Man I feel like I never update this blog anymore. Probably because nothing real exciting has been going on in our house. Other than the fact that we joined the 21st century and got a texting plan for our phones. We still don't have internet on them but we took a step up in the world of electronics. AND we bought me a phone for the first time since owning a cell phone. We have always taken the penny phones but this time we spent money to buy one. That felt weird. The biggest topic lately has been whether or not our almost 12 yr old should get a phone. So far she hasn't needed one and she still doesn't really *need* one. If she wants to talk to friends she can use my phone at any time. I see the positives and negatives to both side of the debate. Today we had our families over to celebrate Monkey's birthday and they all had opinions about the phone subject which I found really funny because Jeff's parents agreed with him and mine agreed with me. And this was before we even told them what we thought! Now that I've started writing this post I looked at the title and just laughed. Back to the electronic topic Monkey got a kindle fire for his birthday and he is loving it. Surprisingly he has actually done quite a bit of reading on it, along with playing games. I love the fact that both kids kindles are synced and they can share books. I really want the ipad but I am also trying really hard to manage our money more wisely. We have several friends who are taking the Dave Ramsay class at church and we've had many decisions with them about the class. It has motivated me to be more diligent with our money. But I have never been a spender which is why I haven't gotten the ipad, yet, because we do have the money to buy one. I just know that eventually we are going to need to buy a new refrigerator (it's like 20+ yrs old), television (8 yrs old), computer or laptop (both 5 yrs old), and the list goes on. I want to be prepared. Not to mention all the kids sports and equipment that goes with it. So far this year the two oldest are playing soccer, Red is doing basketball, and Peanut is doing gymnastics and ballet/tap. She couldn't decide which one she liked better so my dad and step-mom gave her the gymnastic class for her birthday and Jeff and I gave her the ballet/tap class for her birthday. She was happy. Monkey is talking about trying out for the basketball team at school and GG is possibly doing cheerleading again or something else. Then both older kids want to do track but thinking Monkey isn't going to be able to do track and baseball so we'll see. Both boys are planning on doing baseball in the spring. So yeah that is a perpetual "money suck" right there, but a good one. I'm trying to find a part time (real part time like 10 hrs or less) job while Peanut is in school to help offset these activities because having Jeff in grad school come fall isn't going to leave much time for him to be working overtime. Plus, I don't like when he works A LOT of over time. We'll see. If you have read this whole post congrats! I feel like that was very ADD...
