Presley - 9 year stats

Friday was Presley's 9 year well check appointment. She is normal! :)

60 lbs which is 34%.....This girls eats and eats and eats!
4'3" which is 30%....I feel like she is finally starting to get taller and her 7/8 pants are getting a little shorter.
She basically gained about 3 lbs and 2 inches in the last year.

Week in Review

This past week was pretty low key....which I will take! Tuesday Steve took the girls to gymnastics while I went and bottled the wine I made with Sarah back in January. Wednesday I took Piper to gymnastics. Thursday we didn't do much.

Friday Steve had plans to go out with some guys who were in town. The girls and I ate at home, got Dairy Queen, they took showers and then we watched Wonder and had a slumber party in the basement. Presley and I saw Wonder in the theaters and it still made me cry and cry, over and over again!

Saturday we woke up and the girls wanted to watch Wonder again, so we did. Then we just hung out, the girls played really well, Steve ran to the grocery store, we played some games and we decided to do an early dinner out. We were hoping for Texas Roadhouse, but at 4:30 the wait was outside already so we headed out to Barntown Brewing. Then we hung out at home the rest of the night! Super boring, I can't even say that I did that much cleaning or laundry!

Today, Sunday....I want to do something but I don't. I was going to take the girls to see a movie but I think I want to see A Wrinkle in Time more than they do. I did work out and shower, I did put in a load of laundry....but I have 3 loads of laundry that I NEED to put away and I just don't want to. The house is a mess, there is more laundry that needs to be done and I'm sitting here. I must find energy. I think the sun needs to come out to help with my recent mood and lack of energy.

?

Monday was just another tiring day....I'm just on edge a lot of time these days.
I find almost everyone super annoying, I try so hard to not lose it on my kids when everyone wants to talk to me at the same time. I want to hear what they have to say but I feel like it's almost a chore to dedicate each person their 'time'.
And of course if Presley knows that Piper is waiting to talk, she stretches out her story as long as possible.

I'm trying to get used to this job and my new manager and just the whole concept of going from being one of the top underwriters in my department to being a NOBODY in this department.
We are the lowest people on the totem pole right now and that is taking some getting used to.
One of my passwords at work (I won't tell you for what b/c that would be privacy violation!) is FUCKIT (plus a # and symbol)....and yes, that word is NOT blocked as inappropriate language at work when it comes to passwords! HAHA!


As much as I like our time at home doing nothing, I just feel like there are so many people that we need to make time to see also. How do you balance this?

I haven't been to the eye doctor in 2 yrs.
I've been meaning to get an appointment to have a will made up for us.
We need to look at investing money into some sort of 'grown up' investment account instead of the basic saving account we have.
It's just a constant spinning of thoughts in my head and little motivation to actually do anything.....if I ignore it all will it all resolve itself?!

And I know most of this is just my own problem. I just need to get over it and accept things.
See the positive side of things....I do try, sometimes
.....I mean, I get a paycheck. Every other week. For 80 hours, when I actually work about 40. :)

We have a nice house, we have steady income, we are able to travel, we have close family and friends, we have healthy, happy children....see! There are so many other things I need to focus on....someone slap me the next time I complain like this.

Week in Review

This has been a very up and down week. Tuesday I was able to take Presley to gymnastics and then drop by my friend Lyndsi's house for a bit! They moved in not that long ago and I was anxious to check it out and chat with her for a while before picking Presley up. Thanks Lyndsi!

Wednesday at work we got the news that they were rearranging teams and our manager was being moved to another area. She has been my manager for almost 5 year and she is so flexible, doesn't like to micromanage and I hate change. We were all a little shocked and very sad. UGH. Thankfully I had a hair appointment that night, something to cheer me up a little bit.

Thursday I had a short day which I was more than happy about. I had my biometrics test that morning for our health insurance. It went really good, the lady said that my numbers are perfect and I need to keep doing what I'm doing! ..... So I went and picked up my lunch at Panera! ha!

We had both girls' conferences that afternoon and both went really well. Piper's teacher is going to move her onto more challenging things and she was a little nervous that she'll be bored in kindergarten next year. I'm not worried, they seem to do a good job of grouping up kids at the same learning levels and such. Her teacher said if there was one negative thing to say about Piper it was that she can tend to be a little bossy. SHOCKING! :)

We had Presley's conference with her teacher after that. She said Presley is so nice and sweet (I wish she was that way at home too) Presley is right on track with all of her learning, needs to keep practicing subtraction (she seems to really like multiplication though) and scored well on her Iowa Assessments! So we are happy!

After that we did dinner out and then I met Sarah out for a couple drinks and some girl talk!

Friday was Coffee with a Cop at Generation Next and Piper was excited. She said she was going to wear her police officer costume but I figured she would chicken out. She didn't.

 So freaking cute!!

Friday night we didn't do much actually....rented Coco to watch and tried to have a slumber party in the basement that didn't work but the movie was good and it was a nice, relaxing night at home.

Saturday we drove to Earlham. They had an get together at their new 'event' center and Steve had entered their mac and cheese contest. Steve won out of the 4 entries and my sister in law Christie tied for 1st in their chili contest! It was fun and we are happy Steve got the win! :)
Then Piper and I dropped Presley off at Climb Iowa for a birthday and ran to Target!
Last night Holly, Jerry and Mary come over for dinner and to hang out, we haven't seen them in a long time so it was night to talk and have the girls play!

Today has been a cleaning, laundry, laid back kind of day. Steve ran to Walmart, I worked out and finished my book, the girls played in P's room for hours and she is now at a friends house in the neighborhood. I'm just glad the sun is actually shining!

Weekend Update

I'm slow on updating b/c my blog is blocked from work right now!.....Oh well, eventually I will be able to access it again. Anywho.....I snapped this picture of my baby one night last week at bedtime. So sweet, on top of her bedspread, only under a blanket, cuddled with her stuffed monkey and she had moved a picture of herself onto her nightstand so she could see it. :)

Another day I got a picture of the two of them getting along! Presley helping Piper with her workbook.

Friday night we had Sarah and Kyle over with the kids. We didn't see much of the kids that night b/c they played so well. Little Cohen did a good job of keeping occupied without getting into too much trouble and us adults were able to play a couple games. They were over until 10:45 and all the kids were still going strong! (Cohen might have watched the Trolls Holiday special 4 times to keep him occupied as it got later)

Steve and Kyle headed to The Boathouse and played in a poker game and the girls decided they wanted to fall asleep together which actually worked really well.....they were asleep within minutes! My sleeping beauties!

Saturday we all slept in....I was the first one up at 9! And we did NOTHING all day. It was cold and dreary and we just didn't have anywhere we wanted to or needed to go. Steve did make a brisket for dinner so he kept busy for a bit, I worked out, the girls played and we played Trouble 9 million times.

Finally Sunday we decided to get out of the house! Hallelujah! Our 'diet' went out the window days ago so we had brunch at Mullets. It was busy but worth the wait. This is the cinnamon roll I got! Holy frosting!

After that we headed over to Brenton skating plaza to use some free ice skating passes we had! It wasn't too busy, it wasn't too cold and the girls had fun! Ice skating makes you realize how weak your ankles are!

We were there a little over an hour and it was fun. We will totally go again (if we have free passes! ha!). We took a short walk over the pedestrian bridge since it was nice out and then we headed home.

Presley had a birthday party at Glazed Expressions, so I dropped her off there and then did some Target shopping. Sunday night was the usual routine of getting ready for the week ahead.

Monday Holly picked up the girls from school to go for ice cream and stop at Popcorn Heaven to pick out a bag of popcorn. This was their birthday presents from her.....time and fun instead of toys they don't need! I love this idea and they had a good time!
Once they got home, Presley went outside to play, Steve made dinner and Piper and I worked out. She ended up doing more time on the elliptical than I did! Though she really likes to talk while we work out and that doesn't work for me! :)

Random

- I am not a tech savvy person at all. I just learned how to 'snap chat' about 3 months ago and really don't use it. The kids use it to take funny pictures other than that.....I'm not really using it.
I also just figured out to 'group text', this really was as simple as googling it to change the setting on my phone but it is really pathetic how I don't even try to understand or advance my knowledge. I have an Instagram account that I put about 10 pictures on about 3 yrs ago and I haven't been back on it since. I don't twitter either. I feel like that old woman who is against technology.

- I signed Presley up for Girls on The Run. She wanted to do it last year b/c her teacher was a coach but you have to be in 3rd grade. So I got her signed up and her BFF Leah is signed up for it too. They run twice a week and end up doing a 5k in May......you want to know the problem that I'm really struggling with?? The 5k is the SAME night as Piper's preschool graduation. You know the super cute graduation with caps and gowns and songs and freaking adorableness. I'm so torn up about it, I don't want to miss either! On the plus side, Piper did 'graduate' last year so at least I have those pictures and memories but still......so right now I'm praying for a full-out thunderstorm the night of May 24th so they have to reschedule the 5k, that is the only way I can make this work out for me.

- We were talking about boys and how in high school girls end up thinking that boys are the #1 priority and how they really aren't (or shouldn't be!). Presley insisted that she wasn't ever going to like a boy and wanted to bet on it. I told her I would give her $1000 if she didn't like boys before the age of 20. :)

- Steve and I started the Fast Metabolism Diet again today and there is nothing I want more right now than a glass of wine and a Girl Scout tagalong cookie (currently known as the peanut butter patties). We are going to try for 2 weeks this time and know that we won't be doing it 100%, we will have more success if we know there can be a little flexibility (like when I go to dinner with Lisa and Lyndsi on Thursday night!)

- I bought Piper a kindergarten workbook for Christmas....it was a waste of money. Mainly learning how to write letters and numbers, sequencing, patterns.....she was bored with most of this book and completed the rest of it with no problem. So I bought a 1st grade book, this is exactly what she needs. There are things in it that she can't do...like writing sentences and such but for the most part it is simple math, sequencing, begins with sounds....And she loves it!

- So we have lived here for over 5 years and had been lucky enough to not hit any deer until recently. Of course it was the night after I got my car back from being fixed. At first we didn't think it was that bad, two small cracks in the front grill. Then my turn signal stopped working the next day, getting that fixed is not an easy/cheap feat in these cars now so we hadn't done it yet. Steve washed the car Saturday and we ended up with water in the headlight. The headlight part of this car is close to $1000. It SUCKS! So I get to call the insurance company tomorrow and figure that fun out!

Lazy

Man this 3 day weekend was really lazy, I just can't deal with the cold weather. Saturday Steve headed to his uncles funeral in Creston. We were all supposed to go but with Presley being sick we didn't know how she was going to be Saturday morning so we decided to not push our luck and the girls and I would just stay home.
I did 6 loads of laundry, mostly all of our bedding....the girls played which was nice since Presley was finally feeling better (attitude was completely back!) and I cleaned, I took wet wipes to a lot of our white trim and kitchen cabinets, I cleaned our the refrigerator out, emptied all the trash cans, we played Trouble a couple times, the girls worked in their math workbooks....it was an overall good day home.
Steve got home and we did a quick dinner out, mainly just to get out of the house for an hour.

Sunday I just didn't want to move. I did a lot of laying on the couch, occasionally going to the floor to play Trouble with the girls, I read my book, they did their workbooks again. Steve got up and went to Whole Foods, Target, Hy-vee and grabbed lunch at Wendy's and the 3 of us girls hadn't really moved that whole time. I did eventually find some energy and worked out and showered! HA!
We did go over the Wendy and Jason's that night for a small get together, so we got out of the house for a bit and the kids played so good!

I actually had today as a holiday this year, one of the new holidays my company gave us this year. I kept both girls home with me. It was so rainy and dreary and cold that I didn't want to do anything. I knew the girls were probably getting stir crazy but they actually did pretty good. We watched movies, did their workbooks again, I worked out and they played and now here we are getting ready for the week ahead. Next weekend we might have to plan something to get out of this house!

I think Presley is more than ready to get back to school, since she hasn't been since last Monday. Yikes! I'm sure we'll be getting the letter home from school saying that she has missed too many days this year. Oh well!