4/4/12

Today I don't have a ton to report on. Life has been pretty standard lately. Christian's work still hasn't held the interviews for that job he's been preparing for. He said it's supposed to happen at some point this week. He's really excited about it, but he doesn't sound very optimistic. I guess he found out there are interviewing a few guys from outside of the company, in addition to him and one of the guys from the night crew. He things one of them is going to end up getting it. I guess there are also rumor that the "higher up" guy that will be conducting the interviews and making the final decision is pretty racist, and never chooses a minority over a "white guy". From the things they've done over the years, and the stories Christian has told me, this wouldn't surprise me. It's sad though, and I feel so bad for him. He takes so much pride in his job, and is probably the most accountable guy there...it's sad that he doesn't get what he deserves from all of his efforts and hard work.

I ended up picking up the girls today because he had to work late. When I pulled up, Olivia's class was outside playing. She was standing in the middle of the park, all my herself, looking kind of sad and lonely. As I looked around, most of the kids there were older, I'm guessing most of her class, and her friends, were already gone for the day. When she spotted me, she came running over to the fence so excited to see me. Love that girl!

I went into the center to get them and all of their stuff. The director stopped me and we chatted for a few minutes. She said Olivia is doing so great, and she and a few of the other girls are inseparable. I told her she always talks about a few girls, Jayla, Bella and Caroline. She say "yup, that's them. They're always together". She has her own little clique at school....and so it begins! LOL. Today they all planted a little plant to bring home. We'll be adding that to the little flower pot they colored the other day, which just started sprouting some leaves. It's so fun to see all of the goodies she brings home from school :)

When we went back to get Amelia, she and another little boy were standing there having a very serious "conversation". I don't know why, but it just cracked me up.

Christian met us as soon as we got home. He made some dinner and fed the girls while I got my workout in. We ended up having a quick little fire with the girls. Olivia is suddenly obsessed with bonfires and won't stop talking about them, so we figured, why not?!? Here are a couple pics...

4/3/12

Today was an OK day. We had our first biggest loser weigh-in at work. I was a little disappointed in my 2 week progress, I think it was 2.4lbs down. I'm going to guess that a 2.4lb loss is not going to have me in the winner's ring for this weeks incentive! Hopefully I can pick things up a little bit. I've been managing to keep on top of my work lately, which is a nice change of pace. Let's see how long it lasts!

After dinner I was off to meet the BFF for dinner. Of course, at Khan's. Where else?!? The food was delicious, as usual. It definitely didn't sit too well though. It's overall not THAT bad for you, but of course the cooking oil doesn't do it any favors. My body definitely doesn't enjoy that kind of food like it used to, that's for sure! While I was off catching up with the BFF, Christian and the girls had dinner at his mom's. Of course - that really shouldn't surprise anyone!

We spent a little time hanging out together before baths and bed. I found a pair of Princess boots for Olivia on super clearance a few weeks ago. They are big on her now, but I couldn't pass up the sale. The girls got into them tonight, and Amelia thought it was HILARIOUS wearing them around the house. They were cracking me up...

4/2/12

Today was pretty much your run of the mill Monday. Work was pretty busy. I spent the day catching up on all of the tasks and paperwork I put off for as long as possible. So, obviously a pretty exciting day. LOL.

My workout tonight was a pretty long one, so Christian hung out at his mom's when he went to pick them up so I could get that done and start dinner. By the time we ate dinner and cleaned up, we didn't have much time left to play. Just enough for the girls to play princes for a while...as you can see, Amelia attempted to dress herself, resulting in a backwards dress, missing an arm, but heck, she can pull it off.

4/1/12

Another fantastic day for us!!

The girls slept until a more "normal" time, which was nice. Olivia seems to finally be better, and back to normal, which is great. Back to actually sleeping - nothing like a GOOD, full night of sleep!

Christian handled breakfast and all of that fun stuff, while I started on my chores for the day. The usual...dishes, sweeping, cleaning the kitchen, laundry. You know, the fun stuff!

While the girls napped, I exercised, we showered and got ready for the rest of the day. We had to wake them up to get them ready, and were off to the girls' very first Circus! Christian had never been to a circus here, and I haven't been in a LONG, LONG time, so we were pretty excited about it. We ate some hotdogs and popcorn, bought some goodies and wandered the arena before the show. Then met up with my friend Kelly from work, and her family, for the show. During intermission we got Olivia's face painted, and ran into my cousin Chad and his family. The second half of the show was pretty short, and we were on our way home right away when it ended. Olivia did really well - she sat well during the show and watched intently. Amelia was a bit of a wiggle worm the whole time, but she did surprisingly well.

They were both exhausted and passed out right away when we got home. Another weekend has come to an end. Sad, and hard to believe. Here are some pictures from the Circus :)

3/31/12

Today was a very busy, very Easter filled family day. The girls were up VERY bright and early. After taking some time to relax and actually wake up, we had ourselves a big breakfast, got ready, and were off on our first adventure. Mall of America, to meet the Easter Bunny! The girls have always done well with Santa and the Easter Bunny, so I was interested to see how it would go this year. Olivia was very into it. She ran right up to him to give him a big hug. Amelia was more nervous, she gave in and sat next to him, but did not offer up any smiles. LOL. We still got a couple shots though.

After wandering the mall for a while, we headed home for some lunch and naps. While the girls napped, I ran to pick up some final egg dying and cooking making supplies, then quickly got my workout in before starting up our evening activities.

I boiled our eggs and gathered all of our supplies. The girls woke up from their nap, ate some dinner and we got to work. We dyed our eggs in a variety of fun ways...your standard "dip in the cup" colors, the egg spinner, tye-dyed with a paper towel, and my newest experiment, silk-dyed. It was fun, the girls had a blast! It gets better every year when the girls actually get into it and can do things. Next up, we baked our Easter cookies. I wanted to do lots of fun shapes, but it just wasn't working out, and it was getting late, so we just went with regular old round cookies. Still delicious, obviously :)

It was already past bedtime when we finally finished up our Easter fun, so the girls took a quick bath, and off they went. Christian's friend from work stopped over, needing his help with some car stuff again, so I cuddled up with the DVR while he did that. Nice relaxing night after a hectic, fun filled day :)

Here are some pictures from our day!

3/30/12

Friday, sweet Friday. If only it were my Friday off, the day would be complete :)

I posted about my "friend" issues on facebook last night, and throughout the day I was reminded of how many amazing friends I really do have. All of the nice comments, the kind posts and the uplifting words just made my day. I have so many REAL, great friends, I truly am blessed. Definitely need to remember that when I'm feeling down!

I weighed in this morning, and lost another pound!!! YAY, that brings me to 16.4 today. Feeling good, and hoping it continues! Tonight my workout was a kickboxing workout, and HOLY MOLY it seriously kicked my butt! I love it though, I'd say that and the Ballet video are my favorites. They are such different workouts, but they leave me feeling like it was worth my time.

I left work a little early today so that I could get the workout and a shower in, because we actually had plans to go out!! YES!! Much needed adult time, and catch up time with our friends Nate and Gini. We met them at Buffalo Wild Wings for some yummy dinner, a beer or two and lots of laughs. It was great catching up with them...hopefully it can be a more regular thing!

After some adult time, we picked up the girls from my mom's, headed home, and relaxed for the rest of the night. I caught up on a few shows before passing out.

Tonights picture is Olivia, coloring away. Coloring seems to be her new thing suddenly. The best part is that she actually colors, like tries to stay inside the lines and everything. It's cute!

3/29/12

Today is my stepmom's birthday, so a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to her :)

It was a pretty low key day today. Ended on a bit of a frustrating note though. It amazes me the way people act sometimes. You think adults can be adults, let bygones be bygones, and just move on from differences, arguments, etc. It's really annoying when you learn that just isn't always the case.

What's more than that...I hate to be left if decisions you've made in your fact, were the right ones. The people you choose to have in your wedding, the people you assign important "titles" to, the amount of trust and faith you place in people. When those people let you down, or show their true colors and make you start questioning those decisions, that trust, that faith, it just makes everything that much more frustrating. I hate feeling like we've made "mistakes", regretting important decisions. But, what do you do. There's no going back, there's no changing the past or redo's in life. So, moving on is the only real choice that we have.

So, other than that, it was a pretty standard day. Work was work. We continued the suppositories on Olivia, and they seem to be helping. After a workout, dinner, a little playtime and some baths, we were all in bed for the night. Another day down :)

Here is a picture of my cutie, trying on Daddy's hat....

3/28/12

Well, Olivia was up all night last night, screaming and crying. Poor thing. She finally slept out on the couch with Christian, and that seemed to help her actually sleep a little bit. I decided this morning it would be best to take her in and get her checked out. I figured if nothing else, they can give us some good advice of what to do for her. So, I headed into work, took care of some priority stuff, and picked her up from school at 12:30 for her appointment.

When I got to school, I spied on her for a few minutes. She was just beaming, she looked so incredibly happy! She was running around with some of the other little girls, playing and laughing. Just having the time of her life. They had just finished lunch, and were getting ready to settle in for a story before naps (waiting for everyone to finish washing hands and cleaning up). Olivia finally spotted me and came running over. She took me on a little tour of their classroom and all of their new stuff. They are growing a little garden, and raising some butterflies. She thought it was all SUPER cool. They made bird seed shakers today which she was really excited about as well. It’s so fun to see her so excited about everything. Just justifies our decision to put them in even more!

We were finally off to her appointment. Everything checked out well…the doctor wasn’t worried about a blockage or anything, so that was good. She had us start Olivia on some suppositories, and said to just keep doing what we’ve been doing. Hopefully in another couple of days she’ll be back to normal. So, I took her home and she took a nice long nap. I ate some lunch, relaxed for a while and got my workout in. Once Christian was home, I was off on tonight’s adventure. A screening of “Mirror Mirror” with my friend Gini. We grabbed some dinner and chatted for a while. I haven’t seen her in FOREVER, so it was great catching up. Lots of venting, lots of laughs. The movie was actually really good too. I didn’t really know what to expect, or how adult entertaining it would be, but it was actually really funny, very cute and great for every age. It was a nice stress reliever from everything! By the time I got home from the movie, the girls were in bed, and I tucked myself in for the night. All in all, it was actually a pretty good day!

In other news…Amelia turned 20 months on Monday. We finally got her 20 month picture today. She seems to be growing and learning like CRAZY these days. Her talking, especially since being in school, is pretty amazing. She can clearly repeat just about everything you say to her, and she has a lot of new phrases. “I need help”, “I want more”, “Milk please”, “I want Daddy” (this one, I’m not such a fan of, LOL – but she almost instantly reaches back for me anyway when he takes her. Ha.) are what we usually hear. She can say her own name, thank you, excuse me, let’s go, puppy, juice and all of her other usuals. It seems like she has a few new words every day. She has picked up the “Twinkle Twinkle” tune and “sings” that a lot. She’s been doing a lot of coloring and arts and crafts in school. She comes home very dirty every day. LOL. I’m just so proud of her, she’s growing up so much! She is still in 12-18 month clothes. Most fit her just fine, some are getting small, but only because of her belly. According to the tags of most brands, she’s still not even in the weight range for 12-18 month clothes. LOL. As I collect summer clothes for them, I am getting her 18-24 month stuff though, so hopefully they’ll actually fit! She’s been sleeping really well, no issues for a long time now. She really just tunes Olivia out now and sleeps right through when she wakes up. At the park the last few weeks she’s shown that she can climb the rock wall and all of the different stairs, she goes down the slides and everything on her own. Her new favorite thing is to do summersaults, which is very cute. She’s still our little cuddle bug, but she has a very mischievous side as well. She definitely eggs Olivia on in a lot of their “rumbles” and gets herself into a lot of trouble. She’s just so dang cute though! My baby, getting so big!

3/27/12 (vent ahead)

Today was kind of an aggravating day. Work was fine, nothing bad…busy enough, and the girls made it through the day at school. I checked in with the director a few times, and she said Olivia was doing great, no issues. I was worried about sending her, but I thought the distractions at school would help take her mind off of her issues…seems to be exactly what happened.

I ran home to let the dog out after work, then met Christian and the girls at his mom’s house for dinner. This is where things got pretty aggravating to me. I’ve been semi-vocal over the years of his parents, and their care of the girls. But I think I “ignored” a lot of the issues I had and the things his mom did, or just let them go because it was really our only option at the time. Now, I’ve just had enough with it. Tonight, it’s like everything that bothers me was happening, and I was getting more upset by the minute.

Now, time to vent (haven’t done one of these for a while)…

First, it’s been frustrating dealing with Christian and the daycare switch. He just doesn’t understand some of the things the daycare does, or how it works. He doesn’t get that they have a classroom full of kids to take care of, so the level of attention is obviously not going to be the same as it was at his parents house. We get into arguments about it, but it’s obvious he talks to his mom about these things, and she just fuels the fire because she does not get it AT ALL either. As soon as we sat down to eat she started in on things about the school…why don’t they give us a recap sheet for Olivia every day, do they help them go to the bathroom, they probably just give them pizza every day for lunch, yada, yada, yada. I was getting so upset. No, they don’t do recap sheets for Olivia’s room…because, they don’t. The older the kids get, the more structured it is. It’s more like actual school, and they are old enough to tell us what they did, what they ate, etc. I mean, they’ve been in business for how long? Obviously they know what they are doing. They DO help the kids go to the bathroom…but obviously, just like at home, if the teachers are busy or with another kid, and Olivia has to go potty, she’s just going to go. She’s been potty trained for almost a year, she’s not going to wait for help if she has to go. No, they don’t eat pizza every day…they have something new every day – REAL food, just like if they were at home. Fruits and veggies are part of every meal. Amelia’s daily sheet tells us what they ate – the entire school eats the same thing, so we KNOW what she eats every day. I finally lost it a little bit and said – you know, I don’t make the rules and I don’t run the school. They know what they are doing, and if they have issues or problems with the girls, they would tell us. And I pretty much dropped the subject. What really bothers me, is that Christian KNOWS all of this, he knows what it’s really like, but he lets his mom brainwash him and refuses to just stick up for us and our decisions.

Next, she’s has randomly over the years complained that we “treat her like an employee, and not like ‘grandma’”. This is completely untrue, and ridiculous. If anybody treated our situation like a business, it was her. I mean, just look at what she charged us to watch her grandchildren, and you don’t need any more proof than that. She started talking about one of the neighbor kids, and that they have a nanny come every day and watch her. She said she talked to the nanny one day and asked how things work…that she works 40 hours a week, never any more, and she gets paid vacation and sick days – she kept repeating this, and emphasizing it, as if she was trying to make a point…as if that’s how we should have been treating her. Yeah, she watched them more than 40 hours a week…she watched them Mon-Thurs, from about 6:45 to about 5:00. So, OK, 41 hours a week. Anything more than that was because Christian sat over there with them every night, for like an hour, instead of leaving to come home right away. Apparently she was counting that time? And, why would I pay you when you don’t watch them? When she started watching Olivia we paid her the full amount, every week, no matter what. Then, she started canceling days because she “had to work”, or because she had an appointment or something. So, I finally put my foot down and we stopped paying her for days she didn’t work. So, this was obviously a stab at that – and she also brought up the fact that we have to, pay the daycare even if they don’t go/are sick. So I had to explain the way it works, and that you are basically paying them to hold your spot in class – like any daycare. So, again, who treated our situation like a business? Again, Christian says nothing, doesn’t stick up for me or OUR decisions. Just sits there. Seriously, grow a backbone. It IS OK to stand up to your mom, and stick up for yourself.

Finally, the last straw. The girls have always been really competitive with each other. Somewhat natural with their small age gap, but a little extreme really. I’ve never understood why they haven’t changed or gotten over that “phase”. His mom has always talked about it too, just baffled by it. Tonight she was trying to get them to eat yogurt, and it turned into a fiasco. It was the kind of yogurt that had fruit on the bottom. So, I mixed it up. Olivia wouldn’t eat it, apparently because she doesn’t like it mixed together. So she got a new thing of yogurt out for her. Really – I can’t imagine why she’d be picky like that when you give into her every fit. The girls weren’t cooperating, so she started taking a spoonful and yelling “who wants the last bite”, and they would both come running and push each other around for the bite. Then she looks at me, laughing, and says “This is how I get them to eat”. Wow, I can’t imagine why they don’t stop competing with each other over everything – maybe because you basically force them to?!? I was livid at this point, put the girls socks and shoes on, and we headed home (luckily it was getting late, so it was an easy excuse to leave without causing a scene).

Christian packed up some leftover and arrived home shortly after us. I told him right away, straight out, that when he gets home from Mexico next month, we need to figure out some financial stuff so we can find a way to get the girls in daycare full time. That after REALLY watching how his mom interacts with the girls, I really don’t want her watching them anymore. All of these activities tonight were completely inappropriate. To top it off, they got rid of the crib…they don’t have any appropriate beds for the girls to sleep on when they are over there – Olivia has been sleeping on a big twin bed since Amelia was born. They’ve taken away almost every toy (95% of which we bought and kept over there anyway)…they’ve either sent it home or packed it out in the garage. God forbid they have toy “clutter” in their house, and, of course, if the girls fight over something, she’s always just taken it away and stored it away instead of teaching them how to share and play together. Again, another lovely issue that’s always driven me crazy. Everything, every issue, every annoyance, everything I don’t agree with, is just boiling over at this point and I’m so sick of it.

OK – vent over. It feels good to just be able to get it out! I am SO happy to have the girls in school now. It’s such a huge relief to have them in that environment, and know that we’re doing the best thing for them and their futures. No more sitting around the house, and they are so much happier. Now, if we can just undo all of the damage that has been done, and get them to act at home the way they act at school, we’d be golden!

Needless to say, I didn’t get a picture today. I was a little too preoccupied with my anger! LOL. So, I threw together this Collage of Christian’s past Birthday’s…lots of memories!