Christmas

It's now been a week since I've posted. Christmas break is going better than last Thursday....we have found some things to do and the girls have gotten along better (with some threating to take cell phones away, but oh well).

We are doing a lot of sleeping in, lounging around and baking cookies. Friday, Piper made me open her present to me. She ordered it on my Amazon account weeks ago, gave me the $ for it and wrapped it by herself. She was so excited for me to open it that she couldn't wait any longer! A wine glass that says 'Mom's turn to wine'. She's too sweet! Love that girl!

Christmas Eve the fun thing that we did was make a kid-friendly charcuterie board. Filled with fruit (for Presley), salami and pepperoni for Piper, cheese for me...and then cheeseballs, crackers and Hershey bars for all of us to enjoy! It was something different that was kinda fun to put together for them.

Christmas morning they were up before 9. This Christmas I just wasn't into buying them all crap. Piper loves crap, Presley has outgrown it. Presley got some books, wireless ear buds, a wireless phone charger and of course her Elvis Presley sweatshirt....all things teenager. Piper got some pig stuff, mini-brands and a big squishmellow?! (I guess they are popular right now?).

Their big gifts were tickets for all of us to go to the Lion King at the Civic Center and then we are all going to the Pink concert in August.....working on making memories instead of just buying things. It's hard when you want to have stuff under the tree to open. SO I was creative for a split second.....I bought lion masks and crowns at Hobby Lobby, put them in bags and they had to guess what it meant when they opened it! For Pink, I got pink wrapping paper with music note stickers for the outside and the inside of the presents were a microphone ornament and a pink feather boa...then they had to guess what that meant also! 

Once we were done with our shenanigans, they went to Steve's house for a couple hours and then I picked them up to go to my parents house for the afternoon/evening. It was a good balance of things for Christmas. I think the girls were spoiled and happy. We all ate too much, had so many laughs and we discovered that we are horrible picture takers when we are all together! We need to get better at that!

I want to upload some pics onto this blog, but honestly too lazy for it right now! :)

Blizzard

 So, a couple weeks ago I booked Wilderness Lodge in the Dells for the girls and I to enjoy as part of their Christmas present from me. Boston, Moose and his son, Quincy were also going to join us. Quincy is 11 years old and gets along with the girls GREAT!

I was going to surprise them Wednesday after school and tell them that they were going to miss school Thursday and Friday for this short trip! I was going to be the cool mom! HA!

I was so excited to surprise them!

Then news of the looming storm hit. I knew if the weather was bad on Thursday that we were going to have to cancel. If we cancelled on Monday, it would only cost $30.....if we waited, we would lose the deposit of $300. I was so sad to cancel but knew it had to be done.

Wednesday afternoon they cancelled school for the 2 days they were going to miss anyway!

Here we are on Thursday afternoon and I want to kill them already. We did a gingerbread house last night (when we were supposed to be decorating cookies with my family but the weather ruined that too). The gingerbread house went exactly how I thought it would.....with one kid crying as she stomped upstairs to her room. We started a puzzle last night that we finished this morning. We got out play-doh, they have had PLENTY of tv and electronic time and still every time they are in the same room with each other, they fight.

How many more days til this Christmas break is over? SMH.

Two Years

Has it really been over 2 years since I've posted? So much has happened in that 2 years I don't even know where to begin!

I don't have any good excuses.....work, kids, dog, social life....I can blame it all but it's really just on me.

I'm hoping to get back to blogging again, It's just a good place to document my life and what is going on....the good, the bad and the UGLY!

Where to start? Here are the cliffnotes for parts of my life over the last 2 years.

January 2021 - got a dog. Peanut, a toy Yorkie who hasn't quite reached 6 pounds yet. He is a ferocious guard dog, well he sounds like it anyway but he would never bite anyone. He loves going to the playground and being petted by all the kids. He hates the rain, cold, wind and snow, so during those weather conditions he prefers to just piss inside. This is super fun for me and the reason I'll be getting new floors this year.

May 2021 - got a boyfriend....doesn't that sound weird? :) Everyone calls him Moose, his real name is Jason. He loves to take care of me......opens the door for me, wants to pay for everything, always ask if there is anything he can do or get me. This is very odd for me and definitely not easy for me to accept, as I am not one that wants help with much. But everyone tells me to let him do it and I deserve it and enjoy it, blah, blah, blah.'. 

Summer 2021 - had my kitchen updated! Doing this on my own, making these expensive decisions, was a little intimidating but it actually went pretty smooth. I had the cabinets painted white and new quartz countertops put in. It's SO much brighter and updated. It was totally worth the money!

February 2022 - joined Orange Theory Fitness! Life changing! After the first class, I wanted to puke and could hardly walk the next day but it was worth it. I hit my 100th class the day after Thanksgiving and usually am still sore after every class....but I have never been stronger! Now to change my eating habits! LOL

August 2022 - was able to take Moose and the girls to my family reunion in Texas for a week. I love this time with family and in the sun! 

I told Moose from the beginning that if we dated, we'd travel and see live music concerts......Since I started dating Moose we have been to Nashville, Chicago, Vegas and Green Bay. And with kids we have been to Minneapolis, Omaha and Texas.

He had never really been to concerts until 18 months ago and now we have seen Eric Church, Halestorm, Gary Allen (twice), 21 Pilots, Blake Shelton,, Lee Brice, and others at Country Bash. We also have tickets for Thomas Rhett and Pink in 2023.

November 2022 - got laid off from my job of 19 years. I knew it was probably coming with the amount of  people they had laid off all year long and the super low volume we had due to increasing mortgage interest rates. I do have 60 days non-working notice before I can collect 38 weeks of severance pay. So I'm enjoying the holiday season, since I've never had time off around Christmas and I'll worry about updating my resume, job searching and dealing with that nonsense in January! 

Updates on the girls:

Presley is almost 14 and in 8th grade. I still force her to play soccer in spring and fall but she does nothing else. She is not interested in much but I'm hoping that means she'll stay out of trouble in the coming years! She has no interesting in boys (that we are aware of) and wears leggings and sweatshirts to school every day. No belly shirts for this girl and that makes me happy! It's odd that she can get her permit soon and she doesn't even want to sit in the front seat of the car and doesn't know how to start a car yet either! HA! 

Piper is 10 and in 4th grade. She does fall/spring soccer with little fighting, plays piano and is going to start up gymnastics again. This girl is so sweet, funny and I can''t believe some of the things that come out of her mouth. She's emotional, a people-pleaser and has a tendency to have a short attention span! :)

Hopefully I can keep blogging in the coming year considering I seem to have some extra free time on my hands these days! 

Covid

So much to catch up on over the last 2 months......but last Wednesday, the 21st Steve didn't feel good, had the rapid Covid test done, came back negative. Thankfully! Thursday night I headed to Vegas with 3 friends.....I'll get back to that nonsense and fun later! My parents took the girls Thursday night til Steve got off work Friday afternoon. They couldn't get school online schooling to work Friday and Presley had a headache. Saturday, Presley had a fever...Steve was busy with work....basically I leave town and all hell breaks loose?! :)

Sunday, Presley felt better, just a cold and Steve felt the same way...mostly just a cold. I got home Sunday night, Steve dropped off the girls Monday morning. I took Piper to school and kept Presley home with me b/c she claimed she still had a headache. She freaked out at the thought of getting tested for Covid. FREAKED OUT. So Steve stepped up as a good dad and got tested again, knowing they had the same symptoms.....came back positive. FUCK.

I made the calls to both schools and went and got Piper from school. She felt fine, so I kept her away from Presley. Presley went home with Steve and I kept Piper home with me, in hopes that her and I would be negative. We all made appts to get tested on Tuesday, we got the results late Wednesday night. Steve and Presley positive and Piper and I were negative. Couldn't have worked out better!

Presley can actually go back to school on the 3rd...10 days from her first symptoms but Piper can't go back until the 9th....14 days from her last exposure. Seems so odd that Presley who is positive is going back to school first....but if Piper would've stayed with Steve, she would've been out 10 days for him and then 14 days for herself. 24 days she could've missed of school.....of course, the first week we were supposed to go back full time.

Thankfully neither girl had been in school since the previous Tuesday due to their hybrid learning schedule and both had missed soccer for rain and b/c Steve and P didn't feel good over the weekend, so the only people they had been around were my parents on Friday and they have no symptoms and tested negative! Thank God!

As crazy as it seems, it almost would've been easier for all of us to get test positive and get it over with. Hopefully Piper and I can stay healthy as time goes on! Stay safe and stay healthy!

Last photo dump?

The last couple days we saw dolphins, my favorite!  They were pretty far out the 1st day but the 2nd day they were SO close to land. At one point we were all out swimming and talking and they dolphins swam by not even 50 yards out from us. It was one of the coolest things ever. I was glad the girls got to experience it with me! These pics were taken from the deck of our house, so far away but so close at the same time! :)

 

Piper

So maybe Piper is a little like Jordan with the camera. She wanted to get in her 'cute' outfit on and pose for me. SMH.

This picture she was trying to get Presley to NOT watch her. Love it!

 

So many more pictures to go! :) Sorry, not sorry!

He ate a bite of Hershey Kiss cereal and we were watching him to see if he liked it.....he loves attention and started making these faces after every bite. It was so hilarious and he just kept doing it for the laughs so I just kept taking picture after picture.