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I was able to call, prove that they were reported in error, and have them removed but if I hadn’t checked I never would have known they were there. This will give you the average you spend on gas, food, random trips to Target’s dollar section, etc. Now, I am definitely not the one to scold you for that morning coffee shop run, but maybe bringing your lunch a few times a week can help offset that spend? Kelley enjoys spending time with family outdoors, the occasional date night with the hubs, and writing on her blog, Little Slice of Imperfection, where she discusses family life on a budget — things like paying off debt, frugal activities to do with the kids, rookie house projects, getting organized, and her attempts at becoming a minimalist.

Who doesn’t love buying new baby clothes? I quickly started realizing that maybe all the money I dropped on clothes from Baby Gap wasn’t the best investment. I was literally the last of my friends to have a baby (at age 42), and we received, and are still receiving, so many hand-me-downs, our second son could wear a new outfit every single day and still not get through them all by the time he moved up a size. Their little feet grow so fast you can find nearly-new shoes at these sales, stores like Amy’s Turn and Once Upon a Child, or even online on local Facebook Swip Swap sites and not feel bad when they never actually get to wear them.

Don’t let all that water rain on your parade, though because there are a ton of fun things to check out in and around Jacksonville this first weekend in April. The Jacksonville Public Library is hosting their B is for Baby event for all the things you want (need) to know about those sweet, squishy babes of yours. Fridays on the Farm | Little Peeps Farmer for a Day New Shanghai Circus, Acrobats of China | FSCJ Nathan H. Wilson Center for the Arts For All | Cummer Museum B is For Baby: New Parents Event | Jacksonville Public Library – Main Branch Free Easter Bunny Meet and Greet | The Farmers Market at World Golf Village Cheers to 5 Years!

— and while hauling off one kicking, yelling, fierce little toddler is possible, I can’t quickly pick up both of them, shove them in my car and pretend everything’s fine while everyone stares at me and wonders what the heck I did to ignite World War III at the T-ball field. Tomorrow you will be one day older, one day closer to 3, and you will be one day further away from being a baby. So despite the rolls of holiday wrapping paper they unfurled all over my room while I cleaned poop off the swingset slide, the fact that the golf clubs and baseball bats (even the foam ones) are locked in the laundry room, and crayons, markers, and Play-Doh are hidden away until they reach middle school, and despite my baby girl drinking applesauce out of her shoe and my baby boy eating a tube of (fluoride-free) toothpaste, or that we read the same Thomas the Train book 17 times a day, or that they bounce up and down on their beds and pull all their clothes out of their dresser drawers when they’re supposed to be napping, and dump out whole bags of chips on the floor, and finger paint in their yogurt and climb in the toilet; and even though they lick sand, jump off the arms of the couch, put beads down the AC vents, feed the dog ice cream from the same spoon they’re using, rip the flaps off the lift-the-flap books, dump water out of the bathtub onto the floor, scale the book shelves, stand on the dining room table, and… I am savoring every second of these toddlers, as long as I can. And my heart breaks a little every time I look at them, knowing each morning they wake up a little older, and not so much a baby.