A few weeks behind

I am at least three weeks behind on my blogging! Sorry y’all! I have a very very busy March coming up so I am afraid I might get even farther behind. About four weeks ago, Mama, Sami, Suzi, Wyatt, and I headed to Savannah for the Savannah Women’s Show. Here are some highlights.

 

 

We got passes courtesy of our favorite Pepper Jelly Queen and a great friend of mine, Lauri Jo. Y’all—go check out her website and buy cases of that stuff—NOW! It’s divine.

 

Wyatt and I headed back to my old college town of Statesboro for my college roommate’s baby shower. I am waiting for them to post our group pics on Facebook—see, I’m not the only one trying to catch up

  

Wyatt and I each tried out some of Aunt Sami’s gear.

   

New Duds

I absolutely love my local Cato store. I am not a high fashionista—I need clothes that fit, are current, and are affordable. I hit up my local Cato and got a few great outfits. All of these together were less than $250! I have to take back the denim dress, though. It looked cute in the store but when I got home I realized it doesn’t lay right. I have a feeling that would be fixed after a few washes, but I don’t want to take the chance.

As you can see, I mixed a few pieces. I love cardigans—can’t you tell? I actually had the black polka dot dress (above with the pink sweater) on at church Sunday with a red sweater.

10 months old

I originally thought I would not turn this blog into a full-on baby blog, but it seems keeping up with both is getting the best of me. I haven’t updated poor Wyatt’s baby blog in a long time. Our little man turned 10 months old yesterday. Time flies! Here is the final product of our mini photo shoot.

Here is what I had to work with. He doesn’t stay still for long any more!

Pay it off!

Recently, Justin and I have decided that we are going to definitely want to build a house in the next two years or so. We have got to pay down debts and build up a good little piece of savings to cover down payments, furniture expenses, etc.

Now when I first bought my car, I was newly married, 6 months out of college with almost no credit history except for a credit card I maxed out before I even turned 19. As a result, I was able to buy my car, but only with Justin as a cosigner and with a relatively high interest rate.

After having paid faithfully on it for three years, I decided to refinance with my local bank. I was successful in cutting my interest rate nearly in half!

After that big milestone, I have become even more encouraged in paying off debts and getting “Operation: Forever Home” kicked into high gear. I vaguely understand the snowball method to paying off debts. You pay off your smallest bill, use the budgeted amount for that bill and apply it to your second highest bill and so on.

After looking over the Georgia Department of Community Affairs website for helpful tips for first time homeowners (which I will be—not Justin) I discovered Utah State University Extension’s Power Pay program. It is free to use. You just put in your monthly debt accounts, loan balance, and interest rates and it will prioritize your bills, roll over the payment amounts it recommends you pay each month, and even calculates how many months of payments you reduce and how much interest you save.

I have three loans I am paying on besides my regular mortgage. Here are my results:

I save $220 in interest alone and rather than spend the money on frivolous things, it encourages me to pay down my debt and it gives me 8 whole months of savings to sock away for a down payment.

I have never been so excited about paying bills!

Happy Valentine’s Day!

My SIL

Because I grew up with two sisters, I never got terribly excited about the idea of a sister-in-law. I wasn’t that girl with all brothers that wondered what it would be like to get married and finally get a sister-in-law. After all, my sisters and I generally fought like cats and dogs until I moved away to college. I love them so so so so much now and wouldn’t trade them for the world, but there were times when I was little that I would have given them away.

I’ve heard horror stories of evil sisters-in-law and didn’t know what was in store for me when Justin and I started dating. Luckily, his sister Amanda and I get along perfectly. She is one of my best friends now and there isn’t a day that goes by without us texting, emailing, calling or seeing each other. I am so blessed that I have great in-laws and that our families get along.

Want proof? My nephew Ben walked into my office with a box from Belk. This was in it:

 

This is the softest sweater with perfect ruffly rosettes! I have a turquoise one just like it and Amanda knew I was looking for the orange one.

The best part? This was written on the box. Cue the waterworks. Poor Ben didn’t know what was going on and was nervously looking toward the door to make his escape.

The Whole Month of January

I didn’t blog ONCE since New Years Day and that was hardly a content-packed piece. Here is my sorry excuse for a catch-up blog for the entire month of activity. They’re all out of order but we had a lot of fun anyways!

  

One of my best good friends got married this past weekend. Jessica was such a beautiful bride and we had a great time celebrating her marriage to Clay, another high school friend of mine.

 

Wyatt got to try out his riding gear. He loves his little sit n’ scoot four wheeler. Amanda and the kids found their old push car and Wyatt got to ride for hours the other day too.   

I had an agritourism conference for work in Savannah and Justin and Wyatt got to come along. My sister Sami lives there for college so she and my mama were there too. Justin and I were able to sneak away for part of one evening and we got the chance to eat at Uncle Bubba’s Oyster House all alone! It was fun and we were able to squeeze some mall time in while Mama and Sami kept Wyatt.

 

We were just “hanging out:” {HAHA!} and realized Wyatt could hold himself up for a few seconds like a baby Hulk. He also got to sit in the little car while the boys PRETENDED to haul him (the golf cart DIDN’T move an inch!).

Wyatt’s standing up and scooting along the couches and chairs now. It won’t be long before he starts walking and it’s all over for any little bit of rest I might have thought I could get.

I got a big time hair cut and donated over 8 inches of hair to the Pink Hearts Fund, which makes wigs for children with cancer at no cost.

 

Wyatt got to experience all kinds of fun stuff this month! He rode the tractor with Justin as we were preparing a spot for our honeybees (that’s gonna take a whole blog post on its own).

 

Bath time is such a great time for fun. Every single night I get Wyatt out of the tub and stand him up in front of the mirror and he smiles like crazy. I think he might start looking a tiny bit like me now. He has my nose at the very least.

 

We celebrated two fun birthdays this month. My oldest nephew Jake turned 10 years old. I can’t believe that when Justin and I started dating, he hadn’t even been conceived and now he’s hit the double digit mark! Also, we celebrated my daddy’s birthday with carrot cake and Wyatt got his little bitty hands right in that icing. He’s got a major sweet tooth for an 8 month old but we limit his sweets to a bite here and there.

 

Wyatt is coming up with the most hilarious faces now. Mama said I used to make the same face when I was little and she calls it the Mr. Magoo face.

Jake, Ben, and Rivers colored their faces the other day with washable markers and I couldn’t resist giving Wy a little mustache. Can you tell he’s got built-in friends for life with his cousins? They all love him so much!

  

Wyatt loves his Nanny, my grandmother. At 80+ years old she is still going strong and loves when we visit with Wyatt. I am glad he is around to see her. I never got to be around my other grandmother, much less my great-grandmother so this is very special that he knows her.

Last but not least, Justin got my college diploma framed and helped me put it up in my office this past week. It’s been rolled up in a tube for three years now and I never would have spent the money to get it properly framed but Justin treats me so well. I am so proud of that paper!

Well, now that’s January. Hopefully I can keep up with February a lot better!

New Year’s Fun

   

On New Year’s Eve, Justin had to work so I took Wyatt out to the airport to check out his Pop’s plane. Wyatt didn’t get to go up but he was quite happy to check it out on the ground.

We spent the rest of the afternoon at Amanda and Michael’s celebrating the new year with good snacks and then visited with Jonathan and played trivia for a bit. Wyatt was a trooper. He went to bed a little later than usual—9:45—but didn’t make it to see the big ball drop in NYC.