Catch up

Here are some pics from our short visit to the ISF last weekend. The Star Boars sand sculpture was pretty cool!
Presley playing in the water fountain, until another kid ran into her and knocked her down then she was done with it.

So my kinda semi-cousin country singer Trent (my aunt is married to his uncle) was back in town playing at the casino in Osceola. Friday night me, Holly, Steve and my dad all went down to watch him. It was fun and we even had some time to chat with him after the show.

Steve's employer had a company picnic on Saturday afternoon! They had Famous Dave's and brought their margarita machine to a shelter up by Saylorville. There were soooo many kids there....and of course, Presley didn't leave our side, she wanted nothing to do with the other kids! It was very nice of them to organize this, they have been pretty good to us over the last couple years.

My dad got us two free tickets for the Saturday night show also, so my friend Cindy and I headed down there to watch him again! It was good to be able to catch up with her on the drive and again we got to talk to him and the band after the show for a while! Fun times!

Today I spent some time at work and Steve had his fantasy football draft (is it really football season already? Where did summer go?).

Presley's new bad habit? Talking on the phone! She has 3 fake cell phones, 1 flip phone and 2 with slide-out keyboards. She tries to hold the phone between her ear and shoulder (hmmm...maybe she watches us too much?) and babbles on and on! Also we are thinking maybe she can be the worlds fastest text messager by the time she is 5.

They say by the time kids turn 18 months they start to slow down and sit still longer. Yeah right, P's almost 19 months and she is in no way interested in sitting still for anything. We have a ton a Disney movies....I keep trying to find the one that will keep her attention for more than 5 brief seconds. No luck so far.

Woot Woot!! (as my mom would say)

FEMA pulled thru! We filled out a FEMA disaster relief application online Sunday afternoon. Two of our neighbors had luck getting a little help, so we figured we might as well try and see what happens. Monday morning they called and wanted to come out to the house that afternoon! They came out took some pictures and asked some questions and said it would take 3-5 days to hear something. Tuesday night we called the application status phone number and they said we had been approved! Wednesday morning we had the money in our checking account! How awesome is that? It will cover all the money we spent on this whole flooding basement situation! I won't mention who our insurance company is, but we are still waiting to hear from them. It took them 2 weeks to send someone out to the house and now going on 3 weeks, we still don't know if they will cover anything. At this point, it doesn't really matter, especially since we never thought they would cover anything anyway.

Why is it my husband hates watching the same movie twice (unless he REALLY loves it) but he has no problem watching football games that he's seen already? (damn you Big10 Network for replaying Iowa games ALL the time!)

I'm not sure if it is bad or good that I've rec'd more bonuses and appreciation for my time and hard work at my job in the last 6 months (now that I'm in WDSM) than I did in the 6 years I was downtown?! It's good for me now, but kinda disappointing that a large corporation can't reward their employees they way they sometimes should. (Let me remind you that both jobs are with the same company, just different entities) At this point, I'll take what I can get and just be happy that I have a job!

My baby nephews due date is tomorrow! Hurry up kid! I already have a busy weekend planned and I know you are going to make an appearance soon, so waiting until Monday might work best for me. Thank you!

Another weekend gone by.....

Saturday I went into work (still need to get in 5 hours of overtime a week) and the insurance adjuster came out to take pictures and all the other crap they do. He still had no answers for us, so we are still waiting to figure out if insurance is going to cover anything. At this point, we don't think they will but we'll be happy if we get anything out of this. We are also filing a claim with the city of Urbandale and with FEMA, maybe one of them will pan out.
Saturday night we headed down to Creston for a doggy funeral. :( Brandon's dog Buddy Maximus, who he has had for over 10 years, past away last weekend and we all got together to 'remember' Buddy and to support Brandon (we knew he was having a tough time dealing with this loss). Brandon put together a slide show and had a nice 'eulogy', it actually brought tears to my eyes! Dog-people understand.

This morning we headed down to the Iowa State Fair, we got down there right at 9 am when they opened to beat the heat and the crowds. Presley was not impressed. She wasn't real happy with anything, which made it a fairly quick trip for us. The most amazing thing I saw was when they had the National Anthem at 10 am. They announced it and had a girl singing.....and EVERYONE stopped, took their hats off and listened. It was awesome to see thousands of people take a minute to stop. I was impressed (impressed probably b/c at the fair you get used to seeing mullets and muffin tops).
We spent the afternoon doing laundry and cleaning. Steve worked some more in the garage and basement, trying to get stuff organized and back in the basement where it belongs. I made our weekly trip to Target and the grocery store, and then we spent the evening just hanging out and playing with Presley! Another busy weekend, followed by another busy week and weekend ahead of us. Hope you all have a great week and enjoy the nice weather ahead of us! :)

Tough little cookie

It feels good as a parent to know (or think you know) when something is wrong with your child. I think I mentioned that Presley did not take a nap on Sunday afternoon....that was the first sign. Then Monday night she woke up at 2 am....and would scream if we laid her back down. We would rock her until she fell back asleep and the second you laid her down..wahhhhhhhhhh. Then Tuesday night she woke up at 4 am. We brought her into bed with us, she laid there for the most part but I don't think she actually slept. Every time I looked at her, she was just laying there with her eyes wide open. Lovely.
Presley always sleeps.....except when she has an ear infection. But she never 'acts' sick, doesn't have a fever, nothing. So on a hunch we made her a doctors appt for Wednesday morning, luckily my mom was able to take her so we didn't have to miss more work. I was almost hoping she DID have an ear infection so I didn't send my mom to the doctor for nothing!....and she did! She is also working on 3 teeth. Teething normally doesn't bother her though, my mom usually lets us know when P's gums are getting red or swollen otherwise we would have no idea she was even teething! And she loves the teething tablets we give her, she thinks they are candy (but I think they just taste like chalk?!). Weird kid.

The power of positive thinking!

Please keep thinking and praying for our friend Lane, who went in for brain surgery on Friday to remove more of his tumor. So far, so good! We are waiting to hear another update on his recovery. You can read their story and updates on their blog listed on my blog list.

My sister Samantha is due to have her baby soon! Her feet are so swollen, but other than that she seems to be doing good. They are very excited and are getting the last couple things in order for baby boy. She's gained more weight than I did, so that makes me happy! haha!

Let's try again.

So a week ago is when all this crap started, I'm hoping this week is a little better. However, Presley hasn't been feeling that good today and didn't take a nap so I'm not holding my breath for that to happen.
Steve missed a bachelor party this weekend so that he could stay home and do more cleaning and get things back to 'normal'. Presley and I stayed with my parents on Friday night, I was hoping she would sleep in like she had done for my mom ALL week. She had a different plan for me, 6:10 am.....you have got to be kidding me! This child has it out for me! I didn't want to wake my parents up so we snuck out and headed home to wake up Steve! Since it had been so hot all week P didn't get to spend hardly any time outside so I decided to take her to the downtown farmers market with Aunt Holly. The weather was perfect and it wasn't too crowded! That afternoon I went home to help Steve with more cleaning and Presley, once again, took a nice long nap for my mom.

Today Steve and his brother Matt got our new hot water heater installed and we purchased a new washer and dryer! The furnace is still working!!!! and so is my treadmill (guess I have no excuses not to use it now!) Presley did not take a nap all day and screamed and cried when we put her down tonight! Not a good sign! I'm sure she'll sleep good for my mom tomorrow though! :)

I'm just tired and my stress level is starting to go down, but I know with our work schedules and all the stuff we still need to get done around here that it'll rise back up in no time. The insurance adjustor is coming Saturday, so maybe that will help relieve some of my worries!

The battle against Mother Nature

So Monday night it poured again, at least all of our stuff had been cleared out and moved to higher ground b/c the water came pouring back UP into our basement. Another 12 inches. I went to work late so I could be on sump pump watch and then Steve got off work early to start the clean up AGAIN.
I packed some bags and Presley and I headed to my mom's for the night while Steve prepared for the third night of storms and rain. He was prepared this time, 3 pumps, 2 dehumidifires and 2 large fans. He was up most of the night waiting for the water to come and when it did he was ready for 'battle'! :) and he did great! He was able to keep the pumps going to keep up with the water coming in and he contained it to only one room!
We started our bleaching fun last night, Steve got his future 'man-room' all clean (since that is the room furthest from the drain!) and hopefully we can get the other rooms under control this weekend, get our house back to normal and get some answers with our insurance and functionality of our furnace and hot water heater.
Tonight I'm going to try out our washer and dryer to see if they are still in working order, keep your fingers crossed that something works!

It has been a long ass day!

So we knew there were storms coming. But we were not prepared for 4 hours of storms, rain, wind and more rain. The thunder was out of control and it was hard to sleep (except if you were under the age of 2, then you didn't hear anything and slept the night away!). We've never had water problems in our basement, a trickle here or there but nothing like our neighbors have had in the past! About 2 am, Steve took a look downstairs. He didn't even have to take a step down and he saw water, we knew it was trouble. The water was coming up the sewer drain and there was no stopping it!
This is our main basement area, that we had started to finish....thank goodness this is all the farther we got!
less than 10 minutes later, it just kept coming in.

This is our laundry/bath/storage room, where the drain was located. We had the most water back here, it was easily over 12 inches high by morning.

This is the last time I actually got into the water. The sump pump was running, the sewer was still pumping water into our basement and then our furnace started making noise so we had to turn the air conditioner off (with 90 degree weather all week, I was worried!)

I took Presley to my mom's about 8 and Steve and I started in with our clean up. The neighborhood was buzzing! Everyone was outside, pumping water, talking about what to do. The lady across the street had 4 FEET of water in her basement!!!!

We had a lot of things in plastic bins and were able to get most of them to higher ground without getting ruined. But we lost a lot of things too, makes me sad but it always could've been worse!

I should be able to talk to a claims adjuster tomorrow to figure out what insurance will cover, we took pictures of everything we threw away just in case we are able to claim it.

The air conditioner is on, but we will be having it checked anyway. We'll probably need a new hot water heater and dryer (I had to shopvac water out of the inside of the dryer!) Right now, the washing machine looks promiseable if we can get hot water!

All the water is out and everything is trashed or drying out in the garage. We still need to bleach everything and get it all dryed out before we move anything back in. Hopefully tomorrow will provide us with more answers. I shouldn't complain, this is really the first 'bad' thing to happen to our home in the time we have lived here.

Thanks to Jordan, Derek (sorry about your toe!), and Jared for coming over to help!!! We couldn't have done it without you!

Thanks to my parents for watching Presley extra late and letting us borrow whatever we needed!

It's 9 and I'm ready for bed. Steve finally stopped working in the basement and just left for Wal-mart. I think we'll both sleep good tonight!...now if only I can get Presley to sleep! :)

I know, I know!!!!!!!

The last thing we need is more pictures!
But look, we got a family picture! A good one, finally!
She was not as willing to smile and sit still as she was for her 12 month pictures but we still got a couple cute ones.

This was Daddy's outfit choice! Her Aerosmith shirt and her pink converse shoes!

Summer fun!

Tuesday night, Holly was nice enough to watch Presley for us and we went and saw the moving Inception. This is the first movie we have seen in the theater since January 2009 (we saw Gran Torino)...and before that it had been probably 3 years when we saw Wedding Crashers! Presley was actually really good for Holly and that makes all of us soo happy!!!
Wednesday morning we got pounding with rain...our side of town was flooding in less than an hour. I had to chance my morning route to my mom's b/c there were so many roads underwater! I saw too many cars stranded with water up to the windows or taillights! Scary stuff!
Our neighbors yard always floods. All of our yards kinda drain into his which will occasionally spread against our driveway. Needless to say I made Steve back my car out of the driveway for me b/c there was no way I was going to walk thru this water, which was about 6 inches deep!

Thursday night we headed to the Valley Junction farmers market and Presley and Steve did a little dancing to the music.

Friday night we were lucky enough to have my mom watch Presley so we could go on a double date with Brock and Jackie. We went to the new bar Mullets and then headed to the ICubs game. It was fun and the weather was great! Presley did not cooperate Saturday morning by sleeping in and instead was up at 7:30, bummer. Steve had to work for a couple hours so P and I decided to visit a couple garage sales. We found some good deals for Presley's new cousin, who should be here in less than a month!

We actually bought Presley a big kid potty this week. She really doesn't know what to do with it, but she'll sit on it thinking she is pretty cool. We just want her to get used to the idea of the potty but we have no intentions of trying to potty train her anytime soon!

18 months!!

At one point, 18 months ago, my baby was the size of a Cabbage Patch Kid. All 5 pounds 12 ounces of her!
Now she will step on him and throw him across the room......while smiling!

Presley had her 18 month check up today. Chunky monkey!

She is 31 inches tall which is the 68th percentile and 27.3 pounds which is the 86th percentile. She started out in 3% and has slowly made her way up to 86%. She grew about 2 inches and 2 pounds in 3 months! We got the ok to now switch her to skim milk since that is what we drink!

Our baby:

• loves to eat..... mostly fruits and veggies! Green beans, broccoli, strawberries and blueberries are some of her favorites! Don't get me wrong, she likes french toast sticks, pancakes, french fries and pizza too!
• loves to sleep! Most of the time she'll sleep 12 hours during the night and will take a 3 hour afternoon nap if we let her.
• has 9 teeth, 6 on top and 3 on bottom.
• usually wears 24 month to 2T clothes.
• talks a lot, but doesn't say much! Ma, Da, shoes, da (for dog and duck), more, uh (for up). Occasionally we can get Ha (for Holly) or Sa (for Sam). She is a one syllable kinda girl.
• will do sign language for more, bath and milk.
• loves eating with a fork, or taking bites out of big kid food. Bite size pieces insult her.
• loves being outside and playing in or with water! She could do it all day. She is even cooperative when putting on sunscreen!
• will give open mouth kisses. Aren't we lucky!
• will dance or head-bang to music (she doesn't quite understand what music you should head-bang to and what music is just for dancing). and likes to clap along when we watch Wheel of Fortune!
• is so close to climbing (a.k.a falling) out of her crib! And I'm really not ready to fight a toddler bed yet!
• is a pain in the butt to change her diaper! You would think she would just get used to it after all this time!
• is a Daddy's girl! Chooses to hang on him when he is around, if not then I qualify to be good enough for her :)
• loves books, and pushing around her baby doll stroller with a purse on her shoulder! That is the girly side of her. Then she'll climb on her Little People parking garage and throw balls at your head, the not-so-girly side!

One of our garage sale purchases. We realize this thing will only get used once in a while, so why would we buy a brand new one?

Presley Grace, you make us laugh! You love attention, running around babbling and waiting for a response from anyone and everyone! I love coming home to the pitter patter of your little feet running threw the kitchen knowing that Mama is home. That smile and cheesy grin make me want to kiss you and stick you in my pocket to have you with me all the time. (well, maybe not ALL the time!) Some day I hope you want to cuddle with us as much as we do with you, but we understand you are busy. There is too much to do, too much to see and not enough hours in the day to get up and down off the couch, our laps, the chairs and the toys.

We love you peanut!

Love, Mama and Dada

I knew it!

That little stinker! Steve had to wake Presley up at 9:40 this morning! Who knows how long she would've slept! We have lunch at 11:00 at Olive Garden so I hope she is hungry in an hour!
Don't get me wrong I love the fact that she sleeps in, but hellooooooo!!!!! Where was that yesterday morning??