Today I decided I would take my camera with me to capture our day.

But then my day got busier and busier and I only took a few shots. And none of my own kids! This little cutie is the daughter of a friend of mine who’s kids go to the same elementary school and preschool as ours… so today while waiting the 20 minutes between dropping the kindergarten kids off and taking the girls to preschool we were at the playground just chatting while the kids played. Her youngest kept trying to crawl across the table to me so I turned my camera on!

Could she be any cuter? I mean seriously.

But that’s not really what this post is about. Although it should be because I’m about to get pretty darn whiny!

Is anyone sick of driving yet?

Oh my gosh!

Here is where I drove today.

Take Bailey to school. Take Parker to school. Run by a job for my dad. Get a soda. Go work at my parent’s house. Run home to grab a sandwich and a Fresh Art order. Pick up Parker. Drop off order. Go to my parents to work. Pick up Bailey. Back to my parents to get the other two. Home for dinner. To church for choir. Get a soda. To my parent’s one last time to see my sister who just got in town. Home for baths+bed.

And most of those places force me to drive on the same road ALL DAY LONG. Back and forth. From Kirkwood to Webster. OMG.

Kim is ALWAYS in the car and I’m not sure how she does it! It drives me insane. The voices get louder and my patience gets thinner the second we close the doors!

Is anyone else burnt out on driving to and from school yet? It hasn’t even been a month!

In other news I have to tell you how proud of myself I am b/c I’m on day three of a C25K (Couch to 5K) program that’s run by an ap on my iPhone. This morning was the best and I woke up at 5:45am to go! I NEVER thought I would wake up excited to exercise but after just 3 days I feel awesome! In 9 weeks I should be ready to run a 5K so I’m starting to look for some in the area this fall! Great motivation to keep going!

We also have pretty darn big news that although is ultimately our private life, I feel compelled to share it here. And since I’m on a writing roll I thought I might as well keep going tonight! HA!

I recently read “The Total Money Makeover” by Dave Ramsey and it changed our lives. Chris and I are lucky in that we have no credit card debt. The only debt we have is our car payment, C’s student loan and some medical bills. None of it is really a big deal. But for us it’s a big enough deal that paying it down plus paying rent+utilities makes saving for our house hard. And we REALLY want to buy our first home. Like tomorrow.

One of Dave’s biggest things is to make a RADICAL change. With gazelle-like intensity. Because you see, gazelle are hunted by the fastest land mammal (the cheetah I think) so you’d think they’d get caught every time, but in fact they are only caught 1 in 19 tries because the although the gazelle can’t out run the cheetah, they can out manuvuer him! He talks about having to make this radical change with gazelle-intensity so that you actually do it… that if you chip away in tiny bits you won’t ever finish. Like with dieting. If you lose a few pounds right away it gives you the motivation to keep going… if you don’t lose for the first month it’s easier to give up!

Anyway, after reading the entire book, taking notes, going through all our bills and looking at where we want to be, tomorrow (you know, in our own home!), we decided to get radical and make things happen!

So for 9-12 months we are going to live with C’s parents in Kirkwood. We will be attacking our debt and savings with every cent we can so that by the end of our time there we can become debt free home owners with a big safety net of savings under us! We are super excited to make this change for our family and truly believe God is leading us in this decision! We just feel that to keep saving bit by bit is silly when we can attack it with a radical change and become home owners the fastest way possible!

We have loved our time in this house. If we could afford it we’d buy it in a heart beat. We brought two babies home here, all three learned to walk and talk here. We struggled and laughed and cried and celebrated birthday’s and Christmases. We started our own family traditions and became better parents. We lost sleep and gained weight and learned so so much about being a family. But ultimately it’s not our home. And although we love our landlords (they are literally practically family) we are so so ready to be in our own house. Our home. Our first home.

Are we nervous to cram our five person family into his parent’s house? Nope. They are so incredibly welcoming and are encouraging us in our quest to own a home. We literally couldn’t ask for better families. My dad keeps saying he’s not sure if they won or lost since we asked the Allen’s to move there instead of in with my parents! I love that! HA! I work every day with my parents so we just thought living there too might be too much! We just feel so so so blessed that we have family and friends willing to help us pack, help us move, help watch the kids, take us in and support our decision to GET RADICAL so that hopefully in a year we’ll be home owners. We moved home from Spokane the day before Bailey’s first birthday because we wanted our family close by but we never could have known just how essential they would become to our life.

It takes a village. And our village rocks!

I am sharing all of this because although it’s a pretty big life change, I know a lot of people struggle with choices like this. And I HATE how secretive people are about money. It’s JUST money. It doesn’t define who you are and I hate that people get all freaked out by talking about it! We’re saving up for a house. We’re moving in with family to help this time of saving go faster. Big deal. Am I embarrassed? No way! I’m crazy proud of us for making this radical decision and am so excited to get started! I just think we should all support each other and understand each other and be able to talk about money if we want to!

I ALSO want to invite you to our yard sale this Saturday! HA! Come buy our stuff to help us start saving! It’ll be at my parents house… 755 E. Monroe | 63122. My sister, my mom and I all have things to sell and let me tell you, we are DOWN SIZING to get our savings started! BUY OUR JUNK!

The last bit of news for this incredibly LONG blog post is that of course this effects our studio sessions. Right now we don’t have one on the books until October and we’re hoping to set up the studio at my in-laws in their massive basement. If not it might be at Kim’s house. And if not there, well, we’ll figure it out and let you know! Until then, if you want to book a newborn email me and we’ll work something out!

Wish us luck b/c we’re outta here in three weeks! We have SO much to do starting with the yard sale this weekend! YAHOO! I LOOOOVE a good purge!

Thanks for indulging me in this crazy long blog tonight! Off to bed early since I have a 5:45am wake-up call, a newborn (our LAST newborn here) in studio and a yard sale to prep for tomorrow!

It’s been a long time… but this calls for a big fat GO don’t you think? HA!