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Storybook Advent Calendar

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The Story Book Advent Calendar Idea has been floating around Facebook for a while now. I am just finally giving it a try myself. I know HOW could I JUST be hopping onto this trend when we love books as much as we do… Time, Patience… Will to wrap storybook after storybook is most likely the reason. The kids loved the BookRoo unwrapping so much I could not resist.

What is in our storybook advent calendar?

We used mostly books we already had in the house because that was the easiest for me to pull off this year.


Winter Days in the Big Woods My First Little House Books


Christmas in the Big Woods Little House Picture Book


Winter on the Farm Little House Picture Book

The Snowman Finger Puppet Book


How to Catch an Elf


The Littlest Christmas Tree


Bear Stays Up for Christmas The Bear Books


The Christmas Wish


Christmas in the Manger


Merry Christmas, Curious George with stickers


The Itsy Bitsy Snowman


Corduroys Christmas Surprise


Little Blue Trucks Christmas


Polar Express 30th anniversary edition


How the Grinch Stole Christmas! Classic Seuss


Llama Llama Jingle Bells


Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer Little Golden Book


Disney Baby My First Christmas Disney Touch and Feel


Animals in Winter Lets-Read-and-Find-Out Science


The Mitten


The Shortest Day: Celebrating the Winter Solstice


Walking in a Winter Wonderland


Touch and Feel Winter Scholastic Early Learners: First Steps


The Story of Snow: The Science of Winters Wonder


Ten on the Sled

What the kids think

Today is day one and they love it. They unwrapped Winter Days in the Big Woods. This selection was a great recommendation from Mother Good Time last year. The three youngest girls love this story. They pretend they are the girls in the story. The kids are excited to see what books we wrapped up and explore a new one each day leading to Christmas.

Winter and Christmas boook advent calender

How I will do the storybook advent calendar for next year.

I will wrap the Christmas ones again after Christmas for next year and the winter ones when they get bored with them so all I have to do is pull the box out on December 1st. I plan to swap a few books out for next year and grab the Polar Express DVD to wrap with the book as an extra surprise.

Our Storybook Advent book choices.

Christmas Money Saving Tips

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When you have a large family you really have to look for ways to make things more affordable. Christmas can get expensive but I have learned a few Christmas money-saving tips that help me get the most for our budget. You don’t need to have a large family to benefit from these simple tips to save money on Christmas.

Start shopping early. We started very early this year. Started filling an amazon box int he closet with goodies in July when we found sales. This let me take advantage of clearance, sales, and Amazon coupon codes to help build a nice stock of Christmas gifts for a fraction fo the price and spread the overall cost of those gifts out over a 5-6 month period. Even if you haven’t started yet you can dive in now and make the most of the deals left before the sales die out for the year.

Take advantage of stores clearance sections. This is a great way to save money on everything from clothes to toys and even pantry goods for your stockpile. I love shopping clearance year-round for my family and often check the instore clearance sections. One thing I have learned is to also check online clearance sales and take advantage of free shipping to get the most for my money.

Choose a truly meaningful gift in place of multiple gifts. Many families see the number of gifts as important but most people would rather have one thing then really wanted than a dozen things they were not interested in.

Make gifts yourself. It is easy to make something that your loved ones will love. Use your crafting skills to make a memorable keepsake that will be treasured for a lifetime.

Give useful gifts and keep them limited. Rather than going crazy for your kids, choose something fun and fill in gaps with things your child needs like clothes, shoes, and books. Remember that gifts can be practical and still be a great gift.

Make the most of stocking stuffers. Frugal stocking stuffers can be both fun and useful. During the back to school sales stock up on extra school supplies, add things your child loses and always needs more of like hair ties, and take advantage of some of these frugal stocking stuffer ideas.

Save on more than gifts

Chrismas money saving tips you don't want to miss

Look for ways to earn a little extra money. The holidays can be expensive but if you are crafty, have a skill others do not or are willing to do manual labor most people do not want to you can usually find some ways to make a little extra money on the side. Using rewards sites like Swagbucks is a great way to earn gift cards and payments to PayPal for online shopping is a great way to save money on Christmas.

Turn on the charm and have fun with Christmas decorations. You do not need to invest a lot to have something special for your family to enjoy decking the halls. These tricks to save on Christmas decorations will help you get started and have fun with holiday decorations without breaking the bank.

Don’t spend more than you need to on dinner. Holiday dinners can be a big drain on your Christmas budget. With a little work and planning, you can cut this expense a lot allowing you room in your budget for other things.

  • Shop for ingredients in the weeks before the holiday to take advantage of all of the sales.
  • Ask guests to bring a dish or drinks
  • Make things for the meal from scratch.

Simple Tips For Your Holiday Budget

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As a busy mom of 5, I know the stress of the holiday both on the mind and the wallet. They come right in time for cold weather new, clothes, and higher utility bills. With gifts, food and family gatherings to budget, the holidays can be a strain. By planning ahead and sticking to my budget I am able to make the holidays a great time without stressing over how I can afford it. This year I challenge you to step away from the cycle of debt and walk away from the holidays feeling good about your spending.

Creating a holiday budget

The best way to walk out of the holidays without debt is to set a strict budget and stick to it. Take a look at your family budget in the months leading up to the holidays. Set as much as you can to the side each month to hunt the sales. Stick to this budget and don’t let yourself break it no matter how tempted you are. The holidays are not just about the gifts they are about enjoying family. Something you can’t do if you are busy worrying about what you will do about your bills because you overspent.

Take a portion of your food budget and set it aside for your holiday meals. Grab ingredients you need for hot sales as they come out rather than rush and pay full price right before your big holiday dinner. If the budget is low change the menu because it is about who gathers around the table not the menu on the table.

Don’t shuffle your bills to give yourself a buffer for holiday spending. This leaves you with extra stress when the holidays are over and you are attempting to pay the bills on reduced pay from the holidays you had off of work.

Do NOT take your holiday spending budget from your emergency savings. It is never a good idea to spend money that you have saved for emergencies. We all know Murphy’s law loves to hit around the holidays. If you do not have an emergency budget get one now. You will be glad you did.

Keep notes on your budget. Write things down so you don’t slip up by forgetting your planned budget. Nothing throws off good intentions like forgetting you had them in the first place.

How to stick to your holiday budget

Sometimes the hardest part is not finding room for the holidays in your budget but sticking to it once you have found the room you have to spare. The good news is you CAN save money and get everything on your list while sticking to the budget.

Snag items you need when they go on sale. The less you spend on each item the more money you have for other needs.

Look for clearance on items you have on your list. I love clearance because it offers the biggest discounts. Check out these links below that same time on finding deals.

Take advantage of coupons to save money and make more room for your holiday budget. Don’t forget to take advantage of apps that pay you to grocery shop like Ibotta.

Set your budget and save money for the perfect holiday without breaking the bank.

Make homemade gifts for friends and family using what you have around the house. A thoughtful homemade gift means so much more than spending large amounts of money.

Upcycle wrapping paper. The shipping paper from shipped packages makes a great minimalist wrapping paper. Kids love the funnies section of the newspaper for wrapping.

Watch deal groups like our Black Friday Bloggers on Facebook for sales, coupons, and freebies as well as the best holiday funding tips you will find.

Keep your heart in the right place. While we live in a very materialistic society that does not mean you have to let go of the meaning of the holidays just to please others. Focus on what the holidays are all about and don’t worry about if the gifts you picked from your heart are valuable enough.

As a busy mom of 5, I know the stress of the holiday both on the mind and the wallet. They come right in time for cold weather new, clothes, and higher utility bills. With gifts, food and family gatherings to budget, the holidays can be a strain. By planning ahead and sticking to my budget I am able to make the holidays a great time without stressing over how I can afford it. This year I challenge you to step away from the cycle of debt and walk away from the holidays feeling good about your spending.

Set your budget and save money for the perfect holiday without breaking the bank.

Creating a holiday budget

The best way to walk out of the holidays without debt is to set a strict budget and stick to it. Take a look at your family budget in the months leading up to the holidays. Set as much as you can to the side each month to hunt the sales. Stick to this budget and don’t let yourself break it no matter how tempted you are. The holidays are not just about the gifts they are about enjoying family. Something you can’t do if you are busy worrying about what you will do about your bills because you overspent.

Take a portion of your food budget and set it aside for your holiday meals. Grab ingredients you need for hot sales as they come out rather than rush and pay full price right before your big holiday dinner. If the budget is low change the menu because it is about who gathers around the table not the menu on the table.

Don’t shuffle your bills to give yourself a buffer for holiday spending. This leaves you with extra stress when the holidays are over and you are attempting to pay the bills on reduced pay from the holidays you had off of work.

Do NOT take your holiday spending budget from your emergency savings. It is never a good idea to spend money that you have saved for emergencies. We all know Murphy’s law loves to hit around the holidays. If you do not have an emergency budget get one now. You will be glad you did.

Keep notes on your budget. Write things down so you don’t slip up by forgetting your planned budget. Nothing throws off good intentions like forgetting you had them in the first place.

How to stick to your holiday budget

Sometimes the hardest part is not finding room for the holidays in your budget but sticking to it once you have found the room you have to spare. The good news is you CAN save money and get everything on your list while sticking to the budget.

Snag items you need when they go on sale. The less you spend on each item the more money you have for other needs.

Look for clearance on items you have on your list. I love clearance because it offers the biggest discounts. Check out these links below that same time on finding deals.

Take advantage of coupons to save money and make more room for your holiday budget. Don’t forget to take advantage of apps that pay you to grocery shop like Ibotta.

Make homemade gifts for friends and family using what you have around the house. A thoughtful homemade gift means so much more than spending large amounts of money.

Upcycle wrapping paper. The shipping paper from shipped packages makes a great minimalist wrapping paper. Kids love the funnies section of the newspaper for wrapping.

Watch deal groups like our Black Friday Bloggers on Facebook for sales, coupons, and freebies as well as the best holiday funding tips you will find.

Keep your heart in the right place. While we live in a very materialistic society that does not mean you have to let go of the meaning of the holidays just to please others. Focus on what the holidays are all about and don’t worry about if the gifts you picked from your heart are valuable enough.

Ultimate Easter Egg Filler List

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This week’s installment of Super Mom Tricks: Be the coolest mom ever for Easter. It is that time again where we find ourselves fighting to find items to fill all of those little plastic eggs without hyping them up with a sugar overload. Goodness knows they have plenty of other holidays for candy. I set out to get creative and come up with a lot of ideas for the Easter Eggs this year. Here are some cool things I found to fill Easter eggs.

Mini figurines fill Easter eggs

Mini everything is popular right now. Just look at the popularity of Shopkins! While Shopkins make a great filler for Easter eggs I will never understand the obsession with miniature everyday items but somehow little girls can’t get enough.

Minecraft mini figures and elements are a great filler for Minecraft fans Easter eggs. The Minecraft Periodic Table of Elements is a great filler with 27 pieces. This with a few mini figurines and the Minecraft Stop-motion Studio in your child’s Easter basket will make you the coolest mom around.

As usual LEGO mini figurines can not be over looked to fill Easter eggs. You can save money by getting a bulk set of off brand mini-figs in bulk to fill your eggs on a budget.

Be the coolest mom ever and fill 72 eggs with Pokemon mini figurines for under $12!

Find mini EVERYTHING with Safari LTD TOOBS!

The mini fig fun does not stop there check out these fun options:

Other toys that make good Easter egg fillers

So many toys fit into Easter eggs that the possibilities are nearly endless.

Food free easter eggs fillers to make you the coolest mom on the block

Every day items as Easter egg fillers

Easter eggs are great for filling with everyday items your kids love and even need:

School supplies to stuff Easter eggs

50+ Christmas Traditions for Kids

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I love that we can make our own Christmas traditions with the kids. Neither of us really grew up with family traditions let alone ones we want to pass on to our children. Seeing we don’t do Santa that really leaves us with nothing we can pass on to our kids from our childhood. Instead of being sad we decided to embrace it. We decided to make our own Christmas traditions and to experiment a little to see what works best for our family. We have tried these fun Christmas traditions for kids.

Our favorite Christmas Traditions for Kids

1. My favorite Christmas tradition to do with the kids is a Book Advent Calendar. Out of everything we have tried I really feel like this one is going to stick around. The kids never got bored with the excitement of picking a mystery story book to read every night. We would add fun activities to go with some of the books like The Mitten to add a twist to the calendar. They never knew if it would just be a book or if the book would have instructions for another activity in it.

2. I love to bake. This time of year making helps me keep the house warm while making treats for our family. As a little girl I had some not so fond memories of being forced to bake Christmas cookies with my mom. So I don’t force it on my kids. We just do out thing and instead of decorating sugar cookies we opt to do things like fresh chocolate chip and snickerdoodle cookies. It may not be traditional but it works for our family. This is a special opportunity to bond with my kids one at a time over the holidays.

3. The long cold winter nights are perfect for using the holidays to cheer things up a bit. Christmas Eve or one of the nights leading up to it is a great time to break the monotony a bit. This is the perfect time to pull out a small gift for everyone. I like to let them each pick a gift from the pile on the winter solstice so they have something to keep them busy on the longest night of the year.

4. Volunteer as a family to serve a holiday meal to others. When we lived on a military base our whole family kids and all would go volunteer at the USO to serve dinner to the soldiers that had no family to spend the holiday with. While the kids where too young to be certified to serve the meals I would have them help me with clean up or leading and unloading while my husband would help serve.

Great kid friendly Christmas traditions

5. Baking Christmas cookies. is a favorite for most kids. They love to help decorate the cookies.

6. Homemade Christmas ornaments is a great way to build a collection fo fun Christmas ornaments you can keep for your tree or send with each child when they move out as young adults. These Christmas ornaments will hold valuable memories for your child.

7. Christmas playdough like our peppermint playdough or gingerbread cookie playdough are both great options for some fun and it keeps them busy while you get other things done.

8. Go look at Christmas lights around your neighborhood or check if your local zoo offers a Zool lights event like the Detroit Zoo near us dose.

9. Snag a copy of Polar Express book and movie so you can enjoy it as a family. When we where in Highschool my husband and I had the privilege of going on the train that was used to make the sounds for the movie. My husband even had the opportunity to drive it while they were testing the engine after repairs. You can even snag a ride on Pere Marquette 1225 for your self if you live in Michigan 

10. Enjoy a candy advent calendar. You can grab one of these at nearly any grocery store right now making it a great option if you didn’t have time to great your own Christmas Advent calendar.

11. Have a scavenger hunt for the gifts on Christmas morning to make the morning even more exciting.

12. Hide a Christmas pickle on your tree when you decorate. This Christmas tradition has been passed on for generations.

13. Get an elf of the shelf if you are brave enough. Just be sure to set a reminder on your phone every night to move that elf.

14. Host a “campout” under the Christmas tree with your children and their friends for a fun sleepover.

15. Decorate the Christmas tree and add the same topper each year so when your child is grown they remember that simple consistent thing.

16. Have a movie night with snacks and your favorite Christmas movies like the Grinch and Santa Clause

Help others with your Christmas traditions with kids

17. Tired of elf on the shelf? Why not try making your elf a kindness elf that brings tasks for your child to do an act of kindness for others.

18. Write notes to soldiers to send in the mail to let them know how grateful you are for their sacrifice.

19. Gather canned goods for the needy and take them to your local food bank. If they have room for volunteers why not help sort?

20. Give old toys to the salvation army to make room for the new stuff and help earn money to help the homeless.

21. Volunteer at the soup kitchen top feed the homeless or clean up after a meal.

22. visit your local nursing home and read Christmas books to the lonely residents that don’t have visitors.

Make kids feel grown up with these Christmas traditions

23. Have your child help pick out the Christmas tree. This is a great way to make them feel involved. If you are lucky enough to have a Christmas tree farm nearby this can be loads of fun.

24. Take your child for hot cocoa at the local coffee shop. This is a great way to get a little one on one time with your kids and they love feeling grown up enough to go out for “Coffee” with mom during the holidays. Take advantage of holiday flavors like peppermint while you sip a peppermint mocha.

25. Have your child help you shop for gifts for others. This makes them feel good and teaches them the joy of giving to others.

26. Have your child help you wrap gifts. This fine motor skill practice is good for kids. Sure the gifts may not be perfect put your child can enjoy the time with you and the learning experience.

Food fun for Christmas with kids

27. Make gingerbread houses. this is one my kids love. While the gingerbread house may never actually end up looking like a house it is loads of fun and the kids are always excited to dig in.           View this post on Instagram                  

And que the sugar rush! #gingerbreadhouse #familytime #childhoodmemories #littlehomesteadbigcity

A post shared by Jenn Gerlach (@thesimpleathomemama) on Dec 10, 2017 at 7:01am PST

28. Bake treats to take around to friends an neighbors to share some holiday cheer.

29. Make a traditional fruit fruitcake from scratch.

30. Bake pies together for Christmas dinner.

31. Why not go really old fashioned and make a popcorn and cranberry garland?

32. When I was a kid my grandma would always put fruit in the stockings. Fruit makes a great frugal stocking stuffer,.

33. Cinnamon rolls make a great Christmas morning breakfast tradition for the whole family.

34. Make a favorite side dish every year for Christmas dinner. For this is ham rolls. The only time we make them is for holidays.

Get crafty with these Christmas traditions for kids

35. Make a paperchain chain to decorate the house. Most years I buy a pre-glued paper chain set to make it easier for us.

36. Make paper snowflakes

37. Build a snowman or Snow fort with your kids. You can find sets of molds for easy snow fort brick building and use the same set when summer comes for sand castles.

38. Paint the snow with a spray bottle filled with water and food coloring or watercolor paint.

39. Craft your own homemade Christmas cards.

40. Christmas wreath crafts. I love the handprint paper wreaths for the kid’s rooms.

Have some fun with these Santa Christmas traditions

If you do Santa in your family these ideas are sure to be a hit.

41. Sprinkle Raindear food (oats) out for Santas reindeer or add carrots to the plate of cookies.

42. Leave cookies out for Santa. Don’t forget the milk.

43. Notes to Santa are a classic Christmas tradition.

44. Now you can even send notes and packages from  Santa

45. Visit Santa at the mall.

46. Used powdered sugar Santa footprints behind for the kids to find.

More Festive fun

47. Interview elderly family members at holiday gatherings. this is a great way to preserve family history and make those that may feel ignored feel loved.

48. Watch your towns Christmas parade or tree lighting ceremonies.

49. Do secrete Santa with your kids.

50. Visit your local schools holiday choir and band concerts. This is a great way to support fine arts programs as well.

51. If you are really adventurous. Give hosting a Christmas party for friends and family in the days leading up to the holiday.