New Year...New House??

So...another house update, somewhat. As of right now, we have fixed all of the issues that have come up during inspection that the buyer wanted fixed. The ball is now in his court. His lender still needs to schedule a termite inspection and another walkthrough for a re-appraisal since we fixed the inspection issues. Today was supposed to be our closing date, but with loose ends still blowing in the wind, we signed an extension, so hopefully we will close this house by mid-February.

As for our living situation, we have decided for now to shack up at my dad's house. It's a nice short term solution while we keep tucking money into savings. Right now our savings is tied up, because we actually have put an offer on a house...

That house, is a bank owned property a mile away from my dad's place. It is perfect for us, but it does need work. Enough work that it qualifies for a rehab loan. Right now we have signed an offer for the place, and they just need to accept and our house needs to be officially closed on for us to proceed. One main problem is that the rehab house may not appraise for what the seller is asking for it, but that's a bridge we will burn if we make it that far. Right now this house just needs sold. Hopefully we will know more early next week...

House Update!

So....we have an offer on our house. As long as inspections go well, we could be homeless by mid-February. We have no idea where we are going! We won't get much money from the sale of this house, so we need to downsize our living expenses, payoff more debt, and save money for a down payment on a new house.

Our solution... right now we are thinking of doing the RV living. We can buy an RV, park it at my dad's place, so we have a place to sleep, with less than half of the expenses we have now.

Now to play the waiting game......

Testing Out Phone Blogging

With our house going on the market, I really want to focus on bringing my family blog back to life, so here I am trying an update from my phone :)

Oh My...

Have I really not written anything here since July!?!?!?!?

Well, the most important thing since then has been that baby Henna Orion arrived on December 2nd!!! I will write out a birth story with pictures a little later.

I guess my New Year's Resolution will be to keep up on the blog more. We are thinking of updating our phone service to the data package and getting smart phones. I imagine if that's the case, I will be posting a ton more photos.

In the meantime, know that I haven't forgotten about the blog, but that life just got in the way of letting me share our adventures...

I'm a slacker...

I have no idea how to post pictures myself, therefore I depend upon Luke, and he has been crazy busy with weddings this summer, that it just hasn't happened. Maybe this weekend I will actually let him teach me, that way I can put up vacation pictures from our trip to Florida for his cousin's wedding.

The girls have been doing great in karate, and have their yellow belt already! Lexi has learned a few versions of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" on the piano, and we need to go buy her a couple note reading books so she can start learning to read music.

Avery is getting bigger by the minute and starting to finally talk a little bit. The biggest word she says...."Spongebob" :)

I'm doing pretty well. Just turned 27, and I'm about 21-22 weeks along with baby girl number 4! I don't have to go back to work until next week, and we just bought an air conditioner for the living room, so I am hoping to work on organizing all the stuff that came out of the bedrooms. I'm sure I have a lot of yardsale stuff, so I should probably have another yardsale soon. We've gotta come up with some money to pay some things off so we can afford to take on a car payment, since we will need to upgrade when the new baby comes...

Financial Update

So, as far as finances are concerned, we have had a lot of change recently. I started a part-time job back in October, to help bring in a little extra and snowball our credit card debt. I started a spreadsheet in May of 2010 to help track our debt progress (complete debt, as well as broken down into credit card, mortgages, etc...)

Here were the numbers in May of 2010.

Credit Card Debt: $22,489.99
Mortgage Debt (House and Land): $96,204.06
Misc. Debt (Car, Medical, In-laws, etc..): $14,117.30

Total Debt Accumulation: $132,901.35


And now, 9 months later...

Credit Card Debt: $16,064.73
Mortgage Debt (House and Land): $94,190.88 (sad, isn't it?)
Misc. Debt (Car, Medical, In-laws, etc..): $9,873.94

Total Debt Accumulation: $120,149.35

We've paid off almost $13K in 9 months!! WOOHOO!!! Now, we have about $2K in debt for the business that I have not included, but hopefully the photography business will take care of most of it. On top of that, we started sinking funds in January for saving money for different things.
Our Sinking Fund categories are: Car Repair, Medical Expenses, Home Improvement, Luke's Blow Money, Clothing, Holidays/Gifts, and our $1K Emergency Fund.

We have contributed to them as planned so far this year, and we even bought new to us tires for the car in cash. Right now, we are planning a vacation to Florida because Luke's cousin is getting married, and he will be doing the photography. So for now, my paychecks are going straight into a vacation savings so we can pay for the vacation in cash.

We are planning on doing yardsales again this year, and selling some bigger items on craigslist or ebay to hopefully bring in some extra cash for our debt snowball (Dave Ramsey style). I am putting any babysitting money into our Emergency Fund to get it to $1K as quickly as possible as well. (For Dave Ramsey people, we are doing baby step 1 and 2 at the same time). I am also saving up cash to get a few trees cut down this spring, and we are contemplating on how to go about putting up a fence and what the costs would be. We now realize that realistically we will be stuck in this house for a few years yet, and a fence is a must have with the "kind of neighbourhood" that we have :(

We just got our tax refund today, and I paid off a credit card, leaving only 2 left (3 if you count the business expense), so we celebrated by getting chinese food at Asian Wok for lunch. Hopefully, we can continue to be a bit frugal (we've cut cable tv quite awhile ago), and I need to get better at meal planning.

Oh, and a bonus to me working part-time, although I hate to leave the kids. It is close enough to walk to, and since Avery stopped nursing in December, I've lost between 10-15 pounds :) (For everyone that says breastfeeding makes you drop weight, you are all liars to me!!)

Preparing To Catch Up

So, we are heading to West Virginia tomorrow for an extended weekend with Nana and Papaw. The weather is supposed to be decent, so we are hoping to get some walking in, and when we are inside, Luke will be editing on the laptop, doing website updates, and going through pictures to update the blog!!!! In preparation, I will be posting a few times, and then the pictures will come this weekend. Once we are caught up, I will hold him to updating as soon as things happen!

Don't know if I'll ever catch up....

I still have the holidays to post, and Avery's first birthday, but things have been so hectic. Luke had some inflammation in his eye, so he was on all kinds of eye drops and pills that left him out of commission as far as editing is concerned for about 3 weeks. That's all cleared up now, and he has had a baby session and a senior session that are finished and on Facebook, and he has two weddings to finish up, and on top of that, he gets to fly to Atlanta next week for work.

Hopefully once he gets back and we can schedule our time better so he can not only finish up his editing, but get the blog up to date and the website galleries up to date.

In other news, we must have a few inches of snow outside and it is COLD!!! We may have to bring in some snow to play with, it's just to cold out there to be outside for any period of time. I've lost about 10 pounds since I started working 3 months ago. Hopefully that trend continues... And we paid of a credit card this month and hopefully with tax time we will be able to knock out another one. My paychecks are going to be diverted into savings so hopefully we can pay cash for our vacation to Florida in July. We are photographing a wedding for a cousin, and decided to make a vacation out of it. I'm sure the girls will love to sit on the beach and play in the sand for a week!! :)

A Quick Update

We've had lots going on. Halloween, Thanksgiving, Avery's birthday party, and some weddings. I still need to get pictures up from our Chicago trip. Things have just been hectic. On top of that, I started back to work part-time at the end of October, so that leaves even less time for Luke and I to sit down and get pictures bloggged, and he has 2 weddings to edit as well. To see the sneak peeks of the weddings, they are on Willow's Pond Photography's Facebook page here: WPP Facebook

Hopefully we can catch up soon, just letting everyone know we are still here :)

Lazy Updates...

So a whole bunch of stuff has been going on the past month, but laziness has the reigns on us, so we haven't updated hardly anything...even facebook has been neglected.

Luke spends his days and nights working for work, and editing pictures of the wedding last month, along with a maternity and newborn session for friends of ours, plus designing save the date and birth announcement cards, and designing guestbook pages.

He will have the wedding finished this weekend, just in time to second shoot another wedding with Melanie Wright Photography, and go to the Cleveland Airshow who are featuring the Blue Angels this year! It will be Avery's first airshow :)

Last week we put our land up for sale. It's 4.656 acres close to the Ashland County border. It has a gas well that we get $100 a year for the lease, and it also has a spring on the property, along with lots of trees. We bought it 6 years ago with the intention of building, but buying a house, having kids, and a sinking economy put that dream on the backburner, along with the fact that it's another 20 minutes away from our friends and family that we barely see as it is, I think it's best to sell it and maybe buy some land closer to everyone else, and definitely over 5 acres. So, if anyone knows anyone that wants land, look ours up on Amy Marinello Realty!!

We had dinner at Jake's with friends and played at Cohan Park Saturday, and on Sunday, we went boating with Luke's parents to Famous Dave's at Cedar Point. The girls were in awe of the roller coasters, and were sad when they learned they weren't tall enough to be on them. We have lots of pictures, but they haven't even made it off the camera yet. Maybe one day...

Blame Luke...

He has a wedding and an engagement session he is editing, plus moving his computer back upstairs, reinstalling it, and other miscellaneous shoots to edit as well. The girls went to West Virginia for a few days, we've had a few cars hauled this way, the weather has been hot, and we just haven't updated anything! Bare with us, and maybe one day you will know in real time when things happen as opposed to 2-3 months late :)

I Can't Wait Until Yardsale Season!

Technically, I guess it already is. There are around 10 posts in the newspaper, but the weather is so cold and pooey today, that I can't imagine having one this weekend, although the weather is supposed to be nicer. Not sure if I will have one next weekend either, because Luke has his first complete stranger session. The guy found the website and called us up. The weekend after that will be Luke's first wedding of the season. I may not get a yardsale in until May, but I'm hoping to pull something off this month, as long as the weather stays decent.

We bought the girls a swing set. We are hoping we can get it built this weekend. In the meantime, we sold one of their outside plastic toys (A Fisher Price play set with a slide) and a small Little Tikes slide and teeter totter. We have to make room for the swing set, even though it is a smaller one. I know the girls will love it when we finally get it up.

I am still de-cluttering as best as I can around here. I have run out of room to put things. All of the yardsale boxes in the foyer moved to the front porch under a tarp, so I could move stuff into the foyer from the sunroom. We then opened up the sunroom and moved the girls' toys in there so they aren't cluttering up the living room so much. The place looks a lot better after that.

We are hoping for a productive weekend. Let's hope the weather cooperates!

Busy Days Are Ahead

First of all, Luke is doing great. His knees feel fine, they look almost normal now. He will still be on blood thinners until May, but hopefully his problems are behind us now. He is taking pictures of his sister's band tonight.

Tomorrow we have my cousin's birthday party, then Sunday we have an early Easter dinner with the Cowgar side.

We still need to take Avery's 3 month pictures, and take Lilly's 3 year pictures so we can order invitations for her birthday in May.

We sent away for a vendor's license, so the photography business is almost completely legal to operate. Luke has a wedding in April, and we need to figure out some advertising ideas for the business, especially since next years seniors will be looking for photographers soon.

I have a foyer full of boxes waiting for yardsale season. We have lots of other miscellaneous things around the house that need listed on eBay or craigslist. We are hoping to get rid of a few of the girls outdoor toys to make room for a swingset we will buy in April. It will be a big joint birthday present for the girls. Nothing too fancy, just a basic metal swingset with 3 swings and a slide.

We actually had snow on the ground this morning. A few inches it looked like. It's all gone now, but it's amazing to see after having 60 degree days last week. Hopefully that was Winter's one last stab and from now on Spring will move forward.

We got our Netflix disk in today for streaming on the Wii. It's pretty awesome, and Lexi has already figured out how to use it. It's great, because we won't have to pull the laptop out here for them anymore, we can access it right on the TV.

We had our first order for senior graduation party announcements. They turned out really nice. I think Luke's main focus may be seniors. We had 8 sessions in a matter of months last year just by word of mouth. We redesigned the website some and his portfolio prices are still good until July 31st, so we'll see how it goes.

The Meaning of Life

On Monday, Luke had a visit with the rheumotologist to try and diagnose his knee problems. She ordered a ton of blood work, and he is to see her again on March 12th. His ANA test came back positive, which she said "Your Lupus test came back positive." The other blood work ordered corresponds with trying to identify an auto-immune disorder. It's hard not to worry about it until next Friday, but with the research we've done so far, it does sound like he has quite a few symptoms of Lupus, though Lupus does act like a lot of other auto-immune disorders, so it could be something else disguised as Lupus. We won't know until his next appointment. It's hard to imagine for both of us that he may have some kind of a "disease". I guess growing up, you never really plan on being with someone who has problems, or imagine yourself as the one with problems, so it's a little hard to swallow on both of our ends. The important thing is trying to figure out what we can do to keep his symptoms low-key, so he can have the most normal life we can provide, whatever the diagnosis may be.

Life tends to look a little different after something like this happens. We think back, that if he hadn't finally called a doctor, that clot could have killed him. With that in my mind now, I don't feel nearly as stressed about housework, or getting ready for Lexi's birthday party this weekend. There are things I want to get done, no question, but I won't be nearly as upset if they don't get done, because in the end, who wants to remember nothing but house projects and stress. We will both want to remember fun times with the girls, and the laughter and joy we can all bring into this house. So the work will get done when it gets done.

I've had problems lately enjoying being home with the girls. Not many people have this opportunity, and I feel horrible that I don't enjoy it all the time like I think I should. Looking at life with these new set of glasses is slowly teaching me that I will love it more, when I don't stress about the small things.

So excuse the dirty dishes, the pajamas worn all day, and the tangles in the hair. Please excuse the clutter messes, unswept carpet, and toy covered living room. We are a family that is home together all day, every day. We live here, it is our home, and it is full of life and excitement.

Quick Updates in the Household...

We have a bit of snow on the ground today, just a light coating really. It really warmed up over the weekend, and Luke had another senior session booked on Saturday. She was referred from a few other seniors that Luke had done. Apparently there are still a lot of kids in her class that haven't gotten senior pictures done. They either don't care, will let the school picture get submitted, or went to a quick studio to get a headshot for the book. I figured we were done with senior sessions for the year, but we may not be.

The girls are doing well. They had a bit of a cough and runny/stuffy noses, but are doing much better. Hopefully we are done being sick for the year:)

With that senior shoot came a few last minute home improvements. We got some drywall mud on the dining room ceiling, and put primer on the trim. We also nailed down some shoe molding, and bought new curtains and hardware. Makes the room look nice, but it will look even better when it's finished.

We are planning on Lexi and Lilly visiting Nana and Papaw next month, and I am hoping that we can get some more home improvement items taken care of. We will definitely be painting the girls' closet and ceiling since they will be gone, and maybe touch up some wall paint. I would like to focus on the dining room and living room, that way they look nicer when the birthday parties start rolling around. Lexi's is in March, and Lilly in May. The kitchen seems to be a lost cause...I sometimes wish that part of the house would just fall off so we can claim it on the insurance and get a really nice one!

Right now we are trying to sort out all this photography business jargin, so we know we are as legit as a small business can be. Fun fun!

Moving Along...

We decided to put a bed rail on Lexi's bed. She sleeps in a the bottom bunk, and Lilly's bed is a trundle on the floor, and 2 of the 4 times Lilly has had a night terror, we have found Lexi in her bed. It worked for 2 nights, but then last night we think Lilly had another one, although Luke had her calmed down in less than 5 minutes. Hopefully this really is helping...

Avery has her one month appointment tomorrow afternoon, so I will update with all of the details later tomorrow.

Luke sold a camera and lens, so pretty soon our first credit card on our snowball will be paid off!!! We are awaiting our tax forms which should be coming between now and the beginning of February, so we can start that process. I'm not sure what our numbers will be since that Obama tax went into effect, giving more back in each paycheck, and we had Avery, so our tax return is a mystery number for us right now.

I'm trying to put us on the envelope system for groceries, dining out, home improvement, and thrift/gift savings. Hopefully having the cash on hand and seeing it disappear will help keep us on our budget a bit better.

I pulled both of our credit reports from annualcreditreport.com. I pulled our Experian reports, and we can pull from the other two throughout the year. All for free since we aren't getting our score with them. I am going to start working on our "Everything Important" binder again. I haven't touched it in over a year, and it has important information in the event that Luke and I both died, people would know where to find our login information, credit details, work information, insurance information, and a listing of valuables and whatnot.

That's about it besides the normal housekeeping...

Minor setbacks...

Luke and I have decided to lay down the law and keep me on my butt for a few days. I woke up today feeling like I had been hit by a truck! Dull cramps, increased bleeding, kind of dizzy, and just feeling blah. I guess the lack of sleep is catching up with me, and I have been pushing myself with my normal housewife duties.

On a good note though, Luke finished editing his senior sessions. Now we need to focus on doing some more newborn photos of Avery, and getting announcements ordered. I think we decided to skip Christmas cards and send out wallet photos with the announcements.

We started supplementing Avery with formula at night, hoping that it sticks with her longer so she will sleep a little longer. We have a few sample cans that we received in the mail that we have available to us, and I am pumping at night, so we have a nice little stockpile of breastmilk to fall back on after the cans run out. It's nice to have someone else feed her occasionally. We supplemented with Lexi since I went back to work after 6 weeks, but Lilly was exclusively breastfed and would refuse a bottle of any kind, so I never had a break with her.

I've been sitting on my butt most of the evening, and my sweet hubby is making peanut butter cookies with hershey kisses right now :)

Nana and Papaw are coming up tomorrow, so the big girls will have a bunch of fun tomorrow evening and on Saturday. I've felt bad since they haven't had nearly as much attention since Avery came home, but they seem to be doing just fine.

We Are Surviving...

I guess it's probably a few things all put together... Lexi and Lilly are older and need entertainment, it's been at least a year and a half since we have had to be up numerous times at night, and probably the fact that we are a couple years older, and a couple years more out of shape, but adjusting from a family of four to a family of five seems like a bit more of a struggle than going from 3 to 4.

I think Avery is mixing up her days and nights. The literature that the hospital sends home suggests feeding every 2 hours during the day, that way you are interrupting sleep all throughout the day, so I tried that out today. I will wake her up one more time here in a few minutes to nurse her and get her changed and swaddled for bed, and hopefully she isn't wide awake half of the night. It wouldn't be too big a deal, but Luke has a lot on his plate right now with the photography business, on top of his day job, so he has been staying up later to do editing, and by the time he comes to bed, Avery is up and needs bounced around for another hour, so he is running on little sleep.

Nursing is going OK, although it seems that she has a problem latching on the left. I get a nice pain every time, so I tried doing the football hold instead of the cradle hold, and it works out a lot better. She must not like lying on her right side to eat. The football hold is a bit more difficult to master in chairs, so I end up in bed or sideways on the couch now, but at least I don't hurt so much. I remember everyone saying to give breastfeeding 6 weeks, and with Lexi, it was exactly 6 weeks before everything fell into place. With Lilly it didn't matter, since I had only stopped breastfeeding for about 2 months before she was born.

We are surviving though, and that is the important thing! Our goal is to get through the end of the month, and then starting in the new year, we will re-do the budget and home improvement plans, and see if we can get ahead next year!

TGIF

We've lasted the week! Although today has only begun... Avery went to the pediatrician on Wednesday, and checked out just fine, weighing in at 8lbs 10oz, so she gained 2 oz from her discharge weight. She has figured out the latching on thing, but we've still been supplementing with a little formula and pumped breastmilk. I don't want a baby that won't take a bottle when I need a break, and we ran into that with Lilly, so I don't want to repeat that again. She's been doing fairly well at night, she has a 5-6 hour stretch, and then 3 hour stretches after the big one.

We tried out some quick newborn shots yesterday, so we can get birth announcements done. We may try to do Christmas pictures this weekend, so we can get everything ordered all at once.

It is my goal to sit on my butt most of the day today, because I have been much too active the past 2 days with household stuff, and it is physically showing, so I need to take it easy.

Luke has tons of work to do, not only for AMPS (the company he works for), but also editing our newborn and future Christmas pictures, plus 2 senior sessions, plus fixing a friend's computer, plus numerous other things. I really don't want to depend on him too much, because he is already getting little sleep from staying up late to edit, and then he helps with the baby at night.

It's proving to be tough right now with two toddlers and a newborn, but I think once Luke's workload lessens and the holidays are over with, along with some healing time for me, that things will work out a lot better.

For Your Enjoyment...

The title of the last post made me think of Europe, so Luke and I set out on a search and came across this.

Europe Video

Please take a few minutes and enjoy the hair, pink lipstick, jacket change, on stage slow motion, cheesy guitar solo, and flames. And make note of the date on the top of the building...1986. I was 2 :) Gotta love the 80's!