Kids....

So, like my other two pregnancies, I've ended up sleeping on the couch.  My back, hips and stomach pretty well require it.  Because of this, I often get early morning wake up calls from my early morning eldest son.  This morning was no exception.  Normally, I am woken to "Mom, I need to go poopoo" or something of the like.  This morning was a little different.

Andrew comes walking in.  "Mom."  "What?"  "I don't have my pajama top on and I don't know where it is."  I look at him and there he is, shirtless.  At some point during the night, he had taken it off.  We found it later in the day wrapped up in his bedding.  I guess instead of a sleep walker, I have a sleep stripper.  I'm not sure if that's good or bad. 

And today is Luke's 2nd birthday.  I can't believe my baby is 2!  Where has this time gone?  I look at him and see the baby going and the little boy taking over.  I'm not sure what I'll do when my youngest makes that change in a couple of years.  It's kind of sad.

Happy New Year?

So our new year didn't start off so great - messed up plans, kids not doing what they were supposed to, raised voices, tears, etc.  I hope that isn't a sign of what's to come this next year!

I've always been the kids to set goals.  I haven't been so good at keeping them the past few years.  This year I am hoping it will be different.  I'm not going to overload myself with goals.  Just a couple in each of my categories.  And I'm going to work on things just a day at a time instead of trying to look ahead to the future and becoming overwhelmed.  We have some exciting things to look forward to this year.  And at least two of them are going to happen in April.  We will be welcoming the newest, and most likely, last member of our family.  I'm due on the 24th, but I'm already measuring big so I figure I'm looking at another early induction to deliver a good sized baby. 

About the same time we will be finally paying off the last of our student loans.  We have worked hard to get our debts paid off.  We followed the advice in "One for our Money" put out by the LDS church.  It's simlar to other programs out there.  You start by paying off the highest interest debt, then you roll that payment into the next highest interest debt, and so on until you pay it all off.  The idea is that you are already used to the money being accounted for and you have to pay less interest this way.  We started almost as soon as we got married.  I had a student loan and Clayton had a couple of them so we consolidated them since mine had a much lower interest rate than his did and it brought the average total interest down a lot.  We had a car payment.  We had a small credit card debt.  So we worked to pay them off.  In April, we will make our final payment on the one loan we have left, paying off Clayton's student loans more than 4 years early.  This will leave us with only one major debt - our mortgage.

It is going to feel so nice to have these paid off and not feel like I have a ball and chain wrapped around my neck.  It will give us money that will go straight into savings and retirement (since we won't be used to having the money to spend we are just going to save it all).

Clayton is also up for a pay grade promotion that, if it comes through, will also begin the in April.  So if you see us in April and we can't stop smiling, you'll know it's because we have a lot of great things happening.

In July, I get to look forward to Andrew starting kindergarten.  I'm so excited for him.  He loves to learn, is already reading at a pretty high level, and needs constant entertainment.  All day kindergarten, here we come!

So what about you?  Anything exciting coming up this year?  I'd love to hear about it!

Maybe yesterday was just a fluke and isn't a sign of things to come.  I'm doing to try my hardest to make sure that isn't the case!

Happy New Year everyone!