Are you ready for some football?

God, she makes me smile.  :)

I have a love/hate relationship with football.  I love the sport, I hate that it means winter will be here in no time flat.  That being said, right now I'm loving it b/c the weather is still beautiful and I love catching the Cyclones on Saturday and the NFL teams on Sunday! 

Last weekend the Cyclones beat the Hawks away from home!  This was incredible!  The game was great (although both teams played sloppy)!  Here's a pic of Charlie in her ISU gear.  Cutest little Cyclone ever!

Go ISU!!!

Charlie got her first black eye at daycare last week.  When I went to pick her up it was just a goose egg on her brow bone and it's now completely black, blue and green.  Pretty nasty looking!  They said she was walking and just tripped over her own two feet!  I find that very easy to believe b/c honestly I'm surprised this is her first black eye w/ how often she falls and what a klutz she is.  What can I say?  She takes after me in the gracefulness category (or lack thereof).  Ha!

I started my new job last Wednesday and although I think I'm going to really like it once I get trained and comfortable with it I'm not liking my commute home.  It means less time with Charlie which makes me sad.  The evenings fly by when I don't even get home until almost 6 and Charlie goes to bed around 8-8:30.  I guess I can just say I've been spoiled.  At my old job I had a 5 minute commute.  It was literally 1 mile from our house.  I could have walked/rode my bike there (but never did b/c I'm a lazy terd).  So the 45 min drive home from my new job is killing me.  I'll get over it but I just wanted to complain about it.  :)

Nothing much else to report.  We've been having fun like normal.  We took Charlie on her first golf game.  She loved the cart and running around on the greens! 

We also hit up a block party on Sunday and Charlie had an absolute BLAST dancing to the bands.  She even had a little fan club who cheered her on and kept telling me how adorable she was.  As a mom, I'll listen to people tell me how cute they think my daughter is anytime b/c I agree!  :)

Happy Monday!  We're one day closer to the weekend!

Cheers!
~Kel

2010 Year Review

Since basically the entire year of 2010 I was pregnant we were a bit on the slow side for happenings in our family. That is until August 6th came around and we found ourselves w/ one more family member. Like years past I’ll do a quick little 2010 review.

January
I came out of the baby closet and shared my news with the interwebs that we were expecting little nugget late July.
Kara and Todd got engaged! Yippee!

February
We worked on getting the house ready for a baby. Painting, building and installing. Fun and exciting stuff!

March
Went wedding dress shopping with Kara and she found the perfect dress!
Found out nugget was a GIRL!
April
Finished up our garden in the back.
Celebrated E’s 30th birthday at Stellas.

My grandpa passed away. Miss you Paps. :(

May
Participated in the Des Moines MS Walk.

Family came up to celebrate Wade and his MBA graduation.

We remodeled our shower.
I got pregnant fat face and turned 31! Ahhh!!!
We went to our first Twins game at Target Field.
June
Drove to Indy to celebrate Shannon and Derik’s wedding where I raised the roof.July
Wade broke his wrist racing his motorcycles and had to have surgery to repair it. Todd broke his dancing at a wedding reception (numerous drinks were involved so we'll let it slide... I guess.)

We finally finished the nursery just in time!
Remodeled the rest of our bathroom (halleluiah!)
My due date came and went and no baby!

August
Nugget (aka Charlie) is here after 16+ hours of labor that would not progress and ended in a c-section!!!

The rest of August is a blur. :)

September
Road trips to Des Moines and Galesburg so that Charlie could meet more family and friends.

October
Charlie attended her first ISU game!

Kara had 2 bridal showers that Charlie and I went to.
My maternity leave ended and I went back to work part time.
Charlie’s first Halloween and she dressed as a cute bee.
November
Charlie started daycare.
Kara had her bachelorette party and I had a 2 day hangover.

Wade and I celebrated our 4 year anniversary.

December
We said goodbye to our wonderful neighbors, the Bormann’s, who moved back to Iowa (we miss you guys!)
Charlie learned how to roll over front to back like a champ and is SUPER close to going back to front.
We got 17.1 inches of snow in one day which was the 5th largest on record! We were stranded in!
We celebrated our 1st Christmas as a family of 3 (+ Kobe). (Now if only I had a picture of all of us together...)

All in all not a super eventful year unless you count the birth! But you can’t do much when you’re pregnant! And through the ups and downs of the year we realize we are very blessed. What a life we have!

Here’s to a happy and healthy 2011 to you all!

Cheers!

ISU's good luck charm

Last weekend Charlie went to her first ISU football game. She did great and seemed to have a fun time tailgating and hanging out with everyone. She's definitely into crowds and watching people. I think we've got a social butterfly on our hands! She was probably one of the tiniest ISU fans in attendance and we attribute her presence to ISU's kick ass performance! We beat Texas Tech 52-38! Can you believe that score? Not sure who was really dressed in ISU's football jerseys b/c that is definitely not our team! :) We never pull off scores like that! So it must have been Charlie's good luck vibes even though she fell asleep the second we sat down in our seats. But seriously, w/ a fan this cute how can we not win?

Then Sunday was Kara's first bridal shower. It was a lot of fun to get to see all our friends! Charlie got dressed up for the occasion and was a big hit with all the ladies.

And finally I missed posting about Charlie's 2 month birthday! I got her dressed up and took some adorable pictures of her. She really is growing fast! Her 2 month check up has her weighing in at 11 pounds 3 oz and she is 23.5 inches long! That puts her in the 59th %tile for weight and 87th %tile for height. She's a big girl! I'm still not sure where she is getting that height from b/c I'm basically a midget but oh well! :)

Hope all is well with all of you!

Cheers!

Football Frenzy

This year Wade and I joined in on the fantasy football frenzy. This is quite humorous as neither of us know jack shit about football or the players. Wade's sport of choice is motorcycle racing and mine is shopping (yes, shopping counts). During our draft party I chose the majority of my players because I liked their names. Very scientific, I know. Needless to say I am losing our league. Badly. I'm okay with this. Wade is doing a little better in 9th place (out of 12) but still not stellar. However it has gotten me more interested in the NFL. Before this season I only really paid attention to the Vikings but now I am cheering on the 49er's defense (which keep letting me down) and Green Bay's QB (who is my only good player on my team). I am vowing next year (if we do this again) to actually know a little bit about the players and who to pick versus just looking at who has the coolest names.

In other football news, we are heading down to Des Moines this weekend to go to Charlie's first ISU game. It is family weekend and that is appropriate since my family, Wade's family and Todd's family will all be in town for it. It should be a fun time and I'm looking forward to the tailgating. Let's hope Charlie likes football! Regardless she'll be rocking her ISU gear! Go State!

We Partied Like It Was 2010 (or something like that)

So I would love to update ya’ll on our New Year’s Eve shindig and show you pictures and all that jazz but I only took like 3 pictures the entire evening. I don’t know what I was thinking! We had friends over which included 5 little boys (and 3 dogs) all under the age of 6 so things were a bit rowdy for a while! Our house has never seen so many little kiddos and didn’t know what hit it! We had to baby proof our place and fast!

We had food galore and kegerator beer along with some mixed cocktails. The evening started early with the ISU/MN bowl game starting at 5:00. ISU managed to pull out a win (1 point is all that is needed and won me the bet w/ my boss so I scored a 6-pack of beer!) and we celebrated their victory and the new decade. So we partied from 5:00-2:30am! We may be 30 now but we can still hang! (Although the hangovers are worse… Sorry Brad!)

(One of the few pictures I took. Brad, passed out w/ his tongue out. Priceless.)

Other than that the rest of our long weekend was relaxing and uneventful. We rented movies, (District 9 was dumb, Terminator Salvation was decent and GI Joe was meh) went out to dinner, and I was a lazy bum with Kobe and he loved it! Cuddle time!

How was all of your New Year’s Celebrations? Is it as cold where you are as it is here? The high today was 1. And it isn't supposed to get above the teens for the next week! WTF? I can't handle this shit. I need to move south.

2010 ~ Here We Come!

Wordless Wednesday

Chicago + 2 times + 1 summer = FABULOUS!

The Corner Bakery - our favorite eating establishment due to the entertainment

Not that anyone would have questioned, but us ladies had an absolute blast in Chicago! It was 100% stress free and just splendid! Just what us girls needed!

I arrived in Chicago last out of the group and quickly made it to my shuttle van only to have to sit and wait for almost 15 minutes while it filled up and then of course, just my luck, I am the last one to be dropped off. So I raced up to the rooms and was greeted by all my lovely chicas and promptly poured myself a drink!

We played it low key b/c I didn't even get to the room until 10:30. So we just all relaxed and drank in the VIP room. (VIP = vodka in pineapple) We joked, gossiped, laughed a TON and caught up with each other before crashing around 2 am.

Saturday afternoon was spent leisurely shopping on the MAGNIFICENT MILE. I love that street. A shoppers paradise. I controlled myself fairly well and only bought a new red spring coat, some purple leggings, some bangle bracelets and a short sleeved tunic. I was proud of myself for restraining somewhat, but what I really wanted was this or this or this.

Or all three! But I resisted. Even though I REALLY, REALLY wanted to splurge.

That evening Kara, Nicole and myself got ready to head out for dinner and I grabbed the door handle to our room and it broke! The damn thing nearly fell off and we were STUCK in our room! We called the other ladies to have them come down and try to open it and they couldn't. We had a slight meltdown before the "engineer" came up to fix our door and let us out. It was hilarious in the end and thankfully we were only stuck in there for 5 minutes or so.

OMG! OMG! OMG!!!!

We had dinner at Carmine's that night which was a hoppin place! Great chicken parmesan and wine too! Then we wandered out into the neighborhood to see what kind of trouble we could get into. We ended up at McFadden's where we met a bachelor party and they did the N'Sync "Bye, Bye, Bye" dance perfectly choreographed. I think they had spent a lot of time practicing for just such an occasion. It was hilarious. After too many drinks and shots to count we slowly made it back to our hotel. Jenni passed out in the elevator which was so funny. I'm just glad we all made it back to the hotel in one piece. The gracious Lord was watching over us b/c I have no idea how we made it back. I don't remember a damn thing from that part of the evening.

(PSA: Overconsumption of alcoholic beverages may be dangerous to your health and hamper your ability to walk, talk, remember things from only moments ago, recognize whether or not another person is attractive and/or make it home safely. Please drink wisely. *yeah right* The more you know.)

The start of the night at Carmine's for dinner

The whole group of us at McFadden's

Sunday I woke up hungover (go figure) and needed to prepare myself for the White Sox/Red Sox game. I wasn't feeling too great so I think I watched about 10 minutes of the whole game. We decided that since we are old we needed a nap and after the game we headed back to our rooms for a quick nap before getting ready for another night out on the town. Dinner Sunday was at Cafe Ba Ba Reeba which we called Cafe Ba Ba Ba Barann. Their menu is mostly made up of tapas so we each selected 2 since they are generally quite small and sampled a lot from their menu. So many good things but I think my favorites were the bacon wrapped dates, the goat cheese and tomato sauce and the beef tenderloin skewer. Mmmm... so tasty!

All of us at the White Sox/Red Sox game

After dinner we cabbed it over to the piano bar, Howl at the Moon. We definitely howled! My already hoarse voice was basically a goner by the time we were done there! When you are talking and laughing constantly it's hard on the vocal chords and my girls definitely crack me up. We closed the bar down and headed back to the hotel making sure to reinact the elevator scene from the previous night b/c we are cool like that.

Our bathroom line up (way to fuck it up Ang) :)

The whole group at Cafe Ba Ba Ba Barann
Howl at the Moon piano bar

Ang, Me & Meggie
We are good sing alongers
The necessary elevator shots :) (Eat your heart out CB!)
Reinacting the pass out from the night before
This is my beer baby from the weekend. It's getting so big! I'd guess myself to be about 4-5 months along! :)

And those are my Chicago highlights in a nutshell.

In other news the hubs went back to school this week so Tuesday and Thursday nights will be quiet for me. I'll get to watch all the girly shows I want! Yippee! And this is his last semester as he graduates in December. I couldn't be more excited for him! What an accomplishment he will have!

This weekend is the big rivalry game: Iowa vs. Iowa State. We will be heading down for some massive tailgating! ISU knows how to tailgate even if our football team isn't the greatest. Let's hope we can pull this win off though and kick those Hawks asses! Whoopee!

Oh yeah, and It's Always Sunny starts in ONE WEEK FROM TODAY!!! Yayyayayayayay!

Lata gatas! <3 align="left">