The Love of Controlling Your Money

YNAB 3 will be released soon! What?! You don't know what YNAB is? It stands for "You Need A Budget." Janae and I knew the creator of YNAB; Jesse was a CPA in our Dallas ward when we first moved there.

After a casual exposure to YNAB in May 2007 we became "YNABers." It's budgeting software that we have religiously used for the last 2 1/2 years and shamelessly plug it to anyone wanting control of their money!

Here's the cool part: focusing on a budget doesn't foster "a love of money;" it's more like "a love of knowing that my money is doing exactly what I want it to do." Make sense?

Check out YNAB 3 here. I watch the sneak peaks of this upgraded version and just get giddy all over! Here's a huge part of the solution to anyone's personal recession. Imagine what would happen if the government actually used a budget instead of just talked about one!

Vegas City Lights

When we came to Vegas and found a nice little condo to move into, we discovered at night we could see the lights from The Strip quite well. We're in a second story unit, and there's an undeveloped piece of property straight across from us, which affords our little porch quite a view.

A couple weeks back we were trying to get a good night shot of the lights, which of course requires leaving the shutter open a couple seconds. Works great...if you're not trying to get a baby to hold still! Thought we'd share the fun in getting Pratt to not blur out.
After a few attempts, he held fairly still, and with a little color correction it came out nicely. You can even see the light shooting up from the Luxor over Janae's shoulder. 6 miles away is just the right view for us, we wouldn't want to be any closer!

Pratt's Baby Blessing

During our transition from Dallas to Vegas, we spent a lot of time vacationing in Utah. While in Utah, we had the opportunity to do Pratt's baby blessing at my parents home on September 27th. It was a wonderful blessing despite the fact Pratt cried the entire time. It was great to be surrounded by family for this special event. Here are a few photos from the day.

Pratt poses!

Here are some random updates & pictures in no particular order:

First off, Pratt...We always knew the guy was out cold when his arms limply hung straight out. He's only 5 days old here.

Same deal here, only now he's a month old.

When Pratt was one week old we took him to see Dr. Stacie Flanery, the chiropractor Janae worked for throughout much of our time in Texas.

The two main areas to check a baby for proper alignment are the Sacrum (at the bottom of the spine, shown to the left), and the Atlas (the top of the spine, shown to the right).









For anyone new to the idea of babies getting adjusted, no worries, it is very gentle with no rough twisting or cracking...and if you wonder why Pratt would need his alignment checked, try remembering back to the last time you came out of a birth canal :)

We finally left Texas on Sep 14th. Here is everything we own, minus what fit in the car.

We used 2 ReloCubes, the 6x7x8 moving containers that get dropped off at your house, picked up when you're done loading, and shipped off to your destination.








We moved to Texas in 3/4 of 1, and left with 2 full to the brim. We loved it both times, so here's a no kickbacks shout out to those considering using them. If you're good at Tetris, your stuff show's up exactly the way it left, and you never had to park a truck!





Pratt wondering what the heck we're doing with all these boxes down in Vegas...

My Birthday!

On September 26th, 1980, at 1:02 AM, I was born in St. George Utah. That would make me 29 years old today!!! Fortunately I was able to be here in Utah with family for my big day.

On Friday the 18th, during our week in Vernal, Melanie came out for one night so we could celebrate together, just like the good ol' days (Her birthday is on the 20th). Our cake has 9 candles for my 29, and 3 for her 23...yeah, the math is funny, but there were 12 candles in the box, we worked with what we had...and yes, we've got funny faces, we're in the midst of singing "Happy Birthday" to each other.









The night before my birthday we went to see an old BYU room mate and his family, John & Jen Ketcher and their little boy Evan. They surprised me with my own little piece of cake, candles and all. Pratt was thoroughly into it (he was out cold).











This morning, now at Janae's parents home, I woke up to an inflatable birthday cake down in the family room. While others in the family have already been honored with this inflatable wonder, my wife is not one of them :-)

Notice who once again is sound asleep-

September 26th, 2009: I'm a lucky husband, a proud father, a new chiropractor, and 29 years old!

A Marathon Birth

Most of Tuesday August 4th was spent going through the early stages of labor consisting of contractions every 5 to 10 minutes.

Around 8 PM we finally decided with our midwife, Dinah, to come to the birthing center. Once we got there we found out I was only dilated to a 2 1/2. The midwife sent us home to hopefully get some rest through the night.

After being home for a few hours, my contractions started to intensify; so we made the 25 minute drive back to the birthing center. At around 12:30 AM we discovered that I was dilated to a 3. We were somewhat discouraged with the lack of progress.

We spent the night at the birthing center. I spent most of that time laboring in a tub. It was during this time that I understood why so many women decide to go the epidural route. I somehow made it to the morning with the help of my husband.

Around 7:30 AM, Dinah let us know that I actually made progress and was dilated to a 7. It was at that moment, I knew I could make it through the rest of labor. It was a relief to know I was progressing.

I continued through the day dancing to Bob Marley, taking a couple of relaxing showers, drinking lots of water, and moving through contractions.

Close to 3 PM I started the pushing phase.

Around 6 PM, our midwives, Dinah and Ginger, informed us that we may need to transfer to the hospital because I was not making much progress. Thankfully, mine and the baby's vitals were great so that was not a concern. While Dinah worked on contacting her backup doctor, I worked on pushing.

A little after 7 PM, I had actually made enough progress that it would not be possible to transfer and Dinah said we were staying!

After pushing for 5 hours in almost every position possible our little baby emerged. Dinah handed me our baby and Scott announced that we had a sweet boy.

At 8:15 PM August 5th, Pratt Del Brady entered our world weighing 7 lbs 2 oz. and 21 in. long. As I held our boy in our arms, all I could say and think was "We did it!" Birth is truly a miraculous event. I felt so empowered by this marathon birth.

Our midwife Dinah is on my left. Ginger, in the back, is another midwife who came to assist with the birth.

Labor begins!

I woke up on Tuesday, August 4th, at 4:30 AM and saw Janae kneeling down at the side of the bed. Wondering what was so urgent in the middle of the night I asked "Are you praying?" Of course she wasn't, she was just kneeling against the bed to help deal with the contractions she'd been having since 3 AM.

I had to go to school at 9 AM; it was one of my assigned days in radiology rotation. I eventually left after being there for a few hours, because, uh, my wife was in labor! Fortunately her mother Sherma was with us then, so I hadn't left her completely alone.

After arriving home, most of the remainder of the day was spent like this:


Yep, for all you fellas out there feeling a little low on hugs, spend a day with your wife in labor.

She was going through contractions every 7-10 minutes from 3AM that day until 10 or 11 'o'clock that night, when things started picking up...

"OB, or not OB, that is the question"

With the approach of our new little one, we wanted to prepare the best we could and have a positive experience with pregnancy and birth. We started with an OB/Gyn because that is what "everyone" does. After several visits, we felt like I was just going through the "system". We wanted a more intimate experience than what we found at the busy medical office. We prayerfully decided on using a certified nurse-midwife, Dinah, and to birth at her Lover's Lane Birth Center in Richardson, Texas. Dinah's prenatal care was perfect for us!

The Pregnancy Adventure

We have hoped since our marriage that our first child would be a Texas baby. Our time in Texas was growing short (I was planning on graduating in August '09), so when we found out last November that we were expecting a little kiddo we were ecstatic! Here's our "in a nutshell" recap of Baby's approach:

20 Weeks, piece of cake


24 weeks, starting to notice little Baby


28 Weeks


Jumping ahead to 36 Weeks


And the famous week 40. Yep, July 23rd (the due date) and no sign that Baby's wanting to come on out of there yet.


This was taken August 2nd, 9 days after the due date, and 3 days before Baby came. August 5th will be a good story for another day!

Bandwagon Here We Come!

We've meant to get a blog going for so long, especially with the advent of our new little boy Pratt, so here we go! Last night, after a little conversation at a Dallas area Brady cousin get-together, we decided it's time to pull the trigger.