My Favorite App!

I found an app that I just love and thought other mothers out there could use it too.  We all need to teach our kids about the value of money.  For my kids though, it seemed like they either lost the money or never had it with them when they wanted something.  So I found this app called "KidsBank" that makes me their bank.

How it works:
When the kids get money from Birthdays or tooth fairies, they can give the money to me and I add it to their bank account.  In addition to that I set up a list of chores and how much each chore pays.  When the chore is complete I credit their account.

Things I like about it:

• They always have their money with them.  
• I no longer decided what they can have and not have.  They decide if they want to spend the money on that item.
• The app allows you to determine the percentage that your kids have to save and how much they have to give to charity.
• I will allow me to print an account statement that shows them where they spent/earned their money.

If you have a smart phone, check it out.

Eye Doctors

Polina saw an eye doctor when we first came home and he thought her eyes looked good but wanted to see her back in 6 months for a follow up.  We went back in the fall and he noticed some drifting and had us use eye drops to blur one eye to let the other one work harder.  After 6 weeks things looked good but shortly later it started to drift again.  Polina has now been diagnosed with Strabismus.  This seems to be very common in kids adopted from Eastern Europe.  She has started to loose vision in her right eye so we have been patching her left eye for 2 hours every day.  She will have surgery in May to correct her alignment and hopefully that will be the end of it.

Strabismus also known as squint-eye and crossed-eye, is a condition in which the eyes are not properly aligned with each other. It typically involves a lack of coordination between the extraocular muscles, which prevents bringing the gaze of each eye to the same point in space and thus hampers proper binocular vision, and which may adversely affect depth perception. 

Rhea Lana

For the past several years I have seen ads for consignment sales around town but I never bothered to go.  Last fall I went to one for the first time.  I had no clue what I was missing out on!  This sale is held at our local convention center and it is huge!  With Polina growing out of some of her clothes I decided that I would try to sell some items this time.  I entered 87 items in the sale and sold 70.  My sales totaled $397 and I brought home $275.  Beats t he heck out of giving it away.