Go for the Gold

I love the Olympics! Hence the patriotic background. I had a friend ask me why I liked them so much, and I couldn't say why. Now I know. It's about real people who are striving for their dream. Jacob makes fun of me because I cry so often during them, I blame just having Steven, but really they are just so touching! How can you not feel any emotion when Alexandre Bilodeau wins the first gold medal for Canada on their home soil. Then he dedicated his run to his older brother with cerebral palsy. I love that I can cheer and follow the stories of people from all over the world. The Olympics are about the world coming together to cheer each other on, no matter where they are from. Of course we'd love to see USA sweep the board, but sometimes there is a bigger story to be told and that's what I love about the Olympics. Here are some pictures of us in our Olympic gear, a tradition started with my roommates 4 years ago.

Splish Splash

I thought I'd show some adorable bath pictures of Steven. He likes taking a bath a lot more now that he has found the fun of splashing! Also after getting out of the bath, you can see that he has a little curl in his hair. I love it! But unfortunately it goes away once it dries. We also had fun giving Steven a mo hawk, but we both agreed that he doesn't look like our little boy Steven with it.

Exciting News

Jacob is going to BYU! We found out on Friday that he was accepted to this project. I'm so proud of him. For a while there we weren't sure he'd be on the project and what we'd do from there, so we are thrilled to finally know what will be happening the next few years. We aren't sure if we are moving in May or August, but at least we know where we are going! I'm also so proud that Jacob is choosing and will be able to work on something that will really change and help others! Good Job Jacob!!!

Sword Fights and Solids

Yesterday at church, Jacob gave him a pen to hold then got one for himself. Jacob started to hit Steven's like they were having a sword fight then held his back a little. I thought for sure Steven would just try and take Jacob's and stick it in his mouth. But I was wrong and our smart little boy started to swing his pen back and forth hitting Jacob's. They had a sword fight for probably 5 minutes. It's so fun to see Steven growing up and interact with us more.

Also yesterday we gave Steven his first solid food, rice cereal. I've been told that it will take some time for Steven to get used to the action of eating solids, so I expected for him to only get a couple of mouthfuls down. Once again my little boy surprised me by inhaling ALL the cereal we made for him. He knew exactly what to do and loved every minute of it. He would have fed himself if Jacob and I would have let him. I just can't handle how my baby is growing up. At first I couldn't wait for him to grow up and become a little boy, but now I just want my baby back. Don't get me wrong, I love to watch him try new things and figure out new things with his body. (He's become quite the roller) But I know that he will be grown up all too soon. It's a very happy bitter feeling. I'm sure all mothers feel the same.
So here are some pictures of him eating, I'm also including pictures of he and Jacob playing the guitar, I love these two!

We Did It!!

We actually went 4 weeks with only spending $10. We mostly spent the money on milk, butter, and eggs. Actually we still had $2.08 left at the end of the month so we went to the D.I. and bought a nice bread pan and left the month with 8 cents! We are quite proud of ourselves for keeping to the budget this time. Many other budgets have failed. But we agree we learned some wonderful lessons.

1. We rediscovered the value of a dollar. When we shopping on Feb. 1st, we stuck to the list and found ourselves not getting items we used to get, because we were unwilling to pay for it at that price.

2. We also learned how to be more inventive with our cooking. Instead of going out and buying ingredients we didn't have, we made do with what we did have. Which is great to help use up some food storage that we might not have used.

So what now? Well we are just going to take the lessons that we learned and form a new budget. We are thinking we don't need to spend more $10 a week. We figure if we could go a whole month with $10, we should be able to not spend more than that in a week. And we are not going to buy any new items if we have the same of that item, just not as appealing. For example, we won't buy any more juice until we finish all of our other juice mixes that we might not like as much. I am also starting to look for great deals and coupons that will help with us spending as much money. Yesterday we bought $30 worth of groceries for $5. Granted we wouldn't have bought most of the items regularly, but we got such a good deal on things we would get that the other items were practically free!

Why am I telling you this? Because YOU can do it! (If you have sufficient food storage) It may not be for $10, but something that makes sense for you. And both Jacob and I agree that the more people we tell about our weird budgets the more we have to follow them!