I am so glad the holidays are over.  I was so not prepared for them this year.  They just seemed to come and go so fast.  I didn’t even have time to go get stocking stuffers or nothing.  Maybe it was because Nicki wasn’t going to be home so I didn’t think much of it.  Our lil ones don’t really understand yet. 

So I didn’t get any prada handbags but I did get Chuck.  He is my super loving cat that I adopted from the animal shelter.  I have been begging Tony to let me have a cat and finally he broke down and let me get one.  He is 3 and was previously owned by and older lady that passed away.  Chuck is super good with the kids and Abby (my chocolate lab). 

I actually think Nicki made out this Christmas.  She got a ton of stuff.  Mostly clothes because that is what 13 yr olds are in to.  She is not in to purses yet so thankfully I didn’t have to worry about getting any Rebecca minkoff handbags or marc Jacobs handbagsbut I did splurge and get her some cool clothes from Aeropostale.   

For the family gift the kids got a Wii, which is super cool because it can play Netflix on it.  Oh my I am so relieved I can watch other movies than Barbie all day long.  LOL! 

I am just really to move forward.  Next year will be better.  I am going to plan better and save better.  Shop way ahead of time and hopefully we will have a bit more money to buy the kids gifts. 

Tony and I have been with our auto insurance company for like 3 yrs.  We pay a decent price but I always get ads in the mail saying we could save even more money with their company.  The most recent one I received was auto insurance center quotes and rates.   Maybe I should just do some research, see if there is anywhere that I can pay less.  We are always trying to save  money.  We haven’t even looked it to our insurance as one of the ways. 

The question I always wonder when it is time to renew is whether I get a discount for being with the company for so long.  I have yet to see this discount and wonder how many years it has to be, lol.  Maybe one of these years Iwill see a lower rate. 

My lil Isabel is such a cutie.  Maybe I am just biased because she is my daughter but I am not sure that is the case.  Whenever we are in public, I have at least one or two people stop me to tell me how cute she is. 

I am so proud to have 4 beautiful children.  She is getting to that age that I can start buying her really cute stylish clothes.  She would totally rock out some Burberry rain boots.  She keeps wearing this hat Nicki got when she was in IL with her family.  It is the one she is wearing in the picture above.  She looks so stinkin’ cute!!!  I found some girls boots, Crocs actually.    I am not a fan of the normal Crocs, but these are actually super cute. 

I really can’t wait until she gets a little older she will be the cutest, most stylish girl in school.  She will have her first boyfriend in Kindergarten.  LOL! 

Now for me I am not a fan of calf high boots but also in my searches on the Zappos website I found some Burberry ankle rain boots.  Oh my they are CUTE!!  I am going to need to get a good paying job so I can afford all these cute shoes Isabel and I are going to wear. 

So lil Tony does this thing when he is watching TV where he sniffs a lot and has this like twitch.  So I asked daddy Tony the other day if he noticed him doing it and he says that he thinks lil Tony has a mild case of tourettes.  At first it made me nervous because the only form of tourettes that I know about is when people uncontrollably swear. So I did a little searching and read up on it a bit, and although I am still a bit worried I think it will be ok.  Tony said he even has a mild case of it and I would have never guessed.

I haven’t noticed any other issues with the other lil ones yet.  I am wondering if Nicki will need glasses.  Most of her family on her dad’s side where them.  Actually I think everyone does.  She took a vision test at the doctor a week or so ago and they didn’t say anything about it but if she needs them maybe I can look in to getting some childrens contact lenses.  Although by the time she needs them she may be a young adult.  Who knows.

When I first decided to go back to school, I felt pretty confident I was going to get an Education degree.  But then Tony and I talked about a variety of things and realized I could be employable after 2 years with an Accounting degree.  Tony will need extra classes and need more time to study to get in the profession that he wanted so I decided an Accountant wasn’t a bad way to go.

Tony thought of maybe being a Nurse.  I could NOT be a nurse.  I am not good with my own blood on the occasion I get cut, I could not handle being around sick people all the time.  My cousin Jenna and Deanna are both trying to get in to Nursing.  Tony quickly steered away from that.  Although I think he would look pretty studly in some medical scrubs.  We would probably buy scrubs online.  I have seen Tony is a shirt and tie looking all handsome, I wonder what he would look like in a “uniform”.  They have really cute girl scrubs but I think most of the scrubs for men are plain blue or solid colors.  Not really sure what kind of cool scrubs could be out there for men.

Well he has decided to go in to teacher or some sort of math profession.  Maybe a little more casual attire.

I just hope I can do well enough in all my classes, learn a lot and be able to get a job in 2 years, that would be completely awesome. 

That’s right, it is that time of year again!  This year I think we are going to take a different approach to Christmas.  Every year in the past we have just bought a bunch of gifts for each kid and within a VERY short period of time those toys are destroyed.  My kids don’t really play with toys.  I mean Lil Tony likes his cars, Isabel likes her babies and Lil Max well he will just play with anything.  Nicki on the other hand is a teenager now.  She is in to her phone, music and clothes.

So instead of going all out (especially now with 4 kids) we are going to get “family gifts”.  We have decided to get a Wii.  I may have mentioned this before but whenever we go to Nicki’s ortho appt, the have a Wii, and Tony always plays it.  He LOVES it.  We also may get this large car/train track table I saw at Costco the other day.  I think all the lil ones will enjoy it.  Nicki, well she may read my blog so I can’t mention anything I may get her.

For Tony and I, we always decided appliances or kitchen gadgets work best for us.  We may end up with a counter top dishwasher.  We don’t have a big kitchen and that is really the only place for one to go.

What would also be cool for us to get, this years winter weather permitting, would be an outdoor fireplace.  I see Outdoor Fireplaces all over and I think they are cool!

On an unrelated note I am so happy the holidays are here.  Tony will have off this Christmas and I can’t wait to spend the day with the whole family.  Maybe I can decorate the table with some Table Runners and Place Mats, some with a very Christmas-y theme.  Maybe I can have a Poinsettia plant on the table.  This year we have a huge table (that we made several months back) to be able to have all the food out and just spend a wonderful dinner together.  I sure wish we had more family around that could come spend the day with us.

I really hope this winter stays mild and not as cold as it was last year.  I am not sure I want to be snowed in again.  I really don’t want to have to run the heat very much at all.  I would love to get some New Fans by DecoBreeze.  We have a few fans now but we could use a couple in the living room and dining room.

It sure is going to cost us a lot of money from now until the end of the year.  Between fans, dishwashers, gifts and holiday decorations, we may need to take out a loan.  LOL!  Just kidding!

A couple months ago we received our water bill and OMG it was so high.  It was almost $500 for 2 months.  We are billed every other month.  I just about pooped my pants.  I knew something had to be wrong.  Well my concern was we had been watering our garden and I thought we had really used that much water.  Then I remembered when we had to clean out the pipes because we had slow draining drains but Tony said he didn’t think that was it.

So when I called the water company the lady I talked to said she would have to guess it was a leaking toilet.  My first reaction was no, it couldn’t be.  Well here is the story behind that, for the year that we have lived in the house the bathroom in Nicki’s room trickled a little.  I thought nothing of it.  Really I didn’t think it could have been a leaking toilet, just thought, old house and the landlord had just added the bathroom maybe he did something wrong.

Our water bills the whole year have been about $140 for 2 months.  When I asked the representative what our “normal bill” was she said “well I wouldn’t call it normal”  which struck me as odd.  What did she mean by that so I rephrased it and said “what was our last months bill”.  So what I am getting from that is $140 is not normal and that it is a bit high.  That kind of upsets me, I have been paying more than I should have for a water bill.  The worst part is I would have no idea, the toilet leaked like that since the day we moved in.  There was no change in the water bill for me to be suspicious.

Now I am eager to see what a “normal” water bill is for our house, it would be great if we paid a little less every month.  When we got that high bill last month I called our landlord immediately and had him come over and fix the toilet.  It doesn’t make that noise anymore.  It really would be great to save a bit of money.

I am trying to find any way possible to save money.  Save so in 2 years or so we can buy a home.  I have been going through my bills to see where we can save.  I really wish I could pay off the 3 credit cards we have.  Our new plan is to just use one each and use it for gas or groceries and then pay it off every month.  Build up our credit.  We have 2 with low limits and low balances and one with a higher limit and it is pretty much maxed out.  Between all 3 cards we probably pay $30 in interest every month.  Yikes!  Doesn’t seem like a lot but when you figure that over a whole year that is $360.  Could be saving it or something.

The only other bills we have is insurance.  Auto insurance.  I have done some research for online car insurance to see if we could save any money and honestly we are paying probably the cheapest we could, unless we want to go with a no-name company and personally I would rather pay a couple dollars extra a month for piece of mind that we are covered, truly covered…..no problems.

As for our truck loan, we still owe about $10k but do plan on having that paid off in 2 yrs.  Hopefully!  I really wish we had extra money a month to put towards the truck and pay it off that much sooner but having that loan will at least help Tony’s credit.

I really REALLY do want to get things in order and own a home in the next 2-3 years.