Kitty & Kevin

Thanks to a recent Kiplinger article, I've found an entire movement of Millennials that I had no idea even had a name.

FIRE- "Financial Independence, Retire Early". What is the idea? Work hard for a number of years, pay off debt, stock up savings, live off of a small portion of what you are bringing in....then stock all the rest up into savings and retirement.

Sound familiar? If you've read our blog for long, this may sound familiar, as this is exactly what we do here. We call this making ourselves "Artificially poor" forcing ourselves to live on less than we bring in so we can pay off our mortgage (prior to that, the goal was paying off student loans), save for retirement and our daughter's college, travel and do things like have one parent stay at home. 

Here is the part where we differ: For the FIRE movement, the next step is once you've hit your magic savings number...you actually retire.

I was skeptical, as is my BFF Suze Orman, but here are some…

Dear Pepper,

Your big sister is all about you this week. I think its because my stomach is hard to miss....that she loves running up, patting it and telling me Pepper is in there. We have two weddings down this October, and one more to go for this year. It's been wonderful not having weddings up through third trimester this pregnancy, as its always a little nerve racking in case I'm told I need to be off my feet later in pregnancy.

I don't know why I thought this was a good plan, but I realized that next week my glucose test is on the afternoon of Halloween....so I'm doing my best to restrict my sugar intake until then (somewhat unsuccessfully)

My feet have looked a little puffy at times, but I'm holding my breath that it won't be near as bad this time around. I've had more heartburn again....but I blame it mostly on the halloween candy and junk I've been eating :)

It's hard to believe we've still got so many more weeks until we meet you. Everyth…

A year ago this week, we closed on our new home. It was an absolute whirlwind. We lived in our first home about 15 months, and although we knew it wouldn't be our forever home...we were anticipating spending a good 3 years there.

And then we stumbled across our new home on Zillow...and I loved it. We visited and loved it even more...and thankfully still love it today.

We joke that even though we soon will have been living in our new home longer than our first one...it doesn't feel that way. We went from a project house, to a house that needed absolutely nothing. I chose to paint the bathroom (from a off white to a gray) in the basement, but it certainly didn't need to be done. Other than that, we've had zero projects.

Why do we love this house? We learned sooo much about our loves/hates at our last house that when we saw this we knew it was what we wanted. Location, layout, looks...we just felt like it was "our" house. Living here has been a breeze so far.


But …

Dear Pepper,

I believe we are now in the 6 month of pregnancy. This week Avi and Lorelai got me laughing so hard in church that I had to excuse myself (see photo). They are so hilarious.

The first of 3 weeks of weddings is complete, two more to go! Compression socks and a belly band help with the long days on my feet!

Your sister had a cold this week, which meant I got a little less sleep than I would have liked. I also made you a winter blanket for your car seat for when you arrive! I made one for Lorelai before she was born, and wanted to do the same for you.

Some days my shoes are fitting a little tighter....but the longer we can postpone that terrible feet swelling I had last time, the better.

I know this sounds silly...but third trimester is coming up more quickly than I realized, which also means third trimester lasts longer than I realized....which is not a good thing. I feel like I'm just hitting my 2nd trimester sweet spot, but that gloomy last part of pregnancy is coming…

Pepper,

Slowly but surely, we are chugging along on this pregnancy journey. This week I'm reminded to bring extra snack foods to work with me (ideally healthy snacks) because I get much hungrier between 9 am-2 pm than I ever used to.

A few of our preparations for your arrival have taken a backseat. We still need a few more things for the nursery, decor, white noise machine, an extra crib sheet....but all small items.

I'm gearing up for 3 weeks of wedding weekends, which I know will take a toll on me physically standing for 10+ hours a day. We've also scheduled a girls trip down to Texas at the 31 week mark...so hopefully everything goes just fine and I can travel then!

You're moving a lot lower than I remember last time. I told Kevin rather than being up near my lungs, it's like holding a water balloon by the knot...you're just chilling out down there at the bottom. I hear more and more that every pregnancy (and ever kid) can be wildly different. So who knows w…

Recently we've made the decision to ban a particular word from our house. Just in the last few weeks we are realizing how much Lorelai hears and understands us....even if she doesn't look like it. At almost 22 months old, our little girl is smart...really smart. It's amazing what suggestions or things we say that she comprehends.  We've learned at night we cannot talk about what is going on the next day (whether it is the zoo, or a trip or grandma coming over) because it makes her not want to go to bed. Even the mention of going to Sunday class at church makes her cry, and she understands so many commands like "wouldn't you like to sit with the other kids during story time?" (A personally proud moment that happened yesterday at the library, where she got off my lap to sit with the other kids). 
It is this level of comprehension that has made us decided to ban this word from our house.

Shy. 
My mom was the first to point this out to me. I took it to heart a…

Monday at work I realized I was not going to get through the day on what I'd brought for lunch....here comes second lunch phase of pregnancy.

I eat lunch at 11 a.m (sometimesusually always taking a piece of fruit out of my lunch around 9:45 to get me through until lunch. That 6:15 breakfast can only last so long) and although I leave work at 3:30....I often have an errand to run, photo session, or in best case scenario I get home at 4 p.m. At that time, I run to the bathroom (say hi to Lorelai and invite her to go "tinkle" with mom since we are at the early stages of potty training) and go straight back to the kitchen for my dinner.

So in walks second lunch. This hits me right about 1:00....when I realize, "wait a minute, I'm going to starve by the end of the day if I don't eat something."

I stopped by the grocery story on Monday for some snacks for the rest of the week chex mix, granola bars and sushi for my second lunch that day (California roll for th…