He's Digging Up Bones

I think I am more excited when Daryl gets a Scholastic book order form than he is. We look at it for days before we decide what he will order. So far I've bought him a couple books each time. One he wants and one I think he will enjoy. I have to brag that my books are the most popular each time.

The last time the order came he didn't want a book at all. I was a little heart broken. He said he wanted a Dino dig toy. It was $10 and I told him I wouldn't buy him another toy. Lord knows we have enough toys. Well Daryl is a man of means. So when he said he would use his own money I decided not to argue. He could buy his dino dig with his own money and I would not be ordering him any books this time.

Turns out Daryl made a pretty cool little purchase. He got it on Tuesday and he has spent probably two and a half hours brushing and digging for bones. He is still not done. And the set did come with a book. Way to go Scholastic, way to go! My little archaeologist hasn't watched TV for two days, he just wants to sit in the kitchen and dig. I love it!

Bye Bye Bubba

For the last six weeks The Manor has been hosting Grandma Rosie. Alex calls all his grandmas bubba so the name kind of stuck! Bubba had knee replacement surgery in early January and did her recovery with our crazy family.
Bubba is all better and left us on Sunday. We took her to Orange Leaf before she left for Southwest Kansas. It is sad that she is not in the guest room anymore. The boys loved having her here and I enjoyed her company too. It won't be long till she retires and she will be around much more. This was a nice little preview and we will enjoy when the next time she can stay as long as she likes!

I feel like I neglected some family updates because I was just focusing on our "debt free" post. So lets do a roll call!
Kelly-Got a new lawn mower. He is now just waiting for the grass to start growing. I'm serious, he can't wait for the grass to grow so he can cut it. Men are so weird.
Candi-Started  training this month for the Rock The Parkway half marathon in April. It's been hard to do my long runs on a treadmill so I'm hoping for some warm weather soon!
Daryl-Has switched focus from total WWE to a growing interest in Pokemon cards. I don't understand those either so the kid continues to mystify me. There are cute Pokemon so I can get behind that. Unfortunately, I don't think the cute ones are very helpful for the actual game.
Alex-Is starting to potty train. He is the opposite of most kids and has doing #2 on the toilet down, now we just have to get him to start peeing in the potty. The struggle is real for two year olds!

Knitting is slow, still working on my Olive sweater. New goal for that project is my Leadership Topeka graduation luncheon in May. I have been knitting on it during my classes and the whole class now wants to see it done! New motivation! :-)

A Blog Post 6 Years in the Making

This is a long story, and for that I apologize. Kelly and I six years ago decided that something had to change about the way we were living. We had been married for a year, we both had full time jobs, our new son was just months old and we were broke. How can two people that make good wages have to worry about how they will pay for groceries?
The problem was us. Unfortunately, we were "normal". When we wanted a new car, we bought it. When we wanted a vacation, we took it. When we wanted to buy a house, we moved into one sixty days after we decided to do it.
How did we pay for all of this? 60 month car loans, plane tickets on a credit card, and probably the last zero down mortgage our loan company ever got to write. We didn't have any money because we had many things that we "deserved", but couldn't pay for.
Enter the teary scene of a stressed out new mom not able to drive home to visit her family because we had no money to pay for the gas. That was when we looked for help. We found Dave Ramsey and signed up for his Financial Peace classes. 
The first crazy thing we did was sell my first, (and last) brand new car. My Honda Fit was so pretty and zippy, but expensive. I think once you sell your car and buy an Oldsmobile Cutlass for $600 cash you are committed to a goal.

We knew getting debt free would take us years, but we also knew even if we didn't follow the plan those years would pass anyway.
As far as we can gather we paid off $90,000 dollars in Credit Card, Car, Personal and School Loan debt. We would have an exact number but we had one computer die in the middle of the journey and we were too cheap to get the old budget sheets off of it! On top of that we cash flowed some modest family vacations, cars, and the down payment for our now house.
We don't use debt anymore, it did us no favors. The only loan we now have is our mortgage. That will be the target as soon as we get our 3-6 month emergency fund in place and up our investments. We will also loosen the budget up a little and start having a little more fun!
Kelly and I both made sacrifices during this process. We have both had second jobs, Kelly paid off his largest credit card debt (around $16,000) by delivering Pizza's at night three days a week for an entire year. We celebrated that victory by turning the cable back on! We went without cable for almost two years.
We also had Craigslist Christmases for the boys for a couple of years and Kelly and I have not bought each other a gift for Christmas or Birthdays since I can remember. We all get most of our clothes from Goodwill and Daryl thinks everyone only buys socks and underwear at Target. When we got him a new school outfit this year for Kindergarten it was like he saw the clothes at stores for the first time. :-)
We have always had the support of our friends and family on this journey. No one ever made fun of us or questioned our "cheapness!" For that, Thank You!
What we have accomplished hasn't sunk in yet. I still only spent $3 at Sonic for lunch today. I guess that's not so bad since the new goal is beefing up that Emergency Fund.
I hope others can get ideas or encouragement from us. We did it Honey, we doubted ourselves at different times, BUT WE DID IT!

We took a family picture this morning as the first day we woke up  with no debt!

Happy 94th Birthday Grandma!

Last Sunday we braved the wind and the snow for a very special birthday party. Grandma Hazel is celebrating her 94th birthday! We had some sandwiches and birthday cake with her and we got to see her new apartment. It was a very cool party. I did have a little problem with Daryl not listening. He gets around his cousins and Aunts and Uncles and goes bananas. Normally, I can settle him down, but I had a cold and he eventually got to me. I hugged Grandma goodbye but I think that was about it as I hurried to get him into the car. So I needed a few "cute" Daryl stories, maybe you need some too!

Grandma with 8 of her 10 Great Grand kids. Missing our Colorado girls!

On the 29th for Kansas Day, Daryl and his class went on a field trip to the Kansas History Museum. It is a day they open up the museum to all school kids to learn about the state. Kelly went with Daryl and I'm so glad because he brought back this gem.

Four boys come up to a demonstration of ladies spinning on drop spindles.
One Lady:Hi Boys, do you know what this is? (Holding up her spinning)
Daryl: It's fiber.
Lady: I'm impressed, your smart!
Too bad he didn't give me credit for him know all about spinning. :-)

Later when he got home:
Daryl: Guess what I saw at the Museum.
Me:What?
Daryl: A Pee Pee
Me: What?!
Kelly: He saw a Tee  Pee at the Museum.
.
Then my favorite story Saturday morning when Kelly and I talking about our first year with Daryl.
Me:We are lucky we stayed married.
Kelly: We, are we had a lot of stuff going on that year.
Daryl: It's like a fairy tale when the football player married the 4-H player.
Me: Awww I like that.

Finally, here is my latest spin. 8 ounces of some fiber I dyed at Yarn School almost three years ago! It is all washed and ready to be knit. Into what, I'm not sure. :-)