Olivia turns 12 (ok over two months ago!)

Celebrating a December birthday is never challenging, we always have loads of family near by and time off to plan something fun. Writing about a December birthday however has proven to be harder :) All I can say bout this daughter of mine is that she is just plain amazing from head to two. She is wicked smart and beautiful too! To quote her dad, "I always forget how old Olivia is because she is so bright." It is also hard because she is almost as tall as me and we wear (or rather she wears) my clothes.

Olivia shares a room with her younger sister Adrianna and is so good to her. She reads to her helps get her ready for things and beyond that she has bedroom rules to help each of them respect themselves and others. Liv is the kind of girl that is a self motivator she sees goals and makes the happen. She doesn't let defeat get her down she just tries harder. That is one of her best qualities.

For her birthday she wanted to go the the temple with her cousins. We were so excited that Emma lives close now and that the Clark cousins Lilly and Morgan could join us. Of course Nana and Papa came as well as Grandma Babs (Grandpa Ronnie was working in the temple so he was with us in spirit) we also had my fab sister Hillary with us too. What a great birthday party! We went out to eat afterwards and Olivia was so happy all could make the trip up to Mesa to celebrate eternal families. Birthday cake consisted of about 4 root beer floats each, yum!

I love you Liv! Next year you are going to be a teenager and I couldn't be more thrilled to experience these years with you, you are a joy, a laugh and a rock. All my love Liv.

Holman in double digits!

I love my oldest son, he is such an amazing little man. He is kind, smart and respectful when not at home :) at home he is a nut! He is so funny and very unpredictable. He is constantly thinking and evaluating things. He likes to test his older sisters and likes to protect and play with his younger siblings. He is our middle child that is not forgotten, because we are all laughing too much at what he has said or done.

We went to the park in the evening, played tag and then went out for ice cream. It was a nice easy going night to celebrate our easy going kid. Holman is a great athlete and student. he wakes up at 5:30 most mornings to do his homework. He would much rather wake-up early than to do it at night. For whatever reason his morning ritual really works for him and he is proved he can balance his school work and time nicely. He has taken up running and is running on his school cross-country team (just like he mom, so proud!).  He loves his science class, music, mandarin and humanities classes, not too thrilled about engineering but he still does well.

I love you Happy Jack! A hug from you does so much to make me smile. The fact that at 10 you still hold my hand makes me so happy( remember you promised you would always hold my hand!).

Adrianna my Thanksiving miracle!

My baby girl turned 5 on November 27th Thanksgiving day! Oh I love my little side kick. She is funny and smart and loving. She loves being the youngest and having 4 adoring siblings. She is in both my preschool classes and tolerates learning the same thing every other day. She goes to kindergarten next year so this is her last year chilling at home 24 hours a day. I have been teaching preschool since she was less than a year old so I hope she can learn to love her new teacher, she loves her primary teachers at church so that is a good sign.

The other day I was listening to Dave Ramsey on the radio he was talking about giving to others and how God wants us to have giving hearts and that why we are asked to tithe. Anna said, "Mom is Dave Mormon?" I said, "No, but he believes in God and Jesus Christ, like we do." She said, "Oh so his not a democrat then." So funny, my little republican daughter :)

Anna you are my survivor my angel here on earth, we love you so much and are so glad you are the caboose in our family, it wouldn't be complete without you!

Going radical 11th month

November arrived with no pressing debt looming over us! We have the 401K loan, thank goodness we could borrow form our own savings and not have to involve a bank. If we wanted to just take out the money we could but then we would have to pay a large tax amount because the money you save for retirement plans are not taxed, so once you use it then the government can tax you. So we opted to use the money and pay ourselves back with interest into our own account, which we pay automatically every two weeks from Benjamin's paycheck. We plan to pay aggressively on it once we have saved six months worth of expenses.

We cheated slightly this month. Once our last loan debt was achieved the thought of waiting to buy a second car until after the first of the year was going to break me. I know once January comes we get a boost from preschool tuition. So we cheated and used a credit card that is tied into our checking account to float the needed funds to get the car. Not radical but I figure we could have two months of car independence and a car paid in full in January or we could have two more months of mooching rides and a car paid in full in January. We went with the first option. I don't think Dave would approve, but we did it anyway. I think mostly because its a slippery slope. Once you start allowing exceptions your right back to where you never wanted to return. Normally I am the hard core radicalist in our relationship but this time I was the one wanting to make an exception. Let me tell you now, we are almost two months into car independence I couldn't be more happy about it!

The hardest part of this month was knowing when it is ok to buy things. For 10 months of very little splurging it has been hard to let go a little and be ok with buying things .


Lesson learned in November:
1.Keeping a budget is an every day experience. Keeping out of debt is an everyday experience.

Going radical 10th month!

Sweet October especially the 30th day, I have been waiting ever so patiently for your arrival. It felt like years till I would see that date. Bam! Before I knew it the month had ended and our goal had finally arrived! The 30th arrived with Benjamin's paycheck and on Halloween day Benjamin and I walked into the bank singing "We Are The Champions" and laid our money down, gave them the Mormon bird ( turkey in sign language) and walked out of there like we had dreamed we would.

I don't know how many times I would make a payment to that bank, look at our balance and have tears in my eyes wondering when would this loan be done. Thinking it was impossible. I can't express the joy I felt seeing the balance at $0. Oh the joy! In the last ten months we have put over 40% of our income on this debt, 40%!! That my friends is radical.

Lessons learned in October:

1." Don't you quit, you keep walking! You keep trying, there is help and happiness ahead. Some blessings come soon, some come late, and some don't come till heaven. But for those who embrace the gospel of Jesus Christ, they come! It will be alright in the end, trust God and believe in good things to come."

This quote is taken from one of my favorite apostles Elder Holland, he tells a story from his real life.

http://www.mormonchannel.org/video/mormon-messages?v=911029449001&cid=HPFR103114546

Going radical 9th month!

Sweet September wrap-up, its our anniversary month, the month where summer and fall meet, I love this time of year! No big anniversary trip planned or carried out, you don't do that on  the year of the radical. We went to the Mesa temple, "renewed our vows"  went to dinner and came home to an empty house, it was great!

This month we took out a loan from our 401 K plan and put it on the nasty 2nd mortgage loan, this brought the balance down to just a couple of thousand that we will pay off in October. We are getting so close! We took out the 401 K loan a month before scheduled mostly because we have been watching the market and we were thinking that there might be a crash looming and didn't want to be stuck not being able to take out the needed funds to close the 2nd mortgage loan. This unfortunately made the payments start for the 401 K loan. Every paycheck, money will be automatically taken out. Its a brutal beast, debt is.

Debt maybe an evil slave master but we believe in the one and only Master. Heavenly Father is so good. Before the first draw on our paycheck for the 401 K loan, Benjamin was called into his bosses office and was told that he would be getting a raise, one he didn't ask for and  that was on their off-cycle raises, totally unexpected! So when the first 401 K draw was taken we simultaneously received the raise bump. The difference between was so minimal, it was astounding.

Lessons learned in September:

1) When Benjamin's boss called him into to tell him the awesome news, Benjamin thanked him and told him that this increase will help greatly in his family goal of getting out of debt. The boss said I know I thought the same thing for you guys!  A worthy goal that others can respect makes them want to help in any way they can! (It doesn't hurt that Benjamin is awesome at what he does, he works really hard and gets along with everyone, his people skills are as great as his computer skills! He is an A rated employee.)

2) We have gone without a second car for over two months. We will never get a car loan again (knock on wood). A second car is a luxury that we hope to get soon but we understand there are other modes of transportation we will take advantage of; the bus, the bike, The Clark's thanks Joshua, and even co-workers. I think just like Benjamin's boss there will be many people cheering when we get the needed raise in number of cars we own.

Going radical 8th month!!

August is school starting month. This will be my 5th year teaching preschool and it continues to be a huge blessing. 1) I love it! I love the families that come to my school. They are all such good parents who just want the best for their children. I love the kiddos. This age brings me such great joy, they are so loving, enthusiastic, forgiving, curious and teachable. 2) It provides a huge financial benefit for our family. When we returned home after our failed homesteading adventure, I walked into our Arizona room and said I will open a preschool, a couple of months later it was up and running. My preschool has provided such a learning opportunity as well as given me the ability to watch my own little ones, Parkin and Anna grow. This year I have 32 sweet spirits that I have the privilege to nurture, what an awesome job!

Lessons learned in August:

1) When trying to get out of debt exhaust all opportunities for additional work, it will provide the needed leverage to make a real dent.