Change is good!

Demolition has begun!! Just last weekend we started tearing apart the upstairs. We have not put any paint on the walls until now. Matt and I like to laugh about how every house we live in has McKenzie Khaki and now this one does too. We have added dark brown to the kitchen trying to take some of the pink tone in the cabinets out. We thought about painting them put realized the work and just thought we could do other things to change them. We love our red wall out in the living room. This red is nothing new for us we had a red wall in a bedroom in Garden City house and liked it. We also plan to paint the inside of our front door black and our patio doors black. Yes, this sounds crazy but our doors in Greeley had black paint and looked great! Plus they don’t show the yuck that Mr. Hoss can leave behind when he leans on them all day. I can’t wait to get some new carpet and tile in the next few weeks but we will have to get the tile done first. Matt will do our tile job but definitely we will hire our carpet done. We plan to add a tile back splash to the kitchen and do new counter tops ourselves. The carpet will be replaced in the living room and our bedroom first. Later when the basement is finished we will moved Matt’s office downstairs and replace the carpet in his room and Josh's room. We also will remodel all 3 bathrooms upstairs with tile and maybe new vanities depending on the budget! Down stairs, we will have 1 bedroom and 1 bathroom and an open floor plan for Matt’s office, bar, eating area, game area and media area. We have A LOT of work to do and will show pictures along the way. Hope you enjoy and if you have any decorating ideas or any ideas, we are always up for hearing about them.

7 months old

Wow, he is already 7 months old!! Never in the history of my life has seven months went so fast. Ok, maybe when Matt and I planned our wedding! Joshy can do so many new things. He eats 3 times a day and loves anything you put in his mouth. He is trying so hard to set up and can do it when he is playing ball with Hoss. He is such a happy kiddo and loves to make a happy face when I pull out the camera. He will stop what he is doing if you pull out the video camera though.
We went to Salina this week and Josh got to stay in a hotel and go on a business trip with daddy for the first time. My grandparents live in Salina so we traveled along to visit them while Matt worked. You can say after Monday night, it was the LAST hotel stay I ever wanted. I got about 1 1/2 hours of sleep. We had a very unhappy baby and by 3 am I was walking the halls to keep him from crying. All he wanted was held and walked while he got some sleep. All I wanted was to keep him from crying and waking a hotel full of people up!! Our problem was he was really constipated and maybe cutting some teeth! All in all we had a great time and really liked seeing the family!!

No more swing :(

Joshy is officially OUT of the bird swing:( This swing has been the biggest life saver of all the baby items. Adam, Mindy and Thad let us use this and we just want to say thank you so so much for the use of it. As you can see he reaches for the items above him and likes to try to roll out of it. He can also push up with his legs and try to scoot himself out of it. A little dangerous for him to be left in it even for a second unsupervised! We can't even put the buckle around his waist because he is to fat. It has a toy tray that goes with it put it's hard to take off and on so away the bird swing will go!!! Josh had been using this for his bed from about 2months old to 41/2 5 months old. You can say sleeping at night does NOT come easy and the swinging motion was so so nice to get a few hours in. I'm not sure who will miss it more, but I bet it would be me!

The BIG 3 0

What a fun birthday!!! Jill and Brett decided to surprise me for the big day and get me a cake!
We had doll cakes when we turned 2,3 or 4 can't remember and I just loved them! So Jill and Brett thought we needed to have the same cakes again! Darla Lee made the cakes for us and I think she had a fun time making them. If you don't know who Darla is, I use to work with her. I told her how much I liked the cakes and when Jill called I'm sure she laugh!

Jill can't wait to eat this cake!! Neither can her kids.
Zekke and Titus had a lot of fun keeping it from me and Jill was happy they didn't let the cat out of the bag!!
I was surprised and still laugh that Jill knew how much I liked our doll cake's growing up.

Big Boy!

Josh loves food!!

If you even look like you have something he could eat he will open his mouth. We now eat 2 big boy meals a day. We eat green bean, carrots and prunes! He has also tried bananas and made a funny face. Aunt Jill loves to give him things to try because he will do just about anything, so she gave him a sippy cup the other day and he drank out of it like a pro!

Josh and his mom would also like to say hello to all the Parkview gals we miss you!!!

WE'RE DEBT FREE!!!!!

I wired the final payoff to the credit union today and that finishes off all our debt except our house! We've been working on the Dave Ramsey plan for several years, but only really got serious about it when we moved to KS. Since January 2007, we have paid off $44,473.79 in vehicles, credit cards, and student loans. I used to say that I would always have a car payment. Never say never. That's back when I was planting a lot of stupid. The last time I was without a car payment, I was 14 and it was 1990. Good ridence. The next step is to save our 3-6 month emergency fund and fully fund our investments. At that point, we're going to spend some money remodeling our house and then work hard to pay it off. My new goal, which is more attainable now than ever, is to say "I don' t owe anyone a dime". Some of the new things that I've learned over the last 24 months:

It feels good to tell the credit card company to "stick it".
I can survive with only a debit card, my ID, and my insurance cards in my wallet (been doing that for over 6 months now).
Sallie Mae has been taking her monthy cut for nearly 10 years. ADIOS, old lady!!!
Paid off vehicles get better gas mileage.
What's happening in the economy doesn't worry me as much.
I'm working more for the love of the work and less for the need for money.
The idea of a big, fat emergency fund brings me a great deal of security.
The last 24 months flew by, and we're getting rich slow!! And it's great.
I didn't always have the patience to get through it and wanted things to go faster, but we made it.

6 months old

Christmas day Josh was 6 months old, this was a very fast 6 months! We have so much fun with this little man and can't wait for the next 6 months. I would really like to make him a day old again and keep him a baby for a lot longer but I guess that can't happen.
Josh is now eating baby food and is a lot more vocal. He still is a very calm kid and will not make too much noise. Loud anything still gets him upset but he is doing so so much better. Large crowds seem to be the big thing but he did do really well over the holidays!
His first Christmas was a lot of fun and it was more fun to get to have one with each set of grandparents! My mom had fun getting all the babies outfits that looked like. While Matt's parents had fun with a new grand baby and his first Christmas. What a spoiled boy we had by New Years!!
Joshy had a Santa outfit I put him in Christmas Eve and the older kid thought it was funny. He did stay up a little late Christmas Eve and tried to see Santa but we told him he can't come if your awake! All in all it was a blast for the first six months!