Fabulous Friday Favorites!

For the two of you who noticed, sorry I missed Thankful Thursday!

I was cleaning.

Sad, huh?

I have a lot to be thankful for, too.

Like having my family back together. Like Son (#4) having Fifth Disease but finding out it's not contagious, anymore (that's a story!). Like the fact that one more week of school activities is over. Like that I finally got my new dust ruffle hemmed and back on the bed. AND for a clean house! Or mostly clean. Or at least MORE clean. OH and the plumber came and fixed some pesky problems that have been bothering us since we moved in two and a half years ago! Yeah!

But on to Friday!

I have been trying to talk about items that are relatively cheap and readily available at your local Wal-mart Supercenter.

But this week I have something even better.

When our 2nd through 7th babies were born, we lived in a wonderful old house - built in the 30's - in a charming old neighborhood.

OH how we loved that house! It was full of character. AND next door to my grandfather, our children's great-grandfather and baby boy's namesake. He still lived in the house where my mother had grown up.

And did I mention it was a mile from my parents house? The house I grew up in?

It had a HUGE yard - which always surprised everyone because of the location. The Coach worked on that yard and it would have won any contest you could have thrown at it.

Not only that, but the guys built a playset that my dad designed in the backyard. We had a stone patio that the Coach put in for our cattle tank pool (best thing ever, by the way).

We had a huge deck, too. And some of the BIGGEST trees our plains state has to offer.

And inside it was darling. We painted and fixed up every room. Even gutted the kitchen and half bath and put in all new cabinets. It had a million windows and hardwood floors in the WHOLE HOUSE.

Which brings me to my point.

Let's just say that with the age of the home, the creaky stairs and the hardwood floors that caused children's running to echo, naptime was a challenge.

Fortunately, we had these:

This is a Sound Screen. You can find them here. And I'm sure lots of other places. And yes, you can also find fancy electronic jobberdoos that look really high tech. But here's the secret. This just sounds like a fan. And it's not loud enough that you have to worry about long term hearing loss. Which at the Troops is a legitimate concern.

Anyway, because of these wonderful objects, I could have children sleeping in both the girl's and boy's bedrooms and the baby sleeping in our room. Peacefully. In an old, creaky, loud house.

And we use them still.

Because they are wonderful.

Even with a bigger house that has carpet and hall doors that I can shut for naptime (somebody say AMEN!).

So share with us what YOUR Fabulous Friday Favorite is today! Be sure and link to you specific post. And tell us about something you have actually used. And leave comments. Because we love comments, don't we?

Happy Friday!

And maybe, if I'm not cleaning like a mad woman, again, tomorrow, I'll show you that wonderful old house. Would you like to see it?