Lots to catch up on!

I've taken a blogging break the past couple weeks. I went back to work this week, only part time, but I really needed to finish up my "maternity leave to do list." Sick, I know! But we had so many things that had to be done during the day and while someone was at the house or stuff that I've been meaning to get to for some time like having our tubs fixed and cleaning out the toys in the basement. I'm also really big about schedules. I have to keep to somewhat of a set schedule, at least during the week when I'm working, or I'll go mad. There is just no way to get everything done unless you do a little bit each day. Obviously since our family has grown, so has our daily "to do list" like extra laundry and dirty dishes and it's also impossible to go shopping with Luke and Brooke, so that has had to change as well.

I've also been cooking up a storm lately for two reasons. One, we really decided we need to eat more healthy, especially with the farmers market stands in full swing. Todd and I both feel we could stand to loose a little weight and I recently got my last promotion for graduating my trainee program at work. It's been 4 long years but I'm finally at my top "guarenteed" pay which is pretty good for just turning 26, in my opinion at least. But after calculating how much more we'll be bringing home this year, we realized how much we don't want this extra money to just "disappear" like it has seemed to in the past. Every year, after each raise, we'd look back and wonder how we used to live on so little. I've heard it before, but with each raise, you just find more things to spend it on. So we've decided that we really need to get back on our budget. So I'll be posting many of the recipes we've made as well as review how we liked it.

We've also been car shopping the past two weeks. We don't really need a new car, and we're not even getting rid of my Honda Accord for at least a few more years, but for some reason, now seems like a good time to buy. The problem is that we figure if it's going to be something we're going to keep for 10-15 years, we better get something with a third row seat AND a good amount of storage. But by that point we are basically limited to Tahoes, Suburbans, Sequioas, Expeditions (XLT), and Yukons (XL) and possibly the Saturn Outlook/GMC Arcadia. But of course, those are all beaucoup moola! So then we are looking at used ones and really its a toss up. If you go too old (older than 2007) the interest rate to finance it is 3.897%, so it makes sense to leave the money in the bank earning 4.5% (our new credit union checking account rate!), but if it's a 2006 or older, well then we might as well just pay cash. So then we look and they all have super high miles for their year and are really beat up. So we're getting quite frustrated.