Stuff, stuff, and more Stuff!

I can definitely tell my kids are getting bigger and a little more difficult to please. I took them shopping the other day to get some last minute things for there Easter outfits. I didn't make a big deal about Easter clothes, but I do get my kids something new to them for Easter and usually don't buy them any other dress clothes the whole spring, so this makes it a big deal. We are looking for shoes to go with S's dress. M and E both need shoes and that is about it. At the end we came home with a new dress for S. (She already had a dress at home that she told me she loved). Easter shoes for M. Flip flops for S and brown canvas shoes for E. I guess we didn't do too bad, it was just the drama during the search. Tears, 4 stores, back to the first store we started at and the dress that S had to have becasue she didn't get to pick out her first one. It has been almost 2 weeks since the experience and looking back at it, it doesn't seem as bad, but this mama was almost in tears when I was shopping that day. We are in todays terms a large family and we will continue to be a large family. We have a limited budget, sometimes quiet limited, and then I have this new issue my children and theirs wants. That combination is sometimes very difficult to deal with. I am resourceful and am up to the challenge of clothing all my kids with nice clothes on a limited budget--that includes shoes too, but when I throw the kids in the mix and their wants and opinions in combination with my budget it gets a little tougher. This is where I struggle. I want my kids to feel like they are able to pick and choose some of the stuff we buy, but I definitely have to find a better way to do this than taking them all shopping at once. We were making huge sacrifices to get the kids all new Easter clothes and shoes, only for them to leave from shopping with tears and feelings that they didn't get what they wanted. I wanted this to be a fun day, that everyone would get something, we would feel good because we had stayed within our budget and had a fun day. It didn't quite turn out the way I had expected. I ended up over budget, didn't get the shoes we really needed and had to deal with tantrums, and my children being very materialistic along the way. Gonna have to think on this one and do it different next time. I can't blame my kids for their wants, we all do that when we go into shop. We choose the most expensive, the outfit that is not on sale or the one thing the coupon doesn't include, just seems to be how it works. Just gotta find a way to help my kids with the battle of...stuff, stuff, and more stuff. This is a battle we never stop fighting. Satan tries to tell us we gotta have something, we need it actually. It will makes our lives easier and better. We won't truly be happy unless we have this specific thing. In reality we need very few material things. A house to keep us dry. It can be a small house very simply decorated. A few nice clothes that wash well. Food. Everything else is just extra stuff that yes we do need at times and we will buy, but I have found that the more stuff we have the more complicated our lives become. We gotta have a bigger house to store all the stuff, bigger cars to move all the stuff around. More stuff to store the stuff in. Then we gotta have two or three exactly the same "stuff" because we can't seem to share anymore. Yes we have computers, toys, tvs and cell phones--but it you take a step back the more of those things you have, the more complicated life becomes. This is a tough one for me. How do I teach my kids not to be materialistic when it is all around us. Media wants to tell us we gotta have it because that means money out of our pocket and into theirs. I struggle in many areas of my life, but for some reason God has taken the desire for "stuff" away from me. I even grow board of people I know and hang with continually talking about their stuff and their "stress" over their stuff. I have no idea why, because I used yo be quite a shopper before my children were born. The feeling of discontentment in what we have is a huge area for attack in especially women's lives. When I see my children being sucked into this, i just worry and so want to spare them from this area of weakness in their lives. Help me somehow, some way to teach them that life is not about stuff, and how to get ahead to acquire more stuff. Life is about a relationship with Jesus Christ and through Him relationships with others in this world. We can try for feel that deep desire we have in our hearts with stuff, stuff, and more stuff and it will leave us empty every time. Only when we fill up with Christ , will we be truly satisfied and content with who we are and what we have in Christ.