Completely forgot!

Completely forgot to tell you all about two very exciting things!

#1) Gabe turned 1!! Its so crazy to think that its been a whole year since I had him! I remember that day so clearly. It was a crazy day. I think I will share with you!

6am January 10th I got a call from Madigan saying to be in by 7 for my induction. I was 41wks and 4 days! My mom had flown in the day before with Myles. We were all hoping my induction would go quick since my mom actually had to leave that day. Meghan and Rylan were there too of course. Jared was not able to come home though.
So we go to the hospital, I get my room and everything. I had to have some IV fluids and my antibiotics first so They started the pitocin at about 8am. Contractions with pitocin are HORRIBLE compared to natural! I only made it to 4cm before I requested my epidural where as with Rylan I was 8 before I opted for it. Strangly the only thing I remember of the Epi was the nurses gross yellow nails and halitosis breath.
As the day went on I progressed ok. At one point I sat up and said to my mom "I feel like Im going to throw up" then I kind of passed out a little. The nurses and doctor came running in putting the oxygen mask on and making me turn on my side.
All was good though. Contractions are known to make me throw up though and I also had to have the oxygen mask with Rylan too.
Then came the sad part. My mom had to leave and Meghan had to take her to the airport so I was by myself. My mom cried, the nurse cried I almost cried. They left around 5pm. My doctor came in and wanted me to do a trial push. Well that was not a good idea, Gabes heart rate dipped very low but slowly came back up. We gave it 20 min and she came back in to do another trial push. Nothing was set up, the bed was not broken down and she had no gown on. I was holding one of my legs(legs are so heavy when your numb!!) and a nurse had the other. I pushed once and everyone told me to stop. Not to move a muscle, dont even laugh.
I asked why and the nurse looked at me crazy like and said Gabes head was right there!! MY doctor rushed to get her gown on and that was it. I pushed 3 more times and he was out!!
All 9lbs 13oz of him!!
Meghan showed up about 10min later and Jared got to call me about half hour later!


#2) IM GOING TO SCHOOL!!!
Thats right Im making it happen! Im going to be a dialisys Tech. I just got word today that the MYCAA scholarship for military spouses! It only covers my tuition but I am getting the Pell Grant to cover things like books and supplies!

My challenge.

SO I want to know what you all think. We are going grocery shopping soon(maybe tonight) and I want guesstimates on how much you think I will spend. Just for regional comparison milk where I buy it is $2.18 for 1 gallon of non fat milk, 18 count large eggs is $1.99. So prices are not crazy high.

So here is my list.


Chicken Breasts(2 medium packages)
Stew meat(two 1lb packages)
Ground beef(2lbs)bought 1lb
Milk(2 gall.)bought both
Eggs(one 18 count carton)
Bread(2-3 loafs)
Cheese(one 2lb block)
Yougurt(8pk yoplat)
Honey
Spiral noodles(1lb bag)
Brown rice
Frozen mixed veggies(1lb bag)
Bananas
Frozen Juice(6-8 cans)bought 3cans
Olives, canned(4 cans)bought 2 cans
Mushrooms, canned(4 cans)bought 2 cans
Chilli(4 cans)
Gold Fish(2 bags)
Fruit Cups(2 pks of 4)
Tomato Sauce(4 cans)
Tomatoes, on vine(6 tomatoes)
Baby Carrots(1lb bag)
Lunch meat(4 8-9oz containers)
Hi C punch mix(2 boxes)
Pancake mix(1 family size bag)
Apples(1lb bag)
Oranges(1lb bag)

Mens razors
Womens Razors
Mens saving cream
Baby wipes


So place your bets! How much will I spend???


So I fibbed! We did not go grocery shopping lastnight which ment I had to go to Safeway to get a few things. I hate shopping at Safeway. Over priced.
Anyway I will cross out the things I bought in the list and give you my total so you can decide from there my over all spenditure!

Safeway total $22.33

Yet again I fail!

Blogging while Jared is home is so much harder lol. I normally blog after the boys go to bed. With Jared home I spend that time with him. Watching Spartacus or playing xbox. Needless to say the blog has been the last thing on my mind lol.

On to some updates-

During Christmas Jared and I decided that we didnt want to get each other a gift but pick one both of us wanted. In the end we decided on the Kinect and the Dance Central game!! This is our first purchase that we could decide to get and not feel guilty about or strap us financially. Our reward for being good savers!

We were lucky enough to recieve Heros at Home gift Cards from Sears this year. It is a donation funded program that gives military members a special thank you for their service. It is open to any rank and branch. The disbursement comes in 3 cards, amount depending on donations and divided equally between the number of applications accepted.
*I would like to thank anyone who has donated to this program. We were very grateful for it!*
We decided to save our cards until we got the final one. We then bought both the boys brand new carseats!! Gabe was absolutely in need of a new one and Rylan was getting there, Im so happy that we were able to get them nice quality ones that will last them until they don't need them!

TAXES!! WWOOHHOO!!
We received and filed Jareds taxes, and by WE I mean ME. We are lucky to have a very easy w2 so I can do it myself.
We already have plans too. We are paying down the majority of the Jetta and refinancing threw USAA. The remainder will go to either a vow renewal(pretty much a wedding) for us or a new car for me! And some in savings!


Saving-
We are continuing to keep our grocery costs low which has been a big help.

Jared and I recently talked about how on earth we went threw so much money before. Granted when he first came home from his first deployment we had to set up an entire house. That stuff starts adding up after a while. We determined our biggest problem is not being aware of how much we made and how much we spent. We just bought things, when ever and for no reason. I know my frequent trips to the craft store did not help(I love Hobby Lobby) nor did our constant eating out!


Well hopefully I can actually keep up with this and stop posting catch up blogs!

Meatloaf Vegetable Muffins!

Doing something a little different!

Meatloaf Vegetable Muffins
*Ingrediants*
1 lb. Ground Beef (extra lean)
1/2 c. Quarkers oatmeal (uncooked)
1 c. chopped onion
1/2 c. chopped celery
1/2 c. chopped green or red pepper
1/2 c. chopped carrot
3 garlic cloves
1 can chopped mushrooms
1. c. canned diced tomatoes w/ juice
2 egg whites
*Directions*
Heat oven to 350.

Chop vegetables. Saute all but the tomatoes and garlic in a lightly oiled pan (olive oil) until done but not mushy. Cool vegetables.

Combine ground beef, oats, cooled cooked vegetables, chopped mushrooms and egg whites.

Spoon the meat mixture into a muffin tin sprayed w/ vegetable spray. Top each muffin w/ 1 T. Ketchup. Make 12 equal size "muffins.".

Number of Servings: 12

These turned out AWESOME! They were easy to portion out, easy to bag up and easy to reheat the next day!!
They were actually pretty cheap to make too. I did use mushrooms because I didnt have any but it was ok. I used some sun dried tomatoes just because we happened to have them. I also used frozen stir fry veggies(because we already had them!). I just picked out the red and green peppers and celery!

New Year!(2 parter)

Ive been slacking on blogging....

There has been so much going on(I should actually be doing something else right now!).

Lets do a little recap of the weeks leading up to this wonderful new year.

Beginning of December we had another couple over for dinner. I was so happy they agreed to share that day with us, why? They found out earlier that day that they will be welcoming a baby BOY into their family!!! They are an awesome couple and are so kind to our boys! I look forward to spending more time with them!

Lets see. We left here around the 18th of December to head home(hometown) for the Holidays. Just the week before Gabe started *trying* to walk. He would get a few steps in here and there but was mostly crawling. Then just before leaving he started standing up on his own from sitting!!!
We left there just yesterday and within that time he is now *almost* fully walking!! He can turn around, walk with confidence and crouch. Of course he still falls over some but hey he has a big head lol!!

While we were back home Jared and I enjoyed a few nights to our selves, which was much needed! We got to spend time with family and have a wonderful Christmas!

We even got to go out on New Years. In the 5yrs we have been together I think we have only ever spent one other together!
To our disappointment we yet again missed kissing each other at midnight! Last year because we were in separate cars, this year because he was(and had been for 20 min) up at the bar trying to get our drinks! What kind of bar only has 2 bar tenders on New Years Eve??? Jared theory is because he didn't have ta-tas they wouldn't help him lol!

We did some fun things like taking the boys to the train park to see all the lights. For those who dont know the train park is a park(obviously lol) down by the more industrial area of Lewiston, right by where part of the train tracks are. There is an old locomotive and 1(or 2) cars with it. There are tons of trees and a big(newish) fire place. During Christmas they string lights all threw the trees, put arches over the walk ways with trigger change lights, "dancing penguin" lights, an igloo and other things. The best part is a big pad on the ground that when you jump on it in different areas it lights up one of the trees!

Then something awesome. A man who works with my mom dresses up as Santa for their kids Christmas party. Well he also does this for anyone who wants him to visit their house!! He owns an amazing suit and does a very good Santa. How awesome is that he is willing to do this for others for free, when that sub par Santa at the mall charges $20++ for 3 pictures and a candy cane!
So seeing as we didn't get the boys pictures with Santa this year my mom thought it would be awesome to have the guy come over.
We left a present out on the deck for each of the boys so that Santa could grab them on his way in. Rylan opened the door having no idea what was going on. He was SO excited!! He got to talk to Santa and sit on his lap. We got some awesome pictures with Gabe and Rylan and Santa!

Yesterday we made our trip home. It seemed to take for ever! With our trunk packed FULL, our new bread machine riding between the boys and the floor boards and back window filled, our car was riding quite low.

So I lost track of what I was doing yesterday and never got back to writing this!

Well now that we are home, some laundry is done, house re cleaned and pantry re stocked. Its time to get back in to the swing of things.
Gabes 1st birthday is next Monday, the same day Jared goes back to work :( .

Diapers and Money

Sorry about so many posts about cloth diapers but this is really starting to become a reality for me and is directly related to our money!
So in my last post I was talking about how the I didnt like the liner in the Gdiaper. Well I was going threw some stuff and found DIFFERENT prefolds! I do not even remember having them lol. Well they were smaller so they fit better in the liner. I tried it on Gabe and it was awesome. He napped in it and had NO leak!! the outside of the Gpant was a little...damp I guess you could say. Not enough to be like OH NO hes wet though.
However, I do thing the medium is just to small for him, his fat little legs and round belly.
After much more research and price comparison I think I found what I want.
Diapers.com sells the flip diapers in packs of 6, for both boys I would need 2pks which would be about %100(like $99) which makes them about $8.33 a piece. That is the cheapest I have been able to find them new. The good things about the flip is they are one size so when Ry is finally potty trained I will have that many more for Gabe!
For Prefolds Im going with Little-Lion.com. They sell Unbleached Indian Prefolds for $23 a dozen. Im getting 2 dozen for now but may get another dozen later.
Im going the Wet Bag route, specifically a wet/dry bag that will hang in our laundry area. They run about $23 on average.

So our possible total to cloth diaper our kids should be around $169 which we will split up buying the stuff over a month or two.

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On to the money!

So for anyone one who had the "overdraft protection" before the new law was passed, you may know what Jared and I were going threw.
About a year and a half ago we were in a very bad rut of over drafting. We were terrible with money and once it started it was hard to fix. We would get paid on the first, the overdraft fees were taken out and we would have just enough money to pay a few bills but nothing left. Leaving us overdrawing again just to get groceries. This happened EVERY paycheck. So we were paying around $600-$800 every month in over draft!!
When the law was passed and you had to actually go in and sign a paper to get overdraft, we were here. Away from our bank. Which was a blessing. We never went in to sing that paper. Not doing so forced us to be more careful, knowing that we couldn't just keep going and pay back later. Now here we are NOT over drafting and SAVING $200 every paycheck. Its hard, we keep a budget but allow for a little spending room. We waste less food, and cut out some convenience things. We havent use paper towels in for ever lol!

Cloth Diaper Update

So I got 2 G diapers from a second hand store today. Remembered I had some prefolds my MIL gave me and decided to try them out. While they were washing I was doing more research. For us economically the best route would be to go with a diaper cover and a prefold. Further more we need one size diaper covers, preferably with snaps but Velcro is ok. That way between the boys the only thing that will need to be different is the prefold. While I like the G diapers, I dont like the liner, it didnt work well with the prefold.

So for covers Im going for either Flip diapers or Thirsties Snap Duo
Each are about $12-$13 when bought new but can be found for less on ebay.

For Prefolds I would like to find Chinese prefolds because they have the perfect range for both boys. They go from 15lbs to 40lbs. The are out of stock most often though.
My other choice would be for Green Mountians Cloth-eeze Pre Folds. I would have to buy 2 differnt sizes though for the boys, but rylan needs fewer than Gabe.