In My Swaggerwagon

We have some exciting news to share with everyone out there, and boy is it incredible.  That’s incredible as in, “unbelievable, never in a million years did we think it would happen, pinch me I must be dreaming, wait a minute, who am I again?”

We bought…wait for it – a MINIVAN.  Holy suburbia, batman!  And not just any minivan, no sirree, we bought a genuine swaggerwagon! 

  

And now we can say we have one too!

Here she is, old blue:

We bought it to replace our much-loved Mercury Mariner Hybrid.  And guess what? We LOVE it.  I even overheard my husband bragging about the van.  We can’t believe we resisted for so long because it is THAT AWESOME.  I am not joking.  If you have more than one child you NEED to get one, and here is our list of reasons why.

Top Ten Reasons Why We Love Our Sienna, or, Sorry Mercury Mariner Hybrid, you were the bomb but we’ve moved on:

 Sliding doors.  

Anyone with kids knows what can happen in a parking lot when little ones exit the vehicle with enthusiasm.  No more worrying about dents and dings.

Power Sliding Doors.

Yes, ours only has one, but this is probably the most important feature for a mom trying to wrangle 3 children, a stroller, a diaper bag, an arm full of groceries, etc…you get the picture.

         Lower platform.

My 2 year old can get in all by herself, unlike the Mariner which required a crane (i.e., me) to lift our children into.  Picture my back doing the Carlton.  

 Cargo capacity.

Our SUV was small, but even the largest SUVs can’t compare to the interior space of a minivan.  Hello craigslist china cabinet!

         Trunk space.

I know it doesn’t look like it, but there is a ton of room behind the third row.  I can fit our double stroller, the extra 8^th passenger seat AND an entire load of groceries into the back with room to spare.  The Mariner? Not so much.

         Access.

As in, access to the children.  I can walk through the front row of seats into the back of the van to help buckle up, change diapers, give a hug, etc without getting out of the car. 

Room to spread out.

In the Mariner, all three children were squashed together in the second row.  Now they are separated.  Oh happy day, no more fighting!

         Carpooling.

The Mariner fit 5 (smallish) people.  The Sienna seats 8.  My children love this, especially my social 7 year old.  She can’t wait to bring home friends from school, volunteer me to drive for field trips and…wait a minute, what did I just sign up for?  Kidding, kidding, this is one reason I really wanted to buy a van!  Avery has gone on many playdates but we never return the favor for lack of transportation.  Now it’s time to reach out and drive someone.

         Roadtrips.

Let’s face it.  When  you have 3 children, there is more stuff.  The last time we drove any distance was with 2 children and the car was stuffed to the brim.  Once Charlotte arrived we knew we would need a larger car if we were ever going to leave our home state again.

         We feel like a family.

Ok, this one is completely subjective, but it’s true!  Plus, I feel like I am taking good care of my family by providing a safe, reliable and comfortable means of transportation.  It’s not sexy, but it’s exactly what we need.

Will we miss the old Mariner?  Sure, especially in the fuel department where it got us a cool 34 mpg.  The moonroof and Sirius satellite radio were nice to have, but we still feel like it was a good trade.  What do you think about our new (sweet) ride? Any minivan lovers out there?

Funeral for a Furry Friend

This may gross some people out.  You've been warned!

Last night, as the sun set, we held a small, impromptu ceremony in honor of…a rat.  

The poor little guy met his end at the paws of a feral cat (of which there are many on this street).  Avery has such a big and loving heart.  She was insistent that we give him a proper burial. Just like the last rat we found.     I'm sure it won't be the last rat either. At this rate we may run out of room in our yard.  

I will spare you the gruesome images of the rat himself, but here is my kind husband digging the grave.

Our girls standing watch over the body.  

Isn’t she sweet?

Saying a prayer.

That's city living for you, never a dull moment.  

Enemy, Thy Name is Gluten

So I alluded to some health issues that popped up postpartum, and here is the post I promised.  I think I will break the story up into parts because it is so long. 

I have celiac disease.  (And pancreatitis, gallbladder disease, and hyperparathyroidism! Details on that to come.)

A lot of people don’t know about this disease, even though it is estimated that one percent of the population has it and FORTY percent of people carry the genes for it.  That is a huge number!  Even crazier that most people who have celiac disease have never been diagnosed and are suffering, all the while being misdiagnosed with IBS, Crohn’s, Multiple Sclerosis, depression and other mental disorders, and a host of other diseases with similar symptoms.  

How can this be?  Because celiac disease is a multi-system disorder affecting the entire body.  There are nearly 300 possible symptoms indicating celiac disease, and every person with celiac disease experiences it differently.

What is celiac disease? 

To put it simply, it is an autoimmune reaction to gluten, a protein found in wheat, barley, and rye.  Some celiacs cannot tolerate oats as well.  When a person with celiac disease consumes any of these foods, the immune system attacks and causes damage to the small intestine.  Over time the small intestine loses its ability to absorb nutrients and the affected person may begin to experience symptoms.  If you want to find out more technical details, celiac.org and celiac.com are great resources.

The great news is that we know what the trigger for celiac disease is, so we can (theoretically) remove the trigger from our diet and get better.  However, for some people that doesn’t seem to be enough and the damage never heals.  There are lots of complications that can arise, and as I mentioned above, I have a few of them.  Removing gluten from the diet isn’t easy because it is in EVERYTHING, from packaged food to personal care products and prescription medications.  Cross contamination is a huge danger, even kissing someone who just ate or drank something “glutenous” (my made-up term) can make a celiac sick.

I am still in disbelief that I have a disease, especially an autoimmune disease.  I have always been a healthy person, hardly ever got sick as a child, and I’m not allergic to anything.  It was quite a shock to discover that my own body is attacking itself because of a tiny little protein in food!  I have heard that the average time to get diagnosed is 6 years!  Wow!  I can’t imagine suffering the way I did for so long.  It took me about 4 months of googling to figure out that I might want to try going gluten-free.  Even after that it still took another 3 months to get a clear diagnosis.  7 months was way too long! And the doctors were no help! 

I want to be as detailed as I can with backstory, then the actual symptoms I experienced, getting diagnosed, and finally my journey to recovery.  Those posts will come in the following days, so stay tuned!

Checking in

I see that I owe this blog an update since it has been quite a while, AGAIN, since I've posted.  The last post left off explaining how our family was expanding and edging toward a December 2012 debt-free goal date.  Well, I am pleased to say that our third daughter was born at home on September 6, 2012.  Goal #1 accomplished!  The second goal, reaching babystep 3, was postponed due to some health issues I experienced immediately postpartum, but I am happy with our progress nonetheless as we now owe less than $5,000 to Sallie Mae.
I think a follow-up post about my health will be coming shortly, but now I want to share a few photos of our beautiful daughter, Charlotte.


                                          Here she is just moments after birth:

                                          Her birthday bath:

                                          A few days old:

                                          Her first professional photo shoot at 10 days:

                                          She is thrilled to be a duckling on Halloween:

                                          Charlotte with her two big sisters at Christmas:

Sadly, because of my health concerns we have few pictures from this time, but at least I was able to get some, right?  Charlotte turned 8 months yesterday on May 6.  She started crawling a few weeks ago, and yesterday she pulled up on the couch for the first time.  When she crawls she puts one foot flat on the ground and drags her other leg behind, almost like a crabwalk.  She loves to babble, saying "Ba-ba-ba-ba!" I may have heard a "da-da" in there a time or two, so it shouldn't be long before she is intentionally saying dada!  She can clap her hands and make a sound like "yay!" also.  We can't believe how quickly this first year is going by, despite our family's challenges.  It will be sad to leave these baby years behind, but I know we have many years of wonderful memories ahead of us!

Here and back again: Our debt journey

As you can see I have done a terrible job of keeping up this blog. Mostly I blame our lack of Internet. You see, for the last two years our family has been "living like no one else", trudging uphill through Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace program. We are slowly making our way to the end of baby step 2, a process full of blood, sweat, and on my part especially, tears.
You see, when we got married back in 2009 we sat down together and added up our combined debt. And we were shocked. I came into our marriage with one small credit card balance and two hefty student loans. And hubby...well let's just say I needed all my fingers to count his credit cards plus his student loans plus some very stupid 401k loans we had taken out to close on our house. All together the debts totaled nearly $50,000! Yikes!
Then it dawned on us that we owed more than hubby made in one year. And that $600 of his meager monthly earnings was going to minimum payments. Double yikes! You can bet that at this point I was freaking out, yelling "why me?" and "this is YOUR fault" and other non-helpful, marriage-destroying things. I think for hubby the worst was realizing he had nothing to show for all the debt. It's not as if he had bought some nice furniture or a huge tv. The balances were mainly little things purchased at the end of each pay period. You know, when there was too much month left at the end of the money.
We knew we were in trouble. We knew we needed some serious help to gain control over our spending. And we knew we needed it ASAP, or we were going to end up bankrupt. Not a good place to be with a brand new marriage, a new mortgage, AND especially when we discovered that we were expecting a baby. I know, we are crazy but we try to keep things interesting :)
Anyway, luckily my dad, who happens to be a financial planner, saw all this and being the concerned dad that he is bought us a copy of "The Total Money Makeover" by Dave Ramsey. Thank you dad! The next month we enrolled in a local FPU class and began the most important journey of our marriage. This is our third year paying off debt, and I am thrilled to say we owe less than $16,000 and are on track to finish this year! In the midst of all that we are now expecting our THIRD child and still feel confident that we can meet our year-end goal.
I write all this to show that it CAN be done, and all the hard work, sacrifice and overtime at work for hubby (meaning long hours at home alone for me) are so worth it in the end. We have so many dreams that would remain unfulfilled if we had never tried to achieve financial stability. Like taking our kids on vacation, renovating our home, starting our own business, being a rockstar (ok that's hubby's). Even the little things, like having internet, going out to eat, and saving for retirement were out of reach, but now they are possible. We are so grateful that nothing catastrophic has happened along the way, and we are looking forward to the day we can scream "We're debt free!"
So what does all this mean for me and this blog? For starters, having money to actually DO things means that I can begin to plan the renovation of our lovely Grant Park victorian. That is generally the purpose of this blog because I love houses and looking at pictures of beautifully decorated houses. My hope is that this blog will not only document the transformation of our home, but also any future investments we make in real estate. I did say I wanted to start a business, right?
We are so excited for what the future has in store, and we can't wait to share as we make progress. Stay tuned!

On the third day of Christmas...

Merry Christmas! Here is a picture from St. Ann's Dinner with Santa:


Hope everyone is enjoying the Christmas Season. Remember to celebrate ALL of the 12 days of Christmas!

Postpartum update

Sophia and I went to visit Rachel on Monday for my postpartum checkup. When it came time to weigh her I nearly fell out of my chair. At 7 weeks she is already a whopping 12 pounds! Holy cow!
The strain on my back was becoming noticeable while breastfeeding, even with the boppy, but I never would have guessed she had nearly doubled her birth weight.
Here she is with her big sister:


House update:
I still need to finish the mess I made of our hall bath and laundry area. I started painting 4 months ago but then we had to give our neighbor's ladder back and since then I have lost the motivation, er, NESTING urge! I swear I will finish before the year is out! I can't decide on the cabinetry though. It was painted black and I loved it. Then I decided to try white to go with the new wall color but I just don't like it as much. It's too "beach cottage" for my taste so I will most likely repaint it a dark color.

I do want to share an exciting find from Pier 1. I found these adorable bird salt and pepper shakers. Okay, for those who don't know I have an obsession with bird decor of all kinds. Hubs says I have the decorating taste of a 75 year old woman (!?), but I do have certain criteria for the birds I allow into the house.
First and foremost, they cannot be real. Ugh! I do NOT like real birds. They are creepy and mean, like little dinosaurs.
Second, they have to be either very elegant or plump and cute. The salt and pepper set, I believe, is both cute and elegant.

Cute, no? And only $3 so I had to buy them!