The Price of Children

I know that I just posted yesterday but my Nana sent me this e-mail and I don't know if it is because I am pregnant and hormonal or what, but I loved it enough to post it on my blog. I almost never do this, I hope that you guys enjoy this as much as I did.

This is just too good not to pass on to all. Here is something absolutely positive for a change. I have repeatedly seen the breakdown of the cost of raising a child, but this is the first time I have seen the rewards listed this way. It's nice.

The government recently calculated the cost of raising a child from birth to 18 and came up with $160,140.00 for a middle income family. Talk about price shock! That doesn't even touch college tuition.

But $160,140.00 isn't so bad if you break it down. It translates into:
* $8,896.66 a year,
* $741.38 a month,
* $171.08 a week.
* A mere $24.24 a day!
* Just over a dollar an hour.

Still, you might think the best financial advice is: don't have children if you want to be 'rich.' Actually, it is just the opposite.

What do you get for your $160,140.00?
* Naming rights. First, middle, and last!
* Glimpses of God every day.
* Giggles under the covers every night.
* More love than your heart can hold.
* Butterfly kisses and Velcro hugs.
* Endless wonder over rocks, ants, clouds, and warm cookies.
* A hand to hold usually covered with jelly or chocolate..
* A partner for blowing bubbles and flying kites.
* Someone to laugh yourself silly with, no matter what the boss said or how your stocks performed that day.

For $160,140.00, you never have to grow up. You get to:
* finger-paint,
* carve pumpkins,
* play hide-and-seek,
* catch lightning bugs,
* never stop believing in Santa Claus.

You have an excuse to:
* keep reading the Adventures of Piglet and Pooh,
* watch Saturday morning cartoons,
* go to Disney movies, and
* wish on stars.

You get to frame rainbows, hearts, and flowers under refrigerator magnets and collect spray painted noodlewreaths for Christmas, hand prints set in clay for Mother's Day, and cards with backward letters for Father's Day.

For a mere $24.24 a day, there is no greater bang for your buck. You get to
be a hero just for:
* retrieving a Frisbee off the garage roof,
* taking the training wheels off a bike,
* removing a splinter,
* filling a wading pool,
* coaxing a wad of gum out of bangs, and
* coaching a baseball team that never wins but always gets treated to ice cream regardless.

You get a front row seat in history to witness the:
* First step,
* First word,
* First bra,
* First date,
* First time behind the wheel.

You get to be immortal. You get another branch added to your family tree, and if you're lucky, a long list of limbs in your obituary called grandchildren and great-grandchildren. You get an education in psychology, nursing, criminal justice, communications, and human sexuality that no college can match..

In the eyes of a child, you rank right up there under God. You have all the power to heal a boo-boo, scare away the monsters under the bed, patch a broken heart, police a slumber party, ground them forever, and love them without limits, so one day they will, like you, love without counting the cost. That is quite a deal for the price!!!!!!!

Love & enjoy your children & grandchildren & great-grandchildren!!!!!!!

It's the best investment you'll ever make!!!!!!!!!

Sleeping Babes

This is kind of a random post but I didn't have a lot to post about but I did have some time on my hands. We have had a fun weekend playing with our friends and celebrating my birthday. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of my own birthday but I do have some random pics of Lizzie. One she just asked me to take a picture of her reading so I did, the other I took because I just can't resist a sleeping kid. She is so cute when she sleeps, it was warm in her room but she insists on using her blankets lately so she was sweating but I still think she is cute. Thanks Frosts for watching Lizzie so we could go out, she had a ton of fun.

Our Green Holiday

Sorry this is a couple days late but our internet has been acting funny. We had a fun St. Patrick's day on Tuesday, by the way thanks for the good ideas. I was going to get up and make some leprechaun feet across the floor but of course the one day I actually had something planned she decided to wake up really early, which she never does. I am hoping it doesn't become a regular thing this waking up early, not my favorite thing in the world. Anyway, we got up and made green pancakes for breakfast, the picture doesn't do them justice. Later in the day Lizzie helped me make green sugar cookies, her favorite part was eating the dough. She did get sidetracked and ended up playing in the sink with her dinosaurs. Later that evening we had some friends over for Reuben sandwiches and green ice cream with sprite, oh don't forget the green cookies. I didn't get any pictures which I should have. Oh and the cookies aren't real shamrocks because we have this bin of 101 cookie cutters and I assumed that there would be a shamrock in there but of course there wasen't, there is practically every other thing you can think of but no shamrock I should have checked. All in all we had a lot of fun for it being a kind of lame holiday, we just can't wait for Easter, Lizzie is already dreaming up great ideas.

What month is it again?

I have lived here in Glendale for almost three years and I still can't get used to this wonderful weather, Spring is officially here Friday but you have to check out this weeks weather I am so excited we might actually go swimming this week. Yes swimming in march and I know that there are friends out there that have already ventured to the pool, I am a little late this year.
On a side note does anyone have any good St. Patrick's day ideas, Lizzie is so excited about it and I really don't know how to make it fun for her.

My Little Leprechaun

Just a funny story to make you laugh, it just goes to show how parenting is very unpredictable. Every Thursday our ward has a play group over at this park by our house. We haven't been to it for a few weeks because we were out of town. I had told Lizzie in advance that we were going to the park and she was all stoked and such. When we got there she just wanted to stand right next to me and play with her stick. I was fine with that until she started whining and asking me to follow her around the park away from all the other kids. I explained to her that we were here to play with the kids and she was welcome to go where ever she wanted as long as I could see her. She got a little upset and I tried to tell her that we don't cry at the park we play and have fun. After a couple more times of this back and forth being the typical mom I threatened that we would have to go home if this continued. Of course it did so I packed her up and proceeded to drive home, expecting a screaming child that would be upset at being punished and loosing her playdate. Instead she sang the whole way home and was as happy as a child could be, my punishment totally backfired.

Fun with Family and Friends!

We haven't posted in a while because Lizzie and I snuck back to UT for a couple of weeks to play a little bit. Brian had a rotation down in Sierra Vista and we didn't get to see him much. To save our sanity my mom flew down and drove back up with us. Needless to say she doesn't want to make that trip again. Even though it took us a little over 13 hours to make it to her house we had a lot of fun. Between the snow and the friends Lizzie had a blast. Sorry to those who didn't get to play as much as we would have liked, I got really sick the last week and that slowed down our fun a little. I obviously didn't take as many pictures as I would have liked but I hope you enjoy the one's I did.
In no particular order . . .

Lizzie is so over Valentines and on to Leprechaun Day, she is heading out to find some gold!

Cousin Cade made a cool snow cave

Upon her request she wanted a pink snowman, Grammy does whatever she wants.

Grammy and Lizzie being adventurous the snow pile was really tall.

Playing with Cade, Eric, Grammy and River

Good friends Addie and Lizzie reading together, aren't they so cute?

Pretending it's her birthay, she walked around all day with that hat saying "It's my birthday, I'm two."

Cousin Allie trying to get her to look at the camera

Loving the snow, it was a beautiful day we didn't even need a coat.



This was after the huge snow storm, I think that it snowed for almost 24 hours straight.