Familiar Face?

Some seem to think this picture of yours truly (circa 1980) looks an awful lot like a cute little girl baby living in my house.

There are moments when I see the resemblance. But when I compare this photo to current pictures of Miss Dayton it doesn't seem so clear.

(Okay, so maybe this is just an excuse to post some more pictures of my sweet girl.)






What do you think?

It Begins!

Last night I bid farewell to my trusty ol' budget book. For the last four years we've tracked our expenses in this boring, no-frills binder. It has served us well.

Today begins the cash budget.

I think this will be good for all of us. After a trip to the bank this morning I sat at the table sorting bills into white, paper envelopes. Bennett, looking confused and pointing to the money, queried, "whassat?". Hmm...should I be ashamed that the child is well versed in the ways of swiping and signing but doesn't recognize cash?

He regularly "helps" at the checkout by attempting to run my library card through the self-pay thingies and then scribbling across the screen with the attached pen. Now it's time for him to learn about dollars and cents. Much better for developing math skills, I must say.

And because I like to keep thing I don't need I'm going to file away this utilitarian, blue binder. I will be fun someday to pull it back out and say "can you believe we used to spend only $x on groceries every month?" or "remember having pizza delivered to L&D while we waited for Elliott to be born?" (I actually said both of these last night while flipping through old entries).

But just imagine how much MORE fun that will be in 10 or 15 years. Super-fun, I tell ya.

Now I'm off to find a sassier alternative to our mailing envelopes. Etsy, here I come!

Birthday Extravaganza Part II

I decided to do a small "party" so Bennett could celebrate his birthday with a few friends. The plan was simple: play at the park, blow some bubbles, eat lunch, have a cupcake, go home.

Bennett LOVES bubbles and so I kind of got into the bubble idea. I found a nifty little no-spill bubble bucket with three chunky wands for little hands. When debating the purchase of a $4 gun that shoots out hundreds of tiny bubbles I envisioned darling photos of ecstatic toddlers chasing shimmering orbs, arms outstretched to the sky. I read dozens of bubble recipes online looking for the best way to create BIG bubbles.

(Did you have any idea that there are some grown people out that are WAY into this bubble thing? "Bubble enthusiasts" if you will. I found a bubble recipe from one guy that had to include a dozen ingredients, one of them being beer. Odd.)

My research led me to go with the oft-repeated dish soap, glycerin and water solution. And per instructions I made it Sunday to allow the mixture to rest overnight. I bent coat hangers into a big bubble wand.

And don't ya know that Monday morning dawned cloudy, windy and threatening rain.

Not the best bubble weather. Nor the best picnic weather. So after wrestling with whether I'd rather host a party at the park and risk having to run for cover or try to quickly clean my house for unplanned visitors I called our two guests and told them to come to our place instead of the park.

Bummer.

But we made the best of it. The boys didn't care that the wind didn't allow me to blow any large, impressive bubbles with my carefully prepared solution and homemade wand. They didn't mind that the wind immediately blew all the bubbles away and wreaked havoc with my plans for cute, bubbly pictures.

Ridge, Chapman and Bennett (sweet Elliott wasn't able to come) had a blast just swishing their bubble wands in the bucket of big bubble mix and making a bunch of foam.



Dayton decided to get in on the action and blow a few bubbles of her own.


Once we came inside the boys got to make some noise stomping out some bubble wrap bubbles. This would have gone over better had Bennett not be throwing a fit about having to come in and had Chapman been heavy enough to actually break his bubbles. At least Ridge enjoyed it.


After working up an appetite we had a picnic on the living room floor. Initial-shaped sandwiches, goldfish and fruit were on the menu for the kiddos.



Chocolate cupcakes and a final photo op rounded out our little shin-dig.




Thank you friends for coming to play with us! Bennett is so blessed to have you boys in his life. I'm excited to watch you all as you continue to grow together!

Birthday Extravaganza

Okay, so it wasn't really an extravaganza.

At all.

Maybe I don't feel like I can compete with the super-duper-all-out baby birthday parties so I purposefully try to keep it small and simple. That way there's no comparison. Maybe I figure he's thrilled to pieces just to have a balloon to play with and a chance to blow out candles so why over do it. Maybe I'm just cheap and lazy.

Whatever it is I just wanted to enjoy celebrating two years with our little man. And enjoy it, we did!

Saturday (the actual "Bennett Day") we woke up our big two year old with the Birthday Song and he got to blow out two candles on his blueberry muffin. It was quite a thrill. I'd post the video of how excited B was when he woke up, jumping and dancing in his bed...but then I'd have to subject your ears to Jeff and I singing first thing in the morning. It wasn't pretty.


Saturday evening family came to our house for pizza, presents and cake.

As I suspected Bennett was thrilled by the balloons. He insisted that one be on his person the entire evening. We could have just stopped there and considered the party a raging success.

But of course we had to have him open some goodies! B caught on really quickly that he should thank people for his gifts. After the first couple of presents he began saying "day doo" to the appropriate party as soon as I announced who the gift was from. He was too cute looking around the room and earnestly thanking people before he'd even opened their gifts.

I could be slightly biased but I do believe he's the sweetest boy that ever did live.

Our families gave a lot of great gifts including some matchbox cars, music CDs, puzzles, books, an awesome stand to use as he "helps" me in the kitchen (I am SO excited about that one!) and some great rain gear including galoshes and his own umbrella!


Bennett was thrilled to open this "socky". (Full disclosure here: he's seen it on the top shelf in our closet multiple times and wanted to play with it but I would just try to distract him or tell him it was too high for me to reach.)


And when we took him outside to see the soccer goals it didn't take him any time to know what to do. He'd have stayed out there for the rest of the night (with the beloved balloon tied to his wrist) if we'd let him.


But we forced him to come inside for one more surprise.

His new big boy bed!


This actually was not planned until the eleventh hour. Friday morning my mom called from a Fort Worth garage sale to tell me she'd found a cute toddler bed that I might like. After a couple more phone calls, some emailed photos and a consult with Jeff, we decided to buy it. It came with all the bedding and the little curtains to make the play area underneath like a fort or tent. I love it!

A huge thanks to Dane, Papa Day and SheySha (Gran, PapaJ and Lisa) for disassembling, loading, hauling, unloading and reassembling the bed in Allen. Y'all rock!





(Take note that we are now taking the balloon AND the ball everywhere.)

I'm not real sure that B gets that he's supposed to actually sleep there eventually but he's enjoying it nonetheless. Hopefully we'll soon get some curtains for the room and start the transition out of the crib.

Any helpful tips or tricks will be greatly appreciated! (FYI - the slide is easily removed and will certainly NOT be on the bed for sleep times.)

Finally, there were more candles to blow out and cake to eat. Don't be overwhelmed by my creativity and cake decorating skills. Everyone has their gifts.


I thought my Red Raider friends might get a kick out of how Bennett announces his age.



And just so you all know, lil' miss Dayton was around too. She sported a darling onesie from the Thomases that says "Bennett's Little Sister" in support of the birthday boy.


Whew, I'm exhausted from that recap so I'll save the huge, awesome, blow-your-mind birthday party with friends for another post.

Props to you if you made it this far. I'm sure you'll be waiting with bated breath for Birthday Extravaganza II!

(aside: in making sure I spelled "bated breath" correctly, I learned some interesting history of the phrase. I'd always thought it was "baited breath" but I was incorrect.)

(aside on the aside: "interesting history" means probably interesting only to super-dorks like myself. Don't go googling the phrase expecting to find something earth-shattering with which to impress your friends.)

(I'm really going to try to learn to be more concise. Someday.)

Bennett Day!

We had an absolute blast celebrating Bennett's second birthday this weekend. In my opinion it was much more fun than the first birthday. He had a little bit of a clue what was going on and we greatly enjoyed planning activities and gifts that we knew he would get a kick out of.

I have much more to share about the festivities but for it is late so I'm just going to post this short clip (my first blog video!) of my big two year old on his (birth)day. It begins with us cheering because he had just finished helping me sing "You Are My Sunshine".

Make video montages at www.OneTrueMedia.com

p.s. We'll work on Jeff using his "inside voice" while manning the video camera.

Optimism

Dave Ramsey Would Be So Proud

I don't know if y'all are familiar with Dave, but I just love the guy. I've skimmed a couple of his books and tune into his radio show when I'm in the car in the afternoons. He makes me laugh and his words encourage me to keep on the financial straight and narrow. I'm usually all, "Right on, Dave! You tell 'em!" as he advises callers. That is, except when it comes to credit cards.

He hates them. With an unwavering, fiery passion. And me? I'm kind of a fan of my plastic. It's so convenient. So quick. I don't have to keep up with cash and try to remember where I spent it. And we earn points and get cash back!

Besides, goes my mental retort, that "no credit card" advice is really meant for those who spend money they don't have. Outside of our mortgage we've never carried any debt. We budget carefully and spend accordingly. We should be exempt from that rule.

From the beginning of our marriage Jeff and I have worked hard to communicate well about money, work as a team to make financial decisions and spend our resources in a way that honors the Lord and reflects our priorities. I feel that we've done fairly well.

But time is a precious commodity these days and it is getting harder and harder to regularly discuss exactly where we are. Tonight we sat down to do our budget reconciliation and decided that something has to give. As the one who does the majority of the spending, I need to have more real-time info on how much money is in each budget category than is available to me when we meet only once a month or less. Jeff is busier at work than ever so finding time to go through all our credit card statements and figure out what charges go to which category is increasingly difficult.

I hesitantly offered to take over the job of reconciling the credit card statements and updating the budget. The problem is that Jeff not only is much better at all things regarding numbers but he likes things done a certain way so he can look back at his data, run reports, plan for the future, etc. The other problem is I don't really WANT to do it.

Enter the Envelope System. I'm sure you're all familiar with how this works. At the beginning of the month we will take out actual CASH (yes, the green, papery stuff) and allot the budgeted amount for each category to separate envelopes. Then, when I need to buy something, I take the money from the appropriate envelope and spend it. Done.

I have a tendency to feel stressed, guilty or anxious about spending money when I don't know where we are budget-wise. Unfortunately, I am terrible at keeping a running tab in my head or estimating what I've spent over days and weeks. Now there is no getting online to check accounts or calling to ask Jeff or trying to recall how many times we've eaten out in the past three weeks. The beauty of the new system is that at any time I can take a little peek in any envelope and know how much money we have for the rest of the month.

In the past we've discussed taking this approach, but I had many reasons it wouldn't work for me. A few months ago I went to cash for groceries and I've been loving it. I know there will be challenges and frustrations (a few of my concerns still linger) but I look forward to trying to implement cash only for the rest of our variable expenses.

Now, we aren't quite ridding our lives of plastic completely. We will still use cards for gassing up the cars and most of our bills which are charged automatically. But maybe, just maybe, we can eventually move everything to debit cards.

Then Dave would really love us.

The cash budget officially begins in two weeks. Wish us luck! And, if you are willing to share, tell me how you keep track of where your money goes. What do you like/not like about your current system?

Growing Strong

My baby girl is over two months old already! Yesterday we had her well baby visit with Dr. C. I was going to ask if I needed to try to feed her more often since she's only nursing five (and occasionally only four) times a day already but when her height and weight stats came in, I decided we must be doing just fine.

Weight - 13 lbs 9 oz (93%)
Length - 24.5 inches (96%)
Head - 16 inches (85%)

Little girl did not appreciate the shots and was sure to let the whole office know of the injustice that was thrust upon her. I was of course sad that she had to hurt but I got kind of tickled at the major fit she threw about it. I'd never heard her scream like that...she wasn't only upset about the pain she was stinking mad!

Just a month ago Dayton would barely consent to being put down during the day, napping in fitful 10 minute increments (unless she was being held), staying up for hours in the middle of the night and having terrible choking/coughing fits after every feeding.

Since starting on medicine for reflux and discovering that she's a tummy sleeper (I know, I know, call CPS already) we have a new baby on our hands! She's fallen in to a nice routine of eating about every four hours, napping in between each meal and sleeping at least eight hours in a row at night...sometimes twelve!


Like her mommy she's a bit of a night owl and would prefer to be up until 10 or 11 and sleep in until 10 am (oh, how I would love the luxury of joining her!). Bennett was a swaddle baby who like to be wrapped up tight then bounced and swayed and cuddled to sleep so I was somewhat at a loss when that wasn't the magic ticket with Dayton. Turns out his girl would just as soon you lay her down with her paci when she starts to look sleepy...too much activity and she is overstimulated and can't nod off.


Just after she was born we were all sure Dayton was the dark haired, dark eyed little girl to bring balance to our family. But now I'm not so sure. It's hard to tell what color her eyes are, but lately I'm thinking they might end up green like my dad's eyes. Her thick, dark hair is thinning out and lightening up. Who knows what she'll end up looking like? I do know I'm pretty smitten with her, no matter her coloring.


Dayton is an absolute joy to us. She will smile and gurgle and coo at anyone who will take the time to make eye contact with her for a minute or two. I swear she tries to be awake when Bennett goes to bed so she can get some one on one time...and I love it! She is noticing her toys and "talking" to them, holding her head up really well and has rolled from front to back a few times.


As quick as she is to smile at people my dear child simply WILL NOT smile at the camera. She will be babbling away and practically bursting with joy and soon as I pull the camera out she is completely stoic. I've managed a few pictures of her grinning at someone off to the side, but it just doesn't quite capture the full-on, double chin, wrinkled nose, bright-eyed smile that I love to see.


Big brother can't get enough of his sister. He seems to consider it his duty to keep me appraised of her status at all times. "Baby wake", "Baby ty (cry)", "Baby pappi down", "Baby nigh-nigh", "Baby eat", etc, etc. Not sure why, but he has yet to call Dayton by her name.

For her part, Dayton is quite patient with Bennett's clumsy attempts at loving on her. He constantly wants to kiss her head, cheeks, hands and toes (naming each body part as he goes) and often asks to "hode" her. He's attempted sharing toys and food and doesn't exactly understand why she's not ready to play catch yet. It's gonna' be a long wait, buddy.



I know these aren't great quality shots, but I love the story they tell about this budding brother-sister relationship. (The non-matching green bow is courtesy of Bennett. He insisted that she wear it.)


Dayton girl, you are an amazing blessing to us. I thank God for you every day. We couldn't imagine our little family without you and are so excited about the adventures that await us as you grow!