6/2/12

Bachelorette Party day is finally here!! I’ve been looking forward to spending the day with my BFF for so long now, and it was such a fun day!

Of course, the girls had me up bright and early. We had some breakfast and hung out for a while, I did a little cleaning around the house, and started packing up all of my stuff for the day/night. Christian was on toddler duty all day today – of course that meant afternoon/dinner/etc. at his parents’ house, but whatever!

I picked up Kari around lunch time, and we were off on our adventure. First up, lunch at LeAnn Chin, enjoying the BEAUTIFUL weather on the patio.

Next up, we stopped into the salon for Kari’s hair and make-up trial. She had a few runs at the hair. We’ll be doing air brush make up, but the air brush wasn’t working quite right, so it didn’t turn out perfect – but she still looked beautiful!

Following that, we headed back to Kari’s house to get changed, get ready and head out to the Bachelorette Party. First, we stopped into Dick’s Last Resort at the Mall of America for dinner. It’s a place where the wait staff are supposed to be kind of rude, joke around and give you a hard time. I have to say, the food wasn’t the best (and, fairly overpriced), but the atmosphere was pretty fun, and everybody seemed to have a pretty good time.

After dinner, we were off to the House of Comedy for a show. I booked our party a couple weeks ago so we got a nice discount, Kari’s admission was free, and we got special seating at the show, so that was all pretty good news! The show was pretty good. The featured comic was REALLY funny, I laughed through just about his whole set. Good times!

A lot of the party goers left after the show, and the rest of us stopped into Cantina #1 for a couple drinks before ending the night.

All in all, it was a pretty fun night. Lots of laughs and a good time had by all. Much more low key that the partying of our younger days, but just as fun! By the time I arrived home, Christian was already passed out for the night, so I did a little channel surfing, and wasn’t far behind! He’s just as old and boring I guess.

6/1/12

Friday! More importantly, Friday off!!! Nice.

The day started well…I lost 1 pound this week, for a total of 25.6 lost to date. YAY! Very happy with that number. Everything kind of went downhill from there. I was exhausted. The girls were crabby, fighting with each other non-stop and not listening. Which made me crabby and super frustrated with them. I finally got them dressed and took them off to Hyland Park for a while. I didn’t really want to “reward” them for their bad behavior, BUT, they needed to burn off some energy, and I knew that would do the trick. Olivia was ALL over the park…up the ropes, down the slides, climbing everywhere. She had the time of her life! Amelia still can’t do a ton – but, they are almost done building their new play area – which I more like a regular playground, and I know she’ll like that when it’s done. She still had fun wandering and people watching though. I picked up some lunch on our way home, and the girls took a nice long nap.

Our evening was pretty low key. We had dinner as soon as Christian arrived home, played with the girls for a while, then it was time for baths and bed. Christian’s friend from work stopped over for a couple beers, and I was in bed fairly early. Tomorrow is my BFF’s bachelorette party, so it will be a long day/evening. Definitely need my rest!

Here are a few pics from the park this morning…

5/31/12

OY! Today was a pretty long day. The girls were exhausted this morning, and Amelia would not cooperate. She was throwing a fit, flailing herself around like crazy, refusing to get dressed or put her ponies in. Christian finally had to leave for work, so I had to take over and deal with the chaos. I finally got them ready, loaded in the car, and dropped off at school. Then, arrived quite late for work. Awesome. I had a raging migraine by the time I got settled in at work, which didn’t go away until the second dose of aspirin was in my system. LONG MORNING!

On the bright side, I lost 3 pounds in my biggest loser weigh in today! YIPPIE!!! In two weeks we have our FINAL weigh in. I need to lose 1.5 to make my 12 week goal. Not only will I get the satisfaction of making my goal, but I’ll win $5.00 too! And, our final incentive is winning $2.00 for every pound lost. So, it’s time to get to work!

A couple weeks ago I was at walmart, and they had a bunch of jammies on sale for $1.00 a piece – total steal. I bought some for Olivia, with the intention of saving them for next fall/winter…but, I’m behind on laundry, so I had to open up a pair tonight for her. OMG was she excited…

5/30/12

Today was a pretty great day! We got the call from the bank…our appraisal is in, it’s been reviewed and our paperwork has officially been approved! Our loan modification is finally getting processed. Just have to sign some dotted lines, and we’re done. I cannot tell you how excited I am! It’s going to be such a thrill for everything to finally go through, and see our mortgage payment go down so drastically! I’m still so happy we’re able to this instead of refinance. I’d hate to start our loan over from square one, so this is beyond perfect. HAPPY DAY!

Other than that excitement, it was a pretty low key day. Christian took the girls to his parents’ house after work, so I was able to do some cleaning and picking up around the house. I hate missing out on evenings with the girls, but it is nice getting the chance to get stuff done around the house, so it’s really a double edged sword.

Once the family arrived home, before baths and bed, the girls helped me water the plants. Of course, stopping to take some scents in J

5/29/12

Ugh, back to reality was putting it lightly today. I was completely unmotivated all day at work today. I just didn't want to be there at all. My mind just raced with all of the stuff I want to get done around the house and work on. None of which included anything in my inbox. Lame.

The day went incurably slow, but it did finally come to an end. I was off to Target straight from work to get a few groceries. Then, home for taco night with the family. We were all pretty tired so we just took it easy and had a low key night. Just what we needed.

Today's Photo a Day in May is Number. Right now, my most favorite number...

One of my amazing on-line mama's sent me a box of clothes for the girls, which I received today. I had a little girl on each side of me watching me take out every piece of clothing, yelling "Mine! Mine?" with every item. It was pretty hilarious. Olivia of course tried on just about everything that fit on her. She loves her clothes, that's for sure.

5/28/12

Final day of our long weekend, definitely sad to see it come to an end. We had another full day today too, so of course it flew by.

Olivia woke up last night complaining that her ear hurts...again. I brought her in bed with me, and she seemed to sleep better. We actually slept in a little later, which was nice. Amelia ended up sleeping until 10:30AM today! WHAT?!? I was sure it was a sign of something horrible, but she seemed perfectly fine when she woke up. Just tired I guess. I ended up e-mailing Olivia's doctor to see if we could get her antibiotic refilled without bringing her in since she just had an ear infection a couple weeks ago. Of course, everything is closed today....but Olivia actually seemed OK most of the day, so we decided to just wait it out.

Once Amelia finally woke up, we had some breakfast, and Christian took to the yard to mow the grass. Since Amelia slept so late, there was no way she was going to take a nap, but with a little bit of fighting, we did get Olivia down (and, she took a REALLY long nap, so she was definitely exhausted). Christian took a shower and got ready to head to his parents with Amelia, while I started on our next basement project. Amelia played so nice and contently with the princess castle while I got the "Kids Wall of Photos" hung up...lots of pictures and a new vinyl phrase. I also moved the candle sconces next to the TV, and cleaned up the living room. I also got the princess stickers and little posters hung up in the girls' princess area of the basement. It's all finally starting to come together. Just need to finish the princess area, and get the "Family and Friends Wall" up, and do a little bit of decorating, and the basement living room/hallway will be done.

Once Olivia was up from her nap, we met the rest of the family over at my in-laws for a little BBQ. My mother in-law broke her ankle yesterday, so she was just taking it easy. The girls were having a blast running around, and they were actually eating well and getting along...surprisingly.

Finally, it was time to head home and get ready for bed. The girls were dirty and gross, but poor Amelia passed out on the short ride home, and just wanted to go to bed. So I just wiped her down and put her to bed. Olivia helped me water the plants and I put her to bed too. Back to reality tomorrow!

Today's Photo a Day in May is Weather. Today was perfect! A little sun, a few clouds and a light wind. After a cold, rainy Saturday, and a hot, humid Sunday - this was the perfect way to end the long weekend.

I got a couple cute pictures of Amelia playing in the yard this morning I had to share too. Love her...

5/27/12

Sunday's are simply amazing when you don't work the next day. It's like a little gift from the universe. Oh what I wouldn't give some days to have that feeling every day. To never have to get up, ready and rush out the door every morning. To spend the days with my girls, getting stuff done around the house, taking them out and about...living life. In reality, I love my job and would never give up that part of me, but it's fun to dream sometimes. If I could work 3 days a week, I think that would be the perfect mix...

Today was a great day. We spent the morning with Amelia, cuddled, played and ate some breakfast. I started some laundry and actually got most of it done throughout the day. My mom brought Olivia home in the late morning, and we all headed over to Walmart for some garden shopping. Todays task was getting some flowers planted and our pots filled. The girls were pretty crabby the whole time we were shopping, that wasn't too fun. We made it through though with lots of beautiful flowers!

The girls fell asleep on our way home and went down for their naps right away. I folded some laundry and did a little picking up, while Christian did some lawn work. After naps, we ate a late lunch, and then got to work with our plants. Everything turned out so pretty!

Once we had everything planted and watered down, we filled up the pool and let them go crazy for a while. It was a hot one, and we were all pretty exhausted, so it was a nice rest.

After the girls settled into bed, Christian and I watched a movie. Tonight was "Crazy Stupid Love". It was really good, I'm glad we finally watched it! I barely survived the movie, so made my way into bed as soon as the credits rolled. Christian didn't quite make it through the whole thing, wimp.

Today's Photo a Day in May is Sweet. I splurged on some Frozen Yogurt today...YUM...

5/26/12

The girls were both up pretty early today. And, they were driving each other crazy. All morning long. Nonstop fighting, arguing, pushing, tattling. Good times all around. My mom offered to take Olivia overnight so they could get a break from each other...we welcomed the break at this point. But, we had some stuff to do first.

Christian fed the girls while I made my way down to the basement right away to clean up the living room, playroom and laundry room - and at least get the spare room in a state that you could actually enter it. I finished up just as the appraiser showed up to complete our modification appraisal. It didn't take him long. Turns out, he actually appraised the house when we bought it, so he didn't have to take measurements or anything. He was in an out pretty quickly, and hoped to get the appraisal in by Tuesday. Fingers crossed! It sounded like the appraisal really doesn't matter in the end - it's just a formality of the process, but we can't move forward until it's done, so LET'S GO!

Next up, we all got ready and headed to IKEA. One of our tasks this weekend is to make some good progress on the basement makeover. We have the TV hanging now, so we needed a new table to go underneath it. Of course, IKEA had just what we were looking for. We also grabbed some lunch while we were there - turns out they had a special "eat for free" thing going on this weekend - whatever you spent on lunch, was taken off your total purchase. So, yay for free lunch :)

After shopping, we dropped Olivia off at my mom's for the night, and Amelia passed right out in the car, and took a good nap once we got home. Christian ran to his parents house to get some tools, and we started putting together the new table. Now, anybody who has shopped at IKEA knows how ridiculous their "instructions" are, so that took longer than expected. I ended up having to take a break from the building to take Amelia over to Urgent Care. She still wasn't acting quite herself, and I decided to just make sure she didn't have an ear infection. Better safe than sorry. Her ears, lungs and mouth were all clear and fine. So, it's just another goofy virus. Funny enough, about an hour after we got home, she seemed right as rain, and we never had another issue. Perfect timing...

We ended up getting a "floating" table, so after we finished putting it together, we had to mount it, and on top of that, get all of the TV, cable box and DVD player cords run behind the wall/table. Turned out to be a much more time consuming project than I imagined! Christian's friend ended up coming over to help us out, and I eventually escaped to bed. Ha. In the end, they got it up, and it looks great! And, it was rainy and gross out all day anyway, so it was good way to pass the day :)

Today's Photo a Day in May is 12 O'Clock. So here it is...noon, strolling through IKEA, and midnight, still hard at work...

I also snapped a picture of the girls trying out their umbrellas before out shopping trip :)

Finally - Amelia turned 22 months old today. I cannot believe she's going to be 2 in 2 months! Whoa. She is turning into quite the diva, with a lot of attitude to boot. She has such a vibrant personality, it's just crazy. She talks more and more every day, and is becoming her own person with every passing day. It's so fun to watch!

5/25/12

Friday!!!!!! You all know how much I love Friday's!

Today started off with my weigh-in. Much to my shock, I was actually down. Not much, only .4, BUT considering I had my little vacation binge earlier this week, and haven't worked out all week, I'm pretty happy about that! I'm now down a total of 24.6lbs, in 4 months, and I'm happy with that. I'm really to get myself back on track this weekend, and push through!

Work was pretty good today. The day went by pretty fast, so that always helps. My friend Kelly and I ran to Carter's on our lunch break to do a little shopping. They are having a big Memorial Day sale right now, and I had a coupon...so we had to take advantage. Olivia needs pants/shorts, jammies and summer shirts...I picked her up some jammies and shirts - and found out a friend of mine is sending me some shorts/pants, so YAY! I picked Amelia up a couple one-piece outfits as well.

We grabbed some lunch, headed back to work and finished out the day. I ended up leaving a little early because we have our appraisal tomorrow morning, and I wanted to get some cleaning and picking up done. I was able to get quite a bit done...dishes, cleaned the kitchen and picked up the entire upstairs, and swapped out Amelia's closet. Yes, we are finally moving up from 12-18 months, to 18-24. My big girl. One thing I LOVE about switching out her clothes, is that I get to see all of Olivia's old clothes again. It brings back so many amazing memories to see those outfits, and watch Amelia bring new life to them. This set of clothes is from the time Amelia was born, seems like a lifetime ago!

My mom brought the girls home to me just as I was finishing up the upstairs. Christian arrived home shortly after and we ate some dinner together. The girls were having a rough day today - fighting, not listening and just not acting like themselves at all. Amelia was very emotional, and after dinner, she actually asked to go to bed, and climbed into bed herself. Poor thing. She didn't have a fever again or anything, but that exhaustion still seems to be there. So, we took our changes, and just let her go to bed early (side note, she actually did sleep all night long too....)

After dinner, I was off to my dress alterations appointment. My BFF is getting married on June 16th, and a woman I work with is doing the alterations....I was anxious to go in and see the results of the last few months. I ordered my dress when I first started dieting and exercising. I shudder to share these numbers - but I will anyway. When I was originally measured, they wanted me to order a 24. I decided to go with a 22, and thought I'd lose 20lbs by the wedding, which would give me another couple dress sizes to alter it down. Well, it has to be taken in at least 4 inches, and she said I could've ordered it another dress size or two down. That was so exciting to hear! YAY for positive news :)

When I arrived home, Olivia was laying on the couch. While I was gone, she had developed a fever. Again, I have no idea what's going on with these mysterious fevers! We gave her some tylenol and sent her off to bed. Hopefully she can sleep it off, whatever it is. Christian and I had grand plans of watching a movie or two tonight, but we were both so exhausted, we just relaxed on the couch for a bit, and then headed off to bed.

Today's Photo a Day in May is Unusual. Definitely unusual, my 22 month old asking to go to bed, and passing out at 6:00PM!

5/24/12

Today was a little bit back to normal. Both girls were up and off to school with minor issue. Christian and I were both able to work [long] just-about-full day of work. Happy to have some normalcy again!

We did each have to leave a tad early because we had our first ever parent/teacher conferences at school! YAY, I was so excited to really sit down with their teachers and find out how they were adjusting.

First up, we met with Olivia's teacher. It turns out, Olivia is one of the youngest in her class. She started there just after she turned 3, and her class goes up to 4.5-5 years. She has mastered a lot of things already - listening, manners, interacting with her peers. All SUPER great things, so I'm really proud. Especially that she's so good with the other kids when she wasn't exposed to that much before. The main things the teacher will be working with her on is writing/arts. Which, doesn't surprise me. We've never really been into coloring, arts and crafts, writing. They aren't really my thing, and she's never shown much interest in it, so we never really worked on it much. The teacher said she's certainly not behind in anything, but they were going to try to focus on that. She did say that Olivia is fairly shy at school, especially in group settings. It doesn't surprise me - since she was in infant, she's been a very independent child. I think she'll always be that way. All in all, a glowing report. She loves reading time, and the teacher is very impressed with her manners - that she always says "please" and "thank you", and said she's her only student that actually sits and eats without getting up or moving around. YAY, my girl!

Amelia was up next. Obviously you can't report a ton on an almost-2-year old, but it was nice to chat with the teacher. Amelia is pretty shy at school too. But, she is starting to stand up for herself more and interact with the other kids, which is great to hear. She loves story time, puzzles and baby dolls :) The teacher said she's such a sweetheart and loves having her in class, YAY! And, said she seems like she'll be ready to potty train any time now. We'll be starting that up in the next month or two - probably closer to her birthday. Apparently one of her classroom's aides is a WHIZ at potty training, so hopefully that will make things easier!

After conferences, we headed home with the girls. We had some dinner, played a little bit and took off to bed. Another day down!

Today's Photo a Day in May is Something New. While, not "new"...this is an old pair of my jeans, that are being given some new life. They don't fit perfectly yet, but they are wearable, and I'm very excited about that!