Easter Clothes

Yesterday we dressed up in our new Easter clothes for church. Well, all of us except Abbey. I bought the girl's dresses from Kohl's this year and got a really good deal on all of them. The girls were so excited to wear them. The problem was that Abbey wasn't listening (does she ever??). I asked her more than once to brush her teeth, which she pretty much refused to do. I told her that if she didn't brush her teeth, then she wouldn't get to wear her new dress. Well, you can tell who lost the battle. Abbey is wearing last year's Easter dress. I wasn't too thrilled with my dress though. I bought it online from Old Navy and I thought it was white not gray. It is really comfortable so I decided to keep it. David calls it my graffiti dress. David got a new tie and sweater vest and he looked so handsome! I have such a good lookin' family!

We have been really busy lately, I guess that won't change anytime soon! The pregnancy is still going well. Baby A.J. will be here in a matter of weeks! It has gone by so fast. We have decided on a name, but I am not going to post it yet. We have had a really hard time deciding on a name and part of the reason is because when I tell people a name that I like they make a comment or tell me they know a "home-wrecker" with that name, or something else. So, now David and I have agreed on a name (thanks, Julie!) and I don't want to hear any reason why we shouldn't use it. So stay tuned if your curious.

Last week I had SEP's with Alyssa's teacher. I love her teacher this year and I wish she could be Alyssa's teacher for the rest of elementary school. Alyssa is doing amazing in school this year. She is testing above all the average levels for where she should be. She is reading on a 4th grade level! We are so proud of her! Her teacher says that she is always doing what she should be and that she is really kind to everyone in the class. Her teacher says that she can trust Alyssa. Good job girl!

Abbey is really bored in school, so she is losing interest. I really think everything is too easy for her. Her homework is really simple. She loves to read, so I make sure she is at least reading books that are above kindergarten level so she is learning something new.

Avery is growing so fast! She is walking everywhere and is getting into everything! We now have to keep all the doors closed because she is so curious. She really loves splashing in the toilet. She has such a sweet personality and is happy all the time. My only issue with her is that she will only sleep in her crib. It makes it really difficult when we are visiting family during nap time and she absolutely refuses to sleep in a pack and play. She will literally cry for an hour if I put her in it. The only person she will let rock her to sleep is Daddy. He is her favorite! She lights up when he gets home. I think that it is supposed to be that way because when A.J. is born her world will be turned upside down.

David is almost done with his Associates degree in Math. We are still deciding whether or not to continue on for the engineering degree, but it is getting so hard because I need him at home more!

Girls Getaway!!

L to R: Jen, Sharol, Me, Julie, Nicole, Jana, Amy Rachel, Emily, Suzy, Nicolette, Chelsea
Jana, Nicole, Julie, Me, Nicolette

Jana, Emily, Amy, Rachel, Suzy

This past weekend I was lucky enough to get to hang out with some awesome friends and enjoy a little getaway to Park City. Nicole came up with the idea to get all the ladies in the neighborhood that could go and stay a night at a hotel. I called the Landmark Inn in Park City and asked them if they had their family suite available. I have stayed there before when I went with all my Aunts, cousins and Grandma. The room was available for the weekend we wanted, but it was $389 because it is peak season right now. Well, I told them that I had stayed there before and we used that exact room and it was only $209 in October (because that is not peak season). To my suprise, she decided to give me the better rate because we had used that room before. I was so happy! The room sleeps 13 people and is very nice.

We had a great time there! We ate dinner at Baja Cantina and stopped over at Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory for a sweet treat for dessert. We all stayed up really late chatting and laughing! I went to bed a little earlier than some, but I just can't stay up all night when I am pregnant. And I knew that I would be up early, so I decided to get a little rest. Some of the ladies were up until 4:00 AM!! We had a fantastic time and it is so fun to get to know them all a little better. After breakfast at the hotel, we headed out for some shopping at the outlet mall. Most of us just bought our kids some new things, but it was fun to shop. I love buying new things for my girls. We finished off with lunch at Wendy's/Subway because we all spent our money on clothes. I really hope we make this a tradition and do it again next year! Thanks Ladies!

Car Repairs...

A couple weeks ago as I was waiting for Alyssa to get out of school, a big van (bigger than mine) drove slowly by and lost control of one of the doors and slammed the front fender of my beautiful car. I was playing a game on my phone, so I wasn't paying any attention to the outside world when this happened. It scared the crap out of me! I got out of the car and got the neccessary info from the other driver. He and the passenger both felt really bad about what happened and they apologized. When the passenger got out he said, "That dent wasn't there before, was it?" I said "No it was not there!" I didn't feel the need to call the police since the damage was minor and there were no injuries. I drove home and then decided to call the police just to make sure that the other car was insured. I was definately not paying for this repair. The cop told me that they were indeed insured, so I called my insurance company and got the ball rolling. It took two weeks for the other people to finally contact their insurance (after they were called many times by the adjustor). So yesterday I took the can in to be repaired. As a rental, they gave me a 2009 black Chevy Tahoe. It was a gorgeous vehicle and I didn't really want to return it! David and the kids all suggested to me at different times that we should just let them keep our van and we would trade them for the Tahoe. It only took 24 hours to get our can back, but now it is good as new! I think I know what our next car will be though.

Cougar B-Ball

For Valentine's Day this year I bought David tickets to a BYU basketball game. The game took place yesterday and we had a fun time! I have never been to a BYU basketball game before, but they put on quite a show. We had some pretty bad seats, they were way up at the top and I thought I was going to sweat to death that high up in the stadium. David was very sweet though and he bought me ice cream at half-time. The Cougars lost by two points. It was a really good game and it was close the whole time. We were bummed that they didn't win, but it was nice to have a day out with no kids. A couple highlights were that during half-time the Cougarettes performed a dance that was choreographed by Napoleon and Tabitha from "So You Think You Can Dance". Another thing was that while we were walking around the stadium to find the portal for our seats, I almost bumped into Ashleigh and Ryan from the same show! After we passed them, David said to me, "Did you see who that was?" I told him I did and I couldn't believe I almost smashed Ashleigh. I wish I had a camera with me! One more thing was that they announced that Carrie Underwood is going to be performing at the Stadium of Fire this year at BYU. That would be a fun concert to see!

On my mind....

Disclaimer: This post is really long and probably boring!

This is our year. For the past two weeks I have been reading Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey. I have heard hin on the radio before and my parents have read his book and swear by it. One thing that is great about him is the fact that he is religious and he always says to pay 10% to your church (tithing), so it fits so well with what I already believe. I have been wanting to read it for a while now and this year my parents gave it to me for my birthday. They were really worried that I would think that it was a lame gift, but it really has been the best gift so far! David and I have made some DUMB choices when it comes to purchases. Sometimes we just don't want to wait for things, so we use credit to pay for them. I really hate that I am one of those poeple! We always regret it later. I really hate to say that we have credit card debt, so I just pay my payments and ignore it. Well, this month in the Ensign the Visiting Teaching message is all about getting out of debt. David and I have decided that enough is enough and we are committed to paying it all off this year. That is my goal, to be debt free! One of the other motivators is that we can't move out of our condo until all of it is paid off. We want to be able to afford a bigger house, but the thing holding us back is all the stupid payments we have toward debt! That, and the fact that the market stinks right now, so we couldn't get what we wanted out of this place anyway. Our three bedroom two bath home is getting smaller everyday and with baby number 4 on the way, it is a wonder how we fit all of us in this little place.
We just filed our taxes last night and we should be getting enough money back to make a huge dent in our debt and get our $1000 emergency fund in place. We have some money saved, but sadly not enough to cover that. The other thing we have to look forward to is the insurance money we will get back after A.J. is born. We signed up for two poilcies (Aflac and Conseco) a couple years ago that will pay us $5400 when we have the baby. It paid all our medical bills and more when we had Avery and that is one of the reasons her and the next baby will be so close. Most of these insurance companies have discontinued these types of policies because they don't make any money on them (DUH!). But since we still have it, they will have to pay us. So, when we get that money back, we will be able to pay more things off.
It is so amazing to me that there is an end in sight. I slept so well last night knowing that we are finally going to get out from under this boulder. I can't explain how excited I am to not have to worry about debt anymore. This is all really hard for me to admit, I almost didn't post this because I hate to hang my dirty laundry out to dry! There isn't anyone in the world who wants their faults out there for the world to see! But I feel like if I do this, it is one more thing to keep me motivated. Wish us luck! This is going to be a really tough year!

Birthday Weekend

Last weekend was a big one at our house! Abbey turned 6 on the 6th, I turned 28 on the 7th, and Avery turned 1 year old on the 8th!! It was pretty crazy! We had a big birthday party on the 6th and we were all so spoiled. Abbey got tons of new clothes, new Tag books, money, and lots of other fun things. Avery also got tons of new clothes, a baby Cabbage Patch doll, and a busy ball popper (which was the life of the party). We had a great time celebrating with all of our family.

Avery loved her cake, she was really mad at me when I finally took it away from her. She loves sugar just like her momma!

Avery also had her one year check-up last week. She weighs in at a whopping 18 lbs! She is in the 5th percentile for her weight. I forgot to check her height, but she is in the 75th percentile there. She has had a cold, but at the appointment I found out that it is actually an ear infection. We started her on regular milk and stopped using bottles. She has done really well so far. She started to take a few steps on her birthday, but she still hasn't mastered walking. She will just crawl if she wants to get anywhere because that is faster for her. We also bought her a new carseat. She can't face forward yet because they changed the carseat recommendations so that kids have to be 30 lbs and 2 years before they can switch. Usually we buy gender nuetral carseats since we always wanted more kids, but now that we know our next (and last) baby will be a girl, I went with a pink seat.

My actual birthday was on Superbowl Sunday. I was not really happy about that because the last thing I wanted to do was watch football on my birthday. It turned out ok though, we hung out with David's family. We had pizza and snacks and for my birthday cake we had Leatherby's ice cream cake. It was SO yummy!

Discovery Gateway

A couple weeks ago I took the girls to Discovery Gateway. They were so excited and I had a really hard time getting them to leave.