I am starting to wonder when we decided that our kids need everything and anything they want. It is starting younger and younger that people think kids need the right clothes, the right games, the right vehicle to ride in, and the right house. I suppose every parent is trying to "keep up with the Jones". But I hate to break it to the "Jones" but I don't want to keep up with you!!! The Jones are the people who have to work 80 hours a week to pay for grocery's and the Jones are the ones that are getting phone calls at work to pay their bills, and the Jone's are the ones that have their house up for sale because other wise the bank is going to foreclose on their house.....That's just not me, I don't want to be the Jones.

I think a lot of times its the parents trying to keep up with other parents, and the kids don't even know whats going on. For example: Today Teagan has on a shirt that I got for a quarter and a pair of jeans I got for a dollar at a garage sale, and I have to say she still looks pretty darn cute and she is pretty happy. However she didn't take a nap today for me at all, so maybe she is upset about her outfit for $1.25 :) Now I am fully aware that when she gets in to school and there are other kids wearing brand new name brand clothes she might want the Gap jeans and the Nike shoes brand new but until then garage sale finds are GREAT!! Plus when she gets older she may have to learn the lesson money doesn't grow on trees and its ok to wear hand me down jeans :)

Ok so where is this blog going?? When we bought our house we were fully aware that we needed to remodel the upstairs and that we wanted to have the girls have their bedrooms up there. We have had a couple contractors come in to give us a bid and they have some good ideas. No bids yet but a few of them think we are crazy to think we can remodel the upstairs on our budget. When we start to talking to a few of them they want to change the whole lay out, each bedroom needs a large closet, and the bathroom needs to be in a good location, and they need more head room. (There are slants in the ceilings).

Whoa Whoa Whoa.....now for those of you that have been to my parents house my room consisted of a small closet a dresser and a twin size bed with little floor space and some crazy paint on the walls :) and for the most part I was pretty happy. And before that house I had to share yes SHARE a room with my sister!! (That's just crazy huh??!)

I also remember the stories my mom used to say about living in the old farm house, they would close the upstairs for the winter and sleep downstairs and I know there were a lot of families that did that "back then" (or maybe they just say that like how they used to have to walk to school 10 miles uphill both ways in the snow). So we live in an old farm house with poor insulation and maybe in the winter the girls might have to sleep in the living room, you make it work if that's all you can afford. I probably wont be making them walk the 3 miles to Parkersburg to go to school though so they should feel lucky :)

Yes I want our kids to have great memories of growing up and I hope they know how much they are loved, But I would much rather work less and spend as much time with them as possible than to have the fancy car and the fancy house with the fancy clothes. Being together is all we NEED!! I hope they realize that growing up but if not they will some day when they are 25 and have kids of their own.

Thanks Mom and Dad I know we had to ride in that embarrassing station wagon but I have some great memories of riding in the station wagon to go get a Christmas tree and spending time with my family!!

The contractor today said it was his job to show me the Cadillac of the remodel (The dream) and then we can go from there. I thought in my head: "Sir, you can show me the Cadillac, but do you see these two kids running around me screaming and wanting to be held?? We just need the cheap station wagon that gets us from A to B."