bonus phrases for your kids

I wrote about some helpful phrases to use with 1 year olds and 2 year olds (and all their emotional drama). And since that’s as old as we get around here (until December when we’ll have a 3 year old), I’ll have to end this mini series here with a couple bonus …

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Budgeting 101- #2 How to Track Your Spending

Where is all my money going? How much should I budget in this category? I want to save money but I never have any leftover… It seems like emergencies come up a lot… If you’ve had any of those thoughts, you are not alone. Maybe you’ve made a budget, but …

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How to Start a Budget in 3 steps. Whether you're new to budgeting or have tried in the past, this is the simplest way to get started with a budget right away.

Budgeting 101 – #1 How to Start a Budget

Whether you’ve tried budgeting a million times or it’s the first time ever, starting a budget can feel daunting. What if I do it wrong? What if I mess it up? What if I don’t guess right? I’ll save you the worry and tell you up front – you won’t …

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Detailed Review of EveryDollar Online Budgeting Tool

We used EveryDollar for 9 months, then switched to YNAB. I have updated this post to reflect my current thinking abut EveryDollar after using it for 9 months. While it has some good features, my husband and I both like YNAB much better. (Detailed review of YNAB here.) In the …

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Whether or not you're in debt, choosing not to be entitled will help you be a better money-manager. Budgeting will be easier. Impulsive spending will be a thing of the past. The decision-making power will be in your hands rather than feeling a slave to your every passing want. It's just stuff. Learn to wait. Learn to plan for spending. Break the cycle. Say no to entitlement and yes to feeling truly free.

getting over my entitlement (part 1)

Confession: I used to be entitled. (Hey, you can’t get help if you don’t admit you have a problem, right?) I wouldn’t say I consciously thought to myself that people or the world owed me anything. And I definitely didn’t call it entitlement. It was more subtle than that. More …

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our top 3 reasons for getting out of debt

Top 3 Reasons to Get Out of Debt – NOW!

 We read Dave Ramsey’s book The Total Money Makeover (which I highly recommend, by the way) and listened to all the teachings from the class when we first got married. We were on board. Debt is dumb, pay cash, blah blah blah. Made perfect sense. Then we took out a BIG loan …

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I didn’t know I was marrying a nerd

Before I was married, I remember people saying “Oh I’m so glad I married my best friend.” I thought that sounded nice. But honestly, and I probably couldn’t have articulated this until recently, I didn’t marry my best friend… at the time. Ben and I met (as in, met-for-the-first-time-hi-nice-to-meet-you) and …

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When Your Toddler is Whining

[Side note: I wrote this post on a more-whining-than-usual-day and now the last couple days have been great. Ben was out of town for a few days, and I think the girls feel it when he’s gone. I know I do! He’s the cheese to our macaroni, the cream in …

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Here are a handful of toddler montessori-inspired activities we tried at home. They're pretty easy to set up and very cheap or free. Great for a 2 year old!

Toddler Montessori Work Shelf Update

For the very short period of time that we had only one toddler in our house, we had a toddler-friendly Montessori-inspired work shelf. It was Montessori-inspired in that: Most of the activities could be completed independently. The activities were displayed in a neat and pleasing manner. Our 2 year old …

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Disclosure Policy

Updated July 2019 Dear Reader, Thanks for visiting this blog! I’m glad you’re here. My goal at Rhythms + Grace Blog (and in my weekly newsletter) is to provide practical tips, tools, tutorials, and encouragement to help you create healthy rhythms and receive grace in your every-day life! Running this …

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Why and How I Kinda Sorta Clean My House

Call me crazy, but I used to enjoy cleaning. I found it somewhat therapeutic. Plus there’s the whole instant gratification thing. You put some work into it, and everything sparkles and looks better immediately. With kids, well… that’s just not the case most of the time. Let’s just say, our …

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This is how we vacuum

We live in a big-enough-for us-but-not-that-big ranch with 975-ish square feet. There is a living room, hallway and 3 bedrooms on the first floor that are all carpeted. Plus a kitchen and bathroom that are vinyl and fake wood/ laminate flooring. The basement has indoor/outdoor type carpeting. It doesn’t take …

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FREE BUDGETING FOR BABY WORKSHEET: how much does it cost to have a baby? This simple process will help you plan for a new baby, regardless of how big your budget is. http://wp.me/p6bl1n-14M

So We Had A{nother} Baby…

oh hi there. remember that time I had another baby? Well, here’s the official blog introduction of sweet Emma Catherine. She weighed in at 8 pounds, 1 ounce. 21 inches long (exactly the same as her big sister). This time around, I decided to use a birth photographer. If it’s …

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Quick & easy pork lettuce wraps make the perfect healthy weeknight dinner

Pork Lettuce Wraps

A friend made these pork lettuce wraps for us once and they were AHHH-mazing. I’ve made them a few times since. Everyone I’ve made these for and shared the recipe with so far has loved them too, so I figured I’d post it on the world wide web. The prep …

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