Funnies

Today Lillian was cracking us up and since I didnt catch it on tape writing down will have to do.

First off this morning she was being funny. Now that it is nicer out and we arent always wearing hats we need to get back to fixing her hair or it is very disheveled looking since it is so long! You can see how long it is getting here...........her hair falls well below the shoulder blades now.

Love this picture

Since Jared is the one that gets her ready in the morning but has a hard time fixing her hair he nromally brushes it out and then I put it in a pony tail or what have you. Lately she is insistent that, "no daddy already fixed it pretty" so I have been letting it go some days and daycare fixes it alot of the times if it is getting in her eyes and by that point in the day she is receptive to it.

Anyway after that this morning then I shut the toilet lid evidentially too loud so she proceeds to open it back up and put it down softly and tells me, "have to put it down easy".

We were running late as usual so Jared was telling Lillian to hurry up and come down stairs to get her shoes on and then jokingly since us ladies were both still upstairs said, "hurry up woman" to which Lillian retorted, "NO I'm not woman, I AM LILLIAN" it was so hilarious how indignant she said it, she then proceeded to tell him she was a little girl it was too cute.

This evening when I got home from church Jared told me to ask Lillian if she fell in the potty. When I asked her she said yes and then proceeded to tell me about it and that it was icky etc then she looked at me and said, "what did I DO" as Jared was telling me that she looked extremely surprised when it happened and asked that "what did I dOOOOOO" very shocked. Just her repeating the story got her all riled up and she was laughing and we were teasing her so then she kept repeating, "what I do, what I DOOOOOO".

This and that

Had a couple of cute pictures to share. We all seem to have the creeping crud, we arent really sick, Lillian is starting to get over her cough she has had for a couple weeks and is mid way through her antibiotics for an ear infection. Her last two molars are almost through so she is a bit more comfortable now. Jared and I arent sick we just arent feeling up to par. Everyone at work seems to have this mid march weather transition creeping crud feeling. Maybe its just spring fever wanting the weather to make up its mind.

Anyway Lillian found her glasses outside, they rested in her wagon all winter. After I cleaned them up she was pretty excited about them so she wanted to wear them all the time.

And then, incase any of you think we have forgotten about the dogs, we haven't---though they have admittedly been bumped down the totem pole a bit. Nala always wants to lay on something soft, when Draco was alive she used to sleep on top of him whenever he would let her. For a few weeks after Draco died she tried this with Sachi who couldnt breathe. For some reason Nala is trying to sneak on couch and sleep now and when she is booted from that she resorts back to Sachi who seems to have adapted and is able to breathe, she tolerates Nala much better than Draco did though Nala hasnt figured out a way to lay on Sachi being they are pretty close to the same size Sachi just has some girth on her.

Getting Out of Debt...Gazelle Style

A while back a friend asked me about our debt snowball, budget plan etc and I posted this on my personal blog and got a good response. I had not posted it on our family blog but I figured you know what? we are proud of this so why not share and if it helps even one person then its worth it.

If you have read total money makeover this will make sense, if you haven't go get it! We attended the live event in Jan 2008 and started a budget plan 1Feb2008. We bought a kit and listened to the CD's and I read all the books by Dave Ramsey. Then this past fall we attended financial peace university classes together and graduated in december. The courses are 13 weeks in length one night a week for two hours and are immensely educational.

Dave says it takes 3 months minimum to get a budget that even comes close to working and that proved fairly true for us. Our budget has evolved over time we have had a huge variance on our amounts we set over just the past year.

We have decided we are DONE with debt and we are as lean as we can get. We now value being free and clear more than our comforts and frivalities that we can add back later. So the only frivalities we have in our budget is my gym membership which for health reasons is a necessity. We do not feel constrained or stressed, we are actually happier than we have ever been.

We started out with alot other funds and as summer approaches we may re-visit having a tiny vacation fund and as the year progresses we will start a small christmas fund ---keeping in mind we got super intense in the fall08 and our christmas budget was $200 total.

We have cut out: xm, more expensive internet (we still have to have high speed for our work), home phone, all extras on the cell phones (Jareds work pays for most and we end up paying like $20 to have mine added on), and cable.

Envelope System All Cash Basis ($ listed per week):

$110 Household (this includes all food, household consumables, HBA, cleaners, lightbulbs toilet paper what have you) It was too much hassle to have it separated out IMO. The 10 actually goes to savings for our 'meat' fund and I put 100 in envelope.

When we started getting serious Jared would work overtime and take side jobs. I was kind of let down since I am salary so I started looking in to ways to trim our household budget. I found I could cut out equivalent of a part time job from my budget by couponing among other things. So my budget for this is pretty low. I am working on getting it lower in the spring I had planned to be down to $85 and $10 but I have recently went green on cleaning products and some health beauty aids so that ups the cost a bit so for now I am just shooting to maintain this level.

People assume because I coupon that we must eat like crap, we dont! We eat almost exclusively whole grain, lots fruits & veggies, I buy beef and hog from a farmer and chicken some organic some not when it goes on sale I buy ALOT. I used to buy organic milk but now I have found some cheaper ones that are BGH free so that is 'good enough' for now. I have slowly found subs for our budget busters. I cook, I dont use ton convenience foods, we rarely eat out.

Anything like 'stopping for coffee' comes out of our spending money. I stockpile when things are cheap, plan weeks meals around veggies that are on sale when I can, we have learned to adapt to more bananas and apples and less raspberries and melons etc. I use dried beans, buy rice in bulk that isnt instant etc etc etc.

$30 'spending money' We each get $15, this used to be significantly higher but we got more intense and cut it down from $30. I pack our lunches and Jared's coffee each morning and he has almost stopped going out to eat.

$30 Clothes ($10 each) This also included at times diapers, wipes though alot times I bought that with grocery money. It also for Lillian pretty much includes everything for her whether its a new toy, shoes, etc. Yes this clothing budget is hard for me!!!!

$10 Entertainment (we rarely do eating out but when we do sometimes I go from grocery if I have the extra, other times from entertainment. Depends on reason why too as if I just dont feel like cooking then probably groceries but if we are 'going out' then entertainment --if that makes sense). We have gotten creative with things to do for entertainment that are cheap or free.

$20 Charity to church. This is a source disagreement for Jared and I. We settled on a mid way point which is $20 for now and then next year once we are debt free I can tithe and do my charity. Right now I still do give a signficant amount to charity via my grocery fund to woman's shelter and food bank when I get good deals via my couponing hobby.

$5 Gifts. We have really cut back on gifts, we dont really do them for ourselves much at all and very limited for others. There will be time for gifts later adn we try to get creative where we do need to do gifts.

For house and car repairs we have a $50 fund that we keep for small this and that items. Jared does most all of our repairs so we can keep it low. We used to do $50 week for each when we had some things we had to have worked on. Now if we have a large expense coming up (we had to buy new tires) we will budget for it and save additional. Or this week we had to buy part for exhaust fan in bathroom so whatever Jared used out of the $50 we will bump back up to the $50 next week.

That is where we are at and yes it is GAZELLE but it is great!

Nicole & Jared
have paid off: doctor bill, dentist bill, 2 credit cards, home depot card, student loan, 20% of our mortgage!!!!
debt free date: Apr2010 or SOONER!!!

Driving the Dishes

To me this looks like my disorganized dish cupboard.......... (sans fingers)

I have given up having it organized as Lillian frequently likes to play in it---the kid latch has given out on that one door. She likes to hide in it so I assumed that was what she was doing. Today I asked her if she was ready for her bath and she informed me she couldn't go take a bath because she was driving and she wanted me to drive with her.... so evidentially she thinks it looks like a car!

She showed me the handles and the door so it must be a car, then she crawled inside, picked up a bowl and started driving around and around. Next she 'stopped' then schooched over and patted the 'seat' and wanted me to get in, it took a long time but I finally convinced her that I absolutely would not fit in there next to her.

After that was settled she hopped out and I thought we were done but alas no we were NOT done driving, she was just going to get gas which evidentially is under the dining room table...she carried the gas back in her hands and then placed it in the car. She must get horrible gas mileage as she had to go get more gas every minute or so, pretty much the second she got settled and I tried to snap a picture she would rush off going to get more gas. It was so cute, if only I could have a snippet of that imagination. Here are the rest of the shots.

Lillian driving without her bowl steering wheel

Here she is showing me the 'gas' she just got

"I Like Spicy"

At dinner time Lillian will ask for 'spicy' and say, "I like spicy" referring to pepper so I will give her a few flakes when I add it to my food. A while back she had gotten up to the table and shaken all the salt out of the salt shaker, I dont even want to think about how much she consumed in the process since I found her licking her finger and swiping it. She has not done that in a long time and the salt and pepper are still on the table. Saturday we were having a relaxing PJ day as we were all a bit under the weather. Lillian was behind the couch playing with her toys while Jared and I were watching a show. Next thing I know Jared said he smelled pepper so I peered over the back of the couch and much to my dismay found this scene.........................

She rarely gets into trouble even when left to her own devices to this was amusing. I did an informal interrogation while trying not to crack up, she let me know that she liked spicey and that she spilled it all over--she showed me what part she opened and how she did it before proceeding to tell me that I need to 'buy more spicey'. Jared wanted to know where she thought I could get more from and she informed us "hav to go shoppin at store to buy more spicey". She loves to go shopping so perhaps it was her clever ploy to try and get us out of the house?

Here she decided the horsey and other barnyard friends liked the pepper.

Here she was showing me where exactly she spilled the pepper, silly mommy thought the worst of it was on the floor.