Valentine's Day 2012

Our Li'l heartbreaker.

Heart pancakes breakfast.

 Heart shaped pb&and J at lunch. 

 That's as sssshmancy as we got!

 

My friend made these.  I just gifted one to Devin.

Even baking cupcakes these days would send me over the edge surely.

The one's she sells are waaaay better tasting than I could make anyway.

(Cookies and Cream.)

Cache gave out valentine"cootie catchers"(fortune tellers) for his Kindeegarten Valentine Partay.

Devin has to work tonight so he took me out over the weekend to our favorite Thai restaurant. 

Naomi and I also had fun this morning.  Cache and Devin were at school/work.  The babies were all asleep so Nay and I decided to do a photo shoot for Daddy

Nay really wanted to get her picture taken with the flower. This is what kicked off the whole photo morning.  Devin's Valentine gift to me.  He likes to buy me plants I guess. :)

I named this one Lola and my Peace lily I named Sunny.

Naming plants is easier than naming people.

I gave him a cupcake. Just one.  And a toothbrush too.

I'm soo romantic.

Gage joined in.

I told myself: I'm gonna get ONE only ONE picture.

 But, I'm so frustratingly indecisive.  I couldn't pick.

Look at his sneaky little hand!

More of our baby blue eyes.

I made it a point not to edit these pictures of Gage, 

just so I can remember exactly how blue his eyes really are.

I tried to sharpen the image, but it made the blue of his eyes darken so I just left it as it was,

although I did edit out a nose crusty.

Such good lighting in our room today!

I'm sure I've already mentioned how much Gage loves his accessories:

bibs, gloves, even ties.

But he is kinda sorta obsessive about his jacket, his Velcro shoes and most especially this Redsox hat. 

 It's the only hat he'll wear.  When he's not wearing it, he's carrying it around.

I love to hear his stern "doh doh doh." If any child his size or smaller approaches his hat.

And this picture? Is my most favorite picture I took all day.

I just well up with love looking at it.

love his soft, sweet smelling head.

Happy Valentine's Day.

A Budget Answer

So we have some steep financial goals for 2012.
The kind where you aim for the stars and hopefully hit the moon.
But if we stick to budget peeeerfectly and I do mean PERFECTLY and get one or two lucky breaks, we just  might be able to hit those goals straight between the eyes.
I've been using different programs to budget including mint.com and my own spreadsheet I made up.
These have been good but far from perfect and I quit both out of frustration recently.
Guess what?
Being without any program(spending in the dark) is worse than a frustrating program.
So I decided to open back up my mint.com account, and THEN.....
I discovered  the  PEAR Budget.
It's first month is free. So I decided to try it. (It's only like 5 dollars a month after that.)
So far... LOOOVE IT!
So much that a put it on my side bar.  Silly?  Oh well.  Click on it and CHECK IT OUT.
Very simple. Like REALLY simple.
My stress levels are now down 10 notches, maybe 50, knowing that I'm controlling my money. Or at least aware of how uncontrolled I am.
YESSSS. So satisfied.  :)  Try it. You don't even have to enter a credit card to try it out for the first month. I hate that.  Okay that's all just thought I'd pass the word along because when I find a good company I don't mind at all sharing.  Maybe it will make your 2012 budgeting goals stick better this year too.