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??

Men

I think it is funny that instead of bringing up his laundry from the basement, he will go downstairs EVERY morning to get the clothes he is going to wear that day. I can't really say that is lazy b/c he IS walking downstairs every morning, but seriously just bring up the damn clothes!

I'm not complaining! We are very lucky to both have jobs.....jobs that are requiring us both to work overtime. I'm just tired of it! I want to be able to take a lunch with friends or run errands. Steve is working today and I'll be working tomorrow morning :( But like I said, I'm not complaining! :)

Presley decided to get up at 6:15 this morning! She hasn't been up that early in a long time! She laid in there and talked to herself for over an hour! I laid in bed and tried to sleep more, I don't get up at 6:15 on the weekends, I was at least hoping for 8!....she'll probably sleep in for Steve tomorrow morning. Typical Daddy's girl! :)

Not-so-interesting vacation facts

- we spent every day of these 2 weeks outdoors by a lake and drinking alcohol. I don't want to think about the amount of money we spent on beer.
- Steve thinks our bodies will go into shock this week from alcohol withdrawl.
- one of the reasons I love vacation so much, I don't have to do my hair! I only dried it 3 times and straightened it once!
- Presley slept like a CHAMP! She slept until 8:30, sometimes even 9:30 every morning! Boy, her body will go into shock tomorrow when we wake her up at 6:45!
- I think my feet have a permanent dirt color to them, originally I thought they might be tan now I'm thinking it's just sand and dirt.
- these 2 weeks have confirmed that I still don't want to be a stay-at-home mom. Don't get me wrong, it is awesome to be able to take Presley places and experience all these different things with her, but she is exhausting! Every day I looked forward to the 2-3 hours I would have to myself while she was napping!
- Presley came out of her shell during these two weeks! With all the people around we knew she was going to have to get used to it and she did great! Hopefully it will continue here at home around our friends!
- we still aren't sure it is good to be home, sure we love sleeping in our own bed and all that but we are not ready to get back into our normal routine! We plan on becoming rich so we can travel all the time.

Goodrich family vacation - Week 2

Don't get tired of my pictures already, okay? I seriously took over 300 pictures in 2 weeks, I'm a freak like that.
We spent another 6 hours and traveled over to Okoboji for Steve's annual family vacation. 20 people in 5 cabins on Spirit Lake. The first night we had a serious storm. The tornado sirens were going off, the wind and rain were out of control....and then our power went off. Luckily, the worst thing that happened was a big branch fell off of a tree onto Steve's sisters cabin but everyone was ok and over all the weather was great all week!
The difference between our two families? The Goodrich's have a lot of kids!
Here is Gavin, Sam and Ella.

The oldest ones, Jake and Jordan (brothers, can you tell?)

and here is Austin with Presley.

Presley's cheesy smile during breakfast. She basically wants to sit like a big kid now, no highchair and prefers that we don't cut her food into small pieces (even though most of the time we still do).

One day we went to Arnold's Park and walked around and watched the kids on the rides, Presley is still a little young to ride anything by herself but she loves watching everyone! Then we had lunch at the Barefoot Bar right on the lake, it was fantastic (until Presley decided she wanted to climb on, over and under her highchair instead of sitting in it)! They even have a playground for kids, and boy did she love it! I don't think she realizes that she is too little to climb on some of these things, but she sure tries anyway!

Ava ate an Oreo, and loved it!

Zac showed Presley one of the frogs they caught...she was not impressed. (and yes, we did end up eating fried frog legs with our fish fry on Friday night. Well, I did NOT eat any!

They also had a new game to play instead of bean bags! Beersbee (kinda like frisbee, but includes a target and beer!)

Steve and his siblings - Matt, Jason, Steve and Roxanne

The fishing was a little slow until the last night we were there, then they started catching a little of everything. Here is Steve's big small-mouth bass.

and one of his walleyes!

The sunsets were so pretty, we probably took 20 pictures just of the sky and water!

It was a great, relaxing week and we are already ready for next year!!

Frederick Family Reunion 2010 - Vacation Week 1

We traveled about 6 hours to Hayward, Wisconsin for my mom's family reunion. We thought we could make Presley happy for those 6 hours since Steve's car has a DVD player if we needed it to keep her occupied. After the first hour, she started crying and screaming...and we couldn't get the DVD player to work! UGH!!! I know, I know...back in the day there were no DVD players in cars, blah blah. Even my new phone was able to play Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episodes on it, but did I really want to spend the whole trip holding the phone up for her to see? Nope! So Presley was happy for one hour, slept for 2 and we spent the other 3 hours trying to figure out how to make her happy and keep her occupied!

There were about 27 of us in 4 cabins, so it worked out nicely. Our family comes from all over - Iowa, Wisconsin, Texas, Colorado and Oregon! (so maybe I shouldn't complain about our little 6 hour drive!)

The lake was so pretty! The ducks would come up to us and want to be fed, you could hear the loons on the water and Steve even got in some fishing.
Of course we had our Frederick Family Olympics. For those of you who haven't heard about this, it is serious, intense and competitive! This year was actually a little more laid back and fun (even though my team lost)!


We had a good, close game of kickball.


We want a pitcher, not a belly itcher!
Run Holly Run!!

Even Presley had the chance to kick and run with Grandma's help.......

........but she got slightly distracted and started picking flowers (or weeds).

She loved the water! (and the swings, and the sand, and the slide....and just being outside in general)!

Here is Presley and Cameron (my cousin's 2 1/2 year old daughter) playing in the sand.