Our Family's Home Inventory App

Since aboutone.com closed down (big tear!), I have been on the hunt for a new home inventory app/software and I finally found one that I'm happy with!!!
What I settled on was the Home Inventory App from Binary Formations, LLC.  I found this in the Apple app store (yes, I'm an Apple junkie) and so far I've been very happy with it.
I really wanted something that was easy to use, could be easily backed up in a few different places and was very organized.  This app definitely fit the bill.

Now this app does cost $29.  Which was a little more than I had wanted to spend but when you take into account that we were paying $7 a month for Aboutone.com so it bscially paid for itself after a few months.

The app is organized by locations (or rooms/spaces) within your house, then by item.  The home page offers a place for information on your house itself like a maintenance schedule and/or its assessment history.



Once you set up all of your locations, then you list out each item in that space.  Each item then has its own little file where you can be as basic or as detailed as you want.



There are spaces for make, model, serial numbers, categories (furniture, jewellery) any collections, condition, purchased from, purchase date, quantity, price, value and any additional tags.  There are places to add any photos of the item, any receipts and any other files like user manuals or anything like that that you want to keep track of.  Also, there is an option to track the warranty information for the item which is awesome.  Aboutone.com had a feture like this where it would remind you before a warranty would run out and this does the same thing.  It will send you a reminder before it expires.



There is also a place to add in any information about any insurance policies you want.  Never a bad idea to have this information in the same place as your inventory.




The last tab is the Reports tab.  This tab gives you a lot of different reports to run on the information you have saved in your account.  As you can see below, there are reports for a fully detailed report on all items, reports of just photos, a moving checklist and even an analysis of warranties.



So we back this inventory up in several different ways.  We do tend to run a little on the paranoid side so I feel better having this backed up in several different places.  The first is the cloud that it automatically backs itself up on.  The second is on the iPhone app that goes with this software.  We also download a PDF copy of the detailed report to my desktop whenever we make a change and this file is then backed up onto my computer's external hard drive with Time Machine and to our Crash Report account which backs up everything on our computer to their cloud.  We also have a printed copy in our fire box in our Important Documents binder.

Now I'm not going to lie, sitting down and filling out all of the information for each of these items was a HUGE pain in the butt but something that had to be done.  I am glad that we had an app that made it so much easier.  I know people that use complicated spreadsheets and have to keep photos and documents in separate folders.  I wanted something where I could just plug in the information and it would generate these reports and basically do as much of the work for me as possible.  I went through our house with my iphone and took photos of all of the larger or more expensive items in each room.  I also set up an "item" under each room that I called "Whole Space Photos" where I took photos of the entire room from different angles, inside each drawer, inside cabinets, and things like that.  I wasn't about to sit and list out every shirt I own so at least this way I had some photos of all the little stuff and could list them out if I had to for a claim.

This app also has a cool feature where it totals up all of the "values" of either all your items in your home or by different categories which is a great tool when working out how much insurance you need to carry.  This way you have a much better idea of how much all your stuff is worth rather that just making an educated guess and either over or under insuring your stuff.

One downside to this app is that you can only edit your inventory from your computer.  You can back everything up on your iPhone through the iPhone app so you are able to view everything from your phone but you cannot make any changes from your iPhone.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with this app.  I do wish I could enter in information from my phone as I walk around the house but thats really the only negative I've been able to find with it so far.

Whatever system you choose to use, please please please have an updated inventory for your household!  It is worth more than its weight in gold when you really need it!


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Thanks Guys!

Cross Post Alert! How We are Budgeting in 2016!

Good Morning Everyone!

Over on my other blog My Navy Wife Life, we just had our How We are Budgeting in 2016 post go live and thought we would share it here for anyone interested!!

Check it out here!!

Thanks guys!!

Aquatic Adventures, Roanoke, VA

Last summer and fall Jordyn took an infant/toddler survival swim course at a place called Aquatic Adventures in Roanoke, VA.

She loves to swim and seems to have no fear of the water at all.  While visiting my parents for her birthday, she would try to get into the pool herself and that made everyone very nervous so when we got back from our trip, I started doing research into swim classes.

We went twice a week for several months and would have loved to have gone longer but we were driving 3 hours round trip for a 10 minute lesson and after I got pregnant, it really started wearing on both of us.  Plus we were coming up on the start of winter and we didn't want Jordyn and I driving that far with potential bad weather we have here in the winter so we are waiting to do the next session.  When we left, there was a rumor that they may open up a satellite location in our town so we are keeping our fingers crossed for that.
In the meantime, she goes with Beau to the YMCA where he does his work outs because they have an indoor heated pool and her instructor showed him lots of things to work with her on so she wouldn't forget anything.

We loved her lessons.  Its a great setup and they seem to have it down to a science.  They cram a lot into the 10 minute lesson and once she got over the "your not my mom!" thing, she LOVED them.  She learned to hang onto the side of the pool and keep her head out of the water and how to float on her back.  She hasn't quite mastered that but she is getting there.  She learned to go all the way under the water without trying to take a breath and got over the fear of getting her face and ears wet very quickly.

The pool is indoors and is in a separate room than the waiting room for parents.  They said they used to have parents get into the pool with them but they found that it took the kids longer to grasp things as they were more worried about where the parent was so now they do an "out of side, out of mind" thing with the parents.  The instructors just stay in the pool, parents hand the kid over and leave the room.  Then they hand them back when they are done.  The room does have a large window so you can watch but stay out of eyeshot of the kids so they can focus.

We are going to visit my family again in October this year so we are hoping to have her in even better shape before we get there since she will be around a pool while we are there.  We are definitely going to be getting her a little life vest or floaties for when she is playing in the pool but we want to make sure that she is able to keep her face out of the water should she fall in.  Last time we visited, she wasn't walking and now she is running so...

I would definitely recommend them for sure!  They are a little on the pricy side but watching the older kids and talking to other moms, it is totally worth it.  They had classes with 3-4 year olds who had been in the classes since they were small and they could swim better than most adults I've seen.

I do hope that they open a location in our town and hopefully there is an option similar to this in the next town we live in so we can continue with Jordyn's lessons and get Peanut in them as well.  

Radha Beauty Essential Oil Diffuser

We recently purchased a Radha Beauty brand Essential Oil Diffuser for Jordyn's room.  We have the   diffuser in the living room and love it but once we decided we wanted more of them, we couldn't justify the $50 price tag so we decided to try the Radha Beauty diffuser.






It was an Amazon Top Seller and sold for about $25.  It comes with the diffuser, power cord and a measuring cup for the water.  The oils are all sold separately.

I really wanted as close as I could get to the  diffuser.  So I was looking for a diffuser that had an option to not light up and one that would shut itself off automatically when it ran out of water.



The Radha Beauty diffuser met those requirements.  It has several different light settings and an automatic shutoff.  Another feature about it that I like is the option for it to operate on 30 second intervals.  Meaning that it will diffuse for 30 seconds then shut off for 30 seconds.  I like this because the running time is twice as long that way and it also seems to help the smell of the oil from being too overwhelming.  We only put a few drops into it since it is Jordyn's room and between that and the intervals, her room smells nice but doesn't punch you in the face like can sometimes happen.




My only real complaint about this diffuser is the indicator light.  It is quite bright and stays on as long as the machine is running, even if the light setting is set to off.  So while the whole unit does not light up, the indicator light does and for someone who likes their bedroom very dark, it's a bit annoying.  Jordyn still sleeps with a nightlight so I'm not worried about it for her room but for our bedroom, that would be a bit annoying.




Overall, I like this diffuser.  Between the price and the features, it is exactly what we were looking for.  We have already purchased a second one for Beau's office and may get a third for the living room.


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Until next time!!

Medela Recycles Program

Hi Everyone!

I wanted to take a minute and make everyone aware of the Medela Recycles program!  I had no idea this program existed until recently when I stumbled across an article on Facebook about it.

This is a program that Medela has set up to give customers the option to keep their old electric breast pumps out of landfills and allow them to be recycled appropriately.

You simply fill out their online form on their website and print your free shipping label to mail them your used breast pump.  Once Medela receives your pump, they send them off to their 3rd party's processing center where they are broken down and any parts that can be recycled are!

So if you and your little one are done nursing and you no longer need your Medela pump, don't throw your old pump away!  Let Medela do the work and give yourself peace of mind that your pump has been recycled properly and isn't just sitting in a landfill!


Thanks guys!!

What's in Our Diaper Bag, 18 Month Old Edition

Hi Everyone!

If you have seen my (crappy video quality) diaper bag review, you saw that we use the Skip Hop Signature Duo bag in Heather Grey.  This bag is a little on the smaller side but I have found that the bigger the bag, the more crap I tend to cram in it and then have to lug around so I'm quite happy with the size for day to day.  I have a box that we keep in the car for "extra" stuff that we might need while we are out but that I don't want to have to carry around all the time.

So this is our car box.  Just a little plastic box we got at Target originally for our road trip to Texas last year.



This box fits on the floor of the car between Jordyn's seat and the front seat.  This box currently includes the following:

• 8 Size 3 Up & Up Brand Diapers
• 1 Pack of Pampers Wipes
• Blanket
• 1 Pair 18 Month Size Pants
• 1 18 Month Size Long Sleeve Shirt
• 1 Pair 1-2 Year Size Socks
• A Few Toys (these rotate around)
• 1 Roll of Dog Poo Bags (we use for stinky diapers)
• Extra Snacks (these change often)
• 1 Hat

For now thats all that we keep in here.  She is pretty easy when we are out at this point so we don't have to have much.

And this is our diaper bag.


















In the two bottle pockets, we keep her Camelbak bottle and my Contigo bottle.  The Contigo is a little big to fit in the pocket but it works for now.




In the large outside pockets is my wallet and sunglasses and the other is the car keys and my husband's wallet if he is with us.



In the large outside zippered pocket I keep my (dirty) coupon holder thingy.



It is just an accordion file from the Dollar Spot at Target that I use to keep track of any coupons I need for that trip, all of my reward cards until I get around to putting them all in my phone and usually the receipts from the store so they don't end up wadded up in the bottom of the bag.

Next we have the two pockets on the inside of the main part of the bag.  The first one holds 3 diapers (Up & Up or Luvs), the Huggies travel wipes holder and a roll of poop bags.  I didn't show it here but yes those are the bags for picking up dog poop and yes I do keep the open rolls inside the little bone shaped holder...  Don't judge!




The second pocket holds our pack of Boogie wipes, the first aid kid, antibacterial wipes and a pacifier.  She only gets a paci at night and sometimes in the car if we are going to be driving for a while.



Let me take a second and brag on this first aid kit.



This is the me4kidsz.com MediBuddy first aid kit for kids.  Somehow they fit 40 items in here ranging from bandages, sting relief pads, gauze, burn cream, antibiotic ointments and stickers!  I got this one on Amazon for $5.99 with free shipping.  You can also order refills of all the items at me4kidz.com.  Check inside your kit for coupons too.  It's about the size of a sunglasses case and fits so well inside the pocket.  Can't recommend it enough!

Inside the main pocket, we keep my zipper bag with my stuff like chapstick, compact, nail file, etc., the snack cup and her bib.


Ok bear with me again while I rave about this awesome bib!  We LOVE this bib.  Im going to order some for at home so I can leave this one in the bag.






Now this is not a good teething/drool bib.  It is not absorbent, and it is big so it is best used for food and things like messy crafts.  (**Update** I actually found out that the bib can be turned around the other way and the back side is meant to be absorbent for drool!) My aunt saw it on Shark Tank and ordered us one.  It looks a little strange but it works so well, it covers her whole shirt and is super long so it actually covers her lap too.  It's super easy to clean and it folds up super small so it doesn't take up much room in the diaper bag.  It is a Bibbitec brand bib and they can be found on Amazon and check their website at bibbitec.com for stores they are sold in.

And last but not least, in the large back pocket on the outside, we have the changing pad that came with the diaper bag and our pack of disposable table mats.




The mats are the Neat Solution brand, stick-on placemats.  We tried the silicone reusable mats for a while and those just never laid flat on the table and were just difficult to clean so we ditched those and decided to go with these.  They came in a pack of 30 for about $14 on Amazon.  They are also eco-friendly and BPA free which is always good and they provide a clean surface for her to eat off of instead of the grimy table.


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Until next time!!!

Abbey's 1st Surgery & 2 Week Post Op Update

We brought Abbey home on Feb 17 after having her surgery on her left leg then staying the night at the vet.  I was astounded at how well she was walking right from the get go.  Odessa only had the fish line surgery that repaired her tendon.  Abbey's was basically a knee rebalancing that included titanium plates that screwed into her bones.  Odessa wouldn't put any weight on her leg for maybe a week after each surgery but Abbey was able to get up the front steps into the house without much trouble at all.  She was already bearing a bit of weight on it as well.  The vet made the comment that he had never seen a dog come out of that surgery walking like that so quickly.  She had an epidural and two nerve blocks that took a while to wear off but even the next day after they did, she was still bearing a fair bit of weight on it.

By the weekend she was acting just like her old self.  I left the room for a few minutes and she took it upon herself to climb up on the sofa (her normal spot) for a nap then later in the day got by us through the baby gate and let herself up the stairs with no trouble at all.








Her incision was interesting.  All internal stitches so we didn't have to worry as much about her licking and doing any damage to it.  We did leave her in the cone of shame any time we weren't keeping an eye on her just to be on the safe side.  She is a bit of a compulsive chewer as it is so I wanted to air on the side of caution.  But we also didn't have to worry about stitch removal or anything like that.  She did manage to make a spot bleed/leak clear goo at one point so she was stuck in the cone full time for several more days until the scabs healed all the way and she couldn't open them up again.

The surgeon had us come back 2 weeks after the surgery for a quick check up just to make sure there were no signs of any internal or external infections and that she was making progress regaining her mobility.  He said she looks just fine and was happy with her range of motion.  He said that he will just do her final x-rays for that knee when he does the ones for her other knee so she doesn't have to deal with getting them done twice.

Swelling was an issue the first few days.  They gave us this awesome cold pack called a ColPac to help with that then we are to use it after doing any of her little exercises to help with any swelling then.  It is filled with a thick gel so while it gets really cold, it doesn't freeze solid so you can wrap it around her leg easily.  We do wrap it in a dish towel so it wasn't too cold on her skin since they shaved her fur.

Thursday and Friday the swelling was at its worst.  Her ankle swelled to the size of a small grapefruit and her knee was covered in bruises and was hard to the touch.  Buy by Sunday, all of the swelling was completely gone as were all the bruises.

This was Thursday evening bruising and swelling

I will have a video up before she goes into her second surgery of her progress walking.


The cone we have is a Comfy Cone which we LOVE.  I got this for Odessa when she had her first knee surgery.  I hate those cheapo plastic ones the vet has as they can cut your skin if they get you with the edge of it and it's just difficult for them to maneuver around in it.  The Comfy Cone is foam so it has a lot of give to it.  The dog can't get around it to get at their wound but they can push down to get a snack or drink from their bowls.  It also doesn't seem to get hung on things like the sofa cushions or whatever as easily.  We've used ours with Odessa many times and it fits Abbey pretty well too so now it's her turn.  Petsmart carries them (or did when I was looking for one) but they didn't have the size we needed so I ordered it off of Amazon for about $30 for the Extra Large size.  Considering how much use we have gotten out of it, has been more than worth the price.


$$ Update $$:

So we paid for the first knee when we picked her up after the surgery.  We paid $2549.25 for this knee which was just a hair more than the estimate which was $2527.11.

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Thanks guys!!