Easter

Last week was more of the same, me getting up late every day b/c I don't want to go to work. Steve getting up late b/c I get up late, gymnastics, girls on the run....Thursday we moved desks at work so we actually got out at 3 pm and decided to have a social event at Sully's. The turn out was pretty good and it was a good way to get to know some more people from my new department. I was home about  6 and then Steve headed out to pick up his friend Todd from the hospital. He had been there all week with his daughter and was aching to get out and have a beer, so Steve stepped up and did his friendly duty! :)

Friday we didn't do much. Steve made dinner, we hung out and dyed eggs for Easter! 

 I can't get a normal picture of her anymore. Such a goof!

 Part of the sass and attitude that we get for EVERYTHING!

Make her stop growing up!

Saturday we got up and ready, Presley was drawing an Easter picture to give to my parents. She asked me what other 'Easter things' she could draw.....

Me: Flowers, trees

we dropped the kids off at my parents house so we could attend the funeral for the Sharps in Creston. It was really sad but it was a really good tribute to them. SO many tears and so many people. It is so hard to see the classmates of the kids struggle thru the service. Afterwards we were able to go to the gathering and chat with so many people. The family was very thankful and seem to be holding up as best as can be expected. We left about 5 and my parents dropped the kids off at our house after dinner about 6ish. 

Sunday morning the Easter bunny at come by. The girls were so excited to find the eggs. 36 total eggs and it took them no time at all to hunt them all down! 

We ate some candy, the girls decorated these stepping stone things they got in their baskets, I ran 1.5 miles (getting ready for my 5k with Presley in May!) and we got ready to head to my parents house for Easter lunch. 

We hung out, talked, had some appetizers and then had a prime rib dinner. So good!

Handsome Jordan

So cute!

My parents do a nice Easter egg hunt for the kids. Each kid gets their own color eggs to find and then there were 5 glitter eggs, with money inside. Piper got $1 and Presley got the $20 egg!

We hung out, the kids ate way too much candy and we headed home about 6 and got ready for our busy week ahead.

Weekend Update

Besides last weekend it seems we have had a lot of weekends lately of sitting at home and doing nothing. I don't mind but I'm sure the girls get stir crazy after a while....oh well, the weather will eventually be changing and we'll be outside and doing more things. Steve has been on a cleaning rampage lately, I'm sure he is throwing things away that I wouldn't but it is probably better this way!

Friday night we didn't do much. Steve was down in the dumps about Sharps so he enjoyed some time at The Boat House. The girls and I hung out, had some popcorn and watched Jumanji 2 that night. A good girls night with my babies.

Saturday we all slept in, which I think we all needed. Roxanne and Mike brought our car back from getting fixed. The weather was crappy out! So we watched Jumanji again, the girls played, Steve ran to the store, I worked out, and eventually we got out of our pj's and dressed to go to dinner! After dinner, the girls and I went over to Sarah's so the kids could play for a bit and Steve met his sister out to watch a band. 

Today has been another boring day, the girls have been playing really well together, Steve has been smoking a brisket, I worked out and put laundry away and really haven't done much else! At least the sun is shining today!

Busy

This week was just busy, I feel like I was hardly at home....and really, I was hardly at home. Monday after work we met Steve's sister and bro-in-law Mike at Chili's for dinner. They then took our car home with them so that Mike could fix it (from when I hit the deer). We got home about 8 and proceeded with our bedtime routine...I was exhausted from our weekend in Chicago so I was asleep by 9:45.

Tuesday I picked up Presley from her first Girls on The Run practice, it's from 3:45-5 pm right after school. I love this activity already, it is about running but in the end they talk about many other things before running. It's about girls. About being strong, nice, respectful girls. I think this will be so good for her (or at least I hope so).

She has gymnastics on Tuesdays at 6....so Tuesdays are busy for her over the next 8 weeks. We got a quick bite to eat before class and then went on our way. Class is from 6-7:30 so we got home a little before 8 and did the bedtime routine once again....and once again I was asleep before 10.

Wednesday was a little less busy and we only had Piper's gymnastics so her and I were home about 6:30. We ate dinner and then I RAN on the treadmill...... little did I know that she needs an adult running buddy for her 5k run in May...so guess who the lucky winner of that duty is? Me!

Thursday I picked Presley up from Girls on the Run at 5, came home real quick and Sarah picked me up at 6 for our wine making night! This is the 3rd time I've made wine at Vines to Wine and I love it. Eric is super knowledgeable and with a dry sense of humor it's a good half hour of wine making. After that we went to dinner at Aposto (the old Café di Scala) http://www.apostodm.com/ They have no corking fee on Thursdays so we drank 2 of the bottles that we had bought from Eric. The menu was a little fancy and scary....but it was SO good! I would totally go again!

Sarah, Me and Gabby

After we left there Sarah wanted to stop by our friend Jamie and Mike's house. I am sure they were ready for bed about the time we showed up but if you know Sarah, she doesn't care! HA! We got there about 10 pm and didn't leave until almost midnight! Sorry Jamie and Mike!

This night was when we first heard about Kevin and Amy Sharp missing in Mexico. So scary, I don't think Steve slept very well after hearing this.
Friday, that is all we talked about. I couldn't concentrate at work. I was thankful it made the news, that people were sharing it on FB and people were talking and getting the word out....and then we heard that they had found them. Unfortunately they were found dead in the condo they had rented. I cannot imagine. It's hard for me to really think about. At this time we still don't know HOW but that supposedly there was no sign of foul play. Breaks my heart. It really makes you realize that our time here is limited, enjoy every day and be thankful for every day.

St. Paddys!

Back in November we booked a weekend in Chicago with some neighbors over St Patrick's Day weekend. I did this 7 yrs ago with my sister and some girl friends but I was prego with Piper at the time! :) We piled in the minivan and headed out!

Wendy and Jason....Kyle and Sarah....and us!

We stopped for lunch in Leclaire and then we stopped right outside Chicago at Binny's, which is like an alcohol super store! It was pretty amazing!

We got checked into our hotel about 5ish and hung out in the hotel lobby until our dinner reservations at Weber Grill at 7:30. Our friend Kruse was able to meet us out for this trip too! (He met us the last time we were in Chicago and when we went to Nashville!) After we all ate WAY too much at dinner we found a bar and hung out some more. The NCAA games were on so we got into some of those good games and just had a good time!

We agreed to meet at 8:30 to watch the river dying right outside our hotel at 9 am. We were lucky enough to claim some seats inside the hotel so we didn't have to freeze outside! Score!

Jason, Wendy, Steve, Me, Sarah, Kyle and Kruse

It is crazy how green the river gets! So cool!

The gang! I love this picture!

 

We made our way to Billy Goats, which is a popular Chicago place to hang out. It's like an old school burger/bar....reminded me of The High Life here in Des Moines. http://www.billygoattavern.com/

It was busy but after about 30 minutes we scored a table! and we didn't leave that table for close to 4 hours! It was perfect! Then we figured we needed to venture out and see something else and regroup......ALL the bars had huge lines to get in so we decided to head back to the hotel and freshen up and drink some of our alcohol (for free!)

 The view from our hotel room!

 The hotel lobby bar was very busy too but once again we were able to score a table! 

 We hung out here for a couple hours while trying to figure out what we wanted to do for dinner. We finally decided to walk to Sweetwater. Steve and I had ate there our last time in Chicago so we knew what to expect and they said it was an hour wait (which was about the shortest wait time). However we got there and not even 5 minutes later we were seated! Wendy and Jason had wanted to go get pizza so they did their own thing and were going to meet us out later. The food and drinks were great, it wasn't that busy so we didn't feel rushed to get out of there so overall it was the perfect stop!  

 After dinner we wandered on and found another bar, with no line and we were able to get a nice bar area to stand by....and we stayed there for the rest of the night (well until we decided we were old and needed to get back to bed....about 11 pm)

There was dancing.....with Sarah and Steve...the rest of us laughed and watched!

 

Sunday we had brunch reservations at Brunch http://www.brunchit.com/menu/ It was so cute and so good! I totally recommend it!

 

Then we headed home! We made the drive back in about 5 hours and were back by 4:30 so we had time to wind down and such.

Overall a super successful (and expensive) weekend with my neighbors/friends! So glad we had the chance to do this! Not every often do the 6 of us do anything together without kids involved!

Spring Break

We are boring spring break people. I feel bad for Presley b/c I know a lot of her friends are probably doing fun things and she doesn't LOVE going to KTC during these breaks. We just don't ever make plans....maybe someday we will do something fun with them.

On Monday I really didn't want to be at work so I asked to leave a little early. I figured I would pick them up a little early and go see a movie. Piper told me I was 'the best mom ever'! HA!

I was going to take them to see A Wrinkle in Time but it didn't get very good reviews so we went and saw Jumanji 2.....they have been watching the original one lately and I had heard good things about this one and it was REALLY funny! We all enjoyed it a lot! So this was the one fun spring break thing we did! 

We didn't have gymnastics this week so that was nice and the weather was nice on Wednesday for them to play outside with the neighbors. Piper and I got a walk in, around the neighborhood and we just hung out and got ready for the 2 half of our week.

Thursday night Brittany came to babysit while we went to the Miranda Lambert concert. We saw alot of people we knew there! We had general admission tickets for the standing room in the front, which we loved! It's not that busy, the tickets aren't that much more to buy and we don't mind standing.

Jon Pardi opened the show.

 I just love Miranda, I'm sure Steve was tired of me singing along to every song! 

Friday morning we dropped the kids off at my parents house for the weekend....well that night daycare had a special event for her class at school for St Paddy's day. A leprechaun hunt! They had make leprechaun traps and they got to take flashlights and search around daycare for leprechauns!

So cute and what a fun idea!

Random

- From last Saturday to this morning, I have read 4 books....not being on FB (and not being busy at work) has given me some extra time! I'm loving it though! In case you are interested in psychological thrillers, here they are...

• The Social Affair
• Best Day Ever
• Trespassing
• The Perfect Roommate

- Also with my extra time (away from FB) I have been able to delete a lot of emails from my personal yahoo account. I have SO many trash emails and I rarely check that account and my emails have really gotten out of control....I was over 12000. Now each day I delete a couple hundred emails and I'm down to 8700! :)

- I really don't watch THAT much TV. But what I do watch I DVR and watch whenever I get a chance. The two shows I watch right now are This Is Us and Catfish. And there are two more shows that I'm getting excited about too! American Idol and Rise!

- I love when my kids go in their rooms and play....but sometimes it is too quiet and I worry about what they are really doing. However, I know I can't open that door b/c the minute I do, I will ruin it all! :)