Back from Reno

We were only gone for a week but once we got back it seemed like much longer than that. When we left everything was still kinda brown and dead, when we got back we had green grass and blossomed trees, weird! Brayden also started walking while we were gone! We missed Alivia soooo much and we're so happy to see her again. I, however, didn't miss or think about-Laundry, dishes, myspace, blogs, email, bills or anything else of that nature. It was nice. We got back saturday around 3 and we are completely exausted-aren't you supposed to feel relaxed when you get back from vacation?? I have a few pictures of things we did when we were there. Here are some pics from an AMAZING dinner that we had a the Sterling Steakhouse located in the Silver Legacy Casino and Hotel. Rob got a lobster and I got a filet and 2 HUGE king crab legs. Our friend Mike said it was the best dinner he had ever had in his whole life!! He got king crab legs also.

Whenever we got out of town I go to the hotel lobby and look over all the brochures of things to do. I am the official entertainment committee of all vacations! I pick whatever looks interesting and bring them back to the room and look over them. This year we wanted to do something different, this was our third time to reno. The first two times we went snowmobiling in the mountains which was awesome but we didn't want to do that again. I came across a brochure for a hot air balloon ride. I asked rob not knowing what he would say: "You wouldn't want to do a hot air balloon ride would you?" to which he replied "Hell yea!!" So I called and made reservations, It was about an hour away from where we stayed. We had to be there at 7:15 in the morning. They set up a nice breakfast for us while the set the balloon up.

It was really cool, I'm glad we did it. Here are a few pics from up in the sky. We got up to about 8,000 feet above the ground. I love the pic of the shadow of the balloon!

Next year the tournament is in Albuquerque, New Mexico, I don't think there's a whole lot to do there so we won't stay as long and Maybe we will take Alivia!!

Alivia's new word

So the past few days we've noticed Alivia repeating a certain four letter word. Bryan and Rob are the worst at cussing when the kids are around. They're trying to refrain but it's kinda hard. Last night Bryan was sitting at the kitchen counter eatting dinner and Alivia was sitting on the counter mooching off of him as usual. Bryan bit his tongue and said "Shit!" a few seconds later Alivia said clear as day "Shit!" Bryan's eyes got real wide and he said "Did she just say what I think she said" and I said "Yep she sure did" a few seconds later she said it again.
This morning I was walking into the babysitter's house and I was carrying alivia and her bag and trying to pick the morning gunk out of her eye and I went from the drive way to the sidewalk and kinda lost my balance and tripped, I didn't say anything but alivia said right away "Shit"

I'm not sure what to do I've been just kinda ignoring it, at least she's using it correctly!! ok just kidding but I really don't know what to do!!

Reno Weather forecast

Mon Mar 19
Mostly Sunny
67°/38°
10 %
Tue Mar 20

Few Showers
54°/33°
30 %

Wed Mar 21
Mostly Cloudy
57°/29°
10 %

Thu Mar 22
Sunny
63°/35°
10 %

Fri Mar 23
Partly Cloudy
69°/35°
10 %

Sat Mar 24
AM Clouds / PM Sun
70°/34°
10 %

Here's the forecast for Reno next week, I was hoping it would be warmer but I can handle 60's every day.

The resort that we are staying at in reno has a day spa, I told Rob that I wanted to get a manicure and pedicure while we're there and he asked if they did massages and I told him they probably did since it was a day spa. So he said he wanted to go with me and maybe get a mani and pedi too!!! I can't wait!!!!!!!!

5 MORE DAYS TILL RENO!!!

So this time next monday I will be on a plane to reno!! I'm very excited. I took this picture of Alivia yesterday with my cell phone. Rob had to bowl yesterday so we just layed around, played and did laundry. She was SOOO GOOD yesterday. She was having a bad hair day :)

It's kind of hard to tell from this picture but she has her pants around her ankles. When she has to go potty she stands up and pulls her pants down and says "Potty" until you take her. She actually goes potty about 50% of the time. But, none the less I think this is an adorable picture.

Saturday after work I came home and put on a t-shirt and pj pants, as I do every day of my life. This particular shirt (which i would never wear in public-just wanted to throw that in!) says on the front "How do you keep an idiot busy (see back of shirt) and on the back it says "How do you keep an idiot busy (see front of shirt)

Amber:(reading my shirt) Turn around

So I turn around

Amber:(reading my shirt) Turn around

So I turn around and say "did you think it would change"

Amber: I don't get it

Me:Exactly

A few minutes later she says she wants to cut brayden's hair and i need to hold him, She starts putting the cape thing on me

Me:Why are you putting this on me

Amber: So you don't get hair all over you

Me:What about brayden

Amber:I'm going to put him in the bathtub

I start walking down the hall

Amber: where are you going

me:I thought you said you were going to put him in the bathtub

Amber: AFTER I CUT HIS HAIR!!................ How do you keep an idiot busy?

me: (Laughing hysterically) oh!

Sucks to be you

It's kinda hard to see but this is a picture of my neighbors driveway with a HUGE ASS tree lying across it!!!! You also can't see from the picture but there are two smaller trees lying behind it. When these trees fell they pushed about 20 other smaller trees down with it. You can kinda see a few of them here. The other picture is from my dining room window showing all the trees that got pushed down from these falling. There is no other way to their house-I guess they've been either climbing over it or going under it, I don't really know!!

In other news, we have another new baby in the family: Payton Ann Howell was born March 1st at 7:30 AM. She's very cute!!! Alivia liked her very much-she gave her kisses and pointed out all of her major parts-belly, head and socks!!

too many good shows

You should have seen my remote control smoking last night!! There were way to many of my shows on- the "last" button on my remote got worn out! American Idol, Are you smarter than a 5th grader, Road Rules and Bam's Unholy Union. American Idol was pretty good-much better than last week-I love that Chris Richardson and Blake Lewis. We were talking about the "are you smarter than a 5th grader show and decided that we are definitly not smarter than any of those kids. I did know one of the questions-What does REM stand for-Bryan challenged me because he didn't think that I was right. When they showed the preview and the question was "What is a trapazoid" Amber said "Isn't that a binder?" and then we laughed hysterically at her and told her she was thinking of a trapper keeper! Then we started flipping back and forth and only caught a few minutes of road rules which is fine, MTV will replay that all weekend-We decided that we HATE Kina but it was funny to see Angel step up to her. And then Bam's unholy union was on-ok, i know that he is a jackass but that show is hilarious. For being such an immature little punk he treats his fiance pretty good. They were sitting around the table at christmas with the 50 foot tree that he pulled out of his mom's yard and amber said "this showed was taped at thanksgiving?" Bryan said "Yea, amber, most people put up a xmas tree for thanksgiving" and amber said "Well, they're eating turkey" and I said "You can have turkey for dinner even if it's not thanksgiving" and she said "oh"

There will be alot of good shows on tonight too. American Idol, Are you smarter than a 5th grader and real world. Another busy night! Alivia and I are going to visit with Kelly and Gianna. I've only seen her twice and I can't wait to see how much she's changed. Rob's cousin will be having her baby this week too. She's going in tonight to get induced. So we should have another baby tomorrow! Her name is Payton. I'll post pics on friday. That's it for now I guess!!

Dumb and Dumber (stolen conversation for blog purposes!)

My cousin Matt called my sister the other day and here was their conversation:

Matt : Do you and Bryan want to come over on Thursday for a sex party?
Amber: (Pause) Is is a couple party?
Matt: What?
Amber: What?
Matt: What are you talking about?
Amber: What are YOU talking about?
Amber: Is it a sex toy party?
Matt: NO, we find out the sex of the baby on thursday so we're having some people over.
Amber: DO NOT call anyone else and ask them that question!!

Rambling.....

We had a crazy busy weekend. Friday night I went to a happy hour with some people from work. I think our waitress was on crack or something. Everytime we asked her for something she looked at us with a blank stare like she had to process what we just said-weird. Then I met up with Rob at the bowling alley. Afterwards we went to Chipolte-Rob's new obsession. However I was craving White Castle so we went by there too. Saturday, Rob worked in the morning, I stayed at home and did some laundry and all that fun stuff. Alivia and I spent most of the day in the bathroom, she's doing pretty good with telling me when she has to go and things like that and she does NOT want to put a diaper on anymore. Saturday night I went to a mouse race as a fundraiser for Anthony's baseball team. There was a lot of really good food there-it was fun. After that Mindy, Rob and I went to the boat. I lost most of my money pretty quick, then I ran into my ex boyfriend, we talked to him for awhile, Rob met up with us and said "I'm a loser what do you want to do" I said "Well, I have $24.95 left, let's go lose it then we can go" By this time it was about 2:30 AM. We sat down at a penny machine and I had a pretty good buzz going on so we were having a good time. Something weird started happening on the machine and I said "I don't know what's happening" The lady next to me said "You just won $62 five times!!" "NO WAY!!" I yelled and rob said "HOW MUCH?!? ISN'T THIS A PENNY MACHINE??!, Ok, Amy let's go!!" So I played a few more times and cashed it out for $270. That was pretty nice. We took Mindy home then went home at about 3:30. Rob had to bowl at 9 in the morning. He wanted me and Liv to come up and watch him so we did, I wasn't feeling very well. I only had one drink and one shot so it couldn't be a hangover. It was weird. So we went to the bowling alley for a little bit, then I remembered that I had something of jenny's and we were right by her house so we went by there. The kids played for a little bit. We ended up going to walmart together. I bought livy some big girl panties!! She picked them out herself, my little pony and tinker bell. The smallest size I could find was 2T. I guess they figure a 19 month old doesn't need underwear!! I also bought her a booster seat for the kitchen table-she doesn't want to sit in her high chair anymore. Then we went home and took a nap, I was hoping I would feel better because I was suppose to bowl that night. When I woke up I felt even worse then I did when I went to bed. So, I called in sick to bowling, I never do that but I felt so weird. We ended up going to bed at 8:00 last night. I still felt tired when I woke up this morning. I won't be able to sleep in at all this week either-geez!! Ok, well that was about a bunch of nothing so I guess I will get back to work now!

Smartest kid on the planet!

At Alivia's 18 month appointment the doctor said we could start thinking about potty training. We bought her a potty chair probably about 6 months ago. Its a wood chair with a magazine rack and a toilet paper holder-only the best for my kid!! It's been in her room and she uses it for a step-stool!! So last night, she needed her diaper changed and I had to go potty, so I thought, well, let's give it a shot and see how it goes. I brought the chair into the bathroom, took off her diaper and pants and sat her on the chair, I did my business and then I hear the sound of tinkles in her chair! SHE WENT POTTY!!!!!!!!!!!! I couldn't believe it. We threw a bit fit, telling her what a big girl she was and clapping. We emptied the chair and I said ok let's put your diaper back on. She said "NO!" She sat down and went potty-AGAIN!!!! This happened two more times!!!! She's a potty-machine!! I can't wait to try again tonight and see if it was a fluke or not.

Happy Valentines Day!

We decided at the last minute to take the kids to get valentine pictures taken yestersday, I'm so glad we did because they turned out soooooooo good!! Rob got me some stuff from bath and body (as i requested!), beautiful roses and we went to Red Lobster for an early dinner. It was a very nice day.

Random Conversation last night:

Ashley: Bryan, did you still want to get rid of your tattoo?

Bryan: Why, do you want it?

Springfiled, il

I LOVE Springfield, Il!! Ok, not really, but I did LOVE the fact that it's a non smoking CITY!! We went there this weekend for a bowling tournament, when I got there I was SHOCKED to see that the bowling alley had a no smoking sign up! I couldn't believe it. Then we went out to dinner and there was no smoking there too!! I wish they would do that around here. I'm sorry to all of you that smoke and I know that I can't understand that it's an addiction, but it's such a disgusting habit that bothers people around you that don't wish to share your habit with you. It was so nice to sit in a bowling alley for several hours and not smell like an ashtray when we left. Overall we had a very nice weekend!!

Rob stuff

Rob, Alivia and I went out to eat last week to Emperor's Palace. It was really good and a good environment for Alivia because it was busy-lots of things to look at. Rob came back from his 3rd or 4th trip to the buffet with this in his bowl, if you can't tell, it's octopus. YUCK! He took one bite and said it didn't taste that bad but he just couldn't do it!!!

I received this text from Rob this morning:

Good morning Miss Wifey, you don't like talking to your husband now or what, you got another man i need to know about, give me a call, love me, your hubby

I've been very busy at work and I guess he's feeling neglicted!! We're going out of town this weekend so hopefully he'll feel better next week!!

Welcome Baby Gianna!!

Gianna Marie Fleites was born on 01/31/07 at 3:20 pm. She weighed 7'9 and was 20 inches long. Everyone is doing great!!

Crazy Morning

We were in a hurry this morning to get ready and out of the house-not too different from any other morning. If Alivia wakes up before I get in the shower it works out perfect because she can eat breakfast, watch curious george and wake up before we have to leave. However, if she wakes up after I get out of the shower then there's no time for any of this. This makes for a really bad day!! If she doesn't get this time to wake up then she doesn't want to get dressed, put on her shoes and coat and she sure isn't going to cooperate getting into the car. That was pretty much my morning today. She assumed the wet noodle position as I tried to put her coat on her limp body laying on the floor-not too easy to do. I can usually coax her into putting her coat on by telling her that she can go outside-she LOVES to go outside. So after the wrestling match I carried her to the car as she assumed the straight as a board position. Then as I put her in the carseat she assumed the arched back position. We were finally on our way. I met up with kelly to drop Alivia off and then sped through the drivethru at Hardee's. As I'm getting out of the car my cell phone rang and as I answered it I grabbed my food and rushed into work. When I got off the phone and gathered my thoughts, I noticed that there was something on the bottom of my cup. My cup holder isn't that big in my car so anytime I have a big cup the cup holder will stick to the bottom when I take the cup out. I hadn't noticed that I had carried the cup into work with the cupholder from my car still attached! So I had to take a pic to share. Yesterday Alivia was screaming as I was pulling out of the driveway and I side swipped the Escalade-there was no damage though-lucky for me!!!

18 Months old Today

My baby is growing up. Alivia is 18 months old today, I can't believe it. She is talking alot. She can say: Mom, Dad, Something that sounds like Bray (for brayden), eat, belly, up, no, yes, night-night, bye-bye, eye and of course no-no. She went straight from crawling to running. I love to watch her run down the hall with her curls bouncing!

More Random....

• We had an appointment yesterday to have family pictures taken (9 of us total) Bryan and Amber were complaining that they didn't want to go because they were tired, hungover and broke. 10 minutes later Sears called and said they didn't have electricity and would have to reschedule us. I was pissed-it's very hard to get that many people together at the same time!! Amber and Bryan were very excited

• I had a very nice evening. Rob, Alivia and I went to the bank, to get gas, supermarket of shoes, walmart and out to eat last night. We never do that and I told Rob it was really nice to have him there with us. I normally have to do all the running around by myself and it was nice to have the help and the company. We went to that new pepper stone steak house on jungermann. It was really good and Alivia behaved for most of the time we were there.

• Conversation in walmart parking lot last night:

Me: Rob, look there's a used pregnancy test (in the parking lot)

Rob: Well, what does it say?

Me:I don't know I didn't look

Rob: Well, you HAVE to look (he then went back and kicked it to flip it over to see what it said. It was raining and he couldn't tell)

Some poor teenage girl probably had to break the news to her mother last night that she got knocked up by her jobless boyfriend who dropped out of school.

I'm not looking forward to those days!!!

As if that isn't enough, That's all I have for now!

Lots of babies..

I have two sister in laws that are pregnant. Kelly is due Feb 8 and Marsha is due in May. Another member of our family is pregnant and she's due March 8. Kelly went to the doctor today and they said that she was 50% afaced and dialated 2 centimeters. We might have a baby soon!! There's only one slight downside to her having her baby early. She has been watching Alivia because my babysitter had to have her kidney removed suddenly. She is coming back on Jan 29 but I don't know if Kelly will make it that long!! While I'm very excited to see the arrival of Giana Marie Fleites-I don't know what I'll do for a babysitter if she comes early!!
geeezzzzz.....

Random

• I cleaned out my fridge the other night. I found 5 containers of sour cream-FIVE!! Not one of them was expired. I have to blame my mother for this-I was at her house one day and noticed an excess amount of salad dressing in her fridge-so I counted them-SHE HAD 16 BOTTLES OF SALAD DRESSING! There are only three people living in her house. Sick.

• I went to Jiffy Lube yesterday morning to get my oil changed. I sit down in the waiting room and look over to the table with the magazines and the selections were sports magazines, car magazines and some kind of national geographic or something. Are you kidding me?!?! Shouldn't men change their own oil at home?!?! Why were there no decent selections for women to read?!?! That bothered me.

• I told my sister and her fiance what my new years resolution was and they laughed at me. My resolution is to get a tan. Bryan informed me "That's not a resolution" to which I replied "Of course it is, it's my resolution and I can make it anything I want!!" So I will be checking out tanning beds soon.

Brayden's Adventure

Yesterday I'm laying in bed trying to wake up. Like most mornings, I can hear Brayden in the kitchen talking to anyone that will listen. Then I hear something in the bathroom (sounded like the toilet seat got picked up and then dropped) I didn't hear the shower start or the toilet flush so I couldn't figure out what was going on. I got up and opened my door, I looked in the bathroom and Brayden was in there. I look down the hallway and the gate was not on the stairs. I pick him up and I walk into the kitchen-don't see anyone. I look in the living room-noone. I look on the back porch-empty. I'm still half asleep thinking "What the hell is going on? Did he get out of his highchair?!?" I walk downstairs and Amber is asleep in bed. I'm still very confused at this point. Now I'm thinking, did he get out of his crib?!? I walk in Amber's room and wake her up. She wakes up to me standing in front of her holding Brayden. She sits straight up and says "OH MY GOD! I FELL ASLEEP!!" I said "He was upstairs in the bathroom!!"

She had gotten him out of bed and put him in her bed. He climbed off the bed and was playing with his toys and Amber had fallen back asleep. He had crawled up the basement stairs, through the foyer and up the stairs to the living room!!!!!

It's funny how things happen sometimes, because if the gate had been up then he would have turned around and tried to go back downstairs and that could have been bad.

He's such a little monkey!

We're in big trouble...

Rob watched Alivia yesterday because he was off work all day so instead of paying a babysitter he got to spend some quality time with his daughter. Starting last week, when you ask Alivia a yes or no question she will actually answer it. It's the cutest thing. So, yesterday I thought I would find out what happened while I was gone all day:

Me: Alivia, did you have a good day with daddy?
Alivia: Yah!!
Me:Did daddy keep an eye on you all day?
Alivia: Noo!
Me:Did he sleep all day while he was supposed to be watching you?
Alivia: Yah!!
Me: Did you get into things that you were supposed to?
Alivia: Yah!!!

I told Rob about what she said and he says that she's a liar!!

I'm going to have alot of fun with this new trick!

Oh and also, if you ask her how old she is she will hold up one finger!!