Masters Degree

Well, I have been deciding if I should go back to school to pursue a masters degree. I FINALLY made up my mind. Yup, I will be returning to college. I am planning to take my GRE in the summer. I need time to prepare. I am going to get my masters in Early Childhood Education. I hope to start by Spring 09, at the latest, maybe even this Fall. It is ironic because when I was in college I wanted to be done, now that I am finished I want to go back. I think this will be a neat adventure. I am really excited because it will give me more options than just "teaching". I think it is about 36 hours to complete the Masters degree. I am hoping some of my education classes will count.

The father and son bond

Hayden is still very young. It really didn't occur to me how much he can miss his dad. David has been out of town for a few days. Usually I will let Hayden listen to our conversations on speaker phone. Last night Hayden went to bed at 6 an hour earlier than normal. So he didn't get a chance to "talk" to his dad. He has been really clingy today. Hayden is usually not clingy. He woke up at 5 this morning and wasn't nearly as smiley and happy as normal. Well when I picked him up from daycare he wanted to be held and loved on. So I gave him all the extra attention that he needed. He still didn't seem happy. David came home and Hayden was a different kid! He was smiling, laughing, and talking to David. He ate all of his dinner and drank two bottles. David gave him a bath and he was so happy. It really amazes me how strong the father son bond is. Hayden is truly in awe of his father. It is amazing to see how David responds to Hayden. I see such a different person in David now that we have become parents. Hayden has truly changed us.

Well Baby Visit

Hayden had his 4 month check up on Friday. He is doing really well. Although he did lose some weight, 2 weeks ago he weighed 16 pounds now he was 14.8. The doctor said not to get concerned because its normal. He is on track developmentally. We asked about his breathing treatment. Dr. Hart said try to do move to one time a day. That was a nightmare. Friday night he was up every hour coughing and sneezing. Man it was rough. Thank God David helps out A LOT!! So we gave him a breathing treatment at 6 then at noon. So we are still doing the treatment two times a day. He also got 5 shots. He didn't cry much which is good. He is doing a lot better. David is out of town working. So this week will be rough. It is funny how much Hayden recognizes our voices. David called this evening and I put him on speaker phone. Hayden was looking all around for his dad.

Credit Card Debt Free

One of our biggest goal was to pay off all credit cards. David and I have been paying as much money as we could afford to the credit card companies. We now do NOT have any credit card debt. This is so exciting. We are trying so hard to become debt free- student loans and cars. We have been listening to Dave Ramsey on talk radio. I have also read his book Financial Peace. One of the biggest things I have learned is if we don't have money in the checking account we don't need it. It is always to tempting to put it on a credit card or open a store credit card because you WANT things. We went to go look at furniture for our living room, and they kept asking if we were going to apply for the store's credit card. We now don't even have credit cards. Also something I thought was really neat that Dave suggested is to have 3 to 6 months of income saved up. I hope y'all go and read his book or listen to him. I enjoyed him because he used scriptures in his book.

Thumb Sucking

Yup....Hayden is a thumb sucker. It is really cute. He has tried his hand and his index finger, but none of them work as good as his thumb. He has only been doing this for about a week. It really surprised me because he hasn't been that interested in his pacifier like before. I hope he doesn't do this forever though.

Happy 4 month Birthday

Hayden is four months today. It's hard to believe, time is flying by so fast. Hayden is doing so much. Last week David and I bought him this chair that helps him sit up. If you look through the pictures you will see him sitting in a blue chair. He loves that chair, it allows him to watch what we are doing and easily follow us around the room. He also is so fascinated with Bailey. He likes to see her run around and he tries to follow her. Hayden is slowly figuring out how to "army" crawl. He tries really hard to get his legs going and gets so mad when he doesn't move.

Valentines Day

I have such a thoughtful husband. Last year we found out we were expecting, so that was a great Valentines present. This year I kept on saying to David that I wanted the outside band to my wedding ring. I had hoped that I would get it for Christmas, but instead I got a GPS system for my car (which I LOVE). So I didn't expect anything big because we are saving to buy a house in the summer. SO when I was putting Hayden to bed, there was a box from Zales and it had the third part to my ring! I am very excited, now I get to go get it sized and soldered on.

Now Standing

Hayden is not walking or even crawling yet but he is standing. If David or I stand him up and let go he can hold his balance and stand there, it is actually pretty impressive and I have no idea if this is normal or not. Anyone know???

Check Your Credit

If you didn't know you can now get a free copy of your credit report one time per year from each of the three major credit reporting agencies, so you can actually get one every four months for free by selecting a different agency each time you get one.

Anyways, I finally got around to getting one and there was a problem. In 2002 I got a website and hosted with a company called 1dollarhosting.com aka webcountry and the service was horrible which I should of expected because it was only $1 per month. I finally got tired of the lousy service and canceled the hosting service in 2003 and thought that was the end of it. Well once a year, every year webcountry would charge my credit card and I would have to call my credit card company and have the charge reversed. I would have called webcountry but they charge $19.99 to talk to a person (once again you get what you pay for) and this went on for 3 years and I eventually just canceled the credit card to get rid of them. This brings us to me checking my credit report and seeing a collection on there for $200, $36 for 3 years of service plus some ridicules fees. Well I of course have tried fighting it and it looks like now I have two choices, pay the $200 and have about 5 months of negative reporting on my credit or not pay it and have them continue to report this collection monthly until 2013. I don't care about the $200 it is really just a matter of some company being dishonest and dinging my credit and me not being able to do anything about it because I can not prove I called them 5 years ago and canceled. Also, the better business bureau gives webcountry an F rating.

So the point of all this is take advantage of the free credit report and make sure everything is correct. This problem caused my score to drop 53 points which is really aggravating since we are probably going to buy a house this summer.

-david

PS: I had a root canal this morning and it was/is extremely painful

Big Boy

Well I have to say Hayden is NOT going to be a small kid. He is not even 4 months old and weighs 15 lbs and 10 ounces, close to 16 pounds. He is wearing size 3-6 months and he won't be wearing those much longer. His pjs and onesies are almost to small. He has a fat belly that sticks out. He used to have an inner belly button but as his tummy got bigger his belly button started to stick out. It reminds me of the thermometer you put in a turkey that pops up when it is done.

We go on the 22nd for his fourth month well baby check-up and his shots. He is now also eating 2 8-ounce bottles plus his regular 4 6-ounce bottles, so he is drinking 40 ounces of milk a day.

Doctor Visits

We have taken Hayden to the doctor so many times recently. He has had a really bad cough for over a month, the first time we took him to the doctor Dr. Hart said it was just a cold but three weeks later Hayden still had a bad cough. His coughing gets really bad a night. We took him in to see the doctor again and this time it was determined that he has bronchial asthma and would need to start using breathing treatments. The treatment is basically a mask hooked up to an air compressor and there is medicine in the airline that is vaporized and Hayden breaths it in. Well Hayden is like a different kid since he started his breathing treatments, he seems to be much happier and even more talkative.

First Post

David and I decided to finally create a blog and basically it is so all of our family can keep track of what we are doing. Interest has really picked up since Hayden has been born and we will post his progress along with pictures.

We got a new vacuum cleaner from Sears and it is amazing. If you have a dog+carpet+an infant you really need a good vacuum cleaner and it is amazing how much Bailey sheds. This sounds really boring but I am just blown away by how much dog hair our old vacuum was missing and it's exciting to see the clear canister fill up.

BTW Pictures can be found here.