It's 7 pm on Friday Night

The husband is not home. All to your Paxventure benefit!

North helping me cook food. This was sort of a malted pancake mix crepe.



Going outside in the snow in footed PJ's. It was so cooold this morning. I can't believe they went out!


Playing in the fridge. It is super full because we just did a major Costco run. I love having a full refrigerator. It is such a blessing.


The winkin' blinkin' kid!

Birthday Highlights

Tyler has some more pictures I may add later, but here are the ones from the "presents and cake" part of the day.







Jewelry made by the kids

Christmas re-cap

Here are some of the cutest pictures. Ava and Violet had many highlights but North's was definitely stuffing his face full of candy for several days. Wow, that kid has a sweet tooth. Guess I shouldn't have eaten so many sweets while preggers.

Eating at Maggiano's for Heather and Rhianna's birthday. (Thought this one was cute of us)


TV time with the kids. Ahhh, peace... (We only do TV on the weekends)


Christmas at the Culver's



Hanging out with my brother Bryce and his wife Stephanie



Nativity






Christmas morning





Stocking



Swing Set!

An Entrepreneur's Wife

I've been thinking about this post for a long time. I googled it once, and nothing came up. Not very surprising. An entrepreneur's wife can't say much most the time. It's hush hush unless it's up on someone's website or in the news. My best, most glamorous guess is that it's kind of a secret club. That apparently no one blogs about.

Being an entrepreneur's wife, at least in the early stages, means many things. Kind of like being the wife of a graduate student. The sideways glances, the grimacing laugh. The, "How are you?" question followed by a, "Fine," in an odd voice that is only best described as a mix between crazy and clueless. Underneath that, "fine," you feel exactly that. You are fine, but you do in fact feel crazy and pretty clueless about what the outcome of this adventure will be.

Being an entrepreneur's wife means sacrifice. Just because the business is in the green, does not mean you are. Whatever you take home, takes from someone else's paycheck, or the viability of the company existing one more month. Insurance is not a given. Dental probably even rarer. Pensions? 401ks? You're on your own. There is something called equity in the company that is dolled out, but I have yet to see what that really means.

Being an entrepreneur's wife means you're an entrepreneur too. It's not just your husband working. It's you too. Whether that means you are the "stable" income, or whether you are bootstrapping the business by working. One of my friends from high school recently came to visit. She worked for two years while her husband started his own business. It worked out quite well, and now she is able to stay home with her newborn son. She could definitely relate to the short-term sacrifice that invests in your future success. Although I do not work, I live through his work. I know what is going on. We ride the ups and downs together. There is also an entrepreneurial way of thinking that is contagious. Always trying to think of a new business idea or a way to make things better. I am not a creative thinker, but I do think up some ideas on occasion. My husband, on the other hand, probably thinks of 10 business ideas a day. Not all of them are viable. But it is really fun, and it brings us together.

Being an entrepreneur's wife means you will not be able to explain what your husband does. Or rather, you will explain, but people will not understand. In the mid-size city we live in about 80 percent of the people have very traditional jobs. Engineers, doctors, accountants, military. Professional careers that can be easily described in one word. They are a doctor. They are a teacher. They are in advertising. Performing that task equals a paycheck. Just mention the company name and people will know how 75 percent of your life operates. When you say, "entrepreneur," or "starting my own business," you are in the minority 20 percent that is either associated with poverty and eccentricity, or the super successful elite. Not much middle ground. It takes too long to describe my husband's venture, so I try to just not explain. Just say IT startup, or something like that. They always want more information. So I oblige them. But to be honest, I feel like I need an elevator speech and some key messages written for me (note: this was my former job, create messages like this)

Being an entrepreneur's wife means you will pray ... a lot. Belief in God is how we survive. Even if Tyler wasn't starting his own business, God would be how we stay strong. When we were interviewing for jobs, I kept getting this panicked, nervous, competitive, jealous feeling. In our church we believe strongly that our feelings are promptings of the Holy Ghost. So you pay attention to them. Looking back this panicky feeling was most definitely a sign that the corporate path was not for us at this time. When his business got funding from a venture capital firm, it was relatively calm, and just normal! Every time I get a feeling of doubt (daily, or hourly) I pray asking if this is the right decision. I always get a calm, good feeling. I am not saying that bad things won't happen in the future, but I know right now that we are making the right decision and we gave it our all.

Being an entrepreneur's wife means so many things. Sometimes it gets a little lonely, so if you are in this secret club, let's not be so secret, okay?

Happy birthday to meeee!

Today I am 30. Yikes. If I put my childhood glasses on, that is "like totally ancient." but sitting here today, I'm getting used to it, and kind of looking forward to all that a new decade brings. Some people have said that the 20s are hard because you are so broke, and by the 30s you finally get to enjoy some benefits of working so hard. Another friend said that 30 was the best year of her life. She got married, bought their dream house and had a baby!

In the midst of my happy thoughts I have to admit I am thinking about death a little more. Thinking about death when you are younger usually involves stupidity or a tragic accident. Death past 30 usually involves life choices or genetics. So my life is either half over or one-third over. I'm okay with that, even though it does make me a little sad. Okay a lot sad. In the midst of my sad thoughts yesterday I had a knock at the door. It was a friend, April, who told me she was taking me out to lunch! I got there and there were 10 dear friends from church there for my birthday! Who cares if I didn't have any makeup on? It was so awesome. I was feeling so terrible and they were all there for me! It was so wonderful. I cried. (ive been crying a lot lately... Must be another sign of getting old.)

I love to be all cheery on my blog, because life is so good. But I want my children and family to draw strength from hard times too. So here's to being a little more real, a little more loving, and a little more giving. Can't wait to see what another 10 years bring!

Budgeting resolution?

Since we have had a very tight budget that would give most anyone a panic attack, I thought I'd offer my advice for creating and sticking to a budget. In no particular order
- evaluate what you spend. Shockingly, gifts is a huge spend for us each month. There is no way to really get around this, other than to plan for it ahead of time! Also making gifts is a good idea, but I usually spend more making a gift than buying it. Is this weird?
- use mint.com. Set it up and then each Sunday night go through and categorize everything. This way all those alerts will diasapear and you will know what is being spent where.
- another huge spend for us are work lunches. Bring a loaf of bread, some peanut butter and jelly. No planning or tupperwares.
- we spend 500 a month on gas. No advice here, just venting. Sorry! Tyler just has a long commute.
- turn down the thermostat. I am perpetually cold, so this sucks, but it does make a difference. My lower limit is 65 at night and 68 during the day. However, I do know people that turn it down to 59 at night. This is insane, but I may have to do this someday!
- avoid any type of monthly payment. No, I am not saying stop paying the bills, but nix cable, gym, Netflix, data phones, what else is there? Anyway, this may suck too but we are talking about saving cash and saving for something amazing, or just pay off debt! Nothing beats that feeling!
- food. Ah, the category in budgeting that I hate the most. Hate is a strong word, but I am using it. For some reason this is where budgeting gets tricky. If we have an excess of gifts to buy that month, guess where the money comes from? The grocery budget. Suck.. We have three mouths that are constantly hungry. I am NOT a coupon shopper. Maybe I am too prideful. Well, probably I am. It seems most those coupon foods are just junk promo items and I would eat twice the amount of junk that I already do. Here are my grocery tips not using coupons:
:make a list of commonly bought items and compare prices between stores. For example we compared Costco, kroger and Meijer (a local version of WalMart) we found that unless an item was on sale at Meijer, Costco was always less expensive. Kroger was always more expensive.
:use what you have and get creative! You know all those canned foods you never use? What about that giant bag of (fill in the blank). Use it! You would not believe how many dinners and lunches I have put together when I "didn't have anything planned" or set aside
:make it from scratch. Do you love bloomin onions? hamburgers? Milkshakes? Make them at home and save a bundle. Plus, you don't have to tip and will come across amazing recipes!
:don't buy cereal. Put this on the crazy list. I know. But having a huge can of oatmeal to make from scratch is way healthier and much cheaper than spending $3 to $6 on one box of cereal that will last us a day. Literally, that is how fast we go through the stuff.
:don't buy expensive meats, or meat at all. This may not be an option if you or someone you love is a huge carnivore, but you can buy a ton more veggies or even organic if you don't have to spend $10 to $20 on a cut of meat.
:plan ahead. Every Friday I do not feel like cooking. If I have something frozen, like a pizza, on hand, I don't have to worry about spending eating out. Plus digiorno with breadsticks, cookies or wings included in the box is way too genius of an idea to pass up.
:avoid grocery shopping like the plague. The less you do it, the less money you spend
:stock up on basics like milk, eggs, flour and rice. You will be amazed at what you can make!
:find some great cookbooks. This is good motivtion
-find tips that work for you. Maybe you are not willing to turn down the heat, but you are willing to cover the windows with plasic and turn down the hot water heater. Just do it!
-swallow your pride and shop at the Salvation Army. I got Ava a whole school wardrobe for less than $100.
-haircuts. Yeah, you know what that means. Long hair that your significant other will love (even if you hate it), and more natural color. You could also try to do the color yourself. I cut our family's hair. If you need a tutorial let me know!
-really evaluate needs and wants. When our kids were babies I got their photos taken at 4, 8 and 12 months instead of 3, 6, 9, and 12. Now each birthday I take their photos myself. We do have a nice camera, but the money saved from photo sessions is piling up!

Those are my best tips. I didn't inclue stupid things like nixing vacations because that is too obvious. If you have to buy it with a credit card, don't do it.

Best wishes for you all in the New Year. Maybe we'll all strike it rich this year and never have to worry about topics like this again!