Our Lives, Since September(2010)

Ok, so a lot has happened since I last blogged. Obviously the girls are growing like weeds, but there has been a lot of changes in our personal lives as well. For those of you who know us very well, you know that our main income as a married couple comes from Ryan. What I made off of the tanning salon was just extra spending money for me. So, what pays all the bills and what goes into savings is all made off of Ryan's income. All of this is leading to a point...let me start from the beginning.
Its hard to justify leaving a company that was as great as the company he was with. But some things came to our attention that we didn't agree with, some changes were made with the company, and we ultimately had to make the decision to leave or stay. **Let me interrupt here and mention that I sold my tanning salon in November, so I am officially a stay at home mom. The income that I made(that was once my "fun money" is now gone.) Going back now, to what I mentioned before about Ryan's income. We are now relying on 100% on what he makes. So, making the decision to leave his company was a scary thought. Because of a non-compete clause he signed, he cannot bring over any of his current clients. So he would be starting from nothing, with no leads, basically he would be as low as you can get. Long story short, we took a trip to Las Vegas in early October. We discussed in great detail the pros and cons of him leaving. Being that we were away from home, we were in a place where our decision couldn't be swayed by anyone or anything. We felt like we could really give it a heartfelt-go with your gut-decision. On October 28th, he put in his letter of resignation. He was officially unemployed. We already had a plan for what we were going to do, and we immediately started working on it. We signed a lease on a little office down the street from our house. It took a long time, but by the end of December, we were officially our own financial firm--Wallace Wealth Management. He does everything from financial planning to all kinds of investments(mutual funds, IRAs, etc). He is currently studying for his series 7 test, which will allow him to sell stocks and bonds and trade within the stock market. He takes that test on Valentines Day. So, things are actually great and I feel 150% that we made the right decision. It makes me laugh now, looking back, at how scared we were...I've always believed that things happen for a reason.

Back to the tanning salon. Many of you know that we had been trying to sell it for a long time. After I had the twins, I just didn't have the time to dedicate to it anymore. Business had gone down over that first year, because I was never there, and I think that effected business. Ultimately, I had to make the decision to let it go. It was a sad day, but a happy day, all wrapped up in one. It was a relief, to not have that extra stress of a bed breaking or the computer crashing or an employee calling in sick. I could just stay home and focus on the girls. We sold it to a great guy, that we have known for years. He actually owned a salon in Burleson, years ago. One scary thing is that I had just resigned the lease a year before it sold. My lease isn't up until November 2012. So, if for some reason the new owner should default on the lease, I become responsible for it again. So there still is the stress of thinking that COULD come back on me. But I feel like the new owner will grow it back to what it was, since he can devote the time into it that I couldn't anymore. All in all, I feel comfortable with the sale.

Ok! On to the girls! They are 19 months old, today! They are running all over the place and learning new words everyday! It is so much fun watching them play and dance and play dressup. They keep me busy...without a doubt! Addison is slowly but surely getting some hair! Ashlyn's hair is growing really long, but I just cut it shorter so that there wouldn't be such a huge hairstyle difference between the two. I'm trying to give Addi a chance to catch up!
Their latest stats from the doctor(this was over a month ago):
Addison- 23.3 pounds and 32 1/4 height...thats 40% and 70%(maybe she will be tall and skinny?!?)
Ashlyn- 18.9 pounds and 30 1/2 height...thats < 3% and 20%. Yes, she is still tiny. She isn't even on the chart for the normal growth curve, but she is on her own curve, so the doctor says we are doing ok.

There are so many pictures I could upload, so I will just do several from over the last couple of weeks.....well once again after trying 3 times to upload pictures, it won't let me. Hence the reason I stopped blogging! So, if you want to see the pictures, you can go to www.paigepo816.photoshop.com and look at a slideshow of the different things we have done over the last couple of weeks. Once you are at the page, click on the album and then click slideshow.