you for reading my blog :) 

With that being said I don't really feel like I am a great writer/blogger.  There are lots of things that I could do better... like take better pictures.  I often think of a blog topic in my head, maybe even write a few things down about it, but then never really post it because I can't quite come up with the words to explain myself correctly. 

Awhile ago I opened up about my struggles with my post baby weight and then utimately my successes with losing that weight after having my second child.  I STRUGGLED for days with that post about what I should say, how I should word it, and questioned if I was truely explaining myself correctly.  It was pretty draining since I was so emotionally attached to the topic.  By the time I finally published the post I was fairly happy with what I had come up. 

But almost a year later after writing that post I have learned SO much more.  I feel like a completely different person than I was when I started researching food and health.  I am learning new things everyday and sometimes I am amazed that I used to put so little thought into what I was feeding my body.  The food we eat affects EVERYTHING.  It affects how we feel emotionally, physically, mentally, and spiritually.  I truely believe this statement...

source

 

When I am eating healthy and nourishing foods I feel great.  This may sound weird but I have not felt this mentally healthy in a long time (McKay sure loves this part.  I have been much less emotional and hormonal this past year, even while I was pregnant) .  My body is in balence and I am able to deal with life's daily stresses.  Such a good feeling. 

 

Ofcourse I have wanted to share all of the little things that I have been learning with all of you (lucky you right?  ok please stop rolling your eyes...) But my lack of talent and abilty to clearly write my thoughts down has stopped me.  Fortunetly tonight I ran across this lovely blog post by a woman who has a very similar story to mine (although she is farther down the "real" food trail than I am) and so I thought would pass her story along to you. 

 

-Her idea of the 80/20 rule (read it to find out what I am talking about) is exactly what we do at our house.  

-Listening to YOUR body is the key to finding out what YOU need.

-NO counting calories.  Ok I have a secret to tell you all.  I don't even know how to count calories.  Never done...never will.  Calories are not the important part.

-Butter is good, healthy, and nessessary in our diets.  eat it.

-Don't cut a food group out.  They are all good in a well balenced diet.

 

These are a few tidbits that she discovered/shared and that I completely agree with. 

 

 

I hope you all enjoy reading her story.  Food is a very complicated topic, honestly don't know if I will ever comepletely understand just how much it can/does affect us.  But I have really enjoyed reading and learning more about it, but still quite often get overwhelmed by all of the different information out there about what is best for us.  When I do get overwhelmed I just have to remind myself to not get in over my head and just take it one step at a time.  So grateful for all of the great examples that I have to help me along in this process.  Love learning from others and so happy that this blogger has shared her experience. 

 

Hope you are all having a great summer!