The Good:
Thank goodness tomorrow is Friday, pay day and the day that my husband returns home from his business trip to Las Vegas. The goods of this week: I saw that gas prices have finally dropped below $3.00 in Colorado - yeah - maybe I can start to save a little money on my commuting to work everyday and the random errands on the weekends. Another good is that another week down in the pregnancy! Good: I have gone through all of Katelynn's clothes and sold them off or gotten rid of them - yes, she has closet space again. Now I am ready to take in some boy / blue clothes and things that my friends have been waiting to unload on me. Good: We have Katelynn's Halloween costume bought and ready for her Halloween parties and for trick or treating. Good: My next photobook is done and has all of our summer pictures organized and getting printed and shipped hopefully next week - I have found my way to keep my need for developing pictures and having photo albums by loading all my digital photos into Shutterfly.com and making one of their albums, it's actually pretty neat and not to expensive when you consider you don't have to print your pictures in addition to the cost of the book. Now that the summer book is done I can start a fall 2008 book and keep more up to date on it so I don't have to try and do it all at once! I have finally finished the Thank you cards from Katelynn's birthday and they have all been mailed or handed out to recipients - whew, I have been putting that off for awhile. All in all things have been pretty darn good!
The Bad:
Where to start - the stocks crashing up and down - I do have some compassion (I said "some") and feel terrible for anyone who is looking to retire right now and their money accounts have dropped horribly. The bad - the constant commercials for the political race - enough already, they are all half truths and half lies or there were reasons behind decisions that were made - if anyone actually makes a mind changing decision on anyone of those commercials - God help us all.
The Ugly:
The ugly, ugly, ugly - man, I don't know what this little boy is doing to me, but I need a new "ass" - no, seriously - if anyone would like to trade their tailbone for mine, I am game. I can no longer sit comfortably at work for more than 30 minutes at the start of my day and after that I cannot get out of my chair without severe pain in my tailbone - what the hell is happening to me? Anybody? I cannot even imagine the facial expression that I convey when I try to get out of my chair after I have been planted there for over an hour. I was extremely uncomfortably and bitchy today at work - everyone stand back because even listening to Karen Carpenter was not calming my nerves today. I finally broke down and called a chiropractor and asked if they thought they could help me. I have never been to a chiropractor, but am thinking maybe they can do something because I have no other pain than the pain in my tailbone, how in the hell do you fix that when your pregnant? Let's see how bad they try to screw me over tomorrow morning and how many sessions they want me to come in for because I know my insurance isn't going to pay for this. I will be pretty forward with them and tell them you make it feel better or I won't be back again (I'm sure you can all imagine).
Thursday, October 16, 2008
Monday, October 13, 2008
Thursday, October 09, 2008
Sunday, October 05, 2008
Saturday Night Family Fun
Dan giving Katelynn horseback rides on the bucking Bronco, she was loving it.
Friday, October 03, 2008
Thank God for Fridays
Just thought I'd take a minute and lay out my week. All week I have been talking about the "Bail Out" - this has drove my head into a tail spin, my thoughts were torn both ways. On the one hand I think the economy has grown faster than it should have and this was due to people living outside of their means, living on way too much credit (that now bit them in the ass), the dishonesty of people and government and this could go on and on. The banks should not have gotten a bail out, they are a business (unfortunately for a lot of us we have forgotten that, choose your bank wisely) and if business is bad, it's bad and you either find a way to fix it or you go out of business, why should they get a hand out from the tax payers and why should I have to pay for the debts of others. I get frustrated that I have lived within my money and will now be penalized for those who have not, way to go people in the world - people feel way to much entitlement these days for my comfort - we are not entitled to "stuff" or really anything - work for it and you can have it, it does not come from the silver spoon. Enough said on that, but it has been my gripe for the week.
Monday I also signed paperwork at my own bank to modify our mortgage payment to a 15 year fixed rate (our 5-year arm was up next month so I had to do something). I am glad that I did not wait and locked my rate last week, all is well and we have knocked 10 years off of our pay-0ff date. I did tell Dan though if I am 45 years old and still living in this house I may have to shoot him at that point, just something to keep in the back of thoughts dear (aren't I kind?!)
Work of course is work and I've been trying to finish up projects so that I can free up some of my time. I have gotten approval to start training to become a Business Analyst I for the county - yeah for me! I will need to focus on training on 3 different areas, one will be Project Management (which is the piece I think that I will be the best at and enjoy the most, I'm sure everyone can see that, me in charge! watch out people), the 2nd will be doing stuff with databases (this is where I will need the most training), and 3rd will be to become a Crystal Report writer ( I am hoping the learning curve will not be too bad and I can pick up on it quickly). The county is coming up with some specific time frames and realize that I will be on leave for a couple of months, but they are willing to pay for the training and willing to pay for my time during work to complete the training. They figure it to be about a 6 to 9 month transition/training time. It will be interesting to see what our new Compensation / Classification employee and HR feel about this, it has not been looked at to highly when they have done this will a couple of other employees - they feel it unfair because not everyone is given this opportunity and I won't have to sign a contract to work for the county for any given amount of time and can apply for other Business Analyst positions within different departments if I were so inclined. I am looking forward to using my brain, getting out of the clerical work and getting a nice big pay increase at the end of all of this! Ya - let's see if I can make it through the schooling pieces that will need to be done - ugh - school classes and on-line classes? One question the Senior Business Analyst asked me about my experience is how I have handled and what I've thought of on-line classes and I had to tell him, "never taken one, haven't been in a class setting for over 10 years" - he's a pretty easy going guy, which will eventually also be my supervisor, so I will need to watch my tongue a bit, I guess I can be a bit abrasive (or so I'm told - ha ha).
Kids - I have cleaned out Katelynn's entire closet except the clothes that she is wearing now and will wear for this winter. Everything must go is my new philosophy. I had 4 huge totes of clothes that I went through. I took out anything that I can re-use for Junior (or Junebug as Dan and Katelynn are referring to him, this was Dan's idea, not mine). I have sorted everything into size piles and gotten rid of the 12mo and 18mo. I have sold all the 24mo clothes on our "trading post" at work. I have listed her Mickey mouse toddler sheets for sale and today posted her old crib sheets and crib bedding set for sale. I am going through the 2T and the 3T this weekend and those will also be out of the house soon. Tomorrow Katelynn and I are going to one of my friends houses to play and then we are going to Osh Gosh for some new clothes for Katelynn since her closet is so empty now and then looking for a Halloween costume. She has said that she wants to be Cinderella this year and I am thinking we better get out there now and we may already be too late to find that one - damn, people really start early on this stuff.
I started decorating the house for Halloween tonight and will make Dan pull out the rest of my decorations tomorrow for Halloween/Thanksgiving/fall stuff to do on Sunday - no football until Monday night so it's a good weekend to Git R' Done. I watched the VP debate the other night and thought that Palin did a pretty good job. I like that she is a straight shooter and can really relate to people. My gripe on Biden or even the democrats right now is they want to tax the so called "rich people" and let everyone else off the hook. I have a serious issue with this (and we do not fall into the "rich people" category). It seems that people that are making a ton of money, a majority of them have a lot of schooling or have worked extremely hard to get the money that they have or the jobs that they have that earn that kind of money and why should they be penalized for that? While the people who just sit in the middle have to pay nothing - the rich pay for the poor who do nothing, doesn't seem "fair" as I see, which is what the democrats are about "being fair to all". It seems to fall into the same thing as in the workplace - don't work too hard because you will get more work than the person sitting next too you without any additional pay - same deal - work harder and make more money and they will take the extra away from you to give to someone who isn't working hard enough. Many people have argued this with me and definitely do not feel that I even probably know what I am talking about, but those are my thoughts - goes back to - why am I paying for someone else's house that went under foreclosure?"
On a brighter note, my family and I have booked a trip to Deadwood, SD in November - this will include, my family, my brother's family and my parents. So I will finally get to meet my new nephew the first weekend in November. I am excited to that we are doing something different than us driving to Minnesota, since I pretty much said I wasn't going to and my mom really wanted to meet us somewhere have way then at some time. It'll be good for all of us and I hope that everyone is as excited as I am.
That is my week in review - whew, maybe now I can get a full night sleep after getting all of that out!
Monday I also signed paperwork at my own bank to modify our mortgage payment to a 15 year fixed rate (our 5-year arm was up next month so I had to do something). I am glad that I did not wait and locked my rate last week, all is well and we have knocked 10 years off of our pay-0ff date. I did tell Dan though if I am 45 years old and still living in this house I may have to shoot him at that point, just something to keep in the back of thoughts dear (aren't I kind?!)
Work of course is work and I've been trying to finish up projects so that I can free up some of my time. I have gotten approval to start training to become a Business Analyst I for the county - yeah for me! I will need to focus on training on 3 different areas, one will be Project Management (which is the piece I think that I will be the best at and enjoy the most, I'm sure everyone can see that, me in charge! watch out people), the 2nd will be doing stuff with databases (this is where I will need the most training), and 3rd will be to become a Crystal Report writer ( I am hoping the learning curve will not be too bad and I can pick up on it quickly). The county is coming up with some specific time frames and realize that I will be on leave for a couple of months, but they are willing to pay for the training and willing to pay for my time during work to complete the training. They figure it to be about a 6 to 9 month transition/training time. It will be interesting to see what our new Compensation / Classification employee and HR feel about this, it has not been looked at to highly when they have done this will a couple of other employees - they feel it unfair because not everyone is given this opportunity and I won't have to sign a contract to work for the county for any given amount of time and can apply for other Business Analyst positions within different departments if I were so inclined. I am looking forward to using my brain, getting out of the clerical work and getting a nice big pay increase at the end of all of this! Ya - let's see if I can make it through the schooling pieces that will need to be done - ugh - school classes and on-line classes? One question the Senior Business Analyst asked me about my experience is how I have handled and what I've thought of on-line classes and I had to tell him, "never taken one, haven't been in a class setting for over 10 years" - he's a pretty easy going guy, which will eventually also be my supervisor, so I will need to watch my tongue a bit, I guess I can be a bit abrasive (or so I'm told - ha ha).
Kids - I have cleaned out Katelynn's entire closet except the clothes that she is wearing now and will wear for this winter. Everything must go is my new philosophy. I had 4 huge totes of clothes that I went through. I took out anything that I can re-use for Junior (or Junebug as Dan and Katelynn are referring to him, this was Dan's idea, not mine). I have sorted everything into size piles and gotten rid of the 12mo and 18mo. I have sold all the 24mo clothes on our "trading post" at work. I have listed her Mickey mouse toddler sheets for sale and today posted her old crib sheets and crib bedding set for sale. I am going through the 2T and the 3T this weekend and those will also be out of the house soon. Tomorrow Katelynn and I are going to one of my friends houses to play and then we are going to Osh Gosh for some new clothes for Katelynn since her closet is so empty now and then looking for a Halloween costume. She has said that she wants to be Cinderella this year and I am thinking we better get out there now and we may already be too late to find that one - damn, people really start early on this stuff.
I started decorating the house for Halloween tonight and will make Dan pull out the rest of my decorations tomorrow for Halloween/Thanksgiving/fall stuff to do on Sunday - no football until Monday night so it's a good weekend to Git R' Done. I watched the VP debate the other night and thought that Palin did a pretty good job. I like that she is a straight shooter and can really relate to people. My gripe on Biden or even the democrats right now is they want to tax the so called "rich people" and let everyone else off the hook. I have a serious issue with this (and we do not fall into the "rich people" category). It seems that people that are making a ton of money, a majority of them have a lot of schooling or have worked extremely hard to get the money that they have or the jobs that they have that earn that kind of money and why should they be penalized for that? While the people who just sit in the middle have to pay nothing - the rich pay for the poor who do nothing, doesn't seem "fair" as I see, which is what the democrats are about "being fair to all". It seems to fall into the same thing as in the workplace - don't work too hard because you will get more work than the person sitting next too you without any additional pay - same deal - work harder and make more money and they will take the extra away from you to give to someone who isn't working hard enough. Many people have argued this with me and definitely do not feel that I even probably know what I am talking about, but those are my thoughts - goes back to - why am I paying for someone else's house that went under foreclosure?"
On a brighter note, my family and I have booked a trip to Deadwood, SD in November - this will include, my family, my brother's family and my parents. So I will finally get to meet my new nephew the first weekend in November. I am excited to that we are doing something different than us driving to Minnesota, since I pretty much said I wasn't going to and my mom really wanted to meet us somewhere have way then at some time. It'll be good for all of us and I hope that everyone is as excited as I am.
That is my week in review - whew, maybe now I can get a full night sleep after getting all of that out!
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
The 3rd Birthday Party
Katelynn decorating her princess crown to wear for the party.
Daddy putting on her princess tattoos.
Mommy and Katelynn (she was not being cooperative any longer).
Blowing out her candles!
Gotta love the cake!
The 3rd Birthday Party
Our Disney Princess Party and decorations. These are pictures from before the guests arrived and the house was still clean, (ha ha).
More 3rd Birthday Pictures
Here she is opening her gift from the other grandparents, it was the cutest turtle that turns into a pillow and a subscription to a kids magazine, she's going to love it. (Yes, my child is spoiled).
Katelynn's 3rd B-day Pictures
Katelynn open presents from the grandparents before the birthday party.
Friday, September 19, 2008
Just some Information
Katelynn's 3rd birthday party went really well. She loves having a bunch of friends over to play and it's so fun to watch them all interact with each other at this age. I will get some pictures posted hopefully this weekend from the party.
Katelynn has had her 2nd cold this week, please tell me this is the last one for a little while. She did not get good sleep at all until finally last night. The rest of the week was hell in our house, with everyone waking up from her coughing every couple of hours and Dan and I wanting the other to get up with her or just not talk to each at 2am, etc. and both of us just wishing we could take her cough away ourselves and make her better. She also picks up habits quickly, so I am positive there were a couple of times throughout the night that she just woke up and expected me to rock her and coax her back to sleep, the problem for me is then I don't fall back asleep for another hour - hopefully we'll have a repeat of last night and she'll only wake up once or none at all.
Katelynn had her 3 year check-up on Monday, her actual birthday and passed with flying colors. The doctor was very impressed with her verbal skills and understanding of everything.
Here are her stats:
Height: 38 1/4 (72%)
Weight: 34 lbs. (80%)
Head: 4.75cm (20%)
(so much for Dan and I always thinking that she has had a big head, she's only in the 20%)
After her doctors appointment it was time for mommy and her to do a little bit of shopping before going to daycare and me back to work. We stopped at Old Navy and she picked out some shoes (which she has yet to want to wear?) and I got some more maternity jeans since last time everything I owned were carpi's because it was summer (it costs a lot to buy a new wardrobe).
Next it was off to Target and this was the big deal day of "No More Nuky".
(My friend gave me this idea and did this with her daughter when she turned 3).
We have been telling Katelynn for awhile now that when she turns 3 it's time for the pacifier to go bye-bye, even though she rarely uses it, it was time to get it out of the house so that none of could use it as a crutch. So at Target, Katelynn had her "Nuky" in hand and was allowed to pick out anything in the store that her little heart desired, the cost of that item "One Nuky". So first she looked at earrings and necklaces and next it was off to the toy section and every once in awhile she would peep out "I love my Nuky" or "I'm going to miss my Nuky". In the toy section she first chose a ball (I thought great - $8 bucks, I can handle that), but then as we were heading to the checkout she saw Little Einsteins and Rocket and decided to 'trade up' to the $50.00 toy (crap is all I could think). As we were walking toward the checkout with Rocket and friends we went by the movie section and she dropped the Rocket and picked out an Elmo video (sweet, back down to $10 bucks), to the checkout we went. It wasn't too busy in Target on a Monday at 10:30am, but a nice checker opened up especially for us and once a couple of the other employees figured out what I was doing with Katelynn we had a little crowd. The checker did great with Katelynn, Katelynn gave her the video to scan and then I told her that it would cost "One Nuky" and Katelynn stood off to the side and just didn't want to let go, but finally she looked at me and said "I need just one more lick" and I told her to go ahead and lick it one last time and she did and handed it to the cashier, deal done, into the drawer it went and off we went out of the store with her new movie. So far this week she has only asked for it a couple of times and cried a little bit, but all in all the transition has gone well.
Dan and I took her out to eat and to play at Chuckie Cheese for her first experience there on Monday night, she loved it and has asked to go back a couple of times since then, the Greeley location does not quite have the atmosphere and music of the one Fargo and the characters, but we'll probably do some kind of reward system soon with her and when she reaches whatever we decide on then that may be a very good motivator and reward.
Next week is the big Ultrasound, my appointment is on Wednesday morning and we will find out the sex of the baby. I keep having this thought that baby is going to keep his/her legs crossed and not let us see because I want everything to be planned out or as my friend called me today "OCD". I will post something either Wed. night or Thursday to let everyone know what it is. Katelynn has said that we are having 1 boy baby and 1 girl baby - I think I would die.
Katelynn has had her 2nd cold this week, please tell me this is the last one for a little while. She did not get good sleep at all until finally last night. The rest of the week was hell in our house, with everyone waking up from her coughing every couple of hours and Dan and I wanting the other to get up with her or just not talk to each at 2am, etc. and both of us just wishing we could take her cough away ourselves and make her better. She also picks up habits quickly, so I am positive there were a couple of times throughout the night that she just woke up and expected me to rock her and coax her back to sleep, the problem for me is then I don't fall back asleep for another hour - hopefully we'll have a repeat of last night and she'll only wake up once or none at all.
Katelynn had her 3 year check-up on Monday, her actual birthday and passed with flying colors. The doctor was very impressed with her verbal skills and understanding of everything.
Here are her stats:
Height: 38 1/4 (72%)
Weight: 34 lbs. (80%)
Head: 4.75cm (20%)
(so much for Dan and I always thinking that she has had a big head, she's only in the 20%)
After her doctors appointment it was time for mommy and her to do a little bit of shopping before going to daycare and me back to work. We stopped at Old Navy and she picked out some shoes (which she has yet to want to wear?) and I got some more maternity jeans since last time everything I owned were carpi's because it was summer (it costs a lot to buy a new wardrobe).
Next it was off to Target and this was the big deal day of "No More Nuky".
(My friend gave me this idea and did this with her daughter when she turned 3).
We have been telling Katelynn for awhile now that when she turns 3 it's time for the pacifier to go bye-bye, even though she rarely uses it, it was time to get it out of the house so that none of could use it as a crutch. So at Target, Katelynn had her "Nuky" in hand and was allowed to pick out anything in the store that her little heart desired, the cost of that item "One Nuky". So first she looked at earrings and necklaces and next it was off to the toy section and every once in awhile she would peep out "I love my Nuky" or "I'm going to miss my Nuky". In the toy section she first chose a ball (I thought great - $8 bucks, I can handle that), but then as we were heading to the checkout she saw Little Einsteins and Rocket and decided to 'trade up' to the $50.00 toy (crap is all I could think). As we were walking toward the checkout with Rocket and friends we went by the movie section and she dropped the Rocket and picked out an Elmo video (sweet, back down to $10 bucks), to the checkout we went. It wasn't too busy in Target on a Monday at 10:30am, but a nice checker opened up especially for us and once a couple of the other employees figured out what I was doing with Katelynn we had a little crowd. The checker did great with Katelynn, Katelynn gave her the video to scan and then I told her that it would cost "One Nuky" and Katelynn stood off to the side and just didn't want to let go, but finally she looked at me and said "I need just one more lick" and I told her to go ahead and lick it one last time and she did and handed it to the cashier, deal done, into the drawer it went and off we went out of the store with her new movie. So far this week she has only asked for it a couple of times and cried a little bit, but all in all the transition has gone well.
Dan and I took her out to eat and to play at Chuckie Cheese for her first experience there on Monday night, she loved it and has asked to go back a couple of times since then, the Greeley location does not quite have the atmosphere and music of the one Fargo and the characters, but we'll probably do some kind of reward system soon with her and when she reaches whatever we decide on then that may be a very good motivator and reward.
Next week is the big Ultrasound, my appointment is on Wednesday morning and we will find out the sex of the baby. I keep having this thought that baby is going to keep his/her legs crossed and not let us see because I want everything to be planned out or as my friend called me today "OCD". I will post something either Wed. night or Thursday to let everyone know what it is. Katelynn has said that we are having 1 boy baby and 1 girl baby - I think I would die.
Cassie's Big Kill
North Dakota youth deer season opened this weekend. They took Cassie hunting at the farm (Hebron, ND).
She shot at 3 different bucks and ended up with a 3x3 mule.
She shot at 3 different bucks and ended up with a 3x3 mule.
Congratulations Cassie. (This is Dan's niece)
Friday, September 12, 2008
Baby Belly
Here are a couple of pictures of the baby belly # 2. I am 18 weeks in these pictures and definitely showing more than I did with Katelynn at this time. My next dr.'s appt. is on September 24th and we will be doing the "big ultrasound" and be able to find out the sex of the baby, and yes, we are going to find out. I am ready to either go through all of Katelynn's clothes and separate them out better by size and get them in the baby's room/closet or get rid of them if it's a boy. I figure I better start doing this while I have the energy (the little I do have). The crib and the changing table have already been set-up and moved into the "baby's" room / Grandma's Room (as Katelynn refers to it). Let's get the show on the road.
These pictures are hilarious, you have too look at the expression on Katelynn's face, she thought it was so funny that Daddy could possibly have a belly too this morning!
These pictures are hilarious, you have too look at the expression on Katelynn's face, she thought it was so funny that Daddy could possibly have a belly too this morning!
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