90% Mom, 10% Barista

Saturday nights are the worst. I dread Saturday nights because I have to be up at 4:30am Sunday morning. I have to be the last place I want to be, work. Not my rewarding, non-paying job, but my annoying-dealing with rude people-wanna punch people in the face-I hate my life job. Starbucks. It's not all it's cracked up to be.
I swear you will never know how to treat others serving you until you have a job doing so. SOME, but very few, people are just naturally nice and friendly. Others (like 90% of our customers) just like to ignore you and treat you like shit. I hate being a barista. Life guarding was so much easier. I got to yell at kids all day. (I yelled for their safety!! I swear!) Now I am the one getting yelled at because, You, SIR, are too important to hang up your phone conversation, while in the drive-thru, therefore ordering your beverage wrong and taking it out on me and holding up the line. (DECAF.)

OR lady with the twenty kids in the backseat. Thanks for ordering 32 sugar-loaded, not good for you, frappuccinos for your kids (the most annoying drinks to make) and 15 breakfast sandwiches that take a minute a piece to heat up all through the drive-thru so the man behind you who ordered one cup of coffee can wait because you are too lazy to come inside....and don't tip, a $50 total at Starbucks is normal. UGH!

(Can you tell I hate my job yet?)

On a lighter note, my Kenzie girl went pee in the big potty for the first time tonight! I was WAY excited! She was sitting there all naked and cute, I got her a magazine to flip through when I heard the little tinkle and saw a HUGE smile on her face! :D She got to wipe and flush the potty and she managed to slam her thumb in the toilet lid....an awesome moment ruined by thumb-smashing. :(

Here she is drawing, her new favorite activity :)

We stopped by the house today and this is the progress:

Second floor is framed and I got to walk upstairs! I was excited :D

Let's hope I make it home tomorrow without punching a customer in the face. :/ Knowing I get to come home to this little bratty patty gets me through.

A Day (or lifetime?) of Disobeying

Kenzie has seriously been the naughtiest little shit lately. I feel like I'm in the twilight zone. She is definitely testing her limits and entering the "terrible two's" a little early. Here are the latest acts of naughtiness:

• Unplugging the lamp and scratching the wall with it. This has happend countless times always with the consequence of a hand slap or even a spanking. Immediately after she will look right at me and go do it again. Seriously?
  
• Climbing onto the kitchen chairs, then onto the table then to the bench seat which Papa blocked off because she has fallen off one too many times. Or she will sit on the kitchen table and play with/pull apart the flowers in the middle.
  
• Touching (or banging) all the buttons to the tv, dvr and surround system. Again, she knows she's not supposed to so she gets that little smirk and looks at you and does it anyway. Ugh! It makes me so angry just talking about it!
  

She literlly climbs on everything! Chairs, desks, tables, couches, stairs.....That little monster is covered in bruises. I am embarrassed to put her in shorts or even take her out of the house beacuse she looks like she's been beaten.

So I am now completely convinced it's time to start potty training for reals. She is CONSTANTLY putting her hand down her pants. She is starting to "hide" when she goes poo. I will find her behind the couch or under the table and she covers her face if I find her. I'd say those are some pretty good signs it's time to get rid of the diapers! We have one potty book and 2 different types of potties. We have the chair and the ring. I need to invest in a dvd or something. Hmm.

She's just too darn cute to stay mad at :)

Summer!

We FINALLY got all our crap moved out of that ridiculous apartment! We are all moved in with my parents until our house is done! We stopped by there yesterday to see the progress from last Sunday.
I'm hoping we can go by there every Sunday to check the progress week by week. It's so exciting seeing it be built up from nothing. :)

Kenzie sleeping in the car while we were at the new house

Kenzie was a handful this weekend while we were trying to pack up, move and clean the old place. BUT, for an 18 month old she was awesome. Russ and I rewarded her with the Handy Manny Tool Box. It's super cute, they jump around in the box to the "jump in" song and they can be taken out too!



Kenzie LOVE LOVE LOVES the water. We have a little turtle pool in the backyard for her splash around in. Yesterday it was warm enough so I got it out and filled it with some freezing cold hose water. She was so happy! I let her swim/run around naked because I don't want to waste a swim diaper in the privacy of the backyard and if she goes potty I can just hose it down! :)

My Crazy Little Lady :)
I don't know what I'd do without her.

Where did my life go?

As I was scrubbing my feet with my foot scrubber in the shower this morning I thought, "this is the closest to a pedicure I'm going to get for a while...." Sad thought.

I've always been pretty self-conscious about my looks. I ALWAYS have to have on some sort of foundation/tinted moisturizer to even out my horrendous skin tone and to cover up my acne and teen acne scars. I've never had nice skin, something I have been waiting for now that I am no longer a teenager! I always have on mascara and let's not forget my eyebrows. Ugh. If I could change any part of my looks I'd totally skip over my fat baby belly and all the sag that comes with pregnancy and get new eyebrows! I don't even know where to start...they are too thin and too light. I call my eyebrow hair color invisible because they pretty much are. I have let them grow out but all those Jr. High days of over-plucking have taken a toll. I have to fill in my brows every freaking day with shadow and I loathe it. I wish I had enough courage to leave the house looking like shit. But I don't.

I used to get my hair cut and colored every 5-6 weeks. On the dot. I never missed. Now I color my hair from the box making my hair dry and brittle and I haven't had a haircut in about 6 months....

Now my obsession is anti-aging. I was a lifeguard for the City of Henderson for 7 years. That means 7 summers in the sun all day, every day. I was pretty good about using sunscreen but I was a teenager. I didn't use it religiously like I should have. Now I am constantly putting sunscreen on my face, chest and neck. If we only knew then what we know now.

29 Weeks

What happened to my cute little figure? Well, I have never been little, 5'9" with long legs and ginormous hips. But I used to be fit. I had a nice figure. I didn't feel awkward in my clothes like I do now. My boobs don't sit the same way anymore....I have MOM BOOBS! Ugh. I know that's what comes with being pregnant and having a baby. Your body truly is never the same. But I want my comfort back! I was tipping the scales at 199 when I was 41 weeks prego and ready for my stubborn little girl to get out of me already! That was 40lbs of pregnancy I put on. The unexpected C-Section completely threw me for a loop. It was a lot longer recovery than I had imagined. I had the baby blues so bad I cried constantly and my husband didn't know what to do with me. I gained more weight than I wanted to and I can't find the motivation to get rid of it...until now.41 Weeks Day of Induction

I have decided that I deserve to feel good. Here's to exercising, eating better and getting rid of the baby belly all together! (at least until I get pregnant again) :)

It's been a while.....

It's been a while, a long while since I blogged last. I guess I didn't feel like there was anything going on to talk about. Kenzie WAS the only exciting thing going on in my life....until now!

Russ and I are currently in the process of buying a brand new home! We decided we are sick of apartment life and we need a bigger(permanent) place to live. Building started May 10th and is estimated to be done mid-end of September. Kenzie has also been up to no good so I guess I can share a few things about my soon-to-be 18 month old:

• She refuses to talk! She says a few words like: dad, hat, cat, hot and hi. She is so dang stubborn! If you ask her what any animal says, she'll do it. If you ask her to go get you something, she'll go get it. She's smart as a whip and she knows I'm just dying for her to say "mama" (which she has said in the past and then decided to stop) so she doesn't! I'll tell her, "say mama." She points to me. That's all I get. That's another thing she does, if you ask her, "where's Papa....or Nana, Auntie Kelly etc...she can point to whoever. Smarty Pants.
  
• She LOVES puzzles. She can put them together in seconds now. She has a number puzzle, 0-9 , and she puts them all back without any help. She does her shapes and can point out whichever ones you ask her to.
  
• She is progressing very well with silverware. She uses a fork to feed herself and switches between her right and left hand constantly. (Same with when she colors, she also LOVES to color!)
  
• We haven't really begun potty training but I think she is catching on what it's all about by me taking her with me when I go. She'll sit on her little chair fully clothed when I go. Then when I flush she waves at the potty and says "Nye." I'm guessing that means "bye."
  
• She has a REALLY BAD HABIT of putting her hand down her diaper. I always say "yucky" and she sticks her tongue out and laughs! I couldn't believe I had to go buy 18 month onesies so she couldn't do it anymore! She also knows when she isn't supposed to be doing something and does it anyway. Then when you catch her she closes her eyes, like you won't be able to see her. I have to try so hard not to laugh sometimes!
  
• If you ask her if she wants something of if she pooped her pants her response is always a shake of the head "no." (even though most of the time it's YES!)
• She does 2 signs. "all done" and "more." She sometimes gets them mixed up too! ;)

Sometimes I can't believe how grown up my little girl is. I can actually have some sort of "conversation" with her now. I talk to her. She understands. Everyone knows this is part of growing up and learning, but it is completely different to be the one molding and teaching this little human being.

I feel like the only thing I am depriving my baby from is social skills. We have NO friends to hang out with. NO kids her age for her to interact with. I know I'm not the most social, outgoing person, but I'd like to be for Kenzie's sake. That's the next thing on my list....find a friend for Kenzie!

I am completely in baby mode lately. I am so ready for another little munchkin. Kenzie is going to hit the 18 month mark next week and from my view there's not another baby in sight. Russ is convinced that if we decide to have another baby he'll get laid off. I understand looking from all angles but at the same time one scary thought shouldn't be the deciding factor.

Okay, I can get pretty frustrated with Kenzie. I can't tell you how many times I have wanted to rip my hair out or just scream at the top of my lungs because she is just so naughty sometimes. But that doesn't mean I want to give up or that I don't want to do it again or that I don't enjoy the times where she is so dang cute I think I'm going to explode. I have to get out my frustration by talking about it. I need to vent so that the next time I look at her face I can smile. Let me tell you, the better times with Kenzie highly exceed the bad times.

So there you have it. A few months of venting.

Halloween!

Halloween didn't turn out quite how I expected it to. We decided Kenzie is still too little to understand Trick or Treating so we just wanted to take her out and people watch. My mom found out The District was having Trick or Treating from 5-8 so we decided that was what we wanted to do. We showed up around 6ish and there was not one place to park! We went across the street to GVR to valet and then walked over. It was a mad house! People were actually standing in a line ( a NON-Moving line) to get candy! It was ridiculous! So we decided to walk down the middle and back and just let Kenzie see all the costumes and hear the music. She danced in her stroller and watched all the people. We saw some pretty unique costumes and even stopped to take a picture in front of the giant ghost!
She was our little Kitty Cat that barked! She apparently thinks every animal barks like a dog!
So our little adventure ended quicker than we expected, so we went back to GVR for some dinner. Kenzie had a blast. Every person that walked by our table stopped and asked how old she is and told us how adorable she is.....That girl knows she's cute and she uses it to get what she wants! She is so incredibly smart and funny. She laughs at her farts and she even pushes them out on purpose, she gets that from her dad! Haha!
She is becoming very vocal. She says cat, dad and everything else is "THAT!" She points to everything and says "that!" She loves looking at pictures of all the family and extended family. She started saying "mama" very well today while we were shopping at Babies R Us! I got really excited! She says "mom" most of the time and when she gets upset it's "mama." I can't believe in just one month my little peanut girl will be ONE!

San Diego!

Last weekend Russ and I got a great opportunity to go to San Diego and watch the Chargers and Dolphins game. Oh, did I mention it was all expenses paid?! Yeah, it's something to do with Russ' job and suppliers or something like that. They gave us 2 tickets to the game, plus they paid for our amazing hotel room for one night, they took us out to a nice dinner and out for drinks.....lots of drinks! We got to ride on the Trolley and when the Trolley wasn't running later in the night we got to ride the bike carriage things....Kinda like a horse and carriage, but no horse, only a guy pedaling the bike! Our bike driver guy was very interesting, he carried medical marijuana in his canopy for all to see...weird. After bar and club hopping we took a cab back to out hotel. Lemme tell you, it was the most exciting cab ride I think I will ever experience. It was a minivan, it had tv's in the headrests and a sub woofer so loud my whole head vibrated. He proceeded to change songs/music videos while driving on the freeway and making crazy turns....oh man, it was fun! Haha, I couldn't stop laughing.
Now it's time to talk about my baby girl. My mom and dad too her to the Doctor today for her 9 month checkup, even though she is 10 months tomorrow.....she's a month behind, oops! I had to work so they asked the questions and she even got a flu shot! Here are her stats:
weight: 18lbs 8oz-30th percentile
Height: 29inches-80-85th percentile
head: 17.75inches- 71st percentile
She has two new teeth popping in, on the bottom joining her first two teeth! We got the ok to start brushing with a toothbrush and some non-fluoride toothpaste. We are switching her formula for a better transition into milk when she turns 1! She is doing great! She loves to eat fruit-peaches, bananas, cantaloupe, honeydew, and watermelon. She eats scrambled egg whites and toasted bagels....she's a great eater! She has turned into such a cuddler. She will just come up to you and bury her head into yours and squeeze you. Ugh, I can't believe how big she is getting!