Misc

• The kids were incredibly whiny today. Insanely whiny. Porter is in this horrible mouthy stage and backtalks all the time. I put Hudson down for a nap around noon, as soon as lunch was over because I swear if I heard him whine any longer my eardrums would explode. I let Porter stay up a little longer and then got him in bed.
  
  He's pretty much moved into the guest room at this point. Weird.... he prefers to sleep in there to sleeping in his room. Not sure what's up with that but we're just rolling with it and hoping he'll start to like his room again soon.
  
  He still SOO needs a nap in the afternoons but I've been telling him he doesn't have to sleep as long as he lays in bed and reads. Usually this works, and he usually falls asleep but today he kept getting up. And then he'd throw a fit when I told him to go back to bed. His fit woke Hudson up after just an hour nap. Lovely.

• We finally got our taxes back. My accountant is great, and very cost efficient, but oh my he takes FOREVER. Anyhow, great news... we overpaid last year by a LOT and are getting a nice chunk of change back.. along with next years taxes being paid/taken care of (see... with owning my own business we get estimates on what we would owe in taxes and last year I paid quarterly for this years taxes. So... we won't have to pay quarterly this year... its all taken care of!). The refund is pretty much a fluke and I doubt we'll get money back next year as we have a better estimate of what my photography income will be.
  
  So... what to do with this chunk of money!
  
  My first thought is AWESOME!
  
  And then I thought... hey, let's take a vacation! Take the boys to Mexico. Spend a week in the sun, sipping margaritas while the boys play in the sand.
  
  Then I thought OOOH I can get the new camera I've been saving up for. And bonus! It'd be a write off for next year!
  
  Then reality hit me and I thought.... hey, we could pay off over half our debts with that money and be almost a year closer to being debt free via the Dave Ramsey Plan! Being the responsible, level headed adults that we are (HAHA!), we are planning on paying off debt. Boring, I know. But it feels SOOO good to have that out from over our heads.
  
• Speaking of vacations... I've had a few places pop into my head that I would love to visit. Our plans are to take the boys to Disney when Hudson is 3 and Porter is 5. We want them to be old enough to enjoy it. (and at this point.... baby #3 will be discussed....)
  
  And then today I saw this post from Matt Logelin and was in awe of his pictures. I thought.... I want to go THERE! I want to take my kids to see something amazing, a magnificent work of nature. I want to go on a road trip across the country with 2 kids! Yes! Ok, I might be slightly insane but I think Ry gets 3 weeks vacation and how awesome would it be for him to take 3 weeks off in the summer and just spend that time road tripping across the USA? We could drive a day, stop and spend a day or two in a city and so on and so on.
  
  And then I started thinking I want to make a list... a list of awesome places I want to visit. I mean, Disney is fun and all but.... I don't know. We went 2 years ago and while it was fun it just is definitely not somewhere I'd visit over and over and over and over. I, myself, have been there uhm... 3 times I believe and well, I'm about over it. I know we want to take the boys there and of course then Baby #3 will be left out so we'll need to go when he/she is 3 or 4 or 5ish.
  
  But anyhow.... all this rambling. I am going to make a list. A list of places I want to be able to expose my children to in their lifetime. Places I want my family to experience together. List to come later.
  
  
• Ryan called me from work today and wanted to do a date night. I was super excited as its been awhile since we've gone out just the two of us. He wanted to do dinner and a movie but I had chicken fajitas planned for dinner and was really looking forward to them so we ate at home. He had to help his dad with some vehicle swapping after work and when he finally got home and his dad came over to babysit I was cranky and exhausted from dealing with the boys all day and part of the evening. Lately, I will admit, I've been doing pretty darn good with the boys. We've had lots of great days and occasional bad ones as well. Today was a bad one.
  
  Well, then Ryan and I couldn't agree on a movie. I went to the movies and dinner with some co-workers on Wednesday night and saw The Proposal. I had never heard of the movie until I got the invite from them. And what do you know, after I get home that night Ryan lays on the guilt that that's the movie he wanted to take me to see. Well, dink wad, why didn't you tell me!?!
  
  Anyhow, that leads me to tonight. There aren't that many wonderful movies in the theater right now and the only thing I really wanted to see (ahem ahem.... pay $40 to see...) was My Sister's Keeper. And Ryan wanted to see Transformers (meh..) or Hangover (meh meh....). Road Block #1.
  
  Then.... I had coupons for one specific theater in town for popcorn/pop... Large for $3.75. The movie I wanted to see was at the other theater. I wasn't about to pay $10-$15 for popcorn/pop. So, I looked at the Goodrich Theaters in nearby towns (like, 30 min away) and they did have the movie I wanted to see as well as The Proposal, which I volunteered to watch again. Ryan has something against going out of town. Road Block #2.
  
  So, that got us hollering about damn movies and I finally said forget it I don't even want to go... I'm cranky, we can't agree and neither of the movies he suggested were moveis I cared to spend a bazillion dollars to see. So, he ended up going by himself. And our date night ended with me, Porter and my father in law watching Beethoven's 2nd in my living room. Nice.