End of the School Year

Last week was our last week of preschool for the school year, which ment my 5-year-old daycare boy graduated!  I made him a graduation hat, diploma, gave him a nice poem to hang on to, he said he's going to tape it up on his wall where his dog won't scratch it.  Cute kid.  We also had celebration cupcakes for the end of a successful school year.... which were of course a huge hit!

I'm very proud of their accomplishments this year.  Babydoll has another year before kindergarten and she already knows the names of every letter, and the sounds of all but 2 letters (U and Y are tricky)!!  Next year she'll be working on learning lowercase letters and blending letter sounds to start reading simple words!

We also did a flower petal project using roses that Spencer recently gave me.  They were getting wilty so instead of throwing them away we played with them.



Sorry there's no finished product picture, but you get the idea :o)

Wishful Wednesday

I wish and pray that everyone who has been hit by the recent tornados can get their lives put back together quickly, and comfort for those who lost loved ones.

I wish Sweet Pea was old enough to babysit her brother and sister... that would be awsome!  At what age can a responsible kid babysit siblings?? I know she's not there yet, but thinking ahead!

I wish it wasn't going to rain again this weekend.

I wish our lawn mower was fixed already... it was being worked on today though!

Your Turn!  What are you wishing for today?

Pregnancy: After Effects

Pregnancy lasts 9 months, or 10 months depending on how you count it, but after the baby is born and your body ceases to be a vessel for growing tiny humans - you'll find things are never quite the same again.

After effects of pregnancy, in my case:

Stretch marks, though they fade, they never go away.

When I buckle my seatbelt I still automatically place it as low on my abdomen as possible, under the imaginary baby bump.

My surgeon was AMAZING and my c-section scar is barely noticable, and it's only been two years.  But it does remain.

Throughout many collective months of "morning" sickness and gagging everytime I brushed my back teeth, I still have trouble with that.  When I brush right away in the morning I have to be careful where my tongue is or I gag, later in the morning or day I'm fine. Apparently morning sickness can remain long after babies are born?

After months of eating healthier, minimizing caffeine, not so much as a drop of alcohol touching my lips, once my babies were born and nursing allowed, I said goodbye to vitamins, and hello to my daily pot of coffee and my occasional beer/wine.  I probably eat the worst after I have my babies than I do at other times, because after months of my body belonging to the baby, I wanted it back!

That little mommy-pouch below the bellybutton, unless you are one of those tiny hundred-pound mommas, are incredibly difficult to get rid of... though I persevere.

I have at times been so convinced that intestinal rumblings were little baby kicks that I once took a pregnancy test to make sure.  Many gas bubbles feel like early-on baby kicks.

And then there's the whole - "there's a child in my house" part. 

As far as I'm concerned I'm done with the having babies thing, so maybe these things will go away eventually? (Except the whole "child in my house" thing... that takes at least 18 years).

I know there's more to add to this list, so what have you got?!

Dieting Secret for Women, Who Knew?

Last fall I started The Spike Diet and over the course of a little over 2 months I lost just about 20 pounds.  I gave myself some slack the week of Christmas because, lets face it, there are way too many goodies at Christmastime to be on a diet!  During that week of over-indulging I managed to not gain any weight, which I credit to the boost in metabolism that the diet gave me.  The problem came the next week though when I didn't start the diet back up.  Turns out taking a week off can make it hard to get back on... who'd a thunk it? 

I kept trying to get back into it, but lacked motivation, until recently.  I can't complain too much though since I lost almost 20 lb in 2 months and after about 4.5 months of not dieting at all I only gained back 10 lb. 

A week ago was my sister-in-law's bachelorette party, which we spent downtown club-hopping.  There was an insane number of bachelorette parties out there that night, at the first place we went I lost track after the 7th bride-to-be and their entourages!

Now let me tell you a valuable dieting secret: Nothing will get you back on your diet faster than dozens of skinny 22-ish year olds in slutty dresses strip-dancing on the dance floor.  That was it, summer nearly here, I have a wedding coming up that I want to look fabulous for, and I was getting back on the diet!

Here's what I did last week.  Increased my protein and fiber, drank more water, my dad brought over my parent's orbitrek that they didn't want anymore, and I ran on it every night but one.  My results when I weighed myself first thing the morning of my spike day: down 5 pounds!

So here's hoping I can lose the other 5 lb before the wedding, and then keep that number plummeting through the summer, my goal is still to reach the weight I was at before and shortly after I had Sweet Pea, which is just 13 lb away!

The Spike Diet website: http://spikediet.com/

Wishful Wednesday

Sweet Pea very recently figured out how to whistle. I wish this didn't irritate me so.

I wish I could remember things.

I wish Spencer wasn't diabetic.

I wish my whole family was healthy.

I wish for a successful surgery for a friend of ours today.

Your turn! What are you wishing for today?

Spencer's 30th Birthday

My old man husband just turned 30 last Friday.  I know, I'm not far behind him, but I have until January to still be in my 20's, and I'm going to soak it up for all it's worth!

Though his birthday was the 13th, I planned him a surprise party on the Saturday before, so he wouldn't see it coming.  I had been telling him that there was some bridesmaid thing that night - we were getting together to talk about some of the final details, get to know each other before the bachelorette party, and have some drinks and games at Dave & Busters (game place/bar).  Sort of believable but we still needed to get him there.  My soon-to-be brother in law called him up earlier that week and asked if Spence would come along with him because he was going to be sober-cab for us ladies that night, Spence of course agreed and we hired a "last minute" sitter (planned not so last-minute actually).  We got dressed up for "my" night out and Spencer's "glorified chaperoning" as he called it, and I drove us out to Dave & Busters.  I pulled into the parking lot and as we were walking up to the building he spotted his mom's truck (it's impossible to not recognize) and commented on it.  I told him, "well she is the mother of the bride and it is a wedding planning thing so she probably decided to come out too."  He bought it. 

As we got closer he noticed one of his friends, and then the rest of them, sitting out at a big group of tables in the outside dining area.  Big smile on his face and a little light hearted swearing - he was thrilled!

Lots of people came out for the surprise and dinner/drinks.  It was fun, and I felt so relieved to have it go off without a hitch!

After people were dispersing we went with some friends, his sister and soon-to-be-brother-in-law, to our friends' house and continued the party there until I finally was able to usher Spence into the car and drive him home. 

For his actual birthday last Friday we had dinner at Mongo's (mongolian bbq), played at Best Buy and got him a game, and came home to make some fun drinks. 

Here's the photo recap of the dinner part of his actual birthday... I was a moron and forgot my camera for the surprise one.

Heading out to Mongos

Little Man grabbed everyone's chopsticks and made an arrangement.

finishing off the sunday.

Dandilion Nose

We recently had a gloriously warm day outside and played in the baseball field across the street.  We also found some dandilions (or a million dandilions) in the yard on the walk back.  When we got inside, this is what happened.