2007 Taxes - Round One

Yesterday night I decided to try to tackle my pre-run-through of our taxes. This year is quite a bit more complicated as I am legally self-employed as a sole proprietor and need to fill out, in addition to the numerous other schedules having to do with our stock investments and child tax credits, a schedule C (business loss and profit report) and a SE (for self-employment tax). This of course spawns the having to download and go through numerous other forms and publications (just so I can figure out what to put on certain lines on my 1040 or scheduled forms).

So, after about 2 hours of calculatoring, writing (in pencil), realizing I totally messed up in areas, erasing and rewriting (still in pencil) all the necessary numbers - our pre-run-through of our federal and state tax forms are done.

How did we do? Well, being that Ian makes a Teacher Assistant's salary (I think his exemptions are still set like they were when it was just him), I am self-employed but make very little (so little in fact that I didn't even pay the normal self-employed quarterly taxes this year) and E give us a big credit (well 3/4 of that pays for her diapers alone!)... we fall in a really low tax bracket (and owe very little taxes). That along with Ian paying a lot of federal taxes and a myriad of deductions (IE: my health care premiums before the net income was calculated) my pre-run-through calculation show that the government owes us just under $2,000!!

Of course, this to me looks really odd/wrong. Doesn't that seem a bit high? So I'm going to take a look over it again with Ian (in detail) and I possibly might have an accountant/HR block friend look it over. If it's right, that's great! (Ian will be changing his exemptions, either way.) We'll have a little money for my IRA, for bills and maybe for a small vacation this summer. ("Sorry Bush, extra money in our refunds rarely gets back out into purchasing stuff! We're frugal over here!!")

Here's for hoping I did the taxes correctly!

The Big One

So E has hit two of the biggest milestones these last two weeks.

The first... she's perfecting the art of walking. She is officially a toddler and toddles at the most random moments. We coerced her in the beginning, with open arms and games. But now she'll stand up in the middle of the room and just take a few steps and then sit down. I think she's trying to figure out when it's most convenient to walk (like when she has a toy clutched in hand) and when it's just easier to crawl. And of course, we thought, we have to get pictures of these first steps... but it's harder than we ever imagined. Any time a camera or camcorder comes out, all concentration is lost and walking goes out the window. Instead she just points and does her "I want" grunt at said electronic and usually immediately falls to her knees and crawls to get it. Drat! Here's a few examples of where we almost got her on video walking...





Second, E is getting her molars! She now has 9 teeth! (Yes, when it rains, it pours. Literally too. What a wet week!) She had 6 teeth for the longest time. We could see the molars and incisors making their way to the surface, but nothing happened. Then one slightly (only slightly, she really doesn't complain. It's amazing. She doesn't even sleep any worse for the wear) cranky day, we looked in and voila, there was a molar pushing through. Compared to her little mouth it's HUGE! It's on the bottom left. That was probably about a week ago (or maybe only a few days ago, but it feels like a week ago). And then just today, I felt inside her mouth... and lo and behold, there were two more teeth coming through. On the top right, another molar had pushed through quite a bit. I never noticed that one! And lastly, she's getting an incisor (I think that's what it is) on the bottom left. Pictures of those are also highly illusive. Here's our attempts at getting (unsuccessfully, I might add) pictures of her new teeth...







Phew! That's a lot of change for one little girl to go through. Three more teeth and the use of these things called legs! If you haven't seen her in a while, she's quite a sight to see. Oh and when she's standing up with her cute little bob haircut, she looks so much like a little girl and no longer a baby. Awwwww. Of course, she's still nursing (yes, even with all those teeth), so she's still my little baby girl!

Oh and while uploading these pictures, I realized, E has also been practicing and being mildly successful at feeding herself. She loves using her own fork and spoon to eat. This also happens to be the only way we could get her to open her mouth wide enough to get pictures of her teeth. :)

Oh and here's one more cute video of E when she started stacking our couch throw pillows. (Note to self: narrate less! ha lol)

One Big Step for E

This past week or so E has been taking a couple steps here or there. It started with a little game we made up where we would place her standing up next to furniture and entice her with open arms to take some steps toward us. She loves this new game and often doesn't take any steps but just collapses to the ground laughing. Silly girl!

Ah, but today... what turned into the normal game of walk a few steps into our arms... turned into walk half way across the room (well I was scooting backwards just as she was about to reach me). Of course, this is all good as a trick to get her to take more steps, but she realized "Hey I can walk quite a bit farther and not fall over. Walking is kind of fun!" So much so, that she promptly walked around the room in circles, falling every couple steps to her knees, but standing back up all by herself and going some more. This lasted about 5 minutes.

We tried to get it caught on video, but alas, when the cameras come out she forgets what she was doing and goes straight for us (on hands and knees) in order to "play" with those fun electronic gadgets. Sigh. Soon, we'll get a video and post it for all our friends and family to see.

Other news in E-land... E is starting to want to feed herself. She wants to hold the spoon and she wants to fork things and stick them in her mouth all by herself. This has made for a messier (and slower) meal time... but as long as she doesn't poke her own eyes out, we're happy that she's practicing.

New Year Wishes from Our Family

Hi all. Belated Merry Christmas! We hope you had an awesome day (or extended weekend) of family, friends, food and also joy in remembering what Christmas is all about. Also, before the year is out, we want to wish you all a great New Year! We hope this next year for you (and your families - some of whom have been newly increased in size) will be one of growth, challenges, happiness, fun, balance, peace and joy also.

So to all, have a wonderful start to a New Year from the Spencer Three.


(p.s. sorry the picture is a bit blurry... it's hard to control how the picture will come out on a spur of the moment taking and not to mention we're in the picture and are not taking it ourselves... but the picture was also to cute not to show you, even in all its blurriness)

Merry Merry Christmas from the Spencer Three!

For everyone out there (on the world wide web)... Merry Christmas! Here lies our end of the year "letter", "photocard" and "Christmas card". I know everyone loves getting real mail with cute pictures (to line your refrigerator door with), but the time was just not there for us and now we've gone away to visit the family. (Yep, this early. We had to do some Christmas present setup - our present to Ian's grandparents was our old computer, newly cleaned and setup for them and a new internet service. Of course, with all my over planning and expecting the worse, I figured it would take two days at least... but in total, it only took about 4 hours. Oh well, we're here now.)

So... here's 2007 in recap:

January -
E is starting to eat, sleep and poop on more of a schedule. She's just over two months at this point and is sleeping fairly well in the bassinet in our bedroom.
Gilda starts a new part time job from home working for a friend on web templates. Yeah, extra income.

February -
E has her Red Egg and Ginger Party. This is the Chinese baby party to show off the new one and to get showered with love, gifts and food. E slept through half of it and then cried through the other half. We tried to give her a bottle... oohhh BEWARE... she did not like it. This is probably what pushed us to get a nursing cover and feed her wherever and whenever... which she liked much better.
We also discover the magic of the sling. E sleeps in it and we save our poor arms!

We also invest in a BebePod and E loves to sit in it. This means we can eat dinner together at the same time and not have to hold her (because she just doesn't last very long in the clip-on chair)... of course a few months later, she figures this one out and it doesn't last. Too bad.

Lots of new parent learning went on this month.

March -
E is only 4 and half months old and she's sitting up all on her own. She's batting at toys and reaching for things. Not much in the crawling or turning over area though. She also "reads" several books a night with Daddy before going to bed. The bedtime routine is born!
Over Easter, we also take a few family pictures and E has a mini photo shoot. She's SO cute!



April -
E , all bundled up, discovers the swing and Gilda discovers an activity to occupy E for a good 30 minutes. What a sanity saver for those long days when Ian is gone for several hours at school. Just imagine if he had a standard work day... Gilda would go crazy!

May -
E starts doing the army crawl. At first it's only a backwards scoot, then it becomes a slow forward crawl. She's finally moving!
She also has her first "solid" food meal... rice cereal. If you ever want to watch the hour long video of her eating, we have it. You're happy to see the progression of first bite and pushing it out inadvertently to baby scarfing it down and actually closing her mouth. She's a quick learner.
Oh and E is now sleeping in her own crib too, for the whole night (ok, minus the one feeding in the middle of the night, but after that she goes back to her crib) - 12 hours in total! Yippee.


June -
E meets her Great Grandma on her Daddy's Dad's side. It's love at first sight!

One thing we'll always remember from this summer is how much E loves the outdoor. For the next few months, she discovers the joys of swings, slides, sand, grass, sun, trees, bird, other kids... oh, she can't wait for summer to come again!
School ends for the summer and Ian gets a much needed break.



July -
E learns how to drink from a cup via a straw. How did we discover this? Ian and I were sharing a Jamba Juice... she saw, she grabbed, she stuck it in her mouth and got a pleasant surprise, and she wouldn't let go after that. Ah ha, we immediately go out and get a straw zippy cup. This works for a while until she gets her teeth and starts using the straws for teething and not for sipping.
Our family gets a new digital SLR camera which enables us to take lots of beautiful pictures of our beautiful baby girl. Thank You Vivi (and family)!
The whole family stays up late into the night to pick up our copy of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, including E . She loved staying up (we couldn't get her to go to sleep at the grandparents house before we had to leave) and hanging out with the family. This event also starts the beginning of the "rocky sleep" period.

About a week later, we go to Sea Ranch with the Thompson/Bossert/Spencer side of the family and have a blast going to the beach and hanging out. BUT E sharing a room with us for a long weekend results in her sleeping in our bed for most of the night and ruining her great run of sleeping in her own crib for 12 hours. E also really starts teething at this point. All odds were against us I guess.

August -
E starts learning to drink out of a cup. Ok, she totally still needs us to hold the cup for her, but she tries and wants us to help her. She wants us to be just like her Mommy and Daddy. She also wants to eat what we eat... so Mommy does a lot of "pre-eating" of her food (mainly, I chew up/mash up her food or bite everything she eats into bite-sized pieces). She does love her cheerios though, whether or not Mommy and Daddy eat them.
She is also really starting to crawl around, sit up, pull herself up, play with her toys and generally make a mess. It's fun to watch her discover the world around her. She especially loves looking at herself in the mirror. Does she know it's herself or not??

September -
Our family takes it's first vacation to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Let's just say E loved our trip. She slept in our room with us (we had finally got her back in her crib at night and sleeping through the night, too) but we worked out a way to share a room and get her down in her own crib and asleep. Yeah! She loved the fishes, the sea otters, eating out, the ocean, the birds, the waves, the seals... well, about everything there. We'll have to make this trip an annual one!


October -
E turns ONE! It's an animal party! She didn't really know what was going on - lots of family, some wrapped toy things and lots of food. Hmm... alright. :) At least the rest of the family had fun.

She also dresses up and celebrates her first Halloween (even though this was technically her second Halloween, the first one was spent with the lights off in the front of her apartment and us just beginning to adjust to having our new bundle of joy).

November -
We get the Ergo Baby Carrier. This is a life saver. E is getting heavier and heavier and we're still holding her for naps. Now she sleeps in the carrier. She also can sit on our back and be carried in the carrier and she even likes it. So... walks around town and carting her around the supermarket is easy peasy. Thanks for the tip (and demo) from our friends.
E is toddling around everywhere with her cute crocodile soft shoes while we hold her hands.

She also has mastered getting up and down from our bed, stairs, couches and other things she can climb. Uh Oh, she's climbing? Yep! She can't walk (or won't, on her own yet anyways) but she can climb... even up her baby gate. Oh yes.


December -
Ian hits the halfway point in getting his dissertation outlines done. Woohoo! After all the (in depth) outlines are done, then he'll start on the writing phase. Oh and did we mention he needs to look for jobs, but that won't be until next summer. We expect he'll get done with everything by the summer of 2009.
Gilda is still working from home. This last year has been quite a year of balancing life - spending focused and unhurried time with E , getting time work to make (financial) ends meet and also personal balance. The one thing I've learned and constantly remind myself is that these early years with E will pass by too quickly. Also, I know that I really need more vacations, time with girlfriends and solitude - maybe even more than I need to work (God always does work out those financial details), but not more than sleep, oh no. I definitely don't have the right balance still, but I am trying to figure it out and some days are just bliss, fun and exciting... others I could just use a nice break.
E is really talking a storm these days. She says words here and there and then doesn't again, but she shows that she knows what they mean. She even occasionally signs for more, hot, and eat. She loves to babble. Boy does she like to babble. She'll even "sing" with us or music she hears. She's going to be quite the talker when she grows up. We think she might also be a confident type-A know-what-she-wants little girl. Oh and she's loving to share... food, books, toys with anyone who wants to play with her. How cute!