Cutting Costs

With a new baby in the house, our finances are being stretched in new ways. Scott and I have had to look into what we spend our money on and how we can best use our resources. As I have mentioned before, Scott and I both love our jobs and our pay is not the problem. But with a new baby in the house come childcare, diapers, formula. Plus we have started paying on student loans and such, we are feeling the crunch.

We have figured out some ways to cut costs, and although a few were hard to give up, we really think it is for the best. The first was an easy choice. Scott's medical takes a large amount out of his paycheck each month, we can save money by switching him to my insurance; which will be nice for us all to be on the same medical, dental and vision.

The second choice was a relatively simple on as well. We switched Brendan's Day care which saves us about $140 a month, plus the cost of gas as our new day care is literally right down the street from where I work.

The next money saving decisions did not come so easy, but once we made the decision, Scott was quick to act on it. The biggest one was Cable. We are officially without cable. It was quite a jump to go from extended cable with DVR an movie channels to now - nothing.

We have also cancelled our Blockbuster online membership, and our home phone (so don't try to call us on it anymore, you have to use our cell phones). Starting in January, we may also cancel the Internet, we may see how it goes for a couple months before deciding for sure.

With all of these changes, we will be saving almost $500 a month! I can't believe how much we spent on frivolous things! We have also started eating at home a lot more than we used to.

Although the changes are hard, it is actually a burden off of my shoulders, I feel much better about where our money goes and know that once things get settled, we may be able to find a house sometime in the near future. As I said in my post yesterday, God has a plan, we have to use the resources he provided us with wisely and he will take care of us.

Well Baby Check-up - 4 months

On Monday afternoon we went to Brendan's 4 month Well Baby check-up with Dr. Mackey. He is now 18 weeks old! The check-up was pretty quick, we did have to wait for almost 1/2 an hour to see the doctor, I have never had to wait this long before. But luckily, the waiting room has a smaller room attached that is designated for "Well Babies" so Brendan didn't have to be infected by all the sick children in the waiting room. Brendan got pretty fussy in the waiting room, later to find out he had a surprise for me in his diaper!

When we finally get to the room, I change Brendan and wait for the nurse. Brendan now weighs 15 pounds 2 ounces (he has now barely under his doubled birth weight). He is 26.5 inches long. The doctor didn't tell me what percentile he was in this month, but I looked it up online and the 90% is 25.5 inches, so we have a long baby with average weight, see below for his growth charts:

Other than checking his normal growth developments (weight, length, head control, supporting weight on legs, hip movement, eyesight, ect) the appointment went relatively quickly. I asked about starting solid foods and the doctor said to wait until 6 months which I am a little disappointed at. But he said we would talk about it at his 6 month appointment. I guess I can wait for January. Anyway, here are a couple 4 month pictures!

Thoughts

Over the past couple of weeks I have had a lot of things that I want to write about on my blog, I just haven't had the time to write them all out. This week has been a very stressful week for me, a lot has been going on. Work is absolutely crazy, finances are tight at home, Brendan has been a little extra fussy (teething??) and I just can't seem to get ahead. I also have been struggling with where we are in our lives right now. Scott and I both have good jobs that we love and yet we can't seem to change our current position, I am a little jealous of those who can right now. Please don't get me wrong, I am so happy for my friends and their life changes, just feeling a little down currently.

All this to say, the other night Brendan fell asleep in my arms while we were home alone. I laid him down on the floor in the living room and just stared at him. He was so peaceful, so innocent and so content. It was a reminder to myself of how I should be. Just looking at that little person sleeping beside me was a reminder of hope for tomorrow and insurance that it would all be okay. Brendan has no worries, he knows that when he is hungry he will be fed, when he is cold he will be warmed and when he is upset he will be comforted. Why am I worried? I know that when I cry, my heavenly father will comfort me, we will have food on the table and a warm place to sleep.

As I stare at those tiny hands, the tiny noes, and his little ear, I know that God created this little being. I am reminded that God does have a plan for us, and if part of his plan is for us to stay in our little apartment, we will make the most of it. We have a nice apartment, a wonderful loving family and the joy of our life with us. What more could we want? I need to be Peaceful, innocent and content, just like my baby.

Life without TV

We are now on our 4th day since we decided not to watch TV. I must say, I have really enjoyed our time together. Without the distractions on TV that wastes so much of our time, we have been given the opportunity to pray more and spend more time in the word. It also has given us the opportunity to spend time with each other.

On Monday, I came home from work at 5:00 like normal. Where I normally would have found Brendan probably still in his car seat sleeping, I was greeted at the door by my husband and baby. They had been playing together, and reading books. I love that my husband has the opportunity in the afternoons to spend time with Brendan and have some father-son bonding time. That night we just hung out, we ate dinner at the table instead of on the couch, had wonderful conversation as our son took a late nap. After dinner, we woke Brendan up, and just spent time as a family. We played and talked and loved each other. After we put Brendan to bed, Scott and I spent time with each other reading aloud to one another. It was a wonderful evening.
Yesterday, we also had a good day. Scott didn't have to work but still took Brendan to Day Care so he could get some work done. Normally, on these type of days, Scott would get all his work done in the morning, go to the gym and then come home to watch TV or a Movie. Instead, once he was done with the gym and his work, he went and picked Brendan up! He said that he realized he didn't have anything else to do, he might as well spend it with his son. So Scott and Brendan came to visit me for lunch. After work, we again had dinner together at the table while Brendan took a nap. We gave Brendan a bath together and then did some reading from the Bible and spent some time together focusing on and discussing Prayer and what it means.

Tonight is our girls night/guys night but so far this has been a wonderful week, I am thinking more and more of cancelling cable all together!

Mommy & Baby

This is one of my favorite pictures of us! I am not quite sure why I like this picture so much, perhaps it in the sun shining through, maybe it is the colors of the photo, something about this photo I just love! I just wanted to share it with all of you. I could have included it in one of the previous two posts, but it just wouldn't have done it justice, so instead, it gets its own post!

Too Much TV

This weekend, Scott and I realized that we do spend too much time in front of the Television. It reminds me of a book I used to read from my childhood, many of you may have read it before, The Berenstain Bears and Too Much TV:

"...however it had happened, one thing was for sure - the Bear family was spending more and more time watching television and less and less time with all the other things they might be doing instead."

This is our family for sure. We are not really sure how it happened. Our first year of marriage we didn't have cable at all. We used to play games, watch movies every once in a while, sit and talk and even read. Now we just sit in front of the terrible TV for hours. We first got cable when we started watching the Angel Baseball games, we had to get extended cable to be sure we got all the games. Then when we moved to our new apartment, we had a TV room where the TV, video games, and cable were. This separated our "living room" from our "TV room" but we were spending more time in the TV room than in the living room. Then, when we set up the baby room, it all went down-hill. We moved the TV back to the front room and now with DVR, even if there isn't anything worth watching on TV, we have other shows recorded that we can watch!

There is no question about it, we are watching TOO MUCH TV! During church on Sunday, Scott felt convicted that we waste too much time that we could be spending time with God and spending time with each other. So we are "fasting" from TV this week, while contemplating just cancelling it all together. I agreed with Scott and so we are staying away from TV shows.
I will let you know how our week of no TV goes and what other options we find to do!

Twins!

Today is Friday morning, Halloween morning actually, I was about to walk to out the door with baby in hand to go to Brendan's day care when I get a phone call from my Tawni (who had the same Day Care) calls me on my phone a little upset. It seems as though our day care lady had to go in for unexpected surgery on her throat this morning and didn't call us. When Tawni showed up that morning, her husband was there to watch our babies instead. We were frustrated from not having met the husband before and not being informed ahead of time.

I decide to take the day off from work and just stay at home with Brendan. I ask Tawni if she wants me to go pick-up Sammy as well. What was I thinking? I just volunteered to have two babies 5 weeks apart all day?? Our Day care thanks me for picking up Sammy, it makes the day a lot easier on her husband!

The day wasn't so bad, they boys took naps at the same time, and played together. The downfall was they were also fussy at the same time as well! I brought our Pack-n-play (a wonderful invention) to the living room and I have two swings so they could both be content to swing at the same time. I even had a little extra time to pull out my laptop and do some work from home!

In the end, I realized, I could handle twins, but I would rather not!! By 5:00, I was ready to get out of the house!