Weekend Update

Friday, man that seems like a long time ago! Steve went to the grocery store after work and bought Candy Bar UV Vodka. Oh man. With a little half and half it is the perfect yummy drink! Steve went out with some friends that night and it was just us girls! Once Piper went to bed, Presley and I finished watching her Tinkerbell movie and then we went to bed.....again I fell asleep in her bed about 9! What a Friday night! :)

 

Saturday we got up and went to Panora to see Jason and Christie's new vacation house on Lake Panorama! It is nice! It will be the perfect summer home, right on the beach. They have it set up for lots of parties and with plenty of room for people to stay the night! We already plan on spending many weekends there!

We got home from their place about 2 and all 'rested' before heading to Holly's (otherwise known as Jerry's!) They had us and Sam and Boston over for drinks and dinner. It was so nice! We ordered pizza and laughed! Presley and Mary play so good together...and Boston follows them around! It was nice! Thanks Holly, Jerry and Mary!

 

Sunday the girls slept in (sure we had to set the clocks forward an hour but still...). Piper woke up about 9 (or 8 oclock in real time) and Presley got up shortly after that. We got up and ready and headed to my moms b/c my cousin Molly was coming to town. She lives in Texas but had been visiting a friend in Omaha and was going to road-trip it to DSM for a few hours to see us. So we got to mom's and there were no other cars there, the blinds were still closed....hmmm.....no one informed us that Molly wasn't coming due to the weather. Nice. It had actually just started sleeting like crazy, so we just headed home!







 

Piper looks a little scared and Presley has her 'purse' which hasn't left her side all weekend. This purse was actually a gift from Lisa when I was in her wedding (> 6 years ago?)

 

 

We tried to keep Presley busy by vaccuming.....

 

and we even made chocolate covered strawberries. The girl will eat chocolate chips but will NOT eat melted chocolate chips, so she didn't eat any of the strawberries!

She did a great job entertaining herself today! She went on vacation, played babies, played sharks, made up song after song! Piper took a good 2 hour nap while Steve and Presley played on the computer and I worked out! (twice a week is better than never, right? b/c that is the exercise program I'm on right now!)

The weekend went good (with limited time-outs) until tonight. Bedtime was a DIS.AST.ER.  In fact, 8-10 pm tonight just might get its own post on here.

Five Months Old

Miss Piper is 5 months old. Piper :

 

- is wearing 3-6 month clothes. Most 6 month clothes are still too big, but we are almost there!

- is rolling over with the best of them! She will still pull herself around but not very far or very often before she gets pissed.

- has a strawberry birthmark on her left side that is a little smaller than a dime. The doctor said this will grow over the next year or so but then will begin to fade and shrink.

- smiles for everyone!

- has hazel eyes....they just aren't ONE color so we'll see what happens! Her hair is growing in a little darker than the reddish hair that she has been sporting.

- is all over the map with her napping and eating. We seem to get a long afternoon nap out of her, she'll have a (partial) bottle around 4, we have dinner around 6 and then try to hold her off until 7:30 or so for her last bottle.

- has tried peas, carrots, squash and sweet potatoes! She is eating about 1/2 baby food thing a night, mixed half and half with cereal and she seems to like all of it!

- seems to rarely finish a 6 oz bottle?! So she has us all confused with her eating habits, but she rarely spits up anymore so that is nice!

- is still sleeping all night. She will wake up for her pacifier a couple times a night, but we aren't complaining!

- still gets swaddled at night...but it doesn't take long before her arms are out so we might have to retire the swaddle soon.

- does a fantastic job dealing with Presley. She is tough, patient, calm and only occasionally cries or gets scared of her!

 

 

Five Question Friday

1. Does your family coordinate clothing for church on holidays like Easter? Well, considering we don't go to church....no. At this point getting them in the color scheme is a success! I hate buying matching clothes that they will only wear once. I would like to have them in cute matching clothes in the future though...but I have a feeling as Presley gets older, she'll have even more of an opinion than she does now!

2. How do you get out of a funk? Eat and drink...duh. Is there another option?

3. Online friends - real friendships or not? I would say real! There are some people I only follow by their blogs. Now, if I've never actually met these people or emailed or chatted....then no, those aren't real friendships. Because I have some blogs that I read of people I don't know, I would love to be their friends but I don't think I can count them as true friends!

4. What is the one food you must eat in a restaurant (not make yourself)? Ummmm....I don't cook. So just about anything. One thing I do eat that we never have at home is hamburger. Steve HATES hamburger, so we NEVER have it. So if I feel in the mood I will get a nice, juicy cheeseburger or sausage pizza! (b/c sausage isn't allowed in the house either!) Don't even get me started on his hatred of ground meat. You won't believe it anyway.

5. What would happen in your home if you ran out of ketchup? Honestly we have never had ketchup in the house until about a year ago....and mainly b/c occasionally Presley would eat it and Steve started making his own barbeque sauce. So we could survive without ketchup, we did it for 9 years. Honey on the other hand....Presley is addicted to honey. It started with her eating honey with her McDonalds chicken nuggets. Now she eats everything with honey!

This and that

- I see that someone from Nora Springs, Iowa checks out this blog. I didn't know where that was at so I looked it up to see it is between Charles City and Mason City. I'm not sure who this is, but thanks! Here is my shout out to the Nora Springs neighborhood!
- Of course we had a break down with Presley tonight. Out of nowhere she bounces up, grabs Piper hand, squeezes it as hard as she can and screams in her face. For no reason. Of course, we get mad and tell her to stop and she kicks. She kicks again and gets her movie turned off. She freaks out and starts throwing anything she can grab. Time out. Steve has to sit in the doorway of her room to keep her from leaving. We shut the door she starts kicking it, over and over and over again (I'm surprised there isn't a hole in this door). Finally, she breaks down and grabs on to me. She wants to be comforted. I get her to calm down, take a deep breath, stop crying and screaming. Eventually she is able to come out and help pick up the things that she threw. Then dinner was served, she didn't want to eat anything we had. After a while she ate her broccoli (weird child), no steak, no potatoes. Whatever.
- On top of Presley, Piper is so hard to get to sleep these days! She usually falls asleep with her bottle, but if she isn't hungry....what do we do? She seems to only be cat-napping most of the time, so you know she should be tired. Tonight she spent a good 1/2 hour crying and screaming b/c she was tired (or so we think). We are hoping this is just a phase. We might have to try some 'crying it out' this weekend.
- American Idol update. I don't really have any favorite boys.....yet. But my 2 favorite girls made it thru! Yes!
- I'm getting ready to watch a Dr. Phil episode on Ferocious Teens. Hmmm.. wonder if this will give me some insight to my future. God, I hope not. I'm so mean but this is what I want to prevent!
- I want ice cream. Think I can convince Steve to get me some?
- I'm always amazed at the amount of the stupid people in this world. A.MA.ZED.

UGH

Man, this week has been exhausting and it is only Thursday! Sunday, Monday and Tuesday we have just had a rough patch with Presley! She is just mean, throwing fits, snotty, intense. She won't leave Piper alone, she purposely tries to irritate Boston, she just needs to calm down and take her whole 4 year old attitude down a couple notches! She's had about 7 time outs in those days, she had to go to bed alone (no mom or dad reading to her), no Ipad time....I don't know what her problem was. Tuesday she was terrible for my mom, that night she was better for us (still not good). Steve layed with her and she cried. I went back in there about 9 pm and she was crying again b/c she missed Pa! I'm talking DRAMATIC tears and sadness b/c she missed Pa! I consoled her but it was SO funny! You would've thought the world had just ended and that she would never see Pa again!
Wednesday she was better for grandma, went into preschool by herself (which we think is mostly just to keep Boston from being involved with her drop off, b/c that is how she thinks! She is way smarter than we give her credit for!). She didn't take a nap but she had her quiet time. I think at this point it is better if she doesn't sleep during naps anytmore b/c when she does she is awake later at night and then harder to get up in the mornings! Bad cycle!
We decided that since she is doing soccer on Wednesday nights that we won't be doing gymnastics on Tuesdays this month...it's just too much for her right now. So soccer last night went good, again it was just her and Boston. We are hoping other kids will be joining too so she can get used to a group setting. She was fairly good last night for us and went to bed early! Of course, it probably helped that I went into read with her and fell asleep in her bed by 8:15. I kept waking up thinking that I should leave and go do something, but I just couldn't. I just didn't want to. I just wanted to sleep. It was so nice. Steve finally came and woke me up at 10 to come to bed. I was just exhausted.

So I'm hoping we have crossed the nasty, mean Presley bridge and now we'll have my sweet P back. (and you might be wondering when she was ever sweet? It does happen, sometimes, not often, but occasionally we'll see the nice, helpful, sweet side and we enjoy every single second of it)

Weekend Update

So Thursday night we all went to Appare for a Cystic Fibrosis fundraiser! The four of us went with mom, Sam, Boston and our cousin Kelly. I love sushi so this was perfect for me! I'm a bad mom and didn't realize we didn't have a bottle for Piper, so instead of irritating the whole restaurant with her crying Steve took her home before we even got our food! Sorry baby!

When Presley and I got home Piper decided she was going to start rolling from her back to her tummy. She has been SO close for the last week, where you just want to poke her to give her that extra nudge that she needs...but now she is a pro. Every time she is on her back she rolls right over!

 

Friday Presley had mismatch day at preschool in honor of Dr. Seuss' birthday. We had picked our her outfit the night before but when it came to actually putting on these weird clothes, she was NOT having it. We tried to convince her that everyone else would be dressed wacky, but she didn't really care. She wore a prettyoutfit, added a black tutu and then wore black socks with her red 'Dorothy' shoes. So in her eyes she did try. Steve was very disappointed in her b/c he gets so excited about these types of things and wants her to be excited about it too. Though the entire time I actually understood Presleys feelings about this....it would've been my same reaction, hesitation. The one thing Presley gets from me and it frustrates the heck out of Steve! Sorry again baby!

I picked the girls up from my mom's and she told me that Piper was rolling over and even pulling herself forward a couple feet!

That night we had a good family night! We put Piper to bed and the three of us layed on the couch downstairs and watched a movie. I think Steve and I feel asleep while Presley stayed awake!

 

Saturday I got up with Piper, too early at 6:30 but I did get to see her pull herself about 6 feet across our family room! Crazy and a little sad! I got to meet my friend Colleen for brunch, it was so nice to sit and talk with no kids! Thank you Colleen!

By the time I got home it was time to lay Piper down for a nap and then Presley and daddy went outside to play in the snow with the neighbors. I did some laundry, dusted, and actually filled out pages of Presley's and Piper's baby books!

Later that afternoon we made a trip to Valley West mall mainly to get Presley's hair cut, she hasn't had it cut since June and the fuzzy mullet was due for a trim! We got home and then I got ready to meet some friends for dinner and drinks at Dos Rios! I met Amy (who I work with), Rachel and Amanda (who I haven't seen in years!) and Laura and Kate (who I didn't know), it was fun! Lots of laughs, stories about kids (I think the jury is still out on who has the worst kid, I think it's possible that Preston and Berkley have Presley beat there) and husbands and even vacuum cleaners! :)

 

Today I got to sleep in for a while and when I got up, Steve and Presley had made hashbrowns and pancakes for breakfast! Thank you guys! We watched the movie Bolt on tv, Piper fell asleep on the couch with me and Steve and P headed downstairs (b/c she CANNOT leave Piper alone when she is sleeping!) The movie was actually pretty cute!

When the movie was over Steve headed to Walmart and Presley and I got out her craft box to keep her occupied and away from sleeping Piper!





 

After Steve got home he took P outside to burn off some energy b/c that girl gets crazy if she is couped up too long. Piper and I hung out, did more laundry, paid bills...you know, really fun stuff!

 

 

Three oclock hit and we started to lose control of Presley. She was tired. She was up at 6:30 this morning, which is way too early for her on the weekends. A couple time-outs for hitting, kicking or just screaming at us. She was allowed to come out after 4 minutes and apologize. One time she came back out and said she wasn't going to talk to me ever again. Ok. Then she decided that she wanted some quiet time in mommy's room while watching Rio. Deal!

 

We ordered pizza tonight and Steve made some chicken wings on the grill, you know how embarrassing it is to have your four year old screaming no at you when the pizza guy shows up. Awesome.  She refused to eat most of her dinner and then we saw some deer in the backyard and that distracted her even more.

Early baths and then some play time before she once more screamed at me and hit me. Goodnight. I was done dealing with her and her attitude. Piper was asleep by 7:30 and Presley resisted, cried, screamed, pouted and sleep finally took over about 8.

So here is to a brand, new week of good, happy,and healthy kids!

Five Question Friday

1. What was the most productive thing you have done this week? Oh geez. Productive is such a broad term! I think I've had a pretty busy week, which doesn't mean that I have actually accomplished much! I worked 40+ hours, took both girls to gymnastics, took both girls to soccer, went to Appare for a good cause, have been working on my Shutterfly book, finished reading my book. I remembered to pay April and preschool this week (which for some reason I forget to do sometimes!) So I have been productive, but I don't really have anything to show for it!

2. Enjoying the winter or ready for spring? So ready for spring! We are just ready to get our deck built, grill out, enjoy some adult beverages, watch Presley play with the neighbor kids! Come on spring!

3. Are you an introvert or extrovert? Is your spouse the same as you? I would say I'm an introvert. I don't like to be the center of attention, I don't usually cause conflict.....and Steve is an extrovert. He loves attention, he likes to socialize, he likes to meet strangers and voices his opinion all the time. I will say, I am less introverted since meeting Steve. I think he brings out a little extrovert in me.

4. Would you rather go without music or television for 1 year? Oohhh,,,,,good question! Television! I would give up my American Idol, Biggest Loser, Parenthood nights before I could give up music. I love music, I love singing (though not in front of people), I love outdoor concerts, I love watching Presley 'sing' along and dance to music....I couldn't give that up!

5. Have you ever been truly scared of someone? Is it sad that sometime I'm scared of Presley? She can be so mean and vicious sometimes! I'm afraid of her as a teenager!
But other than being a terrible mom and saying that I can be afraid of my own kid, I can't really think of anyone that I have been REALLY scared of. I think everyone has those 'moments' when you are afraid of the situation or the person in the moment, but not for the long term.
There was a girl in highschool that put gum in my hair twice b/c she was dating my ex-boyfriend (shouldn't it be the other way around?) and she didn't like me for some reason. She was bigger than me, and very white trash so I had my 'moments' with her....but last I knew she was working at Burger King!