Weekend Update

We had another incident with Piper at daycare on Friday.....this time it she was screaming in her friends faces, throwing crayons on the floor multiple times and coloring on the table.....awesome huh? I think she misses her old teacher Abby who left the center 2 weeks ago...about the time all of this started! :(

 

Friday night I met some girls out for happy hour for  my friend Lisa's birthday! We hung out at Bar Louie for a while and then headed to Polk City to meet up with our spouses at Sandbar. It was a lot of fun and a lot of laughs....and we were out until almost 1 am!

 

Saturday Steve got up with the girls, too early for our liking! Then we headed back up to the Sandbar for brunch (and to pick up our other car since we had both cars there). Piper only had one small fit at the very beginning but other than that, they were pretty good. We left and Steve and Piper headed to Fareway and Presley and I went to wash my car and get gas. Once we got home I cleaned and vacuumed the inside of it! Boy did it need it!

Then we basically hung outside! Steve worked on the staining of the concrete around the shed, the girls played with the neighbors and just enjoyed the nice weather!

Then we put the top down on the jeep and went for a drive. We stopped by my parents house and then went to a playground to run off some more energy!

Once we got home we decided that a little quiet time was needed by all us. I tried to lay down with Piper in our bed, Presley laid on the couch with a movie and I think I was the only one to actually fall asleep. We spent the rest of the night playing outside, doing laundry and cleaning.

 

Sunday Presley and I headed to Target for some things and then we didn't do much until the Iowa basketball game at 3, It was just too windy and chilly to try to spend more time outside. So we headed over to Sarah and Kyle's to hang out and watch the game, it was nice...it had been too long since we've seen them and as always the kids played great! We got home later than expected and Steve had prepared to make us an awesome dinner! So while he got dinner ready, I gave the girls baths. We didn't eat dinner until almost 7 (which is late for us!) and it was worth the wait (great steaks, asparagus, mashed potatoes, crescent rolls, corn on the cob and he even made me a creamy blue cheese sauce for my steaks...O.M.G.) I was so full and the calories were SO worth it! :) I might go to bed tonight dreaming about that meal!

Smarty pants

Monday we went to El Mariachi to celebrate National Margarita Day of course! The girls were actually good and it was nice!

 

Wednesday Piper ended up taking a 'break' with the director at Generation....I guess they were having group time and she wasn't listening...UGH That night Piper and I went home (while Steve took P to gymnastics) and I got her situated with a snacks and some papers and then I worked out! It's all about finding those occasional times I can sneak away to get on the treadmill (and outside!).

 

Thursday night we were all hanging out in the basement and I told Piper to write her last name. She had written it with our help at dinner on Monday and I briefly spelled it with her on Tuesday night...so when she sat down and just wrote it, I was SHOCKED! I had tears in my eyes b/c I was shocked and happy!



The teachers at Generation think she is bored in her class which is why she is 'acting' out. She is the 2nd oldest in the class and the only one who can write her name. So we'll see what they choose to do with her!

Presley on the other hand has changed and really doesn't care that much about school. She doesn't think it 'really matters' and it 'isn't that big of a deal' (in her words). So we've talked about this with her  (and over email with her teacher) and if things don't change then we'll have to implement 30 minutes of 'study' time during the week to get her back on track with her listening, comprehension and spelling! I hate to do this in 1st grade, but I just don't want her started bad habits that become harder to change as she gets older! This whole being a parent thing is hard!

Blah blah blah

- I'm trying to drink more water. Man, the constant trips to the bathroom to pee are endless! :)

- Last Wednesday night Piper came into our room at 3:20 am. I took her back to bed, she had blankets laid out in the hall, she had picked our her outfit for the day and her lamp was on with books on her bed, obviously she had been awake for a while! UGH! SO I laid with her until 4, when I thought she had fallen asleep.
I went back to bed....4:05 Presley calls out for me, which doesn't happen very often. I got up to see what she wanted and Piper was laying on the floor by the foot of our bed! So I woke up Steve to take Piper back to bed, then I went in to lay with Presley. Finally at 4:45 I fall back asleep in my own bed and at 5:30 my alarm went off. Sucked!

- You know how people say that bad things happen in 3's? I think expensive things happen in 4's, that is my new saying! After buying our flight tickets to Mexico and Portland and then putting some money down on the Jeep.....our dishwasher broke. It was only 3 years old but it was SO loud and sounded like it was going to explode. Normally Steve can fix anything and he tried. He googled and watched videos, he tried to see if we could just order a part, he took the whole thing apart......looks like we found the one thing that he can't fix! :)

- American Idol, here are my two favorites....hopefully one of them wins!
Dalton: So freaking adorable.


And Olivia: Awesome voice.

Weekend Update

We had decided to get a room at the Ramada waterpark for Friday night (of course this was decided before we found out that Piper had to go to the office again at daycare on Friday. I guess she didn't want to watch the movie and was crawling around not listening, distracting the other kids I'm sure.) I left work a little early, Steve picked up the girls and met me there. Sam, Scott and Boston were able to join us too so it worked out perfectly! It was a good, fun night!

Piper is not comfortable in water so she hung out close to us most of the time.

 The above pictures are typical Piper. Goofball!!

Presley and Boston play SO good together. Once they got comfortable, they went down the slides, played, splashed they did so good and had so much fun.

We got into the pool about 5, took a short break about 6 to eat some dinner and then closed down the pool at 10:30! We went back to the room, got comfy, made some microwave popcorn and then all crashed quickly!

Saturday morning we slept until about 9, they got up and ready and headed for home about 10. I stayed in the room, hung out, read my book and then headed to get pedicures with Lisa, Lyndsi and Abby at 11! We talked and laughed and then went to 1908 for lunch! It was so nice to have a couple hours with the girls catching up! Thank you ladies!

 

Today we haven't done too much, ran some errands, cleaned, did laundry, the girls had some 'quiet' time (which really means just keeping them in different rooms for as long as possible. I did a short run outside, have been able to read a little, blog a little. Good Sunday!

Now wish me the best in getting thru the next week at work. I'm actually dreading it. :(

Piper

Piper can have a temper at home and will look around for anything she can throw and she'll go ape-shit on everything until you stop her. So when I got this note from Tadpoles (the system Generation uses to inform us of our kids and their days) I was shocked a little. Mainly b/c she never does this crap at school but this is something we see every day at home! Fun times!

: Took Piper to the office for a break because she threw a chair.

Weekend of Whining

Friday night I picked up the girls from school, both we very excited about all their Valentines. Presley had all this fun candy, Piper had tattoos, stickers and pencils (no food allowed). Thankfully Presley isn't TOO obsessed with candy so she shared (SHOCKING). I should've taken a picture of our dining room table when we got home with this crap all spread out all over it!

Steve met Holly at Caberet in Ankeny to save a table for the singer Jackson Taylor we wanted to watch that night. They had some good bonding time together! Brittney came to watch the girls and then I headed up there to meet them. It was good! A different crowd with some different friends that we rarely see and we ended up not getting home until almost 1?! What were we thinking?

Saturday morning we hung out. The girls were just so naughty this weekend. Everything was a big deal, they couldn't leave each other alone. They whined, they cried, they fought, they got spanked, they got timeouts. It was SO much fun for no one.
We took a risk b/c we had to run to the mall to pick out new glasses for Steve and Presley really wanted to spend more of her birthday money! They actually did okay at the mall but not good enough for us to go to lunch like we were hoping.

They tried on some glasses while we waited. Both will probably need glasses in the future so now we know how cute they will look in them! 

Then we had to drive back to Ankeny to pick up the other car (since we both drove the night before, since we have two working cars now!). I took the girls home, Steve went to the grocery store and then we spent the rest of the afternoon/evening trying to prevent WWIII from happening in our house. The idea of movie/popcorn night was completely forgotten with the continuous fighting. I got an hour to enjoy a bath, a glass of wine and a book and Steve did make a great dinner so that was the highlight of the night!

Sunday I got to sleep in! :) Yah! And again a majority of the day was spent trying to keep the girls apart so they wouldn't fight and get in trouble. We thought maybe they were bored, so we tried to keep them busy with lots of different things. Piper and I hung out in the basement, Steve and Presley upstairs, we went sledding for a while in the backyard, we did playdoh, we baked cookies, they would play good together and ultimately something would cause them to fight again. I did laundry and walked on the treadmill (cleaning and working out got me away from the chaos).
They were obviously tired. I think we all were. Steve made another great dinner and Piper was asleep before 8! WHAT? Yes, you read that correctly! Before 8! and Presley followed close behind at 8:30!

Hopefully we can have a more peaceful week, with nicer weather this week maybe we can get outside to run off some energy and decrease the fighting!
Sometimes I welcome Mondays.

Random

- Since I'm not on Facebook right now I might be posting alot of random things on here...but you are in luck I should have work (like actual work that I do for my paying job) to do next week so that might occupy more of my time!

- I consider myself to be a 'cold' person, not in the sense that I have no feelings and don't care about others but in that I prefer for the temperature to be at least 75 degrees. I don't like winter, I keep my house probably warmer than most (but I should be comfortable in my own home, right?) and I wear socks to bed.
So, when I see girls in dresses/skirts or even wearing flats or heels with no socks, I just think they have to be freezing their asses off! I'm cold in my sweater, pants, socks and boots!....but I'm a part of the small group of people who wear socks to bed too. I wish I had a little 'hot' person in me, I think my friend Lyndsi is a hot person....she probably wears flats and heels in the winter.

- Winter is my least favorite season (shocking right?). So many people seem to like winter! Why? I have determined that these people don't have to drive in it, don't have to shovel the snow or don't have to ever leave their house. If I could sit in my comfy house with no where to go I might like it a little more too! The good thing about winter....I don't shave my legs nearly as much as I should!

- Two nights in a row Piper has been asleep by 8:30 (and last night both of them were asleep by 8:30 for me!) Melatonin could be the answer. We tried it last year and it didn't seem to have an impact on her and honestly, I would prefer to not give her anything to make help her sleep but 2 nights in a row before 9 is more than we have gotten out of her in months!

- Valentines Day is a marketing scheme. I'm not big on the 'holiday'. If my spouse wants to make me feel special and loved then do it on a day when not everyone else is getting recognized too. It's a contest, who is going to get the best flowers at work? Who is going to post the most romantic thing or biggest flowers on Facebook. If my husband wants to give me something special he can get up with the girls both Saturday and Sunday morning so I don't have to! HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!

- I just read this in my current book and laughed out loud. "Hazel. I never believed that was a color until now. I thought it was people with brown eyes, trying to act like they are more special than they are"...it's kinda true and so funny.

Random

- Do you ever have those awkward social moments where you feel that you don't belong? Where you just don't have alot in common with the other people there? Where you get finished with the initial conversation and then you are at a loss of how to keeping the conversation flowing with them? I think everyone runs into these social situations at some point and we have many times even though I think Steve and I can be fairly social people. There are just some groups of people that you can click with and others that are just on a different playing field!

- Amazing!..... http://canyouactually.com/the-notoriously-illegal-4000-step-stairway-to-heaven-in-hawaii-is-pure-insanity/

- Piper is back to her usual shenanagins...this was at 10:15...after starting bedtime at 8.



- Amazon Prime is amazing! I didn't want to give in to the hype but after Christmas shopping online, I find myself going to Amazon to buy things. Things that will be at my house in 2 days. The free online music, movies, they even have the Amazon Pantry if you want food shipped to your house (to compete with stores who are now doing this!) All of this awesome convenience just helps support our laziness busy-ness!

- Piper picked out a purple shirt and purple pants to wear yesterday (two different shades of purple). I told her she had ALOT of purple on. She looked at me and said 'The pants are purple. The shirt is violet.' Um..ok!

- Generation Next has a program that gives up updates on the kids, the classroom, what food they eat and any other info you might want. The teachers can also take pictures and upload them so the parents can see them! I LOVE this!!!! I wish they had this when Presley was there! They took this picture yesterday (notice her 'violet' shirt) and they are coloring the 'I LOVE YOU' sign...the problem with this is that I'm pretty sure Piper thinks she colored a 'ROCK ON' sign.

-The last season of American Idol is on! I've been watching this show since the beginning. It's the only show that I dvr and actually watch consistently! I'm going to miss it! So many good singers have come from this show (more than The Voice!)

- Have I mentioned how much I love Stitch Fix? You pick your clothing 'style' on their website, answer many questions about what types of things you like, you pay $20 and they ship you 5 pieces. These pieces can be clothes (shirts, pants, jackets), purses, jewelry...whatever you like!

You get the 5 pieces, decide what you like, send back what you don't! The $20 you paid upfront gets applied to whatever items you keep, if you don't keep anything then you lose the $20. No other shipping fees or hidden costs.

I'm getting my 8th fix next week and have kept something from each one. Sometimes one piece and once I even kept all 5 (which of course they offer a discount if you keep all 5!) I prefer to not like all 5 pieces, I don't want to spend the money! :)

It's perfect for someone like me, who just doesn't get the time to go shopping very often. Plus they send me things that I wouldn't normally try on! So it's nice to get some different pieces.  You can ask for certain items to be included, you can tell them you HATE things like floral and they will listen to you! You can set up your fixed to come once a month or once a year! Try it. Love it.
https://www.stitchfix.com/referral/5605334

Sapphire pics - photo dump

It was nice to have them take pictures for us during the party, however I could tell she had the same issues I did b/c the lighting was terrible in that place b/c of all the windows, but we got some cute ones anyway!

On the bars, her favorite!

Miss Mary and Miss Piper

The gang....minus Boston

Aunt Holly fixing her pony

They take a picture with each friend before opening the gift and with the gift, as a way to remember who gave what present! (smart thinking!)

Boston made a card for Presley, so cute!

Sunday

We started off the day by shopping.....Steve took Piper to the grocery store in the jeep and then Presley and I went to Target to spend her birthday money in the jeep. Spending your own money at Target is very hard for a 7 year old....but mainly we spent our time in the Barbie aisle...shocking! Finally she picked a Barbie babysitter set, she was VERY excited!

Then we came home, they had lunch, played, hung out, fought...then we decided it was time to force them outside!

Bald eagle spotted flying over our backyard!

Who doesn't play with umbrellas in the snow?

They were outside for a long time, I stayed inside and got some laundry put away! Then we got ready to head over to the neighbors for his Super Bowl party. It was good! We never really know anyone but the kids usually behave and the food is always good!

Birthday Party

We decided to have Presley's party at Sapphire gymnastics and were lucky enough to have her actual teacher be the host of her party! (we all know how Presley is with people she doesn't know!) We literally didn't have to do anything. We didn't have to bring anything, clean up anything, they did it all. It went so good too! She had 10 friends comes (11 including Piper!) and there was no drama like there was last year. They got time to play on almost everything in the gym and they wore themselves out! We will definitely look into doing this again next year!

I think her smile says it all!

Presley's friend Leah getting some air!

Collins jumping on the trampoline

Presley was hesitant to try a flip into the foam pit, but she did it!!

Miss Mary is not afraid to do anything!

The group lined up.....notice Piper in the background.

They raced across the foam pit...harder than it looks!

 

Happy 7 year old!

Then she got to open presents. They took pictures of her with each friend and the present and we get all the pictures they took of the party! I hope we get these at class on Wednesday!

And we had a cupcake cake and ice cream! You can tell she was nervous about the singing but she did good!

And of course, Miss Quinn decided frosting on her face was funny b/c it was what she did last year at Presley's party! So cute! Love the smile!

Overall it was a good party. It was nice and easy and all the kids seem to have a good time. My parents, aunt Ellen and Roxanne were able to stop by too. So thank you everyone for coming and helping our baby have a successful 7th birthday party!

 

\We went home, unloaded the car and then I headed downtown to meet mom, Ellen, Holly and Sam for dinner at Django http://www.djangodesmoines.com/ it was SO good. I've been there once before and it was good, but this time it was great! I really wanted to save leftovers for Steve but I just couldn't. So the medallions get 5 stars from me! Then they all left to go see Jerry in Caucus: The Musical and I went home to hang out with the family for the night!