2010 New Year Resolution

It's the new year so let's review how I did with my resolutions for 2009. http://ky-an.blogspot.com/2009/01/happy-new-year.html
Be the mother I always envisioned myself to be.

1. Be the kind of person I want my kids to grow up to be.



2. Have the house organized and cleaned up to my standard.



3. Be on top of our finance and budget like I used to.



4. Decorate the kid's bedroom and move them in there.

New Flooring

I can now cross one item off my New Year Resolution list. http://ky-an.blogspot.com/2009/01/happy-new-year.html. Even though I suggest we hire someone to do the job, Hieu insists on doing it himself. He took the money that he saved on hiring someone and invest on better quality wood.

Initially we were going to put in real wood but after some testing, we realize it will not hold up with our kids. One dropped toy or spoon will mean a ding on the floor. After extensive testing, we decide pergo was the way to go. We chose a high quality pergo wood that has a very thick layer of wood at the top. The next step is picking the color. Our kitchen is light with light maple cabinets but we don’t want a light color on the floor. I want a dark color so we finally picked a beautiful expresso color.

It took Hieu 3 full days off work, 1 of those his enlisted my brother-in-law’s help, and about a week of time here and there to complete the trims and caulk. He did a beautiful job and is very proud, as he should be. The kids love it because they can now bounce balls and play with their cars on the floor. It’s much cleaner but it’s a pain because the color is so dark, you see every spec of dirt and every grimey footprint or handprint. I have to clean the floor every 2 days but these dirt would’ve just stayed in the carpet before just because we couldn’t see it! Ewwww!

Carpet pulled and ready to go. Let’s just say our carpet was very “colorful” when they pulled it out.

Moisture layer down, now onto the wood.

The end of the first day. The kids were so thrilled and jumped all around!

All done!!

New Year

I can't believe I never published this. These are the pictures of the kids at temple on New year morning. We decide to take them early in the morning to make some offerings. Ai-Vy would've been much cuter with her pigtails but I was in a hurry to meet my parents.











I am a sucker and bought them 2 fishes on a keychain for $10! At least it's going to a good cause.

Savings this year

I was hoping I'd hit $10,000 in savings this year but my final total is only $9860.91. I first keep track of this when I started couponing. I want to make sure all the money I invest in couponing and stockpile doesn't exceed my savings. I calculate this by listing every item I purchase that I use a coupon for, whether it's $.50 for a gallon of milk or $5 making an item free. I have 3 columns: 1 for manufacturer coupon, 1 for store coupon, and 1 for any cash I have to pay. I put any Register Reward catalina, extra bucks, or gift cards under store coupon. I also deduct things that I have to buy for my couponing such as newspapers every week, sheets for my coupon binder, etc. I also deduct if someone give me money buying stuff from my stockpile.

After adding the manufacturer coupons and the store coupons together, then deduct any money I have to pay out and the total is -$9860.91.

I am not as good as some other ladies on other blogs (Jane4girls and zoeysmom) where they can spend $100 TOTAL or less of grocery in per month. I don't think I can ever do that because my kids go through about 3 gallons of milk a week. Horizon milk are about $7*3 =$21. That's $84 already. Both of my kids are also in diapers and then there's the Asian market that we have to go to for most of our grocery. American grocery stores doesn't have the different cuts of meats and fishes that I need for our meals. Asian grocery stores doesn't take coupons nor have sales so there's only so much I can do.

This year I was able to stockpile the following items:

• Air Fresheners
• Candles
• Cleanser
• Contacts solutions
• Cough medicine
• Floss
• Gel and hairspray
• Lifesavers
• Aging lotion
• Cooking Oil
• Pain medicine
• Razors
• Reynolds foil
• Rubbermaid
• Saran wraps
• Shaving cream
• Socks
• Sugar
• Adult and toddler toothbrush
• Trash bags
• Vitamins
• zip-loc/Hefty bagsToddler toothpaste
• Of course shampoo/conditioner and toothpaste

Happy New Year!!!

I hope everyone is having a great start to the New Year. May you all have many surprises and blessings this year. I have the following goals I'd like to work on this year:

1. Lower my monthly grocery bill by $50. My wish is to reduce it by $75/month but $50 will be good. To do this, I will watch my Out-of-Pocket money closely on all my deals. Hopefully I'll spend the majority of that on food at the Asian market, milk, and diapers. I also got a lot of gift cards from Christmas, some rebate checks, and $55 in eBates for all my online purchases last month so they should help me meet my new grocery budget. Accomplished.
   
   
2. Only buy Free or Money Maker items this year unless it's something I really need. Last year I would buy things that end up free to roll my Extra Bucks or rebates but having to spend some real cash up front doing so. This year I hope to eliminate that. If I can't use gift cards, extra bucks, or Register Reward to pay then I am not getting it unless it's a necessity. I actually turn down Softsoap handsoap that would've cost $.04 after coupon. I remind myself that I still have a big shelf upstairs to use. Accomplished.
   
   
   
3. Be more patient with Hieu. I will try my best but no promises there. :P Um...can use more improvement.
   
   
   
4. Cook more. I don't want the kids to grow up not knowing their mommy's cooking. I want them to grow up having a favorite dish that *I* cook. As my co-worker puts it "I would love to cook if I have more time." I just get so tired whenever I get home and putting the kids to sleep. One of my friends will cook their dinner the night before after the kids are asleep. I tried that for a week and was about the keel over from exhaustion. After the kids are asleep, I just want to veg out infront of the computer on the TV for an hour or so before I have to get ready for bed. The problem is that with my friend, her husband and her takes turn cooking. I always have to do it by myself because Hieu has no interest in this. It's either I cook or take-outs. Can you say P-R-E-S-S-U-R-E? I think I did pretty well in this.
   
   
   
5. Toilet train Ky-An. That's pretty self-explanatory. He'll have to be train this year and that would help our grocery budget greatly. Accomplished.
   
   
   
6. Pay attention to what I eat. I still have 15 pounds from both kids that I'd like to shed this year. I've been parking on the far side of the parking lot last year forcing myself to walk further to the building. This year I am going to watch my portions so I don't overeat. I am going to pay attention to the type of food I am eating. Most of the time I am so busy tending to the kids that I just shove food in as quickly as possible. I am going to cut back on all my free candies. Luckily I gave most of them away during Christmas so I am not tempted so much. I am also going to try and use my Wii Fit more to burn some calories. I am not even going to claim to make it to the gym this year. If I can then it's a bonus but I don't want to set myself up to fail. Needs more work.
   
   
   
7. Focus more on my career. I've been slacking in my career due to pregnancies, the loss of Lan Vy, taking care of two young children, and taking on my new couponing hobby. I'd like to put a little focus back on my career and master ASP.net before I become a dinosaur in my field. I am going do my best to show up to work on time and work harder. Needs more work.
   
   
   
8. Lay wood down on the first floor of our house. Our carpet is pretty grimy after 2 colic kids. It's light color so the stains show up even more, especially at night when the lights cast shadows on these carpets. I usually get embarrass when we have anyone come over. We shampoo the carpet several months ago and it was so nice but it didn't take long for it to be dingy again...ugh. We've planned to have wood floors in our house since we first built it 8 years ago, that's why we just went with the standard carpet and no upgrade. It's really time. Accomplished thanks to wonderful hubby!
   
   
   
9. Do more chores around the house. I've really slack on that this past year because I run to the store doing deals on my free time. I've come to depend on our cleaners who comes every other week. They really can only clean so much and I should do the rest. They clean all the major parts of the house but not all the crooks and crannies. I also am suppose to clean the week in between when they don't come so our house is not such a mess. It's so embarrassing when people came and comment "wow..your house is a mess!" Personally I don't think it's that bad but I think it's because they are used to how my house looked before the kids tore it up. It was spotless once upon a time. Needs more work.
   
   
   
10. Spend more time with the kids. Don't get me wrong, I do spend a lot of time with my kids. However when Hieu is home during the weekend, I tend to let him entertain the kids so I can get some chores done such as balancing the checkbook, pay bills, clip coupons, wash dishes, or wash clothes. Maybe that's how you are suppose to do it but I feel so guilty. Last weekend I was downstair sorting the kid's clothes and packing them for the next week to go to our babysitter's house. I also lay out 5 outfits for them to change into every morning. Hieu took the kids to the playroom upstair to keep them out of my hair. I hear them laughing and screaming, just having a great ole' time wishing I could be with them. Hieu told me to come up and join them but I had to get the chores done. It can't be all fun and game right? Sometimes you have to do the responsible thing. Needs more work.
    
    
    
11. Re-Decorate my sister's room for the kids. Okay I didn't say that the kids will MOVE in there this year, just that I'll have it ready. ^_^ Because the room is pretty big, I plan for them to share a room for a couple of years. One so we can buy some time until Hieu's little brother move out of the other room; and two, so maybe it'll make the transition from our room to theirs a little less scary. This is going on the 2010 list :(
    
    
    
12. Introduce more cultures to my kids. Hieu and I've lived in the US pretty much all our life so English has become more our first language. I have to be more conscious of talking more Vietnamese to the kids and introduce them to more Vietnamese cultures. I will watch more Vietnamese shows at home; I'll let them watch more Vietnamese children's shows; and I'll take them to temple or church to interact with others on our holidays.
    
    When they are older, culture here will expand to events such as visiting museums, art shows, and plays. Hieu and I have always love musicals and we've always wanted to introduce our kids to it. I can't wait until we can. Needs more work. It's so easy to just speak to them in English but I know whe have to try harder.
    
    
    

Tet Festival

It's Chinese New Year so we decide to take the kids to the Tet Festival. Of course it took us all morning to get ready and packed the diaper bag. By the time we get there it's Ky-An's naptime so he was cranky. Ai-Vy couldn't sleep either because it was so noisy. Hieu and I end up being stressed out so we just left early.

In front of the McDonald booth:


With my sister and nephew:


Family picture:


Ky-An really enjoyed the lion dance:




Children's traditional costume contest:


The food court: