DS1 weighs 3 lbs 4 oz
DS2 weighs 3 lbs 4 oz

boys are stable and gaining weight (still), so things appear to be on up and up.

DS1 is 3 lbs
DS2 is 2 lbs 14 oz

DS2 gained 80 grams yesterday-almost 3 ounces.

We spent $1300 on various baby things on Sunday. I think spending like this could really stimulate economy. My wife and I did our part.

Diaper Genie
Comforter set x1
baby sleep/motion detection systems x2
swing x1
bouncy seat x1
crib sheets
winnie the pooh decorations for nursery
outlet covers
power strip covers
cupboard locks

and the list goes on and on.

It is amazing what things cost retail for kids. Babies R Us was packed. The trip filled my honda ridgeline and I could barely see out the back.

New babies means a new budget. Wife and I are working through it over next few weeks.

Because they are preemies, we have decided to avoid daycare for first 9 months. Our boys are at high risk of infection and sickness, so we need to protect them from diseases like RSV and other illnesses.

Issue 1- tax return is expected to be 4k (refund in 07 without kids was 3k+). The plan is to change wife's withholdings and bring home about $400 more per month.

Issue 2- wife's student loans were paid off with 2007 tax return. Monthly savings of $220.

$620/month should pay for diapers and formula.

That should allow the Roth's to stay in the budget at $875/month for 2008 and maybe 2009.

Issue 3- I am losing 10k cash income per year from soccer because my work schedule is moving from 8-5 to 2-10. The benefit to this is we will not need to pay for daycare.

Issue 4: My wife's car lease is up in Aug of 09. That is $350/month we need to keep in budget to get her another car. She puts around 50k miles on car every 3 years for work (travels quite a bit locally). More than likely another lease. We will owe close to 4k when we turn this lease in as well.

Issue 5: My truck payment of $700 will be done in Aug of 2010. This money comes into budget for something.

Suggestion 6: Take the $700 truck payment and apply it to 2nd mortgage (7.5% interest rate). 2nd mortgage is 55k or so right now. My math had the $700 paying this off in 5-7 years at around 2015.

Suggestion 7: take the $700 car payment and $400 mortgage payment and start a multiprong weath building strategy:
$300 for college fund twin A
$300 for college fund- twin B
$500 into new car fund for me
All $1100 is actually the same account because all needs are medium term. PRPFX is fund I use for this account (this is also the mortgage paydown account/ secondary emergency fund).

Overall plan up to this point is to retire at age 53 (kids will be 18 then). We have 160k already set aside, and set aside close to 17k per year for retirement.

Thoughts?

Here are baby pics for anyone interested.

My wife and I want to take pictures of our sons before they grow out of their incubators with objects which show relative size.

Wedding rings were suggested already by hospital- those pics will be taken tommorrow.

A friend gave us two build a bears which are each bigger than each of our sons, but the issue with the bears is
a) they cannot be put in incubator (not sanitary) and no one really knows how big a teddy bear is (you could buy a teddy bigger than me and I'm 6'1" 170#.

I was thinking maybe a coffee mug or similar. Any other ideas?

Like their father, my kids could not wait. My wife had an emergency C section on March 27 to deliver 2 boys. My wife was 28 weeks pregnant.

The good news is my wife came home. She had been in hospital since the 20th week of her pregnancy and our house was getting lonely for 8 weeks for me.

The boys are stable in the ICU at a great Neo-natal unit. Within 5 days they were taken off all breathing support (they are breathing on their own). Now we need to see kids grow.

DS1 was born 2 lbs 14 oz and was 2 lbs 11 oz when he was weighed yesterday.

DS2 was born 2 lbs 6 oz and was 2 lbs 3 oz when he was weighed yesterday.