9/1/12

Well, chaotic day #2.

Christian was up around 7:00 this morning getting ready to head over to his parents’ house for day 2 of car work. They were able to get the last 2 bolts out, but had to give in and break them off. The rust was just too bad and it wasn’t working. The replacement bolts were only about $15, but he had to go to two different dealerships to find them. Poor guy.

So, the girls and I spent the day hanging out around the house. We colored, watched some TV, chased each other around. Olivia played with the animals a lot for some reason. They were actually SUPER well-behaved for me today. I was actually shocked, last night, now today…good kids, it was amazing! I was able to get a lot of cleaning done around the house and get picked up. I took a nap while the girls did. They ended up napping for over 4 hours!!! I don’t know what that was all about, but it was welcomed. My ears have been plugged up for a few days, and this morning I actually wasn’t able to hear from my left ear at all. It was horrible. I spent the day trying to drain it, which worked, and was gross.

Christian finally arrived home at 6:00 – with the car in working condition. Hallelujah! He was extremely exhausted, I was pretty tired from kid/cleaning duty and not feeling well, so we took it pretty easy tonight. We still have a couple of busy days ahead of us, so rest was a must!

Here are a couple pictures of Olivia with the animals. Cute!

8/31/12

Oh my was it a bad day!

I guess it started off on a good note. Weigh in day, and I was down 2.6lbs this week. I was actually hoping for a little more after two bad weeks, but I will take that. So far, down a total of 34.6lbs, and that's still very exciting to me!

Then, the badness set in. I was running late this morning, like usual. The construction around our neighborhood is HORRIBLE, so that made it even worse - it's impossible to get out of town in a timely manner right now, and it's so frustrating. I finally hit the highway and it was smooth sailing...until I got to work. As I pulled into our parking lot I heard a loud THUD, and it sounded like something was dragging underneath the car when I moved. Then, the sterring wheel started getting really hard to turn. I called Christian, panicked, and he told me to look under the car (duh). Nope, nothing was there, so it was just a noise coming from some mystery place. I went into work, and he had to talk to his supervisor to find out when he could leave to check it out. Originally 2:30, but after a lot of nagging from me, that changed to noon. He and a coworker stopped in the parking lot and immediately relized one of the ball joints, the passenger front tire, was a goner. Christian and his dad decided it was something they could fix themselves, so we just had to figure out how to get the car back to the house (20+ miles away). I searched around for a tow and got quots of $275 and $180. Ummm, nope. Christian's friend found somebody to do it for $90. By the time the tow came, I had already left work (in the truck) to go to the girls' school for parent day.

The girls were really excited to see me and loved the big ice cream social. It's always so fun to spend some time with them in school and see a little glimpse of how they interact with their teachers and friends. We enjoyed some ice cream, then made our way home.

Christian, his dad and his friend worked on the car ALL night. Which included two trips to the auto parts store...and $170 (which, is way better than a mechanic, so I can suck it up). By 10:00PM they called it quits for the day...they still had two bolts to remove from the part...everything was so rusted they were having a really hard time. Ugh, stupid car. So, instead of building the swing set tomorrow, looks like Christian will be continuing his work on the car. Boo.

The girls and I had a good night together though, thankfully. They built some tents, we colored some pictures, played with the babies. Just the usual! I eventually got them into the bath, into bed and tucked myself into bed. Stressful day, man I hate cars!

I got this cute picture of the girls at school. Love it.

8/30/12

Today was not quite as hectic of a day. Just a pretty typical Thursday. Work all day, school for the girls. They had to cancel "Track and Field" day tomorrow because they laid some new sod down on the playground. So, they are doing an "End of the Summer Ice Cream Social" instead. I can handle that...

I picked up the girls from school and we all spent the night relaxing at home. We played outside for a bit, Christian started checking out the swing set pieces and reading through the instructions, we had some dinner, did baths and it was bedtime before we knew it. Nothing too exciting to share today.

Olivia has developed some pretty fun artistic skills all of a sudden. She always has a STACK of "drawings" in her cubby when I pick her up from school. They started out as just a few random scribbles on the page...morphed into thicker colored "section" all over the page...then she started drawing shapes, like squares and circles, and filling them in - working on staying in the lines I think...now, she suddenly DRAWS. Here are two of her pictures from today...a little grass/sun/sky scene, and a "family portrait". It's crazy how much she's developed over the year so far.



8/29/12

Well, the day started off pretty normal, but ended pretty exciting.

Work was pretty standard. The afternoon got a little chaotic when we were hit with a big surprise from one of our district offices. Spent a good portion of the afternoon fighting a losing battle over a Contract that we had no desire to take over, but have apparently been nominated to do just that. I get so frustrated with our office sometimes…we used to write ALL of the Contracts for the state, but that was disseminated to the districts and some of the offices throughout the state years ago. We still write a majority of the Contracts in our office, but we are supposed to provide “support” to the other folks. One of the offices that I do write Contracts for has decided to take over a Contract from another office, which means I have to take it over and it’s a huge mess. I tried my hardest to say no, but our office doesn’t really stand behind “no”, and ends up doing everything anyway, so it was pointless. That is how my day will be spent tomorrow, and I’m not looking forward to it at all.

After work, I picked up the girls, met Christian at home and we were off on tonight’s adventure…finally buying the girls’ swing set!!! YAY! We’ve wanted one forever…but, we wanted to make sure to wait until they were both old enough to use and enjoy it, safely, together. I don’t want to have to watch their every move when we send them outside to play, or hover over them, so we skipped getting one last year. Since the girls have SO MUCH stuff, we suggested to our parents, and Christian’s good friend Lorenzo, that they could just contribute to the swing set fund if they would rather do that. So, we waited for that. Then, we decided to just wait a tad longer and see if the stores starting putting their sets on sale for “end of the season”. Sure enough, Toys R Us is having a big sale right now, and we have a coupon on top of that, so we felt the time was finally right! I debated the swings the set style with Christian for a while…he wanted wood; I didn’t want to waste the extra money and wanted to just go with metal. Another losing battle, he wanted wood. So, I’m extra happy they’re having this sale right now!

It took us FOREVER at the store. They didn’t have the prices listed on the display stand, and they didn’t even have all of them in stock. We ended up writing down the sets they had on the display, and sat with one of the cashiers for a while so she could pull each one up in their system, find out what the total discounted price would be and if they had them in stock. We got it narrowed down to three sets, and after staring at them for a good while and debating the price, we finally made a decision, made our purchase, loaded it up and were on our way. So exciting! We’re hoping to find some time to get it up this weekend, fingers crossed!

By the time we left there, it was already bed time for the girls, so we picked them up a couple happy meals, ate quick at home, then sent them off to bed. They were both exhausted, and passed out right away. YAY! It was too late, and I had just eaten, so I wasn’t able to work-out tonight. BUT, my new workout did come in the mail today, so I’m really excited about that! I just watched a couple shows instead, and then made my way to bed.

I took a picture of Chuy tonight while I had him outside on a bathroom break. What puppy eyes!

8/28/12

Today was a much more standard day. I was back into the groove at work. I got a TON done today, and it always feels good to feel productive. Christian’s work has been going well too. I guess he has a week of vacation and some sick time that he needs to use pretty soon, before he loses it. I have a little time too, so we might take some time off coming up. Maybe get some stuff done around the house. We’d like to do some sheetrocking and painting in the laundry room and make it more “homey” than so “basementy”. We’ll have to think about cleaning up the yard pretty soon, getting ready for fall/winter. I’d like to get some stuff together to post on Craigslist – get some pictures and posting done. So, maybe we’ll take some “staycation” time together.

My mom had the girls today – Friday is “Track and Field” day at school, so we’re sending the girls. Today, they got to go to the fair with my mom and her friend. Lucky girls. They had stories galore for me all night long about their day. Going on rides, visiting the animals, seeing the “monsters” (haunted house I’m guessing), eating LOTS of food. They had a blast, and according to my mom, they got along ALL DAY LONG, no issues. So, yay for that! They were pretty tired all night, but not as crabby as I was expecting. We played outside a while, I made some dinner, Christian did some yard work. Just another typical night. After dinner, the girls took their baths and we started winding down for the day. Amelia was off to bed, Olivia watched a little TV. I did my workout and watched some TV myself. Tonight was the “Pretty Little Liars” finale, and OMG, it was so good! Yes, I’m like a teenage girl. But, it’s good, and I don’t care!

Here are some pictures of our playtime tonight. Including some of Olivia showing off her new skills...drawing a picture of me, and writing her own name. Growing TOO fast!

8/27/12

I can’t believe this is the last week of August. I feel like life, time, everything is just flying by. It’s going to be FALL in a couple of weeks…it’s just unbelievable.

Today was a pretty typical Monday. The girls were off to my in-laws for the day. Work was work. I ended up leaving early today. I wasn’t really in a “work” mood today – I just couldn’t get motivated. But, on top of that, we are in dire need of groceries in the house. I planned on going yesterday, but my headache kind of derailed those plans, so I took some time off this afternoon. Ran to Target (and, took my time for a change), packed everything away, spent a little time on the computer and made dinner before the rest of the house got home.

Christian was a little later than usual tonight. His sister and nieces moved back from Mexico on Friday, and they were supposed to stop over to his parents’ house tonight, so he waited for a bit to see if she showed up. Unfortunately, she couldn’t get a ride over, so she didn’t make it. Olivia can’t wait to see her cousins, so hopefully we can get them together soon! I had dinner ready for them when they got home. We got them right into their pajamas after they ate, and let them play for a while.

Tonight, we did become aware of one of their new little tricks though. Christian came in from the garage and asked where the dog was. We couldn’t find him anywhere, so I thought the girls had him downstairs with them. Christian peeked outside, only to see Chuy running around back by the fence. We couldn’t figure out how it got outside…but he opened the door to yell for him to come in, only to hear little toddler girl giggles coming from the downstairs patio. Turns out, they’ve learned how to unlock the patio doors and let themselves out. On top of that fun, they had pushed their little picnic table over by the swing, Amelia had climbed up into the swing, and Olivia was pushing her, like it was no big deal. Ugh – these kids, too smart for their own good! Our “deadbolt” lock on the doors is pretty tough to open, and it has a floor latch on top of it – I couldn’t believe they could get all THREE locks undone. Tricky girls. Thank god we’re fenced in!

We finally brought them inside and sent them off to bed. I got my workout in, caught up on some shows and was off to bed myself.

Here is a picture of the troublesome duo in action…

8/26/12

Well, it was another headache day for me today. I woke up with a slight, annoying headache. It progressed into a full blown pounding migraine by the end of the night. Seriously, so sick of them!

The girls were up bright and early today, at 6:15AM. I again sent them back into their room until a reasonable time. Of course, once they are up, and wake me up, I can’t fall back asleep. But at least it gives me a chance to just rest and wake up before the toddle chaos consumes me. Once we were all up and about, we just spent the morning playing and watching some cartoons. The morning was pretty gloomy, weather wise, so we just had a relaxing morning. Ate some breakfast, did some coloring, chased each other around the house. I was REALLY craving a trip to the fair, but we’re not going until next weekend. Things have been so chaotic and busy for us for so long, I’ve decided to try to lessen that burden – when possible – and only schedule one event per weekend. So, since we had the reunion yesterday (which, thanks to the rain, wasn’t as stimulating as I was anticipating), I planned our fair trip for next weekend. So, of course, all I could think about all day was fair, fair, fair.

While the girls napped, Christian and I hung out, watched some TV, and did a little bit of napping ourselves.  Olivia woke up about an hour into her nap, and was sent back to bed. This mama don’t play that! Amelia woke up about an hour after that, and she and I spent some time together while Christian cut the grass. The gloomy weather had passed, and it was sunny and hot again. Once Olivia was actually up, we all got dressed, grabbed Christian and went on a walk/bike to the park for a while. I can’t believe how good Amelia is with her bike already. This was her first time really trying it out, and she did so well. They let out some energy at the park and we made our way home for dinner.

Christian’s mom called on our way home and invited us over. I was tired and my headache was getting worse, so I stayed home. I also wanted the girls to have some time apart, and don’t like the way they act together when we’re all over there, so I kept Amelia home with me. It’s amazing the difference between 1 and 2 kids in the house! Amelia was perfectly content playing on her own, doing her own thing, and getting some random cuddles in with me. We had some dinner, and I started to feel really sick. I ended up texting Christian and having him come home a little earlier than planned. We got the girls ready for bed and tucked in for the night shortly after that, and the weekend came to a close.

Here are some bike riding pics…

8/25/12

Well, today was a pretty good day. The girls were up way too early – 6:00AM. I’m so sick of that. 6:00 wake-up call on the weekend is NOT going to happen…and it’s funny that they act like it’s torture when we get them up for school at 6:15, but on the weekend apparently that’s the ideal time to get up. Well, I sent them back to their room. I’ve decided they are no longer allowed to come out of their room until AT LEAST 7:00AM, maybe 7:30. So, from now on, they will be sent back to their room until it’s actually time to get up. I know if they had their own rooms it would be better – they wouldn’t wake each other up, and then think it’s time to stay up. That’s not going to happen for a long time though, so they just need to get used to it.

I took my measurements since I’ve finished the 30 Day Shred. This program was definitely my most effective inches-wise. To date, in just over 7 months, I’ve lost 32 pounds and 22.75 inches. 3.5” from my arm, 8.5” from my waist, 5.75” from my hips and 5” from my upper thigh. Pretty exciting!!! I think I’m going to continue to alternate the 30 Day Shred levels until my new workout series comes…hopefully in 2-3 weeks it sounds like. I was going to do Insanity next, but I think I need something completely different to shock my body – and the dancing/cardio workout should do that. *Hopefully*

Once we were all up, Christian was off and running right away. He took the truck in for the new tires today. The girls and I had some breakfast, and then Amelia actually went down for a REALLY early nap. She was crabby and obviously exhausted still. Olivia watched a movie and did some coloring while I cleaned up around the house a little bit. Then I jumped in the shower, got ready, got Olivia ready and made a pasta salad for today’s event. Christian arrived home and quickly got himself ready. Amelia was finally awake…got her ready, we all loaded into the car and were on our way.

Today was our family reunion with my mom’s family. Unfortunately, the weather was not cooperating…it ended up raining ALL DAY. The reunion was outside, but luckily we had a pretty big shelter to be under – and, it wasn’t as big of a turnout this year, so that helped too. We hung out for a few hours, catching up with some family and playing with the girls. They were pretty antsy stuck under the shelter all day…other than a short game of foosball inside with my mom and Christian. Hopefully next year we’ll be back to the great weather we usually have for it.

Olivia took a nap when we got home while we hung out with Amelia. Christian ran to pick up some dinner once she was awake and we spent the evening together. Christian and I had plans to watch a movie or two tonight, but we got sucked into a “Ridiculousness” marathon instead and laughed the night away. Overall, we’re in for a mighty low key weekend…I always crave a little down time, but after a while, it gets pretty boring!

Here are a couple pics I took today – family foosball and Amelia, our big catcher. It’s so gross, but she’s obsessed with bugs. Olivia calls her over to kill them when she finds one. LOL, gross.

8/24/12

Today started off badly, with weigh in. As expected, I gained. I’m so frustrated…I hate feeling like I do everything right – get my exercise, watch what I’m eating – and get nowhere. I’m taking my measurements tomorrow, which should help me feel better. But, ugh, so frustrating!

Today was a fairly busy day. Since I was off with the girls on Tuesday, I had to work today. But, the day did go pretty fast. I caught up on my usual end of the week work, and then I actually took the afternoon off. My new check card has gone missing somewhere in our house. We’ve pretty much cleaned the upstairs looking for it, so today wanted to tackle the basement to see if the girls had it down there. I took off a little after lunch time, and picked up all of the toys and chaos in the basement. Nothing, no sign of the card anywhere. I think it’s a goner – not sure if it was somehow thrown away or what, but it’s nowhere to be found. So frustrating.

By the time I finished picking up; it was time to pick up the girls from school. It’s been pretty cool out the last couple weeks, but today was it actually pretty hot. So, the girls were able to have water day, finally! They were both so excited and couldn’t wait to tell me about it.

I finished doing some cleaning and picking up around the house, Christian arrived home and then our friends Nate and Gini came over to have some dinner, hang out, and give Amelia a belated birthday present. We had some pizza, caught up for a while and watched the girls put on a little show. Christian and I were both pretty tired when they left, and pretty much just passed right out. We’re pretty exciting!

As I mentioned at that time, my friend Dawn that was in town took our family/girls’ pictures this year for us. We’re still waiting to get all of them, but she has posted a couple of them on facebook. So, I thought I’d share those today…the family one in front of the door is super cute, I really like that one. The one of Christian and I reminds me of our engagement pictures, which seems like a lifetime ago. The one of all of us in the grass cracks me up…we couldn’t get the girls to stop saying CHEESE, so they kept having these goody cheese faces in all of them. It was cute. I can’t wait to see the rest of them!

8/23/12

Today was a pretty low key day. Work has been “the usual” for both of us. The girls have been doing great in school. They both have new things to show or tell us every day – some new thing they learned or figured out. It’s so exciting to watch them grow and change, and they love going so much. Things have been great at home. I mentioned some home issues last week. Christian and I are both making so really great strides in working on our own, individual issues. It’s been very refreshing this last week or so, it feels good to work through some of our issues, and not try to brush them under the rug anymore. So, overall, everything is really great! Christian needs 2 new tires on the truck…which aren’t cheap and was stressing me out. I finally found out that Discount Tires offers no interest financing, so we can take advantage of that and just pay off a portion of it each paycheck. Which, works out perfect, because I’ll be paying off our carpet tomorrow. And, we’re still researching swing sets. We still disagree on what to get – I don’t want to waste the money on a wood set, just because it looks nicer – I would rather get a metal one with more features, for less money. We’ll see who wins out on that one. I have been putting together our next list of stuff to sell on craigslist though – so that will help us pay for that.

So, it was kind of a “figure it out” day today. Fairly successful.

I snapped this picture of the girls tonight as we played outside. They were both messy and dirty and....perfect.