Christmas Cookies!

Mila and Lydia

 I'm back from maternity leave but still making the most of my morning/early afternoon with my girls.  This morning we went to a friends house to bake and decorate Christmas cookies.  It was so much fun!  My two and a half year old Lydia and her friend Mila did pretty good decorating and did even better at eating cookies.  A big thank you to my friend Laura for having us over!
This is a really fun age.  Lydia just loves our Christmas tree and all the lights outside, she points them out whenever we are out driving.  Ahhh the joys of a child!

Rachel Pierce

Decorating cookies

Cutting out cookies

Where I've gone

Hi blog readers.  I have started a new venture that hopefully I will be more diligent about than blogging.  I started a professional Facebook page.  You can search for it under Amanda Krenz ABC5.  I try to post a couple of times a week.  It's a light-hearted behind the scenes look at ABC5.  I hope you'll give it a look and a 'like.'

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Amanda-Krenz-ABC5/491334360899548?ref=hl

Thanks to all of our loyal viewers and blog readers!

Amanda

Home for the Holidays

Coming to a business near you.  ABC5 has made this little holiday magazine full of gift ideas and recipes for some holiday fun.  If you or your business would like to receive one please let us know and we'll see what we can do.

Catching Up With Shawn Johnson and Partner Derek Hough

As many of you know Shawn Johnson is back on "Dancing With the Stars" for the first ever "All Stars" edition.  She was back in town for a few days and I was able to sit down for an interview with her and her dance partner Derek Hough.  We caught them while they were practicing for their next number for the show.  You can see my interview in my two part series that will air on Monday and Tuesday.  Find out why this season is so challenging and what Shawn thinks this time around plus a whole lot more.
Here's some pictures from my interview.

Rachel Pierce
rpierce@myabc5.com

Shawn signing some autographs for some troops serving in Afghanistan. 

rpierce@myabc5.com

What We've Been Up To

     I'm now seven weeks into my maternity leave, little Piper Leigh will be seven weeks old on Friday!  As the saying goes "time flies when you're having fun".  So what has our family been up to...lets see, road trips to see family in Mississippi and Wisconsin for a few weeks.  And we've kept up with all our other activies, gymnastics and story time at hte library for lydia, visits to parks, the zoo, Farmer's Market, ABC5, lots of runs in our new double stroller and we even went to the Ringling Brothers Circus when it was in town last weekend.   Piper has seen a lot in her young life, except she sleeps through most of it...now if we could only get her to seep through the night. 

   Adding a baby in mix has been double the work but double the joy.  She is one sweet baby, just like her big sister. 

I will see all of you when I come back around election time, goodness that is just a few weeks away!!!

Rachel Pierce

rpierce@myabc5.com

Josie and our Lydia sporting some light up cat ears at the Circus. 

Myself, Piper (in carrier) and Lydia at the Circus.  Lydia was sitting at the edge of her seat the entire time.  We all totally loved the Circus, they really put on one entertaining show!

Did the Color Run along with 27 thousand other people, what a blast!

Piper's toes.  These photos are a few from her photo session with His and Her Photography here in town.  They do AMAZING work!!!

Piper at work and Brad helped out by holding her, she really doesn't like to be in her carseat. 

Visiting work for a little photo shoot. 

Piper just a few weeks old on our trip up in Wisconsin. 

The girls come along with me on all my runs now.  They love it!

Lydia and her friend Josie at the Zoo.

Lydia at Gymnastics

Farmer's Market

Rachel makes a visit

To those of you who've had children may I ask a question?  What were you doing 12 days after your children were born?  Well take a look at my amazing co-anchor.  The newsroom was so happy to see Rachel and baby Piper so soon.  It's way better seeing mom and baby in person than in pictures.  They're both doing wonderful and enjoying their time at home together with big sister Lydia to help keep everybody on their toes :)

Rachel will be back on the air for a couple of weeks in November to help me get through elections and then she'll take her remaining time off.

If you have any well wishes for Rachel, I'm sure she'd love to hear from you.  And I'm fairly certain she keeps an eye on her work email. rpierce@myabc5.com.

-Amanda

 

BABY TIME!!!!

It is with great joy that I get to share the news of Rachel's baby announcement with all of you!  She had a little girl early this morning.  Piper Leigh Pierce arrived at 1:22 a.m. weighing 8 pounds, 14 ounces.  She's 20.5 inches long.

Mother, Father, Sister (Lydia), and Baby are all wonderful.

Rachel plans to take her full maternity leave but will be back for election time in November for a few days.  I'm sure she would welcome any well wishes you may have.  Her email is rpierce@myabc5.com.

Thanks for reading and watching!

Amanda

My first Crossfit Competition

Last Saturday I teamed up with three other people for a Crossfit Competition.  There were several teams of four competiting from Crossfit Primal (in Waukee) against several from Crossfit Ankeny.  It was an incredibly fun, exhausting day.  Crossfit Ankeny won the bragging rights with the best score overall.  I honestly don't know how my individual team finished.  All I know is that we *did finish and that is an accomplishement in itself.  My family came to cheer me on including my mom and dad which was great.  It was nice for me to show them what I've been working so hard at for two months.  Here are a few pictures from the competition.  We were team "Rainbow Bright."

Thanks for reading!
-Amanda

Nothing Compares to the Iowa State Fair

She's "mooing" in this picture.

 Our little family ventured out to the Iowa State Fair this morning.  It was surprisingly chilly but I will take a little chilly over nineties any day! We parked and went straight to the Animal Learning Center.  We knew seeing the baby animals would be a big hit with our daughter Lydia and it was.  Then we watched a Bengals Tiger Show right outside the Center.  That was really cool and it wasn't part of our plan we just happened to be at the right place at the right time. 
Lydia kept talking about seeing the butterflies so we went to the butterfly tent.  She screamed and cried because the flying little creatures scared her.  But we sat her down with Daddy and brought them to her, she liked that.
We continued on eating our way through the fair and checked out some of the livestock barns.  Lucky us there were a couple of calves to pet and feed!
Even though we only saw maybe ten percent of  what The Iowa State Fair has to offer it once again did not disappoint, its one of my favorite things to do all year!

Rachel Pierce
rpierce@myabc5.com

Lots of tears when we had to move on.

Lydia with her friend Mila.

New Nursery

Husband built this amazing tree shelf! He's so talented!

I did the tree painting and the chevron one, my mom did the super cute Owl painting.  I'm totally obsessed with owls!

You can't really see the mobile buts its birds on branches and its made of wood. The picture on the wall is just a piece of fabric I liked and I stretched it over a canvas.  I actually did it a few years ago.

Lydia likes to hang out in the new nursery and play with all of her old toys. 

The nursery is finally finished!  Its very different from the girly nursery we did for Lydia.  This one is all about bright colors.  My husband built the amazing tree shelf.  We got the chair at Homemakers, the rug from Anthropology and the crib rail cover from Etsy.  Everything else is pretty much stuff we already had around the house.  Plus the closet packed full of clothes is mostly Lydia's hand-me-downs (she'll never know the difference).  I guess all that's left is to have this little girl!

Rachel Pierce
rpierce@myabc5.com

Sargent Park

 My daughter and I braved the warm morning to meet friends to play at a newly opened park in East Des Moines.  Its called Sargent Park and its a natural playscape.  Lydia loved the tunnels, slide, hollowed out tree, climbing steps, rope bridge, water feature and sand box.  There's also a nice, smooth trail that runs behind it and my friends told me its great to bike or jog on.  We've been to the natural playscape at Jasper Park and this one is great too! I believe Sargent Park just opened about two weeks ago or less.  My only complaint and most summers this probably wouldn't be an issue, but there's really no shade except the sheltered picnic area. 

Rachel Pierce
rpierce@myabc5.com

Laura, Mila and Lydia checking out the huge tree.

Ashby Park

Even though its been ridiculously hot and I'm set to have baby number two any day now, my two year old daughter and I still enjoy the great outdoors.  We make a point most mornings to go somewhere.  Sometimes its the pool, a friends house, the zoo, the library or a park.  We met some friends out at Ashby Park in Des Moines this week.  I've never been there and what a gem!  It has two playgrounds and a splash pad.  We had so much fun.  Sure, the few hours we were there the temperatures when from seventy to ninety five but it was worth it.  We will totally be going back.  Aren't we lucky to have so many cool parks in the metro?!? 

Rachel Pierce
rpierce@myabc5.com

Crossfit

Apologies for slacking on our blog posts!  This is a way for Rachel and I to share a little of our personal lives with you guys.  For me, sometimes it's challenging to come up with topics that I think will interest you.  When I think of my life right, I have two main things that come to mind, 1. Kids 2. The gym.  In this post I'm going to tell you about my new gym that I'm totally obsessed with right now.  It's in Waukee and it's called Crossfit Primal.  Maybe some of you have heard of Crossfit before?

It's a lot more lifting than I've done before, and after 6 weeks I've never felt so strong.  I was so intimidated at first but the support of the coaches and fellow crossfitters has made a huge impact on my life.  Here's a photo of me from a couple of weeks ago.

Now before you get too impressed with the weight, notice they're only 10 pounds apiece with a 15 pound bar.  And see that gentleman in the background?  His name is Will.  He's a coach and he decided to come over and put 25 pounds weights on each end.  Gulp!  But he told me I could do it.  And I did... kind of.  It wasn't pretty but I lifted it a couple of times.  It's just one example of a time when I've been at this gym and I did something I didn't think I could.

I'd love to talk to anyone about it if they're interested.

As always, thanks for reading,

Amanda

4th of July

Daddy pulling Lydia in her wagon, heading to the parade.

The Pierce family decided to brave the scorching heat this morning and attend the Urbandale Parade.  What a sweet parade it was.  For our two year old she loved it all, the fire trucks, clowns, kids handing out candy and more.  I felt so bad for the folks dressed up in the animal costumes...that had to be brutal!  We were camped out in the street on blazing hot blacktop, at 9:30 it was already ninety plus degrees.  Thankfully Walgreens was right there so my husband bought a giant umbrella and lots of water!  It was worth it though too see our little girl so excited, although she cried when we left because she didn't want to leave.
Rachel Pierce

Picking up candy.

I don't know why she's yawning, she was squealing with excitement most of the parade.

rpierce@myabc5.com