Could we have a 3 day weekend?

Friday night we got invited over to Presley's bestfriends house! Amelia (who my mom used to babysit) and Presley were so cute together. Laughing and chasing each other around. It was so nice to see and of course, I forgot my camera! Amelia will be 2 in November and she is the smartest little kid I've ever seen! It is amazing how much she talks, knows and understands....she is only 3 months older than Presley but she is so smart for her age!

Saturday we headed to Kansas City for a wedding. Eric and Kylie had the nicest, probably most expensive wedding we have been to. Presley was actually good and fairly quiet during the ceremony. We were secretly pleased to see other parents leaving with their kids, we bribed our kid with crackers...and it seemed to work for the most part. :)
The reception started off with fancy appetizers and the meal was great! Open bar, a band and Steve's favorite part....midnight snacks of mini-cheeseburgers, hotdogs and heart-shaped donuts! Plus we got wine stoppers and a cork screw as party favors. It was a beautiful wedding and reception, and we are so happy we finally got to meet Kylie. We wish them years of happiness and fun in St. Lucia on their honeymoon!

Of course, I took some pictures of P.
This is the look I got when I brought out the camera for the first time.

Mom, seriously, another picture? People are tired of the pictures!


Grandma, get me out of here! They made me wear a dress and I have a feeling they will try to make me dance!

I told you I wasn't going to dance!

It is past my bedtime! If we take this picture, can I please go to bed?

More dancing? Dad, I thought we talked about this!

Overall Presley was very good! We couldn't have asked for a happier baby. She was a trooper!

We got home today and Steve had some uninterrupted football time while P and I took naps! The house is a mess and there is laundry that needs to be done, but tomorrow is another day.

Happy Anniversary!

Wednesday was our 3 year wedding anniversary! It seems like just yesterday! We went out to dinner at Trostels Dish (one of our favs) and then went shopping! Not real romantic but whatever.
These last 3 years have been fun, wonderful and a blur. Times passes too quickly! We are in love with each other and our baby girl. Steve, you are my best friend and I love you. Thank you for being such a wonderful husband and father.
Here are some pics from that day that most people have probably never seen. These bring back great memories, I wish I could go back to that day and relive it all over again!
Most wedding parties, the men hold the bride. We tried the opposite. No one was too thrilled about trying to lift Steve but it was funny!

Our 'Charlie's Angels' pose. Holly was all ready smiling for the camera....Samantha was thinking "who are Charlie's Angels'?

One of my favorite pictures of my parents! So happy and smiling! And secretly, probably thinking 'One daughter down, two to go!'

Positive thinking

I'm being too negative these days, so this is my effort to be a little more positive! Five things that made me happy today:

1) Seeing Daughtry sing on Dancing with the Stars. I love music, we love music, Presley loves music. It makes me happy, I love singing along. I love American Idol just to see normal people make it big.
2) Having a good cry, watching the Biggest Loser makes me cry every week! It makes me realize that I can run a mile if a 300 lb man can. One of the contestants lost her 3 year old son to cancer. That made me cry. It makes you put things in perspective and helps you realize that life is too short to complain about the small things.
3) This smiling face. Every time the camera comes out she breaks out this cheesy smile. LOVE IT! (side note: we got out the bouncy seat for Boston to use, this isn't a normal toy for her!)
4) My parents rock. My parents always volunteer to do anything for all of us. A lot of my friends don't have family in town, we don't always realize how easy and wonderful we really have it. We can never thank them enough for everything they do!
5) My super-handy husband who amazes me every day with things he knows (or thinks he knows). He has helped my parents put windows in their house, he's going to help my sister put in her door and is always willing to help his brother out with work.....and that isn't including all the stuff he does around the house(or wants to do....finish the basement, build a shed, build a swingset and playhouse, the list goes on and on).

Did I mention this face?

How many coaches are needed?

Maybe it's just football season that brings out the 'coach' in everyone! People talk to so much crap it drives me crazy. I told Steve that I might not check Facebook on the weekends b/c I get so tired of all the football comments.
Before the game, everyone is confident and talking shit.
During the game, (if they are losing) everyone is calling it quits and turns their back on the team.
After the game, everyone has an idea of what went wrong and what needs to be changed.

Everyone knows everything!

Target

Normally I love Target! Don't we all? But I was just irritated by our whole trip today.

1- It was rainy and yucky outside, I really didn't want to get dressed and leave the house but we needed some groceries and we still need to by our niece a birthday present (2 weeks late).
2 - Presley was not good, she didn't want to sit in the cart, didn't want to be carried and cried for no reason. She really wanted to get down and run around, but she just likes to tear things off the shelves so we couldn't let that happen b/c I just didn't want to deal with it today.
3 - People walked....sooooo.....slooowwww. Or they stopped in the middle of the aisle. I expect this from people shopping at Wal-mart so I was trying to breathe deep to not freak out.
4 - Since we have been looking at big girl beds we have been looking new bedding for P also. Though it seems all the toddler bedding for girls is either some cartoon character which she has no interest in (no offense to Dora, Minnie and all the Disney Princesses) or flowers and butterflies, which is fine but Presley is not really a butterflies and flowers kinda girl. Sooooo if we don't choose these options, it looks like we are buying bedding for a teenager! That makes me want to cry! I don't want my 20 month old in a 13 year olds room!
5 - My ex-best friend was there. We were friends from first grade until we were seniors in high school. She decided to follow her boyfriend to college and I followed mine (funny neither one of us are still with those boys). Things happened and we just grew apart. I don't really have any hard feelings towards her but we aren't even Facebook friends. I'm fine with it, I haven't talked to her in probably 10 years but the girl saw me and decided to go down the next aisle. Maybe it was just a coincidence....maybe not.

Yada, yada, yada

- The Iowa game is on right now and they are losing. Steve is pacing, he can't sit still and he just opened a beer. He is making me nervous. He is talking about the players and calling plays and the poor guy would love for me to be more into the game.
- Samantha, Jon and Boston are doing good. She is thinking this whole having a baby thing is pretty easy. I can't wait for reality to hit. He'll cry for no reason eventually and they'll resort to running the water in the sink or bathtub to calm him down. At some point, she'll call mom to come over b/c she just can't take the crying any more and there must be something wrong with him b/c he just won't stop crying!
- We went looking for a big girl bed for Presley. We aren't ready to buy one yet, but one of these days she is going to flip herself out of her crib....and then we'll go buy one!
- Next weekend we are taking Presley to a wedding in KC. This will be her first wedding and her first time in a church since her baptism. Kinda sad huh?
- Our anniversary is Wednesday, we might do dinner and go shopping. Real romantic huh?
- I'm loving this thunderstorm right now. Please don't hail, our cars are not in the garage tonight.................damn it! It just started hailing!
- I'm going to bed and I'll pray for the hail to stop and the Hawks to win. Good-night.

Sometimes you need to take a hint......

So we planned on going to Creston for Balloon days Saturday morning, we wanted to see the parade and then Steve's uncle was having a retirement party after 40 years of working on the railroad! We just got the DVD player in the trailblazer fixed Friday so Saturday morning Steve moved the car seat from his work truck into the trailblazer and we packed up and got ready to leave. The car wouldn't start. Really? REALLY? We tried to jump it with his work truck, nothing.
Then we couldn't get the keys out of the ignition! Luckily, we had another set of keys and could manually lock the doors. We loaded everything up into my equinox and headed on our way. We stopped to get gas before heading out of town and realized Steve had left his cell phones in his car. His cell phones that have all the phone numbers we need for when we get to Creston, so we turned around and went home to get them. At this point, I thought maybe this was a huge sign that maybe we shouldn't be going to Creston. UGH! Finally, 45 minutes after we had originally 'left', we were really, truly on our way. Poor Presley had been strapped in her car seat the whole time and was not ready to spend another hour in the car. Fun for us.
Good news is, the parade started late and we actually got there in time to see most of it! It was a little chilly and rainy but Presley got a couple suckers that kept her happy.

We headed over to Randy's retirement party and saw the whole family. Presley warmed up after a while and actually would walk away from us! She smiled and talked and followed her cousin Ava around....and she hadn't taken a nap all day! We finally left about 4 pm and Presley was asleep in her carseat before we got out of town!

Tomorrow we don't really have any plans which is good since we don't have another free weekend until the first weekend of November!

Little Miss

had an obsession with her sunglasses on Wednesday night. She didn't (wouldn't) wear these things all summer, but for some reason they were cool enough for her now. She's probably been watching us wear our sunglasses all summer and realized they might not be so bad!
With her bucket....again.

They kept sliding off her little nose, so she kept pushing them back up!

With the bucket and the sunglasses......no question about it, she is the coolest baby on the block.

It makes me sad that my baby girl is not a baby! :(

At 19 months she has never had a hair cut and these are her first pigtails! I thought they were too cute, I'm just too lazy to fight her every day to try to do it. She just looks like a little girl now!

Just like a teenager, texting away.

Saturday we mostly hung out at home and got ready to watch the Hawks play! After the Hawks won, we headed out to watch the horse races, figured there aren't going to be too many nice weekends left so we needed to take advantage of it!

Sunday we decided to get out and have a picnic up near Saylorville. We found a spot near the river and ate our PB&J sandwiches and cheetos. Presley loved the cheetos, as you can see from her cheesy face and hands!

We walked around and P picked up sticks and rocks to put in her bucket.
That afternoon while Steve did some yard work, Presley and I headed to Grandmas house to see baby Boston and root on the Packers. She liked Boston, after she got over the urge to poke him in the eyes.

(Grandma and Presley have the same hair!)

And she has successfully used the potty after every bath this week! Maybe I should branch out and try other times during the day?! (but that seems like too much work.....man, I'm lazy!)

My fantasy football team is losing.

Shady days

So our neighbor had these two nice, big trees in his backyard........
now they are gone. It seems extremely weird to have this much sunlight around. I love the shade of the large trees, even though I hate raking. Our neighbor said he doesn't want to rake this year, but I'm not sure how he is going to stop our leaves from blowing into his yard! HA!

Minimum payments

So we charged our washer, dryer and deep freezer onto our Nebraska Furniture Mart credit card. We were able to get no interest until August 2012 and we knew we'd have it paid off by then. We haven't received a credit card statement in a long time so maybe this is a new feature, but our statement gives us the information for if we pay the minimum payment that it will take us 7 years to pay it off! and by the time it is paid off our $1500 will end up being $2300! That is crazy to me! I know people ONLY pay the minimum payment all the time (I look at credit bureaus all day long!) but 7 years to payoff $1500....who knows if the washer and dryer will still be working then or if we'll be living in the same house! No wonder people can't get out of credit card debt!

Labor Day!

Saturday we went over to Brock and Jackie's house to watch the Iowa game! Miss Presley and Ava were decked out in their Hawkeye gear and looking cute! The Hawks won so everyone was happy! (they kinda have the same hair, don't they?)
Sunday morning we wanted to take advantage of the awesome weather so we headed to the zoo. Presley loved the animals, her favorites were the ducks and fish (real original huh?)! It was nice and cool so the animals were rather active, which made it a little more fun!

Sunday night we had a couple friends over. Todd and Cari stopped by and Mark and Kelli brought over their 2 month old, Brody. Presley actually warmed up to everyone and had fun! She even liked the baby!

Today the whole family was able to get together at my parents house to eat lunch and see baby Boston. We also did our normal weekend routine of cleaning, laundry and grocery store. We were able to play outside and go for walk.... we are loving this weather! Presley loves to pick up rocks or sticks and put them in her bucket.

We got her some new Nike tennis shoes, they kinda give her cankles but they make her look so grown-up too!

Sporting her cool Nadas shirt that her great-uncle Dave got for her!

Hope you all had a good, long weekend......I'm already counting down the days until our next holiday and day off from work!

Don't mock me!

So we got a new washer and dryer after the water damaged them. At first I thought it was pretty cool that they chime and the dryer plays a little song when the cycle is done running. Then today I realized, the dryer is mocking me. It's playing a cheerful, little song as if to say "Congrats! You got your ass off the couch and did a load of laundry!"

Potty training? No thanks!

So we bought Presley a potty chair with no intentions of her using it or us training her how or when to use it. She loves to sit on it, fully clothed or buck naked!
Monday after Steve gave her a bath, she sat on her potty...thinking she was so big and cool. Stood up and peed all over the floor. Oh well, at least she has the right idea?!
But then last night after I gave her a bath she was sitting on the potty and actually peed in it! I was a bit shocked and happy! I'm not sure she had any idea of what she just did but that is ok with me! Honestly, I'm lazy and the thought of taking off her diaper and trying to 'potty train' seems like a lot of work to me. I'm all for diapers at this point.

Welcome Boston Tucker!

So Monday Samantha had her weekly doctors appt...3 days after her due date. Nothing. They decided that she would go in that night to see if maybe they could get her dilated and then try to induce her Tuesday morning.
Presley LOVED the grilled corn on the cob we had for dinner Monday night! And April was nice enough to watch P for us on Tuesday so my mom could spend the day at the hospital.

Tuesday morning came and went......Tuesday afternoon nothing much changed. Epidural, contractions, slowly (very slowly) dilated to 7 cm by Tuesday night. Finally they decided a c-section was going to be necessary at 11 pm. At 11:03, Sam and Jon welcomed their baby boy into the world. Boston Tucker, 8 lbs 15 oz, 20 1/4 inches long.
Grandma with her grandson....first boy on this side of the family!

Grandpa with Boston.

Me with Boston! Presley didn't care when I was holding him, but when Steve held Boston she cried and cried! Good thing there is no baby in our immediate future b/c she is not ready to share her daddy!