The Great Debate

Well, first off....let me just say that life has been crazy around here. We have had 4 out of the 6 people in our house sick this weekend, puking and the like. I don't think I need to go into details there. I'm sure you get the picture.

On top of that, I had two photo sessions last week (on top of having my own pictures taken), which is probably nothing to a photographer in any normal state of life, but considering I just had a baby 5 weeks ago, it's a pretty big deal over here. Also, I'm still trying to learn all the tricks to working Photoshop CS4, so....it's fun, but time-consuming.

Now....onto, eh hem....THE GREAT DEBATE.

Ok, so it's really not that big of a deal, but it's something my husband and I have been discussing. The issue is the television.

You see, we're not big TV-watchers over here. Well, to be correct, we're not TV-watchers at all right now since both of our TVs are of the box generation and neither of them were privileged enough to be hooked up to one of those fancy new devices which generate the ability to see the current HD channels.

But there is one time of year that I really like to watch TV. It's Christmastime. There are all those old holiday cartoons and Christmas specials and (dare I admit I like to watch these?) Hallmark movies.

I said it. I like Hallmark movies.

And then there's football. Nothing we really care about in this house, but since apparently many other people do, we always feel as if we can't invite people over for lunch on Sundays because, well....we definitely won't have the game on. You know, considering the whole...lack of ability to put it on.

I admit that a tiny part of me wants to get a new TV because I know there is a really great kids channel that is now available to non-cable subscribers. And well, since I run a business and everything, I do occasionally (or probably more often than I'd care to admit) place my children in front of some sort of educational (or not) movie while I'm working. I figure they'd probably enjoy mixing things up a bit.

Oh, and speaking of work....can you imagine how great those sweet little newborns would look if you got to see them on a beautiful 42" LCD screen? Uh yes. Gorgeous.

But I'm afraid I'll put my kids in front of it even more often than I already do, and frankly, I'm afraid of getting attached to it myself.

So the debate is up in the air. And clearly I've presented both sides of this debate equally and given both sides fair playing time here in this presentation.

What are your thoughts? How do you keep TV under control in your home? Do you consider "Sunday fellowship" and "potential business help" to be valid reasons to invest a few hundred dollars into an unnecessary piece of electronic equipment? I'd really love to hear your opinions on this topic and I'm sure you all have one. Please share. And I'll keep you posted on how The Great Debate is going on in our home.

I'm Not Dead

Just busy. And that's about all I have time to say before I head to bed.

Oh! But I will mention that I finally figured out how to find and put up the code for my photography website! Some of you have expressed interest in advertising for me on your own blogs, so if you'd like to do that, you can now simply grab the code at right (it's immediately under my own advertisement photo) and add it to your blog as an HTML widget. Or however your blog works. :)

Good night, everyone. Sleep tight.

Foto Friday...Etc...

Wow, it's Friday already! (Already?) Lots of things to report....

1. I think pink eye has officially left our house. Hopefully. Keaton got it last Wednesday and Sienna woke up with it on Sunday morning. So far, Reagan is in the clear, but I suppose I need to give it a few more days before I know for sure. I know of at least three other children and one adult at our church who also had pink eye last week/weekend, so apparently it's going around.

2. Savannah is 1 month old today! She has her 1-month checkup this morning and I'm anxious to see how much she's grown. She's been unusually fussy for the past few days and not sleeping or eating like normal, so it's been a tiring week in that respect. Due to her nasal congestion (she's had a cold for 75% of her life now!), I suspect an ear infection. But we'll see how things go at the doctor's office. She hasn't had a fever at all, so I could be totally wrong on that.

3. My studio lights arrived last Friday and I promised myself I'd finish a huge project (that I had not even started when they arrived) before opening them up and taking a look at them. So FINALLY on Sunday night, after completing my project, I got to see them. They. Are. Lovely. But just as quickly as we got them out, we put them away for fear that the kids would knock them over when they got up Monday morning. We're waiting for french doors to go on sale at Menards and then we plan to make the studio an official room of it's own. Until then...the lights will not stay up. It's just not worth it.

4. I had two fantastically fun photo sessions last week! One with an adorable little newborn and one with my daughter, Sienna. Since it's Foto Friday, I feel the need to post a photo. But since both of these sessions were suuuuuper great, I'm going to post one from each. Because I'm nice like that. You can check out the full posts over on my photography blog. :)

Baby Jacob:



Sienna:

Have a great weekend, everybody! Don't forget to "fall back" tomorrow night!

Rocking Her To Sleep

Sometimes it's the little things in life that bring the most joy. Tonight I rocked my sweet Savannah to sleep. Did it take 20 minutes away from the work I was trying to do? Yes. But was it worth it? You bet!

And speaking of sweet dance moves (say whaaaat?), check out how talented this little rock star is already....

I know. A girl after my own heart. And fortunately for her, her moves are about as sweet as mine too. ;)

DIY Moby Wrap

I'd like to preface this post by saying that there is a reason I stay behind the camera lens. I'm not good in pictures. I'm just not. I know everyone says that, but good grief, I'm terrible in front of the lens. I'd also like to apologize for the quality and tone of the pictures you're about to see. It was very dark in out kitchen when these were taken last night, but I insisted that my husband take a few pictures for illustration purposes. Ok, moving on with the post....

There are hundreds of different wraps, slings, and baby carriers on the market these days. I've never really been much into "babywearing" as it is called, but I did used to have a carrier that I used once or twice with our past children. But this year, with Savannah being born at the peak of swine flu season and the beginning of cold season, I decided it might be wise to keep her close for the first several weeks of her life. I consulted with my friend Cari who owned what appeared to be an extremely comfortable wrap.

Perhaps you've heard of the Moby wrap. It's gaining more popularity from what I can see, but in case you're not familiar with it, let me sum it up for you. The Moby wrap is a piece of 100% cotton, 6 yards in length and approximately 30 inches in width, that can be wrapped several times around your body for ultimate comfort and support when carrying your baby or toddler. Now, personally....I have no idea why anyone would ever want to wear their toddler. But that's another topic for another day.

Anyway, after chatting with Cari, I decided that I would peruse the clearance fabric section at a few stores before I went and paid $40 for a wrap that I wasn't even sure I'd like. So I went to Joann and found a lovely green fabric - 100% cotton. The only downside was that the ends rolled a bit, but....eh, no biggie. It was about 60 inches wide, so I actually got two wraps for a total of $15. I was pretty happy.

But I thought it might be fun to have more than one color.

See how I try to save money but then end up spending the same amount by buying more "frugal" things? I know. It's bad.

So I went to Walmart. They had no suitable fabrics in their clearance section, but I did run across some polyester knit fabric for $2/yard. I know polyester is warmer than cotton, but this fabric was a neutral color and, well, it was only $2/yard. So I bought 6 yards and made two more wraps.

It's an addiction, I realize. You don't have to tell me.

And yes, I did ask my husband if I looked fat as he was taking these pictures. Every woman does! Right?

Why yes, I do love reading the nutritional facts on the back of the peanut butter jar. Did you know that a serving size is 2 Tbsp?

I wound up sewing the edges of the second fabric I bought but haven't yet gotten around to sewing the edges of the green fabric. One of these days it'll happen. Maybe. But anyway, I now have 4 wraps (unnecessary, I know, but I'm giving at least one away) that cost me a total of $27. Not bad, if you ask me.

I'll leave you with what my husband calls "the paparazzi picture":

....you know...because I look ridiculous. Well....more ridiculous than normal anyway.

Get Your Finances In Line In 2009: September Recap

Wow, this is super late! I usually try to post our financial update in the first week of the month and here I am posting it on the 27th day of the month. Yeesh!

Well, anyway...as you all know, our little Savannah finally arrived on September 30th, fourteen full days past her due date. (Little stinker!) So after those few extra weeks of eating out and getting take out way more often than was probably necessary, I was very surprised to discover that we actually had a fairly good month for our savings account!

We were hoping to make it to 70% of our FFEF last month (a pretty lofty goal) and we got pretty close. We also started saving for our trip in March. Other than that, nothing too exciting took place.

So here we go....

REVISED GOAL #1: Save up and pay CASH for our trip to Texas next March. ---- 25% completed ----

Goal #2: Fully fund our 6 month emergency fund and put into a money market account to be left UNTOUCHED unless there is an actual emergency. ---- 66.6% completed!! ----

Goal #3: Save for my husband to get a "new" (that means used) car. ---- Still on hold. No major issues with the car at this time. ----

Goal #4: Raise retirement contributions to 12% (with a 4% match).

Goal #5: Open a money market account for each of our children.

Goal #6: Begin paying extra principal on our mortgage.

Goal #7: Establish a will and testament. ---- I admit it. I am a total failure in this department. ----

Goal #8: Get disability insurance for both my husband and me. ---- I mention this to my husband occasionally. He seems to think it's like a one-page worksheet that I can fill out for him. Not so much. I'm blaming this one not being done on him. :) ----

So there you have it. We will surely make it to 70% of our FFEF this month, and I'll be SO excited to report whenever we reach 75%! (I have a thing with fractions, apparently.) We were really hoping to reach 100% by the end of 2009, but we also realized that it likely wouldn't actually happen. And now we're saving for our Texas trip, so that's pulling a little bit of what would have gone into our savings. But we're so looking forward to our trip! So we imagine it will probably be closer to March or April that we can completely fund our FFEF.

Keep on keeping on!

"Not Me!" Monday

Oh dear, it's been quite the week around here! We've been up to a lot of things, but here are some things that I most definitely have NOT been up to!

I did not serve my three oldest children leftover McDonalds for breakfast one morning because I was too tired to find them something else to eat. I also did not intentionally delay breakfast three days over the past week in order to feed my children brunch because I was too lazy to make three meals each day. I always feed my children three, balanced meals per day.

There is no way that I got SO thirsty after grocery shopping that I had to drink some OJ directly out of the carton while sitting at a stoplight. I would never do something so disgusting as that!

I did not encourage my children to participate in "pajama day" more days than I care to mention. We are neat and orderly in this house and we most certainly do NOT just sit around in our PJs all day long. Nope, not us!

There is no way that I somehow managed to go four days without taking a shower - "broken" water heater or not. That would be nasty. And I would never do that. Ever.

When writing a 'thank you' card out for the owner of my husband's workplace (who sent us flowers after Savannah was born), I did not spell the owner's first name wrong. My husband has worked there for almost 6 years and there no is reason for me to ever do something like that. So of course...I didn't.

I most certainly did not drink three large fountain Cokes in a 36-hr period. I care about my body way more than that!

While going over my to-do list for the day, I definitely didn't add things to the list that I had already completed just to make it look like I had gotten more things done with my day. I never do things like that. And I certainly don't do it on a regular basis! No way!

I did not just write a few things that actually took place weeks ago but have been sitting in my "Not Me!" Monday draft since then just to add more items to my "Not Me!" list. I never do that.

And finally....I don't care what you've heard about this....but it absolutely isn't true that I found my 2 year old daughter in the pack 'n play bassinet WITH my 3 week old baby! But you know, if that had happened, it surely wouldn't have been because I was going to get (none other than) a diaper out of the bathroom to change a certain someone. A certain someone who was directed to stay in MY bed. Not transition into the pack 'n play.

For more "Not Me!" Monday fun, head on over to MckMama's blog!

Pink Eye

And Speaking of DIY....

Here's a little hint of what's to come....

DIY Cloth Nursing Pads

Preface: I'm sure this is TMI, but I produce milk like a cow. Apparently I was created to have babies and nurse them. Seriously, my milk supply is ridiculous. I don't say that to brag as I have many many friends who sadly are unable to nurse due to a low milk supply (among other reasons), but I'm just telling you so you understand my need to make my own nursing pads.

Ok, read on....

With my first child, I used disposable nursing pads. I don't even want to think about how much money we wasted on those things. BUT I thought the reusable ones were too expensive. Since, you know, I went through probably 24 a day.

With my second child, I used a mixture of both. Primarily the tiny little Gerber reusables. But I had to do laundry CONSTANTLY and I still never had enough. So then I would switch to disposable. Again, big money waster.

With my third child, I think I almost exclusively used the few Gerber reusables that I had left. But by this time, they had mostly gone missing and I found myself using burp clothes as a substitute. (Don't laugh - I'm serious!)

When I got pregnant with my fourth child, I thought....There HAS to be a better way! I had a friend who had purchased some handmade cloth nursing pads online and she swore by them that they were way better than the store bought kind (and actually large enough too!), so I started to look into those. But the cost was ridiculous. At least, in my frugal mind.

So I did what I'm pretty well-known for doing when I think something is way overpriced. I decided to make some myself. I called Gretchen and asked her if she had any idea how to make nursing pads and she referred me to this DIY tutorial. It was exactly what I needed!

Since there's absolutely no reason for me to repeat the steps here, you can just go to that tutorial to see how I made them. Here are a few pictures of mine:

Having made these and used them now I can attest to the fact that these are INDEED far superior to the store bought kind and definitely better than the disposables. They are also, eh hem, much gentler on the skin. If you know what I'm sayin'.

These took me longer than I expected due to all the cutting and sewing, but it was well worth it. In fact, I only made about 14 and need some more so I just bought more flannel last night and am planning on making some more this week. (Yay! Flannel just happened to be 60% off at Joann!)

I highly highly highly recommend these.

Did I say highly?