Sunday, December 30, 2012

old year, new year

The 2012 year is drawing to a close and lucky for me I have many wonderful things that both me and my little family have been blessed with during this year. We were able to sell our home in Ogden and move to Brigham City; to a home that offers us a little more space and a safer feel for a neighborhood. We got to welcome a new addition to our family, our sweet son Beckam. Jared amazingly enough finished his drafting classes at the OWATC, he still needs to test to get his certificate but I guess its just baby steps (ugh). We got to ride yet another roller coaster ride called "employment" this past year with Jared being hired at a great job, laid off, hired at another job, and then being "re-hired" at the old great job with a completely new position. I know that the Lord has had his hand in the whole processes and we've ended up where I feel like He wanted us to be (and were so blessed for it). I am impressed with my daughters Kindergarten teacher and her school, she is doing fantastic with her reading, I know I couldn't read as much as she does at her age, and I completely cannot take any credit for it. So over all its been a really great year for us.
I have some big and small goals for our family in the new year and years to come hopefully. I'd like to begin getting us out of debt (again) and if I follow my plan we could be "debt-free" in 3 years (other than our home). Unfortunately we have two car payments, our dear truck bit the dust and we decided that we couldn't live with one car and bought another. I've built a budget that allows Jared to get gas to go to work, and us to have some money for groceries, diapers and then what we put on debt. The rest of our money goes toward all our bills and tithes. I'd like to pay off our smallest debt first and then snowball that money onto our next debt and so forth. Its very simple and I'm hoping that it will at least give me piece of mind.
I understand that there are a great many people who get depressed after the holidays, I honestly feel relieved after the holidays. It is incredibly stressful to make sure every one's gifts are accounted for, and the cost of it all even when your trying to be as conservative as possible still seems to bite. I see pins on pinterest that challenge people to do a no spend month, I feel like I live a "no spend month" so when Christmas passes I truly have a mess on my hands. So what would be a better way to start out the year than an enormous challenge of getting out of debt.
I'd also like to make over the way me and my family eat, so I am trying to incorporate more greens into our diet via smoothies in the morning. I'm trying to give up on juice itself and replace it with milk, water or a blended smoothie with fruits and the like. My daughter hates milk and I'm not entirely sure how that came about because she used to drink it just fine, so part of me thinks that I've allowed her to have so much juice and its obviously more tasty than milk so that's why she chooses not to drink it. She does drink water, and probably drinks the most water out of all of us. Over all I would like us to have more of a whole foods diet, and ultimately get rid of most of our processed foods and replace them with a healthy, safer alternative. Whats your goals?

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Holiday Rut

Only 14 more days till Christmas and I am already tuckered out. I have 3 more people on my list to shop for and they're all the hardest ones to do so. I still need to get Jared something, my in laws something and my parents something, Ugh. I swear it would be easier if I was loaded but that is never the case so I'm trying to find a crafty gift for both my parents and in laws. I just picture my MIL turning up her nose to everything I think of and that doesn't help me all that much.. November I was doing good hammering out my projects but December has been a drag, my prime time for getting things done (at night) finds me wanting to sit on the couch and do NOTHING. I get so much done in the morning I just need to figure out a way to do stuff then. I'm thinking about making the rachel ray style oven mitts for my family, (they have one oven mitt to their name, and I made them purchase it because they had none), I broke their hand mixer a couple years back and my mom has yet to replace it so I may add that to my list with a treat they can just pop in the oven. But his family is sooo hard, I'm thinking about making a thing of frozen cookie dough balls that they can just pop in the oven and perhaps a wreath I'll probably print our newest family picture for them to update the one that they have also. I plan on making Jared a sports blanket, its gonna cost a fortune for just a blanket but he's been wanting one for a long time now other than that I'm really not sure what to get him. I wish I could give him (and me) a night out at a nice hotel, but that's not in the cards for this year. Now to find the motivation to get it all done before I really don't have time...

Saturday, December 8, 2012

Family Picture Time

 Today we braved the bitter cold (34 degrees) to get some family pictures taken for both our home and Christmas card. My sister was our photographer and did a great job, after we were all done she let us all know that she was never going to have 3 kids :). The kids really did great for how freezing it was. We all left our coats on, so my fussing over what everyone was going to wear really didn't matter. We took the pictures at Union Station, which is also the place were Jared and I originally met, so I guess it has some significance. Out of about 200-300 pictures these were what I chose to be the winning shots, although the others certainly were amusing. I edited these in ipiccy if you are curious but I am not an expert at these things so if I've done it all wrong I wouldn't be suprised.










Thursday, December 6, 2012

I have a happy baby

This is such a funny video, I love it when babies laugh and Beckam is finding his voice and its too cute.

Konnor is 3

 When Konnor got to this shoe box he said "oh no, a doll!!!"

 His tool bench
 He's an expert
 His dino cake

Brigham House

I have so much that I want to share with you as far as projects that I've done or have been working on, but it is gonna take forever for me to post it all. For those of you who aren't friends of mine on facebook and are curious as to what my new place looks like I'll start with just adding a before and after picture update of the "new" place.
 Chalk board wall in my kitchen, I love it and have drawn on it like crazy...











 My Salon/ Washroom