it's been a while..

so a quick post.. bitty will be 7 months old this week, how insane is that? so naturally i've started plotting out her first birthday party.

a little soon, yes, and i'm aware that o's birthday comes first. however o is very undecided. we've heard she wants a dora/rapunzel/fireman/my little pony party. so until she narrows it down, bitty is easier to focus on. she's obsessed with mickey mouse clubhouse, so that's easy enough. i found some cute decoration ideas on pinterest that i can do this summer since come school starting i will have NO time for anything at all.

bitty's getting so big. she's doubled her birthweight (she was 16lbs 13oz at her checkup last week), eating baby food 3x a day and those little puffs, starting on sippy cups, in size 6 months clothes, has 2 teeth. sleeping... well she sleeps at night, still in our room. will not get on a nap schedule. O had a nap time at like 11am and 2pm at this age, and sometimes at about 5pm. bitty? pretty much non-existant schedule.

i'll be starting nursing school again in the fall, not sure what i'll be doing with work, it depends on what days classes and clinicals are. 

today i'm home with the terrorists, charlie's working. i'm trying to get the house back in order a bit. charlie's been sick and we still haven't recovered from my long weekend at work with the kids stuff still unpacked from my parents' house.

mother's day i worked, but last week we went to the shell factory animal park for something to do. i came home from work mother's day morning and charlie and the girls had homemade cards for me on the bed and 2 pandora charms, so that was a nice surprise.

friday the backstreet boys tour tickets go on sale, i've got to procure a few of those ;) kind of by accident i remembered to see when they were going on sale. miss came in from the garage yesterday and asked me who was on the poster on the wall next to the joker in the garage. so i told her the backstreet boys, and then i started making her watch music videos. she liked "everybody" and "larger than life" and was obsessed with "the purple guy" in ltl (aj) so that was hilarious. and lo and behold, tickets go on sale friday for the fl state fairgrounds in tampa. my plan of taking her to her first concert is coming true. :) 4 year olds at a bsb concert are totally appropriate, i don't know what you're talking about. she's going to love it, especially when i make her a glitter shirt. carly is going to come with us. the show is the 23rd, 2 days after her bday. it'll be fun to get away with my little terror. 

guess that's it for now, going to go get b some breakfast. 

disney post to come eventually..

still dealing with too much bs to sit down and post a recap.

for all these bills, i set up payroll deduction for all the hospital ones. and still magically got a notice from a collection agency (again!!) this week. so i called our billing office (who claims they pulled me out of collections in january because it was their mistake for forgetting to combine my accounts), they' don't know why. convenient. they'll look into it they said. 

and my insurance is looking into it to see if i owe $9000 or $500 to bayflite medical transport out of the $35,000 they billed me. they said it'll probably take another week and to not pay anything yet, but they're still blowing up my phone.

joy joy.

speaking of work.. i can't wait to be back in nursing school. this time next year i'll almost be done. i wish it was this year, but i know things happen for a reason. i might need to figure out something else in the meantime for sanity's sake.

bailey had her 4 month checkup this week. she's 13 lbs 5 ozs (25th percentile in weight) and 24.75 inches (50th percentile in height). she got 4 shots and has not been a happy camper. appt was monday, she's been getting tylenol ever 4 hours since then or else she's miserable and screaming, poor kid. 

in other bailey news, she's finally starting to be less constipated and pooping on her own. haven't had to use a suppository in almost a week, thank you God.

Miss O is "cleaning her room" which i need to go check up on. because she totally hasn't gotten off her couch in the past 20 minutes and i'm sick of looking at it in there. 

i'm still getting our house put back together after returning from disney/ packing up the kids to go to my parents/ working all weekend/ dealing with a crabby baby the past few days. the laundry's caught up pretty much, just need to declutter some stuff in the living room and kitchen. 

and thank you work for changing a policy that's been effective since i started working there and not informing the staff therefore screwing up my next 2 paychecks. awesome.

14 days til Disney!!!

can't wait!!

not in the mood to go in to work tonight. been up since 5ish with bailey and then o woke up at 7:15 which is unheard of. she laid in bed with me "snuggling" but i couldn't sleep because of the constant kneeing in the back/poking me in the face that she does. oy.

just got done going through bills and paying things off. i have to call all of the medical bill places still but am not in the mood to do that with a 3 year old running around, that can wait until wednesday.

so we finally saw "the hobbit" friday night. not sure how i feel about it. the parts that i liked i really enjoyed, the parts i didn't like- let's just say i wish i could've seen my facial expressions.

the dwarves, bilbo, the fact that they touched on the important parts, the eagles.. i liked that. some of the other stuff- i found myself just asking, seriously? why did you put that in there? most of the stuff with radaghast i found kind of retarded, didn't like them being chased across the plains on their way to rivendell, wasn't crazy about how they did the trolls, and thorin seemed on the manses a little too much for even thorin. and wtf about him fighting the orc at the end and bilbo helping him, seriously? bilbo would've never been rude to his guests at his house either.

all in all it wasn't bad, but it's not going to be a classic like the other trilogy. at the end i found myself saying, how the heck are they going to make this 2 more movies? it's kind of at a halfway point they've stopped. and then charlie answered for me: because they're going to put in a bunch more extra crap.

i mean, after they hang out with beorn (which is my favorite part, i'm so nervous about that), and go to mirkwood and hang with thranduil, escape, go to esgaroth, creep around erebor, etc.. one movie would totally suffice. they're going to spend too much time in mirkwood and there could be unfortunate legolas sightings in there.

i guess i always liked the hobbit because of its innocence. it stood alone without lotr, didn't need to be as dark. sure, there's undertones there. stuff with the necromancer that hints at more going on, increased warg and orc activity in the misty mountains- but it's not needed to try to bring more of the story into it. just leave it alone, pj. sheesh.

i've been reading the hell out of the "song of ice and fire" series. i'm on book 3/5. not looking forward to waiting for books 6&7, which won't take me long i'm afraid. i'm about 500/975 pages into this book in less than a week, thanks to my kindle and reading any spare chance i get on my phone at work. and this morning they killed off 2 more important characters.

in other news, i find myself missing nursing school. recent things going on reiterate the fact that i need to move on. things are going in a bad direction largely due to a few people and i'm tired of dealing with them.

off to the elliptical and then the shower..

been a few weeks...

so what's been going on. working. potty training. cleaning. bill-paying.

work's been an ok adjustment i guess. tired a lot of the time, and i'm an insomniac some nights when i'm off. finally bailey is sleeping on her own, so for 2 nights we've both been able to sleep in our bed, at the same time! she gets up every 3-4 hours to eat, but then goes back to bed as long as she's in the baby straight jacket (swaddle me) thing.

potty training- she's doing great at the house. almost no accidents in a while now. going to grandma and grandpa's or out anywhere is still a shady ordeal, but that'll come in time. she hates public bathrooms for one, and i'd rather pee myself than use them sometimes too to be honest.

cleaning, never-ending. so much laundry which thank god charlie is doing most of. we had to get a new washer after i killed ours, but it's working well. :) just when you think you've got a handle on it, bailey outgrows stuff and then i have to go through what doesn't fit anymore and redo the closet again and put it away. pain in the tail.

bills. bills bills bills. pre-insurance, we've gotten bills for over $100,000.... so that's a little scary. after insurance we're responsible so far for about $15,000 it looks like. so that's nice. through work they sent me to collections even though i've been paying on the bills because they didn't combine all the accounts correctly. i called, they supposedly fixed it, i need to call and check on that because i'm still getting calls. from all the specialists we get separate bills for anywhere from $50-$500. we filed our taxes, the irs website said i should get my refund within the next day or 2, so then i'll start calling and setting up payments. expensive little bailey boo :)

speaking of her, she's pretty awesome lately. i've never met a baby that smiles so easily. one little look and she flutters her eyes at you and puts on the biggest goofy smile. she's happy most of the time now, except after about 10 minutes in the car. she hates it, don't know what to do about it. we have lots of distractions back there for her, but she's just not buying it.

we started her on solid foods a few weeks ago, that's been an adventure. she loves it, but some of it doesn't love her. the oatmeal cereal bound her up something awful. nothing like an unhappy constipated baby. so we've resorted to juice and she eats pears, prunes, squash and carrots. carrots might be nixed since she was pretty constipated after them the other day. got so bad we had to use a suppository a few times, which is no fun for us or her. but yesterday she pooped on her own and that was the highlight of my day.

miss nibbles has graduated to a booster seat. i can't believe she's big enough for that. so now i have one in an infant car seat and one in a booster. makes me feel quite old.

charlie and i are going out for our anniversary tomorrow night for dinner, maybe to the movies, not sure yet. we wanted to see "the hobbit" but i think today might be its last day in theaters. my luck, right? finally get a babysitter and now i'll have to wait until it's out on dvd anyways.

charlie's working today, i'm there tonight. tomorrow jesse might bring zoey over to play with o while i sleep. then we have to get nana and she's going to stay over and watch the kids so we can go out.

18 days until disney! i can't wait to just have fun for a few days. life's good, there's a lot to be thankful for, but there's the little daily annoyances creeping back into life as they're bound to do that i really just want to get away from. mostly work-related.

the weight loss is still going, i'm down 11.8 lbs since xmas. it's been a balancing act with the breastfeeding and work. i lost too much one week and noticed it in my milk supply. with work some days i'm up for 27 hours or so before i go to bed, and the next day only up for work. usually my first day i get up with the kids, so that's anywhere between 4-6 depending if i can fall asleep after bailey eats or not, then play mommy all day until i go into work at 6. when i get home around 7am i usually shower and then feed her and talk to charlie and o for a few before i go to sleep, so that's usually between 8&9. then i sleep (in between getting up to feed her or pump if they're not home, about every 3-4 hours), and get up at around 4 and do it again. it's a little weird with counting points.

so i've got some dishes to finish loading into the dishwasher, some laundry to put away, run the vac in the living room, clear some clutter off the counter. i've got maybe another hour of bailey sleeping before she wants to eat again. nibs is watching mickey mouse clubhouse, klaus is sleeping on the couch, obi is acting like a pillow as i'm on the couch. might just hold off on the housework and read for a few before i get started on my day. my parents are coming over this afternoon to watch the kids while i go to work and charlie comes home.

flower girl, take 2

what a difference a year makes. this was nibs and logan at valorie's wedding last year, it was in october, she was 2.

she wanted nothing to do with it and cried down the aisle after they put her in a wagon with the ring bearer.

this year, she had a mission. she knew her job was to hold lucas' hand and take him down the aisle. she wasn't going to let him run into the river (it was at the edison home). she knew she had to walk to pete at the wedding tree. "just like on Caillou!!" she kept saying. she loved her dress, loved the attention. plus she loves pete, lucas and lyndsey, so it was all good. 

and when i say loves lucas, she loves that kid. she's always willing to hold his hand and play with him and hug and kiss him, they hug and kiss each other alll the time. they got such cute professional pictures i can't wait to see of them smooching.

nibs was quite annoyed when she realized the gnats acted like her dress was mosquito netting, we spent a lot of time casually brushing them out of her dress without her noticing so she wouldn't freak out.

the wedding party, O with her death grip on the little ring-bearer

she loved the purple flowers, she was totally picking them despite me telling her that you're not supposed to while the groundskeepers looked on.. she thought she was quite sneaky.

little rockstar. she was going to have a meltdown without her sunglasses, thank god i found this pair shoved under the seat in the van.

they were so freaking cute.

hugging on her "peed" as she used to call him. she told him she loved him at the wedding too. they're probably her favorite people to see, i'm glad she got to be part of their wedding and was cooperative for them.

i got a short video of her and lucas. she had him by the hand and they walked almost all the way from the house to the aisle until he dropped his train. then he took off running a little ahead of her, but not too bad. she was walking all proud with her basket of flower petals and was so good.

bailey made it through almost the whole thing until she got fussy, it was hot, but charlie got up at the very end and it was fine. 

at the reception O danced with everybody and did her "gangnam style" dance in the middle of hte dance floor. she loved pete's mom and called her "purple girl" because of her dress. we were there till about 10, and really only left because bailey was getting ready to eat again. O would've stayed all night. CC was obsessed with her, he was trying to hug her on the dance floor it was precious. he kept trying to steal kisses too, but O was a little reluctant. she's got her eyes on Lucas :)

so i was very proud of my little girl yesterday, what a little diva she is. she's been doing great with the potty training, i can't wait until she's in dance classes, she's going to love it.

on another note, had to break down and go buy a new washing machine today. i killed the old one finally after my wasp fiasco the other day. we had the top rigged with a pin to make it drain, and while i was loading the washer a wasp flew in there. i freaked and slammed the lid, pin went flying, not a good scenario. 4 hours later after trying to fix it, i told charlie we could get a new one. it comes in friday, which means a trip to the laundromat tonight. a potty training 3 year old, a 3 month old, and working at a place where we have to wear scrubs during flu season means a lot of laundry, so this will be a fun week :/ but it's a really nice big one with no agitator in the middle to ruin my bras and drawstrings on my scrubs so i'm stoked. and we got a really good deal on it. including delivery, a 3 year warrantee, and an upgrade for better hoses we spent about $50 less than its list price. the only thing that could make it better is if we had a laundry room for it to go in instead of the garage, but that's the next house. god i want a laundry room. 

i should start posting all the tasty crock pot recipes i've been making lately. i've got a mango brown sugar pork roast cooking right now which smells so freaking good. going to serve it over some rice for dinner later, hope it's as good as it sounds.

the hard boiled egg saga...

so, i eat a lot of eggs. on weight watchers, they're one of the foods that charlie and i eat a lot of that fills you up and gives you lots of protein and isn't a total point killer. we've actually started buying eggs in 5 dozen boxes.

so anyways, i usually make an omelet or something, but i like hard boiled eggs. but i CAN'T FREAKING PEEL THEM TO SAVE MY LIFE.

my mom told me how to make them, and i never thought there was another way. she said to put them in water, bring it to a boil, shut off the heat and let them sit for 20 minutes.

i'm sure i missed the step about taking them out and the ice bath thing, and that's why i can't get them out of the shell without mangling them.

so i mentioned this problem of mine at work and was made fun of soundly. they told me they drop eggs into boiling water and continue to boil them for 7 minutes then do the ice bath.

i figured i'd burn myself since i don't have a slotted spoon, so i googled ways to make them and settled on bypassing boiling all together and baked them.

stuck them in a muffin tin at 325 for 28 minutes, 5 minutes to sit, now in an ice bath.

and... i just peeled the best hard boiled egg ever! it was amazing! the shell came right off! and so i did a second, and i totally screwed it up. i need one of those eggie things on the infomercials...

back in the grind

very much looking forward to getting paid next week, and then the tax return coming. i hate bills, money's not everything, but it'd be nice to not have that as a stress. it'll get better though with me back at work.

didn't get that position, but i think there was a lot more going on than a simple position opening. i'll take it as a sign to continue with my other plans.

adjusting back into nightshift isn't really very hard for me. probably because i'm so used to getting up constantly with bailey to feed her. also, the last time i worked nights i was 9 months pregnant, so anything is easy compared to that.

i've been trying to get more organized with stuff around the house to make it easier with us. it doesn't take much to throw the house into chaos as far as laundry and organization. i've been trying to plan meals out and do a lot of stuff in the freezer and crock pot to save us time and money and sanity. i made chicken soup the other day that was really good. i also put together about 10 freezer bags of meals to just throw in there from the freezer which should help.

what else, going on week 4 of weight watchers. i lost another few pounds last week, we're going in the right direction. charlie's doing really great with it.

last night we took bailey to dinner for the first time, it was a going away dinner for pete since he's leaving the hospital and working at an asthma clinic. she did really well surprisingly, she usually hates the carseat. olivia was miss social, talking to everybody, singing and dancing for people. she's a little actress when she's with people she knows. it was a bunch of people she recognized from work so she was pretty laid back.

saturday she's going to be the flower girl in lyndsey and pete's wedding, that should be fun. i need to find her shoes to wear for it, i really don't feel like going out today but i don't have much of a choice. i wasn't sure what the dress looked like up until last night. i think she'll do ok at dragging lucas down the aisle with her, they'll be cute either way. she's a much different kid than she was at barely 2 at val's wedding, and she knows pete and lyndsey and lucas a lot better.