Living on Less

My new motto in life, if you will, is learning to live on less and love it.  I know we've been told countless times to avoid debt and to get out of it ASAP.  We have been doing an AWESOME job in the past year of not using our credit cards and it feels great!   The biggest thing that went on them were vacations and unexpected expenses just made it worse.  Our move-in-with-parents-and-pay-off-debt plan isn't going quite how we planned.  Sometimes this frustrates me, but then I am reminded that the Lord really does know my situation and has a plan for me.  It just isn't on my timescale.  We recently found out that we are responsible for a couple thousand dollars worth of HOA fees plus some until the bank forecloses on our condo.  Just what you want to hear with a baby on the way, right?  It turns out that a lot of times, HOAs will simply put leins on your home, but not ours.  Ours only cares about money.  The same day our lawyer told us this, Alex got a call from one of his teachers at the UA who said he had a check for him for 300 to reimburse him for catering his class project on the last day of school.  AMAZING!  $300 definitely won't solve our problems, but it is an answer to prayer. 

Before we moved, we really tried to get rid of stuff we don't need and we plan on purging even more stuff if (ahem, when...) we move out of my parents' place.  We won't be able to afford a large place (nor do I want to clean one) and frankly we don't need everything we have.  I am trying to live on less and actually enjoy it.  I don't want to spend my life wishing we had more money than we do so that I could buy stuff.  I'm a real sucker for kitchen gadgets.  Anything that makes food preparation easier on me is right up my alley.  I also want things to match.  Alex is much more into matching than I am, but I am quickly catching on.  However, buying a couch and matching recliners...not exactly cheap.  I am going to have to become one of those garage sale people and find things cheap! 

Any ideas about how to be frugal and enjoy it?  What do you do to stretch a dollar?

First OB Visit

I went to a new OB for the first time last month.  Her office is nice, but I miss my doctor in Tucson.  This one isn't quite as personable and there is a technician who does the ultrasounds instead of the doctor.  The nice thing is that they do the lab work in the office and they had a great finance lady who explained what our insurance covers in detail. 

Here is our little peanut:

I can't wait to hear the heartbeat on Friday!  I think it is at that point that I will really feel pregnant.  I've actually lost some weight these past few weeks from not eating as much when certain smells make me want to puke.  Unfortunately, one of those is baby food, so I dread feeding poor Ben.  Hopefully that goes away soon!

What Ben is Up To Now

• He gets into EVERYTHING all day long.  If it is in a basket, on a shelf, or in a bag, it definitely must be removed.  This makes for an even messier house. 
• He has also decided that he only wants to sleep for about 30  minutes at a time in his crib during the day, which means I barely have time to clean up his mess before he makes another one.  I have no chance at all to clean up Alex's mess.  I feel like I try all day just to keep up with absolutely must be done (shower, eat, go to work) and nothing gets clean until something starts growing in places it shouldn't. 
• He has to eat when you eat.  It doesn't matter if he ate 2 minutes before, he must chew while you chew.  No exceptions.  
• He loves popsicles.  
• He"s teething like crazy.  He has 4 teeth coming in on the bottom and 1 on the top.  This makes for a very unhappy baby sometimes.
• He hates having his diaper changed.  It's like a personal offense to lay him on his back.   

Camping in Oak Creek Canyon

First off, if you decide to take your baby camping, it would be SO much easier if they could walk.  Either that or if they could sit up, but weren't mobile yet.  A crawling 10 month old is not my first choice to take camping.  But it worked out and we had fun. 

We always seem to forget something when we camp. Usually it's something like toothpaste--nice to have, but not super necessary (maybe to your spouse it is :) )  This time we really outdid ourselves and forgot water AND propane.  Pretty much the 2 most important, life-sustaining things.  Left at home.  It's a good thing we weren't camping Alex-style where you hike in 5 miles and set up camp in an unknown part of the forest.  We were just about 20 minutes outside Sedona, so we headed to Bashas and all was well.

Alex started to set up our tent while I fed Ben.  We have only used our tent one other time, but the rope that connects the poles that support the tent was broken.  So he had to hold each pole together until there was enough tension that it did the job on his own.  We almost had to crash my parent's tent instead.

We were right next to Oak Creek and Alex tried to fish.  The fish were sparse and not interested in what he had to offer, but it was cool to see him finally use the wedding gift I got him over 4 years ago.

 

Baby # 2

The new baby is fine.  My due date is April 7, 2011.  The ultrasound showed a few days later, so it already looks like there's a slim chance for an early delivery.  I've been a little more nauseated this time around, but I can't complain.  I'll post the little peanut when we get back from camping.  We are very excited for this new baby to come to our little family!

A Little Hiatus

I'm not very good at blogging on a regular basis so extra activities make it that much less likely that I'll do it.  We have been remodeling our kitchen.  I regret that i did not take any before pictures but after pictures will come next week.  It looks 100% better.  We painted the walls and cabinets, played with electricity, installed a ceiling fan and will be laying down laminate flooring!

Today we leave for oak creek canyon to go camping.  Ben often cries when we come inside so i think he is going to have a blast.

9 Months!

Can that really be true?  Is my baby really 9 months old?!  Where has the time gone.  His well check went well today.  He is 17 lbs 7.75 oz and 29 inches long.  He is finally growing into his big head.  HAHA!  It's only in the 60th percentile now.  :)  He has mastered crawling and loves to cruise.  This, of course, doesn't help us at bedtime when all he wants to do is stand.  I am also trying to get him to consistently fall asleep on his own.  Yesterday it took 40 minutes!  I am so proud that he did it on his own though.  He's also starting to feed himself with the little gerber graduates puffs.  He is such a joy!