Oh my wordy, look who's 30!!

Last Thursday Jeremy turned 30!  (It was also my 8 yr anniversary at work, but we'll focus on what's important- Jeremy getting old.)  He had a training thing in Plano that day so he got to "sleep in" until 7.  Of course I made him his favorite breakfast- tomato gravy and biscuits.

The rest of the day was pretty low key.  We went to dinner that night, but we had to make it quick since Joey decided she was going to run all over Outback.  We came home and had cake and called it a night.

The real celebrating came Friday night when we had an 80s themed birthday party.  We had a great time dressing up- who doesn't love blue eye shadow and leg warmers?

Jeremy wanted a close up of his hair.  He used to part his hair this way and then flip it up along the part when he was like 5.

Of course there was lots of yummy food.  I took the easy route and ordered sandwich trays and queso, made an easy Funfetti fruit dip, tomato/mozzarella/avocado salad, hot wing dip, and had Sprinkles cupcakes.

We also played Win, Lose, or Draw, which the girls dominated.  The guys made fun of us for taking so long to fill out our slips of paper, but we knew better.  We took our time and really thought about how easy or difficult things would be to draw.  They gave us things like Dirty Dancing, Purple Rain, and The Land Before Time- all things we drew/guessed in less then 20 seconds.  Haha!  I guess they'll know better next time.

I think Jeremy was zeroing in on the dark chocolate cupcake.

After cupcakes we played Trivial Pursuit 80s edition. It was a million times harder than normal Trivial Pursuit. I probably should have bought Scene It 80s edition or something else that was more focused on pop culture. Oh well.

 

Oh yeah!  So this is how I wrapped Jeremy's birthday present.  It was sitting in our room for a week.  He just thought it was decoration for the party and had no idea his present was inside.  I got him tickets to the Grouplove/Young the Giant concert.  This concert sold out almost as soon as tickets went on sale and he had no idea I had found some (of course I had to pay a lot more for them, but he's worth it).  Actually, it was kind of a selfish present to give since I am super excited to see Grouplove.

I hope Jeremy had a fantastic birthday.  I am so happy to be his wife and to get to share these milestones with him.  Happy Birthday, Jeremy!

Weekend Wrap Up

Well, I survived last week without Jeremy!  Haha!  Actually, the girls were really well behaved and I even had two extra kids on two of the nights he was gone.  Since the girls were so well behaved, I didn't mind too much when Shelby put me on the spot and asked me in front of her friends if she could have a pajama party on Friday night.  (We don't really do sleepovers, so a pajama party is our alternative for that.)  So 7 pm on Friday night rolls around and there are 5 little girls in pj's jumping up and down in the living room and singing along to the Justin Bieber movie.  It was so funny.

On Saturday I planted the garden.  Last year I think I planted too late, so I planted about a month earlier this year.  Hopefully it wasn't too early.  We planted a lot more this year- grapes, raspberries, two kinds of tomatoes, two kids of bell peppers, jalapenos, tomatillos, watermelon, corn, artichokes, peas, and zucchini.  I still need to plant all of the herbs, but I ran out of room!  I am so excited to see what we can get to grow!

Funny story from this morning (Please note that I am not trying to be vulgar, but it was pretty funny):  We have never really told Shelby the proper names for her private areas.  We say "front booty" and "back booty".  I don't know why.  It's just what we've said.  So we decided that since she is at school now, playing with friends, in gymnastics, etc. that we need to tell her the correct names so that if other kids or adults say anything to her, she will know what they are talking about and can tell us about it.  So this morning she was getting ready for church and I said, "Sooooo, Shelby, you know how we call this your front booty?  Well that's not really the name, that's just a nickname we use.  It is actually called a vagina".  She had a puzzled look on her face and said, "Vagina?!  Is that the Spanish word for it?!"  Hahahahahaha!  I laughed so hard.

After church we had bbq beef sandwiches, cole slaw, corn salad, and sopapilla cheesecake for dessert.  Mmmm.  Seriously, Jeremy teases me about Pinterest but it has provided us with some pretty tasty dinner inspirations, so he can tease all he wants.  After dinner we went outside and played while Jeremy planted a new tree (we'll see if we can keep this one alive).  It's a Bradford Pear.  We only chose it because it looked pretty. 

Off to bed now to prepare for the coming week....Jeremy turns 30 this week!

Update

So the sleepless nights have continued over the past 3 days.  Last night Joey was in so much pain that the only way we could get her to calm down and sleep was to have her in between us in bed and each massage a leg/foot.  So I called the doctor first thing this morning and made an appointment.  As it turns out, Joey is double jointed like me.  This means that the usual growing pains kids go through are more painful for her.  (I asked my mom if she remembered me having problems like this.  Nope.  So maybe not all double jointed kids have horrible pains, maybe they are just more susceptible to them?)  When the doctor examined Joey and started to move her legs around, Joey started squirming and fighting back.  She could tell right away her knees were tender.  We are to give her Advil every morning and night and hopefully that will help.  I also read online that massages help, so we might make that part of the nightly routine before bed. 

Also, on top of that, Joey has double ear infections.  I was shocked and horrified.  She had a fever and runny nose last Monday, but after that she was over it.  She never once pulled at her ears or anything.  I felt like such a bad mom, but how was I to know?!  I am sure this probably caused a little of the discomfort at night as well, but I don't think it had that much to do with it since she sleeps fine during her naps.  At least now she is on antibiotics so that will hopefully go away soon. 

Here's hoping for a healthier and more rested week ahead!

Rain, rain...

Last night was rough.  After hours of Joey crying, we finally got her to sleep.  An hour later she was up again crying.  She MAYBE slept a total of 4 hours.  For a couple of weeks now I have noticed Joey's joints popping- her knees, ankles, and sometimes her elbows.  I thought is was strange before, but didn't think much of it until last night.  Her joints were popping with every movement she made.  And it isn't just a small pop- it is a loud, hard pop.  For example, if she moved her leg, and your hand was on her back, you could hear the loud pop and actually feel it all the way up in her back.  I told Jeremy I thought it was causing her pain, so we called the doctor.  He said he wouldn't advise us to go to the ER on a Friday night, that everyone's joints pop, and that it was probably nothing.  (This was our pediatrician's partner, not our own pediatrician.)  As the night wore on Joey would whimper and cry every time something popped.  Around 4 am she was clutching and contorting her legs and screaming.  I wanted to rush her to the ER, because that is just not normal, but we were finally able to calm her down and she slept.  All day today she has been fine.  She went to sleep pretty easily, I think because she was so tired from last night.  I am hoping it doesn't happen any more, but if it does, I am definitely going to video it so there is proof when I take her in.  If anyone reads this and has any thoughts or ideas as to what could be causing this, please let us know!!

Anyway, needless to say we were all tired this morning.  I was actually glad it was raining because it gave us an extra excuse to be lazy and stay in our pajamas.  I love lazy days when we all just play upstairs.  It was especially nice to spend some good quality time with Jeremy since he will be out of town for a few days.

Valentine's Day

Hmmm...where to start?  Mondays are usually my busiest day of the week.  It is when all of the marketing people are either back from trips and are catching up, or they are preparing to leave on a trip and they are getting everything done before they go.  So, when I logged on to work yesterday to find that the person who was supposed to be my backup on Monday and handle all my emails while I had taken the day off was out sick himself, I was a little overwhelmed.  Soooo many emails.  On top of that, we are now, as an underwriting group, taking part in training sessions every Tuesday (a whole other list of frustrations- I could go on and on), so I knew part of my day was already going to be eaten up by that.  Add to that the fact that Joey has been sick and extra needy, we had company at the house, and I had set really high expectations for myself on how I wanted Valentine's Day to play out for the girls, and it was, well...a recipe for disaster.  Or at least extreme frustration.

I have to say that I have a love/hate relationship with Valentine's Day.  I am a pretty practical person.  I (myself, not judging anyone else) think it is silly to have big diamonds, spend money on flowers (they just die!), and I really don't need Jeremy to buy me something on February 14 every year to know that he loves me.  I just find the whole thing dumb.  I do appreciate that Jeremy still makes an effort and gets me a card and a gift, but really, I could live without it.  I do however love any chance I get to make a big fuss for the girls, so for that reason I love it.

Normally I try and go all out- breakfast, lunch, and dinner all Valentine's Day themed.  I had so many ideas and plans in my head but because of things with work breakfast and lunch just didn't pan out.  By 4 pm I still hadn't showered, was no where close to being caught up with work, and I was just feeling like a V-Day failure.  I know the girls don't know differently, and that it doesn't matter.  I think it was just the fact the I had an idea in my head and nothing went that way.  When Jeremy got home I took a quick 5 minute shower.  I quickly started getting everything ready for dinner, and by the time dinner was ready I was already feeling a lot better about the day.  On the menu: cheese fondue with bread, carrots, cauliflower, and apples.  For dessert we had chocolate fondue with bananas, strawberries, and marshmallows.

All in all, Valentine's Day itself ended up being fine.  Great, actually.  We got to spend time with each other and with Tristan, Ana, and Liam, so it was fun.  It didn't go as planned but I have to just accept that that's life.  Really, had it not been for all my frustrations with work yesterday it probably all would have been perfect.  Since I don't have very many working mom friends I often feel like I have no one to talk to and vent about the work-home balance.  Non-working moms just don't fully get it.  Poor Jeremy is always willing to lend an ear though, and I know that no matter how botched my plans are, he loves me unconditionally and can always help me remember what it is that really matters.

V-Day Eve

Today was Shelby's Valentine's Day party at school.  Unfortunately, Joey has been sick the past couple of days, so she was up all night, which meant she was super cranky.  We only made it for about 30 minutes of the party when I had to rush a screaming Joey out to the car.  Meltdowns are always fun.   But we were there long enough for Jorrin's mom to tell me that Jorrin has been telling his whole family that Shelby is his girlfriend, and long enough for Ms. Tammy to tell me she caught the two of them holding hands across the table. 

(Shelby and Jorrin sitting across from one another.)

So Valentine's Day Eve is not really a thing for us, we just decided that since I have work tomorrow (in particular, a training session in which I have to be on the phone for over an hour), we would go ahead and give the girls their Valentine's Day presents so they could have a few extra goodies to keep them occupied throughout the day.


 

We also got to spend the day/evening with this cute little lovebug:

My brother, Tristan, his wife, and cute little baby are moving from MO to Killeen, TX (Ft. Hood), so they stopped here on the way down.  Baby Liam is so cute and fun to play with!  So glad they will know be within driving distance so we can together more often!

More Projects

Here are just a couple of the projects we've done around the house lately:

I have seen this picture frame on Pinterest a lot.  You print the words "I {heart} you because:", then you use a dry erase marker to fill in the blanks.  In case you are wondering, right now it says, "I love you because you finish mowing the lawn when I'm too tired to."  (I mowed half the lawn on Saturday (Which is infuriating in the first place because we pay someone else to do this.  That's another story.) and when I hinted to Jeremy I was tired he put his shoes on and came out and finished.

These mailboxes are another thing I have seen on Pinterest a lot lately.  Super cute, easy, and cheap craft for the girls for Valentine's Day.

We have been searching for different entertainment center options for a while now.  I knew wanted something larger and longer to take up more of the bare wall space.  I wasn't loving any of the tv stands I was coming across, and then I had the thought to just start searching for dressers.  I had made up my mind to buy the exact same dresser we have in our bedroom, but in white, and had even gone to the store to order it, but ended up changing my mind at the last minute and walked out.  That's what I do when I am about to spend a lot of money.  I change my mind.  So I searched and searched some more, but anything that was cheaper than the dresser I was going to order was very cheaply made, not solid wood, etc.  Then I looked on Craigslist and found this gem.  Already painted a shade of gray that works well with the colors I have in the living room, and it weighs about 400 pounds.  We had to get my ginormous police officer/body builder neighbor to help unload it.  The best part is that it saved us about $500.  We took out the top middle drawer to put the cable box, dvd player, and Wii.  We will (eventually) make a real shelf to go in there and paint it to match the rest of the dresser, but for now we just inserted two spare shelves from an Ikea bookcase (and they fit like a glove!).

And finally, Shelby's Valentines for her class party.  A friend of mine made these a while back and as soon as I saw them I knew I would be making them as soon as Shelby was in school.  (And of course now they are all over Pinterest.)  These are ridiculously easy and I love them.