Last month we got a new truck because we got such a great trade in on the Yukon and trucks were at their lowest in a long time. The truck is not nearly as fancy as the Yukon was as there is no gps, no tv, and cloth instead of leather. But honestly we are already happier with how the truck will handle the trailer versus the way that Yukon will. I also just like driving a truck! So I figure to solve the issues we can do our own thing like a gps nuvi and find a portable DVD player if we really end of needing one. And durning the summer I prefer cloth seats so since that is when we’ll drive it the most it will not really be an issue!

We decided after our day of phone calls of telemarketing that we are over our home phone being constantly called for reasons we don’t care about. We recieved over 5 unsolicited calls today alone. Most were about credit card debt savings programs. The other ones were just strange though as one was about taking some survey about economy and the other one was about Paramedic Jobs. Ummm yeah but we are not science people let alone did we get a degree to be a paramedic. So off I went to Best Buy to buy a go phone to port our home number to. Once the number ports to the phone then we are going to port it to a google voice number. I know it’s not the most direct but you can’t port a home phone to a google voice number. Once it’s a google voice number we forward the call to our cells and a number if we do get another home phone option…but the spam calls will be more filtered and we can block those that get through. I am so happy about this!

Right now there all kinds of ads out there that don’t seem right since summer is so far away and we just got past Christmas. My favorite one I saw on was a home improvement show was for swimming pool fences. Ummm really do you not realize that a lot of the U.S. is in for a few months worth of snow and that is the last thing on our minds right now? Seriously that is like the summer outfits out at the store right now…sorry but my kids out growing their boots and snowpants mid winter can not be solved because all I can buy is bathing suits! Seriously stop jumping ahead our time and let things be what they are…it’s winter here I need winter stuff not summer stuff! Ok stepping off my soapbox!

Every year when the new year roles around it’s time to make some changes… my favorite one that I seem to do every year is a full cleaning of the entire house. It feel so freeing to get my entire house organized. This year my goal is to get the hubby to cut down the number of shipping boxes he has in his office area. He has to save a few to be able to return a product to a scanner but he no longer needs the box for the barcode scanner that he has had for a few years now for work. I started the cleaning today in our den and little playroom for Logan on the main floor. I am going to be rather busy over the next couple of weeks! A huge plus is all of the work I’ll be doing will help me start the weight loss too!

I can hardley believe that here we are only 3 days away from a new year and we have not seen a good snow of any type at this point. In previous years have spent time outside durning our Christmas break. So it got us thinking about the things we did to get ready for the winter…because it has been so warm we have used the hoses again since we thought we were putting them away for winter. Granted last year we thought we had put them away and found the hose still out with water in it. Thank goodness our hose seem to be a industrial rubber hose. Tomorrow I am going to go a quick look around to see what all needs attention real quick because they are talking lots of snow late this weekend!

So today we finally booked our vacation to South Dakota with our friends the Helfers that live in Walla Walla, Washington! We are so looking forward to this once and a life opportunity to visit the Black Hills. We talked about camping but finally came down to a decision to get on looking for homes for rent. We found the most wonderful place through a company called Deadwood Connections and the home is in a subdivision that has a pool and other amenities for our use. The house also has a hot tub and lots of space for the 10 of us to be able to spread out. Though I do not want to wish these up coming months away I can not wait for this trip though either. It will be so great to see our friends since it will have been 3 years this July. Do you have any great trips planned?

We need a new entertainment center so badly. The one that we have is not broken and is in awesome shape but where it sits in front of our vents it makes a lot of the heat or air conditioning go behind entertainment center instead of into the livingroom. After we really started to watch our spending we also noticed how our bills tend to run. I think that if the air could move around better in the livingroom we might be able to save a little money that way. We have been looking all kinds of options out there and one of the lines in Sauder Collections that caught my eye was the aspen furniture. Granted I think we have settled on the Hawthorne Bay Highboy because it seems to match more of the stuff we already have. I think we are planning to wait till February though so we can also look into options of matching media stand as well.

I have this feeling every year when Christmas rolls around that my poor husband must dread this time of gift planning. Because let’s face it, it is so hard to figure out christmas gifts for women. We all have our own likes and dislikes and we also have ideas in our heads as to the best present ever. This year and for a few years to come I’ve taken this pressure off from my husband by making the 3 gifts we give to each other be picked out by each child. Since we have 3 kids it’s perfect because they all can pick their own with a little guidance from Daddy or Mommy. We also exchange one gift between each other and I give him lots of ideas because I know as much as we don’t want an appliance for Christmas our men think a bit differently than we do.