Tesla and mullets

So Steve won tickets to one of his favorite bands Tesla. They played at the Val Air Ballroom on Tuesday night. I had never even heard Tesla until I met Steve....and this is the 3rd time I've seen them in concert in 7 years! They are very good live and sound awesome!
Here is the lead singer...no idea what his name is. I'm sure he is on some sort of drugs, but what 80's rock band isn't?? ha!
My good friend Nicola was there! We've known each other since we were born and she was my personal attendant in our wedding! Even our mom's have been best friends forever! (BFF'S!)

Tesla does bring out some of Des Moines' finest. I have never seen so many men with long hair or mullets! More per capita than the Iowa State Fair!

So I decided to start a mullet collection. This guy was the best! Steve calls this one the Kentucky Waterfall.

and this was a dude. His long, flowing hair caught my eye immediately! Even the little guy in the background had a mullet!We were surrounded by the definition of white trash. We got home and looked up the definition of white trash and there was a picture of this guy! I think it's rather hot, I'm trying to get Steve to grow his hair like this...we all know he can do it!

**Disclaimer** If any of my friends or family know any of these people, I apologize for using their pictures without their consent. This blog was posted for entertainment purposes only, not to hurt anybody's feelings!

Update

Here are a couple pics of when Presley and I stayed home from work and daycare b/c she was sick....she doesn't look sick does she? She was happy as can be! Can you see her bottom teeth?
Her cheesy smile! that she does ALL THE TIME!! She thinks she is pretty cute!

We went for a long walk and this is the tree in our front yard. Pretty huh?

Here are our pumpkins! Steve's is the Hawkeyes one, and mine is the scary face which took forever!

We tried to get Presley with the pumpkins, she was crabby and it was raining so she wasn't happy. We didn't carve her perfect little pumpkin, instead we just wrote her name and the date on it. (Too bad Daddy didn't realize her pumpkin was turned sideways!)

Ear infection

Presley seemed to be feeling fine Monday morning, she slept good, ate good...no worries. We got home and did our pumpkin carving and she was grouchy! And she decided that she had slept so much over the weekend that she didn't want to sleep at all Monday night. Steve and I got about 3 hours of sleep! :( I called the doctor this morning and took her in to find out what was wrong. I figured it had to be an ear infection, but hell, you never know!
We were right, an ear infection! She also has a slight fever so I kept her home from daycare today, we didn't want to get Amelia sick too! They weighed her too, we haven't been to the doctor since the beginning of August at her 6 month check-up. She weighed 19 lbs 4 ounces, only up 3 lbs from almost 3 months ago! We don't have her official 9 month appointment until the middle of November so we'll get her official stats then!
Well since she is napping I'm going to try to catch some zzzzz's too. Later!

Carving pumpkins!

So even though Presley hadn't been feeling good when needed to get our pumpkins carved. So we basically started them to get some pictures of her and finished them after she went to bed.
Here is Presley with daddy's crooked grin and her little pumpkin! It's perfectly round...the perfect little pumpkin! Do you like her adorable overalls? Grandma Becky was very excited to buy Presley Osh Gosh B'Gosh overalls and she looks pretty cute in them!
Here is how we carve pumpkins in our house....with power tools!

She was very curious.......

and not afraid of reaching in and getting her hands dirty!

I'll have to post pictures of the finished product once I take them and upload them! Keep you in suspense for a couple days! ha

Actually crawling?

After almost 3 months of Presley pulling herself around with her arms...(scooting, army crawl whatever you want to call it...to me it looks like the breast stroke on land!) today she actually starting crawling, on all fours! She didn't go far, mainly b/c she was so whiny that she would just crawl over to us and climb on us until we picked her up. We honestly didn't think she'd ever really crawl, she always got to where she needed to go, could pull herself up on things, it just didn't seem like she was interested. We'll see what happens over the next couple days, maybe it was a fluke....like the sleeping and cuddling.
She also starting babbling tonight, just a little bit. She never really babbles....ever. I read online that babies often start 'talking' after they start to get teeth (I had never heard this before!). So maybe now that she has a couple teeth she'll start making those baby sounds that she should be making!

Sick baby!

Well Miss Presley has not been feeling good this weekend. We can tell because she has been sleeping a lot and she wants to cuddle....two things that are NOT normal for her! Saturday morning she woke up at 5 am, extremely too early. She cried off and on till about 6:45, then I brought her out to the couch with me and gave her a bottle. She fell asleep until about 8:30! Then that afternoon she took a 3 1/2 hour nap. Oh yeah! When she woke up she was cranky and just didn't act like herself. We had a party that night, we went early so we could come home early. And she fell asleep on the way there, but she was very cheerful for those couple hours. Scrunching up her face smiling at everyone, showing off her new teeth....maybe she was just sick of being in the house and sick of seeing our faces all day! :)
So Sunday, she was up at 6:30 again and only wanted to be held. Finally took a decent nap from 9-11 am, got up ate a litte lunch and just wanted to be held. I popped in Aladdin on the laptop and she actually sat on my lap and watched about 1/2 hour of it before she fell asleep again about 12:15. I watched the rest of the movie holding her until about 1:30. Then she took another 45 minute nap about 4 pm!
Don't get me wrong, I love having a baby that sleeps and likes to cuddle, but I would rather her feel good! and we'd never be able to do anything if she always slept this much! We find it hard to put her to bed at 7:30 because it seems like we hardly see her during the week and if we want to do anything or go anywhere there just isn't a whole lot of time!

Our kitchen drain isn't working. When you run the garbage disposal, black shit (not literally shit)comes up. Steve has been trying to unclog it, we've tried a whole big thing of Drano and it still isn't working right. We've been here 3 years and so far he's done a pretty good job of fixing any problems we've had, let's hope Steve can come to the rescue this time too!

I love popcorn.
I love donuts, preferably jelly filled.
I love peanut butter. I don't know what I'll do if Presley is allergic to peanuts.

Why?

Why is it when you are in a hurry, everyone drives sooooo slow?
Why when I have money to buy clothes I can't find any I like?
Why do I have to be addicted to stupid Farmville on Facebook?
Why am I not 'friends' with two of my best friends from highschool on Facebook, but I'm friends with all these other people that I rarely talked to in highschool? You would think we'd all just grow up and forget about what torn our friendships apart.
Why do I always say I'm going to go to bed right after Presley does?....and I never do.
Why are leaves in the fall so pretty?....until they fall to the ground.
Why is it so hard to appreciate your parents when you are young?.....then you grow up, move out, pay your own bills or have kids...and then the appreciation continues to grows out of control!

Click

Have you seen the movie Click with Adam Sandler? It's a weird movie but it sure makes me think twice about wishing time away. I hate cold weather and I wish spring was here, but then I think about all the things I would miss if that actually happened! Presley's first holidays! Seeing her dressed up as a ladybug for Halloween, if she'll wear her outfit for more than 5 minutes! Her first Christmas, have you seen the cute-ass holiday dresses for little girls? with the little black or red patent leather shoes and their cute little tights! I want to buy them all, but honestly she'll probably just wear the dress for pictures and that's it!
We'd miss her first birthday too! I never wanted to have a big 1st birthday party for my baby, but even if we invite all our family and a couple of her 'friends', that's still a pretty big crowd! We'll see what the next couple months bring and how big this party gets! :)
So even though Presley gets up at night and isn't always the sweetest baby in the world, I would never wish away one day with her. If you haven't seen the movie Click, I would recommend it. It can be a little depressing but it makes you thankful for what you have right now!

Rough week

Well Presley must have given both me and Steve her cold. Monday night Presley was up quite a bit and all 3 of us didn't feel good Tuesday. I took Presley to my mom's that morning and went home and went back to bed so I would feel a little better and be able to go to work. Steve stayed home from work that day, and I ended up going to work about noon. But by Wednesday night we were all feeling a little better and all sleeping thru the night again! yeah!
Thursday night I went to Daughtry in concert in Ames. I love Daughtry! Theory of a Dead Man opened for him and they sounded terrible! I was looking forward to seeing them and either the sound was off or he just can't sing very good!

oh what a pretty bald man! XOXO

Here is Presley climbing some more. Instead of going around to play with the toys on the other side of her bumbo............

She decides going over the whole thing would be easier!? She never likes to do things the easy way!

I took today off and spent the day with my baby girl. She was good for the most part, but either her teeth are bothering her or she was tired b/c she was kinda whiney and actually wanted to cuddle! It might only last 5 minutes, but it's nice to have a baby who will just sit there for 5 minutes since she has never done that for us before!

We went over to see Grandma and Presley's BFF Amelia! They were happy to see each other, even though Presley is crying in the picture.

Aren't they complete opposites of each other? Amelia with her blond hair and bright blue eyes, and Presley with her dark hair and dark brown eyes.

Busy week again

Well another busy week has passed. After seeing Wicked on Sunday, I went with my friend Cindy on Tuesday night out to dinner and then the register for her baby shower! It was kind of fun going back and seeing things I wish we would've had, or things we have that we never used! Thursday night I went out with a couple girlfriends for dinner! All 4 of us have kids under 3 years old, so it was nice to get out and relate to a couple other moms! :)
Here's Presley standing next to the chair...she's a pro at pulling herself up to everything...though she still not sure how to get down!
Presley helping me unload the dishwasher. This is one of my least favorite household chores to do, so this will be one of her first chores when she is old enough! Just like my mom did to us! :)

Presley standing in her crib waiting for one of us to come and get her.

We can no longer leave her unattended......anywhere!

Saturday I had to work for a couple hours and then we went to watch the Iowa game at Overtime with our friends Damian and Jen. It was a good game and the Hawkeyes won again! Go Hawks!

That night we met the family out for dinner with my Uncle Dave from Colorado! My mom watched Presley after dinner so we could meet Dave and his girlfriend Steph, downtown to watch The Nadas play! It was a lot of fun but we were definitely out too late for my liking! I can't handle those late nights anymore, especially when I know I'll be up at 6:30 am!

Sunday Presley and I hung out while Steve went to my parents house to install a new window for them. We did laundry and went to the grocery store. She is teething and has a cold so she was actually pretty good considering she doesn't feel that good.

That afternoon we went to the pumpkin patch!

Presley is a little over 2 feet tall....with her shoes on! :)

Sunday night we had our 'dinner club' at Lane and Rachels house. We used to get together about once a month, but since there are now 3 babies in the group we're lucky if we get together every 6 months!

Here are Presley and Preston getting to know one another...all of the kids are a little leary of each other and all the parents! I'm sure that will change as the they get older.

So Big!

Presley was working on two milestones this weekend....cutting her two bottom teeth, finally! and pulling herself up to everything without any help! She's growing too fast! :)

Well while Steve was out watching the Iowa game on Saturday night he won tickets to the Tesla concert at the Val Air Ballroom. Tesla is one of his favorite bands and I am now a converted Tesla fan. This will be the third time we've seen then in concert together! So we are off to find another babysitter for that night...Aunt Holly? AuntSamantha? :)
Sunday I went with my mom, dad and Holly to see Wicked at the Civic Center. Wicked was fantastic! I love seeing shows at the Civic Center, it always amazes me how good those people can sing! Steve and Presley had a nice daddy-daughter day together, hanging out watching football. I got home about 5:30 and they were both still in their pj's! I love pj days!

huh?

I think I'm the only person not watching the Iowa game right now. I just turned to see what the score was and Iowa threw an interception, so back to Law and Order for me!

I noticed that my traffic feed shows that I live in Johnston now? Weird, it's always said Urbandale before.

Pet Semetary 2 is on shortly. I own this movie, I've seen it a million times. Mainly because my favorite actor growing up was Eddie Furlong. I think I'm getting too old to watch scary movies, just thinking about watching this movie at night, by myself scares me. I used to LOVE scary movies, is this something that everyone grows out of as they get older? There! The movie A Walk to Remember, that seems more like it.

Home improvements!

So Steve is Mr. Handyman...and loves to have things to build or fix or improve. There has been a lot of talk in this house about slowly finishing our basement. But with limited time and money, this could be a 5 year process. We've lived in this house a little over 3 years and have done numerous home improvements. We built our 2 car garage, completely tore up the backyard (dug up all the grass, tore down the shed and fence, had the trees trimmed due to an ice storm) and reseeded it. Got new gutters, painted the house, resealed the windows, put a shower in the basement, built shelves in the basement for a storage room. Besides the garage, most of this was general home maintenance. But then we HAD to remodel the bathroom! The bathroom was the one reason I didn't want to buy this house. It was tiny, old and had no storage. Here is what the bathroom looked like when we moved in.
Yep, that's it. Nothing else to show. Pretty sad huh? Here is a picture of the new bathroom, this was right before it was complete.

and the new shower! We expanded the bathroom 3 feet. We took some space away from our front living room, but we never use that room anyway, so it was completely worth it!!

Here is the front living room before the bathroom remodel.

and afterwards....We repainted the living room, hallway and dining room and Steve refinished all the wood floors! We retrimmed and got all new doors! It was almost like a brand new house!

So there were only a couple rooms left that haven't had an upgrade.....but soon after all this we finished Presley room...and then a couple months ago we got new carpet in the living room and master bedroom, which we repainted and retrimmed also. So the basement is feeling a little neglected with all of these home improvements! Steve has a lot of ideas, I'm surprised he hasn't drawn a sketch of the layout of his man-room. He loves to dream big but like I said before, due to the lack of time and money, he might be dreaming for a while!

yada yada yada

So our friend Kenny is being deployed to Iraq soon, Steve just left to go have a couple beers with him. It's 9:15, he's going out and I'm going to bed? That doesn't add up right. Five years ago we'd get off work at Von Maur about 9 pm, go home, change and head to the bar. At 9:30 we were just starting our nights, now that's when we end them! ha! Boy, how times change!

Do you think if you had a different name that it would change who you are? I'm not saying you would be a totally different person, but I just think if my name were Mary, I would be a slightly 'different' person than who I am today. Maybe that's just me being weird. or maybe when we say 'she doesn't look like a Jessica' it actually could mean something. I couldn't be a Mary, it's too nice. I couldn't be a Candy, I'm not a stripper (no offense to those Mary's or Candy's out there).
So when you have to name a baby, it's a lot harder than what you think. My whole life I've loved all these weird names (I still like Harley and Kennedy) but when it comes to actually having to give a person a name, that will be with them forever!!!.....it is much harder than you realize! We worried about using the name Presley, but we've liked it for years! What if we never have another girl, and we don't get the chance to use the one name we both liked a lot? We had to do it.
As always, there is the association with Elvis but we were prepared for that. Then we realized that instead of PreSS-ley, some people say PreZ-ley...which no one probably even thinks about, but I do. Like my friend Colleen (Call-een, not Co-leen)! Just gives you something to think about, or maybe not....maybe that's just my crazy brain needing to go to bed.

New camera

So we got a new camera, but some of the pictures were blurry and Steve was frustrated so he exchanged it for different brand. So far it seems to do a pretty good job at catching that smile!
This picture was with the first 'new' camera!
Then we got ready for the Packers/Vikings game and put her Favre jersey on her. Favre just looks 'right' in green and gold....not that crappy purple! :(

This was with our new 'new' camera. Fresh out of the bathtub, blowing raspberries at us.

and her new smile! No more baby bird, open mouth smile.

Another weekend gone by

So Friday I decided to take a 1/2 day off work to go home and do some massive cleaning. You know, sweeping and actually cleaning the floors, dust..included the top of the microwave. I got laundry started and felt very productive! Of course now there is stuff all over the place and more laundry to do.....I hate that never-ending feeling!
Friday night my mom watched Presley so Steve and I could join Holly and her free keg at Down Under. It is always so nice to get out and be social with our friends. We didn't stay too late, Steve had to get up early to go to the Iowa game and it was my night to get up with Presley.....and you never know how that is going to go!
Saturday Presley and I had a good girls day together. We went shopping for some much needed fall/winter clothes. It's pretty bad when both mom and daughter don't have enough long sleeve shirts to make it thru the week! We spent some money, she napped and played very good! It was a good girls day!
Today, we didn't do much. Her napping schedule was all jacked up and instead of 2 naps she got 3 short naps. Steve watched more football...fantasy football is very important and can be stressful for him on Sunday's! :) He just got back from Wal-mart with our new camera! We just got a camera for our wedding 2 years ago and it has worked great until we had Presley. She does things too quickly and we miss some good shots. (because we already don't have enough pictures of her! geez....really it's a little out of hand!!) So Steve has been doing his usual research to determine what we should get (the man will get online for hours, go to stores, talk to experts and get back online again...I don't have the patience for all that, but I'm glad he does!). It is amazing how much technology can change in 2 years! So I'm sure we'll have some pictures of Miss Presley later this week. (if we can figure out the camera and how to download the pictures onto the computers!)

8 months old!

Wow, 8 months old! I don't think much has changed with her in the last month to be quite honest. We are trying to figure out a good eating and sleeping schedule with her, so we can cut out some of the problems we are having.

Our 8 month old:

• still moves/scoots/pulls herself up on things she can reach, all the time!


• prefers to be standing against anything and everything, though she doesn't quite realize that she needs to be responsible for holding herself up.


• actually makes baby sounds instead of just grunting and growling! haha


• does a good job picking up her cheerios, gerber puffs and graham crackers, she picks them up with her hand and then tries to stuff her whole hand in her mouth.


• doesn't have any teeth, but her hair is finally growing in nicely!


• doesn't sleep thru the night, she'll do good for a couple nights and then be bad for a week, it's a bad cycle that we are tired of.


• is working on pat-a-cake, so big and bye-bye, but loves to smile!!!

Look at those big brown eyes!

People are crazy....

• So I pulled up next to a pretty girl in a nice car the other day, then she started smoking! Gag me! Sorry but she became ugly real quick. I just have this image of smoking being something that dirty, white trash people do. No offense to my white trash or my smoker friends out there! I just grew up thinking that way, we were never around it, none of my close friends or family smoked. But it was at the moment I really realized that even the nice, pretty, rich people smoke....but it still makes them ugly
• On my way to work this week there was guy riding his bike in the street, against traffic, on Martin Luther King at 7:15 am? I think maybe he was hoping to get hit.
• Yesterday I saw a man with the top down on his convertible. Normally that would be fine, but it was 55 degrees, windy and raining....it's not like he got caught out in the rain and didn't get a chance to put the top up....it had been raining all day!
• I was beginning to think maybe my mom and I were the only people who haven't smoked anything ever, but I found another person. A guy I work with, high five to you Christian!....the only reason we were talking about it was because Steve was redoing and getting rid of the old duct work in the basement a couple months ago and he found a baggy of pot in the old duct work! Who does that? and if you do hide you pot, don't you think you should remember where you put it? Who knows how long it had been there!
• I underwrite mortgage loans at work...a lot of times we consolidate credit card debt into the new mortgages....I think too highly of people. In my mind I think "we'll payoff this $50k in credit card debt for them and they'll be smart enough NOT to go charge them up again"....and every single God damn time they go and charge them back up and then want to refinance 6 months later! STOP using your credit cards!!

Embarrassing!

So I heard there is a new comedian on Saturday Night Live and on her first appearance on live TV, she cussed! I guess she was mortified and didn't go to the after-hours party, I'm sure it is something she will remember for the rest of her life! But it got me thinking about embarrassing things that have happened to me that I remember....or maybe they didn't happen to me, they happened to someone else but I was so embarrased for them that I think it was me? :) So I'll go ahead and relive some of my embarrassing stories for your enjoyment!

• In middle school gym class, we had to run sprints. My shoe stubbed the floor and I fell in front of everyone. No one else probably remembers this, but I do!
• In middle school (again!) I was in English class with Mr. Wiggins and I didn't feel good. Now, I don't like to draw attention to myself, so for me to even ask to go to the nurses office was out of my comfort zone. In the hallway on the way to the nurse, I puked all over the floor. Thank goodness everyone else was in class!
• I have no idea how old I was, but I think we were picking up a pizza from G-Wiz (is that how they spelled it??) and I went in to the store. I came back out and was then told that my dress/skirt was caught in the back of my tights! This story might have been my sister, but I'm not for sure! Still embarrassing!
• In college, I asked a friend was he was getting his mother for Mother's Day.....totally forgetting the fact that his mom died when he was in highschool....open mouth, insert foot!

There are just some of the events that come to mind right away.......Of course, I hate anytime I have to speak or be in front of a lot of people! I let Holly and Samantha take the attention, they are good at that. So I admire this Saturday Night Live comedian, I admire any one who has enough courage to ACT, in front of PEOPLE on LIVE television (my worst nightmare).

Sorry!

I follow a lot of blogs and don't like it when I have to go days and days without an update. It's disappointing to me! So I apologize for being one of those people. I last updated Saturday night. I have things I want to post, but haven't had the time......or we've been going to bed at 9 pm since Presley has decided that sleeping is not important to her.
So this is my pathetic attempt at a blog, to hold you guys over until I can post again! :)