Walking in the Dark

You know those moments that you feel like you really can't see where you're going or how to get there? I'm having one of those moments right now.  I usually wouldn't post something about our personal finances, but I am.

The bottom line is that Preston's making $1000 less per month from now on than he did for his first year and we were basically making what we spent then. Now, we have an extra child and even after redoing the budget we are spending $850 more than we make EVERY MONTH! I calculated that to mean that if we live off of our savings and loan money (which we wanted to pay off and can since we refinanced) then we'd be running out of money in 14 months. We should be here at least 19 more months. I know the obvious reaction would be "why did you have another kid?" or "didn't you see this coming?" and all I can say is that we did know he'd be making less, but not exactly how much and we also knew that having a baby would add more financial burden.  But I'd do that again if I had the choice. 

The truth is, we've been slacking on our finances for over a year now! I'm sure it was the adversary sneaking into our lives. We used to be so diligent in tracking every little receipt on a self-designed excel sheet that was very effective for a while. But, just before we moved to Florida our system was becoming less effective for us. Too much busy work. We thought once we moved we'd try and start over and change things how they need to be. Since then, we'll take a look at the statements every now and then, see how much is in the bank, etc. But we haven't been good with budgeting like we used to be. We just mentally track what we think we've spent. And we all know how well that doesn't work. So, I had no clue what this income change would mean. Now that I've sat down to get back into things, I see we're in trouble. 

The good news: we know we're where we need to be and that Preston is in the program that he needs to be. 

The bad news: we still need money to survive and now need to figure out either a job for me or just living off of student loans (which I know is normal for many of you!).

That's why I feel so in the dark of how everything's going to work. How will we survive until graduation? I don't know.  I wish I could see even a little light, but I can't. For now, I just have to have faith that the light will come and that we get to tighten up our spending. I sense more mac and cheese dinners. . . at least it tastes good :)

Again, I don't know why I felt to post about something so personal. Maybe someone knows of a good job opportunity.  Maybe its for my own way of getting stress out. Whatever the reason, here it is. We're in trouble.  The phrase that comes to mind. . . "Come what may, and love it." A good reminder that there's so much to love about life whatever the circumstances!

Catch up through pictures

Brayden was obsessed with this swing we got at a consignment
 sale a few weeks ago. He doesnt get in much anymore.

cute scrunched sleeping face

big smile! I love how his eyes close when he smiles so big.

Playing with Anna

I just like these overalls

Brayden's always been a lip sucker. When he was first
born we said he had ducky lips because he would
suck his bottom lip so that his top lip would stick out
like a duck bill.  Just one of those cute Braydenisms.

Zander watching conference with us on the couch.

The swing that is a true tender mercy! Zander does not like to get laid down, but he'll usually be content and even sleep here during the day. Back saver.

I gave in to Brayden one morning and let him go play with Sadie outside. As you can see, she runs so much during the day that our grassy backyard has a huge mud hole in the middle. Brayden loves dirt, so of course that's where he would go play too.

The little muddy feet. Good thing it all came out in the wash!

Our new DVD case in an attempt to keep Brayden out! He's ruined a couple of his DVDs because they get so scratched from him dropping them, etc.

My cute boy with no clothes because we were doing Thrush treatment that stains everything. We got away with NO STAINS other than an old T-shirt I would wear during the days that he used the Gentian violet stuff.

Here's his purple mouth. (I'm not sure if the Thrush is really gone yet. I'm so bad at being able to see if it's abnormally white or not. . . He goes to the doctor in a couple weeks and I'll ask. Otherwise we'll have to start again I guess.)

A little froggy buddy in our backyard. Right next to the weeds. . .

The biggest dragonfly I've ever seen was sitting on our window the other day.

He was huge!

This is Preston's Christmas gift. I'm not a fan of early Christmas gifts, but I know this is what he wants. I found a new one on craigslist for a great price and decided I'd better just pick it up now. He still hasn't found it, so no spilling the beans! I'm just waiting for him to decide to mow the lawn again and I'll try and have the camera ready :)

Brayden chose a huge serving spoon to use one day. It was great.

We're getting in the Halloween spirit. Just decorated and picked out pumpkins. Yesterday Zander wore his cute dracula onsie. It's a little big, but I think it's a 3-6 month size, so it should be.

Brayden tried on his costume. You'll have to wait and see the whole thing because I'm fixing it up a little. I think we'll all be pretty cute in not-so-"cute" costumes. Brayden is a spider, Zander is going to be a fly and Preston and I will be the web. We'll all be the Web of Love :) hehe. But, really it'll be mostly funny when we're holding both boys.

My mom got us a double stroller which came yesterday! 

Brayden liked helping set it up :D
Really he was stuck and asking me to help him out,
but I decided to snap a picture first. Awful, right?

Sleep

I have been really lucky to have only felt exhausted of sleep a couple times since Zander was born. Once right after our road trip to Missouri and once last week. Not sure why last week, but there were a couple long nights in a row.

Get this, Preston offers to take care of Zander Saturday night so I can rest. Zander doesn't even wake up until Preston has to get ready for his meeting at 730! He slept for 8 and a half hours! Because we stayed up late watching BUY football so I was still pretty tired and Preston didn't actually have to wake up during the night, he agreed to take him again Sunday night. Zander slept all night again! I couldn't ask Preston to watch him again because I was feeling much better, so last night I was ready for Zan man to wake up several times just because I was in charge. But he slept all night once more!

Yeah, our nearly 2 month old is training himself to sleep all night. I'm the luckiest mommy. He's actually been cluster feeding himself for almost a month now so that the bedtime process of getting him fed and asleep takes about 2 hours every night. Starting at 530 ish every night he begins eating all the time. Literally All. The. Time. Then we get him ready for bed about 7 or 8 and start the bottle feeding. In about 2 hours he'll eat around 8 to 10 ounces. And that's after all his breastfeeding. No wonder he can last all night.

I'm really hoping that he keeps sleeping for 8 hours at night. I love sleep.

Here's to hoping!

Precious Moment

I was trying to get a nap in after my last blog post, but unfortunately took a little too long trying to read all the updated blogs I've missed so I only got a 10 minute power nap.

Anyway, 10 minutes ago Brayden was on his bed sleeping. I just glanced at the video monitor when I started nursing Zander and noticed that Brayden wasn't there anymore. Odd. I hadn't heard anything. So I turned the volume up and listened closely to hear his sweet little voice saying the name of the letter A over and over again and then a B thrown in at the end. He was looking at a book that daddy was reading with him and they had pointed out letters together (which Brayden is getting VERY good at). So cute. Then he went to his door and said "please" because he wanted to come out. Love it. Well, now that Zander's done I best go get my sweet B.

Conference Weekend

General Conference is awesome! For some reason this conference didn't seem to speak directly to me like usual. I figure its either because I'm becoming so perfect that there can't possibly be more to work on or I must not have listened as intently. We can all agree on the latter.
I will be the first to admit that I only heard half of Saturday's first session between Brayden and Zander and I missed a whole talk in the second session cleaning up a nice blowout from Zander. It's very different with children and will keep being different the older they get. And It's also different in the eastern time zone. The sessions are from noon-2, 4-6, and priesthood from 8-10. It feels like we have the whole morning together then conference then bedtime.
Even so, we tried to make it a special experience and talked to Brayden about listening to the prophet. I think he can recognize him.
We went to the church for the very last session so Preston could meet a friend there, so I spent the session in the mothers room with the Boys as a courtesy to those watching... Brayden hasn't figured out reverent voice yet and gets pretty crazy at bedtime.
Anyway, I did hear some great talks and look forward to listening to it again. Hope you liked it too!

Dear Zander,

I don't have anything bad to say about you yet. You are perfect and precious. I adore every bit of you. I don't always appreciate our time together in the middle of the night, but I know that's special too and I'm working on loving it.

I can't believe how much you smile and laugh. You laughed when you were 1 week old and have continued ever since. You've started smiling at me when I talk to you or move your legs around and that smile of yours melts my heart. You have these cute little dimples over your lips and they make me smile. When you smile really big you get what we refer to as your magoo eyes. We coined the term when you were only a few minutes old because your eyes were slightly swollen and puffy. Now you smile so big your eyes puff up and look closed. I love it. 

Your sad faces and sounds are also cute, but only for so long and then we always hope we can fix the problem soon. You don't actually cry very much. Mostly you whimper and whine like a puppy. 

Now about your eating habits. I would really love if you could always sit and eat a full meal before falling asleep. You've gotten much better, but you're still more into snacking. Especially in the evening. You started cluster feeding yourself with lots of snacks to get ready for the night. The only thing is that you take a long time to fall asleep. Our bedtime process usually starts when we put Brayden to bed and you're still up for at least an hour and a half. It makes it very hard to get chores done. But, soon we'll start helping you sleep through the night and maybe that will help.

You are a very sensitive soul. You don't like Daddy's teasing and don't have much patience for discomfort. I have a feeling that you'll often be picked on by Brayden because of this. Hopefully it'll make you stronger or better in some way though.

Well little man, I love you. You are special and unique just like your name. I look forward to many more great weeks and months together.

Love always and forever,

Mommy

Dear Brayden,

The kicking and hitting needs to stop. You are much to sweet for it and you know we don't like it. I think we've been more than patient with you, but if you keep it up we're going to have to get more tough in our discipline. You won't like it, I won't like it, so let's just not go there ok?

Now that we've got that settled, thank you for stepping up into the role of big brother. You have surprised me  with the patience you've had while I care for Zander. I don't think there's anything better than seeing you smile at your brother and pat his head. I love seeing you try and make him happy by giving him him binky. He doesn't love it like you did (and still do), but I can tell that you think it's what he wants. You even shared your cherished blanky once! Which reminds me, why do you take his blankets off whenever you get the chance? Very silly.

You are a very handsome boy, Brayden. Several different people have told me that
I've got to get you into modeling. Maybe if I knew how I would. But, even better is your darling personality and love for life. It makes me smile every time you yell "truck!" when we drive by one. You always look for the moon and stars at night and sometimes spot the moon in the day. Everything is exciting and wondrous to you.

You do have a slightly devious side and are starting to tease Sadie with food that you don't want her to get. It's kind of cute except that you throw a tantrum if she does get the food when you don't want her to. I sense that teasing will soon be exercised on Zander and I hope that you will know when to stop.

All I can say is I love you. The ups and downs, the good and bad, the smiles and frowns. Sometimes I don't think I know how to be your parent and teach you everything (particularly what not to do) but then I realize that I want to be your Mommy and that it's the best job in the world. The harder it is, the more rewarding. And you're very good at rewarding me with precious moments every day.

Thank you Brayden for being who you are. I love you.

Love always and forever,
Mommy