Scrapbooking photos and party photos

I went scrapbooking last night with Jodi and got some fishing pages done. They turned out pretty cute, but the pictures of the pages have something to be desired. Just ignore the flash and blurriness.



I also got some pictures from Holly from the housewarming party. Unfortunately, no real drunken or embarrassing ones, though.





Here is a kind of funny one of me, semi drunk, opening our gifts.

Discovery Health

I love that channel! We never had it before and I swear, there is always some freak show on there that I'm interested in. Mystery Diagnosis, Plastic Surgery before and after, Sextuplets, Skeleton Stories, Extreme Surgery.......you name it. Apparently, watching enough of these shows, plus working at the hospital and seeing gross pictures in books and charts, has made me numb to the gore of it all. Don't get me wrong, if I were to see any of that stuff up close and personal, I'd puke all over.....but on tv, it doesn't bother me at all. Even while eating. It's a sad day when I can watch craniofacial surgery while enjoying a bowl of ice cream. ;)

One month

Well, today marks our one month anniversary at our new house. Things are put away, everyone is settled, it's a good place to be. On a negative note though, Friday we got some crappy money information. Apparently Rob's job has changed the way they are going to do health insurance, so now we are going to have to pay 40% of our premiums instead of them paying for the entire thing. That equals about $200 more out of our pockets a month. Nice timing too what with the new bigger house payment. I am stressing about it right now. I'm going to try to line up some more cleaning jobs to bring in some extra cash, but that requires a babysitter....so it might be self defeating. We'll see.
My sister came this weekend and we went to see the movie "Click" with Adam Sandler. It was funny for the most part, but a little more emotional than I had anticipated. Then she left and Chris went with her to stay at her house for awhile. It seems weird almost, not having him here. Thankfully I got all the work out of him that I needed. ;)

Horses, yeah right.

This morning we went to Pairie Meadows to go on a tour and what we thought would be viewing the horses. Well after 30-45 minutes of hearing some lady blab about her job and how small the jockies feet are, we finally got to go to the stables. We had to wait for the 3rd shuttle though, because apparently everyone thought that a group of moms with small children should be the ones who stood on the sidewalk for 20 minutes waiting. ;) Then when we did get over there, Kyle was too afraid to touch the horses and Emma was alright. I had a hard time taking pictures because of the delay on my camera. It was a split second that I could get Kyle near a horse.....the same kid that rode a horse in Colorado last summer, and it was almost too late to even get a shot.
























On the crazy previous owner front, yesterday I got the Ankeny Press Citizen in the mail. I was scanning through it and noticed the Ankeny arrests. I thought "I gotta see if 'pepper jack'(as we've been fond of calling him)is in here". And sure enough I didn't even get a third of the way down the first column and there it was. Apparently arressted for domestic assault.

Nice.

13 hours, baby!

Emma slept last night from 8:00 to 9:00 this morning. Rock on! I love it when she sleeps that long.
Today is my brother's birthday. He's 29 and apprently never thought he'd ever be that old because he's bitching about it. ;) His big birthday plans are as follows:

Taco John's for taco Tuesday
Barnes and Noble

What a party animal! I will be purchasing whatever he wants though, so it's a win-win situation for him.
Here are some fence pictures as promised:



Looks pretty good, huh?











Here is one picture that I took from the party....of Holly taking a picture of me. We sure know how to party, don't we? ;)

Post Housewarming Party

Whew, what a night! It was so much fun having people over to my new place. Plus there was plenty of room to spread out. I have tons of food leftover and ugh...the kitchen was a mess this morning. We just kind of left everything and went to bed after everyone had left. I woke up this morning to a stiff neck from just sleeping on whatever pillow was available instead of my real pillow. We had some drunken mishaps with the carpet downstairs....no puke, just spilling, so even though I Bisselled it at 1:30 this morning, I needed to do it again today. I told the girls "it's a good thing I'm drunk, or that would have pissed me off". ;) Holly took a bunch of pictures with her new digital camera so I'll have to post some embarrassing ones when she sends them to me. I didn't trust myself to use my camera too late into the night as I was even having trouble holding myself up. I've always been the kind of drinker that even though I don't seem to be able to control my body at the time, I always remember whatever went on. So I've never uttered the phrase that I've heard so many times "I don't know how I got home", because no matter how embarrassing it may have been, I always remembered.

Swimming pools, fences, sushi and a flower girl

Let's see....what's been going on? We went to the pool for the first time this season yesterday. I really thought I'd have gotten sunburned, but I didn't. The kids had fun, and we got free lunch so that is a bonus.

The guys....Rob and Chris....got our fence completed tonight. I'll have to take some daylight pictures tomorrow. It really looks good and for the most part, you'd never know it's not professionally done. I love the idea that Emma is mostly trapped now when she's out there. I guess if I want to completely trap her, I'll have to electrify the fence. How many volts can a three year old take. ;)

Tonight was a birthday party for my friend Deb....she's 40! Can you imagine being that old?!!! ;) We went to a Japanese restaurant called Taki. It was yummy. I actually was talked into trying sushi. The thought of it is repulsive, but it really wasn't that bad. The kind I had didn't have any raw fish in it though, so I don't know if that really qualifies as "trying sushi", but I'm claiming it.

Here is a cute picture of the girl at Reiman Gardens. I love it when I catch a real smile instead of a posed, fake one.

Never shop with a 3 or 8 year old

So today Rob and Chris were working hard putting up the fence. I really needed to run some errands, Target, grocery store, ect. With the guys being busy, I had to take the kids with me. I knew it wasn't going to be good, but I had no idea I would have murder on my mind the entire time. Our first stop was Kyle's new school. I had told him that we could go there and check out the building and the playground, but when we got there, they had the orange construction fence around it as if they were working on it. Disappointment #1. Our next stop was McDonald's in Johnston. I had never been to this particular one, but it was the closest one to the Target we were going to, so I chose it. When we got there we realized it didn't have a play area. Disappointment #2. The kids were annoying while we ate....fighting over who got what toy, who was eating more of the caramel dip, who was sitting next to me, ect. When we left, Emma was running on the sidewalk on the way to the car with her drink in one hand and her toy in the other. She tripped and fell on what would have been her hands and knees, but since her hands were full, she fell on her knees and then ricocheted off the sidewalk with her chin. She was screaming bloody murder after that. I, on the other hand was laughing my ass off because it was the funniest shit I had seen in a long time. Smack....boing.
Then we went to Target. We got one of those carts that has the seating for 2 kids in the back. They sat in there for awhile but then kept unbuckling and getting out. I had to tell them to settle down, or get over here aout 200 times. The funniest part....again at Emma's expense....was that Emma didn't want to buckle, so when she was sitting down and I started moving, she fell out. This time Kyle laughed.
After that we headed over to Aldi's. This was really the test of motherhood for me.
I realized, a little too late, that I'd forgotten to give Kyle his pill this morning. So it was a contant battle for me to keep my cool and not strangle them. They were fighting, getting in and out of the cart, taking stuff of shelves...you name it. And Kyle thinks he is Emma's keeper, so he is always trying to discipline her. Ugh.....I had had enough.
I didn't even get everything that I wanted to get, but it was time to come home. Disappointment #3.

Naked party!

I forgot to mention this the other day when it happened, but here goes.
So Emma likes to sing a little song when she's naked, called "Naked Party". She pretty much goes around just singing naked party, naked party. So anyway, last Saturday my friend Sharon was here with her daughter, Emily that is Emma's age. The girls were upstairs playing in Emma's room and I heard Emma start singing the naked party song. I rushed up there to make sure they weren't naked, and they were both sitting on Emma's bed, reading her baby Bible. Apparently Adam and Eve only wearing fig leaves was enough for Emma to declare it a "naked Party".
Here is a picture of the girls at Reiman Gardens from the week before:

Metro, my ass

Today we went to the "Metro Waste Authority" landfill. You know, the Des Moines dump. It was waaaaaaaaay out in the middle of nowhere. It was crazy to think that it is the only landfill for Des Moines. It was the cleanest, most organized dump I've ever been to, though......because I frequent dumps so regularly. ;) I was expecting something a lot more nasty, so I guess it was worth the trip. We got our money from selling the house today. Too bad that money is already spoken for because I was feeling really rich there for a moment. ;)
Now that all the crap is out of the garage we can start the process of organization out there. Things are really starting to take shape. I don't know what I'll do with myself when everything is done. There will always be something else to improve on right?

More pics

Here are a couple more.
New bedroom and old bedroom:












Emma's old room and Emma's new room:


















Now that I'm looking at them, they don't look all that different. Probably because we are using the same furnishings. But they are much different...bigger, newer, carpet....trust me. ;)

Pictures

My brother hooked my camera up to my computer for me so I have a few pictures to share:
Here is my old dining room and my new dining room:



















Here is my old living room and my new living room:

I'm back.....miss me?

What a crazy week it's been. And I'm so accustomed to using the internet that I was so whacked out being in a new place without it. I even had trouble finding a Chinese restaurant that delivers because I couldn't just go look it up and I'm so not used to finding Ankeny stuff in the Des Moines phone book. Anyway let's see:
The guy who was living here was an even bigger knob than first anticipated. He still had shit here including his cat, the day we took possession. Then he told our realtor that the fridge that was sold with the house was broken and that he replaced it. Yeah, right. So we are now waiting to get a repairman out here to fix the leaking problem on it. Then, the night we moved in, we went to Walmart and came back to find that someone had run over our mailbox. What the fuck?! So on our first day as Ankeny residents, we called the cops. At first I was thinking "our neighbors are going to think we are such losers", but when the cop showed up he made some comments about being here before on "domestic" calls and being glad that someone else moved in. So needless to say, I'm sure the neighbors are used to seeing cops around here. ;) Other than that everything has been going along fine. We've had tons of help and we've been working ourselves and our family to the bone. I'm so tired of cleaning!!!!!! It's so nice to feel like I'm in the midst of everything though....like my friends can just stop over instead of planning ahead two weeks before. The house even feels like a better fit...we're outside more, we're eating dinner as a family at the table every night, Rob and I have our own private space, we've got enough room for everyone to cohabit without tripping over one another....it's just really nice.
I haven't yet hooked up my camera to the computer, so I don't have any pictures to share yet, but here is an old one that just makes me laugh because it reminds me of a picture that I took of a girl that we used to call "ketchup pants" and she used that picture of herself in a shopping cart as her sign in picture in every online group she belonged to.