Super Day

Today I went to Super Suppers as a reward for saving enough grocery money to go and because I've cleared enough space in our freezer for some more meals. I love this place! You get to make your meals there using their yummy recipes without doing any shopping or any clean up. I use about 1-2 freezer meals a week on the days I am busy or just don't feel like planning a meal. I buy a 6 meal package and split them all in half (I split fish into three dishes because we don't like leftover fish), so today I ended up with 14 meals for around $120 (I paid less because I had a gift certificate). My freezers are full and tomorrow I will make an inventory list so I don't lose anything in there.

Wesley still is waking up every night, so tonight I will be letting him cry it out since Dave the softie is out of town. No, I am not a meanie, all of my baby books say this is typical during 12-16 weeks and a few minutes of crying in the middle of the night should solve the sleeping problem in 2-3 nights. If you wait until after 16 weeks, it gets harder to fix. I'm not looking forward to it, but since I got pregnant last March, I've probably had less than 10 nights of 8 hours of straight sleep and I need it bad!!

The weather here is so beautiful we will be getting outside the rest of the week whenever we can. Daniel played outside for 2 hours today at school after he learned about the letter "R". We took raisins as a "R" snack to school today to share with his class.

My Thoughts Exactly

Sometimes I cannot believe what people input into their tax software and what they completely miss, even with those long series of questions. From one of my favorite blogs, the Tax Guru:

Q:
Subject: Taxes

Hi Kerry,

My fiancee and I are thinking about attempting to do our own taxes with tax software. Have you had any experience with it? I am worried about things like how to show the house and interest from our joint checking account. Also, I switched jobs last year and was on unemployment for a couple months... not to mention I received financial aide and paid some tuition. Do you think we should just go get them done or attempt it on our own with the tax software.

Thanks for your help. I'm sure you're really busy with tax season. Hope things are going well for you guys.

A:
Nowhere is the term GIGO (Garbage In, Garbage Out) more relevant than with tax prep software. This applies as much to consumer programs like TurboTax as it does to the very powerful and expensive programs we tax pros use.You absolutely need to work with an experienced tax pro who can locate all of your tax deductions, including the many that are right on the settlement statement for your home purchase. It can also get tricky when you split the house payments and the bank's 1098 only has one of your SSNs on it. An experienced tax pro will know how to show the deductions on both owners' tax returns without creating a problem with IRS's document matching system.A good tax pro should have no problem saving you much more than his/her fee; to say nothing of the peace of mind in not having to worry about screwing things up and having problems down the road from IRS; which would almost definitely happen if you try to prepare your own tax returns. This means you need to work with a tax pro who will spend the time necessary to properly understand your situation and not just do your return as fast as possible, as is the case with the big assembly line franchise operations (H&R Block, Jackson Hewitt, Liberty Tax, etc).

Not so Secret Confessions

Wow- 2 posts in one day. I'm catching up on some lost random thoughts.

I am secretly addicted to "High School Musical". It's catchy and I can't get it out of my head. I got the dvd for my birthday and I usually don't buy movies.

We let Daniel eat whatever we want when we are in a restaurant. I don't care if all he eats are fries and chocolate milk for dinner, I just want to eat my rare meal outside my house in peace. So we don't fight food battles in public venues. Surprisingly, he does well anyway and usually ends up eating his chicken, ham, etc. eventually.

We started watching "24" from the very beginning last night and I think we're in it for the long haul...

I am exhibiting accountant-like tendencies towards tracking my grocery savings. So far I'm at 56% for the year.

Dave bought me a screwdriver set and some kitchen tools for Valentines day, but he also got me an amethyst necklace and earrings, so it's all good. All I got him was some heart shaped Peeps (usually we don't exchange gifts, but he is trying to accomplish something here- don't go there, this is a clean family blog ;).

And lastly, Wesley is going to get some formula tonight after his regular bottle so we can hopefully all get some sleep....

I've lost control

It starts small- first you give up a room of your house to the baby. Then you give up your living room- no more adult items on the coffee table. Then there are toys everywhere in every room. You put them up and they are dragged back out. Even the bathroom- I can't remember the last time I took a bath in my own tub because the rubber ducks live there now. Stickers live on our clothes in the closet. All of the car magazines are strewn all over the house so Daniel and Daddy can look at them together.

I can't watch anything I want on tv- especially when Sesame Street is on. Sometimes I can sneak Oprah or a movie while Daniel is asleep. My last remaining adult venue was the car radio. I never ever have played kids music in our car because I didn't want Daniel to know it was an option. But we received a Praise Baby cd for Christmas, which is the music from Daniel's favorite dvd. I thought, this won't be so bad because we like this music. I forgot my rule and now I am paying. Daniel demands "praise babies" every time we are in the car and today Daniel was mad when I tried to listen to my "High School Musical" cd for a few minutes. I'm going to have to fight to gain back control of the radio for the next 16 years. My new plan might be to wear my ipod in the car, but I don't think that is too safe. But I did it this morning anyway because Wesley was up twice last night and I needed a certain song to help me wake up.

Tomorrow we are going to Vanderbilt for Daniel to be in a little educational study. I think he'll make a great lab rat. They are going to let him watch some videos and play with some toys I think. If it's anything groundbreaking, I'll let you know. Of course we'll be listening to "praise babies" all the way there and back. I just ordered another cd from the same series off Amazon so at least I have some variety...

Daniel reads Wesley's book to him

No Joke- We read the book to Daniel a few times and now he can read it to Wesley!

Love those Taggies books : )

Wesley

Amazing how happy he can be since he still doesn't sleep through the night!!

Answered Prayers

Apparently the X Box has a red flashing circle around the power button- Dave says it's called the "circle of death".

This will probably require sending it away to Microsoft to be repaired (under warranty).

Hallelujah, I just know God struck it down!!

UPDATE: After a brief resurrection (see Dave's comment below), it died again. Now it is being shipped to Seattle, Microsoft heaven.

Life with Daniel

Me: Daniel, it's cold this morning and we need to dress you in something warm.
Daniel: A turtleneck? (showing a strong preference for picking out his clothes and ours- if he's in our closet while we getting dressed).

We have these types of conversations all day long.

Daniel's toy lawnmower got put in time out (on the stairs) on Monday because Daniel kept hitting me with it. It was a tragic event that caused many tears. Last night, I looked up and the lawnmower was back in time out. I don't know why, Daniel wouldn't tell me.

One other incident to report: I was trying to get out the door yesterday and had just finished feeding Wesley. As I leaned over to grab the tv remote, Wesley spit up all over Daniel who was standing right there. He nailed Daniel all over his hair and face. Of course Daniel was hysterical and I was trying not to laugh because it did look pretty funny. We managed to get clean and Daniel got a sucker in the car to make up for it. Daniel hasn't even started to pick on Wesley yet and he's already getting payback.

Buy/Sell/Trade

I forgot to update you on the ebay experiment- it worked! I can't believe it but someone paid $36 for $46 worth of formula checks plus $13.50 in Harris Teeter Enfamil coupons. That will be my consigment clothing budget for the big sale coming up this month.

I've been trying to sell a double stroller I picked up at a garage sale on Craig's list. I've had several buyers fall through, and I've learned one of the pitfalls of Craig's list is nothing is binding the way it is on ebay. Everyone wants to buy it and no one follows through. Today someone is supposedly coming at 5:30 to buy it, but I'm not holding my breath. I have included a price markup for my trouble, and I'm going to make a nice little profit.

I purchased our new double stroller over the weekend. I've had my eye on this particular model for about 9 months and I have looked all over the internet. Amazon was the cheapest but it was on backorder and the new models are coming out (translation- they will not be able to fill my order of last year's model). I finally bought the floor model here in town at the only store that carries it. Original retail was $329, purchased for $197 with a manager's discount and a newspaper coupon. Thank you very much. Now if it would just get warm enough to go for a walk (I can't trust myself to go to the mall to try it out).

Now Dave is getting ideas about all of these other random items in our garage I could sell on Craig's list. No thank you, at some point the hassle is not worth the $$.

You Can Do It

One of our favorite new things we found this weekend (with the help of some friends) is the Home Depot Kid's Workshop. It's free, the first Saturday of every month, and the kids get a free apron, a free project and a free pin for their apron when they finish the project. This weekend was a race car! It was so much fun to watch Daniel get into the whole building process. We can't wait to go again next month!

PS- Is the title the slogan for HD or Lowes?? Brain lapse....

HELLO !!!

Wesley at 2 months

These boots are made for walkin'