Baby Step 2

Today came with some good news and bad news. Bad news first, I have absolutely no idea where I put my wedding band. Good news, we finally received the check from our insurance company to cover the Jeep being written off. We still owed 16800 on the loan, and were written a check for 18250. After maxing out Elijah's credit card, the Line of Credit and using every available penny we could find, we purchased a new vehicle, leaving us completely broke until this cheque came in. Basically, if an emergency came up, we were screwed. Now, not only do we have a vehicle paid for, lower insurance, better gas mileage, no more car payments, we also have enough money left over form the cheque to complete baby step number 1. Set aside 1000$ as emergency money. CHECK. annnd onto baby step number 2. Eliminate all debt except for your mortgage using the debt snowball. Our debt was as follows:

• My credit card
• Elijah's credit card
• Line of credit
• Jeep loan
• Re-pay mutual funds (not sure this counts)

Now our debt looks like this:

• Elijah's credit card
• Line of credit
• Re-pay mutual funds (still not convinced this counts as debt)

Mind you, we did max out both while purchasing the car...Anyways, things are looking up now!

Encouraging

It seems that I haven't updated my blog in quite some time...

After having been F*cked around by the insurance companies for over a month, they finally came to the decision that the Jeep was a total loss and we were given one weekend to drive to the city and find a new car. There's more to the story than that, but we did end up with a new car and we're getting back enough to cover our loan and then some. On top of that, since we bought the car with cash, we will no longer be paying car payments:)

There just so happened to be a sale on at fabricland that weekend, so we bought some quilting rulers, a rotary knife and a self healing mat, all at 50% off! Also we bought a baby bjorn little potty ( BBLP) Which is a good size for Katie to sit on when she needs to pee. She seems to be associating our cue sound with eliminating, so we're making progress. So far today we've caught two poops and a few pees in the potty :)

I'm still having a very hard time with trying to communicate with Katie about her elimination needs, so we've taken a bit of a step back and are trying to ease into it. Katie sleeps diaper free in our bed at night (on top of a couple towels in case of a miss). We're also keeping her formula in the upstairs bathroom, so feedings go much faster and I don't have to wake up as much. After the first few nights in our bed, Katie seems to be sleeping longer and we enjoy her company. I'm not usually tired during the day anymore because Elijah is able to get me a bottle when I ask for help. I offer her a pee before I feed her, and if she doesn't go we sit on the chair in her room with her suspended over her pee bucket and she'll usually go halfway through. This was a bit of trial and error, but it works quite well now. Although she is still mostly diaper free during the day, she usually ends up being in a diaper for a few hours when I just need a break. We've gone on several walks with her in her undies and both time we've come home dry. Monday night was the more encouraging event so far. Elijah had a hockey game and I needed to get out of the house, so Katie and I joined him even though it was a late game. In the two or so hours we were out, I took Katie to pee twice, (and she fell asleep near the end) and we returned in the same dry diaper we left with! well i think that's it... oh and we won our first play off game last night :)

The total money makeover

When My family was up visiting us, my mom gave us the book "the total money makeover" by Dave Ramsey. Apparently my dad had read through it and decided that each of the kids needed a copy. So... I read it and told Elijah about how I wanted to cancel the credit cards and the line of credit and he thought I was nuts. Then he read it, and came home super excited, talking about how we were going to cut up his credit card and pay off and cancel the line of credit. With the decision to start our makeover, came the decision to sell the jeep (assuming it was going to be repaired) which would bring our debt down significantly. We have since found out there is 99% chance of it being written off. So if everything goes as planned, and we get enough money to pay off our car loan. we should be completely debt free ( with the exception of our mortgage) by November! For any of you that seem to think we're doing this because we're hurting for money, don't. For once, we're being smart about our money, and talking openly with each other about it. There is going to be no longer any stress about what if's, because within 1-2 years we'll be debt free and have a full emergency fund saved up. We're both very excited about taking this journey together and HIGHLY recommend reading the book. Anyways, it's getting late, but we will keep you updated out our TOTAL MONEY MAKEOVER.

Tiny Undies

Front

Katie and I seem to be having a few less misses and she seems to be peeing less often as well, so I thought i'd try making a pair of tiny undies for her to test out, see how they absorb misses and see how they fit. Take a look.

back

I used the scrap shirts we have downstairs from the Dr. Seuss blanket. I could probably make four pairs of tiny undies out of one of Elijah's shirts











They fit pretty well with some room to grow, but I think I'm going to add another 1/2 inch on the rise at the back. when she gets playing her bum crack starts to show. I think I'm going to have to add a couple extra layers at the crotch just in case. Assuming these work well, it's going to be so much better than taking of her diaper every time she has to pee, or just leaving her naked all day.

Nightgowns

I have recently discovered that if you plan on changing your babies diaper during the night, sleepers are not very practical as it wakes the baby up more than need be. So the last few nights, Katie has been going to bed in t-shirts and a diaper, which is okay, except her legs get cold when she wriggles out from under her blankets, and I don't have a lot of t-shirts for her, so what is she supposed to wear during the day when I have her diaper free? So I went in search of a pattern for baby nightgowns. I didn't find one. Elijah and I then found ourselves cutting up old t-shirts and re-purposing them into baby nightgowns. We used some of his old army t-shirts, one green and more blue, as well as a few scraps from old t-shirts I had used to make Katie's Dr. Seuss floor blanket. The first night we made one, the second time we went to make one, we made two in less time it took us to make the first. So now we have three baby nightgowns, which fit Katie well. They aren't that pretty seeing as we didn't have a plan to follow, but they're practical and they were free.

this is the first one we made

Yes there is a giraffe on the sleeve :) just a little girly touch to an army shirt

this one is my favorite. as you can see it has dark blue on the back and pink sleeves

and as a side note, this morning is the first time Katie has put herself in a sitting position without supporting herself with a hand.