2013 - Week 2

Week 2 of 2013, and we had a fairly low key week, mainly consisting of another (hopefully final) round of potty training with Amelia.

Monday was the big day. Officially back on track with my diet. I swore, and promised I would get myself back on track after Olivia’s birthday party (pretty much the same time I did last year). No more holiday’s, no more parties, no more EXCUSES! So, here we go! Also, I discovered a new radio station today…Love 105. They play music from the 80’s through today. The best part is they ACTUALLY play A LOT of music from the 80’s and 90’s and I can’t get enough of it. I know, not especially newsworth, but when you sit in a cubicle all day long, you NEED some good music to get you through the day! Once ready for bed, the girls confiscated a bag of chips and the iPad and hid out in their room watching some videos for a while. I love sights like this...

On Tuesday I reached a HUGE goal. It probably sounds silly to most people, but as of today I have officially logged into MyFitnessPal for 365 days in a row! No, I haven’t logged everyday, but I’ve made a conscious point of getting online, logging on, keeping up with my friends, checking the message boards, etc. every single day for the last year. Making it a point to keep my goals, and my mission in the forefront of my mind every day. It felt amazing reaching that goal. Christian and I were also able to go to a screening of “Gangster Squad” tonight as well, which was great. It felt so good to get out of the house for a while, just the two of us, and the movie was actually really good too. Lots of action, some comedy, some great eye candy in Ryan Gosseling, and a good story line. A tad too much violence for me, but all in all, I’m glad we were able to see it.

On Wednesday, we started round 3 of potty training with Amelia. My mother in law got her to wear underwear and use the potty on Monday, and yesterday at school she kept telling Miss Eva she “wants to wear underwears like sissy”, so, we’re giving it a shot. I sent her off to school today with a few extra pairs of pants and underwear, and kept my fingers crossed. When I picked her up, she’d had two accidents, and held it the rest of the day. Not great. I did receive some exciting news from the director though. Olivia is ready for Pre-Kindergarten full time, but they don’t have space for her right now. This summer, she’ll be moving up though. AND, apparently they think Amelia is ready for Preschool. She’ll be moving up to the Preschool room in March. CRAZY!!!! I’m excited for them, but it does mean they’ll be in the same room for a couple months. I warned the school that may not work out too well, but it’s worth a shot. We’ll see how it goes! And, finally, tonight we discovered the one thing on the planet that will make Amelia sit down for more than 30 seconds. Apparently, she LOVES “The Lorax”. We put it on tonight and she sat on the couch, watching the entire thing! I have a feeling there will be A LOT of Lorax in our lives in the coming days/weeks! While she did that, Olivia played with some link toys she got in a happy meal - she was super proud of a little bike she designed. It's a warm feeling to watch your kids have so much pride in themselves. At the end of the day, we never did get Amelia to use the potty, not the best start….but we’re not giving up!

Thursday and Friday we’re too successful in the Potty Training department either, and the weekend we weren’t very consistent with it. So, next week we’ll have to push it a little more.

I started off Friday with a weigh in. Down 1.4lbs. Not the big, motivational first week I was hoping for, but it’s a loss! So, to date, I’m down 31.4lbs. Friday I had to work, but I took a long lunch and my mom and I took the girls to the clinic. Olivia was due for her 4 year appointment, and both girls were due for their dentist check-ups. I wasn’t very excited about going to the clinic with all of the flu stuff going around, but I didn’t want to reschedule anything. Of course, Olivia’s doctor was running SUPER late, so I had to send Amelia up to her dentist appointment with my mom (thank God they’re in the same building). I finally got Olivia in and rushed the doctor through the appointment. She was 35lbs (50%), up 3 pounds this year, and she was 40.5” tall (67%), growing 2.25” this year. She didn’t need any shots, she passed her eye exam and everything checked out great. We didn’t have time for her to do her auditory test, but she passed it a few months ago at her kindergarten screening, so I’m not worried. After her appointment, we rushed up to her dentist appointment. Both of the girls did great at their appointments. They opened wide, cooperated like little angels and their teeth are looking great. They both got a toothbrush, some toothpaste, some flossers and a prize! Quite a haul, and a successful, but stressful visit to the clinic. After work, I met Christian over at my mom’s and we were finally able to celebrate a late Christmas. The girls were spoiled once again with tons of toys and some new clothes. Lucky girls!!! Of course, with the chaos of the day, I completely forgot our camera though. Ugh. After presents, my mom took us all over to Applebee’s for dinner. Always delicious, and we had a chance to chat and hang out for a while. Finally, we made our way home and started our weekend. What a long day! Olivia asked to watch "Brave" tonight, so she gathered up her Merida doll and we watched it while relaxing before bed...

Saturday we were off to Sesame Street Live. We ended up getting tickets to the 10:30AM show – early, but it worked out well. We took off right after breakfast, and got there early enough to enjoy the play area and have some fun before the show. I wasn’t sure how the girls would do – while they know who the main Sesame Street characters are, they don’t really watch it. And, Amelia is such a busy body, I didn’t know what to expect. They ended up doing great though. They sat in their chairs and watched the whole thing like champs! They were captivated by the whole thing. Olivia was upset that we wouldn’t buy her anything, but I wasn’t going to turn our free event into an ultra spendy one! They were definitely ready for naps by the time we got home, and we spent the rest of the night relaxing around the house. Games, coloring, movies. Lots of family time. Once the girls were in bed, Christian headed out to hang out with a friend for a bit, while I snuggled into bed and watched some shows (still trying to get through “Secret Life of the American Teenager”). The rest as much needed – my back was starting to bother me. I could tell it was going to be bad. It felt like I had pinched something like a few months ago.

Sunday was a very busy day around the house for me. Christian spent most of the day taking care of the girls and keeping them busy. For some reason, Amelia was obsessed with the Mega Blocks today. It's so weird that they can see something every single day, and not even touch it, them suddenly become obsessed with it. I cleaned pretty much ALL day – getting everything back in its place, laundry, dishes, sweeping and picking up all over the house. I even managed to put together our menu for the week and run to the grocery store. By the time I settled into bed, my back was seriously killing me. Looks like I’m in for a few days of pain and suffering. Not the best way to end a week…

2013 - Week 1

Week 1 of 2013 is down. And, it was definitely a pretty exciting week!

It didn’t start off so great. I weighed in to start off the new year, and I officially gained back 10 lbs. So, I end 2012 with a 30 pound loss. While it is frustrating, I’ll take that success and move forward! I’m still hoping to make my goal by this summer, but it’s going to take a lot of hard work. I joined a weight loss group started by a friend from high school. We weighed in today, and our final weigh in will be April 1^st. Hopefully that will motivate me!

On Tuesday, we celebrated Olivia’s 4^th birthday! OMG, it’s so crazy to believe that she’s 4 years old already. It literally feels like just yesterday we became parents, now we have a 4 year old! She had a wonderful day at school, celebrating with her friends. She brought some treats to share, they made her a little crown and she loved it. Today was also her teacher’s last day, which isn’t the best birthday present ever. BUT, she handled it well. After school, her BFF Bella stopped over to bring her a present and wish her a happy birthday. That was an exciting surprise! We had tacos and rice for dinner at the birthday girl’s request, opened presents and had cheesecake for dessert. What a wonderful day!

Thursday was pretty exciting – I won some tickets to see Sesame Street Live next weekend! Two years in a row – what a streak! We also spent the evening playing “Hungry, Hungry Hippos”, which turned out to be one of the best evenings I’ve had in a LONG time. We played game after game, laughing uncontrollably the entire time. Olivia thought it was hilarious, no matter how many times we played. Amelia was simply obsessed with getting the “yellow ball”, and stole it from whoever actually did end up with it. Christian benefited from a slight lean in the coffee table, and won every single game. It was beyond fun, definitely one of the best investments we’ve made!

I ended up staying home with the girls on Friday because my mom wasn’t feeling well. Very unexpected, but ended up being a great thing. The girls spent the morning playing and running around the house, eventually confiscating the iPad and watching videos in the room, behind the glider for a while. I took down the Christmas tree, rearranged the living room furniture and started gathering up all of the Christmas décor. While it’s great to get the house back in order and get that space back, I HATE taking down the Christmas stuff. It’s all so bright, colorful and cheerful. Everything seems to dull when it goes away.  Sigh. I brought up one of our media storage shelves for the girls’ movies, and made some space for their games so we’ll be sure to play them more often while they took a nap (and, finally sat down for a little R&R!). When Christian got home from work, I was off to do a little shopping for Olivia’s birthday party tomorrow!

Saturday was the big day. Birthday party day!!! Christian had to work in the morning, so I had a VERY busy morning. Breakfast, baths, playing and keeping the girls busy before getting them down for an early nap. Then I showered and got myself ready before Christian arrived home to do the same. I ran to pick up the birthday cake, put together a sandwich platter and packed up all of the food and drinks. The girls were up and we were all off! Her birthday party this year was at Edinborough Park in Edina. It’s a huge indoor playground, along with an open gym. We had tons of family and friends join us and everybody had a blast. It was such a great time, and Olivia was spoiled rotten! We hung out until the last possible minute, and then made our way home to watch the Vikings/Packers playoff game. Our poor Vikings did not have a good showing. They’re officially out for the year. So, until next year!

Christian was on Dad duty all day Sunday, while I spent the day cleaning. I picked up the disaster that was our basement, washed dishes, did laundry…the usual. I was beyond exhausted by bedtime, capping off a very fun, very busy week!

BLOGGING UPDATE

So, as anybody who actually reads this blog knows, I kind of suck at actually keeping up with it. I take pictures, I write notes for myself to expand on later, but no matter what I do, I fall behind, time and time again. I've "threatened" from time to time to take a step back from my blog. And, I believe I'm finally going to follow through with that threat this year. I have posted "daily" for 3 years now, and while I love doing it, the thought of keeping up with it gets overwhelming. So, I'm going to try out a weekly post, vs. daily, for a while to see how that goes. Posting pictures from the week, highlighting the bigger events and activities of our lives.

I do believe we have a big year ahead of us, and definitely some life I'll want to share with the world, but I don't think the world needs to know that we had a relaxing night at home, or that I was exhausted and went to bed early anymore :)

One thing that drives me nuts about blogging is that you don't really know who's out there - who cares, who's reading, who really wants to be involved in your life. So, that's just an added reason to take a step back. Not knowing who, if anybody, I'm even writing for, I figure I might as well save myself a little time (and those few readers while I'm at it!)

So, here's to 2013 (again) and a little bit of a new look to the blog. Here we go!

12/31/12

Well, it's here! The last day of 2012. Another year down, and another year in store. I'm actually really excited for this new year. If all goes as planned, we'll be paying off the final piece of debt we have with our tax return in the next month or so, I hope to reach my goal weight by the summer, and, we just may expand our family in the next year. I'm getting really excited, and I'm hoping all of our hard work of planning, and budgets, and sticking to those plans and budgets will finally be paying off. Fingers crossed, hopefully nothing changes!

This morning I was off to work. One good thing about working on a day like today is the extreme lack of traffic. It's heaven! Our parking lot was empty and the building was quiet. I had a ton of stuff to do from all of my time off the past couple weeks, so the day flew by. I did leave a tad early as well, getting ready to celebrate New Years Eve tonight. I stopped home to start some BBQ meatballs in the crockpot, and ran a few quick errands. I packed up a bag and all of our goodies for the night, made a dip and as soon as Christian got home with the girls, we were off to a friends house to celebrate with them and Olivia's BFF.

We spent the night eating a ton of food, playing a few games, watching the girls dance their butts off, drinking some champagne and having lots and lots of laughs. It was a wonderful night. Just my kind of New Years Eve now! And, yes, the girls made it to midnight. They were still running around and having a grand time. Hopefully that means they'll be sleeping in tomorrow! One can dream, right?!?

So, here's to saying goodbye to 2012. There were a few bumps along the road, but overall, it was a pretty great year. We've had vacations, we've met new friends. The girls started school and have changed and grown more than you could even imagine. Christian and I are actually doing pretty great, and I think are stronger for the issues we've overcome this year. We've had some friendships end, some change in one way or another, some grow stronger, and even reconnected with a few. We've both grown and advanced in our jobs at work, we're doing better financially than we have in our entire marriage, and I feel like we've grown leaps and bounds as a family. The girls are growing into their own persons - developing the most amazing (and basically opposite) personalities and are growing WAY too fast. We have so much to look forward to, and we're SO ready to embrace our future and move forward. BRING ON 2013!

12/30/12

Today was a pretty relaxing Sunday. We spent the morning hanging out around the house. I eventually took Amelia off to do a little grocery/weekly shopping. I managed to order Olivia's birthday cake (Hello Kitty, by demand) while we were out, so YAY!

The girls went down for a nap as soon as we got home. Christian and I had some Subway and watched some football together. The girls woke up in time for the big Vikings season finale. They played the Packers tonight (our big rival), and HAD to win to get into the playoffs. It was a super exciting, nervewracking day, but they actually pulled it off. They WON!! So exciting. They have their first playoff game next week. They actually play the Packers again. I think it's going to be a tough game - so I'm a little nervous for them. Fingers crossed!!!

We spent the rest of the night playing with new toys and putting stuff away. I did laundry throughout the day and that pretty much wrapped up our weekend. Back to work tomorrow, and then it's time to ring in a new year! Hard to believe, 2012 is basically over. These years just go faster and faster.

Amelia got herself all dressed up in Christian's work sweater. She thought it was hilarious!