You Have What It Takes - Book Review

You Have What It Takes: What Every Father Needs to Know by John Eldredge
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This little book is an encourager to those of us who are fathers or fathers-to-be. Eldredge pulls some of the ideas here from other books of his, and it's meant to be a quick read. His main thought is that one of the aspects of being a father is to answer the question boys ask "Do I have what it takes?" and that girls ask "Am I lovely?" He touches on those questions, as well as dealing with the father's who haven't had good answers to that question growing up. There's also a chapter on dealing with your adult children and asking their forgiveness for any wounds incurred while you were raising them.

I walked away from this feeling encouraged, and knowing that despite the enormity of the role, I have what it takes to be a father.

All in all, this is a good little book worth a read for any father out there!

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Nursery Preview!

We made a video of the nursery so far!  Thought you'd enjoy a peek into our baby preparation!

Budgeting - The Gritty Details of 2012

I was having a discussion on Facebook about budgets and it made me think I should update our neglected blog.  This blog post is about how we are doing with our budgeting and our paying off debt.

Back in September of 2011 I wrote about the first budget we put together.  It was tough those first few months.  We had to be tight and focused in order to make it work.  We were learning about what each other valued and what we truly needed to buy for our household to work.

So what have we learned in the last 15 months?  What things are we doing that make a budget work?

• One of the first things we decided was to live off of the previous month's income.  This does two things:  One, it allows me to have a tangible number to work with, and two, it gives us another buffer in case we forgot to add something to the month's budget.  It took a lot of scrimping and focus to save that extra two to three thousand dollars in order to start, but it's definitely worth it.

• We are both involved in the budget.  I'm the nerd between us and I tend to spend a lot of time tweaking the budget, colour coding the main categories, and figuring out how we can afford certain things.  Brianna is the free spirit and she comes and looks through the budget when I have it pretty much finished.  Usually she approves right off the bat (mainly because we talk about stuff every so often throughout the month as it comes up), but there's a few times she asks for more money in a category or we decide there's too much.

•  We used the tax return to set aside for baby expenses.  We didn't know if we were going to get pregnant in 2012 or not, but we decided that setting aside a thousand made sense.  And I'm proud to report that the majority of the big baby items (nursery furniture, stroller, car seat, swing, and a few other things) were bought for that amount.  

• We are able to cash flow (save up and pay for) medical expenses, car maintenance and various other things that needed to be done.  For example, I had to get new contacts this summer and I had to save up for them. For two months I put what was necessary into the Vision category. 

•  Most of our expenses are able to be planned for.  I am actually setting aside a small amount this year for Christmas Presents.  I know that we have to get oil changes, so there's money being set aside for that.

• I also have an Undesignated category to catch the unexpected expenses.  This, along with spending money for both of us, really helps.

•  Okay, so the news you've been waiting for:  We have paid off an incredible amount of debt this year!  Lots of different reasons, but we were blessed with extra, and everything beyond our living expenses is going into our debt snowball.  If everything goes as planned, we will be out of debt by the end of December 2013.

• Oh, and another key to keeping on track:  Remembering that this money is not ours, that we are just stewards of it, and that God trusts us with it.  It actually helps us to realize that we need to stick to a plan and keep our palms open.  We tithe regularly and also sow into the kingdom with offerings above the 10%.  We are strongly convicted that we need to continue giving while working on getting rid of the debt.

•  Lastly, we've slacked some on sticking completely to our budget.  It's easy to float things, while keeping track of what we spent into the next budget, but that is a bad habit to have.  Eventually that will catch up to us.  To solve this we have decided to use some of the extra money to pad our categories so that we don't spend over.  

So that's some of the details of our last year of budgeting.  Hope you gained some insight and that what we've gone through can help you.

What have you accomplished this year?  How do you budget?  How do you live, yet pay off debt?  We'd love to hear from you in the comments!

Review of The Millionaire Next Door

The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This is a fascinating book! The authors spent a lot of time researching millionaires and studying their lifestyles and habits. The bottom line I gleaned from it is to be frugal, don't live beyond your means. Instead of trying to live a perceived lifestyle of the "rich" invest, be content, and accumulate wealth. A lot of time was spent on emphasizing the benefits of not buying flashy, expensive cars or other expensive "toys".

Millionaires are those that take the time to plan out their financial goals, make good budgets, and invest wisely.

There wasn't a lot of time spent on the habit of giving in this book, which was disappointing. I know that one of my goals of becoming wealthy is to be able to give away and help others with my cash.

Definitely a good book to read and glean insights from.

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So What’s New with the Reagan’s???

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This poor little blog has been sorely neglected for quite a while now. Seems like neither of us has felt particularly inspired lately…. But we’ll try and change that. We both enjoy coming up with posts, but it seems that it has been put on the back burner for a while – now it’s time to just sit down and write!

So what’s new with us lately? Well, first big piece of news: JC’s “Proof of Permanent Residence” paperwork finally came in the mail! WOOHOO! He is all approved as a Permanent Resident in Canada. He just has to leave and then come back in through the border to “officially land” so that border services can do all their official stamping and signing and then he’s good. Then he can finally look for work and we can have dual incomes. Until I go on maternity leave for a year that is… but still, mat leave pay (in Alberta) is 55% of my normal salary for a whole year, which is still pretty awesome.

After much planning and trying to figure out logistics, we finally have a plan in motion to go down to Butte and get the rest of his stuff, and then he can “land” on the way back up. We leave Friday (tonight!!!), drive part of the way, crash at my parent’s place, then get up bright and early Saturday and finish the drive. We’ll then get to spend the next 48 hours madly sorting through boxes and boxes of his stuff, selling his car, doing some necessary banking, packing a U-Haul and a truck, and still finding some time to visit with JC’s parents. It’ll be a whirlwind trip, but it’ll feel so good to finally have all JC’s belongings here in our little duplex in Canada!

We’re very thankful for JC’s parents and their willingness to help with sorting and whatnot, and for allowing us to sleep in their spare room and eat their food. : ) We’re also very thankful that my Dad happened to have next Monday/Tuesday off, and that he and my Mom were more than willing to drive down in their truck and pull the U-Haul back up to Canada, plus let us ride with them. I am also thankful for the big cab on their truck, which will allow all 4 of us to ride fairly comfortably…. This is an especially big deal to the Prego! I like comfort!!! : )

Speaking of prego… I’m 19.5 weeks along now. Just about halfway there!!! So far this has been an easy-peasy pregnancy and for that I am very thankful. Some very slight nausea for the first trimester, but thanks to the awesome-ness that is ginger-ale, it never bothered me much at all. The slight nausea left completely around week 14 and I’ve been feeling awesome since. Having energy now feels so nice, however around 7:00 at night, I definitely crash big time. If I want to accomplish anything after work, I better do it right away or it doesn’t happen cause I’m half-asleep. It’s kind of funny – JC is a major Morning Zombie and I’m now the evening Prego Zombie.

Next Tuesday is ultrasound day! We’re hoping and praying that baby Peanut behaves and cooperates and allows the ultrasound tech to tell us what the gender is. : ) It totally doesn’t matter to me what the baby is... I just want to know!!! I am planner at heart and not knowing the gender is driving me nuts! How can I pick fabric and sew curtains without knowing to make them boy-ish or girl-ish??? How can I wash and fold an entire 3 month wardrobe of baby clothes and put it away in the dresser if I don’t know to go with pink or blue?!?!? The horror!!! : ) I’ve had a feeling the whole time that it’s a girl, but that is just a feeling and nothing more… but we’ll see. I do have a bet going though – if I’m right and it’s a girl, my friend Brittany owes me a cute baby girl outfit. However, if I’m wrong and it’s a boy, then she wins and I owe her a cute outfit for her baby girl. Frankly, either way I win… either I get a cute baby outfit or I get to go shopping for a cute baby outfit… oh darn! : )

We will be sharing what the gender is on facebook and also on here, but we’re not sharing our name choices… the name shall remain a secret from everyone until little Mr or little Miss makes his/her appearance! : ) But I can give you some background:

We’ve had many, many discussions over the past several months on what names we would like for our baby – boy or girl. First we had to decide if we should go with traditional family names or something brand new. While we both can appreciate the cool tradition of naming our baby after a family member, we both agreed that we wanted our baby to have their own name and identity, separate from Grandparents or Aunt or Uncle. Than decision firmly made, it then took a while a finally find a girl and a boy first name we both agreed on, let alone middle names. If I loved a name, JC vetoed it. If JC suggested a name, I made a yucky face. And on and on. Finally one day a month ago I spent an entire lunch time at work pouring through an online list of top 1000 boy and girl names. I came away with my top 5 favourites of each and brought home the list for JC. Luckily, he immediately really liked one name from each list! Phew! Since then we’ve gone around and around on middle names… but we had a bit of a breakthrough in our baby name decision earlier this week. I had a sudden inspiration for girl middle name while at work and when I told JC, we slightly modified it and both loved it. We felt inspired and then changed the boy middle name too. So I think we’re finally 99.9% happy with both names! Sheesh, I thought picking a name would be easier…. : )

Well, that is pretty much it for Reagan news. I promise we’ll be better at posting from now on!

Big News!!

If I had to count on my fingers, a post with the title of Big News would be any of the following: a move, a new job, building a house, buying a yacht, or a new baby.  I should make you all try to figure out what the big news is, but since a lot of people already know, it wouldn't be much fun.

So.  Prepare yourself. 

Brianna and I are having a BABY!  Yup, you read that correctly.  In mid-April we will be the proud parents of a bouncing baby!  We won't know the sex for awhile, but we do intend on finding out.

Brianna has started nesting.  She has already been scouring Kijiji for deals on used baby items.  Right after we found out, she discovered a full nursery set for a little under half price!  We made the trip to Red Deer and fit it all into our Caliber!  I was quite pleased and surprised that it all fit.  Advantages to having a hatchback.  Once we know if it's a boy or a girl, she'll be able to put her plans into action!

We told our parents right away.  It just happened that her parents were celebrating their anniversary the same day we found out.  We told them that night out at the lake and they were surprised and quite happy!  Then we told my parents over video chat.  I really wish we had recorded that, because their faces were priceless!  Then we worked our way out and have told the Facebook world.

It's quite exciting!  I've always wanted to be a Dad and I have a special place in my heart for kids, so now that I'm going to have one of my own, it makes me burst with joy!  Brianna is especially excited! This is something she has dreamed and asked for, for a long time.  She can't wait to meet our little Peanut!

We will be happy if it's a boy or a girl or even a Klingon, but our friends are almost all thinking it's a girl.  What do you think?  My desire is split, but I wouldn't mind having a little girl to take on daddy dates.

Anniversary trip

Better late then never - It's the anniversary post!!!

Tuesday, August 7th, JC and I got to celebrate our First Anniversary!!!   We had planned and saved for several months and budgeted enough to go to Jasper National Park for two days and celebrate together.  We had a slight hiccup in our plans, since we both ended up with really bad colds the weekend before (complete with nasty ear infection and pink eye for me – Yay!).  We were feeling much better by Tuesday, thanks to Tylenol Sinus, Buckley’s Cold and Sinus, and my lovely bottle of antibiotics pills and eye drops, but we still felt a little under the weather.  Nevertheless, we decided no mere cold would hold us back, so armed with endless supplies of Kleenex and cold meds, we got up early Tuesday morning and packed our stuff into the car and headed off for an adventure.  We were also armed with Timmies coffees, which I think helped a lot too.  The caffeine helped counteract the slight sleepiness the cold pills were giving me…   : )  

But before I continue, I should back up… that morning right after our alarms went off at 6:00, we exchanged anniversary gifts.  JC went all out for me. 

Hmm, slight back-up again… first… The night before he gave me a thumb drive that was filled with music for me to listen to at work, as well as nine short 2-3 minute videos of him on a number of subjects; everything from memories to plans of the future.  It was so sweet!  Yes, he made me cry… in a good way.  He also stuck a couple short videos of my nephew laughing like crazy while being pushed around in his wagon, which are always awesome.  

Ok, back to morning… I opened two small jewellery boxes.  In the first one I found a beautiful silver and agate necklace that JC’s Grandpa gave his Grandma, back when they were dating.  Apparently, his Grandma had given the necklace to JC’s Mom, Ruth, with instructions that it be given to JC to give to his bride someday.  Very sweet and very cool gift!  I love heirlooms!  The other jewellery box contained a beautiful pair of black agate earrings to match the necklace.  Totally awesome gifts!  My hubby is so sweet!  

Back to the trip.  The forecast had been for rain and cloudy skies all day for Rocky and Jasper, but with the slight exception of some cloud about an hour west of Rocky that lasted all of 15 minutes, it was clear skies for the whole drive.  The scenery was gorgeous, as always.  I absolutely LOVE driving through the National Parks.   The majesty and beauty of the Rocky Mountains are amazing to me.  

We got to Jasper around noon and enjoyed a nice picnic lunch at a cute day-use area at Pyramid Lake.  It was so quiet and serene… It started to cloud up then and we got into the car just in time to avoid a rain shower.   We decided to check out Maligne Canyon, Medicine Lake, and Maligne Lake, however due to a mudslide from all the rain they had recently, the road was blocked off just past the Canyon.  Oh well, the lakes will wait til next time.  The canyon was awesome though, as usual.  I love the mist from the falls and the sound of the crashing water.  It’s my favorite stop in Jasper.  

We went to check into our hotel then, only to find that they had booked us into a Standard Room with a queen size bed, instead of the King size we booked online.  Well, the manager looked around on the computer and said that all their King rooms were booked, however if we wanted, he would give us a full suite with a queen size bed for our troubles.  Yeah, we totally said Yes to that!   So, we got a really nice, spacious, one bedroom suite, complete with living room and kitchen/dining, for the price of our original standard room…. Twice the room for half the price.  I love it!  

We had searched online for a good restaurant to go to for dinner that night and had settled on The Pines, a nice restaurant out at Pyramid Lake.  The reviews online were all good and the menu sounded yummy.  Well, the reviews were bang-on.  The restaurant was nice and quiet, and we got a table right beside the windows so we could look out on the lake and enjoy the scenery.  The food was delicious, from our roasted garlic, warm Camembert cheese and crusty bread appetizer, to our two entrees of grilled halibut, risotto and green beans, and stuffed chicken breast, scalloped potatoes and grilled veggies, to our lovely dessert of chocolate cream cheese mousse between layers of rich chocolate cake, with whipped cream and berries.  It was all Y-U-M-M-Y!  Our server even gave us our dessert on the house, since it was our anniversary.  It was such a nice, romantic dinner and we both loved it.  

The next day we enjoyed the breakfast buffet and strolled through all the shops in the town site and did some shopping.  By noon, JC was feeling a bit sick again, so we decided to slowly wind our way home.  We stopped a couple times to take some photos of the mountains and enjoy the views.  Once out of the Park, we stopped at a cute little campground and had another picnic lunch, before heading home.  Nice little place by a creek… we plan on taking our tent there next summer and camping for a weekend.  We got home at supper time and spent the evening relaxing on the couch, eating chicken fingers and curly fries, and watching Cars 2.  Perfect way to end the day!  : )  

Well, that was our first anniversary.  I loved spending the special time with my awesome hubby.  We made some great memories and had a wonderful time together.  We are both so glad we took that step a year ago and said “I do” and we’re anxious to see what the next year holds for us.  I know one thing for sure: God is good and the future looks glorious!