We've made it to the end of the month and I'm feeling thankful. Brian has one more super-crazy week of basketball practice and games / a tournament and then he is done with coaching for the year. It's going to feel like such a treat to have him home around 5pm again.
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I ordered our Christmas cards and added "kid quotes" to the back of the card in lieu of the "this is what we've been up to in 2017" spiel. I sometimes feel weird writing out the list of our travels, etc. and thought this seemed like a fun way to still add some personality. Now I'm crossing my fingers that they can bring a few chuckles and people won't just think it's weird.
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My mother-in-law and I took the boys to paint pottery last weekend and it was a success. I feared that it would go the way of mini-golf and we would be in and out the door in 20 minutes. But they surprised me and we were there for close to an hour and a half. Eli made a big mess of both himself and the table, but they both stuck with it and I think they had fun. It will be fun to see how their pieces (a Christmas tree for Sam and a basketball for Eli) look after they are fired.
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I'm surprising myself by embracing the ugly kid-made ornaments on our Christmas tree. I did not expect this out of myself. My mom handled this situation by having a second tree - one was "pretty" and one was for the "fun" ornaments. Perhaps I will someday do the same, but for now, the mix is okay with me.
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Maggie has suddenly started saying so many words and it is so fun. I swear she adds several new words each day. It is pretty great to be able to communicate with her and her little voice is so cute and sweet.
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Sam has suddenly turned into a teenager and started sneaking milk from the jug. Where did he even get this idea?
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I've been using a new to me budgeting app (Daily Budget) and I'm totally into it. It's going to take me a few months to completely sync the process of using the app with my old process (using a spreadsheet on the computer), but I can tell that it's going to be good and I'm excited about it. (Of course, I'm easily excited about anything related to personal finance and making good money decisions, so...)
The app subtracts out your fixed expenses (mortgage, insurance, etc.) and then amortizes the rest of your income into daily allowances. So, if you have $2000 left after fixed expenses and 30 days in the month, it adds $66.66 to your available allowance each day. You subtract out as you spend and the app shows you what you have available to spend.
Of course, we still have the same amount of money to spend as before, but it's a pretty easy method of accounting (you can assign your subtractions to categories) and it's just a different perspective than I have used before.
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We are getting pretty excited for Topper (our Elf on the Shelf) to fly down from the North Pole on Thursday night / Friday morning!
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