2/12/12

Sunday again. And, another pretty productive Sunday at that! The morning started off a little slow, like usual, but once breakfast was done, we were on our way. Scrubbing the kitchen, sweeping, mopping, vacuuming the upstairs putting away clothes, cleaning the bathroom and some general picking up. Little feels better than a freshly cleaned house, that's for sure! The girls spent a little time downstairs playing in their room, but they were both really interested in helping clean, so we let them get in on some of the action. It was pretty fun, actually.

After cleaning and some lunch, the girls went down for their naps. I was off to get my workout in for the day. I sat down to catch up on some TV after my workout, but I was so exhausted and worn out, I passed out. That was a much needed nap though!

Once the girls were up, we all got dressed and were on our way out for dinner. Our fridge is basically empty, and I was just too tired to drag myself to the store today, so we were off to Applebee's for a little family dinner. The girls had a blast, like usual. They just love eating out at restaurants.

The rest of the night was pretty low key. Just hung out around the house, watched some TV and played...the usual. Time to get ready to tackle another week. This is supposed to be my first full week at work in a long time now, I'm not really looking forward to it.

2/11/12

Today was a good, and bad day.

The girls and I were up pretty early this morning, playing, watching some TV. Finally, Christian was up and helped get the girls ready and help with breakfast. Then, the girls and I were off to my Dad's house to do some Valentines Day crafts with my stepmom and some of my nieces and nephews. Amelia was pretty standoffish the whole time we were there and threw a fit anytime I was out of sight (makes me slightly more nervous for the daycare transition that I was to begin with...). Olivia had a lot of fun doing her project with Grandpa and playing with the kids. Like usual, she wasn't too happy when it was time to head home.

Both of them passed out halfway home, and proceeded to nap for a while. While we were gone, Christian was off to help his friend with his car....again. Broken record, much? He arrived home just as I was off on my next adventure....the "bad" part of my day.

I was off to meet the BFF and her mom and sisters at to finally pick out and order our bridesmaid dresses. That part is exciting and fun. The bad parts...1) getting sized for a formal dress, is pretty much enough to make me want to hurl myself off the side of a VERY large building. I think that was a whole new level of depression for me. 2) the dress we picked out is really cute, and was actually super cheap as far as bridesmaid dresses go...BUT, it's so late, and the wedding is so soon, that we had to pay to have them rushed! That sucked big time...I was really excited at the thought of spending way less than anticipated on the dress.

That pretty much put a downer on the rest of my night. We ate some dinner when I arrived home, played for a little while, and I was basically off to bed as soon as the girls were. Seriously, could we be any more lame?!?

Here are some pictures of our craft day :)

Soliciting Votes Post...Again

Just a quick message....

For any readers that are in facebook land, can you do me a favor and vote for our girls. We entered them in a little Valentines Day contest on Kiddie Kandids' page (where we had their pictures done a couple weeks ago). It was originally just for fun, the winner gets to be their profile picture, and I thought that would be kind of fun and cute. I got an e-mail from them this morning that they are actually going to give the winner a little prize, so I'm hoping to make up some ground. We're WAY behind #1 (which, is super cute, but not very Valentines Day-ish in my opinion), so we need all the help we can get :) All you have to do is like the picture, super easy (maybe page too, I'm not sure, but you can always unlike the page after).

Thanks so much!

Click HERE to vote for them!

2/10/12

Today was my Friday home with the girls. We had a fairly low key day. They were both still feeling pretty crappy. They were actually playing and quite happier, but all of the cold symptoms were still going strong. Poor things, I hope this is their last illness for a while!

I checked my e-mail this morning, and to my surprise, had an e-mail from the in-home daycare we interviewed last week. She was checking to see if we had contacted the referrals she sent me, and if we had found care for the girls yet. She surprised me by saying she and her husband had talked, and really enjoyed our interview, and the girls, and offered to adjust their hours for us. It's still not ideal...she offered 7:00-5:00. So, if we went with them, we would have to do full time, and I would have to switch to 5, 8-hour days a week, but it could actually work. Now, I'm so torn. I feel like we've already committed to KinderCare, and I have all of the paperwork to fill out, our start day and we've worked everything out with our parents. BUT, I just have such a strong feeling towards this in-home. I really like them, and everything they have to offer. Of course, Christian is still against me, for no GOOD reason, so that's probably not going to happen anyway. I'm upset about it though...I feel like they have so much more to offer, and we can get 5 days from them for the price of 3 at KinderCare. But, Christian seems adamant about part time, in a center. What to do, what to do...

Other than that, we really just hung out all day. The girls ate really well and played together great, which always makes life a little easier. Christian had his work "Holiday" dinner tonight, so it was just me and the girls, all day, and all night. I got my workout in during naptime, and it was BRUTAL. Glad I did it though. My weight in today was another slightly disappointing one, down 0.6lbs. DOWN, which is good, but not the at-least-a-pound I'm hoping to get every week. I'm staying positive though. In all, I've lost 7.2lbs in my first month, and I'm pretty happy with that.

Tonight, the girls and I made a mess of the kitchen, cooking up some Valentines cupcakes. They had so much fun, it was worth all of the clean up!

2/9/12

Well, it's official. We're going with KinderCare for the girls. It will be my mother in law on Monday's, KinderCare Tuesday-Thursday, and my mom and me on Friday's. I stopped into the center to pick up all of the enrollment paperwork after work. I feel so many emotions right now. I'm so excited for them to start school and finally get out of the house, out into the real world. I'm nervous about how they are going to adjust, act, make friends and all of that. I'm sad that they are growing up so fast. I'm worried about the added financial burden, and the time - actually having to get them up, dressed and awake in the morning before going through the whole drop off process. It's going to be a huge adjustment, for all of us!

Today was my Friday at work, and the day flew by. I've been playing a lot of catch up this week, and I'm very happy to be done with that. I hate catch up work...there's a reason it sits! LOL

After I picked up the paperwork, I rushed home to get my workout done. It was alittle longer than my usual workouts today - they are getting longer in general, and harder! It feels good though. Anxious for tomorrow's weigh-in. I've been doing good though, so hopefully that shows on the scale!

Here are some pictures of the girls, just being cute as can be.

2/8/12

Today was a pretty boring day. I spent the entire day at work, the ENTIRE day, doing data entry. Talk about BORING. Not my thing at all, which is why my stack of "data" to enter got to big. I always find a million more important things to do than sit there and enter dates and information. I hate it, with a passion. But, I got my entire pile done, and it did feel good to get that off my desk.

After work, it was home for the usual - workout, cook, eat, hang out. The girls still aren't feeling too well. They both feel pretty warm and feverish, runny noses, coughs...the whole nine yards. To top it off, Christian and I aren't doing too hot either. He feels a cold coming on. My back and knees are killing me, and that makes it even harder to get through my workouts. I thought by now those "just started working out and my body is revolting against me" aches and pains would be gone. Anyway, I'm guessing we're in for another long night of no sleep. I just wish there were more you could do for a poor, sick child. I hate feeling so helpless.

Here is a picture of the little sikkies, playing with the iPod. Amelia is starting to get the hang of it now, and they get into quite the battles over it.

2/7/12

Well, my daycare search isn't going too well. I'm not really hearing back from most of the in-home providers that I've been contacting, including the referrals I received from our interview last week. I tried contacting the last regular "center" in our area for information, but they won't provide any information over the phone. As if I'm going to waste the small amount of "extra" time we have checking out a center when we have no ideas what their rates or hours, etc. are. So, that's out. It's seriously giving me a headache.

Work went pretty fast today. Today was my break day from working out, so I hurried home, ate some dinner, and was off on a date night with the BFF. I scored some screening passes to "This Means War", with Reese Witherspoon, for tonight. It's always a good time when we get to hang out together, and she filled me on on lots of wedding planning details, which is exciting. Bonus, the movie was actually really good too! I'd highly recommend it...a little action for the guys, the right touch of girlyness for the girls and tons of funny moments. GREAT date movie!

I arrived home after the movie, to find that my little devils were still awake. Olivia was watching videos on the computer, and Christian was trying to get Amelia down. I rocked Amelia for a few minutes, and got her down (I think Christian was a little annoyed with me...LOL), spent a little time with Olivia, then put her down.

I was off to bed soon after. The girls still aren't feeling well, so I'm sure it will not be a silent night around here!

Here is a cute picture of Olivia tonight though. Her and her "stinky" blankie - the thing is disgusting, but she loves it, and she's had it since she was born. Gross.

2/6/12

HALLELUJAH!!!!

The day has come, FINALLY, it has come. The truck, is paid off. The truck, is 100% ours. NO MORE TRUCK PAYMENT. To top it off, we also paid off our [rather small] lines of credit. It feels SO good to finally accomplish our first big financial goal. Next up, the Visa. And that will officially be the end of our unsecured debt...hopefully forever! Ugh, it just feels so good, I'm seriously on top of the world right now! Unfortunately with the unexpected change in our daycare situation coming up, we aren't going to get the Visa paid off quite as soon as I had hoped, but, the plan has been adjusted already, and we're back in action!

Outside of that, it was just a standard day. Monday as usual at work, home to workout, dinner and all that jazz. The girls are not doing well at all. They are both miserable and had slight fevers tonight. PLEASE let this pass quickly!

We all bundled up on the couch under the blankets together tonight :)

2/5/12

Superbowl Sunday. My, this day has changed a lot for us. Basically since moving out on our own, we've held a big Superbowl party every year. We had all of our friends over, a big taco bar with tons of food, beer and drinks galore, and had so much fun hanging out with all of our friends. It was definitely something we looked forward to every year. This has changed drastically...actually, starting last year. We no longer host our party. It's just me, Christian, the girls and some kind of cheap take out. In some ways, it's perfect. I mean, there is no better company. In other ways, it's kind of a sad day. Remembering that "past life". Filled with a lot of people we don't even talk to anymore. People that have all taken different paths over the years. People we've had a "falling out" with for one reason or another. And, some people, that it's just plain hard to find time to get together. This whole thing weighed pretty heavy on my mind all day.

Really, today was a really productive day. Olivia's fever was nowhere to be found, but she did have some other, unfortunate, issues going on. After breakfast, we got right to our chores for the day. I started up laundry, washed our dishes (again, probably every dish we own), cleaned up the kitchen and did some general picking up. Christian cleaned the kitchen appliances and the entry way. It's SO nice being able to send the girls downstairs to play, and actually get some stuff done. Love it!

After cleaning and chores were done, Christian got ready, and was again off to help his friend out with his car. They are replacing the fuel pump in the car, so it was just the girls and me. We ate some lunch, and they were off for their naps. I spent nap time doing my workout, more laundry and just relaxing a little. Christian arrived home shortly after the girls woke up, and it was game time!

We cuddled up downstairs, watching the game, while the girls played in their room. We used the Davanni's voucher we'd gotten a few weeks ago (from them being so late with our order), so our dinner was basically free. However, they were again fairly late on delivery, my order was wrong and they forgot part of our order. So, we are officially done with Davanni's (delivery anyway).

The girls were right off to bed after the game, and I wasn't far behind. I watched "The Voice" premiere, and promptly fell asleep. Ready to start a new week...and, this week's goal, FIND A DAYCARE/PRE-SCHOOL! It will be done...

Here are some pictures of the girls...looks like they are getting into the football spirit :)

2/4/12

Well, the day finally came. The big play room reveal. It was hard to wait, I think Christian and I were far more excited about it than the girls, but sill, it was exciting. We did all sit down for breakfast before rushing downstairs though :)

The girls loved the room. I think they were pretty overwhelmed. Most of the toys we have, Amelia has never even seen they've been packed away for so long. They just went from one toy, one drawer, one shelf to another. Touching, and emptying, everything. It was pretty funny watching them discover everything. Definitely make sit all worth it.

After spending a little time playing and hanging out, Christian got ready and was heading out to pick up our photo prints from last week's session, and to help his friend replace his car's spark plugs. The girls and I ate lunch, and they went down for their nice, long nap, while I caught up on some TV and computer time. I LOVE having the house to myself!

The rest of the night was pretty quiet, except...after her nap, Olivia seemed to have developed a fever, out of nowhere. After dinner, hanging out, and baths, Amelia went off to bed, and Olivia rested on the couch with us. She ended up falling asleep watching TV...we woke her up, and her fever was up to 102.8. We sent her off to bed, fingers crossed that she would sleep it off and be good as new in the morning.

Christian and I were both pretty exhausted...my grand plans of watching a couple movies quickly disappeared. I started looking for a few more daycare options, we'll see what comes of that. And, we started discussing our next home project. Which will be finishing the basement decorating. We'll be recarpeting the living area and hallway, putting up a "Friend and Family" photo area in the hallway, finishing the kids' photo area, and our "love" photo area, moving the coffee table back upstairs and going on a search for an oversized storage ottoman, which will hold all of the movies we haven't watched yet. And, of course, finishing the princess play area. That's really all we have planned, so it shouldn't take TOO much time, And, other than the carpet, it should be a fairly cheap "remodel".

Here are some pics of the play room.