That time I cried at the Doctors office.

Yeah that happened. 

We had this big insurance mess, long story short- our health care plan that we have had 4 years through Cigna apparently wasn't Obamacare compliant and as of Jan 1st was no longer valid. How did we find this out? While at Walgreens picking up Jaspers $350 medicine that we had to pay out of pocket for since our insurance got canceled. Awesome right? 

So fast forward a week, we have health insurance again but we had to switch to Kaiser...Not happy about that at all. I've heard mostly negative things. But it is what it is. Can't be that bad right? 

So I made Drew and Jasper appointments for Thursday, back to back appointments. During the day leading up to the appointments I get FOUR phone calls from Kaiser, moving Jasper's appointment around so he could see a pediatrician because first they hadn't scheduled him with a ped. Great. Thanks Kaiser! We get to the appointment at the new time (30 minutes later than first appointment was schedule) and they tell me I missed our appointment and they have no record showing that he was switched over. They tell me now he has to see a nurse, who can't actually do what we needed done at the appointment. And won't be able to get him his meds. 

This went back and forth for probably 10 minutes with the front desk lady telling me I was wrong, no one changed chis appointment blah blah blah. At this point I'm so mad/annoyed/frustrated that he's not going to get seen and get his medicine that the tears well up.. I HATE THIS. Anytime I get super mad, the tears come. And there's nothing I can do about it. Finally the Other front desk lady (the nice one) goes back to talk to the doctor/his nurse. The nurse comes out, super duper friendly and apologetic and explained that the pediatrician moved Jasper over to his service himself, and someone else moved him back, and that he was going to see Jasper. Big sigh of relief. 

We saw the pediatrician and I really liked him. Thank god. Because the rest of the Kaiser system? Not impressed so far. 

After being seen we head upstairs to pick up his meds. They have a pharmacy right inside to make things super easy! Perfect. Except, not when they screw up his prescription and we have to wait OVER AN HOUR, with three kids in the waiting room. So our 20 minute appointment ended up being over 2 hours and Jasper missed his basketball practice. Fun. And I cried. In front of a waiting room full of people. They probably thought I had a super sick kid or something and felt bad for me. 

Anyone have any POSITIVE Kaiser experiences? Does it get better. I sure hope so, otherwise apparently there will be a lot of tears at the Doctors office for at least the next year. 

Top 5 Signs I Don't Have My Life Together

Ive gotten comments on here, IG, even in emails that ask how I manage to 'do it all'. Those comments seriously make me laugh. If you saw the state of my house 75% of the time you sure as hell wouldn't be asking that. Seriously. My shit isn't together. And here's just a few signs of that if you needed 'proof'.

1. My Laundry room. At Any given time i Have at least 5 loads of clean laundry to fold and put away and another 5 loads to wash. And I mean at ANY given time. I remember once for like an hour a year ago when all the laundry was done. It was glorious. It hasn't happened since. And probably won't happen till my kids are all off to college. And then they will probably pull a college Darlene and come home with 8 loads of laundry to do over the weekend but will be too busy to Actually do it and mom will. Because moms are awesome like that. 

2. My bedroom/closet. EVEN if by some miracle (or the day after the cleaning lady is here) the rest o the house is super clean, those two are almost always a disaster. We currently share a room with Soren, and the only time I can clean is when he's sleeping, and when he's sleeping he's in our room...see the problem? Haven't quite figured out a solution to that one yet so, basically always a disaster. 

3.We still have our Christmas tree up..it's January 18th.

4. Jasper informed me this morning that he has no clean socks. Thanks for the heads up dude. Luckily his feet are almost my size so he borrowed a pair of mine. So yeah, my shit is clearly not together. 

5. We had take out Friday, Saturday AND Sunday night.  This is partly Drew's fault. I cook (mostly) healthy all week so when the weekend rolls around, I'm over cooking. And I need to meal plan and grocery shop again, and when Drew's all "hey lets order Pizza" I can easily be convinced.

This list could go on and on. And I could show you my hair, which hasn't been washed in 3 or 4 days (can't even remember at this point) but all to say, my life isn't all together. And that's OKAY. I read a quote once that went something like "Don't compare how you feel inside to someone else's outside" and I feel like that applies here. Don't for a second think that because I happened to instagram 3 healthy meals in a row, or posted a picture of my clean child playing happily in a clean room that my shit is together. Because the day after those healthy home cooked meals we probably had pizza delivered and just because my living room looks nice and tidy doesn't meant my toilets have been scrubbed in 2016. 

Questions?

Haven't done one of these in a long time! If you have any questions about life, anything specific you want answered, leave your questions below and I'll do a separate Q & A Post. Feel free to ask anonymously- unless it's to leave comments about my weight (ouch) I don't mind at all! Or you can leave a comment about you want to see more/less of on the blog! 

Have a great Sunday! We are headed to Jaspers indoor soccer game and then watching the play offs- Go Broncos! 

And a picture because this post felt too bare without one! 

Anyone else feel like they always seem to get kicked when they are down? I guess thats life. 

Last week when we went to go fill a prescription we found out that apparently the insurance we have had for the past 4 years doesn't comply w Obamacare regulations. So they canceled it December 31st. Our insurance claims they sent a letter, but we never got it. So that's wonderful. $350 later for Jasper prescription and we thought we were good to go and would just quickly re enroll in a plan. Nope. That apparently can't happen till Feb. 1st. Woooonderful. 

Then I get staph infection. Again. I got it really bad my freshman year of college, so 11 years ago. But of COURSE it has decided to come back now during the month we aren't covered. I'm cringing at the thought of how much all of this is going to cost. And also hoping I don't wake up one of these mornings looking like I snorted a golf ball. Which is what happened in college. Freaked my room the f*** out. Myself as well. 

I'm just venting. And I'm tired. Because I'm Always tired. Because I haven't slept for more than 3-4 hours in a row in 10 months. And lets face is, I slept like shit my entire pregnancy as well so really we are going on 18 months without a good night sleep. It's starting to wear me down. Which is probably why the staph infection decided it was the perfect time to rear its ugly little head. 

But the rest of the family is healthy. And these are certainly minor problems compared to many. But sometimes it just feels good to vent. And write. 

Goals

I like to call them New Years Goals instead of resolutions. I'm not sure why really but I've always hated the term 'resolutions' seems to formal and binding. But goals is something I can obviously get on board with!

I have lots of personal and business related goals for the new year and honestly I'm Really excited it's 2016.

2015 was an amazing year, we did some fun traveling (North Carolina, Jackson Hole, Iowa) Jasper started 3rd grade (!!!!) and Tindra preschool, and most importantly, Soren joined our family. We had a lot of amazing things happen for our family! But we also had some difficult times. Some really really challenging times that I'm really happy to put behind us in 2015. So while 2015 was one of the best, it was also one of, if not the hardest. 

I think 2016 will bring a lot of growth and positive changes for our little family. It will most likely bring a move (to a bigger house!) which could lead to a change of schools for the kids. Which will be a huge change for especially Jasper.

Soren will turn one (hooooooow) and Tindra 4 (again hooooow) and Jasper 9. Doesn't seem possible that soon I'll have 1, 4 and 9 year olds! And I supposed now would be a good time to mention that I'll turn 30. I'm mostly excited about that! Mostly. Talk to me again in July. 

Back to the goals. 

Blog Goals: Blog more regularly, 2-3 times a week. I Love going back to see what we have been up and I want to be able to keep doing that for years to come! If not for blogging I would have forgotten about so  much of the things Jasper and I experienced! Just the little, special to just us things. 

Photography Goals: Grow my little business! Slowly, I don't have as much time to devote to it as I would like, but eventually! So slow growth works great for me. Also, start taking more pictures of my own kids. Not with my phone. I own THREE  expensive DSLR's and I rarely pick them up at home. That needs to change! I'm going to start a weekly project picking up my DSLR on the kiddos that I'll probably end up sharing here as well. Also- PRINT PICTURES. Enough said. 

Weight loss/health Goals: It's no secret the weight has been hard to lose this 3rd time around. It's gotten harder and harder with each pregnancy/child. Imagine that! PS thanks to the super sweet comment regarding how big I look in this post, that felt amazing to hear. So this year I'd love to do more than just lose some weight, I would LOVE to be the fittest/healthiest I've ever been by my 30th birthday at the end of July. Loft goal? Probably. But doable? I think so. I'll definitely be sharing more about that later!

Mom Goals: Simple. Be a better mother. My kids are Everything to me. And I want them growing up knowing that without a doubt. I want to be more present. Like keeping my phone plugged into the wall and actually getting down and playing every day. Sure I 'play'w with my kids every day. But it needs to be More. And without my phone next to me. 

And lastly, I need to learn to be a little bit selfish also. My kids come first and always have. Always. For the past 9 years now. And thats fine. And it Should be that way. But I think I need to put myself first sometimes too. Or at least not just last on the list. I've been feeling run down with life this past year. Always tired. Not eating healthy and just skipping meals because by the time I get everyone else fed, I'm too tired to even feed myself. The other day I had to stop the car and run around back to check and make sure I buckled Soren in because I literally could not even remember if I had strapped him into his car seat. If I hadn't heard him cooing back there I wouldn't have known for sure if he was back there because again, I couldn't remember getting him in. Thankfully he Was buckled in properly.  But I'm in such a fog sometimes trying to do it all for everyone else, that I end up failing a little bit at everything, and mostly failing myself. I think if I took just a tiny bit of time to myself once in a awhile, I would be a better mom and wife. So 2016, I'm going to start being a bit selfish. Besides a few photo shoots, I literally can't think of Anything I have done by myself/for myself in the past year. Not one. I'm sure theres got to be something, but I can't think of anything. But my children have a perfectly capable father, and I need to stat taking advantage of that. 

So here's to 2016! It's going to be a good one. 

 

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Was a great one! But SO incredibly busy.

We took a 10 day road trip to Iowa to celebrate with our families, and the kids had just the best time with their cousins/aunts and uncles and grand parents. As did Drew and I of course. We even managed to sneak off for TWO date nights! One was to finish up Christmas shopping so I'm not positive that counts, but when we leave the house so seldom together alone, we are counting it. 

Our kids were spoiled with THREE different Christmas celebrations, not to mention Santa making a special stop here on the 27th to drop off their big santa presents. I'm still digging our way out of our living room disaster and I'm pretty sure I'll be unpacking/organizing and doing laundry through half of January. If I'm lucky.

I had all these plans of wanting to meet up with different friends while back..guess if that happened. That's a nope. It just got too busy between spending the first couple days at a hotel down the street from Drew's parents house and then the week at my moms (45-50 min away) and finishing up shopping/seeing family that it just didn't happen. Next summer, friends!

New Years eve was super relaxing. We just lounged around, stuffed ourselves with all the carbs, blew up an air mattress and watched movies and then after letting the kids stay up till 9 they went to sleep easily and Drew's brother and SIL came over and we played games till just after midnight. Wild bunch over here!

I've got lots of hopes, dreams and goals for the new year I'll come back and share later. And of course I need to hear yours!

Until then, some Christmas in Iowa pictures!