#2 Questions Answered

I did a Q and A when we announced Annabeth's pregnancy on the blog so I thought I should do the same for #2.

• When did you find out? October 24, 2014
• When are you due? June 29, 2015
• Why keep it a secret so long? As with Annabeth, we wanted to be sure that we had heard the heartbeat and that we were through the first 12 weeks before sharing our joy.
• How has Amy been feeling? Pretty sick. If you haven't seen me since before Halloween now you know why! We have been hiding at home! Thankfully, I have not been as sick as I was with Annabeth. Praise the Lord!
• How has Mark been feeling? Busy! He has been doing an amazing job taking care of us girls and has been doing all of the grocery shopping on top of everything else! 
• Have you gained any weight? No. I am down 10 lbs. Which is 2 less than this point with Annabeth.
• Have you had an ultrasound? No. We will not have our first ultrasound until around 20 weeks for the body scan and gender check. We did hear the heartbeat on December 12 and it was an amazing 155! 
• Any fertility treatments this time? No. We were honestly shocked at how easy it all has been this time. We just kind of said, "Okay, Annabeth is almost three. It's now or never. Let's let God decide." And apparently His answer is "now."
• What does Annabeth think? She seems to be very excited. She says she wants a brother although she is only willing to share her toys if it is a sister. She also says that our boy name will be the name boy or girl. She especially enjoyed buying #2 his or her first Christmas ornament and selected a toy for him or her as well. 

Their first sibling shirts.

Annabeth's "Every Sheriff needs a Deputy" shirt and #2's sheriff onesie. 

We are so excited and so shocked that the Lord has seen fit to bless us again. We are praying for a healthy pregnancy and delivery. Pray with us? We would appreciate it ever so much. 

Love, The Riley FOUR!

#2 is due in June!

We are pleased to announce with joy this Joy Sunday of Advent that we are expecting #2!

Annabeth with her new Big Sister ornament

and her Sheriff Big Sister shirt.

We thank and praise the Lord for seeing fit to bless our family again! Amen. 

Living Nativity

I spent a day researching fun Christmas activities in our area and my sweet friend Andrea lead me to a list of Living Nativities. Today Annabeth and I drove up to the north side and enjoyed St. Luke UMC's Living Nativity.

It was a beautiful service with sing-along carols, real animals, and lots of children involved in the telling of the story. Annabeth was, shockingly, attentive for the 45 minute service. The church also had set up a Town of Bethlehem and we were able to see a potter, make our own clay ornament, grind spices, watch a woodworker, and more. We were also able to visit with the animals after the service. Annabeth loved it and so did I!

Making her own ornament 

We both especially loved seeing the camels.

They were so soft and this one was such a ham - 

he kept smiling and posing for pictures.

I was so thankful for this was to experience the REAL meaning of Christmas and to help Annabeth enjoy more than presents or Santa. Praise be to God!

Frugal Friday 69

Happy Frugal Friday!

Here is how we saved money/spent money wisely this week:

- I trimmed my hair at home. I colored it at home a few weeks ago as well.

- Sunday Mark was getting ready and noticed his belt has become very worn. He and Annabeth had this conversation which made me a proud frugal mama:
Mark: "Oh, my belt is getting very worn. I wish I had thought to ask for a new one for Christmas."
Annabeth: "Daddy, you have one. You don't need another one. You just glue it. 'At will fix it."
That's right Annabeth! Use it until it is completely worn out and then glue it back together some more!

- We hand delivered as many Christmas cards as we could. We saved $15 in postage.

- I made $25.62 on ThredUp and was able to purchase two new shirts with the credit. I still have a little over $3 credit in my account for a future purchase with them.

- I took Annabeth to a FREE Christmas themed storytime at the library where Miss Heather dressed as Mrs. Claus and read the stories and did the craft.

Mrs. Claus, Annabeth, and her friend Julia

- We reached another monthly milestone through Pampers Rewards program. We were able to choose a free prize and I choose to add 200 free points to our account. I love free stuff!

- We shopped a great sale at Walgreens. They had a Buy 2 Toys, Get 2 Toys Free sale. We purchased two toys that we will give as Christmas gifts as well as two toys that we will give as gifts in January and February.

- I finished wrapping all of our Christmas gifts. I used only wrapping paper that we had on hand. Our gifts will not all match under the tree but they are colorful and wrapped!

We are enjoying turning the days on our Advent Calendar as we look forward to celebrating our Savior's Birthday!

Happy Savings to All!

"Buy Used and Save the Difference"

ThredUp Review

A few weeks ago, while reading blogs, I found a Mama who uses ThredUp to shop for her children's clothing. She is a mama of 8 and I love reading her advice on how to save money on kids' stuff. I was curious about ThredUp but did not end up looking at their website that day. Then, later in the week, I received a paper coupon for 30% off an order from ThredUp. That sparked my curiosity further and I took a look.

What is ThredUp?

It is an online store for women and kids clothing and accessories. It purchases high quality new and used items from real people, pays them money, and then sells them on the site. You can both buy and sell with them.

I really liked the high quality items and low prices that I saw on the site so I ordered my first "Clean Out Bag." The bag was shipped to me for free, I filled it up, and dropped it off at my local post office with free shipping back to the company. I sent 6 tops and 3 dresses. Then I waited to make money!!

I mailed my bag out on November 20. I received an e-mail on December 2 confirming that they had received it. I am assuming the delay in shipping had to do with the Thanksgiving holiday in the middle.

Within 7 days they had sorted through my items and gave me $25.62 for 8 items!

I chose to receive my payment as store credit (they can also credit your PayPal account) and ordered two new shirts using store credit for the purchase and shipping. I still have $3.61 in my account to spend on something else. I am very frustrated though because I got too excited and forgot to use my 30% off coupon! Ah! How could I have done that?!

How did I decide what to sell?

ThredUp made it SO easy for me to know what they were buying and about how much I would be paid for my items. They have an easy to use Clothing Calculator where you can enter your item such as "GAP - Shirt" and they will tell you a range of how much they will pay or that they do not accept that brand. This saved me the time and effort of sending items that they do not purchase.

I was so excited to find a place to sell some nice shirts and dresses that I have not worn in years but refused to sell for $1 at a garage sale. It felt good to make more money per item.

Next up?

I ordered another Clean Out Bag and plan to go through the sale tote items of Annabeth's. The consignment sale I do has moved their spring sale from the first weekend in April to the end of May. I hope to make some extra money now with her items.

Are you curious now?
Please use my link to check it out (it won't cost you any extra but it can help me make a bit of money if you shop through me!) 

**I was not asked nor compensated, beyond the sale of my clothing, for this review. 
This review contains my own views and opinions** 

Christmas Weekend #1

We enjoyed our first Christmas weekend this past weekend.

On Saturday, we attended our fourth year of Breakfast with Jesus and Santa at our church. Each year, we meet Mark's parents there for a pancake breakfast, visiting with Santa, and admiring Baby Jesus and family. It is a beautiful event put on by our church and all of the money raised goes towards local missions. We love this special tradition with Nana and PawPaw.

Mickey Mouse Pancakes! 

Our Family. 

Annabeth's favorite part was the donkey in the Nativity Scene. 

 Sunday we made the drive to the Louisville area to have Christmas with the Eblings. Rose and I have been best friends since meeting at Camp Lakeview in high school and we have been sharing a special Christmas celebration ever since. It has become increasingly more fun as we have added the kids. Their son SJ is 20 months and our sweet, sweet Godson who we love to spoil! Annabeth has always loved spending time with her Auntie Rose and "helping" Uncle Sean around the house.

Annabeth giving SJ some love.
Last Christmas we have pictures of him hugging her 

and her crying. This year she just loves him to pieces!

Best Friends with our kids who we pray will always be Best Friends. 

We enjoyed spending the weekend with family and are looking forward to getting together with more loved ones in the weeks to come. 

Frugal Friday 68

Happy Frugal Friday!

Here is how we saved money/spent money wisely this week:

- We did NOT Black Friday shop at the stores. After working retail, I realize how few "deals" are really deals. We have decided that unless one year we need an appliance or large item that is truly discounted on Black Friday we will not go out.

- We did make one Black Friday purchase online. After shopping photo card deals at Shutterfly, Vistaprint, and Walmart and looking at my coupons, I found that the best deal was still to use Sam's Club. Thanksgiving weekend they have 100 cards for $15 and they are ready same day. We don't have a membership but Mark's parents let us borrow theirs. Kristi even went and picked up the cards for us. Thank you!

- I was not planning on doing any Cyber Monday shopping but MudPie was running an AMAZING sale! I was able to save $80+ on a baby gift by combining website sales + a $5 off coupon + FREE shipping! Little Miss Aubree Ellen Love is going to be so stylish! :)

- Last year, our friends the Stairs gave us some plastic play food for Annabeth to use in her shopping cart. She received cloth and wooden food for her birthday this year so we were going to return it. Sarah said they didn't want the food back and just days later a homeschool friend asked where she could get a good deal on play good for her boys. I said, "My house! You can have all of our plastic food. Friends shared it with us so we'll share it with you." We cleaned out and her boys have new toys. We love to share!

- We had some really great coupons this week for the grocery. We got a free loaf of really fancy bread and also had two $2 off an order coupons. We made two different transactions so we could save the $4 in one trip. Saved: $8.99

- I made five homemade ornaments. I spent $10 on all the supplies and think they turned out very well. I will do a post after we give them at Christmas.

- I mended Annabeth's house slippers (they are dragons whose ears often get ripped off) as well as a dress that we will be handing down to her cousin Ava. We try to use everything as long as we can and to try to keep it in the best condition that we can. Also, I love monogrammed items and have been trying to find ones with "A" which we can pass to Ava Rae.

- Annabeth and I attended a Frozen party at our library on Thursday evening. They had lots of special activities, a photobooth, and then they showed the movie. We met up with some friends there which Annabeth really enjoyed. We love FREE fun!

Olaf Photo Booth and Mask - So cute!

Happy Savings to All!

"Buy Used and Save the Difference"