Checkup Time!

Ruthie was supposed to have her 6 month check up about two weeks ago, but the Pediatrician had to go out of town so it got rescheduled to today.

She wouldn't lie still on the scale, so I had to sit her up, which she liked.  she weighed in at 16 pounds, 15.4 ounces.  Then we laid her down on the examination table and she was measured at 27.67 inches long!  Dr. A commented on how big she is; he said she's about the size of a 9 month old!  What a BIG GIRL!  She's sitting up on her own now -we have to put her into a sitting position since she can't get herself sitting yet- and last week she started saying MAMA!!  Of course, she usually says it when she's mad, but sometimes she'll randomly say it.  And when I look at her she smiles and giggles.  She's not saying it all the time, but that's still exciting.  Anyway here's some pictures of the girls.

This is Zoe at the park by Jeff's parents' house on Sunday, August 17th.  She's going up the playground equipment on her own; Jeff's off camera though waiting at the top.  I just love how she's climbing with confidence.

 Here's Zoe on the swing.  After a bad incident last fall before Ruthie was born, she seems to have forgotten about nearly falling out of the swing and having a blast.

Here's Ruthie sitting up big on Jeff's parents' front lawn, she's looking off camera at Wendy.  I love when small babies look at the camera, but some of the better pictures are when they are looking off camera.

This is just adorable.  I finally got Ruthie to look at the camera and she's scowling at me.

And here's Ruthie and Jeff having a moment!  I'm glad I was able to capture a real moment, not a created one.

Financial Goals

Jeff and I have been married for over three years now, and we've talked about owning our own home.. what we want in a home, where we would want to live; that type of thing.  Well, for the first time, we're actually planning ahead for our future home!  We finally decided it was time we started to get serious about saving and we've made a goal.  We want $10,000 in savings by December 31, 2009.  I'm sure we could have much more by then if we really tried, but I think with all other things, we need to take baby steps.  So, what I'm doing now is taking 8% out of every paycheck and putting that into savings.  Jeff also gets alot of mini bonuses once a month, so I plan on taking 20% of those and putting it into savings.  I'm going to do this and see how well it works, and if it works out, then I'll up it from 8% to 10% and 20% to 25% respectively.

Our other goal is paying our car off.  We got a five year loan for it in September of 2005, so if we continue paying the due payment, it'll be paid off in 25 months.  While it's only an $80 a month payment, we'd rather not be tied down with a monthly payment.  The payoff amount is $1,800, but if we continue on with the payment plan, we'd wind up paying a total of $2000.  Thats a savings of $200; and therefore that's $200 more that can go into savings!  So our short term goal is to have the car paid off by March 1st, 2009.  We'll pay extra on the car loan, and then whatever balance is left over when we file taxes, we pay it off and then put the rest of our tax return into savings.

What's nice is that we don't really need to budget, scrimp and do extra savings.  We still have a lot of flexibility within our lifestyle which is great.  I'm just glad we don't have a money monkey on our shoulder.

I Need to Update More.

Seriously, I do. It's been a very long time since I updated my blog. Jeff banged his toe and he's now only got nine toenails.. he went fishing last weekend and hit his toe on the boat while trying to unstick his foot from a ton of mud. And it resulted in him going to the doctor and having his toenail removed. I'll be kind and not post pictures.. we haven't even taken pictures! Um, anyway moving on.

We got a new couch last month after the 4th. I was bored so I decided to go and look at the classifieds to see what there was to see in the way of good deals on scrapbooking stuff. Well, there wasn't so I decided to go look in the furniture stuff and there was a sectional couch for sale! It was less than a week old, and the people were selling it for $300 instead of the original $900 they paid for it. I guess they were foreclosing or having to do a short sale on their home because they were having to move into an apartment and sell of most of their possessions. Why they didn't take the couch back to IKEA is beyond me.. they could have returned it with probably very little hassle. I'm not complaining though, I got an awesome sectional for a third of the price. It even still smelled new.

We put it in the same spot that the two love seats were at, but we're planning to switch the furniture around and have the TV on the opposite wall so we can have the couch at a better angle. It's a sectional with chaise and instead of having the chaise on the wall, we want that sticking out in the open. We're also planning on getting another section to have it fit more people.

Anyway, Zoe and Ruthie are doing well. We've sort of started Zoe on potty training, but she likes to play in the bathroom, so our effort isn't as diligent as it could be. She also stuck the seat on her head and got it stuck so... I don't know how serious she actually is about learning how to use the potty.

Ruthie just hit her 6 month mark this past Saturday, and it's so sweet! She's growing so fast, and it's awesome. She's got a cute little personality, but if she's tired she gets MAD. We also finally got her out of our bed and into her crib, which was surprisingly an easy transition. Zoe disliked it and we had many nights of her crying and screaming before she got used to the idea. I think Ruthie likes to roll around in her crib without bumping into people. She will also scoot if she's in the right mood too. I can't really call it crawling because she's not really doing it with the intent of moving from one place to another. We won't know how big she is until her appointment later on this month. I think it was supposed to be sometime this week, but something happened, and my pediatrician had to go out of town.

Here's some pictures of the last month or so!

We were able to watch fireworks two days in a row, both on the third and the fourth of July. Anyway, this I think is my favorite picture that was taken this year. My inlaws live up higher in the Salt Lake valley and this is a picture of two different fireworks shows going on at once. I didn't see this picture until I was going through my pictures on the computer and saw this. I must have captured it at a very precise moment, because it looks like a Supernova or something. I love it.


Then, on July 19th, we went to the COOLEST thing on earth: LLAMA FEST!!! I heard about it in 2004, and I've wanted to go every year since then, but we weren't able to make time to go until this year. It's so awesome! It's held down in Spanish Fork which is in the southern part of Utah Valley, past Provo. We didn't realize how big it actually is until we went.

This is the place that llama fest is held at every year, it's a Krishna temple that's in Spanish fork for Hindus. The building is pretty big.. and beautiful. And trust me, you can't miss it from the road since it sits on top of this hill.

This is a picture of a VERY CUTE little baby llama, also known a cría. I love llamas and this just reinforces my desire to have a llama farm someday.

One of the funniest things I've ever seen is llama racing. And if you can't tell already; if a llama doesn't want to race; it's not going to.

And last but not least, here's a cute picture of the girls playing with Jeff on the couch that was taken sometime in the last month. I love it!

I really need to focus on updating my blog more. Hope you enjoy that update!