My pics!

It is no surprise that trying for a baby is tough on a marriage. After going through almost two years of wanting/trying for a baby...Patric and I had hit a brick wall. We weren't talking, and if we were, we were yelling. In an effort to rekindle the flame between us, I asked a photographer I knew if she could take pictures of our family (I posed it as family pics for Patric...but I had ulterior motives). I asked Channon from Urban Chic Portraits (www.urbanchicportraits.com) if she could make people look like they were in love in pictures. She laughed at my comment, but I was serious. Patric and I had never had any romantic pictures taken of us (except for our wedding day). I wasn't one of those girls that would take a million pictures with her boyfriends when we are dating...quite frankly because I didn't want the evidence when I inevitably broke up with them....so there are not many pictures of Patric and I together before we were married...and after we were married we didn't think to take them either.

I warn you...these pictures are flaming hot! I won't be putting them around our house...but it will be a nice surprise for Patric for Christmas. (Hopefully he won't read this before then...he isn't very good at reading our(my) blog anyway!) We obviously have family shots as well, but even inthose Patric couldn't resist me! haha. The weekend we got pictures taken was the beginning of an upward movement in the right direction for our marriage. I must say, these last 2 months have been the best we have had in a LONG time...maybe even the best EVER!

So without further delay--our steaming hot photos!

I absolutely LOVE this one!

So thanks to Channon and thanks to my hot husband for agreeing to get "family" shots done!

Pictures of new bed!

I took pictures of the new bed, and then I forgot to post them! It has been a week now since we have had the bed. Every morning I actually want to stay in bed instead of wanting to get out. I sleep so well! I want to work in bed, watch tv in bed, just stay in bed all day long!

Here are some pictures!

Josh was pretty excited about the bed as well.
He was really cute that day with his toys. That is Woody driving a police paddywagon. I love that his imagination is working! It really makes me happy when he plays with his toys. Its the little things!

Patric didn't really want me to post pictures of our bedroom, since it is not complete, but I wanted to show the bed! You can see behind it the wall where our mirror used to be. My side of the bed has all the books and journals and Patric has clothes. Looks can be deceiving, because I don't really read THAT much...though I have read most of the books on my table. We have many plans for our bedroom, but they are on hold until we can move out my desk and scrapbooking stuff back into my office.

Christmas came early!

So--

Patric and I have been sleeping TERRIBLY for a very long time. When I wake up in the morning and my back still hurts from the day before, it is a bit discouraging. I am only 27 but I feel like my body is already starting to fail me! Patric and I went to four different stores today and decided on Mattress Discounters for our mattress. It will be delivered on Tuesday. I am very excited, though a little anxiety ridden. We do have 24 month interest free financing, but I wanted to wait until February to get the bed (after we had paid off our credit card)...but then I was like, February is SO long away...and so many painful mornings before then.

We bought a king sized bed, so we had to also buy a king sized bed frame. We have been eyeing an entire bedroom at Ikea for a very long time. I already bought the same paint color they have listed on the wall. So we have bought our first piece of our bedroom set tonight. Ikea in Woodbridge didn't have the entire frame, of course, so we drove up to College Park, Md to get the frame. It was very scary driving home with the head board on the top of the matrix, but we got home safely, thank the Lord.

Patric and I have never bought our own bed and we are using mismatched furniture as well for our bedroom, but perhaps this is just another change that we need to make for our relationship. We won't be able to buy all the pieces at once, but we are definitely working on our bedroom next in our house. We have lived here 2.5 years and have not done anything to our bedroom. We have also been married 6.5 years and have never bought a bed or matching furniture. We did buy a frame and two side tables but I am using a dresser that my mom used in her children's nursery ( I think it was even David's nursery) so it is like 43 years old! I like the dresser and it will go into Josh's room when we buy a new dresser, but it is time for Patric and I to have our dream bedroom.

So much for being debt free! At least this debt is interest free!

Oh--I forgot to mention, while I was vacuuming on Friday my vacuum started shaking and smelling really bad. I suspect it is a belt problem, but I am just sick of the thing anyway...so we headed to Home Depot with our 12 month interest free coupon and bought a dyson dc-33. I am so excited to use it tomorrow! It will NOT take 12 months to pay off the home depot card, I just like the option of interest free, pay off as long as you want!

Business

So for the past two months, I have not had A LOT of work...but luckily Kami and Brad's rent has been a blessing to have because of this. I guess my thoughts to let them move in were not without merit. When people say how great Patric and I are for letting someone live with us, I remind them that we are not so great because they are paying rent, and how much of a blessing it is to us that they are. We are the ones that are lucky!

But, I think my days of less work are coming to a close. When Scott left Marcher Consultants, my work load diminished a lot. I wonder if it is because they knew I was so closely tied with Scott there? Or that I have refused to travel all the time because my goal is to be with Josh. Maybe my convictions have actually paid off!

I saw an ad on craigslist for a tax prep company looking for seasonal tax preparers. I have always felt that I needed a mentor or at least more experience in this aspect of the business. I have bookkeeping and analysis down, but actual taxes is my weak point. Sure, I can pass a test and get the license process, but I do not have the number of tax returns walking through my door that maybe I should? I haven't really pushed that aspect of my business, I guess because there is more liability involved. I did get a few new tax clients this year from my advertisement in the Montclairion, using craigslist and somehow on the internet. But then I got busy with doing consulting work in Arlington and didn't focus too much on the tax side of my business.

Long story short - I will be doing consulting work with this tax prep company. They will also give me more experience when it comes to representation work, which is another aspect of my license that I haven't used too much. I am proud to say that I got the state of VA off of my client's back, about his sales tax returns for the last 5 years. Also--the owners of the tax prep company are EA's, so they appreciate my license, where CPAs think they are gods or something and maybe laugh at an EA license? Remember, EAs are ALWAYS tax "experts", CPAs do not always do taxes...but they have the exposure...there are only 48,000 EAs in the US.

Even better, the owners of the tax prep company own preschools and daycare centers! And I can put Josh into their preschool while I am working in their office....for FREE! I will only put him in during the preschool hours in the morning, but it will be great for him to be around other kids he doesn't know and I am sure he will have so much fun! What a blessing right?

And then...I am on my way to Liese's sealing and I get an email for Tony, the company I did consulting work for in Arlington. His wife just happens to have a company that has bookkeeping needs and he thought of me because I am just so fabulous. We are working on that still, but I think that will be another client for me.

Plus-I have a new client I am working with that Scott has given me. He is out of Herndon, and I am still a bit shaky on how this one will turn out, but he is a new company and if we can talk some sense into him early on, I think he could be successful! He has some personal financial issues to work out, but he seems to have some big contracts professionally.

And Patric and I are doing great. The weather is changing...the house is cooler again...but we have plenty of firewood thanks to Butch, so we can make lots of fires. That was a day for Patric...on his way home the tire popped off of Charlie's trailer and Brad had to come rescue him. Needless to say, Patric was gone from 9:00am - 8:30pm...and we wanted to spend some time together that day...HA! Our time is always limited together...this weekend is littered with meetings...BLAH! One day we will be able to go on a date again....thank goodness for that weekend!

So life is pretty good right now. I can't complain. We are 2 months away from eliminating our credit card debt as well. I can't WAIT!

Halloween!

So I have definitely moved on to thoughts of Thanksgiving and Christmas, but I would be remiss if I did not post pictures of Halloween. We took Josh around the neighborhood with our friends the Terry's and the Near's. Josh, Ella and Brendan had a TON of fun!

Here are some pictures--
Everett, Ella, Josh and Brendan

Probably the only picture of Josh smiling of the night.
Best buddies!
Future married couple...if they can survive living together now, they should have NO problem in about 20 years...
Looks like Ella and Josh are more enthusiastic then Brendan...looks can be deceiving! Brendan was a CHAMP at succoring people into giving him more candy!
Patric decided to dress up this year as well. He tried to get me to, but {un}luckily for me the fan wasn't working. DARN!
They ran up to each house this way, and knocked or rang the doorbell, about a million times. I am sure our neighbors love us!
Poor Sis. Russell's worst nightmares came true when two of her nursery kids showed up at her door!
Carrying on the tradition I had when I was a kid, I pulled out all of Josh's candy and sorted it..and promptly put the good stuff in a bag he isn't allowed to eat. He got a full sized 3 Muskateer!!

So that was our Halloween adventure. I am definitely ready for Thanksgiving and Christmas now!!

Pumpkin Carving!

This year I bought two pumpkins. Usually, I like to keep the pumpkins through Thanksgiving because they are nice decorations to have all Fall...I REALLY like to spread out that $4.00 I spent on a pumpkin...but this year, Patric and I decided that Josh might appreciate carving pumpkins. I went out and bought one of those pumpkin carving sets that comes with a bunch of patterns. Josh picked out the haunted house and I picked out the owl. Poor Patric didn't get to make a choice, and he got to do most of the work.

First Patric opened up the pumpkins. (Side story--While Patric was on his mission, the first time he encountered a pumpkin, his companion opened the pumpkin and had Patric put his hand inside of it with his eyes closed. He passed that onto Josh.) And then Josh and him scooped out all the pumpkin guts. I had to man the camera...of course...



Josh got pretty bored with it while we were carving them out...and now I remember why I don't really like carving pumpkins! My arms were tired! He did like to play with the guts a bit.

(Side note--my camera has been acting funny lately...the camera won't take pictures in auto focus mode and sometimes in manual focus it doesn't take pictures in focus...ugh! But I was playing with other functions and found a black and white function!)

He is zoned out.

Im sure I stopped his fun...hence the scowl.
Not the greatest picture of my owl, but Patric's house turned out pretty good!

So there is the fun of pumpkin carving for 2010.