Slices of Life

Today we are joined by guest blogger Drew Cloud and talking about smart financial planning and college.  I hope you enjoy!  Why Families Should Use SDRSI Before Decision Day As the constantly increasing cost of earning a college degree outpaces the rise of early career wages, many families should dedicate extra time to choose the most affordable school for their high school graduate to make sure they can afford the student loan payments. One of the tools they can use before decision day is the Student Debt Repayment Success Indicator (SDRSI) as they select the best college. What is SDRSI? The Student Debt Repayment Success Indicator (SDRSI) uses the median salary of new graduates, the average debt per graduate, and a college’s default rate within the first three years of graduation to compute the likelihood that future college graduates will be able to successfully repay their student loans after graduation. A higher SDRSI score means a higher probability that if your child at...

This is the first time I ever had someone else ask me to make a baby scrapbook for them to give as a gift! I often make scrapbooks to give as baby gifts at baby showers and was so flattered when I was asked by a family member if they could pay me to make one for them to give to a friend and the baby boy they would be having. I enjoy scrapbooking and there is something about making up blank pages that I find so freeing. Linking Up With: Craft Schooling Sunday,

Alec made the most amazing chocolate peanut butter cupcakes this past weekend. We started with this basic chocolate cupcake recipe found on Annie's Eats .  Using her ingredients and directions he mixed up a nice thick batch of batter.  However since Alec decided to omit the peanut butter filling our batch made 18 cupcakes. Chocolate cupcake: 1 2/3 cup flour 3/4 cup cocoa powder 1 tsp baking soda 1/2 tsp salt 1 cup sour cream 2 Tbsp. milk 1 tsp. vanilla extract 8 Tablespoons butter, softened 1 1/2 cups sugar 2 large eggs In a medium bowl he combined flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt.  In a small bowl he combined sour cream, milk and extract.  In the bowl of our stand mixer he combined the sugar and butter over medium speed until well mixed and then added in the two eggs.  He slowly added some of the flour mixture then the sour cream mixture and ended with the flour mixture. Using his large scoop he filled the cupcake liners 3/4 of ...

We had a busy and productive week!  We painted and organized a bedroom, had a fun day with our friends and visited with family.  We managed to get lots of schoolwork done and the boys are really looking forward to finishing up all of their books within the next month. We had such a busy day on Friday.  While the younger boys started their day playing some video games, Ian and I started dismantling his room.  He wanted to paint his room and add a few organizational touches to it in place of a birthday gift or party this year.  We began pulling his furniture away from the room and piled most everything into the middle of the room.  We spackled holes, taped off the trim and outlets and got everything ready. We all sat down to breakfast and I read a few chapters in The Dead of Night.  We also learned a bit of Swahili reading Jambo Means Hello .  After I finished reading, Evan worked on two pages each in his math book and his word family ...