September Goals

September was another successful month of accomplishing goals!  It feels so good to do this and really helps me think about things that need to be done.  I made this a resolution just for this year, but I may just continue it into next year since it's working out so well.  My house project was to organize the pantry.  I bought some food at a case lot sale and needed to rearrange some things to make it all fit.  Well, Scott was awesome and did it for me!  I think I still want to buy a small canned food organizer and maybe some crates to put small items in.  I "finished" Kylie's baby book. I say finished like that as there could still be some things to record or put in the book, but all the pictures are in.  Scott and I had our date night when we went to my high school reunion and a movie out in Missouri.  Kylie and I were able to see Scott play soccer early in September.  His team has tied as many games as they've lost.  Hopefully his team will win a game before their season is over.  My craft project for the month was to glue some broken things back together and glue seashells (from Bass Lake) onto a picture frame.  We didn't have a friend get-together, so I think the one at the end of August counted as the one for September.

Weekly activities went great.  We went to dinner to celebrate my mom's birthday and to the zoo the first week of September.  This time at the zoo, we checked out all the shows that they have (which is 3).  The sea lion show was pretty disappointing, but the bird show is always fun.  The first time I saw them do training with the elephants, it was pretty cool, but they didn't have the elephants do as many tricks this time.

The sea lion show.

There's a bear bathing in the water somewhere.

The tiger is so fun.

I missed the big yawn he did.

Elephants!

Having fun at the bird show.

The next two weeks of September activities were done in Missouri.  Those are all on separate posts.  The last week of September was spent hanging out with our friends Bryan, Natalie and Max.  We had dinner at Pizza Pie Cafe and played this game called Fibbage.  It's like Balderdash in which you make up a lie.  This one was better though because you only had to put in one word instead of the thinking up the whole lie yourself.  Then you guessed what the true statement is.  You get points if people picked your lie and then points if you picked the right one.  You also couldn't put in the correct answer, so you had to think of a lie.  This was fun too as you used your smart phones to play the game on! It showed the statements and options on TV, but you typed in your lie and picked your answer on your phone.  We had a blast playing this game.  Bryan and Natalie always have fun, new games for us to try.

I'm still doing great on my meal plans.  I'm so glad I'm back into cooking in the kitchen again.  I never would have thought that being out of the kitchen when I was pregnant and after having Kylie would affect my motivation to cook.  I'm trying something new and I planned out meals for two weeks! I've never done this before, but I'm trying really hard to work on our grocery budget.  I'm only going to buy items that are on sale and price-match as much as I can.  I'm also looking at buying things I don't usually get.  This week, chicken thighs were on sale for $.89 a pound! That's an amazing deal!  I've never cooked with chicken thighs, but for such a great deal, why not?  I can find recipes for anything online.  I had a great haul with my last trip only costing $65! It was $5 over my budget, so I'm impressed.  The only thing I bought for full price was the deodorant and that's because my coupon wouldn't print out.

What you can't really see is all the produce and meat I got! Those are always the more expensive items.

So, my goal is to never buy anything for full price, even household items.  I also got a Costco card too!  There was a great deal with getting a membership there as well.  There won't ever be a discount, but I got a $20 gift card and will be getting coupons for a free rotisserie chicken, free apple pie (takes care of dessert for Thanksgiving!) and free 30-rolls of toilet paper.  I'm going to limit my shopping there to once a month.  I went one day and just walked around and wrote down the prices for things I would most likely buy there to see if it's actually a good deal.   I really hope this two week meal plan works out.  I really want to be good about sticking to a budget and bringing our food bill (including eating out) down.  Sorry, that was a long paragraph that was supposed to be about my meal plans.

I didn't work out the first two weeks of September.  I only worked out 2 days the third week, but the last week I worked out for 6 days!  I've started another program, but I think I'm going to stick with this one for a while.  I know that I fell out of the Jillian Michael's 30-day shred, but I am committed to do the whole 90-day Bikini Body Mommy challenge.  Each week's workouts will get progressively harder, but the intensity is the same.  The workouts are short and I like that. I know that there's no reason or excuse for working out.  I can do this!!

I am excited for October goals!  I'm ready to do some fun fall activities (like going to a pumpkin patch) and for Halloween.  I'm making Kylie's costume this year so I'm a little nervous about it, but also excited.  I think she'll be an adorable Elsa (is anyone surprised?).  I want to get it done soon, so she can wear it to activities before Halloween (especially since we probably won't go trick or treat on Halloween as Scott works that night).  Things are going to start becoming busy with all the holidays coming up! I'm so excited, I love the holidays!

Missouri Vacation Days 4-6

Sunday was a good day of relaxing and lots of game playing.  We ate another delicious breakfast and hung around until it was time to leave for kickball.  Dad and Roberta play on a kickball team which I think is so fun! I've never heard of kickball leagues before, but it's awesome that they exist. Their team needed a substitute, so Scott filled in and played.  They played two games back to back and it was fun to watch.  Kylie enjoyed watching the ball fly through the air. 

After kickball, Kylie and I went down for a nap and then we had a yummy steak dinner with veggies straight from their garden.  The rest of the evening was spent playing lots of different games.  We played Bounce Off (with ping pong balls), The Amazing Labyrinth, Smart A$$, Parcheesi and Canasta.  We love playing games when we come to visit.  When Scott and I went to bed, we discovered that Kylie had thrown up! She was asleep, but poor girl threw up quite a bit.  We're not exactly sure why she threw up, but it was so sad to see.  We stripped her pack n play and she went right back to sleep. 

We were a little tired Monday morning and slept in until 9:30am.  I gave Kylie a bath and started washing the crib sheets and blankets.  My dad was taking a half day off work, so he was getting done around 11:30am.  By the time we woke up and got ready for the day, it was about 11 and we were ready for some food.  My dad had mentioned a bakery the day before which I thought was close by, so we decided to walk there.  I texted my dad to let him know in case he came back before us.  Well, I guess we turned down the wrong street and my dad drove by and picked us up!  Apparently the bakery was a 2-mile walk (one way) so we were lucky my dad saw us.  For some reason, the bakery was closed and we just went and had pizza for lunch instead.  After lunch, Kylie needed a nap and she took a long one!  It was really good as she was going to be up late at the baseball game.  During her nap, we played some games again.  We played Bounce Off and Harry Potter Clue, which was so much fun.  Since Kylie's nap took so long, we weren't able to go out and do anything before dinner and the game.  We ate dinner and Kylie was a little fussy through dinner.  She didn't want to eat her dinner because all she wanted was fries off of grandpa's plate.  What a silly goose.

It was a little chilly at the Royal's game and I am glad that dad and Roberta were smart and brought blankets.  Kylie did wonderful through the whole game.  She loved hearing people yell and had fun playing with the girls sitting behind us.  My dad and Roberta made a sign saying it was Kylie's first time to a game and we got on the big screen twice!!  I tried to take a picture, but the screen is so bright it just didn't work.  Kylie was famous after that.  The mascot slugger was close to our area giving away t-shirts so Scott and I ran out to see if we could get a picture with him.  We saw him and then he hopped on the elevator.  I decided we should go downstairs just to see if we could catch him, but we never saw him again.  A couple did recognize Kylie from the big screen though, so that was fun.  I also went and got Kylie a certificate for her first game.  The actual baseball game was a little uneventful for the first 7 innings and the Royal's were trailing 2-3 by the 8th inning.  Then, a double run happened and they replaced the player on second with a faster runner.  He stole third and then a wild pitch was thrown so he ran home!  The next player got someone on second again and he was also switched out for a faster runner.  The batter then hit a ball where the guy on second was able to run home! The game was over and the Royals' won!!  It was such an exciting ending and my voice got a little sore from shouting so much.  The game was a great way to end the vacation.

We won!!

All that cheering tuckered Kylie out.

We left early Tuesday morning.  We woke up at 5:15am and left for the airport by 5:30am as our flight was at 7:20am.  The security guards were on edge or something and would freak out if we forgot to put something on the security belt.  Scott also got pulled for a security check again (he got randomly checked on the way out to Missouri) which is just ridiculous.  The flight to Denver was fine and Kylie took a little nap.  The guy flight attendant was pretty funny which helped me be less grumpy from being tired.  We got to Denver a 1/2 hour early so we had a 2-hour layover.  We got some breakfast and then had a hard time keeping Kylie happy.  She was still tired so anytime we didn't let her do something, she threw a little fit.  Once we got on the plane, she cried for a bit and calmed down once I put Frozen on.  We took the trax and got home around 2:30pm.  It was so nice to be home and I don't think I'll book an early flight again.  It sure takes a lot out of you!

Kylie loved the moving walkway at the Denver airport.

Good vacations wear you out.

The vacation was really nice.  My main goal was to see my friends and go to my high school reunion.  I did that, so whatever else we did was extra and great.  I usually care about making my vacations filled with activities, but I was actually fine this time to take it easy. I did what I wanted to do and I was satisfied.  Kylie had a great time with her grandparents and we'll definitely make sure we visit Missouri as often as we can.  Thanks dad and Roberta for letting us stay with you!

Missouri Vacation Day 3: High School Reunion

I woke up early Saturday morning as Kylie kicked me out of bed.  She woke up about 2:30 in the morning crying so we put her in bed with us and she actually fell asleep (something Scott has been trying to get her to do for a while).  She eventually turned sideways giving me hardly any room as you can tell from this picture here:

 

Roberta made us pancakes and eggs and then her and dad took Kylie to the Deanna Rose Farm to play.  From the pictures they took, it looks like they had a lot of fun.

While they did that, Scott and I went to the mall to see if we could find a new hat for Scott.  Instead of a hat, we left with two shirts for him.  We then saw The Guardians of the Galaxy which I thought was a fun movie, but Scott was a little disappointed by it (too much hype and it didn't live up to it).  After the movie, I got ready for the reunion and then we left to go about 6:15pm.  I still kind of wish we had left a little bit earlier so we could drive around Liberty a bit more and I could bore Scott with all the details of the town. ;)  We got to the reunion and since I wasn't sure what to expect, I guess it was fine.  My friends from Friday were there and I saw a few other people that I said hi to, but that was it.  I mean, I didn't have a huge group of friends in high school and I had no idea who would be there so I'm not too surprised that there wasn't that many people.  The food was very underwhelming, but the place was decorated nicely.  One guy got up and did a little quiz of things from 2004 (top artist, album, how much did gas cost, etc.) which was fun.  Dancing didn't start until about 2 hours in and even then, not many people danced.  My friend Stephanie requested the cha-cha slide which none of us wanted her to do, but it ended up bringing out more people to dance.  Scott had a blast with dancing and everybody enjoyed it.  We left about 15 minutes before it ended and I saw on Facebook later that night a group picture that was taken!  I just think it's silly to take a picture at the end as people might leave early, so why not take one during the middle where most everyone is in attendance. All in all, it was a good time and I'm glad I decided to go.

Maria, me, Sarah. We all played in orchestra together.

Our table!

Missouri Vacation Days 1-2

We left for Missouri on September 11th for a super fun vacation.  My 10-year high school reunion was that weekend and our main reason for going out.  It was also a great opportunity for Kylie to spend time with Grandpa Jack and Grandma Roberta.  When looking up flights a few months ago, I wanted to make sure that we flew later in the day as Scott was working the night before and needed time to sleep.  We left about 2 our house to grab some lunch and then headed to the trax by the hospital.  It took about an hour for us to get to the airport and once we got there, Scott asked about having the car seat.  I, of course, started freaking out as we can't go anywhere with Kylie without a car seat!  I texted my dad and told him that I forgot it and he said that he would go out and buy one.  Whew! One crisis averted. It was actually nice to not have to drag the car seat around with us and I was wondering why traveling to the airport seemed so easy. Haha. My dad wanted me to bring out some home-made jam for him and I wanted to make sure that the jar didn't break, so I decided to put it in a carry-on bag. Doh! No liquids over 3 oz in a carry-on bag, so my delicious full jar of jam got thrown away. :( I started getting upset and frustrated with myself as I felt like I was making so many mistakes before our vacation even started! I get a little too hard on myself when things don't go right and it's my fault.  Kylie did have fun checking in though.  This girl has fun no matter where she is.

Having fun on the trax on the way to the airport!

Getting herself stuck in the luggage carts.

Riding the security belt.

On her very first airplane ride!

Our flight had a layover in Denver and we heard that there might be a delay as it was snowing in Colorado! It's early September, it can't be snowing already! We boarded on time, but our flight from Denver to Kansas City was delayed by 20 minutes.  Kylie did great on the flight and watched Frozen (which really helped as all she wanted to do was walk around).  We grabbed dinner in Denver, realized that we should get going and discovered we were one of the last ones to board.  Oops!  It was cold in Colorado which was unexpected.  Luckily we had all brought jackets and had them on hand.  Kylie fell asleep the flight to Kansas City while Scott and I paid to watch TV (Scott wanted to watch the BYU game).  We got in about 11:30pm, got settled in quickly at my dad's house and went to bed.

Friday was a chill day during the morning and afternoon.  Dad and Roberta had to work so we slept in and relaxed until my dad came home from work.  When my dad got home, we went out to eat.  After going out to eat Scott, Kylie and I headed to hang out with my high school friends (Maria, Arian, Stephanie, Amy and Lindsay).  We met up at Maria's parents house and it was just like old times! We went to her house a lot in high school so it worked out great.  Arian and Stephanie's husbands came as well as Lindsay's brother Andrew.  It was great to have those who could, bring their kids and see them play with each other while we all sat around talking.  It was fun to catch up on what is going on recently and then reminisce on the past.  I truly enjoyed having such a good group of friends during high school and feel blessed to still call them my friends.  I've seen them each individually here and there since high school, but it's been 10 years since everyone has been in the same room.  Who knows if this will ever happen again as I probably won't go to any other reunion (if there's one even put on).  Depending on location and what is going on in our life, I would definitely be willing to meet up again.  Maria's parents have two dogs (who actually have the same names as their old dogs who passed away) and Kylie really warmed up to them.  She's been having some aversion to dogs lately, so it was nice to see her really want to interact with them.  Hopefully it will help with any other dogs she sees in the future.  We stayed at Maria's house until about 10:00-10:30pm, so it was a late night, but so worth it.

Sitting around the table talking.

L-R: Lindsay, Andrew (Lindsay's brother), Arian, me, Maria, Stephanie.

L-R: Me, Arian, Maria, Stephanie, Lindsay, Amy

Only me, Arian and Maria were doing a funny pose.

Laughing after realizing we were the only ones who did it.

Stephanie laughed so hard that she cried.

Catching Up

Okay, so it has been a bit since I've written a blog post.  The week after the last post was busy as we were preparing to leave on vacation to Missouri.  I don't think I stuck to my schedule at all as I was busy cleaning the house, washing clothes and packing for our trip.  I am ready to get back into the schedule this week though as having a routine is just really nice.

I was able to make it to the story time at the library last Wednesday which was okay.  I went to the park early to run and then let Kylie play at the park before we needed to head in.  Well, she did not want to sit still after being able to run around outside. Luckily, reading stories and singing songs is not very long and she had fun during play time.  There were a lot of kids there, but Kylie did great playing with them.  I will make sure to either give Kylie enough time to play at the park beforehand or just do it after.

 

Thursday, we did our service day and went down to help Kyle finish moving all the boxes out of their apartment.  We're storing a few things for them and then a few things are being stored at grandma's. Kyle and Brianna have moved to California and are living with Kyle's parents while he goes to school.  We will miss them a lot and hope they don't have too much fun down in California. ;)  I know that they'll be up to visit and I'm sure we'll visit them whenever we head down there as well.

I don't know if shopping counts as somewhere fun for Kylie, but I enjoyed it.  We headed to Jo-Ann's fabrics on Friday and I got material to make a Frozen Elsa dress for Halloween (since this girl is so obsessed with the movie).  I'm sure I could find an already made one for a little bit cheaper, but I want to keep up my sewing skills.  I'm excited to make it and I hope it turns out!

Other random tidbits: Kylie has a chore around the house now and it is helping me do laundry! When laundry is done, she removes the clothes from the washer or dryer.  Of course I help a little bit, but she actually enjoys pulling the clothes out.  Sometimes it takes a little bit of coaxing and other times none at all.

Scott will be moving to day shifts in a week!  Although he will get paid a little less, we both think that him switching will be very beneficial.  The days will be long, but at least we only have to count on those days of him working instead of taking into account the next day (even if he doesn't work).  His sleep schedule will become normal again and it will be really good for Scott to get more than 4 hours of sleep.  Scott worked a day shift just a few days ago and Kylie and I did pretty good.  We were out shopping which took up a lot of the afternoon, so I just need to make sure to keep ourselves busy on the days he does work.  It will also be nice for when Scott does start going to school again as he will be on a regular sleep schedule.  I don't know if he would be able to keep up with school doing even one night shift a week.  Scott is a little bummed that he won't really see Kylie on the days that he does work, but he'll be able to make up for it the days he has off, as now it will be the whole day and not just a partial day off.

We came back from Missouri last Tuesday and had so much fun! I can't wait to write a blog post about it.  It was so, so good to see my friends from high school and wonderful for Kylie to spend time with her grandparents.  I am excited that fall is pretty much here as I have some fun things I want to do and good memories to make.  Before I know it, the major holidays (Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas) will be here and I want to start taking advantage and making some traditions.

And to end this blog on a happy note, here is a cute picture of Kylie licking whipped cream off the beaters.

New Weekly Schedule

I mentioned in my August monthly goals post that I was doing something a little different in September.  I want to make sure that I don't start to get lazy in being at home.  It is so easy to just turn the TV on and watch it for most of the day.  I want to start doing more activities with Kylie whether at home or outside.  I decided to dedicate each day to a certain activity.  Monday is a new toddler activity that we haven't done before, Tuesday is a day to bake or cook something new, Wednesday is a trip to the library (baby and me story time), Thursday is a day to do some sort of service (having a little trouble thinking of some things to do w/ Kylie) and Friday is a day to go somewhere fun.  The first week was successful and I think implementing this is going to be really good for us.  I'm excited that fall is coming up because there are a lot of fun activities to do.

For this week, Monday's toddler activity was making pyramids out of plastic cups.  Although Kylie can't really build the pyramid, she sure knows how to knock it down!  Scott said that this was his favorite activity when he was growing up.  There's a picture with him and a tower of cups 10 feet high.  The activities I have are nothing extravagant, it's just making sure I'm giving Kylie a variety of activities to do.

I originally had Tuesday as the trip to the library, but when we went I found out that the baby and me story times are Wednesday and Thursday mornings.  I'm planning on going to both as much as I can, but Wednesday will be the day to make sure I go. The story times were on hold during the summer, so I am glad that they are back as Kylie will really enjoy going.  The library trips will be nice as I won't have to keep reading the same stories over and over.

Now Kylie can't really help me in the kitchen, so the bake/cook something new on Wednesday is for me.  Kylie just had to be held the other day while making pesto sauce so I was explaining everything I was doing while holding her.  Sometimes I secretly wish she was older so she could help me in the kitchen. :)  It was my mom's birthday on Wednesday, so I made Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes.  I had leftover cookie dough from the brownie bombs, so it made sense to make them.  I also had leftover melted chocolate that I drizzled on top.  I ran out of paper liners for the large cupcakes, so made a batch of mini ones (sans the cookie dough) and sent them to work with Scott.  Both batches were a huge hit! 

Thursday is service day and like I said, I'm having a hard time thinking of acts of service to do with Kylie.  The only ones I can think of are to deliver treats to neighbors or write a letter/note and mail to someone.  This week, I sent a book (I found for free in a cereal box) and note to Andrew, Rebecca and the kids.  Honestly, I still have some hard feelings from how they handled moving to Colorado.  We got left in the dust without any sign of being missed by them. Despite what they think, I need to be the bigger person and sending this little note will hopefully help lessen my negative feelings.  It's been said that when you are feeling angry or sad that doing service will make you happy.

Today, we had a McDonald's lunch date with Nadine.  There's a fun play place at the one by Brita's and Kylie had fun eating chicken nuggets and running around.  There was a small dog there and Kylie could not stop staring at it.  She has a little hesitation around dogs, but she was able to get close and pet it while sitting on my lap.  One of her tricks goes like this: "Kylie, what does a doggy say?" "Woof!"  It is the most adorable thing.  I also found out that there was an ice cream social with our ward tonight, so Kylie and I walked there and it was good to go.  Someone brought delicious homemade peach ice cream and Kylie was satisfied just playing in the bark at the playground.

I don't plan anything for Saturday and Sunday as those are just free days to do whatever we'd like.  This past Sunday, we helped Nadine watch Brita's kids as she had her baby on Saturday.  Brita was coming home Sunday night so we were able to hold and meet baby Charlotte.  She is so cute and totally made me want to have another baby. :)

Now here are some more cute pictures of Kylie throughout this week.  I think I'm going to update every Friday on how the week went and any other random things (which will probably be mostly about Kylie).

She loved this desk so much...so we got it! We're saving it for a Christmas gift though.

I know this picture is super blurry, but this is what it's like to take pictures of an active child.

Love everything about this picture. The sitting sideways, the peach and the one sock.

Rock on, baby girl.