Ashtyn is busy emptying out the dog's drawer and feeding some to Sammie and some to herself. My kitchen is destroyed now!

We are still trying not to spend money!

Pictures by Mckinzie

Here is our Saving Thermometer hanging in our kitchen to help remind us. Thanks for the tips that we have received so far. One thing that helps is not going shopping very often. This eliminates temptation if I'm not at the store. Huge Help! We are still playing catch up from Christmas. Hopefully, we have received the last cycle of credit card bills from Christmas.

This is great because Caden and Joey are doing a science project together with huge help from Megan. They are having a teaching session.

John's Mom at Christmas.

Megan got Wii Fit Plus and is doing Yoga.

John's sister, Denise, rocking out to Rock Band at Christmas.

Nothing really to report today. We have made some tiny changes but nothing drastic yet. I think we are still in the honeymoon period. I haven't actually started counting this time as the official six months. It is more like prep-time. February 1st will be our official day 1. I do feel like this is kind of like going on a diet. It is difficult and challenging but once you get started you see results and it has to be fulfilling, right?

Financial Goal

So far for our financial goal:
We have cashed in all coins and have $400--Hooray!
I just called to cancel XM ($25/month) and they lowered our bill to $3.99/month for 5 months--pretty cool.
You can't really do much with home phone/cells/internet other than speed up the internet from 1.5MB to 7 and get a $5 deduction. Not bad.
We are still discussing cancelling Dish. I think we will do it not for the savings so much because renting DVDs can easily add up if we aren't careful but because not having television will cause other things to happen in our home. That part will be interesting.

I do have to say that yesterday I freaked out a bit because I had thought that our goal was $20,000 and realized that that was impossible. Glad I checked our blog to see that we only have to save $10,000 with $15,000 as a good possibility. Well, we might get a little more than 10K.

Ashtyn rules the house if you didn't all ready know

While I was showering Ashtyn was left to her own device....That is lipgloss from my purse. Notice the eyeshadow?

Our six month goal

We are going to change things up at our house. For the next 6 months and hopefully keep our blog posted to see how we are doing we are going to try to save $10,000 by July 1st, so we can can finish our basement. Our intent is that we seem to be wasting money so we are going to take a hard look at how we live. We would really appreciate any tips from anyone on how to save money. First, on the chopping block is Dish, XM radio and eventually the YMCA membership but that will have to wait until April (we need some entertainment) and also our phone service. We are paying $200 a month for 4 cell phones, home service and the internet. Can't get rid of the cell phones so we will take a look at the house and we aren't getting rid of the internet.

Our first step is to find all coins and cash around our home and take it to the bank to be counted. I am hoping to do that today. We have started taking shorter showers, shutting off lights and dropping the heat 2 degrees. It has been at 73 so it isn't like we are going to freeze. Also, we are going to sell the shaved ice business. So, if you are interested let us know. My next big project will be how to cut the food bill. This is where your ideas will be helpful. We need recipes that are healthy because we are packing a couple of extra pounds that need to come off and inexpensive for a family of 6.

I do have a plea. If we cut the Dish Network we will need someone to invite us over for a SuperBowl Party. Any takers? We will bring food...

So, the next month or so will be busy. We will sell the things we don't need which will actually clean the basement and get it ready to have it finished. My real secret goal would be to raise $15,000 and as a reward buy a big flat screen television for the basement. Another reward will be to head to the mountains for the 4th of July. This has been a family tradition for the past couple of years and all of us love it. We need to treat ourselves, right?

We will keep you posted so check back to see how we are doing.

More of Christmas

Our New Year's Eve celebration. Sorry about the order. We celebrated Christmas with John's mom and sister and New Year's at home with our family and John's mom. Funny story about the tree. John went to Lowes and they weren't very helpful. All the trees were frozen shut so he picked the one with the biggest trunk. We got it into the house, frozen. It weighed a ton. Left it over night on a rug and it melted and opened up. The tree was huge. About 8 feet tall about 7 feet wide. We ended up cutting it up to get it back out of the house after Christmas, of course.

A gift from Aunt Kelly. She knitted both the hat and the sweater. Pretty cute. The shoes came from Great Grandma and Grandpa Shippen. These are her favorite.

We had a Christmas tea party with our friends. So much fun. I definitely want to make this one a tradition.

Some how the date on the camera is wrong. I hate it when that happens.

The Christmas Season

The highlight of the season for me was to make our very own edible gingerbread house. This was our very first time doing this. Megan helped too I just didn't get her in a picture. Not bad?

The final result. The house survived the entire Christmas season. Ashtyn didn't touch it until... The date on my camera was messed up. Sorry about that.

Oh, she wants it sooo bad. I think Sammie is somehow egging her on.

Hmmm...the path seems to be disappearing. Who stole the mailbox? Okay, she has waited long enough. Time to take the house down. She managed to grab the chimney and pull off half of the roof. You can see it on the floor behind her.

The only reason she is still on his lap is for the candy cane. Our church Christmas party.

Megan's class wins a trip to Washington, DC

Watch out for these girls! They are just a few (Megan's closest friends) that are part of the DC trip along with the teacher Tristin Koch. We will be seeing them again. Maybe as some political leader or in charge of some organization. In case there was a chance you missed this (I highly doubt it) here is yet another opportunity to see what all this is about.
http://www.9news.com/news/article.aspx?storyid=129190&catid=188

Megan at the benefit dinner for the nursing homes. The class ended up raising over $5000.

Pictures by Colleen Riggs

These are just a few pictures that I grabbed to post. Colleen did a wonderful job!