Blog Change

It's time for change! I have struggled to keep this blog up to date, often being busy or simply forgetting. Since we are in the middle of moving, my craft Facebook page is at a standstill, but there is still so much we could share, that I decided to start a new blog, for this next chapter of our lives.

Please visit http://www.palebluehomestead.blogspot.com to keep up with us!

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......

Local Library Fun!

We had our monthly Lego Club meeting yesterday at the library. This is the second meeting. The library had so many kids show last month that they are now doing two meetings a month and split the age range. Avery participated even though she doesn't turn 5 until Saturday! The theme was winter, and the girls had a blast as usual :)

We also make Christmas ornaments in girl scouts every year. The library decorates their trees with them. Avery, Alexis, and Lillian each made one (even though Avery isn't technically a Daisy yet).

All and all, it was a fun evening in between piano and karate!

No more babies!

Today is Henna's 3rd birthday! It's bittersweet. I know we are having no more babies, that factory burned down a month after she was born. Sure she is still in diapers, and drinks from a sippy cup, and she has her own Minion language, but we no longer have a baby in the house. For 9 years we've had babies, or been pregnant, breastfeeding, swaddling, sleep deprived parents. Now we are just sleep deprived!

This year started "the change" in our life. That next chapter. We've survived 10 years in this house, now we are moving on to living and enjoying life. Finding a forever house, climbing out of debt, shaping our girls' education, and creating lasting memories.

So happy birthday kiddo. You completed our family, and ultimately pushed us into our next chapter!

4 kids and selling a house...

So yeah... selling a house and having four kids doesn't really mix. Luke compared it to trying to live in a museum! Our realtor just texted to see if we could have a showing tomorrow afternoon, which means we just went into panic mode... The girls daily chores will help with some things, but we will all be glad when this house finally sells :)

I guess I better start cleaning.....

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 :)

Financial Update

We've been really busy catching up on photography editing, cutting tags for craft shows, and overall just plain busy with life. It seems like we never have time for anything else anymore! We've slipped on healthy eating and exercising, but one thing we've tried to stick to from the New Year is our debt payoff. As of today, we have 11.1% of our overall debt paid off (not including the house) Our goal of paying of $15,000 this year is well on track, as we are already $6500 down, and we are still waiting on taxes. **Happy Dance!!**

Hopefully with taxes, we will pay off two credit cards that we will be able to cancel and never have to worry about again. We do have one set back, and that's medical bills. Luke flew to Atlanta for work back in February, and ended up in the emergency room with a real bad stomach bug. He maxed our deductible for the year, and we've managed to pay off all the little hospital bills associated with that and other visits, but the big bill for $1800 just came in the mail today, and it looms over us... hopefully we can set up a payment plan with them.

In other news, we had told ourselves we were going to take it easy with the photography business this year... Instead we've bought new studio lighting equipment, and booked more wedding than we did last year! So much for taking it easy. On top of that, I still work part time, started up a craft business, and I'm still working through first grade with Lexi and Lilly, plus a little Pre-K with Avery. (See why we have no time?)

Nothing new has happened with the house lately. I'm already behind on starting my seeds for a garden this year, but I hope to start that process in the next week or two. We have a few plans for the backyard this year, although it wouldn't surprise me if Luke's Fieros take over all of that time. I think I may need to create a time management board that tracks nice days and what he worked on last, that way we can flip between the house, backyard, business, and cars!

Considering it's almost 1AM now, and I do have to work later today, plus gear up for a craft show that I have to wake up early for on Saturday, I best be hitting the sack! I'm hoping that with the nicer weather, and the craft business becoming more real, that I will update the blog and facebook page a lot more...

Welcome 2014!

Happy New Year's Day!

Now is the time to make resolutions, but I am not making resolutions, I am making goals for our family this year! So here's the list for 2014...

-We (especially myself) will exercise at least 3 times per week. Pretty sure we will start the couch 2 5k program on Monday. (Right now we are still getting over being sick)

-We will pay off at least $15,000 in credit card and car debt this year. We will pay around $12,000 in minimum payments alone with our current budget, but I hope to come up with a few thousand extra and get some of our smaller cards paid off in full.

-Drink more water!! Kicking the soda pop is tough, and we are struggling terribly with it. Luke and I both got the big water bottles at the The Dollar Tree (BPA free and made in the USA) that hold 74.4 ounces each. I hope we can down one of these a day.

-More family nights. I limited my availability at work, and we both agreed that we won't be advertising the photography business as much. Luke will continue with photography if he gets contacted, and we may still do boudoir marathons and family mini sessions throughout the year, but no bridal shows or senior marketing. We have a few new games we got over the holidays (memory card games, dominoes, Go Fish, Uno, checkers), so I hope that a few times a week, even for just a half hour, we can sit down with the girls and play something (We've done lots of Uno since we got sick)

-Get rid of at least 10 things per week. Our ultimate goal is to have our house finished so we could put it on the market whenever we want, but right now we have too many unfinished projects, and lots of clutter. We will either toss, donate, give-away, or sell these items. (This is one way I hope to fast track our debt snowball)

-Potty train Henna. She just turned 2 in December, and the other girls were trained around 2 1/2 years old, so I'm hoping she doesn't turn into the stubborn one. It will be nice not to have wipes and diapers in the budget.

-Monitor our electricity usage. I know we are using more than we should be. Lots of things are charged, left plugged in, left running, left on. I want to watch the meter a few days and see what is on and plugged in, and also take note of the meter when we leave the house and think we have most things turned off. We've got to be able to lower our monthly bill, even if it's only $10 a month.
-Finish up house projects. December was our kitchen month, but with the holidays, then being sick, we didn't get nearly as far as I had hoped. So our kitchen month is being extended into January and February of this year. After that, we have some unfinished business in the spare room and downstairs bathroom that will be for March and possibly April. We will then reassess what still needs to be done, and plan for the rest of the year.

-Date nights. We haven't really had any of these since we had kids! I want to do the Pinterest project that is floating around with the popsicle sticks in a jar. Have a few different colors depending on if it's something that requires a babysitter and money, or if it's something we can do at the house (if we can ever get Henna out of our bed!)

-Journal. I had Luke pick up a couple notebooks at the store. I originally wanted us to journal back and forth to each other each day, like a little love note, words of encouragement, things like that, but then I stumbled across a few little notebooks that we had on the shelf that him and I started for Lexi and Lilly back in 2008. We only had like 1 or 2 entries in it for them, and hadn't touched it since probably the first week we started it. So now I want to find some way for each of us to journal to the girls, and make it more consistent than every 5 years!! I'm not sure if we should do a journal for each girl, (I think that may be too much), or just have each of us do a family journal, with entries that can be for all of the them to read, and some that may just speak to one of them (like on birthdays). There is so much we both don't remember from our childhoods, so I want the girls to be able to read our journals, and then start journals for themselves when they get better at reading and writing. Even in this digital age, I think a nice handwritten journal would be a great family treasure in the years to come.

-A yearly scrapbook/photobook. I have 4 scrapbooks in my hope chest. One for each girl. Lexi has a few pictures in hers, until she is about 6 months old. Lilly's has pictures from when we were in the hospital with her. Avery and Henna...blank pages. I'm not sure If I will ever get those baby books completed for them, but starting this year, I would like to make a family memory book. Fun trips, silly pictures, everyday life...anything and everything. Each time Luke downloads a card from the camera, I want us to automatically look at all the pictures and sort some into a special folder. Along with this come our daily family picture. Last year we took a family picture every night before bed, except for the nights that the girls were in West Virginia with Nana and Papaw, so I want to continue that for this year as well.

I think these are the main goals, I'm sure I'm forgetting something, but typing it all out makes it look like a bit off more than I can chew! Let's go 2014! As Spongebob would say, "I'm Ready!"

Kitchen Organization Start

It has been a LONG time since I've updated this blog....a VERY LONG time! Considering Henna will be 2 in another week, a super LONG time! Ignore the pictures at the top and at the side...the blog is very outdated. Life has been so busy. Four kids, a host of extra activities, home schooling, the photography business, my part-time job... a blog was the farthest thing from my mind...

I had a conversation with my friend Charlotte recently, about how cluttered we both feel our homes are, and how we need motivation and accountability so we can get through this hurdle in our lives and get organized. She suggested that December be my kitchen month, and so I thought about it, got on Pinterest, and dove in to find organization methods I thought we could pull off in the kitchen.  I thought of keeping tabs with my progress on Facebook, either my personal page or my craft page, but I think the old blog would be better to store everything at, so I could go back and look through the progress easier, and I can just share a link on Facebook when I update this.

Before we go any further, here is the link to my Pinterest board on the ideas I came across for kitchen organization.

http://www.pinterest.com/hippiezrule/kitchen-organization-101/

Ok, now, take note that we have lived in this house for 9 years.  We bought it with the intention of flipping it, but the market crashed and we became stuck, had a few kids, and then decided, "Oh, maybe we should actually start fixing the place up so it's more livable now that we have kids." Last winter we did a major overhaul on the kitchen. We had little cabinet space, and since we use the backdoor as our main entrance (we park the cars in the back of the house), the kitchen was a cluttered catch-all, with doors to the bathroom, outside, basement, and the upstairs (we removed this second staircase and turned it into a coat closet). I'm no Martha Stewart, but I'd like to be one day, and the previous kitchen had no hope of me ever learning to cook.  This overhaul gave me the chance, and now this December organization will hopefully make that chance a reality.

Here are a few pictures we dug up of what our kitchen looked like before we did anything to it.  Note that the pantry was enclosed, and we had shoved our fridge into one side of it.  There was no place for a fridge, except right beside the window, and then when you walked through the backdoor, it was BAM, a fridge. The two doors after the pantry are for the second staircase and the basement door. Then there is the window, blocked by our chest freezer, and a few cabinets on the wall. Those cabinets were not there when we moved in, those were free from a kitchen display tear-out when I worked at Lowe's. Then the backdoor, and notice the built-in dishwasher...that's not built-in..LOL! And the cabinet above it was a free Lowe's display as well. Beside that is the door to the bathroom, and then the sink and main cabinet area, which was all there when we moved in. We did however, rip those out and rebuild the soffit. Then the stove, and then the doorway to the dining room.

We knocked the pantry wall out on one side, to allow more room for the fridge. The spiral staircase was closed off to create a coat closet. My ultimate goal was to have more countertop space, so we made the radical decision to move our backdoor to where the window was, and make the entire corner cabinets and countertop space. On a cold December day in 2012, we decided it was time for a change. Here are some before, during, and after pictures of that tear-out process from last year.

Since then, we've finished putting the tileboard backing up behind the cabinets. We have some trim and paint, some cabinet hardware, some baseboard, and other odds and ends. We still have a lot of work to do, and a lot of organization that could happen, so the time is now. December 2013 is it! Now for the ultimate embarrassment... Here are some pictures of our current state.

 Notice the stroller hanging out, dirty dishes piled up, next to zero countertop space, plants on the dirty floor, an expired carseat, shoes and coats everywhere (since access to the coat closet is blocked), a complete mess on the pantry shelves, and chicken food and bedding, plus lots of paint, tools, egg cartons, etc.

I don't expect us to get new flooring this month, that is an expense we just cannot handle right now. What I would like to see during this month of organizing, is not only for us to utilize our cabinets, countertops, and pantry in the best ways possible, but also to finish up some odds and ends of our construction process, and to de-clutter unnecessary items in the kitchen, with everything that belongs in the kitchen, to have a home.

Here is a good portion of the construction list of what still needs accomplished in the kitchen to finish it:

• ·         Install cabinet handles
• ·         Caulk gaps in crown molding
• ·         Texture mud the ceiling (it is very uneven from taking out the pantry wall, so texture it is)
• ·         Paint ceiling
• ·         Buy and install ceiling fan for the main light
• ·         Install quarter round trim around cabinets
• ·         Move register vent (right now it's blowing under one of our new cabinets)
• ·         Install countertop ends
• ·         Replace stove gas line (right now the stove doesn't sit back against the wall like it should)
• ·         Touch up wall paint
• ·         Paint trim
• ·         Install outlet
• ·         Get deadbolt re-keyed and installed
• ·         New microwave bulb (here to remind us...)
• ·         Paint closet door and backdoor
• ·         Possibly get a new bathroom door and paint it (the previous owners installed it upside down!)

Here are some of the organizing goals I want to achieve.  I am sure there are many more, but these come to mind easily:

• ·         Contact paper for inside cabinet doors (print, chalkboard, and possibly metal and cork to add)
• ·         Spice racks
• ·         Pot lid storage
• ·         Pots and pans storage
• ·         Herb garden
• ·         Storage for small appliances
• ·         Snack center for the girls
• ·         "Communication" center for the family
• ·         Meal plan/grocery list center for the family
• ·         Better utensil storage
• ·         Buy or make an oven gap guard
• ·         Above the fridge storage

I plan to take before and after pictures of each cabinet as we purge and reorganize them. I will also take pictures and post updates as we get construction projects accomplished, or if I do something amazing in there :) Now I just need everyone to hold us accountable for all of this!

Henna's Birth Story

I said I'd get to writing this out, and I need to, before the memory starts to fade away.

I had a doctor's appointment on December 1, 2011 @ 10:15AM. (I was even awake early, at 8AM, anticipating that I may be in the hospital later that evening, I was cleaning things) At that point in time, I was 40 weeks, 1 day. I had gone naturally with Lexi at 38 weeks, arriving at the hospital already 6cm and not even knowing it. Total labor (that I know of), 16 hours. With Lilly, I had my membranes stripped at 39 weeks and went into labor that evening. Total labor, 12 hours. With Avery on the other hand, we waited and waited, and at 41 weeks, we got an induction. Her induction started by breaking my water and starting pitocin at the same time. Total labor, 4 hours. Avery was only a half ounce shy of being 9 pounds,and my placenta had shown signs of being overdue, so my doctor agreed with an induction at 40 weeks with Henna. She had an induction scheduled already at Dunlap (we had delivered the other 3 in Wooster), so we decided we would meet at Dunlap at 5PM and just break my water and see what happened.

So about a 5:45PM on December 1st, my water was broken, and I awaited labor. Start problem #1... Henna was not dropped down in the uterus very well, even after breaking the water, so I wasn't allowed to move from that hospital bed. They feared she may drop on her umbilical cord if I got up and moved, so I even had to use a bedpan. Labor never did come, despite having some contractions off and on throughout the night. We didn't get a wink of sleep. I was so uncomfortable not being able to move out of that bed. I had wanted to try their water birth tubs, but that wasn't gonna happen (and I found out that you can't even get in them when you have pitocin running, which I didn't know at the beginning). We watched some horrible Sci-Fi stuff and then National Treasure 2 throughout the night.

At about 4:30AM on December 2nd, pitocin was started, and I was actually told I could move around slightly. Start problem #2...Henna's heart rate dropped VERY low with every contraction. This went on for a few hours, despite adjusting the pitocin all over the place and even stopping it, and the talk of a C-Section became a very real option. After being up for 24 hours, facing a C-Section, and in some lovely pitocin induced pain for over 4 hours, somewhere around 8:30AM-9AM, I received my very first epidural. My doctor even said that I was one that did not complain, (I had 3 kids already...) and she couldn't believe how this was all turning out.

Start problem #3...the epidural partially failed. It seemed to work OK on my left side, but not my right side, so now I'm thinking they are gonna have to knock me out for a C-Section, because how in the world is a spinal going to work if the epidural didn't? While the epidural doc screwed around with settings and gave me the option of redoing it (one needle to the back is enough, thankyouverymuch!), my doctor decided to do that amniofusion thing where they circulate water back through the uterus, hoping it would even out her heart rate.

Amazingly enough, this worked! She evened out. Eventually I got to the point where the music had changed, and we knew we must be close to the pushing phase. So in about 2 minutes with 3 or 4 pushes, Henna Orion Cowgar was born on December 2nd, 2011 @ 12:21PM. She was 7lbs, 15oz and 19 1/2 inches long. She was perfectly healthy. She didn't really have a cone head since she hadn't been sucked down very long, she had tons of fuzzy hair everywhere, and very long fingers! My placenta on the other hand, wasn't so graceful. I believe the doctor actually sent it to the lab for tests. That thing was old! I'm glad we didn't wait as long as we did with Avery. That could have posed a greater threat to Henna if we had. And believe it or not, she was smaller than not only Avery, but Lilly also!!

This was certainly the farthest thing from the birth experience I was hoping for, and I get a little sad when I think of how this went since she is our last, but we both made it, which is a lot to say! My only regret is that stupid epidural. I should of just had them pull the thing out when it didn't work right, because my left leg was swollen up for days after, and my back twinged for about a week after she was born, right where they had put that needle in. That darn thing was useless. I made it through 4 hours of intense pitocin contractions with Avery, and what I felt with that epidural was just as bad as those were, so I could have just saved the insurance some money and not gotten the thing if the big C-Section word hadn't been thrown around so much. My doctor even said, if I had been in Wooster, I probably would have ended up with one, because she would have been going between Wooster and Orrville with her other induction as well.

I will also note, that the horrible sci-fi movies had ended long ago, and Mr. Mike Rowe and the Dirty Jobs crew got to be a part of my birthing experience this time:)

In the end, we ended up with our fourth little princess, and the other 3 absolutely adore her:)

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...

Extracurricular Activities

We've gotten to the age group that Lexi and Lilly are big enough to start doing some things... Since Lexi just turned 5, we started piano lessons with a lady through the Wayne Center for the Arts. We go on Wednesday afternoons to her home for a half hour lesson. We have had one so far, and Lexi did really well. We went to Larry's and got her a book and CD and she has been practicing at home and doing pretty good. Lilly may even pick a little bit up before she turns 5 and can start.

We also started karate and Tracy's Studio here in town. The owner is awesome, and the girls enjoy it a lot. Ages start at 4, and since Lilly will be 4 next month, they let her start so it's something they can do together. We go Tuesday evenings for the group lesson, which is them and 4 boys, and then we go on Wednesday mornings for their private lesson. They do really well, and we have a list of stuff they get to do for their first belt, a yellow belt. They should have their uniforms in a few weeks. So exciting!!

Cat Bites!!

So, we've spent some time at Dad's lately, due to a neighbour unexpectedly falling ill and passing away. He has a grumpy old black cat named Sisko (after the captain on Star Trek Deep Space Nine, not that Thong Song guy that Chelsea always thinks of!!) Anyway, we think he was in the bathtub drinking water and Lilly tried to pet him, and of course he bit her. She has one little hole in her arm right above her left wrist. This happened Tuesday, and we've been treating it with peroxide and neosporin, but yesterday we called the pediatrician because it turned red and puffy. They saw her yesterday and did an antibiotic by injection. She had to get one in each leg, and he said that it would hurt really bad, causing burning and tingling and that she wouldn't be able to walk hardly. Poor Lilly had never been so scared. Just last month she saw Lexi get a shot, and even though Lexi did awesome, Lilly has been talking about shots and that she doesn't want one, so yesterday was tough. I ended up being an hour and a half late to work since the appointment was so late in the day and we had to wait around to make sure she didn't have a reaction to the shots.

She goes back today at 2:45. The redness has gone down, so she probably won't need another round of shots, just an oral antibiotic from here!

Just an FYI, the pediatrician said as far as animal bites go. If it's a cat, always bring them in, because their teeth are so long that the bite goes deep enough that oxygen can't get to the wound to heal it. A dog bite on the other hand, unless it requires stitches, would be just fine to treat at home, and the risk of infection is low...

A birthday and more kitchen destruction

We had a friend turn 4 last week, and they had his party at a McDonald's with a play place. I have to say, it gives me a little bit of anxiety to let them play there. We don't do McDonald's except when we meet Nana and Papaw, and that one doesn't have toys. It's just a sticky, icky place. The girls had a blast though!!


The kitchen is still in progress. I am hoping to send Luke to Lowe's today to pick up two cabinets, and then we can get those up, and the rest of the tile board that goes behind the countertop, and then hopefully we can get mud on the walls so we can paint the rest of it sometime this month!!

Kitchen Re-Modeling

We had finally put up drywall in the pantry before Lexi's party, and now it's time to finish it up. I always thought the kitchen would be last on the list of house re-models, but I believe it is the reason we eat out more than we should, and eat unhealthier meals. We need a good space to prepare food, and the old kitchen didn't offer that to us. Since we are cash flowing the project, we won't have everything we need to finish it this weekend(like two cabinets and the OTR Microwave), but we will have the soffet done, paint on the walls, shelving in the pantry, and the tile board up. It will be enough that the groceries will fit on the shelves, and we can easily take inventory of what we have. The floor will also stay unfinished, but really, I don't care about that floor anyway. We will get there one day!

Pediatrician Appointments...

Lexi had her 5 year checkup this week, and Avery had her 15 month checkup. Lexi did great with her vision and hearing tests and she was 37.5 pounds and 43 inches tall. Avery was a half ounce shy of 24 pounds and 30 3/4 inches tall. They are both doing great, but we did get a referral to see a podiatrist for Avery. It took her longer to start walking because she was really wobbly. The pediatrician was ready to give us a big speech on how kids normally are just establishing a gate at 15 months, and that we should give it some time, until he watched her walk. He said we are in the 1% that should go and see a specialist at this age. He labeled her as severely flat footed, so on the 25th, we go and see the podiatrist at The Cleveland Clinic to see if we need to move forward with some kind of corrective shoe or cast.

I figured, having 3 kids, that one of the would have foot problems, since I did, and it looks like Avery is the winner. He said Lexi is a bit flat footed as well, but he said a lot of kids are until they are older and the arch develops, although I have no doubt that all three of them will stay flat footed to some degree for the rest of their lives.

So, now we play the waiting game until the 25th...

Alexis turns 5!!!

I really can't believe she is 5 now! She had a blast with her party. A Disney Princess castle cake, balloons, clothes, money, workbooks, toys, science kits...she made out! We have pictures up on Facebook, but I'll have to pick some to put up on the blog.

Now I have to seriously sit down with Luke and try to figure out some homeschooling material. We technically don't have to let the school district know until she is 6, but since she is old enough for kindergarten now, we need to make up some kind of curriculum for her, and Lilly will probably just do it right along side her.

I also contacted a karate studio here in town that takes kids starting at 4, and since Lilly is so close to four, her and Lexi can do it together. It's twice a week, one small group lesson, and one private lesson, for $88/month. I am hoping to get my schedule for next week this evening and set up a time that we can all go and check out the dojo and see what the girls think. I also contacted the Wayne Center For The Arts for piano lessons, since we can start those at age 5, but I haven't heard back from anyone :(

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!!)