I hope you’ll enjoy today’s post about money management with children written by Freedom Debt Relief.

Molding the financial behavior of your child now could stay with them and determine their financial habits they maintain for the rest of their life. The earlier you start forming good habits, the less likely your children are to develop bad habits. After working with parents for years, Freedom Debt Relief has learned what works for other parents and may work for you.

Every parent is different, so you should instill the habits you think are most important to the long-term financial success of your child. Making sure your children understand the importance of their own financial habits is one of the most important aspects when trying to develop good habits. You should make clear the rewards of being financially responsible, both now as a child and later in life.

It is much easier to develop good habits when your children are young, if you do not help them develop good habits, they will still develop habits on their own or from outside influences. If you have no control over the habits they develop, it will be harder for them to change their habits later in life, you should start developing good habits as early as possible.

Develop an Understanding of the Value of Money

It is important your children understand the value of money and what it can be used for. You should make clear the importance of money and value. Make sure they understand that toy they want has value, in the form of a purchase price, and let them know they can provide value to earn the money needed to purchase the item.

Let them know, if they can provide value to other people, those people will reward them with compensation that can be used to obtain things of value that they want, if they never have to create value to purchase the things they want, they will think value occur naturally.  That is why Freedom Debt Relief reviews that developing an understanding of value is one of the most important aspects when developing good financial habits at an early age.

Encourage them to Look Toward the Future

Help them look to the future and think about the things they will want later in life. The earlier your children understand what they want, the earlier they can think about how they will obtain it. Making clear the value an education can provide and how much it will cost to get that education.

No matter if your children will be responsible for paying for their education themselves or if you will be helping, they should still understand the significant cost that will come with an education and how soon that cost will come. They should understand the education is an investment and the return that investment could create.

Instill Good Saving and Investing Habits

As with your children understanding the investment that will be their education, they should know why investing is important and the rewards it can create. After they understand what value is and the importance of value, Freedom Debt Relief believes they need to understand how to obtain that value.

By forcing your children to save and invest a portion of their money from a young age, one two of the most important financial habits can be developed at an early age. You may consider forcing them to save a percentage of the money they earn, as they should be earning money from an early age. By saving a percent and having a percent for the things they want, they will develop budgeting habits without even knowing it.

Freedom Debt Relief understands the importance of instilling your own financial habits in your children, but by reviewing what has worked for other parents, you can be better equipped to help your children develop good financial habits that will last a lifetime.

Award-winning financial expert and entrepreneur, Andrew Housser, is the co-founder of the popular Freedom Financial Network, a group of companies that include the popular consumer debt assistance company, Freedom Debt Relief. The company has won countless awards over the years and has allowed millions to get out of debt and achieve financial freedom.

For Part One of Angie Keith’s Inspiring Mom Story click here.

The week after Palmyrs death was a true nightmare. Angie had no time to grieve. They were immediately questioned by the detectives and coroner. The police came to the house and took all of Palmyr’s bedding. It was an open investigation.

After the autopsy, they very sorrowfully told Kyle and Angie that they were unable to find anything wrong. Her heart, lungs, brain, and everything looked completely fine. They had no answers. In these cases, they refer to the cause of death as SUDC (Sudden Unexplained Death of a Child). It is similar but less common than SIDS.

On top of all that, Palmyr’s twin sister Paylinn was brought in for testing the next day. They found a slight elevation in her platelets and called Angie saying that she had to be admitted immediately. Because of the nature of the unexplained death of her twin sister and her abnormal blood results Paylinn was put in quarantine.

The infectious disease people were on high alert. Everyone that entered the room wore masks and full protective gear. There were no visitors allowed.

Then big sister Pyper started having difficulty breathing so she was admitted to the Emergency Room. At five years old she was unable to cope with all that she had witnessed in the past 24 hours and her body went into a state of shock.

All at once Kyle and Angie had a child in the morgue, a child in the hospital, and a child in the ER. Angie was starting to lose her mind. She describes it as the darkest time in her life. She had no strength left and the last thing she felt like was turning to a God that she felt had abandoned her.

While sitting by her daughter Paylinn’s hospital bed for four days straight mourning the loss of her twin sister she looked up at the nurse through weary eyes framed in dark circles and she said “I cannot do this. I can’t”. The nurse looked back with compassion and came down to where Angie was, both literally and emotionally, and she said “You can. You have to.”

While all of this was going on the family was preparing the funeral and all the arrangments were made. Angie’s one request was that in lieu of flowers donations could be made to the church nursery. Angie was the director of the nursery and it was in desperate need of some updates. Since Palmyr really loved being in the nursery it seemed like a good fit and it would be called “Palmyr’s Playhouse” in memory of her.

Once Pyper and Paylinn were given a clean bill of health they returned home and attened the funeral and buriel of Palmyr. The money poured in in response to building a new nursery and Angie got a vision for something even bigger. This wasn’t just for her personal church nursery. God told her He was taking Palmyr’s Playhouse to the nations. Angie had no clue what that looked like or if it was even possible, but as months went by Angie felt the prayers of the body of Christ and she felt restoration and healing come to her.

In March she had a vision of lime green doors and knew that that was where the next Palmyr’s Playhouse would be. For three months she kept this vision close to her heart and prayed for more direction. She even googled School or building with lime green doors and came up short. Then in May Kyle was away on a mission trip and Angie was looking at a friend’s photo album of a mission’s trip to Kenya Africa. Angie started crying as she saw all the little children being cared for at this orphanage. Then in the very last picture, she saw it. The orphanage was a large building with lime green doors!

Angie immediately called Kyle to explain and she could hardly get the words out because of how overjoyed she was. Because of Kyle and Angie’s father’s connections as pastors, they know the missionaries (Becky and Matthew Murray) who oversee the orhanage. They later met with the missionaries and Becky said “we have been praying for someone to come to build a playground”. And that was what started the first step of the miraculous journey to seeing Palmyr’s Playhouse go overseas.

It was a year to the day, November 28, 2014 that the children of Kenya were able to be on a playground for the first time in their lives and the joy that they exuded in that moment was like no other. In February Kyle and Angie went over for the official opening and dedication; it was an incredible celebration that would hold a special place in Kyle and Angie’s hearts forever.

It was so fulfilling to know that God was using their loss for something far greater than they could have ever imagined. Angie says that she will always miss Palmyr. She will always cherish the memories of her precious baby. But she left all of her grief in Africa on that trip.

The following year another Palmyr’s Playhouse opened up in Sri Lanka.

There are currently three Palmyr’s Playhouses around the world and the next one is in the works. (*UPDATE, as of Dec. 2020 there are currently SIX Palmyr’s Playhouses around the world and currently working on building one in Democratic Republic of Congo in 2021!!!)

It takes a lot of money to build these playgrounds around the world and God has miraculously provided every step of the way. One of the annual fundraisers is Breakfast with Santa. It is a delightful experience for kids and families to come and make crafts, treats, and Christmas memories! Of course all proceeds go toward the new location for Palmyr’s Playhouse.

The Palmyr’s Playhouse motto is Extending Joy. Palmyr’s short life was full of joy and now God is taking that joyous memory and extending it to little children all over the world!

Angie wanted a miracle. She prayed for one. But she wasn’t expecting it to look like this. However, this miracle is evident in her words when Angie testifies “I can honestly say that I am thankful for a broken heart”.

When Angie was pregnant with her first daughter Pyper, the whole process start to finish was less than ideal. She experienced so much medical complications that she felt like one precious daughter might be all their family needed, and for 5 years it was.

Then there was a surprise pregnancy in 2011 that started out even worse than her first. They did an early ultra sound on Angie to see what might be causing the extreme nausea and it immediatly revealed that Angie and her husband Kyle were expecting twins. Angie began to weep. She was ready and even excited about welcoming another baby, but two at once!? Thoughts flooded her mind. How they could afford it? Would she be able to keep her job?  Was her body up to the challenge physically?

But everything fell into place and the twins came on May 21, 2012.

Kyle and Angie were so in love with their three daughters Pyper, Paylinn, and Palmyr.

Palymr did have some medial concerns early on. She was even tested for a terminal illness but thankful all the results came back negative. Then around 5 months old Palymr had to wear a special helmet after being diagnosed with positional plagiocephaly.

While the treatment is not uncommon Angie babied Palmyr and it was really difficult for her to think of her child having any kind of special treatments and obstacles to overcome. At the time Angie says that seemed like a huge deal. In the end it was just a short season before the helmet came off and Plamyr was fine.

As each challenge of motherhood presented itself Angie felt like she wasn’t strong enough to withstand what was next, but each time God’s strength was sufficient. What Angie didn’t realize was that she would need to hold onto God’s strength more than ever because she was about to walk into what would be the biggest heartbreak that any mother could ever imagine.

It was November 28, 2013. Thanksgiving day. As Angie was preparing everything they needed to head to their in-laws house for the big gathering she could hear the TV on upstairs. Kyle was watching “Super Why” with the girls. Palmyr began to get fussy so Angie made her a bottle and laid her down for a nap. She had so much to be Thankful for on this day. Despite all the fears she once had, she loved being a mom. She loved having twins. She loved each of them so deeply.

Shortly after Angie left Palmyr in her crib Paylinn started to become sleepy too, so they laid her down too in the same room as her twin sister. Palmyr was still sleeping peacefully. Angie tip toed out of the quiet dark room so that she wouldn’t distrub the sweetly sleeping toddlers.

Later there was a phone call from Angie’s mother- in-law asking if they wanted to come over a little earlier than planned. Angie agreed because she could hear that one of the twins was already waking up anyway. So Angie and big sister Pyper went into the twins room to get them ready.

Palmyr was still asleep so she got Paylinn out first and started to get her outfit out when she glanced at the crib. That was when she realized something was wrong. Palmyr wasn’t breathing.

Angie immediatly picked her up to find that she was unconcious. She screamed the shrill cries that would come from any mother who found her baby in trauma. She told Pyper to go get her daddy and Angie called 911. She laid Palmyr on the bed and started doing CPR. Part of her job in the medical field is to have regular CPR training and she had just had her CPR training only two days before!

She waited what seemed like forever for the ambulance to arrive. At this point Kyle’s dad Cleddie, who is a pastor and a very involved grandfather, had arrived. When the paramedics picked Palmyr up they said “she’s still warm” and Angie felt a sense of relief. She believed that Palmyr was going to be fine. This was all just a bad dream. They would take her to the local children’s hospital and it would be over soon. As they loaded her into the ambulance no one was allowed to go except for Kyle and he had to ride in the front. Angie asked “Are you taking her to Children’s?” the paramedics replied “We don’t have time for that! We are going to St. E” (which was only a mile away). Angie didn’t like the distress in his voice. She frantically got in her car and started following them.

When they arrived at the hospital they weren’t allowed to go back at first until the team was assembled. It was hard to stay calm. Angie just wanted to see her baby!

Once they were cleared to enter, Angie’s last shred of hope had diminished. She knew enough through her work in the medical field to know that an EpiPen was not a great sign and doing CPR for longer than 20 minutes was not normal. They started doing chest compressions and one nurse said she got a faint beat. As the nurse looked up she locked eyes with Angie and said Oh my God. She recognized Angie! They went to highschool together! It was Angie’s friend Christy. Christy got another nurse to take her place and Christy ran to be by Angie’s side.

Angie asked what was going on, but Christy couldn’t give an answer. Not one that Angie would want to hear. After over an hour of trying to resetate Palmyr, Angie heard the voice of God as clear as she ever has. He said “I’ve taken her home” and then she walked out of the room.

Kyle, Cleddie, Angie and her Highschool friend Christy were all standing there when the doctor came out crying and said to them, “I am so sorry”. Angie describes the next hour as a blur. As she remebers that painful day she says “I can’t even tell you how I made it to the next room. All I know is that I was mad. I was wondering, where is our miracle!? I was mad at God. I was mad at Cleddie. I was so furious that this was happening after all that we’ve seen God do in other’s lives!” She was able to hold Palmyr in her arms one last time. As they are saying their goodbyes to their precious baby girl two detectives come walking in for an interrogation.

What better way is there to get into the holiday spirit than to craft with your kids? Am I right?

My kids and I love to turn on some holiday music, bake some cookies, and spend the afternoon working on Christmas ornaments or some Christmas cards for some of the elderly people in our community.

Through crafting, we have learned that we can use it to bring so much joy into our home and into the homes and lives of others.

So, with the holiday season upon us, I wanted to share some of my favorite snowflake crafts for kids. Each of the following crafts utilizes various materials to put a spin on your traditional snowflake cut out of construction paper:

1. Wrapping Paper Snowflakes
   
   No matter how much I tell myself I will only buy as much as I think I will need, I always end up with far too much wrapping paper. Either I overestimate the amount I will actually need or I just see too many cute designs and just have to have each of them.

   Either way, rather than throwing them away I have started incorporating them into our holiday crafts. Now, my kids use some of them to make wrapping paper snowflakes!

   You simply cut off a small section of wrapping paper – depending on how big of a snowflake you want – and do the traditional folding and cutting of the paper to end with a snowflake design.

2. Stained-Glass Snowflakes

   With a little bit of construction paper and tissue paper, you can create the perfect window decoration!

   Cut out your snowflake from the construction paper and then using a light-colored tissue paper, fill in the empty slots of the snowflake. Hang your finished product on your window for some cute décor and an easy and simple stained-glass design!

3. Cardboard Snowflakes

   This is probably one of our family favorites this time of year.

   Although you can’t paint them with watercolors, you can paint them using a much thicker paint and the cardboard is incredibly sturdy – making it last all through the holiday season.

   Simply grab some thin cardboard and cut out a snowflake shape! If you find it difficult to cut the little holes inside the snowflake, you could always paint it as a snowflake instead.

4. Coffee Filter Snowflakes

   I have used coffee filters to make snowflakes for as long as I can remember. And, now, it is the easiest way to create them with my children because they are so light and easy to cut!

   They are also incredibly easy to hang using some clear string!

5. Doily Snowflakes
   

   White crochet snowflakes for Christmas decoration of package gift. Selective focus

   Next in line as my favorite is a doily snowflake. It is super easy to work with – just like coffee filters. But, then you can use them as décor on your table!

6. Cotton Swab Snowflakes

   So, enough with all of the cutting snowflakes out of different materials, right?

   Let’s try something new:

   Grab a cotton ball and a few Q-tips, align the Q-tips around the cotton ball to form the shape of a snowflake and glue them on. Voila! How quick and easy was that?

7. Sensory Snowflakes

   I don’t know about your kids, but mine love something a little more intricate. They love something that has an interesting texture and they especially love to use an ordinary item in an unordinary way.

   So, in comes the sensory snowflake:

   Grab a piece of construction paper and line glue on the paper in the shape of a snowflake. Next, have your child cover the glue with grains of rice.

8. Pipe Cleaner Snowflakes

   For those of you looking for a nontraditional snowflake craft that doesn’t involve glue, listen up:

   Grab some pipe cleaners and simply twist the bottom of each one to attach them all in the shape of a snowflake. Tip: Start by attaching two of them just one above the other, forming a straight line, then add on around the sides from there.

9. Tape Resist Snowflakes

   This snowflake craft is so fun and different!

   Grab a piece of plain white construction paper and place tape on it in a few places in the shape of a snowflake, then paint the entire rest of the space blue. It will give the appearance there are snowflakes floating through the cold, blue winter sky.

10. Cotton Ball Snowflakes

    This craft is another one that will keep your children busy for a little bit and offers more than just some construction paper.

    Grab a piece of blue construction paper and line it with glue in the shape of a snowflake. Then, have your kids add cotton balls to cover the glue (in a line) and it will look like a big, fluffy snowflake.

11. Craft Stick Snowflakes

    Start by grabbing some popsicle sticks and decorating them. We love to use blue and/or white paint and some glitter to give them a little shimmer.

    Next, use glue to attach them to one another in the shape of a snowflake by simply overlapping them and adding a new dab of glue in the center each time.

12. Button Snowflakes

    Start out by doing the craft stick snowflake. But, there is just a switch up in one step:

    Instead of decorating them with paint, attach them first and then decorate using colored buttons and some glue

Now you and your kids can enjoy a cool weekend of snowball crafting fun!

This fun-tastic post is from Annabel Short. Annabelle is a writer and a seamstress of more than 5 years.

She loves making crafts with her two children, Leo (age 9) and Michelle (age 11).

Annabelle likes to write about crafting, sewing, and parenting. She splits her time between London and Los Angeles and writes for Wunderlabel.

You can visit her blog to learn more about her and her handmade creations.

I love art, and drawing used to be my forte. So watching my kids create and use artistic expression is one of my favorite things.

Z and SJ have always impressed me with their drawing skills, but I am their mother so I guess this should come as no surprise. Not to imply that I am completely biased no matter what they present me. Case in point- I noticed the kids kept drawing triangles for noses. I let it go and complimented them on their work for a long time, but eventually I saw all aspects of their drawings improve except for that dang triangular nose.

Unless you are drawing Phineas Flyn (whose name I just had to google) then there is no need to draw a triangle!

So one night I decided to dust off the old drawing skills and do a little lesson in noses. I sat all four kids down at the dining room table and showed them exhibit A:

This drawing of Mega Mind is great, but Mega Mind is not a jack o lantern.

Then with pencil and paper in hand, we began to practice. 

Step 1, draw the nostrils which look like commas that were flipped on their sides (or tadpoles for the younger kids who haven’t learned about commas yet).

Step 2 is to add the parenthesis around the nostrils.

Step 3 is to bring in the hook. This is the nose.

We don’t have flat noses and there are no lines on our noses.  What we are really trying to do is draw the shadows which would fall over a three dimensional surface. The hook can go to the left or the right, but to keep it realistic only do one or the other. One thing you can do to demonstrate this is have the child take a selfie on the phone with light coming in at an angle. Then allow the child to observe how their nose casts a shadow on their face.

Almost all of lines we see on our face are really just shadows. This realization will make your art work come to life!  

So there.

This isn’t award winning portrait drawing, but it is better than a triangle right?

Z did an excellent job.

I was really proud of SJ too.

Ezie looked down at his unidentifiable nostrils and said “Why don’t mine look like yours?”. I smiled at my precious little preschooler. I told him he was doing a great job and assured him if he kept practicing he would get it eventually.

A week later I stumbled upon this notebook paper.

I believe it is a drawing of a boy with some excessively large backward nostrils. Ezie had been practicing alright, but I was beginning to wonder if maybe I had placed too much emphasis on the nostrils. Who nose?

With Veteran’s Day coming up this weekend, I thought it would be fitting to highlight a veteran for this month’s Inspiring Mom. So I contacted my blogging friend Amanda Huffman and she graciously accepted my request.

Amanda served in the Air Force for six years as a Civil Engineer including a deployment to Afghanistan.

She first thought about joining the military in college. She was experiencing a season of confusion and a lack of purpose during this transition into adulthood. Amanda’s major was in math, but she wasn’t even sure what she was going to do with this math degree when she graduated. So she ended up looking into enlisting in the Air Force because it provided direction for her life and it would also help pay for school when she completed her training.  Amanda originally set out to enlist in the Air National Guard. She was actually in the process of doing the required paperwork to enlist when she learned about the Reserve Officer Training Program. It peaked her interest and she went to an open house. Amanda liked what she saw and was ready to give the military thing a try. If all of this worked out she could still finish school, but with a scholarship. It seemed like a win-win! It ended up being a great opportunity for Amanda and she has no regrets about the decision she made. 

 When Amanda joined the ROTC program she switched degrees from math to Civil Engineering. Then in 2007, Amanda was commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant and her job type was coded as a Civil Engineer. During her six years of service in the Air Force for six years she worked on various projects and programs ranging from environmental, construction, energy and her deployment to Afghanistan. Amanda’s role in the airforce is a little more complex than some because she was loaned out by the Air Force to complete an Army deployment. Amanda said she never expected to leave the safety of the base and interact with the people of Afghanistan and if you asked her before she left if she could do it she would have said no, but she proved herself wrong. 

Looking back Amanda said she enjoyed being a Civil Engineer in the Air Force. She describes it as a cool job that it takes you out from behind the desk and out in the field.

I can tell that despite the challenges and surprises of the military Amanda has fond memories of her time in the Air Force. I asked her what made her decide to get out and here was her answer:

When I was deployed to Afghanistan, I saw moms who had to call their kids and miss part of their lives. The whole experience of being deployed was difficult. And being away from my kids would have made the whole experience harder. My career field (Civil Engineering) had a high deployment tempo. The military has a 6-month window you can’t deploy after having a baby, I didn’t think that I could do that.

So, when I got pregnant with my son Luke, I decided it was time to leave the Air Force.

Another factor was the fact that Michael is in the service too. We never actually moved to a new assignment at the same time while we were in. This was inconvenient when it was just us, it would have been a whole lot harder with kids.

The best choice for our family was for me to leave the military.

Amanda assumed that after coming home from Afghanistan, doing the mom thing would be easy. She watched many of her friends take on the role of motherhood and they made it look effortless. It turned out parenthood was way harder than she expected and unlike the military it didn’t come with lots of training or a built-in support network.

While transitioning from combat boots to diaper bags was really hard, Amanda had kicked self-doubt to the curb before and was ready to do it again.  She remembered her experience of deployment and the feeling that she couldn’t face the unknown, but she did it. She adapted. She gave it everything she had and motherhood would be no different.

Amanda says that in the past four years she has seen a lot of growth within and has slowly adapted to mom life. She explains further “It doesn’t mean motherhood is easy, it is still hard, but I have found myself learning to give myself grace.” 

I asked Amanda if she has any advice for Military spouses and she said:

I think military spouses get a bad rap. People think they are along for a free ride, but military spouses play an important, vital role. Without the support of military spouses the military would cease to exist.

Military spouses may not be wearing the uniform, but they serve and make sacrifices. I admire military spouses and am right there with them in not liking the military some days and dreaming about what it would be like to stay in one place forever. Just remember that what you are doing matters and you serve too.

My final question was about whether Amanda could envision her children following in their military footsteps. It turns out that because Amanda’s oldest son was diagnosed with asthma when he was very young he can’t serve. Luckily, he has grown out of this diagnosis, but for now the current military rules still disqualify him from service. No matter what they choose Amanda says she will support whatever choices they make. She hopes that they will have positive memories from their life in the military and the adventures they take. The boys will be about to start high school when their dad reaches 20 years of service. Amanda wonders what life would be like without Military. It’s been such a huge part of her for so long. Then she shakes off the thought of it, there is plenty of time before she has to focus on that. For now it’s all about diaper changes, Disney Land (their favorite place to visit), and singing the ABC’s. 

I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Amanda in person yet, but as I’ve followed her blog and seen her passion for her country and her family there is no doubt in my mind that her boys will have the utmost respect for the military and all of those who have selflessly sacrificed. I am sure they already view their mom and dad as heroes. I know I do. 

The Huffman family is currently stationed in Southern California living the dream and making frequent trips to Disneyland. To hear more from Amand you can follow her blog, Airman to Mom where she incorporates stories from her past military life and  her unique experiences as both a veteran and military spouse. You can also find Amanda on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest.