The {Big} Tax Refund Renovation

Posted on April 22, 2013 by Meghan

It’s that time of year. Unfortunately, this year’s tax return looks NOTHING like last year’s. Our refund last year was 5 digits long. We had enough to pay off a student loan, credit card debt, put into Avery’s college fund, oh yeah, and build a deck!

This year, it was two. Yep, two digits long. This year we got a whopping $31 back. But because we had to pay federal, and got back from the state, we put that on our credit card since our points were getting up there, and we’ll be getting a cash back reward of $25. So our grand total after our 2012 taxes were filed, is $56.

Now, that’s much better than owing which we thought we would need to. But we found some papers we were missing and thankfully we didn’t have to pay. After last year’s giant refund, we were planning on using our refund to pay off debt and do some home renovations, like last year. Well, $56 sure won’t fund a big project like a deck, so we’ll have to get creative with this one.

Speaking of the deck, we never finished it. We still have to put a set of stairs on the other side of the back stoop down to the deck, so we don’t have to walk around on the grass to get to it.

Our building permit is good for a year (I think), so I mentioned it to my Dad that we need to finish it by end of May, and could he help? When he was here visiting last weekend, he took measurements and was going to cut pieces for the stairs and bring them down next time. When I found out we were going to get a measly tax refund, I called him and asked if the stairs would cost $31 or less, and he said yes. The advantages of having a carpenter for a father. (LOVE YOU DADDY) Free labor, and he sometimes buys the supplies without letting me pay. Especially in this case.

So there you go, our BIG plans for our BIG tax refund… a set of stairs – although I don’t know if you can technically call them stairs when there will probably be only 2-3 steps. Either way – looking forward to building the stairs with Dad next month….

Did you get a big tax refund? How are you spending it?

H54F

Posted on March 29, 2013 by Meghan

High Freakin Five for Friday! Excited for Easter weekend in Vermont, and thrilled to share five awesome happenings this past week….

1. FOUR!

Guess what I did on Saturday? Just guess. Something I’ve been working on and hoping for…for months. Yep, I tried on my size 4 jeans, and what do you know…

They fit! And not snug either, they were perfect! I knew something was wrong with the jeans I wore to work last Friday because I could pull them down over my hips. So on a whim, I tried them on. And proceeded to take a picture to send to Erin and freak out over it. I haven’t been in these jeans for 3+ years! Yeah AWESOME moment. And since it’s casual Friday again… I’ll totally wearing them today!

2. Creative Toddler Play

It’s just about the zillionth month we’ve had to stay inside. We’ve still got snow on the ground in places and it’s still FREEZING (40s). So, Avery is getting pretty bored of his toys – but to avoid cabin fever, we’ve created some fun activities at home. #1 Fixing it. Avery has a tool set with screw drivers. I pick out an object in the house with nuts or small holes and tell Avery to fix it. One of my favorites to watch is him fixing the dining room chair.

did you notice the two different socks? NOT my fault. One night after I brought Avery home from daycare and took off his shoes, one foot didn’t have a sock! They later found it at daycare… sneaky kid!

Vinay came home to Avery ‘fixing’ the chair and gave me a funny look. I said, hey, at least he’s not standing or jumping off the chair.

#2 Laundry. Avery loves to help with laundry. He takes the clothes in and out of the basket as I fold them (and in and out of his dresser sometimes – doesn’t quite get the concept yet)

…and he likes to load the dryer or washer too. Except one day we were playing in the basement and there were no clothes to put in the washer, so he found something else…he spent a good 5 minutes loading the washer with rolls of paper towels. He grunted and carried them over, pushed them in, shut the door every time. Adorable. Vinay gets home and asks, uh why…. ? Yeah, because it was fun!

3. Avery’s Toy Box

Grampy made Avery an awesome toy box last year. It’s been used to store Avery’s toys – mostly stuffed animals. And lately it’s been a good platform for Avery’s little people farm set to sit on – perfect height for Avery to play them. But with our cabin fever growing, we decided to do something new with the toy box…Play inside it!

We know Avery loves hiding in his cabinet in the kitchen, so it was no surprise that when I pulled over Avery’s step stool, he climbed right it, and pulled the lid shut on himself. Silly kid! It was a fun 20 minutes of getting in and out and opening and closing the lid. If you ever play hide and seek with Avery, you know one of his hiding spots!

4. March Maddness

Instead of putting money in a pool for March Madness brackets, Vinay and I are playing a friendly game against each other. The winner gets to pick activities for a date night, treated by the loser. As the first rounds were played on Friday and Saturday, I was ahead. Vinay was sour and pouty about it while I bothered him about my date night ideas… Olive Garden for dinner, and a Chick Flick after. He was NOT thrilled. Then comes Sunday and my team I had going to the end was knocked out and the tables turned… now Vinay’s prancing around talking about Outback Steakhouse and Bowling. He’s convinced he’s gonna win, and man does he rub it in! We’ll see… it’s not over until ‘Roseanne Barr Sings’ (Vinay’s favorite saying).

5. Easter Cookies

As every holiday approaches, I’m dying to do projects with Avery. Pinterest and the blogosphere are exploding with ideas… and usually that freaks me out, mostly because I don’t have time to complete these cool projects. Yeah, some of them claim they don’t take much time and effort, but with a demanding little toddler at your feet (or in my case, on my hip 99% of the time), NOTHING is easy. Valentines Day photos of Avery was a disaster. I was frustrated and disappointed and we had noting to show for our valiant efforts. So, this holiday I am totally making it simple and fun – totally Avery proof.

I bought these cute Bunny Cookies, already made, just have to pop them in the oven. My plan was to have Avery help me put them on the pan, watch them cook, then send them to daycare. Simple, easy, toddler-proof.

So I bought Avery’s kiddie table into the kitchen, thinking it was the perfect height for him to stand at and I’d put the cookie tray on it for him to place the cookies. Well, I brought the table into the kitchen, turned around to get the cookies, and when I turned back…

I saw that Avery had a different idea. So, after taking Avery down off the table 3 times, I gave in and we used it as a step stool (I was standing with him the whole time). And with that, Avery was the perfect height for the counter, and I showed him how to put the cookies on the tray.

Avery was thrilled. But he didn’t quite get the concept – instead of spreading the cookies out on the sheet, he stacked them. And every time his cookie tower got taller, he would shriek in excitement. Then I guess we had the cookies out for a while, because they started to defrost and it didn’t take long for Avery to taste test them. Oh well, the kids at daycare share binkeys and colds, so no biggie, right?

I quickly adjusted the cookies before popping them in the oven. When they were done, Avery had half of one (before dinner!). He loved it. (I ate the other half – yum!) And they needed to cool down, so I fed Avery dinner while they cooled and I cleaned up the kitchen. On the back of the cookie box was an idea on how to bag the cookies with m&ms… hmmm. I have a zillion zip lock bags, and ribbons – I can do that! So after Avery was in bed, I whipped these up:

1 cookie, handful of M&M’s, in a ziploc sandwhich bag, tied with ribbon, a note ‘happy easter’ hole punched tied in the ribbon, curled the ribbon. I made 21 of them to be exact – enough for his classmates and teachers. And totally budget friendly too! Box of 24 pre-made cookies = $2.50 (Avery ate one and Vinay and I each ate one). Bag of Easter M&M’s = $4.00 = $6.50/21 = 30 cents a piece!

And after they turned out so cute, with little effort and no frustration from me or tantrums from Avery, I wish I had bought two boxes of cookies so I could share more of them with our friends at work. Oh well, lesson learned for next time.

What holiday is coming up next? Mother’s Day & Father’s Day. Any toddler friendly ideas to share?!

Happy Easter!

Snotty Noses and Roses

Posted on February 14, 2013 by Meghan

Yeah, everything is all hearts and candy this Valentine’s Day morning, but yesterday all I wanted to do was crawl up in a ball and eat everyone’s dang chocolates and call it a night at 7pm.

It all started when I left work. I wanted to stop at the post office and send out Avery’s Valentine’s… to his grandparents, great grandparents, and family in California. I had been meaning to get them out but every time I sat down to do them, Avery HAD to be in my lap, and chew on the glue, and steal the pen and I’d have to take it away and explain (in A Christmas Story fashion), “Avery, you’ll poke your eye out!”… so they took longer than expected, so yeah I was sending them out late. But when I passed the post office, there was no parking… with all the darned snow piles from the blizzard, parking was impossible. Luckily someone was leaving, so I sat in the handicap spot and was just gonna back into their spot after they left. Perfect plan, til when I backed up and realized the darn snowbank was in the way! At this point I was so frustrated, I just drove off. Sorry everyone… you’ll get your Valentines a little late this year.

To add to my annoyance, when I got to daycare, the teachers told me they were having a Valentine’s Day Party tomorrow. (Well thanks for the short notice). Good thing I already bought gifts and labelled them and put them in a bag so they wouldn’t be forgotten. However, the teachers had printed all the students names to label the gifts… well, had they been proactive like me and given these to me last week when I was addressing the gifts ‘From: Avery, To:Friend”, I could have put each kids real name. I mean, what parent does all their holiday plan & prep the night before?! With an unpredicatable toddler, I have to plan stuff a week in advance cuz I know it’ll take 3-4 sessions to actually get something done. Ugh. So too bad, the kids are getting the labels I made.

Now, when I got home I was excited to take some cutesy pictures of Avery with hearts and make a fun craft project with the hands we cut out last week with Daddy. And Daddy wouldn’t be home until late, so we had the house to ourselves to make him something special too! Well, Avery had other plans. As soon as I put him down when we walked in, he started screaming. And crying. And he wouldn’t stop unless he had his ‘bubba’ and I was carting him around. His nose was stuffy and running was also making it hard to breath. Great. Wonderful. This teething thing with NEVER END. OK, we can do this… I thought as I coddled him and he cheered up. I put him in a white dress shirt and had him sit with a paper heart in his hands… oh he is so cute. Take the pacifier out… grab the camera… and all hell broke loose.

More crying. Arms out asking to be picked up. Drool ALL OVER the shirt. And the screaming….makes nails on a chalkboard sound like a symphony. Avery was not impressed with his paper heart.. which was madly thrown on the floor and when handed back to him, it became a nice pink ball of paper. Great. Wonderful. Happy Friggen Valentines Day.

Well, there was no way in heck I was gonna put these pictures on any valentines… poor kid looks like I’m torturing him – which is probably how he felt… stupid teething. So with that, I threw in the towel and called it quits. I laid down on the floor and took some deep breaths. Avery saw his opening and grabbed the camera and started playing with it (kid loves buttons) and man did he light up… giggles, smiles, laughs. Where was this face two minutes ago!?!??! UGH. So screw the cutesy valentines photos… I have been up since 530am, worked a full day, spent 2 hours commuting, and have a teething toddler at home…. my world isn’t perfect, but darned if this isn’t the best Valentine I’ve ever had…

Yeah, I’d love some professional staged cute photos of the bugger, but this is our life… messy, loud, unpredictable, exhausting and full of drool and runny noses. So that’s what you’ll see in our valentine this year! So much has changed from the quiet and angelic baby he was last year….

After Avery went to bed I just wanted to screw my calorie counting and down some chocolate and sit on the couch all night. I was exhausted. Disappointed. I wish I had the time and energy to do projects for holidays with Avery. I get so mad when I can’t pull them off… it’s just impossible to do everything I want in a days time. (another reason I stay off Pinterest… too many ideas i want to do and don’t have the time, so i get all stressed out when i see things i want to do but dont’ have time to). And although I felt like crap, I dragged myself to the gym…which did make me feel better. And no, I didn’t eat any chocolate. That craving passed. And after a good night’s sleep, I hit the pavement with a new attitude this morning.

I’m not perfect. My life is FAR from perfect. I won’t have a flawless photo of Avery for every special event in his life, but what I will have, is memories. Memories I can torment him with when he has his first child and I can laugh when he calls me stressed about a toddler that won’t cooperate, and I can say ‘pay back!’ (like my Mom does to me!). And growing up, my parents didn’t take picture perfect photos of us every holiday… and I turned out OK, I think. So, why not carry on the tradition my Mom started when we were kids… every holiday when we woke up and went to the kitchen bar to eat, there was a card and gift. Just for us. Just because. It wasn’t much… but the thought just made you feel all warm and fuzzy inside. So, with that memory of my childhood, I decided to start that tradition at our home… because memories are worth much more than fancy photos.

I took the remnants from our failed craft project, and the small gifts I had for Avery and Vinay and left the house this morning with this waiting for them…

A little doggie for Avery that says “I woof you!” (Which Vinays tells me, Avery played with all morning) from Vinay and I. Avery picked out a valentines box of Reeses Cups for Daddy. And from me to Daddy, a container of Tabasco jelly beans that say ‘you’re hot!’

And what did I just get delivered to me at work?

Awweee! I guess this Valentines isn’t that bad….snotty noses and roses Just what I wanted!

How do you celebrate V-Day?

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The {Big} Tax Refund Renovation

H54F

Snotty Noses and Roses

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