Friday, June 25th-Mean People

I don't understand people sometimes.  How could you knowingly and purposefully steal from another person. I just don't get it. It's mean and ruins their day. 

So the reason for my rant...

I came home late after a work event at the Royals game and I was so tired, I walked in and put my daughter in bed and forgot to go back down and shut the garage door.  No big deal right? I recently moved to a nice neighborhood, right?  Well turns out, even in nice neighborhoods, mean people come by open garages, get in their unlocked cars and steal their wallets out of their unzipped purses.  
Obviously it was a kid, b/c they decided not to take my checks, my gps, my husband's bluetooth headset, work projector and laptop, etc.  However, the stolen wallet, and my husband's change holder, is pretty disappointing.  Cancelling all my cards, losing 60 bucks, AND my Fox and Hound punch card (1 punch away from a free lunch) was a real downer of the day.  Thank goodness it was this day instead of another day as I normally have a lot more cash on me, but yep, still quite angering.

Thursday, June 24th-Enjoying the Neighborhood

My husband is out for the night, playing poker so it was time for Kaitlyn and I to enjoy our neighborhood.  We got home late, of course, since getting to our house currently takes FOREVER thanks to traffic and detours.  But regardless, we made it!  As soon as we got home we threw some dinner in our to go bag and headed to the park!

 The park is a .4 mile walk one way, so I totally round that to 1 mile round trip! Which totally makes this a workout, right?  While there, I discovered my daughter is a much better eater when we are outside, and she is distracted.  Normally she eats about 3 bites of dinner. Tonight she ate a bite, ran and went down the slide, ate another bite, back to the slide, etc.  All in all like 10 bites! Such success. And it was fun to just play with her all night!

Wednesday, June 23, 2010- Arts and Crafts Time

It looks like regardless of my youth league being over now, I am still heading in to a ridiculously busy weekend.  All of it should be pretty fun, just a lot of places to be at designated times...not my favorite way to go. I prefer to have a lot to do and get to do it whenever I decide to!

To prepare for some of the upcoming events, I spent a mere hour at Hobby Lobby tonight.  Seriously, an hour! That place is huge, it took half the time just for me to find where things were, let alone actually make decisions.
 This weekend I have 1 baby shower to attend and 1 birthday party for 2 little girls, as well as a Royals/Cardinals game for my work.

First the girls birthday.  I decided I was going to sew some aprons b/c I know the girls love being handy and my daughter loves to help me cook.  But then I realized...I need to be practical. I'm going to run out of time with all the projects I have planned for this week.  So I found these cute zebra print canvas kids aprons with a cute little ruffle on them.  Now normally, I would not pick zebra print, but it was the only fun looking one that also had a ruffle so I decided to go for it.  I wanted to embroider their names on them, but I don't have an embroider, nor do I know how to actually do that, therefore we went with the sequined, iron-on initial.  I'm still working on the rest of the gift, thinking kids cook book, maybe colorful mixing bowls or utensils, we'll see.

Next, it's time to work on the baby shower gift.  I really couldn't come up with something I loved from the registry, although everything was very practical on there (my kind of registry.)  Then my husband said, "why don't you make those super absorbent burp cloths again, they are the best, everyone needs them."  Some days, that man is a genius.  I'm not sure why I forgot about those, I guess just the moving and putting the sewing machine out of sight. 

So off to the races. I got some neutral, though the baby is a boy, fabric and a super soft dark brown towel and went to work.  I cut each of the fabrics and towel into 13" x 13" squares.  The cutting and measuring actually does take a while so I'm glad to have that done.  I use this super ghetto setup when I cut too.  It's one of those quarter collector's boards that unfolds.  Silly, but it's the perfect size and has the binding right down the middle where I need it, just like a true sewing table would have.  Luckily my husband thinks it's ghetto too and that we should move to something a little more official. We'll see if that ever really comes to fruition though!

 Tomorrow I'll start sewing them together, hopefully the machine and I don't have another all out war!

Swimming fun and Settling In-Saturday, June 19, 2010

Today was truly a great day.  We had very few obligations, which is always nice!  Kicked off the day with picking up the house and actually making breakfast!  Then off to swim lessons.  We actually have a couple of our friends in the class so that makes it even more fun. Then when we came home, we picked up Daddy and headed to the neighborhood pool.

This was our first trip to our neighborhood pool.  I expected it to be too small to accommodate everyone. I could  still see it being like that during some afternoons, but in the morning it was great.  It still feels like we are on vacation and were just swimming at a random pool.  I don't mind that feeling, makes us really appreciate that we are in this house and neighborhood that we love.

Spent the rest of the afternoon cleaning and running errands. Some friends came over for dinner, baked ziti, one of the few things I actually think I make decently (though I'm sure anyone could!) Put Kaitlyn to bed and spent the rest of the evening watching HGTV-my favorite, and browsing the internet for some design ideas for our house!  The hubs is thinking of doing a red color on our great room wall, but I'm not sure that I'm on board. I found this picture online today and would really like to make it work. I love the painting above the couch and think we could use those colors to incorporate the kitchen, and hopefully someday, new dishes, as well.   We'll see who wins, neither of us are very good designers so who knows!

All in all a great day!

Week of June 14th-Please...Let it stop Raining!

Seriously, it's been raining for days, weeks even.  My youth league games have been rained out 3 times in a row!  I can deal with that, what I can't deal with is rain in my parents basement! 

This has been the focus of the week as they are in Hawaii celebrating their 35th wedding anniversary!  35 years of marriage, just amazing. So needless to say, we are not wanting to call them and tell them they now own a houseboat and all our childhood memories are floating around their basement. We think that might just ruin their vacation.   The first round of flood looked like this:

These photos are actually a bit after the initial water started draining.  There was 11 inches all the way across about 1500 sq feet!  That's a ton of water.  Apparently the sump pump shook itself silly which ended up making it stop working. 

We got all this drained on Monday.  Tuesday morning my BIL went over at 5am b/c he was worried. Sure enough, another 6 inches were back!  The sump pump got stuck again.  Finally we determined assistance was needed and we called our grandpa, swore him to secrecy so he wouldn't call my dad, and got his advice.  He informed of us the issue and my sister rigged up the fix to make it unable to vibrate into disfunction again!  So far so good, but as you can imagine, the place stinks to high heaven. We have been over there every night, mopping, cleaning, throwing out treasured memories etc.  This is post final flood. Working on getting the couches back in place now that they've dried out.

You know those people that get joy from cleaning?  I'm not one of them, cleaning sucks.  You have to touch gross stuff, there's bad smells, takes forever, ect.  However, cleaning for my parents so they are not super sad when they get home, really didn't suck at all. It was hot and smelly and tiring, but totally worth every painstaking second. 

Saturday, June 12, 2010 REUNION PARTY!

The day is finally here! Our official 10 year High School Reunion dinner.  It has been a year in the making and totally feels like we were planning a wedding, only harder b/c you didn't know anyone's address or if they would come, and you are asking them to pay money to come.   It was all planned by myself and two friends from High School.  I love that we were the committee b/c we were totally ok with giving our opinions on things and using trial and error throughout the whole thing. 

We took a financially emotional roller coaster, from thinking we were doing well and would have plenty of money to pay everything, to being completely broke and looking at paying out of our own pockets.  We endured criticism, encouragement, and everyone wanting to give their two cents.

In the end, we actually ended up having enough money to pay for pretty much everything without having to come out of our pockets too much. It was unbelievable as we were each expecting to pay a couple extra hundred potentially for our last minute add ons. 

The evening was great. Over 100 people attended and the food was actually not too bad.  We decided to order a cake and one of the girls suggested putting our senior class picture on it.  I was in charge of ordering it and therefore coming up with the picture.  At first I thought, cool idea, then went to, too much work-not going to happen, then went back to, yeah, that's what needs to be done.  Here was the end result:

We also had a photo booth where people could go take their own pictures and then they would all be posted online later. It was pretty fun to see everyone take cute and funny pictures. Here are a couple I participated in:

Good times.  We learned a lot and if I had to do it over again, there are of course things I think we would change, but overall I think it was a good event and hope everyone that came had fun!

Friday, June 11, 2010- Busy, Busy, Fun

Today was ridiculously busy!  First a normal Friday of work, just trying to get everything I need to do done, especially as we approach one of my co-workers, whom I split duties with, resigning in the near future.  So much to get organized and learn!

After the old work day, I jumped in the car and went to meet my youth league team for a night of screaming and shouting!  That's right, a trip to Worlds of Fun with 14-16 year olds! What could be better. I haven't been to that place in probably 8 years.  There were several new rides I had never heard of.  As it turns out, I can't exactly tolerate the rides as well as I used to be able to, but no worries, I just did my best and pushed it too the limit!  Luckily, I didn't get to feeling too bad!  Here are some of the girls on the carousel.  We made them ride it. They are so cute!

We closed the place down around 10pm. Fought the traffic out of there and dropped them off to their parents without incident...thank goodness!

Next, it was time to head out to part 1 of our 10 year reunion.  No pictures, but it was held down at a bar that is pretty popular.  A TON of people came out and it was so much fun to see everyone again.  I talked with some people who had moved away and a lot that were still local.  It's crazy how you can lose touch with people just across town from you and stay close with others across the country.

I wish I could have stayed longer, but at 12:30am I was exhausted and a little stressed about a busy morning that was creeping up on me so I headed on home.

Thursday, June 10th- Bath Time...in a big girl bathtub!

We are finally in our new house!  I love it here.  It is so much bigger than our old house, on a quiet street (ours was really busy with a lot of speeding cars, and the neighborhood is really nice.  Several people have asked me to post pictures of the house on facebook but I have decided I don't think I will be doing that.  It seems really weird to be "showing off" our new house.  Not trying to be holy here, but we really got this house out of God's incredible grace.  He has provided us with great jobs and helped us be disciplined in saving when we would have rather been spending.  It just seems really self-centered to post a series of pictures of the house.

However, that being said. I had to share this one.   This is my real bath tub!  I can actually sit in it and stretch out my legs. I decided to get really pampered and light my candles and read a magazine and everything the other night.  Has anyone tried this?  It's actually rather hard to read in the tub, my magazine kept getting wet and my arms were tired from holding it up!  But....I'll take those minor inconveniences over my rinkadink old tub any day!

Reunion Time-June 2010

First, I can't believe it's been 10 years. That is just ridiculous. Two of my friends, and Student Senate members from high school and I have been planning our 10 year reunion for the last year, and the last few months really seriously. It is finally upon us! We did everything we could to try to make it fun, easy and inexpensive, but it's like a wedding, everything just keeps adding up and it's more expensive than we would like, plus, we still don't have all the money we need to do everything we want to.


Anyway, what's done is done. The reunion is Saturday and hopefully all goes well and everyone has a great time. Here's one of the postcards we sent out inviting everyone!

Mobile Garden-May 2010

I have a confession. I can be very jealous at times. I believe it's true for many people. For several years I have been very jealous that everyone else has a garden except me.  I have considered doing one a couple times but either have never gotten around to it, or had reasons that it just didn't make sense.

This year I decided I didn't want to live with that feeling of regret for not having at least tried. Problem is, we were getting ready to move. Contract on the house and everything! (More to come on that later.)  So I decided, no problem, we will just plant a mobile garden!  We went and got some terra cotta pots and painted them black.  Then Kaitlyn and I planted corn and carrots. Not sure why we chose these two but we did.  As you can see, they are actually growing! 

I have very little faith that we will actually get food from these pots, but at least I will sleep at night not regretting having not even put forth the effort. Plus, it was just a fun time to play in the dirt with my daughter. I don't really let her get too dirty very often, but am working on being more of a "yes" mom...when the mood strikes I mean!

Spring is finally here! April-Mayish

Still in catch up mode, so I'm going to miss a lot of fun things that happened in these months. And probably some less fun things too, but here are some highlights.

Arkansas- We went to Arkansas for a cousins wedding. It was fun to get away for a long weekend. The wedding was great and the weather was perfect.  It was so crazy, before and after the wedding it was pretty chilly and rainy but during it, it was beautiful and sunny, even a little hot actually.  Here's Kaitlyn and I on the dock of Norfork Lake during one of the cold spells. I must say, this lake is probably the prettiest lakes I've ever seen in real life.  I will get a photo of it some time this summer when everyone can really appreciate it!

Our  neighbor also got chickens during this month!  I guess he's going to take them to his parents to raise. In the meantime Kaitlyn had a great time chasing them around. She never could catch them, but they were so adorable!

Occasionally, my sweet girl does get a bit of an attitude and throws a hissy fit. It's hard to believe, but it's true.  This pic is one of my favorites. It is her sitting on her tree pouting. Under her breath she is muttering "don't look at me."  She wanted to swing and I was being lazy...eventually she won.

Serious Sebbatical! March-Aprilish

That was a long sabbatical from the blog world.  I'm not sure exactly what happened. It all started with the losing of the camera battery and the waiting for weeks to get a new one. Things just spiraled downhill from there. It's sad when you have to do a search for your own blog b/c you can't exactly remember how to get to it.  Let's hope the recovery goes well!

Wow, so much has happened since February. I really wish I had stayed on my 365 day commitment to document something every day.  I guess I will just try to catch up with some highlights.

There were many fun outings over the last few months. We went to Atlanta in March for my husband's grandmother's 80th birthday!  It was a long drive!  And my husband and daughter were both fighting pretty intense colds. But look how cute they are holding hands on the way down!

So sweet. While in Atlanta I ran my first 5k of the year!  I had been looking forward to it for a while. Doing a run in another city than what I'm used to is kind of exciting and fun b/c you just don't know what to expect.  I finished in 28 minutes and 19 seconds. My goal was 30 minutes so I was super excited since it was my first time out in a while.

From Atlanta, I was dropped off in Nashville to fly to LA for a 2 day meeting. While there I lost my wedding ring. Somewhere around the hotel or airplane or somewhere, who knows. Moral of the story is it's gone and my insurance was not as stellar as I thought so it will b a while before I replace it!

In April we took part in quite possibly one of our favorite days of the year.  Opening Day for the Royals! All our friends have a tradition of grilling and tailgating before the game.  I am infamous for having to work and only showing up for part of the fun...this year was no different, but at least I got to be there for a few hours before going into the game with a group from work. It was kind of rainy out in the morning and I was running around like crazy for work so I'm pretty much a mess, but here's the hubs and I.

My husbands birthday is also in April and as mentioned, Royals tailgates are his favorite!  I organized a surprise tailgate for his birthday and the night turned out so wonderful. It was a Friday with great weather, Fireworks, the game, and great company!  Our friends really pitched in to bring food and the grill, etc to make it great. I think everyone had a good time, and the best part was, it was kid friendly. I love it when we get to take our daughter with us to our most fun events. It just makes it better having her with us after a long week of work.  Here's some of the crew.

As you can see, Kaitlyn is quite excited about the game. Probably some enticing fireworks or something going on at the moment.