Claire, 7 Month Update

Oh well for thinking I would post a 3,6, 9, and 12 month update as Claire is already well into her 7^th month and I have yet to get to that 6 month update until now.  Better late than never though right?

I can’t believe my little Claire Bear is over a half a year old already!  Aaron and I are trying to really love and appreciate this first year of her life because we know how quickly time flies before she is no longer a baby.

Overall, Claire is a pretty happy baby, not to say she doesn’t get fidgety and fussy but a much easier baby than Annie ever was.  Claire and Annie at 7 months are quite different.  Annie never enjoyed to be held, she was a mover whereas Claire isn’t much of a mover and just wants held.  She can roll over but not big on it, which is a whole different experience to Annie who moved like crazy and was walking by 9 months.  Claire definitely won’t be walking at 9 months; shoot she’ll probably just be crawling by then.  She has sitting on her own mastered and loves the jumper.   

She gives Annie the most laughs, her Dad the most smiles (and baby reaches, “Pick me up Dad!”), and keeps her eyes on Mom so she doesn’t leave the room.  She is pretty good at smiling on demand and is quite the reacher.  Meaning Annie better have a good grasp on her toy because Claire is always reaching for whatever Annie has and she has quite the grip once she gets a hold of something.  She also gives a pretty loud scream when something is beyond her reach, easily frustrated when she doesn’t get what she wants….eerily similar to her sister.  

We haven’t really come across baby food she doesn’t like; so far both veggies and fruits are a hit.  I did try her on some Mum Mum’s but she just had too many instances of chocking on them that I decided we will wait a little longer on those.  Dinners at home just started to get a little easier; Claire can be real adamant about feeding herself so I’ll scoop some food on her spoon and let her naw on it for a while.  Aaron doesn’t like my method because it’s a mess but I like it because I can then multi-task and make dinner between her bites.  She pretty much downs her bottles no problem and we are finally getting her to learn how to hold the bottle herself.  She’s been pretty lazy on that front until some recent coaxing.

Can you believe we have had Claire sleeping in our bedroom clear up to a few weeks ago?  Yes we finally transitioned her from the pack n play back to her crib in her bedroom.  She STILL isn’t sleeping thru the nights and it’s getting really old!  She was sleeping from about 7:30 to 5 am clear up to November, then we got hit with an ear infection that took 18 days to clear up and the double whammy of 2 bottom teeth that came in.  November was a pretty rough month, she was so fussy with all that going on and started getting up around 1-2 am for a bottle again. 

She is all healthy and well today, those teeth seemed to finally calm down but she still wants that middle of the night bottle so we are back to a game plan of how we are going to wean her off of this mid-night awakening.  It’s tough because yes waking up in the middle of the night sucks but when we give her a bottle, she is back to sleep no problem in 15/20 minutes.  Just this last weekend I tried to rock her back to sleep and I was up for an hour before I gave into the fight and just gave her a bottle.  But Aaron and I know at this age, she can go 11 hours without at night and we need to go thru the painful process of getting her off this middle of the night stuff.

I’ve enjoyed dressing Claire in Annie’s old clothes and really didn’t buy many new… until recently.  I knew I couldn’t hold out forever!  Most of Annie’s clothes are still in style but I feel like Claire should have a little bit of a style of her own too.  And not to mention, those little girl’s outfits are a weakness of mine!

Overall, I remember Annie at 6 months being one of my favorite ages.  I would say this may be my favorite age as well so far with Claire, she can sit and play but isn’t moving yet so it minimizes the trouble she can get into.  It’s a good stage to be in!  Happy 7 months Claire Bear!

Hyde Happenings

This week's edition of the Hyde Happenings, just a random post of what's been going in our lives... 

This week Annie had an extensive hearing exam and great news… she passed with flying colors!  What a relief, the audiologist is certain the tubes are what was interfering with computerized exam results.  She passed the non-computerized sound field test and heard every single octave and even at a very low volume.  So now we can move forward with speech therapy knowing that her hearing is not a factor.  Wheew!

Wow, was the World Series something this year?!  I’m not a baseball fan but I understand the rules of the game from playing softball for many years so I can follow along pretty easily.  But why do the games have to drag on so late?!  I couldn’t stay up to the end of any of them, anything pass 9:30 anymore is a challenge to stay awake. 

Beggars night was last Sunday, this was the first year that Annie participated.  It took a little warming up and we ended up hooking up with some neighbors who have toddler little girls and she loved running alongside of them house to house.  Once she got the concept, we then had to keep saying, only take one Annie.  I could see her little paws grabbing multiple handfuls a few too many times.  I think that night ranked up with one of the most memorable this year, her excitement and enthusiasm just melted my heart for her. 

Annie wore her Raggedy Ann costume from last year.  We moved on Halloween and it really didn’t fit her that great last year so it actually worked out really well to use it this year. Then a long time ago, like before Claire was ever born, I had seen an old lady Halloween baby on Pinterest and I thought if I have another girl I’m definitely making her an old lady wig and buying some glasses with a chain and sure enough, her 2016 costume was too perfect!

The girls have been giving us a beat down this week.  The middle of the night wakings are really wearing on us.  It’s usually one or the other but most of this week it’s been both of them.  It’s exhausting to be up multiple times in the night trying to get one of them to go back to sleep.  I’m guessing daylight savings time this weekend isn’t going to be doing us any favors in getting them back into their routines. 

I had a tooth that had been bothering me for a while now.  On Sunday that tooth went from being annoying to serious pain.  I have never been so excited in my life to get a root canal midweek that wasn’t in the plans just days prior.  

Annie has recently taken up interest in helping me in the kitchen, which is a lot of fun but it seriously slows me way down and we have to stick to simple recipes (like boxed pancake mix) or else it takes half a day to do anything and the clean-up is horrendous, I’m talking batter down the side of the cabinets, batter on the floors, dry mix in places I never knew you could flick dry mix into.  Sooo… I am in need of some tasty but easy, simple baking holiday ideas.  Sounds like a newly inspired Pinterest board in the making!

Aaron and my wedding anniversary is coming up, no 7-year itch here!  We are going to celebrate by going to a JohnnySwim concert.  Can't wait! 

I attended our first neighborhood Bunco night with the the ladies who live in our neighborhood.  Had such a great time and I really am loving my neighbors, we have a lot of commonalities and everyone seems to get along really well.  Plus the biggest bonus is our neighborhood has lots of little girls!  2 other babies are Claire’s age, one of them happens to be in the same room at daycare together, how coincidental huh?! And five+ 2 year old girls for Annie, we really lucked out with having some pretty awesome neighbors who have kids the same age as ours.  So I actually didn’t really enjoy the Bunco game itself (found the game rather boring) but hey it’s a good excuse to get together with the other mom’s once a month, drink wine, socialize and conveniently be close to home.  

Annie, the Dictator

Annie has a new nickname in our house over the past month, the dictator.  Vocabulary.com defines a dictator as:

“someone who has absolute power — or who at least behaves as if they do by bossing others around...”

I prefer the definition of a toddler dictator as:

“an emotionally unstable pint-sized dictator with the uncanny ability to know exactly how far to push you towards utter insanity before reverting to a loveable cuddle-monster.”

Annie is definitely a 2 ½ year old, no doubt.  Some days I feel like we just live in Annie’s world and we all must adhere to her standards.  I’ve said she was born a 'terrible 2' because she has been a handful literally since she was only 3 weeks old.  We’ve accepted the fact that Annie is our spirited, opinionated child in which we adore her outspoken personality but it can really be exhausting.  She makes Claire seem like the easiest child ever.  I can only imagine the stories to come as she grows up but here are a few recent ones…

Lately Annie has been a bit of a mommy’s-girl.  She can say mommy 400 times in 10 seconds and I can be looking right at her going ‘yes Annie, yes Annie’ and she will just say mommymommymommymommy (no commas needed because she usually doesn’t take a breath between each mommy). I think each day she tries to break her record of how many mommy's she can say in one day. 

Annie has no concept of being quiet with a sleeping baby in the house.  And at her age, I don’t really expect her to but I never knew how loud she can really be.  She is like a ping pong ball, running into everything when she walks, hollering along the way.  It’s incredible.

She’s getting better about being in the car but we still have some trying times.  We recently traveled several hours for family pictures and it was absolutely the worst car ride to date.  We literally were only in the car for 15 minutes and she was screaming about having her shoes on, I took them off and 5 minutes later she was upset that they were off and that was just the start of the craziness she put us thru on that trip.  She’s either really good in the car, or a nightmare, you never know which you’ll get anymore.

Speaking of being in the car, when I’m driving home from daycare, I’ll call Aaron about dinner and I can’t hear him most of the time.  I usually have to say “I’m sorry, I can’t hear what you are saying because the dictator is yelling at me from the backseat.”

We have 57 episodes of Mickey Mouse on DVR.  I turn on one at random and she starts demanding that isn’t the one she wants to watch.  So then she tries to tell me which one she wants to watch and I don’t have all 57 episodes memorize and have no clue which one she's talking about, she then proceeds to throw herself to the floor screaming at me for not knowing how to read her mind.  

She has the craziest tantrums over the funniest of things.  One morning she was absolutely hysterical that I wouldn’t allow her to take a bag of Claire’s hair bows to daycare.  I’m sorry Annie but I’m not going to let you take all of Claire’s 20+ hairbbows to daycare that don’t even fit on your head and lose them all.  Basically anything random we take to daycare, there is about a 50/50 chance we’ll get it back so No is No.

The day we wouldn't let Annie take the bows to daycare, one is hysterical while the other is just happy as could be. Typical.

I'll never forget Claire's Baptism this Spring. Not because of Claire getting baptized but rather what Annie did. I was holding Annie, Aaron was holding Claire.  During the ceremony the Pastor handed me Claire's baptism candle. The instant it went to my hand, Annie grabbed onto it and had a death grip on it and her eyes were deadlocked on the flame.  Annie is extremely strong, I have no doubt she can strong arm me as I'm holding her.  I was terrified Annie was going to make a sudden move with the candle that sadly I didn't even really catch Claire being baptized because I was fearful of Annie burning down the church that day. 

Check out that intensity and grip on that candle, I was absolutely petrified and could not wait to blow it out

Moving her to a big girl bed back in February has been nothing but a huge mistake.  She won’t stay in her bed; it’s gotten a lot better but we pretty much have to walk her back to her room for several hours after we shut out her lights each night. Everyone tells us to lock her in her room but I can’t do it you guys, that sounds traumatizing!  I have learned and now we will keep Claire in a crib until she goes to college, we won't be repeating this mistake again! 

Asleep in her tutu

Once or twice a week she wakes up in the middle of the night and comes back to our room and it scares the bejeebers out of me when I open my eyes to the pint-sized dictator standing inches away from my face in the dark just breathing on me.  And when I am too tired to walk her back, I tell her to get into bed and she always puts me in a choke hold, her snuggles are a little too aggressive.

I never know what I’ll get for cooperation at daycare pickup.  If I walk into her room and she comes running towards me with a smile, there is a sense of relief that it’s going to be a good pick up.  If I walk in and she raises her eyes up at me and then looks back down at what she is doing with no emotion, I instantly know it’s going to be a battle getting her to leave.  Nothing is worst than having to carry a bulky, heavy car seat with an infant in it, empty bottles, and a 30ish lb 2 ½ year old under my arms kicking, screaming and trying to bite me, all by myself.  I can’t leave either unattended in the car so I have to take them both at once. There are just days when she doesn’t want to leave at all and candy bribery is losing it's effects.  I’ll even leave her room, go get Claire and come back and acting like I’m leaving her doesn’t make a difference.

The 'Dictator' has a lot of sass

Annie’s No’s come out sounding like Mo.  We are always asking her “who is Mo?”  It’s No. 

A look at our bribery -- "if you put your pjs on Annie without a fight, then we will dress Charley up."  Deal! 

Switching gears to the flip side of Annie, we have been struggling with her pronunciation of words.  Her vocabulary is growing and the people who are around her every day can understand her but it is apparent that speech is a little behind compared to others in her daycare class.  We think it may be linked to her hearing.  Late 2015, she had several ear infections back to back, twice rupturing her ear drums with no symptoms in advance.  In January she had a set of ear tubes put in.  In February at her follow up, she didn’t pass her hearing test.  The doctor wasn’t too concerned as she passed her newborn hearing screening so he asked that we come back in 6 months for a re-check.  At 6 months, her hearing test was inconclusive and one of the tubes had fallen out of place so we had a second round for replacement tubes.  Following that surgery, her hearing exam still remains inconclusive.  I know she is hearing as she can respond to questions with specific answers when I ask them in a whisper, but we do think her hearing might be muffled some.  We recently have been connected with a speech pathologist and are scheduling an in-depth hearing exam to determine if she is hearing fine or if the tubes are interfering with the test results, as her doctor suspects that is the case.

Hoping this speech therapy will help make some progress for her.

On the plus side, she is an awesome big sister, helping out with Claire, always asking if she can hold her rather than just grabbing her.  Just very gentle overall.  Almost 6 months in and I’ve seen very little jealousy, in fact she enjoys having Claire around.  I’m looking forward to when they can interact more, I know sibling fighting is inevitable but Annie really enjoys interacting with Claire so I’m looking forward to more of that.

sisterly love

Annie is pretty smart, I’m sure every parent thinks their kid is smart and I’m no exception.  She can whip together 24 piece puzzles easily, sings her ABCs (although she does start to trail off around H and the annunciation is fuzzy but usually does eventually get to Z), knows all of her colors and most of her shapes and is especially good at problem solving.  It’s really an amazing thing to sit and watch her little mind work. 

Picture from daycare of how happy she was that she lined up and sorted her snack just the way she liked

 What is Annie into?  Stickers.  It doesn’t matter if they are old address labels, if it sticks, she loves it.  Puzzles, always finishing when she starts one. She likes to color with markers.  Sorting things, she has plenty of bags and totes filled with all kinds of stuff.  Mickey Mouse, she took a break from it but now is back into it.  Tutus, she’s all girl like that.  Tea parties, even Charley gets a cup of ‘tea’ on the weekends.  Playing games and watching videos on her tablet, if we ever need a moment of silence, we just hand her Amazon Fire to her and she can zone out for a long time with it.  It comes in handy when one of us is in ‘single-parent’ mode with both kids (or when we are being steamrolled by her dictating commands), she also loves doing puzzles on her Fire.

Although we like to call Annie our dictator, she’s has many sweet 2 year-old moments and she's probably a fairly typical 2 year old (although I think she is a little more picky/particular than most).  She just has her ways of being quite demanding and a totally exhausting.  She keeps life eventful, fun and interesting.  Having a 33 inch tall dictator in our house isn’t so bad when we love her to pieces and pieces.  I have a feeling she is always going to be trying to run the show and this is only the start.  Let's face it, we are just approaching the phase termed "threenagers," let the real fun begin... 

  

35 Truths On My 35th

My birthday was this week.  No big deal.  I kept telling Aaron let’s not do anything for it in the weeks leading up to it and then the Thursday before I go “So what are we doing for my birthday?”  Typical, right?!  Good thing Aaron anticipated such from me and already had a sitter lined up weeks prior.  It was a good weekend; dinner out with friends, a little shopping, breakfast out with my family, and more dinner ordered out.  I guess my birthday was mostly centered around food!  In honor of my 35^th, here are 35 facts about me that you may have known or didn’t know already and I’ll find it interesting to reflect back to see how these change over the next 35 years of my life…

1)      I would consider myself a very detail oriented and most people who knows me well agree.  I have a strong appreciate for the details in everything.

2)      My favorite colors are gray and all shades of purples, especially plum.

3)      I love traveling, the planning and anticipation leading up to the trip especially.  It’s almost as if I always need to have a trip on the books, no matter how far out it is planned I just always need something travel wise to look forward to.

4)      Kids make me feel both young and old.  Sometimes at the end of the day, I’m completely wiped out and I think I can’t keep up with them, our energy is unmatched.  Other times, I feel like they keep me young, lively and goofy again.

5)      My all-time favorite food is tiramisu. 

6)      I really enjoying cooking and baking but I hate the clean-up.

7)      I love doing laundry so much that I will not let Aaron touch it.  And I’m picky about how things need to be washed; believe it or not, I will sort laundry into so many different piles in efforts to create extra loads because I love doing it so much.  It’s my favorite chore.

8)      I was telling a friend recently that Annie is both picky and particular and it drives me crazy sometimes.  In this story I was telling my friend that I am only particular but not picky and my friend didn’t understand the difference so I tried to give her an example: I can be open to staying at most any decent hotel and not be picky about it.  But I’ll be particular about which room I get.  I’ll call ahead and ask that I be put on the highest floor (to avoid street noise).  I will also request to be at the end of the hall (away from elevator noise, I’m a light sleeper).   And ask for extra towels and wash clothes to be delivered to my room before arrival without even knowing first how many are even in the room.  My friend goes... “no, no, no, don’t even tell me this.  You are the pickiest and most particular person I know so don’t try to convince me otherwise with your crazy examples.”  Point taken.

9)      Speaking of being picky, I’m extremely picky about my water since I don’t drink much other beverages outside of water.  I always have cases of water on me, I never travel anywhere without insane amounts of bottled water.  If we are vacationing, I will pack a minimum of 48 water bottles.  Work, weekend errands, around the house, you name it, I can’t live without my bottled water.  If I’m at a restaurant, I’ll usually order an ice tea, tap water just tastes gross to me.

10)   Have you ever noticed that us 30 somethings LOVE our hashtags?  We are hash tagging fools and it’s as if we can’t do anything without hash tagging it.  I don’t notice the 20 somethings overkilling the hashtags like us 30 yr-olds do.  #lovemesomehashtags #cantstopwontstop #itshowus30yroldscommunicateright?

11)   I have some weird almost allergic reaction to candles.  I’ve always loved candles but they make me sick, giving me headaches, drying out my throat and my eyes so bad that I can’t burn them.  I go thru phases where I can withstand a burning candle and other times when I can’t.  Oddly enough, the last few years they didn’t bother me but now they are back to bothering me this year.  It stinks because I really love the smell of a good candle burning and I try and try but now the ones I have just sit as decorations.  Even the Scentsy stuff has bothered me.  I’ve thought about trying a soy candle to see if that makes any difference for me.  It’s a very strange thing for sure, it’s almost like I’m allergic to something in them. 

12)   I can be cold all day long but as soon as I go to bed at night I get super-hot.  Before having kids, I use to keep our house in the low 60s at night.  I can’t do that anymore with little kiddos but I will sleep with windows open and fans on when it’s near freezing outside.  I’ve made Aaron sick numerous times and he goes to bed in layers upon layers of fleece clothes when I’m on the other side in a t-shirt and shorts complaining about how hot it is.  For some reason, my body temperature sky rockets when I sleep.

13)   I’m a sucker for spa treatments.  I don’t need roses, just get me a facial. 

14)   The older I get, the less I enjoy shopping.  I use to go on 10 hour binges at the mall but now I can’t hardly shop for more than a few hours before losing interest.  I guess online shopping has made it too easy nowadays.

15)   I think I will enjoy shopping again when the girls get older and we can shop together, I love shopping for them, baby fashion is my favorite kinda fashion, thank God I have girls!

16)   I love bold extra dry red wines and strong dark roast coffees.  If I’m not drinking water, you’ll find me drinking those.  I don’t like drinking anything sweet – sodas, mixed drinks, flavored waters, flavored coffees… not my thing.  I can do an occasional margarita but that’s about it for sweet drinks.

17)   I don’t eat much meat, only white meat chicken.  I like turkey but only Thanksgiving style turkey, no to turkey burgers, ground chicken, all red meats, and ham.

18)   My favorite meal of the day is breakfast.  It never used to be until I hit my 30s.  Breakfast is the one meal that I’m least picky on.

19)   My favorite TV show is Dateline.  But I’m drawn to dumb shows on TV that I don’t even like to admit I watch… like The Rich Kids of Beverly Hills. 

20)   I have a love/hate relationship with working out.  But I do really love hot yoga! #addicted #thereIgohashtaggingagain

21)   I love all the seasons for different reasons but Fall may be my favorite.  Except for the Jan/Feb, that time of year needs to be labeled as a season of its own because it’s my least favorite.  I wish there was a special leap year that went from December 31^st straight to March 15th.

22)   I dislike talking on the phone.  The only person I will take the time to chat on the phone with is my Grandma.  Everyone else gets a text, family included.

23)   I’m the world’s best and most talented multi-tasker.  I don’t sit still much and prefer to be handling several tasks at the same time.  I’m a bit of a busybody.

24)   I don’t function well on little sleep.  And being married to someone who actually seems to function best on little sleep can be a bit challenging at times.  I get accused a lot of sleeping too much.  Um, why is getting 8-9 hours of sleep such a bad thing?  It’s a must for me.

25)   I’m scared of cats.  They are too sneaky to me; I can’t trust them.  I feel like they are always plotting against me.

26)   I’m pretty good about finding a deal.  I don’t buy much online without a promo code and forget it if I can’t get free shipping.

27)   I’m actually terrible at remembering birthdays!  I use to be so good at them but now I just make up for everyone’s missed birthday gifts by spending more on their Christmas presents.  The exception being if there is a birthday party to attend, then I do show up with a gift in my hand.

28)   My Grandma wished me another 80 years of birthdays… not sure if she realizes how old I am and the unlikelihood of that happening… #herestoeightymore!

29)   I’m notorious for over packing whenever I stay the night somewhere, I have what appears to be half my house packed.  Add kids to it and we fill the car full for just a one-night trip.  BUT, I must say of the stuff I pack, I do use 90% of it. 

30)   I’m a bit of a germaphobe and always have been, especially when it comes to eating and drinking after others.  My family would trick me and drink out of my cups when I was little just to taunt me but it actually made my germaphobia worst.  #tramatizedforlife

31)   Patience is not my virtue but having kids has made my patience improve significantly.

32)   Speaking of having kids, Annie was so excited about my birthday and sang the cutest HBD song to me.  It’s really small things like this that I never anticipated when having kids that overflows me with joy nowadays.

33)   The number one question I get tired of answering and will never end in my life: “Whoa, your husband’s name is Aaron?  Does that get confusing for you guys?”  No, no it doesn’t {for the one hundredth millionth time}.

34)   Agreeing and picking our dog’s name took forever.  Then once we decided on her name we had long conversations if she should be spelled Charley or Charlee.  Oddly enough, picking our kid’s names took us like 2 seconds.

35)   Getting older doesn’t bother me one bit!  I actually enjoy it, each year gets better and better, how can I be mad about that?! 

Hyde Happenings

Another edition of the Hyde’sHappenings, just a random post of what’s up in our life recently.

I’ve had a pretty bad cold all week long.  It really had me down at the beginning of this week and I’m still fighting it but on the uphill swing of it {I think}.  Aaron and Annie got a touch of it but luckily they seem to be avoiding the worst of it so far.  I’ve had to cancel plans all week, no fun at all!

We have family pictures this weekend, in which I think I will be able to manage thru by then.  Technically it’s Claire’s 6 month pictures, although she just turned 5 months a few days ago and we are counting to get some family ones for this year’s Christmas card.  Getting both girls to cooperate for pictures is pretty much hellish.  We always, always get good pictures so I don’t know why I go into these worried but I do.

Annie has been a bit of a handful lately; she always is but lots of tantrums over everything!  I don’t know if we are just hitting the mid terrible 2s or what.  I was recommended to try the method 1-2-3 Magic by Dr. Phelan, I have them on hold at the Library.  Guess what our Friday night will involve?  Watching the 1-2-3 Magic DVD on positive disciplining, yippee! {Insert sarcasm}

Last weekend we had our first annual neighborhood block party and it was great!  We met so many awesome neighbors, many in which have young kids, lots of girls both Annie and Claire’s age.  Everyone is so nice; I feel like we get along with many of them.  We are looking into starting a Bunco club.  I know nothing about Bunco but I do like the idea of getting together with the ladies in my neighborhood, drinking wine and having the convenience of walking home after.

My Grandma wants to take the girl’s Christmas shopping in the coming weeks.  My gosh, I haven’t given Christmas much thought at all!  I need to start compiling some lists but it’s tough because Annie interests changes so often.  This week it’s Daniel Tiger, next week it’s back to Mickey Mouse.  She’s kinda over Dora.  I have no idea what she’ll be into come Christmas. 

But I do know what I’m into.  Athleta.  We got a store here in Des Moines back in June and I have a shopping addiction there.  Have you ever tried their swimsuits?  They are the best, and the perfect amount of coverage for this mid-30’s body.  I like their apparel better than Lululemon and it fits me better too.  I just wish it wasn’t so expensive!  I’m sitting here decked out in a new Athleta outfit and I must say I’m in love with their clothes!   A friend of mine just tried Fabletics and was really happy with her first purchase so I need to check them out.  I was wearing a strappy Athleta top and running errands the other day, I must admit I felt a bit like Christina El Moussa all day, I’m loving the trendy loungewear movement.

I might have bought tickets to see the Rockettes this year.  At ‘thee one and only’ Radio City Music Hall in NYC.  During the holiday season.  Pretty pumped about it.

Aaron has several work trips coming up in October where I’ll be ‘single parenting’ for a few days here and there.  It’s something I dread.  Being outnumbered kids to adult is terrifying to me.  And the thought of getting myself ready and 2 other very dependent kids ready and out the door during the week is a serious task.  On the flip side, it sounds like a good excuse to treat myself to a Starbucks breakfast every morning between daycare drop off and work #winningwhenican. 

Claire is so close to rolling over!  I can’t believe she just turned 5 months old, time is really flying with her.  She is such a happy baby and so easy going.  She really loves watching her sister.  Annie is so good with Claire still.  I thought for sure Annie would be sick of her after a few weeks of joining our family but not the case at all!  Annie absolutely adores Claire and it’s the best thing ever.

And that’s about it, life has been pretty low-key around here and that’s just fine by me! 

Vegas 2016: Girl's Trip

Earlier in the summer, Aaron and I decided we needed a vacation but Claire is still so tiny that we proposed to a few friends going on separate friend’s trips so one of us would be able to stay behind with the girls.  We didn’t leave Annie until she was 6 months old and it’s a little tough to leave behind a 4 month baby who isn’t quite sleeping thru the nights yet so it seemed like the responsible, logical thing to do for this summer.

Aaron’s weekend was up first.  Him and a few buddies went up to Missoula Montana for fly fishing and white water rafting while I single-handedly parented the girls back home.  Let me tell you… it wasn’t easy.  The one other time Aaron left me for a work trip this year, Annie got sick.  This time Claire was sick.  It’s like there is a parenting curse when the other parent leaves that the kids gets sick.  Claire had her first diaper rash and a bad case of diarrhea that she spent most of the weekend with a diaper off and paper towels under her because it was that bad where I was changing her every 10 minutes.   Between her and Annie, I felt like all I did was constantly clean up poop.  I decided beforehand to go to my parents that Saturday morning and leading up to the weekend I almost cancelled thinking this is just going to be too much work to take them back there, it was the first time traveling with Claire and doing it on my own seemed daunting but we did end up going and it worked out for the better as Annie stayed busy playing with her cousin Eli and it allowed me to focus on taking care of Claire.  Aaron’s flight ended up being delayed 2 hours and by end of the day Sunday, I was wiped out and so ready for him to return home.  I was glad he had his guys trip and had a weekend to himself but I was super glad that mine was next after that brutal weekend with the girls.

 

So my friend Nikki and I decided to choose Vegas for our girl’s weekend.  Nikki’s husband is Aaron’s best friend whom he grew up with, they live 5 minutes from us and our kids are the same age, hence we’ve been thru 2 pregnancies together at the same time, she’s a pretty close friend of mine here in Des Moines since most of my best of friends live miles away.  I refer to her as ‘my in-town best friend.’  I love that Nikki and her husband Mark are always up for travel adventures with us.

 

Prior to leaving, Nikki and I joked {but in seriousness} that we hope we can stay up past 9 pm and actually have the energy to have fun once we get to Vegas. #momminainteasy.  We left DSM Friday at 6:30 pm and landed in Vegas, gaining 2 hours from the time zone change.  We got settled into the MGM Grand and then hit the strip in search of dinner.  Considering we were starving and had no dinner reservations I mentioned that I wanted to try Diablo’s Cantina and knew it was a close walk.  We split the best chicken nachos I think I’ve ever had, grabbed some margaritas and hit the strip.  We walked down to the Bellagio to watch the fountains and did some gambling that entailed a lot of yawning at that point so we decided to head back for the night.  We both lost money in the slots, which I’m not a fan of the slot machines to begin with and never have been.  I find them boring, the only thing slots are good for is free drinks. 

Why I'm smiling as I'm about to lose $20 in the slot machine is beyond me, worthless slots! 

Saturday morning we woke up ready to take on the day.  I had plans for us to eat at Mon Ami Gabi for breakfast.  We had perfect strip patio seating right across from the Bellagio.  Whenever I try to be adventurous in ordering something different it backfires 88% of the time.  Hence my lemon crepes were a total disappointment.  I had food envy as Nikki’s plate was delicious. 

I was not mad at all about these mimosas though!

My lemon crepes were fried like a funnel cake, it was just weird 

Nikki's food was amazing! Total food envy

After breakfast, we lost more money to the Roulette table and then got ready to head to the pool, which from past trips has been my favorite part of visiting Vegas.  We got down there mid-morning and started off the pool day with some drinks.  I didn’t pay much attention to how the bartender poured our first drinks but they were good and went down fast.  These were big drinks in their souvenir cups.  We went back up to get refills and watched the bar tender pour roughly 20 oz of Tito’s vodka in my cup and splashed it with about 4 oz of OJ.  No wonder we were drunk by 1 pm.  At that point I knew we needed to drink lots of water as the Vegas sun was kicking in and was in full force.

In the past, I’ve never gone to Wet Republic, which is a pool day club that is on the backside of the MGM Grand pool.  It’s rated one of the best pool clubs in Vegas, I’ve always been curious about it.  It reminds me of in the movie “Couples Retreat” where they see the island off in the distance and it looks like so much fun but feels off limits.  We’ll after 2 strong drinks each, we decided we needed to go check it out.  So I went up to the bouncer, assuming he would tell me it would cost a fortune to get in and I would need to stand in a long line, I didn’t have high hopes but what do ya know… he told me we could get in free and sent us to the ‘fast line’.  Score!  Afrojack was DJ’ing that day at Wet Republic, which I thought was super cool.  While I was waiting in line, I found out that Tiesto was DJ’ing that night at the Hakkasan night club at MGM, Nikki had no idea who he was but I was like “Nikki, I want to see Tiesto tonight!!”  And yet again, I got us on the VIP list to get us in that night.  It was way easier than I ever expected it would be, all you have to do is look for the club promoter that walks around the pool and ask.

 

As soon as we got into Wet Republic, it was craziness, pretty much everything I envisioned it to be all these years only seeing it from the other side of a concrete wall but being able to hear the party from the other side. I had switched to water prior to going inside and I had tried to push water on Nikki too because our morning drinks had hit us way too hard and next thing I know Nikki falls over and bumps her head and we got ushered out no later than 30 minutes of getting into Wet Republic.  Because Nikki bumped her head, they sent her to the medical trailer and would not let me go in with her.  I’m sitting outside this medical trailer and the bouncer comes out saying he is sending her to the hospital.  I was like “freaking seriously?!” And he would not let me go with her so I had to then run up to the room, get out of my swimsuit and catch a cab to the hospital. 

Vegas is always full of eventful stories, right?! 

At the hospital they took me back to this waiting area where they basically hold all the drunk people.  At this point, I was completely sobered up.  This waiting room was full of drunk people, it felt like something straight out of a psychiatric ward.  There are beds lined up right next to each other and the girl next to Nikki looked dead and the guy across from her was so drunk he was scaring me.  By the time I got there, Nikki already was given a CAT scan, which seemed a little overboard so once all the results came back, she was free to go.  What.A.Day!

We decided we could not handle any more that day so we went back to the hotel room and went to bed at 7:30 pm for the night.  I woke up once at 1:30 and fell quickly back to sleep.  We literally blew an entire night in Vegas because we hit the pool too hard that day and slept 12 hours that night.  What a way to spend a short weekend in Vegas huh?!

We had dinner reservations Saturday night that we missed at Rose.Rabit.Lie. which I’m still bummed that we missed, I’ve heard great things about that place.  And we missed seeing Tiesto that night too.  Next time Vegas… 

The next morning, we pretty much vowed we would not drink any more on this trip and we didn’t.  Not one drop.  We headed over to NYNY for breakfast and it was so good!  I ordered my usual eggs/potatoes/toast, not straying from what I normally like to eat and I loved every bite of it.  It was a redemption breakfast from the day before.

I've always loved NYNY's Vegas Casino, such a cool building

We hit the pool for day 2 but let me tell you, I had positive hopes that we could have just as much fun at the pool with only drinking bottled water.  I was wrong.  It’s not that we didn’t have fun but I’d lie if I didn’t tell you the pool is totally different when drinking.  The sun was strong and I was slathering myself in sunblock every 20 minutes.  When we left the pool I saw the club promoter again and ran over and found out Calvin Harris was playing at Hakkasan that night.  Calvin Harris is on my bucket list to see DJ live so I was adamant that we needed to get on the list and told Nikki we HAVE to make it tonight.  I got us on the list again and told Nikki, even if it’s for 30 minutes, I want to make this happen.

 

We got ready for dinner and headed over to the Cosmopolitan Hotel.  I watched Nikki play black jack on the automated tables and watched her win and do so well that I was ready to give it a try myself but we headed up to dinner first.  We went to China Poblano, a Chinese and Mexican restaurant in one, my kinda place!  We ordered the guacamole to share and we were disappointed in the fact that they gave us corn tortilla shells to eat our gauc with.  It was weird and we didn’t like it.  I ordered veggie fried rice and it was delicious!  Nikki ordered a variety of tacos and didn’t care for hers as much.  What we did order there was coffee and it was the best dang coffee ever!  We were chugging it down while raving about how it was the best dang coffee ever and how we could come back there just for their coffee.

At the Chandelier Bar that we originally intended to visit but only stopped for a photo op 

China Poblano veggie rice

 We then headed over to Caesar’s Palace and both got on the automated black jack table.  I was up for a change after only losing so far in the trip.  I could have played that all night but we had tickets to the show Absinthe at Caesar’s Palace so I cashed out and we headed over to the show.
 

We had great seats, it’s an intimate setting so there really aren’t bad seats as the show is under a big tent outside of Caesar’s and it’s a small venue.  When the show started off, it started with some racist jokes, I don’t get offended easily by much but I was thinking oh gosh this could get uncomfortable I hope it’s not like this all thru the show.  It wasn’t.  BUT it was very much a “R” rated show, and not for the easily offended.  The acrobatics was absolutely amazing.  I pretty much sat there with my jaw on the floor the entire time.  It was the best show I’ve ever seen and the talent is indescribable.   We watched one guy stack 10+ wobbly chairs on top of each other as he climbed them effortlessly and balance on them upside down.  We saw amazing tap dancers, tight rope walking/balancing, we saw roller skaters (my favorite) on a tiny platform where this guy was swinging a girl at high speeds inches above the ground over the crowd and much more.  For as tired as I was before the show started, that woke me right up and kept my attention the entire time.  Best part of the trip for sure was Absinthe!  I’d go back and see it again and highly recommend it.

After the show, we walked back to MGM Grand and the streets are always full of crazy stuff to see but we saw something that had me a little shook up.  We were walking up to a crosswalk and a car was stopped on the street and had a huge dent on the side of it and there was a guy yelling loudly in this girl’s face outside of the car.  It appeared maybe husband/wife or boyfriend/girlfriend?  They were arguing and this all happened so fast that I just stood there in shock as well as many people around us but he went over and kicked in the side of the car and the girl was yelling are you serious?  And then he walked back over to her and started punching her in the face.  Like I said it happened so quickly and a bouncer Cosmopolitan ran over and quickly broke it up, the guy took off running down the strip and it appeared as if the girl was okay or at least coherent.  I was shaking after witnessing that.  I’ve never seen anything like that and it saddened me and I still wonder about that girl and if that guy was ever arrested.
 

Vegas is not a place for children.  There are prostitutes everywhere and prostitution is not something not hidden in the shadows, they are out on the streets in broad daylight and they are very obvious to recognize.  There are street performers not dressed in much, Nikki and I used the joke from the moving The Hangover and would say “that’s somebody’s daughter Nikki...”  Having daughters' ourselves, there is a lot of seriousness though to that 'joke.'  There are lots of drunk people walking around.  The crowds are thick.  I was amazed by how many young children I saw on the strip and especially late at night.  May I repeat… Vegas is NOT the place you visit with your kids!!

That night we were too tired to see Calvin Harris, as much as I would have loved to, I knew we were just too tired to make it.  And as Nikki referred to him Michael Harris (she has no appreciation or awareness of who’s hot in music)…sorry Calvin!

The next morning, we packed up and headed to the airport.  What we learned is that we can’t hang like we thought we could, us moms just don’t have it in us anymore to party and when we do try to, we just end up in the hospital.  I can now say I’ve been to the Vegas hospital, hope that’s my one and only time when in Vegas.  Oh and by the way, that day I lost my swimsuit cover up and my credit card.  It must be a requirement to lose a credit card while in Vegas because 2 out of 3 times I’ve been, someone in our group has done so.

We were ready to get home and see our babies and get back to our mom life back in Iowa.  Vegas 2016, done and in the books for the year!   And maybe the next girl’s trip will entail a destination a little more low-key, something that is a little more our pace nowadays.

Belong Tour, Lincoln NE 2016

A few weekends ago, my friend Jackee and I attended the Belong Tour in Lincoln, NE.  Months prior, I stumbled across this event as I’m a huge Jen Hatmaker and Shawna Niequist fan and I think one of them posted something on Instagram about it that took me to the event's page.  Jen Hatmaker’s book For The Love may be one of my all-time favorites.  I also love her mother’s devotional Out of the Spin Cycle and she has a new book coming out next year {YAYness!}.  Shawna’s books Cold Tangerines and Bittersweet are similar to Jen’s writing style and her new book Present Over Perfect is on the New York Times Bestseller for the 4^th week in a row now, it was just released over the summer and I can’t wait to read it.

So what is the Belong Tour?  It’s more than just seeing Jen and Shawna speak live, in short this is an excerpt from their website http://www.belongtour.com/:

BELONG is a Friday night – Saturday live event bringing women together in arenas across the country. Thousands of women will gather to hear remarkable communicators Jen Hatmaker, Shauna Niequist, Nichole Nordeman, Sharon Irving, Angela Davis, Patsy Clairmont hone in on how to live a fun, faith-filled, purposeful life.

There will be plenty of personal stories, music, laughter and maybe even some tears in this open space where women can connect to one another, to see and know each other, and carry each other’s burdens.

 I knew that my friend Jackee was a big Jen Hatmaker fan as well so sounded like the perfect girl’s weekend trip and was so glad she was down for it!

On Friday, we stopped along the way at the NEX Outlets in Omaha.  I had been telling Jackee my ‘mom game’ is way too strong and I needed some new clothes that didn’t scream ‘PTA ready.’  The weekend prior, I had gone to the Steven Tyler concert with another mom friend of mine and before she picked me up, I had gone thru 10+ outfit changes and felt like all I have for clothes anymore is wedding attire or mom attire, nothing in-between!  When my friend picked me up for that concert I was like dang you look smoking hot!  She had a super cute outfit, hair extensions in, fake lashes and heels.  Here I was in my semi-mom outfit, hair that hadn’t been washed in 2 days and flats.  My mom-game was way too strong!  So all weekend Jackee and I joked about how she needs to help me find some clothes that weren’t totally mom’d out.  We had fun at the outlet and both ended up with some good buys. It’s funny how we both have the same style, when we would walk in a store, we would both wander off but end up in the dressing rooms with the same stuff, even ended up buying the same shorts that weekend. #twinning.

    

Dinner in Lincoln 

After the outlet, we got into downtown Lincoln which I thought was a cute-sy college town.  Grabbed dinner and headed into our first night at the Belong Tour.   I felt like the first night was a little like a ‘meet and greet’ of all the speakers.  They each spoke for about 10-15 minutes and it was a good introductory for the weekend.  Nichole Nordeman gave a short concert, her music is so relaxing, I could listen to her all night!  She sang her popular song ‘Slow Down’ which I think we were all missing our babies at that point.

The next morning, we headed over to the venue and funny story… I walked in before Jackee and had a bottled water and a coffee in both hands, my purse had a package of nuts, a Lara Bar, a Fiber One Bar, and Mike and Ike’s sticking out of the back.  Jackee walks in right behind me and she had a package of M&Ms in her purse and the guy made her throw them away.  She was mad but I found it highly comical that I got in basically weighed down with food and she tries to sneak in one thing and got stopped.

The morning started off with Angela Davis, an Olympian and world champion track runner getting us on our feet for a workout.  Jackee and I were like “is she serious right now?!”  She had the entire arena working out and we were definitely starting to break a sweat.  Throughout the event, Angela would get us up on our feet and got our blood pumping, I didn’t expect I would be doing squats that weekend.

Patsy Clairmont spoke first, she is the cutest elderly lady!  And so funny!  She spoke about relationships, I don’t have great notes from her piece but she had some good stories about her and her husband and that lady had style!  She had these pearls on and sparkly TOMS, she was just pretty hip!

Jen Hatmaker spoke next and I really liked how she laid out her talk.  Basically her topic was on finding “your race” or what your gifts/calling in life is.  She made some good points that stuck with me such as identify the gifts I have not the gifts I want.   And don’t disregard any quality as a ‘throw away’ quality, sometimes our calling doesn’t have to be this big/huge thing in the eyes of the world.  My friend Jackee has her own photography business, she has already found her gift/calling.  For me, I am at ground zero.  I know what my strengths are and what I’m drawn to but I just haven’t pinpointed how it translates into my calling yet.  Jen gave some good tips to help me do some more thinking on that.  Overall Jen is exactly as I imagined her to be, I feel like we are pretty good friends, she just doesn’t know it.

Jen Hatmaker

Nichole Nordeman actually gave what seemed like the crowd’s favorite talk, she gave an analogy of junk in a garage and how we need to open our ‘garage doors’ so to speak or uncover some not so pretty things in our life that we need to come clean on.  We all got ‘em, right?!  It was a powerful talk and she spoke directly about what her secrets she had been keeping in her ‘garage’ and I thought it was very brave of her to talk so openly about some painful things in her life.  Definitely made her very relatable.

Nichole Nordeman

Angela Davis gave a short discussion on spending time in quietness each day.  I definitely need to work on that with 2 littles, I feel like I run non-stop from 6 am to 10 pm day in, day out with no time for stillness.

Shawna’s topic is similar to her new book on reclaiming your essential self.  The main talking points I had down were accepting and giving love, living a life full of love.  And when you say ‘yes’ to something, you are saying ‘no’ to something else, just the overall concept that ‘yes/no’ go together.  And we should say yes to good work and no to someone else work that only leaves us exhausted.  And to remember that love is never found in the hustle.  That last line may be my favorite and so true, right?!

Shawna Niequist

We were also treated to a special concert by JOHNNYSWIM and oh my word was that a huge highlight from the weekend for us!  The talent is indescribable!  They are a married couple with a sweet little boy and you know how sometimes in a couples’ band, there is one who is clearly more talented than the other?  Not with these 2, they both are amazing!!!  Can I just say they are gorgeous! Like your eyes are drawn to how beautiful they are as a couple.  Even Jen Hatmaker told them to go get some flaws because they just seem all around perfect! I loved hearing their stories between songs and why they wrote each song.  Jackee and I were in absolute awe of them, so much that I went home looked up the closest concert performing to us and we already have plans to go see them later this year.  Here is a video I took from the weekend: 

Both Jackee and I thought the event was really good, we both walked away with lots to talk about on the ride home and feeling refreshed and inspired.  And it was a great bonus to get to hang out with her, we haven’t done anything fun together in a long time!  We were college roomies, maids of honors in each other’s weddings and is certainly one of my best friends but living 2+ hours away from each other, it makes it hard to get together and when we do it’s normally for her to take pics of my kiddos and we usually have to catch up during our sessions.  So basically I make her work when we do hang out J.  So it was nice to have time where no work was involved and the men were being super hubbys, taking the kids for the weekend for us.

JohnnySwim

This was the first ever Belong Tour and we left with the impression that there will be an annual one in the forthcoming years, I’d highly recommend it and hope I can make 2017’s!