Me in a photo?

 

I know I don’t grace the posts of my own blog too many times, but here is a good picture of me and my kiddies. (Yes, that wet spot on my shoulder is from spit-up)

Spring = Playground time

 

Raleigh loves the playground.

Raleigh loves the slides at the playground

Raleigh loves trying to go up the slide the wrong way at the playground.

Apparently, Mom likes to take lots and lots of pictures of Raleigh going up the slide the wrong way at the playground.

Raleigh likes to climb the weird semi-rope-like ladder at the playground.

Dad likes to take random and unposed pictures of Mom at the playground.

 

Leah makes goofy faces after we get back from the playground.

Raleigh hides in a basket after we get back from the playground.

Leah changes into her Cobber outfit and attempts to walk around after we get back from the playground.

Bathtime joys

 

I gave Leah a cute hairstyle in the tub today. I could never do this with Raleigh because he had no hair. See evidence.

And this is how she repaid me for styling her hair and bathing her.

She loves sticking her tongue out right now and she’s started smacking her lips too.

She also smiles, and you can also see that she’s got those cute baby rolls going on now.

Oh, and one of my favorite parts of bathtime is the getting dressed time afterwards. I got to put this cute outfit (courtesy of Donna from work) on her.

And then I accessorized a bit with a hair-band bow and some purple soft socks (they look like knee-highs on her though).

Cousins a plenty

One of the best parts of Easter weekend was the playing that took place between the cousins. Raleigh and Leah have three boy cousins. I’m sure you’ve seen them on my blog before… DJ, Tyler, and Sam (oldest to youngest).

Above: DJ holding Leah. He got her to giggle quite a bit by just saying her name.

Below: Raleigh and his three cousins on Grandpa’s sand pile. I think they would play out there forever if we let them.

  Above: Tyler and Raleigh posing on top of the pile.

Below: Sam riding in style.

Above: Tyler holding Leah next to Sam.

Below: Tyler holding Leah. I just love this picture! I can’t believe how much my nephews have grown up! See proof here.

Above: Uncle Ryan was trying to teach Raleigh and Sam how to box. I wasn’t too fond of the idea, but still had to get a picture.

Playing in the dirt and the mud

Girly girl

 

We’re having fun at my parents this weekend. A package for Leah arrived today from my aunt Pam. The adorable head bow/band was just one of the adorable things that was included. 

The cute outfit was given to Leah by my SIL Barb. Isn’t it just adorable? She’s had these outfit for months and just now can fit into them.

Too Cute Tuesday

As you can probably tell by my low frequency in posting… I am back at work now. My first day back was last Thursday. I’m even more sleep deprived now without my naps during the day, but I’m happy to be working on a project that will keep me pretty busy for the next month or so.

Speaking of working…it looks like Leah is really working on eating her fist in the picture below.

She does that a lot now. It’s like she’s ravenously hungry and she shakes her head back and forth while keeping her fist still.

Here’s a good pic of her smiling, and below…are her feet.

 

Ok, I know she’s creepy pale in this picture below, but look at those blue eyes!

Raleigh always looks so serious because I catch him off guard with the camera. If I ask him to pose, he’ll stop doing what he’s doing.

Another awesome track construction by yours truly.

As Promised: Raleigh sleep eating

Close ups

We have a goal

Ok, for the past two years, I think, I’ve been talking about selling our house and buying a different one. We always would say something like, “Yah, next summer we are going to sell the house.” And we’d repeat that phrase each winter for three years.

Well, now we have a solid goal to work towards. Purchasing a car set us back a bit, but we’ve been making double the minimum payments on our car since we purchased it, and if we continue doing that, we’ll have it paid off by June 2010.

Even paying extra on the car, we are able to put some money into savings every month as well. And Josh is now a part of a band that has a couple of gigs a month, so we have income from those gigs as well.

Our plan is to pay off the car earlier than June 2010 by putting Josh’s gig money towards the car debt, while still putting money in savings. After we pay off the car, all of that extra money will go into savings to build up the down payment for our next house.

Our goal is to purchase a bigger and better house with the following qualities:

2 stall attached garage

Fenced in yard

At least 4 bedrooms

At least 2 bathrooms

Kitchen pantry

Main floor laundry

Large yard that has room for a vegetable garden

However, we want our monthly mortgage payment to remain what it is right now. This means that we’ll have to have a significant down payment saved up before we would be ready to buy a house.

I think that we can have a good portion of that down payment saved up by Fall of 2010, with the rest of the down payment coming from the sale of our existing house.

I hope that we’re not shooting too high here with our goal, but I’m excited that we actually have a goal in mind. We are no longer blinding saying that we’re going to try to sell the house every year and then never do it.

Once a week, I review the houses for sale in our area to keep me motivated to save.

Ok, enough of boring financial talk. My next post with have some pictures of the kiddies and hopefully a very funning video of Raleigh falling asleep while eating.