Spring Might Just Have Arrived

The weather has been wonderful here for a week and I hope its hear to stay. As a result of the gorgeous weather we spent lots of time outdoors this weekend. Holden and I met some friends at the farmers market first thing Saturday morning. Not a lot of goodies yet, but one more month and the market will be back in full swing, I can't wait. Afterward we went home and Jeremy and I got Holden's new room almost finished. One more big push this weekend and it will be ready for the big reveal.

Sporting our Kyle Busch hat from Grandma Hassler on the way out to the market

Saturday afternoon, we met up with Stacey and her family at the Nature Museum in Charlotte. The museum wasn't worth the money, but the kids loved it and we walked this little nature trail butting up to a great park in Charlotte. The kids ran and ran, took a few tumbles and spontaneously held hands (none of the parents were fast enough with their cameras). It was awesome. Cameron and Holden had a great time.

Sharing a snack on the nature trail (photo courtesy of Stacey)

Saying "cheese" for the camera (again thanks Stacey)

Sunday, we had a bunch of folks over to kick of Nascar with the Daytona 500. Cameron and Holden again had a great time. Just a couple time outs for not sharing, but all in all I think they are becoming fast friends. Its pretty awesome to see the two of them play together, for 2 years Stacey and I have been waiting for them to play together and not just next to each other. They interact and share most of the time. Cameron loved sharing her snack with Holden, and Holden stole a kiss from Cameron as they said goodbye. Too cute to handle.

Stacey got stuck reading stories for quite awhile Sunday afternoon. Disregard the finger sucking problem we are having with Holden (we are at a loss at how to stop it)

Holden and Cameron hanging out in his new room, the big boy bed is a big hit

A Failed Experiment

I thought I'd follow up on how our spending fast went for the month of January. The short answer is we didn't really save any money. But that's only because what we would have spent on eating out, a babysitter and leisure expenses went towards groceries and a going away party for our friends. Not to mention the monthly gas expenses have doubled with the rediculous cost of fuel right now.

If I were to add it up, we almost doubled our grocery bill during January. Which is why I feel like the experiment failed. I was hoping to walk away from January feeling more financially fit, like we had a cushion that we didn't have before the month started. And that is a resounding no.

There is still some lessons learned as I think the eating out will still be less as the months creep on simply for the fact that it fits in with my healthiness goals for this year. And we use the website Mint to track our budgets. If you don't use Mint or a similar website, I highly encourage it. We have used it for over a year, and you can really track your trends in spending. And if you are a turbo tax user like us, they are linked so your taxes are a bit easier.

Going forward, we have a new goal for February. Since I spent a significant amount of our monthly budget on groceries last month, our cupboards and deep freeze are quite full. Our goal for February is to eat our way through the groceries in the house. No taking advantage of double coupon days, or Buy 1 get 2 free deals this month. I am going to have to pull out the recipe books and get creative. I'm not saying we won't buy groceries, obviously the fridge will need restocked with fresh foods, but I'm going to try and avoid the freezer isles at Trader Joe's and work our way through the grains we have at home.

I'll fill everyone in on how it goes. I might just be putting off the big grocery bill, as once the pantry and freezer are empty I'm going to have to restock them.

I have a dirty little secret

I love Taco Bell. I mean love it, none of this "fresh fit menu" or "fresco style" stuff, full fledged nacho cheese volcano taco deliciousness. A total violation of my effort to eat real food, its a vice. BUT I can't eat them anymore because I found out some very disturbing information about their "seasoned beef" yesterday.

Taco Bell is being sued for calling their "taco meat filling" seasoned beef when it is only 35% meat. ONLY 35% MEAT!!!

USDA requires anything labeled beef to be 70% beef 30% fat. USDA requires anything called meat to be at least 40% meat. Taco Bell couldn't even meet the 40% mark!

This means no more Taco Bell for me.

You can read the story here

Having Some Fun

Holden has taken to dancing this weekend. Well, its mostly spinning. And he had a nasty fall into the end table as a result. However, after a bit of comfort, he went on to dance some more. All in all, I bet he danced for 30 minutes Saturday afternoon. It's rare for any activity to keep his attention for more than 15 minutes so it was fun to watch. Here is an edited version of his version of dancing.




Along with the nasty fall during dancing, Holden went to a friends for a play date on Sunday. Holden and his buddy, Ben, collided in the hallway and Holden ended up with a nice black eye. Of course after a few minutes comfort he was off running again.
We had a few snow days last week here in Charlotte and after 3 days of being cooped up in the house, Holden and I were running out of ideas. Here is our meager attempt at bowling.
Holden and Moe have become best pals (well as much as Moe will tolerate a 2 year old).

2011 Begins Like This

I floated by the idea of a month long spending freeze to Jeremy before the holidays, and it starts tomorrow. It is going to be much harder for me than for him. It entails no eating out, no buying clearance items at Target, and trying to come up with things to do that are free. You may ask "are you crazy" but I've been gearing myself up for it all through the holidays. We are only going to spend what we need to live our lives, groceries, gas, household items, etc. But not starting any new projects that would require trips to Home Depot. I'm hoping it helps determine how much money just flows out of the checkbook without our acute awareness. We do have an exception related to a good friend leaving Charlotte before the month's end. I can't justify not attending a going away lunch or dinner just due to the spending freeze, I would regret it.

Also, I have decided to publicly announce my 2011 goals (not resolutions). This way I can check back on how well I'm coming along. And the few readers I have can make suggestions for helping me accomplish them if they would like.

Amanda's 2011 Goals

• Will - Yes yell at me know, Jeremy and I have been meaning to do a Will since we got married 4 years ago. Its time we did it.
  
• Gardianship - Same story, we need to have something written out for Holden, this is a hard one for us mainly because we can't settle on who to put down.
• 500 Miles in 2011 - Laura put me on to this goal as she completed it in 2010. We also got a Wii for Christmas and I think this will help during the winter months. I haven't run since October and my excuse has been the lack of daylight.
• Healthiness - I'm not going to put a number down because I have disappointed myself for 2 years in a row. But I really want to get rid of the baby weight I've been carrying around at a minimum. I also hope the spending freeze helps get me back on track with the lack of eating out. I want to be more diligent with our meatless Mondays and we try to follow a real food diet (no preservatives, no artificial ingredients, etc.) but it has allowed maybe a bit too much butter into the diet and I need to find a balance between healthy/low - fat and real food so I don't fall into buying "diet" food. Weight watchers has been a huge help for my girlfriend Stacey, so I have rejoined as a tracking tool and recipe source.
  
• Family Dinners - This might not happen until the 2nd half of 2011 but we want to push Holden's dinner time back an hour so that we can all eat together the same meal. I'm not sure if he is still too little to do this as he wants to eat at 5:30 now and its impractical to think we will all be home at 5:30 let alone have dinner made.
  
• Church - We think its time we start putting some consistency in our church attendance for Holden.
• Date Night - Once a Month (after the spending freeze)
• Pay off 2 unsecured loans - This is part of a larger 5 year goal of ours to buy a home in a different school district by the time Holden enrolls in 1st grade.
  
• 5K and Warrior Dash - I'm still on the fence with the warrior dash because I don't want to do it alone, but definitely going to run another 5 K once it warms up.

That's it ladies and gentleman. Hope your 2011 is a great year

Christmas Vacation

We had a great quite Christmas here in Charlotte. My dad came and stayed which was great. We watched lots of college football and enjoyed the rare white Christmas.
The rare photo where Holden looked at the camera during presents
My dad and I took a day trip to the triangle and visited Duke and UNC. Had some great BBQ at the Pit in Raleigh.
We went to the Meineke Car Care Bowl in Charlotte on New Year's Eve. Clemson got their tail kicked by USF. It was a good time and great weather for a football game.

This Job is Tough

I have been contemplating a whiny blog post for about a week now, but can't quite come up with the words because when we have a bad day with Holden or a bad couple days in a row, then he seems to snap out of it. And despite my complaining below, it is still awesome to see him explore his environment and watch how much he is learning both in his speech and motor skills. It's sweet to see how exciting little things are to him, like putting his shoes on (the highlight of his morning).

But I will say, that sometimes its really tough being a mom. I think we are in the beginnings of the "terrible twos". He has had a language explosion but we still only understand about 1/2 of what he tries to tell us. So, when we don't understand he has a fit and gets frustrated and we try to stay calm but the whole situation tends to melt down for a bit.

Secondly, he is really starting to assert his independence and we are having to do some disciplining and its hard to explain to a bawling 21 month old why he can't have a cookie for dinner. And timeouts are more of a nightmare than the initial reason for the timeout. Someone explain to me why putting a bawling toddler in timeout and trying to keep him there for a minute is a good idea. Because right now, the minute is just as long for us as it is for him.

I'm not giving up because I don't want a poorly mannered, terror of a kid. But man is it tough sometimes to not give in just to stop the crying and whining. I will say I'm still lucky not to have a kid that holds his breath and throws a kicking screaming writhing on the floor temper tantrum (yet).

On a lighter note, here are some Santa photos. I will say that going to see Santa is a total racket, you stand in line for 1 hour minimum and then dish out at least $20 for the smallest photo package and Santa didn't even say anything to Holden while he was on his lap. But the photos are cute and I will be visiting Santa every year and dishing out the $20 plus bucks until Holden thinks its stupid (which I suspect will be somewhere between the ages of 11 and 13).

Santa 2009

Santa 2010