Anson at 8 months

And so it starts.  Anson just keeps getting older and older.  He's definitely not a baby anymore.  He has a sense of humor.  He has an idea of where he wants to be.  He's starting to copy the sounds I make, or at least tries it.  He's not rejecting tummy time so much.  He plays for "long" periods of time by himself or with his sister.  He looks at the right person when you say their name.  He's babbling with mixed sounds and inflection in his voice.  He doesn't want to eat anything from a spoon, he wants to feed himself with his hands (and yet doesn't chew so just ends up stuffing his cheeks with food bits).  He cocks his head to one side and smiles when people say hello.  Where's the baby?

Here's what our Anson is like at 8 months.

And so it starts: getting dressed up by Sister when Mom's not looking.  She doesn't even put the bow on her head.  Why his?

And so it starts: standing.  He's so happy to get in the tub he locks his knees and hangs on to the side when I show him the water filling.  Just try to get him to sit down...

That double-armed flapping thing he does in the beginning is his self-created, "Pick me up!" sign.  He's been doing that so long I can't remember when it started.  He's been saying "da-da-da-da" for maybe a month already but this video clip night we knew he knows what it means now.  And just so you know, he said "Mama" twice today. Yay!!!  That's the first I've heard it.  Whenever I asked him to say "ma-ma-ma" before all I got was "Ba" or a kiss.  So it's official.  "Dada" is his first word, and "Mama" is his second.  It doesn't matter what he says next now.  :)

Kitchen Counters

I was reflecting last night about my kids and my kitchen counters.  Both of my children are content to sit on the counters while I prepare food.   When Claire was small she played with toys within reach while I got meals ready.  Now she's old enough to start "helping" and sits on the counter to help and nibble at food while it's being prepared.  Anson now plays on my counter while I prepare food.  And sometimes when Claire sees Anson on the counter she wants to be up there, too.  I may need a larger kitchen.

It's funny the things that end up being memories.  I've gone through our photo library to document some of my counter moments with both of the kids.

Baby Claire

Helper Claire

Baby Anson - he's going to grow out of that counter space faster than Claire did!

Snitching Food - I don't even care if they eat less dinner because they've eaten raw veggies while I'm cooking.

My New Button

You may have noticed I added a button to the bar on the right.  It's for mormon.org.  I really like the new site.  I submitted my profile and it's "Pending Review".  Someday, hopefully soon, when you click on the button it will take you to see me on the site, too. :)

Getting the Most Out of Your Money

I was asked to present an evening of ways to get the most out of your money for our ward Relief Society weekday meeting.  Keep in mind that I'm a tax professional and not a financial planner.  Yes, there is cross-over, but I even paid for a financial planner a couple years back to help me since I didn't have the time to look into where to allocate my funds for the highest yields, etc.  That said, I'm still comfortable with numbers and talking about money so I accepted the assignment. 

I was worried 1) that I'd run out of things to say or not have any really good advice and 2) that no one would be there.  But the night went well!  There was a good turnout and the discussion about how to save money with everyone contributing, in my opinion, was great.  We have great sisters in our ward and everyone had good ideas.

Rather than keep these ideas to those of us in the room I thought I'd share them here for you, too.  If you want to learn more about a topic leave a comment and I can do another post about it.  Or, call me. :) I prepared the list and added the last section for things that came up in our discussion.

Budget
Church Guidelines
  Pay Tithes/Offerings
  Avoid Debt
  Use a Budget
  Build a Reserve
  Teach Family Members
Mint.com - Free online for tracking expenses, budgeting, saving goals, & more tools
Balance Checkbooks & Credit Card Statements
Practice with Cash Envelopes
Family discussions
Needs vs Wants
Take a second look at fixed bills

The Church’s Provident Living Resources (providentliving.org)
Family Finances Pamphlet
Online Financial Course: Peace in Your Hearts
Quotes and Talks from Church Leaders
One for the Money: Guide to Family Finances
Online Financial Calculators
Family Finance Lesson Materials
Additional Resources

Protect Yourself - Insurance (An ounce of prevention is better than a pound of cure)
Home
Health
Life
Auto

Tax Planning
Avoid late payment, late filing, & underpayment penalties
401(k) Contributions
IRA (Traditional and Roth) Contributions
Health Savings Accounts
Dependent Care Savings
Itemized Deductions (above standard deduction amounts)
  state tax (withheld and tax paid)
  contributions (tithing, fast AND mileage for service/callings)
  home mortgage & real estate tax

“Free” Money
Reduce/Eliminate debt
Credit Card Points (IF you pay off monthly)
Swagbucks.com - earn points for Google searches
401(k) Employer Match
Charitable Contribution Employer Match
Online discounts (e.g. retailmenot.com)
Discounts for paying up front

Groceries
Eliminate empty calories (drink more water, don’t buy soda, chips, candy, McDonalds, etc.)
Seasonal produce (on sale or from gardens, esp. high yield plants)
Shop the grocery sales
Meatless Monday
Coupons
   Combine store sales with manufacturer coupons
   Sunday-only newspaper subscription
   Utah Deal Diva’s Couponing 101 (utahdealdiva.com)
   coupons.com and coupons.redplum.com

Other Ideas
Sentimental or home-made gifts
Lengthen time between hair cuts
New uses for old things
Birthday clubs (Toys-R-Us, Aveda, etc)
Customer loyalty programs & emailings (Huggies, Pampers, WorldMarket, JoAnn Fabric, Michaels, etc.)

More from the Group Discussion
Pre-paid cell phones, especially for teenagers
$10 Costco cash from Schiff Vitamins
Allocate a % of your paycheck to direct deposit into a savings account
4 glass jars for kids's savings: Charity, Fun, Mid-Term Savings, and Long-Term Savings
Goodwill sells (with zero sales tax) excess inventory from Target and Orchard Supply Hardware
Use loose change to start savings accounts
Put coupon savings from your grocery trip into a savings account
Cook from scratch
Build it, sew it, make it yourself and consider trading/teaching skills
Pay extra on your loan payments (specify that the payment goes toward principal)


I do need to take a minute to credit two people in my life that have taught me about these topics.  My Mom taught me a lot when I was still a child about budgeting, distinguishing needs and wants, building up savings and many more fundamentals that I've been able to build on.  My sister-in-law Jessica, the Utah Deal Diva herself, has given me many of my recent tips & tricks and is my couponing inspiration.  Thank you, Mom!  Thank you, Jess!

Getting Anson to Eat

Truth be told, Anson has always been a messy eater.  From birth that's one of the differences I noticed between Claire and Anson.  Claire was a steady, quiet & clean nurser.  Anson grunts & sighs & drinks fast but lets the milk slop out of his mouth.  Girl vs boy?

Since my week training in San Francisco mid-December he refuses his bottle.  This past week none of us have been able to get Anson to eat anything from a spoon either.  We're still nursing so he's not starving but the kid has to get food now that he's past 6 months.  He's refusing food so much I can't even get the spoon in to let him taste the food - even applesauce that is yummy even for me.  He even started crying & protesting with lips closed tight so I couldn't sneak the spoon in (smart boy!).

The only two times I've been able to get him to eat this week were when I gave up and let him play with the food bowl.  To my surprise, he actually ate a ton once I gave in to having a mess.  I'm not sure if he just has to know what's going in his mouth before he'll eat it, or if he's just distracted enough that I can get the spoon in, or if he actually thinks his hands are putting the food in his mouth.  In any case, I think I need to buy a bunch of those Ikea smocks that Claire literally only wore twice since the bibs were sufficient.  The smock for Anson today was a lifesaver - no, laundry saver.  Do they make mechanic style jumpsuits for infants? 

Here's my messy boy.

Yeah, the outside of the bowl is just as messy as the inside...  Let's not talk about the state of my hands or clothes afterward.

The bad news is, feeding time is going to require lots of clean-up until we get through this stage.  (Please only be a stage!)  The good news is, I've figured out how to keep my kid from starving.  I sacrifice 2 spoonfuls to the tactile hands and get 8 spoons in.

Merry Christmas!

I've got to figure why my life feels so rushed all the time and what I can do to fix that but since Dec 23rd I finally feel like I can relax and enjoy life.  It feels great!  The house was decorated, the gifts all purchased (most done online!), Christmas letter done and accepted the fact that I wasn't doing any holiday baking this year.  A week long training in San Francisco mid-December made me make some decisions about what to cut.

Decorating the house was easy and fun this year.  Claire is old enough now to sort-of help.  We had a great time decorating the tree and listening to Christmas music.  I expected her to hang ornaments on the lower branches while I worked above, but that wasn't enough for her.  She was excited about each ornament to hang.  And after each one she would say, "Beautiful!  But not beautiful enough!" and grab another ornament.  She also did all sorts of acrobatics to hang ornaments where she thought there was too much space in the higher branches.  She tip-toed on the sofa arm, stacked Anson's Bumbo chair, boxes, and her bathroom stool, I got out the bar stool but that wasn't good enough so she brought her stool on top of THAT, too.  Ay!  I would get worried and stand close to catch her if she fell but that only made her nervous that I would take her down and she'd get shaky so I realized I needed to step AWAY for her safety.  In the end, she never lost her balance and she did a great job decorating.

Claire just had to get to the top of our 7-ft tree.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were nice and low-key.  Here's our happy two days.
  Yay for lots of time with family, lots of food, presents, and relaxing.

We got to call Uncle Sam on his mission in Brazil on Christmas morning.

This Christmas has been special.  It's Anson's first Christmas.  I think it's the first Christmas where Claire is really starting to "get it" but also not to the point where she has expectations.  She's starting to get the whole Christmas gift giving and Santa thing, but we've also taken time to talk about the meaning and symbols of Christmas.  It's a time when we think more about Jesus Christ, His life and love for us.  I've had some magic moments teaching her and I'm so glad that this season means so much to us.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Thanksgiving Vacation 2010 Via Pictures

1st Stop:  Las Vegas.  Luxor hotel.  Room on the 30th floor.
After checking in we went to dinner with my Uncle Kevin & his family.  We went to church with them the next day, too.  Why didn't I take pictures of them - dang!

At the Belagio waterfront

While we packed up to leave, Claire settled in to stay.

2nd Stop: Bumbleberry Inn at Zion National Park

The view from our room.

Lots of deer.

This waterfall had frozen and as it "melted" (we were still freezing) ice chunks would fall with a crash.

Last Destination:  Bountiful / No. Salt Lake for Thanksgiving with family.  We rented the Club House in Adrian & Jessica's neighborhood so we could have lots of room for food and play.  The kids play room with half-door and glass wall was a super bonus.

Claire had been waiting to play in the snow in the backyard since we arrived.  The last day she finally got to. :)