1st Birthday

Here are some pictures from Alivia and Jack's first bday parties

Ms Popularity

Alivia & Jack
Alivia is going to a new babysitter now because our old sitter went back to work-I was not happy about that! It seems to be working out well though-she's very popular!! I dropped her off today and one of the mom's came in to drop off her daughter and said "there's your baby" (talking about alivia) she said "That's how I wake her up in the morning, telling her she needs to get up and get ready to go see Alivia" I thought that was funny, yesterday when I picked her up I walked in and some other mom was holding Alivia. Then the sitter told me that one of the little boys kisses her all day. I'm not sure how I feel about that but it seems cute enough. I hope this isn't the start of a much bigger problem!!!!!!

The Pregnancy Epidemic

My husbands family has always been known for having babies in pacts-it goes like this-My nephew kyle, neice rachel and rob's cousin rebecca were all born in the same year. Then my nephew nathan and friend of the family easton were born the same year. Then there was evan and he was born all by himself. Then my sister in law marsha had her son austin last year and of course alivia was born last year. NOW-my sister in law kelly and rob's cousin's wife amanda are pregnant. Isn't that nuts??? So pretty much if someone in the family gets pregnant you better watch out because you could be next!!!!

Doctors Scale

I went to the doctor today to get "weighed in" I use to hate the Doctors scale because I always felt like it said more than what the home scale said, however, today I love it. According to the doctor's office I have lost 11 pounds since I began my diet on June 12. My home scale says I have lost 8 pounds. Either way, I am back to my pre-baby weight. I am pretty proud of that. I always thought that when I had kids I would blow up and never be able to lose the weight. My daughter will be one on Sunday, so it took right at about a year to get back. I have 60 days left and it's going really well. It's not the hardest thing I've ever done and it's healthy so it's a win/win. I don't have to go to the doctor to weigh in for another 30 days but I weigh myself every morning at home. I will keep you up to date

Babies first fourth!

Here are some pictures of Alivia, Jack and Brayden from the fourth of july parade in O'Fallon. I don't think any of them really cared about the parade but they all looked really adorable!!

Fad Diet Update

I started the diet on June 12 and have lost 6 pounds to date. Only 73 more days to go!!

Weird Crush

My mom took me and my sisters to the Rascal Flatts concert last saturday night at UMB. It was really good. Gary Allan was there also, I don't care for him, he's too whiny but he is cute. The wreckers were there, they were really good. I really like rascal flatts, but more importantly, I have a weird crush on the lead singer Gary LeVox. I don't know if it's the hair or the voice or the shiny clothes he wears but I think he is really sexy!!

I can't believe it's already been a year!

We went yesterday to get Jack & Alivia's 1st Birthday pictures taken, they did so good!

Another Fad Diet...

I'm such a sucker. I'm doing another Fad Diet. It's called One Day Diet. You may have heard about it on the radio, you eat anything you want every other day and on the Diet Days you eat these Chocolate flavored food tab things and you can have all the fresh fruit that you want. I started last monday and I have lost 4 pounds so far. You do it for 90 days and report back to them as to how much you lost, there are about 20 different little things you have to do and send it and if you do it all you will get $1,000 and reimbursed for the product! Unfortunatly, I have no will power when it comes to food so I have to do stupid stuff like this to lose weight and having a baby didn't help that out either! Hopefully it works! I'll keep you up to date with my progress.

Advice to new moms...

Here's some advice to new mothers-it's almost impossible to get anything done at home when your young child is awake. Therefore, I would advise you invest in the following, a good sturdy highchair, the biggest box of cheerios you can find, a good exersaucer and a baby einstein video!! These are the best babysitters you will find. These are the things I use when Alivia is awake and I need to get something done in the house. The other day after working at the diner I was exausted and Rob had to go to work so I put Liv in her saucer, popped in a baby einstein movie, set it for Repeat Play and took a nap on the couch!! When I'm trying to do laundry I will stick her in her highchair and dump a bunch of cheerios on the tray. She eats some of them but mainly plays with them, this usually works for 15 minutes or so. I took some pictures of her cleaning up her cheerio mess the other day. You might think I'm a bad mom for letting her eat food off the floor but I thought it was cute and they were fresh!!
Plus, she's the one that threw them there!

Fun Weekend

We went out two times this weekend. That is very unusual for us! Friday night we went to The Blues on the Mississippi with Amber, Bryan, Brayden and some people from my work. It was a nice night but a little cool. Saturday night we went to a trivia night for my cousin. They raised $20,000. It was alot of fun. These pictures are from Friday night.

Brayden & Livy's first time to the zoo!

Yesterday was such a beautiful day so we took the babies to the zoo. It was lots of fun and they both had a really good time!

What is this world coming to?!?

A couple of weeks ago Alivia & I were in Target buying our normal weekly necessities. I was putting everything up on the belt to check out. Alivia grabbed one of the jars of baby food and threw it on the floor. The bottom of it busted but it was still in the plastic wrapping. I handed it to the clerk and said "I'm sorry, my daughter just dropped this on the floor" She took it and looked at me and said "did you still want it?" I said "No, the jar is broken," and she said "Oh, so you don't want it? Did you want me to put it back?" I said "Um, sure that would be great" Don't you have to have some sort of common sense to get a job these days?!?

THEN-I needed to stop and grab some dinner last week because Rob had a game and we were both runnng late. I stopped by Hardee's thinking they still had fried chicken. I pulled up and didn't see it on the menu so I said to the girl "Do you not have fried chicken anymore?" She said "Spicy Chicken?" I said "Fried Chicken" She said "We have chicken strips." I said "Ya know like a bucket of friend chicken do you not have that??" she said "Oh, no" Then I drove off.

And last but not least... I went with a girl from work to pick up lunch from the diner last friday. I don't know if we didn't notice a low tire or if she ran over something but we got a flat tire. We pulled over on the side of the road. We called AAA and sat on the side of the road for 45 minutes. ONLY ONE PERSON STOPPED TO HELP US!!!! I bet 200 cars passed us while we were sitting there. AAA finally came and got us back on our way I just couldn't believe that only one person stopped. I guess we just figure that everyone has a cell phone these days and we are all too busy to stop and help anyone out!

Kids VS Dogs

I was watching the season finale of Grey's Anatomy the other night-I don't even watch that show but there was so much hype about it I had to watch it. Anyway, they put a dog to sleep and it made me very upset-It just made me think about Tiger & Zeus. Then I got to thinking, having dogs wasn't much different than having kids. Last night Alivia crawled under the table and was eating all of the Cheerios that she had dropped from her high chair. The dogs used to hang out under the table waiting for scraps. When we had the dogs we had to put up a gate on the stairs so they wouldn't go down stairs and use the basement as a bathroom, not exactly the same but we need to put up a gate again so Alivia doesn't fall down the stairs (again!) I'll explain later. When we had the dogs they had to have their nose in the dishwasher as I unloaded it. Alivia does the same. She has to play with the silverware and move the rack back and forth while I'm trying to put dishes in it. I had to watch what I had out on the tables when we had the dogs so they wouldn't knock things down-have to do the same for the baby now. Funny......

So I just knew this would happen, I was in the bedroom folding laundry last night and Rob came in and was looking for something in the hall closet so immediatly Alivia crawls down the hall as fast as she can (which is pretty fast!) I yelled to Rob "You got her?" He said "Yep, she's right under my feet" So a few minutes later I hear the door to the garage close, I wait a second and begin to run down the hall-it was too late she had already toppled down the stairs. Rob came running back in-I cussed him out-She cried for 2 seconds-and that was it!! She probably wouldn't have even cried it she didn't see me freaking out, She is one tough little cookie!!

I'm obsessed!!

I'm totally obsessed with EBay. I've been buying things on there for about a year. Well, last week I began selling things. I can't stay off of there. And it's so dumb, I could just drive up to walmart and buy the things that I bid on ebay. But, there's no excitement in that! I need to bid and try to get the best price and wait for it to come in the mail!! I started out last year and bought some maternity clothes, then I bought some baby clothes and now I bought all of the supplies needed for Alivia's first birthday party. Now, I am selling things and that's even better than buying!! I don't even care if I have to sell something for a penny at least it won't be sitting in my basement anymore. I have all that Avon crap that got sent to me "accidentally" that is all brand new sitting in boxes in my closet. Maybe I can finally get rid of most of it. Now Rob is into it too, which is REALLY BAD!! Sorry, have to go and check my ebay account~

Livy's first cardinal game

We had a very busy weekend! We started off by going to the cardinals game friday night. I probably watched about 5 minutes of the game, if you don't know what I mean please refer to my previous blog about the movies!!! Anyway it was fun. After the game was over we got in the car and drove to Cuba missouri where we stayed the night. We woke up the next morning and drove to Springfield missouri. Rob had a bowling tournament so we made a weekend of it. It was alot of fun and Alivia was so good. As you can see from the pictures she did not care for Fredbird!

Jenny and I thought it would be a great idea to take the babies to the movies last night. We took them to what used to be the $1 show. The admission is now $3!! We took them to see Curious George. It was a mess. The night started off pretty good. We started off with them in our laps and then it turned into, sitting by themselves, standing on our laps, laying down on our laps, sitting on the floor, standing on the floor, facing forward, facing backward, sitting in the chair alone and going back to sitting on our lap. Jenny summed it up by saying "It was very stressful watching Curious George!!" When we were walking out I told her to NEVER invite me to a movie again. I was kidding though. They really were good during the movie, they just didn't watch very much of it!! They sat on the floor for a good amount of time shredding napkins!! They had a great time!!

Two Peas in a Pod

Can you tell these two are related? Weirdos..that's all I have to say!

Spring Fever!

Rob has spring fever like no other. Last weekend he cleaned out the garage and threw a ton of stuff away. Every night this week he has been working outside, burning stuff and cutting things down. I told him last night he's either way way up or way way down. What I mean is, he either sits on the couch and does NOTHING but get up to go pee or he works like a mad man until the sun goes down. I guess that's good though. He took the fence down around our pool area and cleaned up all the left over leaves, acorns and whatever else. He burned all that stuff last night and took the pool cover off, we folded it up and put it away. He has been moving all of the rocks from the area by the pool and wants to redo it somehow. He cut down a whole line of brush and burned all of that too. It's looking much better and hopefully will be in full working order for Alivia's birthday party in july!

As I was saying....

Alivia crawled across the living room last night, it's so cute! Then she toppels over. It seems though that she doesn't crawl around just to crawl she will only crawl to someone. I'm sure it won't be too much longer though until she figures out that she is mobile! The other night she rolled over to the coffee table, pulled up onto her knees and starting to pull my party lite centerpiece toward her! Geez, I guess now I have to baby proof and put all my pretty stuff up and get a gate for the stairs. We go to the doctor next friday for her 9 month check up I can't wait to see how much she weighs, at her 6 month appointment she weighed 14 pounds 15 ounces and was 25 inches long. Now she has rolls in her wrists and thighs!! But now that she can crawl maybe she'll work some of that off!

I'm not ready for this yet...

I don't think I'm ready to baby proof yet. Last night Alivia was sitting with her nose about an inch from the TV putting her fingers in all of the holes in the TV where you would plug in video games or whatever. And, her new favorite game is to pull all of the video games and DVD's off of the shelf, and I do mean ALL OF THE GAMES AND MOVIES. It's pretty cute, but I have to keep a much closer eye on her. She doesn't stay in one spot anymore-I'm just not sure I'm ready for this yet-my house isn't exactly baby friendly! She's getting so big and I just want her to stay little forever!
Here's a picture of her all tangled up in the playstation cords and her foot is in the movie shelf. She's a mess!

I like your teeth!

Liv is 8 months old today! Yea! She is so silly here are some pictures of a funny face that she makes all the time.

Livy's 2nd Play Date

Here are some pictures from our second play date.
First picture is Brayden, then Alivia's cousin Austin, Alena, Jack and Davin

More Alivia Stories

Rob and I were laying in bed yesterday morning listening to Alivia through the baby monitor. She was talking and growling as she usually does. Then we started hearing this really strange noise. I went into her room and she was laying on her back, holding the monitor and licking it. So I took it from her, and brought her into our room. Later that day, I laid her down for a nap, I went in there a few minutes later to check on her and she was playing with the monitor again, so before she strangeled herself with the cord, I decided that it was time to move the monitor across the room. As many of you know, this child is 7 months old and hasn't laughed yet. I got one chuckle out of her last night as I was acting like a complete maniac. It was really cute but I really hope I don't have to act like that every time I want her to laugh! I've discovered that when I became a mom I lost all my cool. I was in Walmart last week and I wanted to get Alivia a new Baby Einstein movie for Valentines Day. There was noone else in the aisle with us so I put the movie in the cart and said "Livy, don't look, it's a present for Valentines Day". When I looked up there was a woman standing there looking at me like I was retarded. It was pretty funny.

He's at it again...

I came home yesterday to find a note on my mailbox. I assumed it could only be from one person and I was right, it was from my crazy neighbor. As I mentioned in my previous post, we are in a homeowners association. None of us paid the dues last year because we were trying to figure everything out and the people that are running it have 5 kids so they're a little busy! Well the note yesterday said that we were 1 year and 30 days late on our 2004 dues and 30 days late on our 2005 dues and there was a lein on our house. Everyone on the street got the same note not just us. Let me just remind you that this crazy man is NOT IN OUR ASSOCIATION!!! So, my sane neighbor called a real estate person and she was told we all need to sign a note saying that we don't want Mr. Crazy to have anything to do with the association and that should take care of it legally, I'm sure we'll always have to deal with him but at least legally we'll be covered. I really just want to go down and knock on his door and tell him to GET A LIFE AND MIND HIS OWN BUSINESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Beth's first day at H&R Block

Rob and I went to do our taxes at H&R Block on monday night. We got there at 4:30 because Rob had to bowl at 6:30. We thought an hour and a half would be plenty of time. Little did we know that we would we working with Beth, I believe it was her first day working at H&R Block. Beth had on a tan blazer, blue polyester pants, man shoes and a man watch. It took her 2 1/2 hours to enter our forms into the computer. At many times during this we had to tell her where to enter certain things into the computer!! Rob had to leave there at 6:00 to go bowling so I was left there by myself. I finally left at 7:15. Before I left she wanted to have her manager review our return, she told us that we owed state $1,500. After the manager reviewed the return, we owed state $378. I was so frustrated by the time I left there. I couldn't believe it!! She was very sweet but I really didn't need her to read every box of every return out loud and ask us about every box on the computer screen. I think next year we will go back to turbo tax!!!

More Hats

As you can see, she really was not paying too much attention to me..she thinks I'm nuts, I don't know why!

Livy of a thousand hats!

I realize that I have too much free time, but this was lots of fun!!

Teeth and New Tricks

Alivia has 2 teeth now!! They're so cute! She also has a few new tricks, the first one is in the bathtub. We have a seat that sits in the bathtub and I usually fill the tub up so that it's right below her ears. Well now she will turn her head very slowly to the side and put half of her face under water with her eyes open! She will sit still for a minute and then lift her head up really quick. It's the funniest thing. Then she will do the other side of her face. She also loves to splash!! The second trick is while she is getting dressed. As if it's not hard enough to get a 6 month old baby dressed, now, when I put her shirt on she will grab a part of the inside of the sleeve and make a fist so that I can't get her arm through the shirt. She's a funny girl!

Daddy Time

I bowl on Thursday nights and every other Sunday night. Rob "babysits" while I am gone. He is so good with Alivia but I just never know what I will come home to! A few weeks ago, I came home after bowling and I went in to peek at her and see what state she was in! She was in her bed with the shirt that she wore all day, a bib, no pants and socks. Also in her bed were the wipes and a hanger!! All I can do is laugh and put her back together! Last weekend I worked for a few hours and when I came home she was wearing the outfit that her daddy bought her for xmas that he is very proud of. For Christmas, Rob bought his daughter a onesie that says "My dad can kick your dad's ass" and yes it says ASS!!! Not to mention that it is black! He wanted her to wear it on CHRISTMAS DAY!! I said absolutely not. He said, "well, then when can she wear it?" I said she could wear it some day when we were at home and not going anywhere! I hung it in the way back of her closet! Well, when I came home last weekend, she had that on, no pants and no socks. Last night I came home at 10 (now keep in mind her bedtime is at 8) Rob was asleep on the couch, the TV was a big blue screen and Alivia was in her swing, asleep, same clothes, one sock. So again, I just laugh to myself and get her ready for bed. I can only imagine what will happen when she is older and can walk and crawl and Rob watches her for the night!! She'll probably be asleep under the kitchen table or something! At least she is happy and unharmed when I get home!!

Livy's first play date

Last Saturday was Alivia's first play date at Alena's house. The top picture is of course Alivia then Amber & Brayden, then all 5 babies (Lexy, Alena, Jack, Alivia & Brayden). Then Kim & Lexy, then Jenny & Jack and then Rachel & Alena. We had lots of fun even though Alivia slept through most of it!

Stay away!!

A week and a half ago I got a call from my babysitter at 12:00 saying that Jacob (her son) just threw up all over the place and the kids needed to be picked up. I was with two new agents and couldn't get away. My wonderful sister who doesn't work saved the day and went to pick Alivia up from the babysitter. That evening the babysitter called and said Jacob needed to stay away from the kids for another day. Oh Great, So I called my sister and she agreeed to watch her for me. On thursday everything was back to normal. On Friday morning my cell phone rings at 7:30. This can't be good. It was the babysitter, she had been throwing up all morning! Oh great, so I call my sister AGAIN!! She, however, had to take my nephew to the doctor and wouldn't be able to watch Alivia. Oh Great-now what. So, I called my mother who was in route to work. She accepted immediatly!! On sunday night the babysitter was on the answering machine and I thought PLEASE PLEASE DON'T DO THIS TO ME!! But, she was calling to let us know that everyone was better and she would see us on Monday. In the middle of the night Sunday, I threw up. Are you kidding me??? So, Monday I stayed home from work. Now today is thursday and Rob is at home sick. Ok, that's enough! I'm over it!!

The Cranks

So I'm sure you've all heard me talk about my neighbors usually I refer to them as "the crazies" We bought our house from them and they built a house two doors down from us-lucky us! The first day we looked at our house I asked her if I could use the bathroom, she said "why not, everyone else does" and she wasn't joking. Nice-huh! So we looked through the house and fell in love. We put a contract on it and later that night the contract was excepted. Not only were these people selling their house but they actually were the listing agent too-whatever. So when my agent was on the phone with "Mr. Crank" talking about the offer, "Mrs. Crank" was in the background screaming at him. My real estate agent couldn't believe it. So they accepted our offer and we had just bought ourselves a house! When we went to do the inspection on the house, Mrs. Crank told us to take our shoes off! The house had hard wood floors but whatever. We did it. I guess she had to leave to go somewhere while we were still there so she yelled outside "I need to leave and someone is blocking me in!!" We couldn't believe it, are you kidding me, we are buying your house and you are treating us this way? We figured she was upset about the great deal we got and was taking it out on us. So we moved in and everything was great. Mr. Crank seemed nice enough at the time. Boy were we wrong. We found out that Mr. Crank was extremely anal and had no life other than to pick on his neighbors. He was acting like a landlord running a trailor park or something. He wanted our trash cans placed in a certain place on the road and GOD FORBID if you didn't move your trash can THE MINUTE it was picked up by the trash company. Every tuesday was like a treasure hunt-he would actually move our trash can to our house!!!! Sometimes he would put it in the driveway, sometimes he would put in behind the house. A few times the trash can "mysteriously" disappeared and was no where to be found. I had to actually have the trash company bring another can to us. It was ridiculous. One day he threw a fit and tossed the trash can down our other neighbors hill. So by this point we knew that they were both NUTS!!!! It gets better, we live on a private street and we are in a homeowners association. Mr Crank was in charge of the association when we first lived there. Well one day he decided that he wasn't going to be in it anymore, withdrew all of the money from the account and gave us all our share, we picked another neighbor to be in charge of the account and the association. Well then Mr. Crank decided that he DID want to be in the assocation. We said NO WAY. Then he wanted full control back and we said NO. Then he came to our house and asked us if we would give him proof that everyone had paid the dues. HE WASN'T IN THE ASSOCIATION!! Then he sent us a bill for $800 saying that we owed it to him and if we didn't pay he would sue us. GO AHEAD YOU CRAZY BASTARD!! Well he never did. Last year they put a for sale sign in their yard-all of the neighbors were so excited. Then the sign came down, then the sign went back up, this went on for a few weeks. Was he just messing with us?? Who knows, but they still live there. I just drive past their house now and I don't even acknowledge them, I think this makes them even more mad. They need to get a life and stop meddling in everyone's business!