Day 3

I'm about to fall asleep, but I need to make my list. I can't get lazy on the third day!
and I need to add to last night: a slice of carrot cake that was a leftover from the family christmas party. It was soooo good...and it's got carrots in it! Doesn't that make it a little healthy? ;)

*2 texas shaped waffles with sugar free syrup
*2 glasses of milk
*lg grilled chicken salad with spinach and light italian dressing
*6 fish sticks with tartar sauce
*lg side of green beans
*half size corn on cob
*2 bottles of water
*glass of sunny d
*strawberry and light cool whip parfait-that was so good! the kids didn't seem to think so though

didn't do any exercise today but i did well with the food. I didn't feel the need to snack all day and when I got something for Leslie at Sonic, I didn't get anything for myself. That right there is a major accomplishment!

zoo day!

Ok....today was a long day, but a fun one! I love going to the zoo and I love watching my kids get excited about seeing their favorite animals. Charlotte liked seeing the really big kitty, Leslie thought the white alligator was pretty neat, and Sophie liked watching us on the carousel. I ate more than I should have, but I did a lot of walking today so I think it might have made up for it.

*2 peanut sweet and salty bars
*2 diet pepsi
*2 glasses of sunny d
*ham/cheese/mayo sandwich on white bread
*handful of goldfish crackers
*about a dozen little vanilla cookies
*a yummy 6 inch meatball sub
*small bag of pretzels


that really doesn't seem like a whole lot when I look at it, but i'm full!
oh yeah, last night I need to add that I ate the last bit of some incredibly good chicken salad that my mom made for me. I don't know how much I weigh because the scale refuses to tell me so I don't have a starting point in that area to compare to later on, but i'll be able to tell by how my clothes fit if anything is working.

Here goes...

I better do this before I chicken out..
My new year's resolution is a bit of a cliche, but I need to lose some weight. One way that I plan on keeping up with this is by writing down everything thing that I eat each day. And to make sure that I keep up with this, I'm going to put in the blog. If I know that somebody somewhere is expecting me to keep up with it, then I will actually do it. So today I ate: ( in no particular order)
*a bowl maple brown sugar shredded wheat cereal with a small amount of milk
*a large grilled chicken salad with spinach and light italian dressing
*2 med glasses of Sunny D
*1/2 bottle of water
*3 Peanut Sweet and Salty bars
*3 long skinny pieces of thin crust cheese pizza
*handful of air popped popcorn
*and I will probably have a diet mountain dew before I go to bed, which I hope is soon.

Hopefully I will think to myself, If I eat something bad, then I have to let the whole world know, and that will deter me from doing it. I'll let myself have something yummy every now and then so I don't go completely insane. If anybody actually does read this, I would love some encouraging comments! That would make my day!

On to more fun things: Tomorrow we are going to the zoo in Houston. I love going there! I can remember when it only cost a couple of dollars to go there. I have more to say, but I have to go corral the kiddos. They are watching a movie and Charlotte is feeling the need to be louder and more entertaining than the movie.

It's beginning to look a lot like christmas!

I finally have all the christmas lights up! I put up more lights this year than I ever have before. I love how trees look when they are wrapped in white lights and I finally got around to doing that. We have three trees in our front yard and they are all lit up now. I can't wait to go around and look at everybody else's lights. That's one of my favorite things to do around this time. My other favorite thing to do is to go to the tree farm to cut down our christmas tree. We are doing that tomorrow morning. There is a place called millhollow tree farm about 10 mins from our house that has about a bazillion trees to cut and some neat things for the kids to do. Leslie's friend Will is spending the night and helping us decorate the tree. And then we are going to bake gingerbread cookies and load them up with icing. We'll make Martha Steward proud!
Other random news around the house:
Leslie lost her first tooth a couple of days ago! And there is a second one about to fall out any day now. Charlotte can almost count to 20. She leaves out a couple of numbers and usually has to be prompted to do it. Also, when she counts, she feels the need to go stand in the corner to do it. Leslie likes to play hide and go seek and Charlotte hears us say go count and we head to the corner to do it. So she counts good, but it's usually with her face in the corner and it's followed by here I come! Also she can now tell us what Santa says. She says ho ho ho ho ho. Before when we would ask her, she would say Mooooooo! We will be going to see Santa sometime in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully she'll be excited to see him. Last year she was not a big fan of him. I'm not sure what Sophie will think. Tonight we went to the christmas parade in town and all of the kids had a blast. Leslie got to ride on the first float with my mom with the american legion ladies auxillory. They were going much faster than normal floats and I turned around to get Sophie closer and completely missed them. Charlotte enjoyed waving at all the people and seeing all the lit up floats. And I thought Sophie might be a little scared when the fire trucks and police cars came by with the loud sirens, but she thought those were hilarious! And a little while later she fell asleep with all the noise going on around her.
I also found out recently that my brother is going to be able to join us for christmas. We didn't really grow up together and I don't have any memory of a christmas that my brother, sister and I spent together. So this will be a first for me and everyone, especially my mom is ecstatic about him being able to drive down. He'll be able to stay about 5 days and might get a chance to make an appearance at the big family party the weekend after christmas. That is when we get together with all the aunts and uncles and cousins on my dad's side of the family. I look forward to that party all year long. I love having a big family and wish we could get everybody together more often.

The pillow is calling my name. Gotta get some sleep before the baby wakes up!!

My life is a three ring circus!

My weekend started with being close enough to Dr. Rey to touch him and ended with going to the emergency room for food poisoning sunday evening. I think it turned out that I just ate some bad mexican food because I felt better once I got the hospital and ended up leaving before I saw the dr. The Great Day Houston show was a fun experience. I thought I was going to be very late getting there, but I made it right on time. I missed the parking lot and had to park on the backside of the station which meant I was going to have to walk a ways to get to the right place. I ended up meeting up with a couple of other ladies that were in the same predicament and we found a way to sneak in the back fence and make our walk much shorter. Once we had gotten in line, one of the ladies thanked me for helping find us the shortcut. She said she had asked God to find her the right way and then I came along and helped her. It's not everyday I get told that I was God's answer to somebody's prayer. Later that day I had to drive home with a screaming two year old in the back seat and I was asking God for a partition between the front and back seats but it didn't happen. Back to the show....it was neat, but there was a lot of go,go,go and then waiting going on. I ended up sitting on the far end of the second row and that's how I got to be close enough to touch Dr. Rey. I refrained from doing so because I didn't want to get escorted from the studio. He was just like he is on the show....very smiley and likes to talk about boobies.
Other events this weekend were two of my daughters' birthdays. Charlotte turned 2 on Sunday and Leslie turned 7 on Monday. I spent a lot of time feeling old those two days. It just blows me away how big and smart those girls are getting! Leslie will be taller than me in no time. And little Sophie is already sitting up and doing some army crawling. She'll be able to outrun me soon! If she would just sleep through the night again, I could keep up with all of them at once instead of losing steam at noon everyday!

November is finally here!

October and November are my favorite months out of the year. I think the weather plays a big part in this. Today really looks like November outside. I noticed how the leaves are actually turning color before christmas this year! And the tiny cold front came through and it feels perfect out there. I would take the kids for a walk but not sure if it's going to rain anymore.
Tomorrow i'm doing something absolutely great! At least I think it is. My husband thinks i'm a little looney for doing it. I'm going to go be in the audience for the Great Day Houston show. I am excited about doing this because somebody from one of my favorite tv shows is going to be on there. It is Dr. Rey from Dr. 90210. I don't know why I love that show, but he is a hoot on there! I can't wait to see him in person. He is somebody that I would never come across in everyday life because A: I don't live in Beverly Hills and B: I won't be getting any kind of plastic surgery anytime soon. Also Joan Lunden is going to be on the show. I think she used to be on Good Morning America, but i'm not sure. I'm more of a Today Show person. I have to get my Matt Lauer fix at least a couple of times a week.
Well i'm off to go do some exciting housecleaning that is overdue! If I call it exciting, then it will be! The dishes got put at the bottom of the list due to the enormous spider I found in the sink yesterday! Wish me luck!

The Best Place In Town To Drop Your Pants....

is what is on the sign at a local dry cleaners. They come up with some great stuff, but this was one of the best!
I'm currently waiting for some software to download and thought I would jot something down on here. I'm having some issues with my Zune. I have had it for almost two years and it seems to have only worked for the first 6 months. I'm updating the software now to see if that will have any affect on it. But after I give up on it tonight, which will be in about 30 mins, then it's time to watch Desperate Housewives!! I am not as impressed by this season so far since they made it advance 5 years in the future, but maybe it will grow on me. I haven't had a whole lot of time to watch normal tv since school started. I'm pretty well kept up on Sesame Street and ICarly though. If it weren't for DVRs I would never catch any shows. I am a huge fan of Saturday Night Live. I have really been trying to keep up with politics better this time around and shows like that help make it a little more enjoyable to watch. And they explain some of the issues in more common folk terms so that I can understand what the heck is going on! I am also a big reality tv junkie! How did I make it through the summer without Dr. 90210 and Girls Next Door? And who can forget all the shows on TLC that make me glad I only have 3 children and that none of them are identical!!
This is my favorite time of year....I love halloween and how the weather starts to get perfect so that I don't melt when I go outside. This week we will probably be going to take our yearly pictures in the pumpkin patch at one of the churches in town. The kids all ended up with some sort of shirt that has a black cat on it so that will be their theme this year. Sophie's costume will be a black cat, Charlotte is going to be Pebbles, and Leslie is undecided at the moment.
It just finished downloading....i'm going to see if I will be pulling my hair out again or cheering!!

Here it is.

Well the storm has come and gone and left us with no power for about 5 days. I am very grateful to my friend, Geannie, who let me and the girls come stay with her since her power came back on saturday evening. It was a little tight with a total of 6 kids and three adults in the same house, but it all worked out. My husband stayed and toughed it out here with his friend from Beaumont. My heart goes out to the families that are still waiting for power and water at their homes. Leslie is anxious to get back to school and hopefully they will go back on monday. I would write more on here and more often, but by the time I get to sit down at the end of the day, I just feel exhausted though I really couldn't tell you anything significant that I have done today. But I do have a rather clean house and some of my fall/halloween decorations up now, so I guess I was a little productive. I'll try to be more interesting next time.

Home At Last!!

Well after almost a week away, I'm finally back home safe and sound. We were going to be gone two days longer, but Gustav made us decide to come home a little early. There wasn't much traffic and only a little rain and we made it back in one day! I really thought driving for that many hours with two kids under the age of two would make my hair gray but they were very well behaved in the car. We had a good time while we were in Alabama. I got to see a lot of family that I haven't seen in ages and a lot of pretty scenery. Our reason for driving up there was to go to my niece's wedding up in Tennessee. She was a beautiful bride and looked very happy. By the time the reception was over, we were having trouble getting my daughter off of the dance floor. She was a little shy about getting over there at first, but once she started shaking that booty, she was no longer worried about the rest of us. I'm trying to figure out how to put the video of her dancing on my myspace page.

I did something wonderful yesterday! I got on the treadmill! A friend of mine gave me one a while back and I finally got around to using it. I also have decided to join the free pilates class that they are offering at one of the gyms in town. I think I have finally come to terms with the fact that my clothes aren't fitting that well anymore and I don't think walmart carries any larger sizes...so I have to do something about it.

First Day of School

Yesterday was my daughter's first day of first grade! I am starting to feel a little old. It seemed like just yesterday she was geeking out over Elmo and here it is already time for first grade. I did good and didn't cry when she left for school. Mainly because the other two who are still at home were either crying or drooling on me. I couldn't be prouder of her. She amazes me with the vocabulary that she has picked up and she really seems to love school. I think most kids do at that age though. I enjoyed it, until jr high came along. High school was a little better.

Today, I get to busy myself with packing for my trip this week. I am driving to Alabama with my mom and the two babies. Sounds a little crazy, but I'm going to make it work. We are heading over there for a family wedding that is actually in TN but we will be staying in the northern part of AL near some more family. I'm excited because these days I really don't get out of the house for more than a trip to the grocery store and that is almost never by myself. Even though this won't be by myself, it will be a nice change of scenery. And I get to see my brother also. I get to see him about twice a year now which is a lot more than when I was younger. He's living in Colorado now. I wouldn't mind going up there to visit. I'm all about cold weather. so sometime in the middle of January would suit me just fine.

I'm thinking about taking up a project that will give me a good reason to get out of the house. My daughter's daisy girl scout troop needs a co-leader and I have quite a bit of girl scout experience so I think I would enjoy that. And that would let Leslie have a little bit more mom time without the the littles.(that's my name for charlotte and sophie) And Leslie will be able to sell chocolate/nuts this fall and cookies in the spring. Expect order forms to be coming your way!

Gonna go see about getting a little bit more sleep. I'm having issues with that lately.

Halloween came early at our house!

Why do spiders feel the need to come inside of people's houses?? Aren't they perfectly content to stay outside and live underneath the back porch or in a barn? And why do the have to be more than a centimeter wide? (legs included!) Yesterday, I happen to be doing some laundry and that involved picking up dirty clothes off of the bathroom floor, when I saw a HUGE spider inches from where I was standing. You have never seen this big girl move so fast. I couldn't get out of their quick enough. Amazingly enough, I felt the need to keep holding on to the clothes I had just picked up from on top the spider. My 6 yr old daughter heard me scream, which makes her scream just because! She helped me gather up some shoes and we started the attack on the spider. Then Charlotte, who is 1 1/2 comes and stands by us to watch. Her contribution to this is to scream when we scream. She thought we were just playing some game that consisted of throwing a shoe in the bathroom and screaming. Leslie was the brave one that would go back into the bathroom and get the shoes back so we could throw them again. This went on for almost 15 minutes. We finally managed to corner the spider and splat it. And there it stayed until my husband came home. Leslie said next time we should just put a plastic bowl on top of it until Daddy comes home. This one was so big that it probably could have drug the plastic bowl around with it.
Today, Charlotte followed me into the bathroom and while I was facing the mirror, I heard a thunk and then she screamed. I turned around just in time to see her pick up a shoe, throw it at the wall and scream!

What a laugh!

Today, my baby Sophie let out her first big belly laugh. She was cracking up at something silly that the other girls were doing and just let it all out. It was one of the most beautiful sounds in the world! I called my mom to share that moment with her because I would never be able to get her to do it again on command. I don't remember the other two laughing like that at 4 months. It was a contagious laugh too. You couldn't help but start laughing with her. That is one of those happy moments that i'm going to remember for a long time.

I accomplished something!

I wanted to start this blog on a positive note by announcing that I have finally finished painting my bathroom. And when i say finished, I really mean almost finished. I just need to paint the trim. But that I can do later and it's not that noticeable at the moment anyway. The bathroom is a lovely blue and one day will have pure white trim. And I finally got to put up my chrome fixtures that have been living under the sink also. I am quite proud of myself for this. I didn't do it all by myself though, Leslie helped. I'm not a big fan of having to stand on the counter to paint up high, but she was more than willing to do this.

I'm new at this blog thing, so forgive me if I seem a little scatterbrained with my thoughts at first. I'll learn to organize them a little better eventually.