Complimentary Meal

We had to go pick up the minivan at church. Roz left to go out of town this afternoon with the youth group to a resort in Wisconsin Dells. So I didn't have to load up everyone to drop her off, she took the van and left it at church. We figured since we had to go to that side of town to get the van we'd just leave right when Jer got home and eat out. So we ate at Fazoli's.

The boys love to eat there. They LOVE those breadsticks. We didn't get a meal free...but we did get two very nice comments from other diners about how good the boys behaved!

When people see us come in (after they count the kids) I think most are just waiting to see how we will manage. But the boys love to eat out and usually behave better when we are out than at home! A women, one table over, stared at us the whole time. I smiled at her several times, but she still kept staring. She finally had to ask if we had twins and after I answered she still just kept on staring.

The only time the boys got a little rowdy was when the breadstick lady ran out of breadsticks right before she got to our table. "Oh, no! Breadstick lady come back! You forgot us!" As they were leaving the women stopped at our table and said, "Your boys are so well behaved and they obviously like to eat here!". I thanked her for her nice compliment and they left. I didn't even see the other family that stopped by to comment but they came over and also said how good the boys were and they remember "those days" having had four themselves. I told the boys over and over how proud I was and that people are watching us and we have to "set a good example".

Anyway, I just had to share since it made my night! Lucky for us these couples didn't follow us to Fleet Farm where Wesley almost tipped over the shopping cart (with Hayden in it!) and Justus ran off and skidded to the floor like he was sliding into second base. Oh, well...nobody's perfect!

"Out of Control"

That is how the nurse practitioner described Jerry's lipid panel..."out of control". He has been trying various things for over 5 years to get his triglycerides under control. (We first noticed he had a problem in 1997 when we had bloodwork done for a life insurance application...his triglycerides were over 400.) He didn't really do anything about it until around the time Wesley was born. At one time they were over 800 (Yikes!) but have hovered mostly between 200 and 300 even on medication. The recommended level is under 150 which he has only been once. Supposedly, there is talk that they are going to lower the recommended triglyceride level to under 100 which seems a near impossible goal for Jerry. Like in swimming lessons when the teacher keeps backing up as you swim towards them. Thankfully, his other lipids and cholesterol are not really the problem just the triglycerides.

So, our regular family doctor finally gave up and sent him off to a cardiologist. He met with the cardiologist in December and his case will now be managed by a (lipidemeologist) nurse practitioner who will monitor his lab work and adjust his meds accordingly. He saw the NP on Tuesday and she started him on a new medication that is a high dose, time release niacin (Vitamin B3). This will be in addition to another new med he started in December, that didn't really seem to lower his levels.

The NP warned him and gave him some literature from the drug company that stated the niacin may cause "flushing". Don't all medications come with a huge list of possible side effects that never happen? Well, Jer took his first dose at dinner and by 8 o'clock he was bright red and feeling prickly all over! He said his face felt "funny" and he was warm to the touch. Even his legs turned red. I told him now he now has a vague idea how magnesium sulfate, a drug used to stop premature labor, feels! (Right, Nora?) He is supposed to get used to it and hopefully it won't bother him as much as time goes on. He also has to take a bit more than the recommended 3g per day of fish oil. So now he'll be bright red and smell like a fish! Just kidding, we got the enteric coated fish oil so he'll just be bright red.

I guess it will be worth it if it does really lower his triglycerides. But we'll have to wait and see...nothing else has worked yet. The NP did tell him this problem is, in his case, genetic and probably no amount of diet and exercise would ever really get this under control. It appears he will have to be on medications for life to treat this. The cardiologist assured him that high triglycerides are worth treating and that if he didn't deal with this now he would be seeing him for some more serious heart issues at age 50 instead of age 70. Seems it's not a matter of "if" but "when". Darn those genes! I'll keep you posted!

Numbers with Hayden

WARNING: Bragging will begin now...read at your own risk!

Don't say I didn't warn you! Hayden has been surprising us lately with his ability to recognize both numbers and letters. He can say his ABC's and counts to 13. But he also points out numbers and letters in books or around the house. The first couple times I thought it was a fluke so I started testing him. He has trouble with 1 & 10 and 6 & 9 but knows the rest of the numbers. He knows quite a few of the letters too but not all. He tends to confuse letters that look similar like K and X. What really surprised me though is that I haven't even been trying to get him to learn this. It's not like I sit and drill him with flash cards or something. I think he might actually know more letters than Eli! He is one smart cookie!

I took a short video to show you. He is playing here with Wesley's cash register. JD is in the background there and you can hear the other boys making all kinds of noise from in the living room. He only did a few numbers before he got interested in the little hidden coin door, but you'll get the gist.

JD

Here is a new shot of JD:

He is a very "social" baby. Talks and coos a lot. Smiles at everyone except Jerry. For some reason he makes Daddy work real hard for a smile. He is a lazy baby though. Doesn't roll over, hates "tummy time", and has no interest at all in sitting by himself. He loves to reach for things and bats at his hanging toys and sometimes hits the space bar on the computer keyboard. So if you see any typos here that would be his fault! Roz calls him a "marshmallow" since he is fat and white. He is a pretty big baby as far as my guys go. I'm not sure what he weighs right now but he is quickly outgrowing the 6-9 months clothes that I just got out of storage. He's growing fast...so you AZ grandparents better come visit soon!

Annual Budget Review

Last night we had our "Annual Budget Review". Jerry and I sit down once a year, at the beginning of January, and set new budget limits for the year and review how we did the previous year. Sometimes we have some nice surprises and other times we are shocked at how much we went over budget (last year we were way over on dining out!). Strange as it may sound we actually look forward to our yearly review. It is also fun to look back at all our budgets from years past.

We use Quicken to keep track of all our accounts. We don't balance the checkbook on paper at all anymore. Since it is all on the computer we print off a "report". We can look up anything we need since it is all right on the computer. We try very hard to categorize where all our money goes. We did pretty good...this year we only had $9 in miscellaneous for all of 2007!

We used to be "average" savers. We would save up some but something would always come along to eat up the savings and if it got too high then we would spend thinking we had enough. Thankfully, we had minimal debt...a car payment, an occasional credit card we didn't pay off right away, and, of course, the mortgage.

But we had a major break through in our finances a few years ago. We sat down and added up all the non-monthly bills. You know the ones that come and you think "why didn't I save up for this....I knew it was coming". We took that total and divided it by 52 weeks and started putting that into our savings account by direct deposit (so we didn't have to think about it) when Jerry got paid each week. We also figured out what we should have left each week after paying ALL the bills and added that to the direct deposit amount as well to kind of force of to save. We thought we'd see if we could live without that money but knew it was there just in case. It was kind of our habit to spend it if it was there.

Our non-monthly bills list is as follows (I'm sure everyone's would be a little different):

Water bill (ours come quarterly)
Medical bills (not covered by insurance)
Vet bill (annual exam and meds)
Dog grooming (quarterly)
Car insurance (twice a year)
Life insurance (quarterly)
Gifts (birthday, Christmas)
Safe Deposit Box (once a year)
Car registration (once a year)
Car repair (just in case)
Property taxes (once a year...we do not escrow ours and earn the interest in the mean time!!)
Tax preparation fees (once a year)
Subscriptions (newspaper)
Membership dues
IRA contributions
Home repair
Clothing
Charity (not tithing that is weekly)
Church activities (kids, trips, etc)

Basically the only things we budget for on a monthly (sometimes
weekly) basis are:
Mortgage
Telephone/Cell phone
Electric/Gas
Gas for the vehicles
Groceries
Household (paper goods, shampoo, etc)
Dining out (we really need to cut back on this one!)
Internet
Medical/Dental (comes out of paycheck weekly)
Tithe

A little over one third of Jer's paycheck goes right to savings, some to be spent later when we need it, and some to be saved. So now when those non-monthly bills come we transfer the money from savings to checking and pay them. No problem. Plus with the "forced" savings our account really started to grow! So much so that we looked into other places to keep it so it would earn more interest for us. We finally decided on a money market deposit account (MMDA) which has the great interest rates of a money market but is also insured like a regular savings account. Now we keep our savings there (we use Capital One's MMDA) and love to see the interest! Way better than our bank and no minimum balance either!

Using this method we no longer carry a balance EVER on a credit card. Our vehicles are paid for so no more car payments. Right now we are trying extra hard to save for a down payment on the new house. Once we have the new house we would like to work towards paying off the mortgage early. We have done all of the above over the last few years as our family has been growing (and most years we have had high medical bills as well since we have a high deductible plan and preemies!). We often wonder how much we could have saved by now if we had only started sooner!

I just thought I would share...this is what works for us. As far as saving money goes, I think the most important thing is do SOMETHING. It doesn't have to be this method or any other in particular...find what works for you and your family!

Until I write mine (ha!)...here are some financial books I found helpful if you are interested...check the library:

• The Complete Tightwad Gazette by Amy Dacyczyn
  
• The Two-Income Trap and All Your Worth by Elizabeth Warren
• America's Cheapest Family by the Economides
  
• The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey
• The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom by Suze Orman
• Raising Kids with Just a Little Cash by Lisa Reid
• Miserly Moms: Living on One Income in a Two Income Economy by Jonni McCoy
• Your Money or Your Life by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin

Photographer in training

Wesley says he's going to be an artist when he grows up. He mostly works with crayons at this point but likes to take photos as well. I let him take a few the other day...I thought this one was pretty good. Of course, after Wesley had his turn everyone else had to take a turn too. We got a lot of photos of my knees, feet, and the floor with the other boys so I didn't post those.