Second grade conferences

Presley had her 2nd grade conferences last night. This was the first year that she has gone with us but her teacher Ms. Lynch requested that the kids come. Normally I like to see what the teacher has to say without Presley being right there but it went good! We were able to see a little hint of what Presley is like in school (since she is SO different at home vs. around other people vs. at school!!)

The one thing that Presley indicated that she needs to work on is being neat and taking her time. Ms. Lynch said she doesn't notice that but I think that is something that we had issues with in 1st grade and do at home when she hurries thru things.

Presley's reading score was 497 and they are supposed to be at 486 by the end of 2nd grade, so she is doing awesome with her reading!

Her math is doing pretty good also, but we need to work on subtraction. She does so good but she needs to be able to do 30 problems in 2 minutes and she hasn't got there yet. She loves practicing at home so we'll just keep doing more of that!

Ms. Lynch said that Presley is nice, polite, kind to others, is helpful and does a good job participating! (WHAT???) So that is awesome to hear that she is a good, respectful child at school even though she might not be all the time at home! HA!

We can tell that Presley is enjoying 2nd grade much more than 1st grade. She loves learning,  she gets excited about doing new or different things in school. It is such a great feeling to listen and watch your child thrive on learning!

Senior Luncheon

Every year Generation Next has a senior luncheon for the senior class. They have been learning all about manners and this is their chance to dress up fancy, have a candlelit lunch and use their manners! It's just super adorable!

 

and just another picture of her with some friends at school (courtesy of the Tadpoles app they use!)

Sunday Funday

Steve got home from the Iowa game about 2:45 Saturday morning. The game was amazing and what a great outcome! He had good seats and was able to rush the field at the end! I'm so glad he decided to go!

 

Needless to say he was tired Sunday morning, so I got up with the girls and we let him sleep until a little after 10. The girls and I made some brownies and then the 4 of us headed to Holly and Jerry's to not-watch the Packer game. Since the Packers aren't very good this year, they got bumped from being televised but we still got together anyway.

 

We left there about 3. I worked out, Steve 'winterized' the shed (taking in the TV and removing anything that didn't need to be in there all winter) and then I took Presley to her last swim lessons of this session. She has 3 things she needs to work on to pass this level but she did so awesome! In April the girl couldn't tread water at all and now she was able to do it for 30 seconds! I'm not sure I could do it for 30 seconds!! We start the next session of swim lessons this weekend so I'm excited to see how well she does and nervous to see if Piper even gets in the pool!  :)

 

After swim lessons, I helped the girls get settled in for the night and then headed out to meet Holly in Polk City to watch The Nadas again! :) It was held at the American Legion there in town and this was the first time I've been to a concert where the venue does the Pledge of Allegiance and the Star Spangled Banner beforehand....it was actually really cool!

The Nadas were great, the crowd was good and really fun! Overall a good night out with my sister!

Four day weekend o'fun!

Since I had Friday off for Veterans Day, I decided to take Thursday off to have a longer weekend! I helped the get the girls ready and Steve took them to school and I was on the treadmill at 7:15! WTH? After that I got ready and headed to the East Village Spa for a hot stone massage (using the gift card that Steve got me for my birthday....in February!). It was amazing!

Then I headed to Costco to pickup some canvas prints I ordered and ended up spending way too much money! Then I headed to Christian Photos to get my camera cleaned, which I learned that is not as easy as it sounds. Canon has a $250 minimum charge for any work done. Ummm....yeah I guess I'll just live with it the way it is until we buy a more updated one with wifi. After that I went to Hobby Lobby.....Hobby Lobby.....I am not crafty. I love this place and it is just a reminder of how uncrafty I really am.

 

I stopped by the post office and dropped off my Stitchfix and asked about passports for the kids! I got that scheduled and then headed home about 2. I did your normally crap around the house, picking up for the millionth time, doing laundry and blah, blah, blah. Steve picked up the girls from school and took them to dinner since I had plans to meet my sisters and mom for babysitter planning. We did dinner, drinks and talking....with about 20% baby shower talk. Oops!

 

THEN I had plans to pick up my friend Lisa and her neighbor Stacey to head to Madrid for The Nada's show! (and for some reason I don't have a picture of the 3 of us?!) but I did run into Danny and Missy who we met at the beer tour that we took a couple weeks ago! It was so good to see them again!

and of course, got a picture with the lead singer Mike, who we love (him and his family!)

 

By Friday morning, I was exhausted. I told Steve that I would take Piper to daycare whenever we got up and ready so I was able to sleep in a tiny little bit.....until like 7:30, which is better than 6:30 so  I guess I shouldn't complain. I dropped her off at daycare about 9, went and got an oil change in the car and then headed home. I tried and tried and tried to lay down for a nap...and talk myself into working out and neither worked. I left the house about 11:30 to pick up McD's for Presley since I was having lunch with her at school! (along with alot of other parents who didn't work on Veteran's Day!) We did lunch and then I spent way too much money at Target (but on the plus side, I did get alot of Christmas shopping done!) I got home about 2, worked out, made myself presentable to the public and then picked up the girls early at about 3:45 - 4. We hung out for a while and then got ready for Brittany, the babysitter, to come over. She got there about 5:45 and we headed on our way.

 

When I won the brewery tour tickets, we also won 2 tickets to the beer and wine festival ($35 a ticket!). This was pretty cool actually. SO many beer and wine and food vendors with free samples of everything and no limits. Of course, you could buy anything you wanted to take home also! Steve told me I should win tickets again next year! We saw alot of people that we know including Danny and Missy from the brewery tour! :)

We had bought tickets to see Damon Dotson and Towncrier at Wooly's that night (which was the original reason we had a sitter!) so we headed there and enjoyed the music. Both of us were exhausted and my feet were killing me so we hung out until about 10:30 and then headed closer to home.

Towncrier







Again we didn't get to sleep until way too late and Presley was up at 7 and Piper 7:45 (we can deal with 7:45, but 7?! No way!). Lucky me since it was my morning to sleep in!

Steve left for the Iowa game about 10:30 and the girls and I survived. I say that b/c Presley was incredibly tired and the whining, complaining and crying was so dumb. I wanted to have a good, fun girls day with them but I determined early on that was not going to happen. So we compromised, we cleaned the basement! Sounds fun huh???  We filled up this big box with toys they no longer wanted, it was a GREAT feeling! I kept telling them that we were going to give these toys to kids who didn't have toys! They were on board, more than I thought they would be! So, for a good hour we were in the basement going thru toys!

Then we got ready and headed out to the Urbandale Police department to drop off pictures they had drawn/colored for the officers who were killed.



We dropped off our pictures and I took in the unbelievable site of the car completely covered with flowers and balloons and pictures and messages. Unreal and totally amazing of our community. I did inform of them of the reason we were going and how they were expected to behave. I was going to take them to a park afterwards. Presley was not impressed and disrespectful while were we there, so I had to just take them home. We got home and they both had 45 minutes of quiet times in their rooms b/c I was DONE with it.

 

Then Presley had swim lessons......so we did that and then I might have had a momentary lapse in judgment......

I took them to Firetrucker Brewery in Ankeny to watch our friend Baird play. No worries people, I had supplies! Snacks, colors, papers and music to keep them happy!

They did so good for me! We were there from 6-7:30 and they didn't complain! (and for the record, these breweries are kid friendly and my kids were NOT the only ones there!)

 

 

We got home about 8, got comfy, ate some late dinner/snacks/fruit and watch a little Alvin and the Chipmunks and those girls were done and asleep by 9 o'clock easy! So I finally sat down, ate some dinner, watched the Iowa game (OMG! OMG!) and blogged (you are welcome!).

 

And you know what people? This weekend is NOT over! There is more to come!  I hope you are enjoying this wonderful November weekend as much as I am!

Random blah blah

- I bought a Himalayan salt lamp. I read about the benefits of having one of these and I had to give it a try! Couldn't hurt right? Here are some of the benefits if you are interested..... http://www.naturallivingideas.com/himalayan-pink-salt-lamp-benefits/


 - We might be crazy! No, no, we ARE crazy! We decided to take a family trip to Cancun in January! What are we thinking??? We've talked about it for months, looked up trips for weeks and finally, I just decided that life is too short. We might as well do it while we can! We have the savings, we only have one kid that we have to take out of school. Let's do it and hope for the best!

- I have 2 months to get into swimsuit shape...hence the working out I have been doing. I had gained 10 pounds from April until we got back from our vacations in July (2 weeks of eating and drinking will do that to a person!). I have been pretty good about watching what I'm eating 75% of the time but I cannot and will not be that person who gives up everything I love to eat (Hello, once a week I'm at El Mariachi....and if I'm being good, I get beer instead of margaritas! See, I'm trying!). I've lost about 5 pounds and would still like to lose another 5 but I might have to step up my exercising to get there.  I've been walking once if not twice a day at work for 10-15 minutes each and then I've been walking on the treadmill at home for 20-35 minutes 4 times a week (depending on the day and what I can fit in!). I have found that if I can read while I walk, it takes my focus off the actual chore of being on the treadmill! (and then I get extra reading time in each day too and that is a plus for me!)

- I'm ready for the election to be over. I don't vote. I've never voted. I don't plan on it any time soon. 'If you don't vote, you can't complain!' Um...ok! 'It's my right to vote' Yep, I have the right to bear arms too, but that doesn't mean I do! I'm over it.

November

I cannot believe it is November and my kids are playing outside after work/school with no coat on! It's awesome! Friday night they did just that, we figured they needed to get out and enjoy the weather, sunlight and friends since this week it will be dark when we get home.

Saturday we didn't do much. Steve took a trip to the mall with Piper to get a few things. He did some stuff outside, I worked out and then we did a late lunch at Chili's. We went to Menards and got new Christmas lights! I wanted blue porch lights to support our police officers so Steve decided we just needed to go full on BLUE! :)
Once we got home we headed back outside to enjoy more of the nice weather. The girls played with the neighbors, Steve put up the lights and I sat by the shed and read my book in the awesome sunshine and then took Presley to swim lessons.

That night the Hawkeyes played (well I can't say they actually PLAYED, they were there and on the field) so we got in one more night at the shed watching football! It was the perfect fall night out!

Daylight Savings Time. You never know how the kids are going to respond to this change. Piper was incredibly tired all of Saturday and got in trouble and spanked and sent to her room multiple times! So when she was still sleeping at 8:30 (really 9:30) Sunday morning, I wasn't too surprised (but I did go make sure that she was still breathing!)
Presley and I were up early, unfortunately. She played on the Ipad and I read my book until the other two got up. We have so many busy weekends that it was so nice to have one weekend where we didn't really plan anything so we could just do what we wanted! So we decided to headed out for breakfast. I had a gift card to the Iowa Machine Shed that I've had for over a year so we figured we better use it! OH MY. I'm glad that is not something we do often! So much food, so good! And then I went home and worked out!

We hung out and cleaned and did laundry and then headed to my parents house for a little Packer Sunday before swim lessons. She is enjoying it! and I love watching her get comfortable in thwe water and learning how to swim! She'll remain in this class level again until she can swim a little farther than she is currently. (hopefully I can get her signed up for another session!)

 That smile! :)

Of course, when we left lessons it was 5:30 and dark outside. So we got home, ate dinner, did baths and got quiet-time and bed time in early! Piper was ready for bed at 7, she didn't want to read books and she fell asleep within minutes of me laying with her! Presley was in bed at 7:45 and was asleep by 8:15, it was so nice! They needed it and so did we!

Roller Coaster

It has been a roller coaster of emotions and high and lows this week, unlike I've experienced in such a long time. I've had so many things on my mind of stuff I need to do, get done and remember that I've got a list going, my mind goes a million miles a minute. I was up until 11:30 on Monday and 10:30 on Tuesday trying to get stuff done so I could stop thinking about it and cross some stuff off!

But I get stressed about that little stuff and my friend Janelle lost her mom last week to Alzheimer's, which both of my grandparents suffered from for years. My stresses seem so petty. She is struggling emotionally, as to be expected. I ache for her, I cannot imagine what she is going thru and wish there was something, anything I could do to help. My guess is that time will heal the pain she is going thru. Thinking of you friend! Hugs!

Then Wednesday we woke up to the news that two area police officers were gunned down and murdered in their squad cars. This hit WAY too close to home for me. I was in and out of tears all day and still can't believe this happened in our city! This doesn't happen here. Both were blocks from where our old house was, just a couple miles from where my parents live. Who does this? What is wrong with people? It breaks my heart.

Then Wednesday night Game 7 of the World Series. Now I don't watch baseball, I like the Cubs and would go to a game but it's not something that I normally follow. But I know SO many people who were so excited and invested in the Cubs that I found myself caring! :) Once the game was tied 6-6, I had to stop watching, it was too nerve-racking for me so I stopped watching. I woke up in the middle of the night thinking that I really needed to check FB to see if the Cubs won, as I laid there, I knew.....I just knew they did, so I went back to sleep. I'm so happy for all of Chicago and their fans, hearing the stories is crazy and just seeing people really truly happy is definitely what we need more of these days! Enjoy your time Cubs fans! Embrace the happiness!

Last night we went to my parents for dinner b/c my uncle was in town. So much laughter. So many times I'm wiping tears from my eyes b/c of the funniness! :) I love it!

Every morning when I drop off Piper she waves and says "Bye, have fun at work with the grown-ups!" and I say "Bye, have fun at school with the kids!". She just makes me smile, it is the perfect way to start my mornings.
The other morning she got up and came into the bathroom and hugged my leg and said 'Mommy!!! I missed you!' Oh sweet child of mine!