The next episode

With the new chapter of our lives comes a new blog.

As we are no longer Thinking positive - we are just the Stepros!

Please follow the link to our new blog.



http://thestepros.blogspot.com

Blog Break

I have had a less then minimal desire to blog lately.

Sorry to all the loyal blog stalkers out there. Perhaps in the next little bit if I have any new and or exciting news to post, I will.

I am burnt out with blogging. I hate reading peoples blogs that just seem to drone on and on .... much like this one, with no real point. I am going to try and break that chain. I will blog when I have an event I feel is blog worthy.

Check back in a week or month or so.

new post

**Sorry it took me so long to post this** I had been working on it .... well never since I started it.


Part 1 Memorial Day

We had a good time Memorial Day. Don had the day off. Rita called they were going to Davis Creek (I think that it is a National Recreation area I think). She invited us to meet them. We made picnic stuff and met up with them. It was a bunch of fun. Don and Marty took Aria and Brooklyn on a hike, it was a bit over 3 miles. I folded the seats down in our car and took a bit of a nap while Rita and Bailey explored our picnic area.

Once the men and girls got back we hiked...more like an easy up hill walk to a stream and the girls rolled up their pants and walked through the stream. Oh and we were all blinded by a woman sitting on a log that crossed the stream with her entire crack hanging out. Marty and Rita suggested I post a picture of it on my blog! HAHA ... so you can blame them for this!
Then we went down to a pond/lake thing that the kids got in, it smelled almost as bad as Lake Mead! UGH! But I guess all that matters is that they had fun.


Part 2 Tuesday May 29th

So we had a Dr. appt and ultrasound scheduled today. Ultrasound at 9:45 Dr. right after. Well this office schedules worse then Dr. Torres' office. We had our ultrasound everything looks good and it is still a girl.
We checked in for our appt at 10:00am and then they saw us finally at 12:30!! Holy Crap! that is a long wait! I don't really understand these appts. You pee, they weigh you, ask you if you have any questions and then let you leave. I hate it! Why does it take so long just for that??
I lost a few pounds this appts which makes me happy.
I am on the trying not to gain weight plan (the fatter you are to start the less they want you to gain...so I am trying not to gain more then 15 lbs.) Swimming seems to help out, at least I am not getting as swollen.


Part 3 uck! June 13th

So I have been feeling completely crappy the last 2 weeks or so. I have bronchitis, and there isn't anything that they can do about it unless it becomes pneumonia. I took antibiotics and now we wait for it to pass or get worse. I haven't been swimming at all since the 2nd of June because I haven't felt up to it. I went finally today and swam for only an hour. My hands last week looked like swollen leaches! I was wearing my wedding rings on my pinkie. I am not as bad as I was before today but it will take a lot more swimming. And to top it off because I haven't felt good I gained like 3 lbs since my last appt! Ugh! I need to just get rid of the scale, I weigh myself constantly! I weigh in the morning and every time I go to the bathroom and before bed.

That same Saturday the 2nd of June, both our washer and dryer crapped out and we had to get new machines, and can I tell you how much I LOVE THEM!!! They are so nice and they do laundry so dang fast that we were able to get all of our back laundry finished in like 8 hours! It was fantastic! I can't believe how much I love household appliances!

Hmm what else?
My mom is coming up on Friday to hand for a few days and then Brooklyn will be going down to Vegas/Hurricane with her for a few days. She is so excited to go down there! I am a wee bit jealous.

Well I wanted to get this posted so Holly would give me a break! I will post a bunch of random pictures later!

FINALLY PICUTES!!

So pretty much these pictures go in reverse of what I I just wrote about!
Check out her eyelashes!! Everyone thought that she was wearing false eyelashes! The girl is blessed with LONG, THICK, BEAUTIFUL eyelashes! She is such a pretty pretty girl!

NO PICTURES

BLOGGER IS BEING TOTALLY STUPID! IT IS NOT ALLOWING ME TO POST ANY PICTURES.

I WILL TRY LATER

Very long blog...Lots of pictures

So lets do a bit of catch up. I am tired and busy which is why I haven't posted a real post in a while. I have my very first deal closing in June! YEAH...hopefully it closes if the inspection comes back clean this Wednesday it will be sealed in stone! SWEET!!
So I have been very busy running around and this last week was the worst! Lots to do every single day.

PART 1 MOTHER'S DAY
My Mother's Day was wonderful, I hope yours was too. I love being in a family of super gift givers, who are so excited to give you gifts that they actually can't wait until the day to give them to you. Brooklyn had told me that she was making the "BEST Mother's Day present ever!" in school, and she came home with it the Friday before and gave it to me right away. Lots of pictures and artwork and coupons, I have never gotten coupons before, but I LOVE THEM!!! She says that they never expire so I can use them over and over and over again. My favorite was 1 hour of piece and quiet, you don't get that much around here!
Don gave me exactly what I wanted! A hammock, so I can lounge in the back yard enjoy the breeze in the shade and snooze or read. He couldn't wait either and had been asking me all week if I was ready for it, so he gave it to me Saturday before Mother's Day. How awesome are they?


PART 2 THE WORST DAY EVER
The following week Brooklyn with Aria in tow came barging into the house after school almost hysterical. Brooklyn what's wrong, I asked? She said "OH MOM! I HAVE HAD THE WORST DAY OF MY LIFE AND I HAD TO BRING ARIA HOME TO BACK ME UP, SHE'S MY DEFENSE!" Immediately I was like....Oh crap I think that is what I said when I had 3 way called my mom and Becky to tell them I had gotten my first speeding ticket.
I freaked a bit...what? What? Tell me! She says, " I can't even tell you. Aria has to tell you." Oh crap goes through my head....she can't be pregnant!! What could it be..... Aria begins with a grin..."Well Brooklyn got asked out by a boy today!" Loud raucous laughter is all I can say about my response! That is the worst day of your life? You got asked out by a boy? That is the worst day of your life!? She has plenty of "FRIEND BOYS" she say but NO BOYFRIENDS!! I said well how did he ask you out, and in very formal third grade fashion he gave a girl a note to give to Aria to give to Brooklyn. They gave me the note which had been torn into five pieces and it says..."Brookolyn, will you go out with me? Austin"
As I was reading it she says....AND HE DIDN'T EVEN SPELL MY NAME RIGHT! Almost offendedly! Aria was able to go home and I said so, what are you going to do? She talked over her options, I said you know you can't have a boyfriend until you are 16, so what's the plan? She decided to write him a note back and the proper delivering method of that note would be the same as it was received to Aria to give to the other girl to give to him. I am really proud of her, I was BOY crazy by then and she just doesn't seem to care.


Part 3 Crazy Birthday Week

Last Wednesday was Brooklyn's 9th birthday! I know! It doesn't seem like 9 years ago for those who were around then! I definately don't feel like I am almost 30 either! She had dance recitals on Wednesday and Thursday and dress rehearsal on Tuesday, they wanted her there at for dress rehearsal in full hair and make up, which I refused to do! With 2 dang days of performaces I thought full hair and make up was a bit much 3 days in a row. All three nights we didn't get home until after 9:00pm which makes for a long day, in the mean time I was also in the "counter offer" stage of the deal I was working on, so I would need to run out and go to the office to do paper work. UGH! But she did wonderfully in all of her perfomances, she had a solo in one of her dance classes where she kinda did a little break dance thingy....and on Wednesday night after her first perfomance the teacher called her up to front and center stage and led the entire crowd in singing to her, "happy birthday" Oh man she was embarrassed! SO funny! If anyone knows how to put video up here let me know and I will post the video!
One of my favorite performances of the night was the class of 3-4 year olds that danced to MC Hammer's "Hammer Time" and they had little gold sequin hammer pants! Oh it was adorable! I laughed soo hard!!
Friday Brooklyn had a field trip to the public pool. Don went with her class (I was working), they walked to the pool swam and then had lunch at the park. She was exhausted when she got home, but no rest for the weary in my house!! Off to her birthday party!! She wanted a bowling party, which I thought was weird, I wasn't sure how it would turn out. 9 of her friends came, including two of her "friend boys" 1 from her class and 1 from church. The kids seemed to have a really great time! About half way through they turned the lights down pulled out the disco balls and started playing music! It was so much fun! All of the kids out their dancing as close to on the lanes as possible, the boys were break dancing the girls just dancing away! It was very neat, they did bowl a little during that too, we fed them what was at the concession stand; nachos, cheese pizza and lots of sugary soda! We sang happy birthday to her, we had Baskin Robins ice cream cake, (cookies and cream) and opened up presents. We went a bit long but I don't think that they kids cared one bit!! For goody bags this year I did a handful of miniatures and giftcards to Walmart, because #1 I was too busy/lazy/tired to do goody bags #2 I hate having bags of random toys left after the party! This way I am not out any real money, we will use the giftcards still, what am I going to with 9 frisbees and 9 giant bouncey balls?! On the way home Brooklyn said that was her favorite birthday party ever! That made me feel really good. It was the cheapest too! Sweet! We spent more on concessions then we did on the bowling part! I love it! Bowling parties every year!!!!
For her birthday she got highlights and a pedicure. Highlights are new pedicure is something that she does every year.

Part 4 Random Rant!!!
Ok so I watch my friend Rita's daughter Bailey a few days a week while she is at beauty school. I take Bailey to preschool 2 of those days. The preschool's name is
Kids Klub! YUCK!! I know that it is supposed to be a cutesie cutesie little name - but I think it is horrible to misspell the name of the preschool! How am I going to trust the teachers at this Kids Klub to teach my kid anything???
Yes, I am a bit over dramatic and this is completely lame to complain about...but I am 5 months pregnant! HAHAHA just kidding!


Part 5 Baby names
I have only ever loved one girl name, and I used it already. I knew I would name my first daughter Brooklyn since I was 13. I am at a complete loss with this kid! Don likes Sophia, and I did then I told my friend who is also having a girl...in less then 1 week from now, and she fell in love with it, so she is having a Sophia Elizabeth. We don't live anywhere near each other but I just lost the like for Sophia. I like Ava, it is growing on Don. He suggested Ava Sophia Stepro, but as you can see the intials would spell A.S.S. and you can't do that to a girl. I like Ava Dawn, he thinks it is corny. He suggested Ava Christine, which my mom seems to love, but it hasn't stuck on me yet. I am not even sure her name is Ava yet. I like the name Savannah as a first name - Don says that sounds like a stripper name. Brooklyn just would like the middle name to have 2 syllables so that we all have a 6 syllable name. Any suggestions? What flows with Ava? My mom's response will be ignored! hahaha

How I feel!!

http://pregnancy.baby-gaga.com/cartoons/cartoon28">">

Locked out!

Why has everyone set their blogs to private??

The woman that coined the term "Blog Stalker" has locked me out.

Why?!?! I beg of you for answers....WHY???

Why do so many people lock me out? Don't you know I have nothing to do 60% of my day??

BAD NEWS

We may not be able to go to Vegas as we planned. Several things play into this.
Mainly they all boil down to money! UGH! Don has only 30 hours of vacation so it would need to be a quick trip. Driving and flying and renting a car are about the same price, driving we eat up 16 hours of our 4 day trip driving?? Plus hotel rooms.
I am just not sure if we will be able to work it out right now, maybe later in the summer. Once we are all recovered from Chicago vacation and Don has more vaca time saved up. We will see.

Sorry to those of us who wanted to see us, Brooklyn will still be going down. I will let you know.

Have you checked your mail??

We are tickled pink
And happy to say….
We have a baby girl
On the way!!!

So Friday the 4th of May I talked Don into letting me spend my babysitting money to go get an ultrasound. He was anxious too to find out so it wasn't much of a talking into. The office is really cool; the tech projects the ultrasound video on a movie screen in the room and she has 2 flat screen tv's mounted that you can watch too. Brooklyn came with us and she thought it was so neat to see the baby moving all around. She was moving her hands and playing with the umbilical cord and rubbing her face. All of this with her legs crossed. She looked to be sitting on her crossed feet. So the picture wasn't the greatest, but it is like 85% that it's a girl.

Admittedly, we weren't tickled pink in the beginning. I told Don before we left I was going to have a rough night if it were a girl and he thought that it was not that big of a deal. He said that he had the feeling the entire time that it was going to be a girl. I was optimistic. When the tech said..Oh looks like a girl. I said firmly, "Check again." As I state earlier she wouldn't cooperate with being a flasher. We are going to go back in a few more days to get a better view. On the way home Don admitted to being more disappointed then he thought he was going to be, and I admitted that I wasn't as bad off as I thought I was going to be.

Once home we talked about names and made announcements, which you should have gotten by now and if you haven't, check your mail again. We bought 2 girl outfits from Walmart and now it seems to be sinking in and we are all OK with it. Brooklyn is handling it very well also, I was mostly worried about her and becoming jealous of another little girl. But she seems very excited. Which is a comfort to me also. So by the time that I am writing this we as a family are all well adjusted to the news and are excited and happy about our new baby.

First of June

So we had a dr appt last Monday, 16 weeks, I tried to fanaggle my way into getting an ultrasound, dr said "NO I found the heart beat" RRR I was....am very disappointed - there is no good reason that she wouldn't except that she was 1 hour behind schedule.
So our next appt isn't until June 1st and we have an ultrasound scheduled for that day. GRRR
Let me add that my emotional state was low Monday, hot, extremely tired and having to wait for an hour to hear NO! I was soo ready to cry all day.
I wish I could justify spending $150.00 on the "just for fun ultrasound" places, cause then we would know tomorrow! Oh well this entire pregnancy has been a test of my patience, or not even a test but a forced down my throat lesson in being patient.

Well....that is enough for now.

Summer Planning

We are planning to come to Vegas/ Hurricane in mid-June. Aunt Teresa and Uncle Russell are driving up from Mobile around the 16th of June so we are going to try and arrange it so we can see them for a day at least. Jeff and Julie might meet us in Vegas which would be fun.

I just wanted to get the word out that we will be coming down and I would like to plan a day at the Mission Hills water park just get everyone together in one spot so we don't have to drive all over in 3 days trying to visit everyone.

Sooo plan on seeing us at the park.

Brian's First Comedy Gig

So one of my best friends, Brian, has decided to pursue his hobby as a stand up comedian. I think that he is pretty funny!

I am posting his video of his first open mic night. Enjoy. His Myspace page is: http://www.myspace.com/brianekiley



Click on the link below to watch his video. Very funny.
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=2025041621

What the heck??

So last night we had a bit of a storm blow through. Causing blizzard conditions in the mountains, not so much here just blowing snow. We had about two inches total last night, it is melting away this morning with the sunshine. However we are expecting rain and snow tonight and snow again tomorrow! WHAT??? Why did we come home to this!?!?!?!?! We should have stayed in Chicago, at least we could have delightful pizza in Chicago!



So our tulips never stood a chance this spring I am afraid! We have had such wishy washy weather the flags started coming up before the first cold snap and the leaves were damaged, then it got warm and they looked like they were recovering, then cold then warm. And now this, so the few flowers that it looked like we might have gotten don't look like they will bounce back now. So sad! I love our tulips, I planted a bunch of them this time last year crawling along the ground with my crutches since I was casted up. So disappointing!
But at least we don't have to water the lawn I thought. But then I see my not so smart neighbors! Two inches of snow in the yard and they turn their sprinklers on! Are they crazy! We are expecting 3 days of wettish weather and you turn your sprinklers on! UGH! Oh well that is minimal considering what is going on in the world today and this week. So we have much to be grateful for.

Want a good charity to contribute to?

My good friend Linda has breast cancer. She has fought it for almost 2 years.

Anyway her daughter Bailey who is 11, 12 in July. Is running the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure this year, it is a 5k I think? I think that she is a remarkable young girl for doing this.
Linda is also walking the 1 mile walk.

So if you feel so compelled to support a good cause like Breast Cancer Research, follow this link to Bailey Pledge site and make a pledge of any amount. Thank you!

http://race.komenlasvegas.com/site/TR?px=1198306&pg=personal&fr_id=1020&et=nMm2ZsCwGlFZEt7cG6XUEg..&s_tafId=2872

Vacation Part 4 - Friday our first day with SUN!!

Another blissfully lazy morning. We stayed in our hotel until check out. Wanted to get our money's worth. When we left the hotel it was sunny! The first sunshine that I had seen in a week! Ah to feel the sun on your skin! So it we decided to try Navy Pier again. It was so much nicer this time around! The rides were operating, we were able to go on a few of them.

Brooklyn wanted to go on the swing rides, well I can't do them anymore, or I would have, I enjoy them. Don decided to be a girl and hold Brooklyn's doll so she could go on by herself because he was a scaredey cat! Hahahahaha We went on the ferris wheel next. It is over 150 feet tall and moves very slowly, and never stops you have to get on and off while it's moving. Well I am not a huge fan of heights, and at one point near the top I thought it had stopped moving and that we were stuck so I started to freak a bit and wouldn't let them talk...tee hee. But we got down safely. They went on the lighthouse drop. That looked fun! Then the we went on the merry go round. Fun and not high off the ground. We also went on a river boat architecture tour. It was awesome going up the Chicago River looking at all the building and hearing their stories.

A few of my favorites were the scary round open parking garage.

The Wrigley Building

The Tribune Building

And the Sears Tower from the water side

Last but not least, I left out the Water Tower building, it is on the Mag Mile. It is one of the oldest buildings in Chicago and was one of the only buildings to survive the fire. So there is a bit of our vacation. Maybe I will post more random pictures later, but you have a pretty good idea of what we spent our time doing.

Walking, eating, riding buses, sight seeing and freezing! We didn't gain any weight from all of our eating because we balanced it with all of our walking!

Vacation Part 3 - Our Big Day At Wrigley Field

We bought Cubs beanies so we could keep our heads warm in the cold of outside the night before. Well I bought a Cubs beanie while Don bought a Wrigley Field beanie, he said that he couldn't betray his team! So he can support the field.
We woke up Wednesday morning and it was snowing! I called the Cubs hotline and the game had been called due to rain and snow. The field had a few inches of snow in the morning! Oh no! Devastaing for Don, he was mostly excited about seeing the historic Wrigley Field. Oh so sad! We were both bummed but Don mostly.
So instead we went to the Adler Planetarium and saw the Mercury Capsule. It is so small! I can't even believe that NASA had 2 adult men in this small capsule.
This was an interesting we did a bunch about how the ancient people used astrology and star mapping to predict planting patterns and so forth. Brooklyn got to dress up like she was a student of Galieo and a Syria King. She also got to make a crater using a "meteor" it was a paint ball machine that shot into "moon dust" it was all inclosed in bullet proof glass so no one gets hurt.

After that we went to the Aquarium, I wasn't allowed to take pictures there because it harms the animals. So I have very few of that. We drove past Soldier Field - it looks weird with the bleachers extending up the top. But we got to see it!
Before, during and after we tried to keep warm waiting at bus stops and what nots. Don said I looked a bit muslim. Notice the dark circles under my eyes....this is going going going for days with little sleep. That is why I tried to stay behind the camera and not infront of it.

This is Lake Michigan - through the reflections you can see the waves crashing against the shore.
For dinner we went down to Portillos it is the home of world famous Chicago dogs. Now I don't eat hot dogs, but luckily for me there is also Barnelli's, a pasta place in the same building.
I am so very proud of Brooklyn and Don for trying the dogs Chicago style. Chicago dogs are all beef dogs with mustard, sweet relish, sport peppers, chopped onion, and tomato slices and a Claussen pickle (dill) and celery salt . They loved them! No ketchup on these dogs! I on the other hand had spaghetti.

This is Brooklyn sleeping, with all of her dolls she sleeps with and her trying not to wake up as I was trying to wake her up.
Thursday we had a lazy day. Pretty wiped out and it was very cold and very windy, so we stayed pretty close to home. We went to the Hancock Building again hung out there to stay warm. We had lunch at Cheesecake Factory, Don had never been there before, he enjoyed it so much we went back, and it is in the Hancock Building so we didn't have to brave the cold.

Me shopping at the Hancock.

Sleeping on the job. Guess I am not the only one that looks tired!

That afternoon Stacie, Brooklyn and I had an appoitment for tea with Niki, Brooklyn's American Girl Doll, at the American Girl Place Cafe. It was soo cute! Everything is decorated so cute! So girly! We ate sweet treats and Brooklyn had hot cocoa, I had pink lemonade and Stacie had hot green tea. It was so cute! So enjoyable!

Stacie drove us around a bit, up Lake Shore Parkway, and then dropped us off. We laid around for a while, we called Dinner in to Portillo's. Brooklyn and Don needed another Chicago Dog. We learned that while we are in the mid-west if you say "DON" like we say Don they think that you are saying "Dawn" even Stacie's friend Kelley asked why his name was "Dawn" and not "Daaaaaan". The accent is hard to portray here, but call me and I will say it for you! :)

Anyway when we ordered dinner under for Don to pick up, he got there and it was held for "Dawn"! hahaha we had a good laugh!

To be continued....Friday....the first day with Sun!