Well, this week
started off with hitting our families latest milestone…Monday was Christian and
my 7th wedding anniversary! It’s so weird. In some ways, I feel like
our wedding was just yesterday. I feel like we were just these carefree,
mid-20-something-year-olds with the whole world at our fingertips. Surrounded
by friends and family, with endless possibilities and opportunities ahead of
us. Just beginning. Now, 7 years later, we’re 30-year-olds, with these three
amazing, beautiful daughters and our entire lives surrounding them. We still
have the world at our fingertips and endless possibilities and opportunities
ahead of us, but that vision has definitely shifted than what it was 7 years
ago. Yet, I still feel like our lives are just beginning. Our marriage, our
relationship, is far from perfect. We fight, we argue, we push each other’s
buttons, we drive each other crazy. At the end of the day, we move on, we
forgive and forget (or at least forgive), we start each day fresh and new. He’s
spontaneous, carefree, friendly, outgoing, loud and adventurous. I’m stable, a
planner, shy, quiet, and somewhat of an awkward introvert. Somehow, it works.
So, 7 down, and many to go! In other news, Eliza has NOT been sleeping well,
and it’s really starting to drain me (again). I know these phases will continue
to come and go for quite a while, but it doesn’t make it any less exhausting! I
did however start using new bottles for her. I use a Medela pump, but we’ve
always used Playtex Drop-In’s bottles. I finally gave in and bought some
accessories and extra Medela bottles so that we could just start feeding her
with the bottles that I pump into. Holy Crap is that a timesaver…in both bottle
preparation, and more importantly, in bottle cleaning at night! Seriously, I’m
kicking myself for not having done this with the other two, or at least with
Amelia. I did leave work a tad early today so that I could make a run to the
grocery store. Stopped home to put everything away, and was off to pick the
girls up and head to Amelia’s soccer practice. We are now permanently practicing
with the other team, which I think is best for all. Our 4 kids would not have a
very productive practice on their own, and I think even with their bigger team,
the more the merrier. Amelia has been doing really well in practice, and
getting better at games, so I think this will only help her gain some
confidence, and get used to playing with more kids in the mix. Meanwhile, Christian
picked Eliza up from his parents’, and picked up some Chipotle for dinner (our celebration,
LOL). After practice, we finally made our way home, ate, and relaxed for the
evening. Life is sure exhausting!
Amelia tonight...I always know when Miss Carla is in her classroom, because she comes home with a new hairdo every time!
Tuesday was a pretty
standard day. We were all off to work/school/daycare and carrying on as usual.
After work, I picked the girls up and we were off to Olivia’s soccer practice.
Her team is still pretty hit or miss on showing up, but there’s usually at
least 6 of the 8 kids there. I still just don’t get it…why sign your kids up
for something, and then just randomly show up? This is one of the many reasons
why “today’s youth” is so “me-oriented”, and fairly selfish. I don’t care how
old you are, if you are on a team, you need to show up. Period. And, in my
opinion, kids need to be taught this starting at a young age. Sure, we all have
things come up that you can’t avoid, I get that, but some of these kids, it’s
just ridiculous. Christian ended up going straight home after work, and started
dinner. When we girls arrived, we played some music while he finished cooking,
and had a little dance party in the kitchen. We don’t often have a house full
of good, happy moods and some free time to just kick back and have fun
together, so it was a welcomed treat. Eliza was laughing up a storm, so we were
treated to baby laughs galore, and there isn’t much in this world that beats
that. Ugh, heart-melting! We finally settled in for some dinner and some
relaxation time before bed, but it was definitely a good night in our house.
Wednesday was work
at home day, YES! It will never, EVER get old, I can guarantee that! Even
better, the final season of How I Met Your Mother was FINALLY released on
Netflix, so I was able to start that and had it on in the background most of
the day. So excited to finally finish it off. We did hit a snag partway through
the day…Olivia started complaining of a headache a little before lunch, so her
teacher sent her down to the nurse’s office. She ended up registering a fever,
so they called me to come pick her up. Usually you can tell if kids are
starting to come down with something, but this seriously came out of nowhere, I
was so shocked and felt so bad sending her off to school if she was feeling that
bad. Once we were home, I have her some medicine and water, and sent her off to
bed for a nap. I did check her temperature and it wasn’t that high, but she
definitely wasn’t herself. I tucked her in and went back to working. After her
nap, she ate some lunch and relaxed on the couch watching some videos. She was
definitely feeling better, and eventually drove me crazy wondering when Amelia
would be home, LOL. Hopefully it was just a fluke. After I finished working, I started
dinner, picked up the other girls and we had some dinner when Christian arrived
home. Olivia seemed perfectly normal the rest of the night, but we did send her
to bed a little early for some extra rest. You just never know where a day will
lead you!
On Thursday, Olivia
was off to my in-laws for the day. No
fever and she seemed perfectly fine, but she couldn’t go to school because of
yesterday’s fever. I finalized Olivia’s fundraiser information on lunch today…instead
of handing in the sheet, we had to enter everything in online, then print their
“summary” sheet and hand that in with the money. So weird. She ended up getting
more than enough to win a ride in the limo, and she’ll get 5 little prizes, so
she’ll be really excited about that. Our ended up being a little hectic. When I
picked the girls up from daycare, Amelia was complaining that her stomach hurt,
later claiming she was just really tired, then passed out on the couch while I
was making dinner. Eliza was super crabby, crying up a storm and nothing would
console her, so I finally had to put her in the swing while I made dinner, and
she cried herself right to sleep, resulting in a much needed little catnap. Christian
picked Olivia up from his parents and we ate when they arrived home. Eliza woke
up right after, so I hung out with her, fed her and got her to bed. Amelia
FINALLY woke up and also ate a little bit, but still seemed pretty exhausted,
so she was right back to bed shortly after. I sure hope we don’t have some bug
making its way through the house! It’s been pretty cold, but today marked the
return of nice, warm weather, so we need to be able to take advantage! I also
noticed that my Hulu cue is starting to fill up mighty fast with the return of all
of the fall shows, so I’m looking forward to lots of catching up in all my “downtime”,
LOL
Eliza loves Chuy, it cracks me up! He kept photobombing my selfie with her tonight.
My throwback photo this week, in honor of our upcoming visit to Sever's, our first visit back in 2009 with baby Olivia
Friday started off after a seriously horrible night of sleep. Seriously, I was pretty much like the Walking Dead today I was so exhausted. I don’t wish away these sweet baby days, but I am definitely looking forward for the days of consistent, awesome sleep again! Olivia was back to school today, Amelia off to daycare and I was off to work (I hate when it’s my Friday to work!). Christian ended up staying home with Eliza today…my mom and I attempted to adjust our schedules because she went out of town last weekend, to my uncles, and is away at a conference this week, but somehow we messed up our planning and I wasn’t actually able to stay home with her today. Christian had a few days he needs to use up by the end of the year, so it wasn’t a big deal though. I did take some time to schedule dentist appointments for Olivia, Amelia and myself, along with some fly shots for us, and that was pure chaos. I love that I can do all of our medical scheduling online…I sure wish the dental stuff would follow suit. It’s such a pain trying to talk to people and tell them what you are looking for. I’m trying to switch the girls to the pediatric dentist at the clinic closer to home, and while it’s no big deal for Amelia, I don’t want Olivia missing school for a teeth cleaning, so our times of day are pretty limited. She has a few days off of school coming up that I was shooting for, but the dentist by us only works on Wednesdays. Seriously, ONE DAY A WEEK?! Luckily, it’s my day working from home, so I can work with that, but after explaining the appointment needs to be either REALLY early in the morning, or REALLY late in the afternoon (and yes, I did clearly emphasize REALLY), she offers me a 12:40….to which I not so politely declined. The best we could do was back to back starting at 8:40, so Olivia will probably just have to be a little late that day (they start school at 9:25). Life would be much easier if I could just look at what was available and choose, that’s for sure. We also had computer issues at work pretty much all day, which makes for a very long and frustrating day at work. Technology, sometimes it’s definitely not so great. Once (finally) off work, I picked the girls up and we made our way home. The big girls played outside for a while, while Christian and his friend Lorenzo finished folding up the pool and getting it packed away. I have to say, I’m pretty impressed by how small they managed to fold it up. Outside of that, it was a pretty standard night…dinner, hung out with Eliza, bedtime and some TV…the usual.
My sweet baby, she was not a happy camper tonight!
Working on her sitting skills!
Spoiled Olivia conned a "Brave" Bow & Arrow out of her grandparents yesterday!
Me & My Girls - LOVE!
Saturday started
off pretty standard, and pretty early. Eliza is DEFINTIELY teething, and she
still has not been sleeping well. I feel like this round of bad sleeping has
been going on forever, that’s all I know. We had some breakfast and we were off
to the girls’ soccer games. This week was the first, and only, week the girls
play at different times, Amelia at 9:00 and Olivia at 10:15, so we were both
able to watch them both play. And, my Dad and stepmom came down to watch them
as well, which they were pretty excited about. So, we all watched them play and
did some catching up. Amelia managed to score a goal for them, but Olivia still
has yet to score one. She still gets SO close, but just can’t get it in. And, I
swear, every team we play is way more aggressive and skilled than our poor
little team of misfits. They have fun, but you can tell they’re starting to get
more and more discouraged every week. Her coach is just a little too passive,
and is still a little too focused on the basics rather than REALLY teaching
them how to defend and how to cover players on the other team and building up
their confidence. I think next year Olivia moves to an all-girls league, and I’m
hoping she’ll do better there. After their games, we made our way home for some
lunch, a little TV, and naps for all of the girls. The big girls were crabby
and acting up, so while we’ve been a little lax on weekend naps lately, there
was definitely a need today. Christian cut the grass and I did some laundry and
relaxed. Lorenzo came over again, this time to clean and pool cover and tarp,
and get those folded up and put away as well. The pool is finally, officially,
packed up. That was far too short lived, and I already can’t wait for next
year! They decided we should grill some dinner tonight, so they ran to the
grocery store to get some food. Meanwhile, when the girls woke up from their
naps, we were all off to Target. There was a Cartwheel for 40% off of costumes,
which expired today, so we had to jump on it! I ended up saving about $30 on
their costumes this year, AWESOME! The big girls are going to be witches, but
not your standard variety. And, baby is going to be a pumpkin. We’ve never done
the pumpkin thing, and it’s pretty much a requirement that you do it at some
point, so we thought this would be a good opportunity. Of course, the girls would
DIE to be Elsa and Anna, like every little girl in the world, but we didn’t
encourage that idea. I really didn’t want them to have the same costume as 80%
of the girls we’d cross, and I didn’t want to go through the trouble of finding
them at this point. Luckily, they’re pretty easy to convince otherwise. We made
our way home, had some dinner with the boys, played for a bit, and the girls
were off to bed. The boys hung out in the garage for a bit, while I ditched
them for some TV time before passing out. This ended up being quite a busy day!
Taking a snooze with my babe, it's probably my favorite thing to do right now!
Having some fun while looking for their costumes
Sunday was another
hectic day. We had breakfast and immediately got ready to head out for the day.
Off to Sever’s we went to spend the day enjoying some fall fun. We arrived
there shortly after they opened, around 10:15, and met Olivia’s BFF, Bella, and
her dad there. My BFF and her family usually meet us for the day as well, but
something came up last minute and they weren’t able to make it. It was a
bummer, but we did have a great time. Their friend from baseball/soccer, Rio,
and his mom actually met us for a little while as well, so that was a fun
surprise. Last year, we were FREEZING the day we went to soccer, winter hit WAY
early, this year, we were sweating our butts off it was so hot. I can’t believe
how different the weather is from year to year. This is our favorite fall
tradition, and this year’s visit was no different. We hung out in the pumpkin
patch for a while, jumped on the giant pillows (twice!), hung out in the corn
pit, took a couple trips down the giant slide, hung out no parakeet island
feeding the birds, watched some pig races, rode the camel, checked out the
petting zoo and climbed the tire mountain. There was so much else we wanted to
do, but time just ticks away, and we were all pretty exhausted. Some highlights
include: Parakeet Island wasn’t as robust with birds as it usually is, so the birds
that were in there were pretty full and not very interested in hanging out with
us; we sent the girls down the giant slide together this year, and Olivia
somehow convinced Amelia to ride down behind her…both times; the petting zoo
has ostriches, which you have to feed using a spoon (obviously, they’re evil),
but Olivia snuck by me and went to feed them before I could catch her…the Ostrich
but her hand and I screamed from across the way like a maniac, causing a big
scene and probably scaring her more than the bite actually did. We left around
2:00, and stopped at Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch….not really thinking about
the fact that it’s Sunday, and football is on. Oops. We only had to wait about
25 minutes though, so not horrible. And, we got to watch the beginning of the
Vikings game, so YAY! After lunch, we
stopped home…Christian and Eliza stayed home, while I got the big girls changed
and took them to their first swim class of the new session. Not the best
planning, they were definitely exhausted, but they were still excited to get
back in the pool, so it worked out. Olivia did great, and picked it all right
back up after having the past +month off. Amelia already got in trouble, and
her teacher actually pulled me aside after class. Amelia is still very
unpredictable in the water, and she’ll let go of the wall or walk off of the
platform without even thinking about it. I’ve talked to her, and yelled at her,
about this so many times, but she doesn’t get it. Her teacher was concerned
because, obviously, she can’t just watch Amelia when she has other kids that
need her time and focus too. So, we discussed option so how to deal with it. I
told her flat out, do whatever you feel necessary, because she won’t learn
otherwise. So, from now on, she gets one warning and after that, she has to sit
outside of the pool for a few minutes. Hopefully just the threat of that will
help, but who knows. After our discussion, I took the girls to shower, dry off,
and head home. Christian made dinner while we were out so I finished up some
laundry while the girls ate. He was off to watch a soccer game at his friends
while I got Eliza to bed, did some dishes, got the big girls to bed, and
FINALLY sat down to relax for a few minutes. Man, this weekend just flew by!
Sever's Fun!
First Day of Swim Class!
Until Next Week! XOXO
