Being middle class to me means learning how to prioritize resources. After paying a mortgage payment, a car payment, and paying the bills, the most important thing I can spend my extra income on is making memories for my children. Being able to plan small day trips on weekends to museums, farms, pumpkin patches, and the beach means I get to spend quality time with my family and give them memories that will last a lifetime. This is a photo of my daughter, Soleil, taken at a pumpkin patch in Elk Grove, CA. We didn’t have a lot of money to spend that day on taking home huge pumpkins, so she was picking out a few smaller ones for our front porch. We decoupaged them with eyes, noses and lips cut out from magazine ads when we got home.