2013 - Week 24

This week brought me the end of another decade, brought us a pretty crazy mix of weather, and Father's Day celebrations.

On Monday I rang it  in...the big 3-0. God, I still can't believe it. Now, I know logically, 30 is not old (though for a great part of my life, I sure did think it was), but it seems significant. I'm entering my 4th decade of life. 30 years of living behind me. That's a lot - sure, I [hopefully] have many, MANY years ahead of me still, but I think that's a lot of life. I will say, I've had some pretty great years, and I really couldn't be more happy and proud of where I'm at in my life. I couldn't imagine a better way to be ringing in 30 - a wonderful husband, two healthy and beautiful little girls, some amazing friends, a successful career and a great family. Living the dream!

The day went well. The girls were off to my in-laws (who, for the first time in 12 years, actually wished me a happy birthday), we were off to work. My work birthday party consisted of taco dip and cake pops - OMG, perfection! I left work a tad early to stop at the grocery store quick, pick up the girls and get home in time to meet my dad and stepmom. My stepmom offered to bring over dinner, so they came down and spent the evening with us. We chatted for a while, ate dinner, got some gardening and yard project advice, played with the girls had had a great night. Christian even got the backyard cut quick. It was a relaxing night, a perfect birthday evening!

Birthday Balloons Galore!

Birthday Picture with my Best Gifts Ever!

Birthday Cupcakes!

Tuesday started off a tad rough. The girls were up rather late last night and were NOT interested in getting up this morning. Quite frankly, I was feeling every bit of 30 myself. So, I took my time getting ready, and let the girls rest for a bit. The girls eventually rolled out of bed and slowly got ready for the day. We were off to school - and today marked Olivia's official first day of Pre-Kindergarten. WOW, another big day! She was so excited, she feels like such a big girl now. I just love it. There's just nothing in this world quite like watching your kids grow up, and seeing them proud of their accomplishments, taking on each adventure head on. The rest of the day was pretty standard. It was a meeting kind of day for me at work - which I HATE. The evening was low key - just the usual...a bit of play time, dinner and relaxing. Of course, some Breaking Bad before bed.

My Big Girl, First Day of Pre-K Pics!

Wednesday started off pretty normal. Christian was invited to tonight's Twins game at the last minute, so it was just the girls and me for the evening. We played outside for a while and got nice and tired out. Ate some dinner, took a quick bath and relaxed for a bit. Amelia got a bang trim tonight. It always makes her look so much older. I think we're going to grow the girls' hair out. They've only had the one hair cut, earlier this year, and I think that will be it for a while. I miss Olivia's long hair, and it's not growing back as fast as I expected. Amelia's hair is pretty much where it was at when we cut it, but I think we're going to say goodbye to the bangs. Decisions, Decisions - so difficult :)

Amelia's Bang Cut

There Was a Collision on the Swings. Mom to the Rescue!

Olivia is Excited About our Pumpkins!

Thursday was another pretty standard day. The girls finished up another week at school. Olivia had a wonderful first full week of Pre-K. She just loves it. And, Amelia has been doing great on her own, so no worries there. Today was my Friday, so per usual, I spent the day making sure I tied up all lose ends and got as much done as possible. The weather has been great this week - very warm, lots of sun and summer like. Maybe our gardens will FINALLY start growing!!! (fingers crossed). So, we had a quick dinner and spent some time outside afterwards. Christian and the girls were watering the flowers when our friends Sara and Bella stopped by on their evening walk. The girls played for a while and we all chatted for a bit. Olivia kept begging for Ice Cream and we kept shooting her down. She finally snuck inside as we were saying goodbye to our friends. By the time we got inside, she had gotten out the ice cream, the scooper, a bowl and spoon and the toppings, and dished herself up a bowl of ice cream. At that point, I didn't know if I should be upset, or proud of her independence. LOL - in the end, she enjoyed her hard work

She's so Pretty! Outside fun.

Here she is, helping herself...

We finally hung out the wind chime that used to be my Grandma's (who passed away years ago, and I was very close to). I love this chime...it sounds like church bells, it's so beautiful. And I love that it's so old and rusted - so antique!

I think I posted before - but we get several nests of eggs throughout the summer. This is our first of the year. 5 sparrow eggs. Except, I checked on the nest tonight, and there was CLEARLY an orphaned egg in the nest, that does not belong. I did some research, and apparently it's a Cowbird egg. Cowbird's do not build nests, or raise their own young...they find occupied nests, lay an egg in it, and leave it for the "adoptive" parents - often times removing one of their eggs to aid in their trickery. The problem is, cowbirds are pretty big and incubate faster than most other birds. They hatch first, will often kill the other birds, or at least eat all of the food, leaving the others to starve. This whole thing just disturbs me, and makes me so sad. Nature can sure be cruel. I contemplated removing the invasive egg, but I didn't want to risk messing with the rest of the nest so I left it. Now I guess we just hope for the best.

Friday was a great day. We'd made plans with Sara and Bella to go to "Chutes and Ladders", a large park in Bloomington, for the day. There were threats of rain, but we risked it and made our way there. It was packed, of course (there haven't been many nice days this year, and there always seems to be a lot of field trips on Friday's), but the girls had a blast. They wore themselves out, while we caught some sun (ugh, my shoulders and neck ended up super sunburned...oops!) We had a picnic lunch, made our way down to walk along the water/docks for a while, and then played for a little bit longer before heading home. The girls were still going wild the whole way home - all that sun and running around should have knocked them right out! But, as soon as we dropped our friends off and got him, the girls went right down for a nice long nap. YES! I caught up on some Game of Thrones, paid some bills and did our checkbook and relaxed for a bit while they slept. Christian arrived home shortly after the girls woke up. I got them fed, and he brought some Thai food home for us. We got in a little Breaking Bad before passing out. Our love our boring weekends!

Girls Day!

Saturday was a very busy day. The girls and I were off to spend the day together. First up, swim class. My mom came to watch Olivia, which she was pretty excited about. After class, we were off on a little shopping spree. First up, Payless to get the girls some sandals, Amelia some new tennis shoes and myself some summer shoes/sandals. I ended up getting two pairs of shows (white and red...yes, RED!) and a pair of flip flops. Olivia got her sandals, Amelia her tennis shoes. They didn't have sandals in Amelia's size though - they called another store to find and hold them for me. I had a 20% off coupon, and all of the shoes were on sale...I got all 5 pairs for less than $50! And, she gave me my coupon back to use on the shoes on hold. We stopped at Target because I still needed brown shoes...they didn't have any good ones, but I got another pair of flip flops (I seriously had NO shoes). Next up, we stopped at Once Upon a Child. I'd won a $25 gift card months ago, and they were having a sale this weekend. Olivia has pretty much NO 5T clothes, which she desperately needs, so we were off to get her some clothes. I ended up getting her 2 dresses, 5 pairs of shorts and 4 shirts and only had to pay $10. Another nice score. Finally, we were off to the mall. Back to Payless to get Amelia's shoes, and I found some brown shoes there. I ended up getting an extra $4.00 of Amelia's shoes for the "inconvenience" of having to go there so my total this time was only $19.00. So, in the end, 8 pairs of shoes for less than $70 - I'm pretty proud of that haul. Next stop, Old Navy - I was also in dire need of some summer clothes. They were of course having a sale. I got 5 shirts for $40 - not so great, but I did get $30 in Old Navy bucks. Christian still has his birthday gift card, so I'm going to give him those Bucks to use so he can go shopping, so it still worked out well. We finally ate some lunch and made our way home for naps.

Meanwhile, Christian had decided to skip overtime today, and did some stuff around the house. He got the garage cleaned up and organized and did some random projects around the yard. As soon as we got home, it started raining and temporarily ruined his plans of putting up a fence around the second garden. He and his friend Lorenzo still ran to the store to get some supplies, and lucky for them, the rain passed by pretty fast. So, they took to the yard and got to work. Once the girls were up, we spent some time playing outside, supervising their work. We ate dinner on the deck and hung out for a while, took a nice warm bath, and it was bedtime before we knew it. Christian and I settled in for the night with Breaking Bad, another nice relaxing night.

They wanted to be fancy today. Whatevs.

Olivia's 3rd Swim Session - Getting Better and Better Every Week, Loving It

Our Cardinal - He Sits in our Tree, Singing Away

The Cowbird Hatched Today. Now We Wait and See What Happens.

Perfect Ending to a Great Day

Sunday, of course, was Father's Day (I mean, seriously, isn't every day Father's Day!). Lucky for Christian, the girls decided to sleep in today. What a nice gift for him! They were excited to give him their card and our gift - "we" got him a Keurig. Lucky guy! He quickly showered and was off to have breakfast with his dad. My dad goes up north on a fishing trip every year, so I don't get to spend any time with him. I just mail him is annual card and Sears Gift Card so it's waiting for his return. The girls and I ate breakfast and got ready for the day. Shortly after Christian returned, we were off for some fun times. We met Bella's family and rented some paddleboats for a while. The girls grew bored quicker than I'd hoped, but they still had a good time. After boating, we all made our way back to our house. Sara and I were off to buy some groceries for grilling, while the boys set up the pool for the girls and fired up the grill. We chatted, relaxed, ate some dinner and hung out for a while. Another quick storm ran through just as we finished dinner. After it passed, we all went on a walk through the neighborhood. The girls were getting pretty rambunctious by this time (no naps for our girls definitely takes it's toll at some point), so we made our way back home and called it a night. It ended up being a very fun day, a great ending to the week.

Father's Day Festivities

And, that ends another week in our lives. Celebrations for both Christian and myself, and lots of quality family time together. What more could you ask for! No, we head into another week - the weather is looking pretty crazy in the upcoming week - lots of heat and humidity, and LOTS of storms rolling through. We'll see  - we'll be officially welcoming summer this upcoming week, but I think we're all still waiting for spring to actually come! What a year this has been!

Until next week!

2013 - Week 23

This was a much less stressful week for all of us. Much less chaotic than the last couple, and that was welcomed. This week did bring a big brithday celebrating surprise for me though! Awesome!

Monday was pretty much business as usual. The girls were off to my in-laws, we were off to work. Kicking off a 5-Day work week is never very exciting, but luckily, we're still swamped so the days go pretty fast. As usual (well, fairly usual) I left a tad early to get some shopping done. I did get a few super clearance clothing items for the girls, which was a fun score. Amelia is STILL about 1/2 18-24 month cothes, and 1/2 2T. She definitely won't get into 3T this summer, or probably this year. I got her a couple really cheap dresses. Olivia is in dire need of 5T summer clothes now, so we're starting on that. I met the rest of the family at home for the usual routine - dinner, a little play time and off to bed. Unfortunately, Olivia came home with a big black eye/rug burn. Apparently they were jumping from the couch onto pillows on the floor, and she missed. It looks horrible, but I guess after it happened, she went to look in the mirror, checked it out and said "Oh, well that's not too bad". Good Lord, this girl has had too many black eyes in her short life. What a clutz!

Her lovely rug burn...

The only time Chloe exists, when the girls are sleeping! LOL - the little sneak LOVES cuddling up with Olivia when she's sleeping.

Tuesday was a pretty low key day. Everything was pretty much as usual - Olivia started her LAST week of pre-school, and she's super excited about going up to Pre-K full time next week. Unfortunatley, she had a rough day today. She was apparently very aggressive with Amelia all day long, and wouldn't leave her alone. So, she got a nice talking to on the way home, and spent the night electronic-less, and was not happy about it. I seriously cannot wait until they are in different rooms again - I'm sure the teachers feel the same way. So, that was the biggest news of the day. The gardens still have yet to grow anything, but our pretty much complete lack of sun doesn't help. Hopefully in the next week things should finally change, and that should help. I can't wait to see how everything turns out. I'm so lame - I seriously check all of our plants, all of our flowers and the gardens every day to see how they are looking. God I feel old...Christian was off to a friends house to watch the Mexico soccer game tonight - I think that's the one channel he's dying without. LOL

Ms. Little-Sister-Bully, not happy about her evenings punishment (the black eye really adds to her bad-ass-ness).

She did cheer up a little when she realized it wasn't the end of the world when she couldn't use the iPad. She took Daddy's poncho for a spin! LOL

Wednesday was a bit of a rough day. I officially had my first migraine since the 4-day episode that kicked off all of the medical stuff a couple weeks ago. I started the morning off with a dose of Imitrex and Zofran. The Zofran really helped with the nausea, but the Imitrex didn't really do anything. A couple hours later I took another dose, along with the Naproxen (pain reliever). That did help, but the Naproxen is really hard on my stomach, I spent the night with bad stomach craps, but at least the headache eventually went away. So, I think I'll definitely need to take 2 pills when I use the Imitrex, along with a pain reliever. BUT, they only give you 9 pills, with 1 refill, because it's a little dangerous (they don't want you taking it all of the time). Which is why the doctor debated even giving it to me...she wasn't sure about doing that, or just going the daily preventative route - which is probably next if this keeps up. NO FUN! I did survive the work day, somehow. I picked up the girls and we made our way home. They've become pretty receptive to me not feeling well, which is great. They played by themselves until Christian got home and made dinner, while I relaxed on the couch. Not a fun day.

One thing that IS fun...now that the girls are in the same room, we get double the same art projects from them. It's really fun, and kind of interesting, to see the differences in their projects. Granted, the age difference plays into it, but I feel like you can really see their personalities in their work. Olivia, the perfectionist. Always the last to complete a project, beacuse everything has to be perfect. She takes her time, she's thorough, she has patience, and she has a real love for arts and crafts. I think she'll be our logical thinker, with a love of the arts as she gets older. And, Amelia, the free spirit. She's haphazzard, she's unique. She's busy and rushes through everything. She has a mind of her own and likes to do her own thing. She is definitely going to be our free-spirited wild-child as she grows up. Here are some examples - I bet you can figure out who each picture belongs to!

Amelia did take some time to make me this "Feel Better" picture tonight. What a honey!

Thursday was a much better day, headache wise. All better and back to normal. It was overall a quiet day. Today was Olivia's final day of Pre-School. YAY! I can't believe how much she's grown and learned in the last year (well, 15 months). She went to Pre-School unable to write, unable to recite the alphabet, not able to identify many letters or numbers, etc. Now, she can most definitely do all of that, and then some. She has come out of her shell and is such a social butterfly. She has learned to show her independence, but still listen and be a part of the group when necessary. She has grown by leaps and bounds, and I couldn't be more proud of her. And, to see her excitement and joy at the thought of moving up to Pre-K just thrills me - she's gaining a love for education, and that is defintiely a mark of success to me!

My Little Love, No Longer a Pre-Schooler!

Friday was a good day. I ended up getting off work around lunch time because my mom had some plans this afternoon with friends. So, I met her and the girls at the park to pick them up. The girls and I went on a little walk around the area, down by the pond, and found a big family of ducks swimming around. We followed those duck all around the pond, the girls were having a blast. They both fell asleep on the way home, so we skipped lunch and they took their naps, while I sat on my butt and did nothing. NICE! After naps, we spent some time playing in the backyard. The weather was actually decent, which is a nice change of pace. Christian was off to the mall on a super secret mission (LOL - which just happens to be a couple days before my birthday), so it was just the girls and I all night. We played, had some dinner, and they were off to bed. I caught up on some shows and relaxed until he got home. We've watched a couple episodes of Breaking Bad, which we did pretty much every night this week...we'll be caught up in no time! But, it wasn't a super late night since Christian has to work in the morning.

One funny story from tonight. When I was rocking Amelia before bed (I still do, but just for a coupe minutes) we realized that they left their blankies at my mom's house. I told her "Well, Pooh is at Grandma's, you'll have to sleep with Elphie tonight" to which she said "No mom, I need Pooh. I don't want Elphie". I told her she's going to hurt Elphie's feelings and make her cry, that she could get Pooh this weekend. She tells me "Mom stop, Elphie doesn't have feelings! It's fine". Wow, she's too smart, and apparently I'm never going to be able to pull one over on her!

Some pics from the pond...

Spending time with my Girlies!

Saturday was a busy, long and very exciting day! Christian was off to work, as usual. The girls and I spent the day together. Olivia started her new swim session today, and we moved up to the 9:00AM session to get it out of the way earlier in the day. Well...it was a lot more work getting up, ready and out the door in time than I expected! LOL, we made it though. I LOVE her new instructors - they are by far the best she's had. There's only 3 kids, and they've all clearly been in classes for a while, so I think they were able to skip a lot of the BASIC basics, which was nice. Olivia had a blast. After class, we had some brunch and played for a while before nap time. Christian got home around 1:30..we did some quick cleaning around the house...dishes, kitchen, entry way, picking up - the usual weekend chores. Then, it was time to get ready. Christian informed me that my mom was taking the girls over night and we were heading out for my birthday. Off to play mini-golf, FUN! So, we got ready, dropped the girls off, and made our way to the course. I was surprised by our friends Nate and Gini, and Lorenzo. FUN! We had a great time, with lots of laughs, and I ended up winning (no, it doesn't have anything to do with it being by birthday!), WOOT WOOT! After the game, we were off to dinner...another surprise, at Khan's, my favorite! My BFF Kari, and our other friends John and Michelle met us all for dinner, so that was another fun surprise. Christian had ordered me a cake, and got me a new charm for my bracelet. LOVE IT! Lorenzo got me a personalized Twins jersey, with my name and my highschool softball number, super cool. After dinner, we made our way back home for a bonfire and a couple of drinks with Lorenzo, Nate and Gini. It was a perfect day....lots of laughs, catching up and tons of fun. Just what I needed! What a way to welcome the big 3-0!

New Session, New Suit. LOVE IT!

Mini-Golfing Fun

Dinner and Cake and Friends!

Sunday was a much more low key day. We got to sleep in and rest for a while with the girls at my mom's. Of course, I woke up with a headache...but, I knew that would happen. I have one drink and I get one, so that was expected. The girls came home around 11:00. My mom brought me a birthday present...a really pretty hummingbird feeder, and I can't wait to get it hung up. We played with the girls for a bit, had some lunch and they were off to take their naps. Christian got ready and was off to work...again. Today was just 3-8 for some training, but he was pretty tired by the end of the night. The girls and I just hung out around the house, played outside for a bit, had some dinner. Nothing too exciting. A nice calm way to end the week.

Olivia trying on my new jersey, and Dad's hat. She thinks she's hilarious, I think she's adorable!

We discovered our first full nest of the year. We usually get three by the end of fall. I can't wait to see the babies!