Cozy Cow Dairy

Katelynn's daycare provider has a great summer schedule of tours and outings this summer for the kids. They have already been to the Fire Station and are taking the reading program at the local library and once a week head to a water park in Loveland. They are definitely a busy crew, God love the woman because I couldn't haul that many kids around. They do a lot of their outings with a friend of Amy's that also runs a daycare and has some older children in the summer to help keep an eye on the kids.

This outing was to a place called Cozy Cow Dairy in Windsor and once I heard that they were going to go and watch how milk is made and actually watch a cow get milked I figured this was one outing I couldn't miss.

I woke up that morning and dropped the kids off at daycare and then turned around and drove back home to do some training on my laptop for a couple of hours. I then drove to this little dairy tucked away off the highway and met all the kids there.
I was so excited to see Katelynn's reactions to everything. It started off with a video and then a mechanical cow that explained the many stomachs of a cow and how they chew their cud. Very interesting to have this explained to me and watch the kids reaction (obviously they didn't tell me anything I didn't already know from growing up on a dairy farm). Then everyone got to sample some of their fresh milk and cheese curds. I haven't drank milk in a very long time, but thought it would be rude to not at least taste the small sample. Surprisingly Katelynn, a huge cheese lover, did not like the cheese curds, so I ate the rest of hers.
Next was a short walk over to the barn where they had 5 cows in stalls and the tour guide explained how they wash the cows and put the milkers on. They had a window so the kids could view it all and then had see through tanks to watch the milk collect before it went into the bulb tank. I really thought the kids would get more into this piece, but they liked the next two stops the best.
Off to feed and pet the animals was next. Each child got some grain and was able to feed the goats and calves. They called over the cows and as you can see in one of the pictures below one of the cows was trying to lick my hair while I was taking a picture with Katelynn.

The last part of the day was to get a bowl of fresh ice cream and every kiddo loved that. It was pretty good ice cream, but I had heard such raves of its greatness I think I thought it would taste a little like gold or something?! Each child then got a goodie bag to take home with information about cows and some toys and such.

It was great to be able to take the time to go and experience this with Katelynn. Junior slept most of the time. I think that in 2 more years she will really pay more attention to the process and ask more questions. This time round it was all about the ice cream.

The Spectacle

I picked up the kids from daycare on Wednesday and had to run into the small grocery store in town and pick up a prescription. I decided also to pick up some chicken strips and popcorn chicken from the deli for supper, with summer being here finally I have been getting lazy on the cooking department. I haul both kids out of the car and into the store, Junior goes into a cart since he is still in the infant car seat and Katelynn has to walk along side me. We stop at the pharmacy counter and get my prescription (I had called it in earlier) and it was going smoothly until Katelynn sees the bowl of suckers on the counter. Katelynn had just received a sucker at daycare for having a great day and had already enjoyed the sucker on the way to the store. I told her she could take a sucker from the bowl, but she had to wait for another day to eat it, this was my first parental mistake. She held onto the sucker for awhile and then slowly started to unravel the bottom of it around the stick and I repeated to her that she could not have the sucker now and we continued at our walk to the other end of the store to the deli. As we were walking she continued to unravel the wrapper and then tell me that she had done it, I gave her another warning that I would take the sucker away if she took the wrapper off, here is the second parental mistake - too many warnings - I should have taken the sucker away and stuck it in my purse for later. As we are standing at the deli patiently waiting our turn I start chatting with another lady getting some food and Katelynn continues to unravel the wrapper and then tells me, another sterning warning goes out to her, I am going to take the sucker away if you unwrap it. We order our food and as they are wrapping our food up Katelynn unwraps the rest of the sucker and gives it a lick. I tell her again, put the wrapper back on that sucker and I am now taking it away. She gives it another lick (are you kidding me). My hand flies to her mouth, takes the sucker and the wrapper from her and stick it in my purse and explain to her why. Let the spectacle begin. She immediately is pissed and starts screaming, loud. We are now making our way to the checkouts and it's right after work so it's packed. Here I am pushing Junior in the cart and Katelynn is wailing at the top of her lungs behind me and I just pretty much ignored her. What I couldn't ignore was the 30 people at the checkouts including the checkers and baggers all turning to see what the commotion is all about and why this child is so damn loud. I check out my items and pay and get the hell out of there, how embarrassing. This was horrible, an almost four year old trailing behind me, I can almost hear the whispers of those people and there looks. Normally, I would have drug her butt outside and left, but I needed my prescription and we needed the milk and food. We get to the car and she has the guts to ask me if she can have the sucker now - WHAT!? Not a chance kid, we are going home.

4th of July Weekend

Happy 4th of July!

We had a fabulous 4th of July weekend. On Thursday night after work the kids and I went over to a neighbors house and Katelynn got to jump on their trampoline and play with their kids, she hadn't seen them for awhile so she was in her glory. Junior and I hung out with the adults and did some visiting (aka gossiping) and headed home around 8:30pm, way past Junior's bedtime, but he took a catnap while we were there. Friday we just hung around the house and Katelynn and I finally decided that we needed to run to the store because I figured we wouldn't have time or want to on Saturday, so off we went. We stopped at Lowe's first and picked up some PVC pipe and supplies so Dan could make us the Lawn Golf game and then we swung by Target for a couple of things. It didn't take Dan long to make our game and we were playing that afternoon, we normally just sit around in the backyard so it was fun to have something that Dan and I could play with as well and Katelynn likes it too. We were tired from Thursday night so we went to bed at a fairly decent time. We invited friends over for Saturday to BBQ and hang out, so Saturday morning we were cleaning the house and checking over what we may need. Dan ran and picked up beer and we decorated the backyard with some flags and got the lawn golf game out for people to play. People showed up around 2:30pm or so which actually worked out nice because it gave us time to hang out and enjoy the excitement of the day as a family. Junior hung out in his swing and we just played around the yard. About a month earlier I had picked us up all matching 4th of July shirts, so we were all sporting them for the day and took some pretty cool pictures. We didn't get a complete family picture though because when people showed up Junior was napping and then we were visiting and such when he woke up. Katelynn and I made Red and Blue jello cups and had cool whip for our Red, White and Blue treats which all of her friends really enjoyed (and of course with each group that stopped by Katelynn had to have one with them). We did get hit by the rainstorm and made due with having the kids play in the basement and us hanging out in the house and in the garage, but it did clear up and then drizzled here and there throughout the night. Dan cooked steaks and brats for those that stayed for supper. The kids were waiting and waiting for it to get dark enough out to light off fireworks and finally we just started lighting them off and letting them light some sparklers. We did have to retreat to the house and hide all evidence at one point during the night because our city has a no fireworks law and the police heard one of ours "screaming", but all was good and we lit off the rest and then put the kiddos to bed and hung out with our company for a little while longer before heading to bed ourselves. It was a really good time. Sunday was another relaxing day. We got up (both of us) with the kids in the morning and cooked breakfast, cleaned up our mess from the day before and then played outside. When the kids were napping I went out and tanned outside for awhile and then I took the kids to the outlet mall shopping for some clothes so Dan could get a nap in. Junior was basically just along for the ride. We stopped at a Cafe' and I got a coffee and Katelynn got a smoothy, she thought she was pretty cool. It was back to work on Monday morning. Here are some pictures of our 4th of July. I think we look pretty darn good in our matching attire!

(Katelynn took this picture for us)

Hail, Hail and more Hail

Summer has finally arrived and I think that are long stretch of storm after storm after storm has finally passed. I don't remember a time when I have seen this much hail. If it rained, it hailed, and then add in the occasional tornado warning / watch. The weather this beginning of summer seemed a little unnatural? Here are a few pictures that I took.

Kool Girl

Random Photos

Katelynn being silly.

She thinks these are the "coolest" snacks ever!

Since my Scooba broke I have been protesting to get a new Scooba and refusing to wash/mop the floors (one day I even walked around the block to my neighbors house and asked if I could borrow hers just so I didn't have to do it myself). So here is Dan on his hands and knees washing the floors and Katelynn decided it would be pretty fun if she "rode" him like a horse while he washed. Junior and I sat and watched them both and had a good chuckle!

Thumbsucker

Here is my little man fast asleep. What a sweetheart. What is that in your mouth? Yes, my son has completely taken to sucking his thumb. He will use it when he's really hungry and waiting for a bottle and when he puts himself to sleep. As much as I love not getting up in the night or during naps to pop the paci back into his mouth as I had to with Katelynn I am hoping that this isn't a habit that he keeps for years on end. For now thought I will think it is cute and enjoy it.

What Next?

So, as you've read from previous posts I have taken a lot on my plate recently. Well, I thought I had been handling it just fine, but apparently my body has decided otherwise. The last couple of weeks about an hour after eating supper I have had horrible stomach aches, some of them that have put me straight to bed after I put the kids down. I backed off on the amount of food I was eating for supper for a couple of days and it seemed to subside a little. I thought, good, I guess I was just indulging too much, I can handle that. Well, not so much. We were at an "All Staff" meeting the other day and about an hour after I chugged a glass of orange juice, had some fruit and a bagel I all of the sudden did not start feeling so well and it got worse as the morning went on. I couldn't get out of that meeting fast enough. I hadn't brought my lunch to work so I swung through Taco John's and ate a couple of tacos and Ole's and that just seemed to make it worse. I was literally pacing around my office holding my stomach and finally I couldn't take it anymore and called the doctor and they got me in and I left work. I talked to the doctor and she said she thinks that I have an "ulcer" - what the hell?! Were in the hell did that come from and how did it sneak up on? They did a blood draw and sent me off to the other clinic this morning for an ultrasound to rule out a bad functioning gallbladder and I am awaiting the results. They did prescribe me some meds for acid in the stomach and ulcer fixing pills. So, now an hour before every meal I am popping pills so that I can eat. This was the first day of this for me and all was going pretty well until I decided to start my snacking while working this afternoon. I am a snacker, I would rather snack all day and eat here and there, but this is not going to work now, I could tell my stomach was not happy later after the snacks because I did not "pop" a pill before hand. The doctor also said that I had to quit drinking caffeine, alcoholic drinks, no smoking and eat a bland diet. I just did that for 9 months, I wasn't planning on doing that again. We will see if I can stick to it or not in order for the hole in my stomach to heal. I will post when I get more results of my test, wish me the best.

Mother's Day

We had a great Mother's Day this year. Dan and Katelynn went off one morning that weekend to get my gifts while me and Junior spent some time together at home. They attempted to let me sleep in Sunday morning, but Katelynn was so excited to give me my presents I had to get up and open them. We had a nice breakfast that Dan cooked too. My first present was a pair of hoop earrings that I had asked for, so pretty! Next, was a pair of sport socks? And then was a workout skirt and top. I was shocked! Dan actually had put thought into my gift (this rarely happens). The story behind this: at work we did a competition of "America On the Move" and you have to wear a pedometer to track your steps for 6 weeks. In my unit I have 3 other girls that work out a lot and have all the fancy and cute workout clothes and we had started taking walks at work during our lunch hour (yes, we did get sweaty). I had told Dan about their outfits and here I come with some crummy old shorts and t-shirts and was feeling a little left out of the crowd, thus the workout clothes so that I could be the "cool girl". Thank you hubby for wanting me to fit in and be the hot mommy that you think I am! You made my day.

After we opened the gifts Katelynn wanted to open the socks and then decided it would be best if she tried on a pair, and another pair on top of that and another on top of those, until she had every pair of the bag on her little feet. It was pretty humorous. The socks did get a little stretched out, but well worth it for the chuckle it brought all of us.

Dan's 37th Birthday

Pictures

Moments in the Davids House

I survived my first training class for Project Management and walked away with my certificate and training hours - whew! It was a long 2 days and both days I came home drained, it had been a long time since I have done schooling or any type of long training. Now the task will be to see if I can retain any of it when I need to use it, time will tell. This week will be a little more laid back, a couple meetings here and there and then mainly working on my statistics outcomes for that state that is due at the end of the month. Next week on to 2 more days of training with the rest of the Business Analysts at the county, should be interesting to see if this one is as draining to my brain. I am going to have to start a little portfolio to keep all of these certificates in or I know I will end up losing them or rather, placing them in a "home" and forgetting where each one lives.
Tomorrow Junior has his 4 month appointment. I cannot believe that he is already 4 months old, it seems to have gone by so fast this time. He is still a happy go lucky little camper and we started feeding him some baby cereal which he is enjoying each night. He is still sleeping through the nights as well, a god send for me.
Last weekend Katelynn and I left the boys at home and went and did some shopping for clothes and things. She was so funny. We got into the car and as we were leaving the subdivision I asked her what she thought that she wanted that day and her reply "A checkbook" - what?! Where did that come from? We went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond and I found her a thing to make homemade Popsicles in ($2.99), much cheaper than what she was asking for. While we were there I bought myself the thing I've watched too many commercials on that states it will just rub the hair away and you won't have to shave again - I walked out of the store with the sign "SUCKER" on my forehead I'm sure, the thing is a piece of crap - damn, I am a sucker.

Time to Train

Tomorrow I am off to start my Project Management Training to become a Business Analyst. I will be at the Front Range Community College for 2 days and the agenda is fierce looking. My stomach will be tied in knots I am sure tomorrow morning. I am good at training and applying things that I have learned, but I hate going to trainings where you have to "pretend" and "role play" in front of the class / other participants and then have them analyze you - yuck. It will be interesting to see who else is in this class, lately I have been on the young end of the age spectrum with everything, which in a way, good for me, but it does get intimidating (especially since most that know me, know that I prefer to the intimidator). Slow, but sure, I am still doing training on Crystal Report writing as well and will soon start to write report for the Food Department in Health and Human Services. Learning about inspections and restaurants has proven to be very interesting and I am glad that we cook a lot of meals at home right now. My next training days will be in a couple of weeks and is called "SCRUM" - that word is strange within it self (and no, I don't know what it stands for, yet). I believe that it will tie into the project management training and is a way to deal with processes, which is something I do enjoy, so we will see. So wish me luck and good vibes that I can learn and retain all of this new information as I trudge forward!

Keep on Chewing and Chewing and Chewing

Everyone has heard of the expression, "Don't bite off more than you can chew", yet some time I believe in most people's lives we do it anyway, well, I think my first round has come. The last month there has been so much going on, from one thing to the next. I will try to break out in pieces what I have been up to or what is or has been coming at me.

Work -
Work is busy and continues to get busier. I have worked on a House Bill project for the last 3 years at the county that brings in a lot of money if we pass our outcomes. This year I was not supposed to be a part of the project because I was supposed to be in full swing of training for my new position, well, I am doing the project again this year with help from co-workers. I returned to work from maternity leave to learn that the project that I would normally start in mid-February had yet to be started on at all and now I am scrambling to get it done in 2 months with help, this means though that I have to train and check work from others and try to do some work myself on it as well. We have a month and half left and I am really starting to have some anxiety over this, but alas, there is no time to stress over it now. I have also started training for my Business Analyst position which means I have 6 hours a week that I must train on Crystal Report Writer, some independent study and some with our current report writer and then also squeezing in time with him to work on our current reports that are due. Next, I am being scheduled for numerous meetings for Project Management projects that I will be doing on the job training and hopefully getting into a 3 day class later this month at Front Range Community College as well. In the seven years I have been at the county I have had meetings, but the majority of my time has been spent at my desk doing actual work and being very confident in the work that I am doing, this is an entire new ballgame for me. I have my laptop, so I am pretty much packing it up and taking it to an office to work or to a meeting or to our other office location to work on stuff. I am meeting new people at the county and have determined that of all the BA's I am thinking that I am quite a few years younger than everyone else, but I can deal with that if they can. At this time I have to watch my hours closely as well and complete 15 hours of BA work and the rest of the work week needs to Dept. Specialist work in order for them to keep my from re-classifying to a BA before I am really able to do the job duties and receive the pay. Once my House Bill project is complete I will be allotted some additional hours to train on whatever they seem fit, but I can see from all the trainings that are 2 days or more that my time is going to be sucked up fairly quickly and they didn't leave me much time to travel from office to office. That is how the work aspect of my life is going.

HOA -
The HOA lately has been crazy and started shortly after I took over as president. First it was choosing a landscaping company and having resistance from another board member to go with who we had last year, which ballooned into interviewing 3 candidates, doing reference checks, and having meetings with the board and then finally choosing who we had last year anyway. Now we have a ditch in our subdivision that is entirely out of control and needs to be dug. I have walked this ditch with 5 different excavators and have sent email upon email, phone call upon phone call to them, the board members, our property management company and still need to keep digging for some answers that I need. This is a whole new experience for me and not many people that I have asked for advice seem to really have the direct answers that I want, the main one being, "Are we really responsible for paying for this ditch to be dug ourselves?" I don't see how the city or county or the damn farmer that runs his field overflow into our ditch doesn't have to pay for some of this and then the question to the excavators - why do you charge so damn much to dig a ditch and move some dirt, there are not that many houses being built, you can't be that busy. I am also up against a time crunch because the city is turning on the water and the ditch is going to attempt to start having water run through it and then city has told me I have one year to "fix" the ditch - my question to them "or what?" help me pay for some of it because I know that the people in subdivision can't afford to have an assessment, who knows if we can get a loan and we don't have enough many now to cover all the expense. AHHHHHHH
We also had to do a walk-around with the landscaping company and a couple of the board members are more worried about the damn flowers they want to plant here and there and I've had to put the kibosh on it stating, "we have no money" and we have a serious ditch situation. You can about imagine the crabby husband I have at home leaving him to watch the 2 kids himself to attend meetings and take phone calls. Hopefully soon some of this will settle down and we will be back to meetings once a month and a few emails that I can deal with on my breaks at work or at night.

The Kids -
Katelynn and Junior are actually falling into place really well. Both of them have an 8pm bedtime and are asleep (or at least in their bedrooms, Katelynn) by 8:30pm and have been staying put and not waking up until 6:30am, thank god for that, I can't ask for more. Katelynn has still been tough and I think she is going to have anger management issues if we don't get them under control soon. Dan and I really need to have serious follow through on our consequences and we are working on it. Junior is a peach, he is either hungry or tired and has really taken to sucking his thumb, when I can I try to replace it with the "paci" but he plops it out sometimes fairly quickly and pops the thumb back in, for now I will deal with the thumb and have a happy little boy. Dan and I did have to have a little sit down and some serious communication when it came to the kids and that we both need to be doing our share, it took 2 to make them and it's going to take 2 to watch them, since our talk we have both been doing our share and have a much happier household. One of the problems is the TV, if it's off we are all great and can really concentrate on what is going on, but once it's on someone gets distracted or plops down and doesn't want to do anything (Dan) and I then lose my cool, which is what I need to work on. Junior will have his 4 month appointment next month and I am wondering if they will give us the green light to start him on solids / cereal and then am wondering how am I going to fit this in?

The Marriage -
Why didn't anyone ever tell me that marriage can be this hard after you throw kids into the mix? Mom, where were you? Oh yeah, you wanted grand baby's. How do you juggle everything else and then attempt to have time for this as well. We have been trying to at least spend a little time together before we continue to feel like roommates, nags, or maids and nannies in the house. I have found a summer bowling league that starts in June on Monday nights that we would like to do, at least I would and kind of told Dan that he needs to go along with it if we want to stay married or figure out something else weekly that we can do together and both enjoy, my point was taken. I have been trying to find a babysitter now for Monday nights all through the summer and have not had too much luck. I am getting a lot of 15 year old's calling and wanting to do it and there parents will even drop them off and pick them up, but I am just not comfortable with someone that young watching my 3 month old and 3 1/2 year old, I mean really, sometimes I wonder if I can handle it and I'm going to trust a fifteen year old that has never had a child, I just can't do it. I had one stay at home mom call and want to do it, but she had to bring her 5 month old with her because her husband works at night and I wasn't comfortable with that either, I wouldn't want to wake up my children at 10 or 11pm and put them in the car to take them home and put them back to bed, I just wasn't comfortable with this either. Hopefully something or someone will turn up in the next couple of weeks and we'll be able to do this. Dan will kill me for saying this on here, but it's what's happening. We both know that we are done having kids, 2 is enough for us and our family is now complete so after discussion we decided that Dan will get the deed done and has his consultation this week with the "snip, snip" doctor. It's funny as the week progresses and the date gets closer, he has some anxiety / nervousness around this and it's just been really funny, at least for me it is, but ya know I did push out 2 children already, so ya ain't getting much sympathy from my end.

The House -
With the new expense of my car and daycare and formula and diapers the cleaning crew I had coming every 2 weeks is no longer. After I let them know I wouldn't need them anymore I pulled out my Scooba so at least I didn't have to actually mop my own floors and the fricken thing is broken. I have been emailing the techs at irobot.com and after many attempts and talks, it's broken and not fixable, shit. I still am on strike from mopping the floor and Dan broke down and did it on Mother's Day for me. I hate mopping and I loved my Scooba. I have been looking on craigslist for one and have made an offer to one lady, but she hasn't called me back yet to buy hers, must not have like my offer?! The scooba's cost $300, but irobot did offer me their out of warranty price of $180.00, it's one without a battery (which my battery works fine) and I am going back and forth and maybe in the next 6 months will go with that offer if I don't find someone else to sell me theirs for cheaper. All in all I have also had to give up some of my anal cleaning and attempting to have a spotless house every night before I go to bed, it just can't be done with everything going on. It took a few works for me to really let go, but I do feel some relief that as long as the dinner dishes are done at night then the rest of the stuff will be fine if some toys are not put away and the floor isn't swept and there may be laundry that needs to get done and so on and so on. I will try to do what I can on the weekends I guess like I assume everyone else does as well.

I am sure I am missing some stuff, but all in all I feel like I am swimming or drowning from one thing to the next, but I am really excited and happy with all of these new experiences and lessons that I am learning and I will keep on chewing, but hopefully not be biting off anymore, my plate is full.

Junior - 3 months

Hard to believe that 3 months has gone by already and I have been back to work and into the swing of things. Junior is now weighing in at 14 lbs. and has the new nickname "Tank". He is an unbelievable little guy. He has such great head control already and is smiling and giggling. He has now been successfully sleeping through the night for 2 1/2 weeks and mommy and daddy couldn't be happier! Although he doesn't sleep too much during the day, he has taken to taking little cat naps and if we're lucky he will sleep for an hour, but at that point it still feels like he only slept for 15 minutes. Katelynn is still doing really well with him and hasn't felt that he is too much of a competition to her. Junior is sucking down 6 oz. of formula at every feeding and as long as he has a full belly we see the happy boy! Both kids are now getting ready for bed at the same time so this has probably been the biggest adjustment for Dan who always had bedtimes off to do his own thing. So at 8pm we take both kiddos upstairs and I start with Katelynn and get her all tucked in and to bed and then walk across the hall to Junior's room and take over feeding him the rest of his bottle and off to bed he goes. They are both getting up around 6am / 6:30am and Dan is "on duty" in the mornings. Katelynn is pretty easy because we have always let her watch a quick show while we run around the house, so he turns one on for her and then changes, dresses, and feeds Junior and then somewhere in between getting myself ready for work I get Katelynn dressed and do her hair (which is much easier now!) and we are out the door by we hope 7:15am. It's been nice to have our nights back and I can get a load of laundry done, some bookwork or have a beer with the hubby. I have had to let loose a little on having my house as clean as I can and am just letting certain things be. I had to do this for my own sanity. We are really enjoying our times with the kids and are so glad that it's warmer out and having even been taking family walks around the neighboorhood at night.