Wednesday, October 14, 2009

I'm Falling for Fall!

After all the craziness that goes on around here, I feel like I should put a sign that reads, " XX days since the last accident on the job." Similar to signs found in stockrooms at businesses. Not too much stuff has gone on in the last month, but enough that the sign would have a low number of days. The things that I can think of right off of the top of my head are: Charlotte lost the ball to our computer mouse and for a couple of days we were having to stick our fingers inside the mouse to move the little wheels around if we wanted to do anything on the computer; Sophie got stuck in a different chair, but this time she slid right out; and the thing that was most heart wrenching was that a shelf that had about 30 of my coke bottles on it came crashing down and made the kitchen unusable for a short while. Luckily all the kids and I were outside when it happened, but Michael happened to be near when it happened and got a small scratch on his leg. If you have ever seen my coke bottle collection or heard me gush on and on about it, then you know it's a pretty large collection. I had about 75 of the small 8oz coke bottles with different designs on them. I also had some larger ones that had come from different countries. The one that I am most proud of was one that I got in the Czech Repulic. I loved that one because I went there and got it myself instead of somebody bringing it to me. It did survive, but it had a paper label instead of one that was printed on the glass and it got a little dirty. I also had a pretty good shot glass collection that didn't make it. The glass on those are so thin that they just shattered. The floor was so sticky and so full of glass. It was a couple of days before we deemed it completely cleaned. Even now though, we will find a piece of glass that was hidden in a corner somewhere. On to happier thoughts! How about this weather??? Last weekend was so great! Tues-Thu of this week aren't much to talk about, but when we wake up Friday, the temps will be worthy of finally calling them fall weather. I don't know if the reason I love fall so much is because of the weather or because my birthday is in the fall. I think I get more excited for Halloween and Thanksgiving almost more than Christmas! Since my birthday is right around Thanksgiving, we don't usually do much for it. Which I'm cool with. Now that I have passed up 30, I don't feel the need to keep up with the number anymore. This year though, there is something awesome happening on my bday in Houston! Monday Night Football! I really enjoy football and I have a lot of faith in the Texans even though they have let me down a time or two. I don't know if anybody knows this or not, but I worked at Reliant Stadium for a short while during football and rodeo season selling beer at a stand. I loved that job, but it was so far to drive. I met all kinds of interesting people and had a lot of fun doing it. My stand was on the visiting team's side of the stadium. Since that was the side that was usually winning that year, I had a lot of happy people around me. Anyway, other choices for birthday fun are going to see Tracy Morgan, a comic that was on Saturday Night Live for a while. He'll be in Houston the weekend after thanksgiving. He is hilarious! He is now on one of my favorite shows, 30 Rock. I would also love to go see Train, a band that I really like, and they are playing the night before my bday. Also the weekend before my birthday, Leslie and I will be going camping with her girl scout troop. I'm really looking forward to that and Leslie is kind of looking forward to it. I haven't beeen camping in a very long time. Not since before Leslie was born. I can't wait! So November seems like it might be a little busy. I sure hope so anyway! I love to be out and about. And sometimes I even get to take Michael with me. It's so hard to find a babysitter that we often just go do something by ourselves and then come back and tell the other one about it. We have even gone to see the same movie, but separately. I know we'll eventually get around to getting out of the house together, we just have to hang in there!! I didn't realize that it was already 10:45! Time to hit the bed!! Goodnight!

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Oops, there went August!



Wow. I didn't mean to go a whole month and not post anything. It just sort of happened that way. I get caught up in who knows what and the time gets away from me. August wasn't that exciting except for three events that all happened in the span of 8 days. The first event was that Sophie got her head stuck in one of our dining room chairs. I was only standing two feet away from her, but wasn't facing her so I didn't see exactly how it happened. But to make a long story much shorter, I ended up having to call 911 and the New Waverly Fire Dept and some paramedics came out to help her. They ended up having to use the jaws of life to cut the chair to get her out. I wanted to ask if they could cut all of our chairs so they would match. And so that this wouldn't happen again. I'm guessing all of this wasn't as traumatic as I thought it would be for Sophie because she was back up in the chair again that evening. A few days later, Leslie had a friend over and while they were outside, they decided to see if they could throw rocks over the house. Leslie doesn't have the best aim and one of her rocks made it through a window in the front of the house. I wasn't real happy about this, but it was an accident, so she only had to endure a weekend with no tv or computer. The third event was a happy one. Leslie started second grade! I can't imagine where the time went. I remember taking her picture the morning that she was leaving to go to PreK. She seemed so big then, but now looking at the pictures, she was tiny! She's so tall now. The dr estimates her being about 5'10" when she's done growing. And the same for Sophie. He said Charlotte is going to be the short one, but still taller than me. Other good things going on around here....my brother came back through town for about a week. We had a family get together last weekend so everybody could get a chance to see him before he heads out to his next job in Trinidad, which is a country off the coast of Venezuela. He'll be there until sometime in December, I think. I love going to our family parties. I have an awesome extended family. I feel very blessed to have so many aunts/uncles/cousins. Especially ones that are fun to be around. Also, I started selling Avon products. I absolutely love everything that Avon has and I figured why not start trying to earn a little bit of money from that. It's not going to get me rich by any means, but it's fun to do. The real way to make money with Avon is to recruit new representatives, but my main concern was trying to find people to sell to first. Then we'll figure out how to get more people involved. One more thing good that I can think of that happened last month was that we got a dog. I never really have been a dog person, but I couldn't resist this one. Somebody had rescued her from somewhere, but wasn't able to keep her. They put an add on the Montgomery County Freecycle website and that's where I found her. She's probably about 6 months old now. She's part dachshund and collie and she's just beautiful. That's all I can think of to catch everybody up on the latest around here. Good night and Big balls. (we watch a lot of Wipeout)

Saturday, July 25, 2009


I made it back from Denver in one piece. About a month ago. It was awesome! The most amazing thing we did was go all the way up to the top of Pike's Peak. Once we got up there, I got kind of woozy and spent most of my time sitting inside the gift shop. I posted the picture of my brother and mom sitting at the photo op place on the summit. I was not satisfied with any of the pictures that were taken of me so don't expect to see any of them anytime soon. Anyway, while we were in Denver, we went to the Molly Brown museum. That is a place that I didn't know existed, but i'm glad I went. I didn't know much about her except that she was a survivor from the Titanic. Now that I have heard about her life and seen her nifty house, I would like to see the movie about her. We were told that the movie did change quite a bit of things about her, including the fact that her name was actually Margaret. They called her Molly in the movie because it was easier to sing. After all of our fun in Colorado, my mom, my brother and I drove back down here. That is the longest I have been away from my kids and I missed them so much! I'm missing them right now actually. Leslie and Charlotte went to spend a few days with Grandpa and Grandma and it has been so quiet here. Sophie is enjoying getting to be an only child for a few days. Here's something else I did that I haven't done in ages! I read a book on Thursday. I haven't had time to do that in so long. I would rather read than watch tv, but I happen to be in high demand these days, it gets put on the back burner. I think i'm going to go read some more now. Ciao!

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Go me!

Big News! I'm getting to go to Denver in a couple of days! My mom and I are flying up there to see my brother. He was already planning on driving down here later in the week so we will just ride back down here with him. I'm so excited. I don't get to see him very often and I have never been to Colorado before. And I haven't been on a plane since the summer of 2002. I'm not a huge fan of flying, but i'll work around that. After we get there, my brother is going to meet us there and we'll stay in Denver until the next day. At some point while we are there, we are going to Colorado Springs and going to see Pike's Peak. I watched some videos about it and it looks amazing. I had heard of it before, but didn't really know just how huge it was. The summit is at 14,110 feet. And from what I can tell, there are three ways to get to the top: walking, driving and some sort of train. I looked at the weather for the summit. On tuesday the high is going to be 42deg. How awesome is that?! And there is snow on the top!! I have seen a total of about 4 inches of snow in my whole life. And snow in east texas just doesn't seam as authentic as snow on a mountain. My dad would have loved going up there. He would probably have preferred hiking up the mountain, but I just cant' see myself making that whole trek. I can handle walking maybe the last half mile. Being on the top of that mountain will probably be the closest I could get to him up in heaven while standing on earth. I'm not sure what other exciting things we will do while we're up there, but i'll try to give a full report when I get back.
I have kids that don't want to go to sleep at the moment. Well, just one kid. Leslie just came in here to tell me that her bed is no longer comfortable and she can't find the right spot to fall asleep in. She is hoping that I will tell her to just go get in my bed. She thinks my bed is the softest bed in the world. I think my bed feels like concrete. And she has the air conditioner in her room. I have thought about going and getting in the empty bunk bed in her room to sleep. Hopefully if everything goes well, our ac will be fixed on Tuesday. I'm off to go sweat my self to sleep and watch saturday night live. Tonight is the rerun of the most recent time Alec Baldwin hosted it. He's a hottie.

Friday, June 19, 2009

He's Back!!

Our kitty showed back up this morning! He'd been on another one of this 5 day vacations. Every once in a while he'll disappear for a few days and show up out of the blue. I tell the kids that he's on an adventure so they don't worry about him. When I saw him jump up in the kitchen window, the first thing I did was go take a Zyrtec and then I went and let him in so I could pick him up and hug on him. Zyrtec is a miracle drug for me. If I don't take it and then I just barely pet the cat, I am out of commission for the rest of the day with allergies.

Thursday, June 11, 2009

I'm Melting.....

I am still trying to be good, but I have noticed when it's really hot in here, it makes me want something cold from the freezer. For lunch the last couple of days I have been sticking with salads. We ate at Sweet Tomatos in the woodlands on monday. It was so good and somewhat healthy. Leslie and I both put some of what we thought was cheese on our salad. At the exact moment it was falling onto the lettuce I actually read what the sign said it was. Jicama. I have vowed that I would never eat that because it looks horrible. But I couldn't even tell it was there. I didn't tell Leslie what it was until after she was done. She was surprised that she ate it and didn't have some sort of attack. I still don't think I will go buy one and use it at home. On monday we also went to have our family pictures taken. We went to the walmart in the woodlands to do them. In the past, I have been pleased with the pictures that come out of the walmart studios. But this time I was amazed with the pictures. They were all so wonderful that I bought a lot more pictures than I had planned to. We all wore nice bright colors and were against a black background. I can't wait for everybody to see them!
I have found something else to keep my time occupied lately. I have now been a member of facebook for a while and discovered a game on there called FarmTown. You get to plant your own farms and have livestock and other farm related things. I absolutely love it! It helps me with my desire to plant stuff with out having to deal with outside or the plants dying. We do have a small garden in the back yard though. It has some blackberry plants, watermelon, rosemary and some red and purple flowers. I have been going outside to water it everyday! I try to get Charlotte to help me sometimes, but she just wants to stand there with the hose and point the sprayer straight up in the air. That's fun, but not always what I am in the mood for.
Charlotte had a momentous occasion earlier this week. She peed in her little potty finally!! She hasn't gone since. I hope we get that completely taken care of soon. Having two kids in diapers has been an expensive habit for a long time.
wow...i have suddenly gotten very sleepy...see ya!

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Let's try this again!

I have gotten myself in the right frame again for another try at eating right. I have been good all day so far. Here's my eating for today:

*2 cups of coffee with lots of creamer and splenda
*a bowl of corn flakes with vanilla soy milk and splenda
*2 hot dogs with cheese
*4 strawberries with splenda
*2 graham cracker sandwiches with peanut butter
*chicken and rice on a small plate so I wouldn't eat a ton of it
*a spoonful of vanilla ice cream
*3 bottles of water and 1 bottle of water with a sugar free hawaiian punch flavoring in it.
Does that count as water?

I don't have the treadmill anymore, but i'll figure out something to get myself more active. It doesn't help that I don't like summer, or that our airconditioning is broken either. We do have some window units that we are using at the moment until something better comes along. That is the end of my complaining, I promise!
I really enjoyed watching "The Biggest Loster" this season. I hadn't seen it before and I got some good eating tips from it. It was very motivational to watch it. The transformations the contestants made were amazing. They did it in such a short time though and it almost seems like that goal would be unreachable to the people watching at home. But I have pictured myself a thousand times doing the thing where I hold up the old pants that I used to wear and dropping them to reveal a new me. It's going to happen someday.

It's Summer.

It's summer and there is nothing I can do about it. My ideal day would consist of a high temperature around 75 deg and a low of 55 deg. I am not a big fan of heat or sweating or the sun or sweating. The only thing that I have found that makes summer at all worthwhile is a swimming pool or the beach. I could stay in the water all day(with a gallon of sunscreen of course). I burn pretty easily. Unlike everybody else I know that can spend all day in the sun and come back about 10 shades browner. And even though I don't have the perfect bathing suit body, I still love getting in the water. I make it a person goal to get to the beach every summer if even for just one day. There is another good thing about the summer. Having the whole family home for 2 1/2 months. Leslie is ecstatic about being out of school. She had a great time in first grade and even got straight A's the entire year. I couldn't be prouder. We have a few plans already set up for the next couple of months. On monday, we are going to go take family pictures. The last time we tried this was when Charlotte was a few months old. The photographer had everybody set up and I was the last person to get into place. I hopped up onto the big carpeted cube we were going to sit on and I must have jumped with a little too much momentum and went over the otherside backwards. I ended up tearing down the backdrop and getting my foot stuck in some other backdrops. That was very embarrassing and luckily, the place we were at had a curtain in the doorway to the studio so nobody saw. Though, it would have been pretty great if the lady had snapped a picture right at that moment. Later this month, Leslie is going to San Antonio to stay with a friend of mine to visit with her daughter. And next month, she is going to the Girl Scout Daycamp that is being held here. Michael is going to be doing 3 planetarium shows a week during the summer. There are still only a handful of the people in huntsville that even know it exists. Hopefully doing so many shows will really get the word out. As for me, I'm going to be doing some job hunting. I can't do much of that during the school year because of not having childcare. And then there is the issue of finding a job that makes enough money so that I'm not just working to pay for daycare. There is a Target opening here next month and I have my sights set on them.
I'm finally starting to get sleepy so I'm going to try not to fight it. I stayed up watching the movie Marley & Me. It was a good movie, but since it's just about that time of the month, I cried and cried throughout the whole thing.
Oh yeah, here is something that also made me ok with summer being here(though technically it doesn't start for a couple of weeks)....I was at Hobby Lobby the other day and they already have an aisle with fall foliage in it! I am one of those people that gets energized by seeing halloween and christmas decorations in july. When I worked at Cracker Barrel we started decorating christmas trees in august. That was one of the best things about summer at that place!

Good Night!!

Monday, April 20, 2009

It's Monday!

This weekend I received my first massage from a real massage person. And it hurt! Apparently I had a lot of knots and tension that needed to get worked out of my neck and back. The lady told me that it wouldn't hurt so bad the 2nd and 3rd times I came to get one. I'm not sure that there will be a second or third time. A new time killer that I have gotten into is facebook. I like it a trillion times better than myspace. There are all kinds of quizzes to take and lots of flair buttons to look through. I have found some great flair on there. I think my favorite one is the texas shaped waffle. I have a waffle maker that makes texas shaped waffles and it's one of my favorite things on this earth! I got it for christmas from my brother and I was so happy I cried. I don't think I have ever cried over a present before, but that did it! I had wanted it real bad, but guess I didn't realize just how bad until I opened it. Anyways, that piece of flair happens to be titled, "Only in Texas". I forget that other states probably don't have their own waffle maker. Somehow, I just don't think a Florida shaped waffle would taste quite as good.
Sleep is starting to take over so I better hit the pillow!

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

MMMM....Cake


My last baby finally turned one year old! She is only about 5 inches shorter and 5 lbs lighter than her 2 1/2 yr old sister, Charlotte. I just know she's going to start walking any day now. She can stand up, but hasn't taken any steps yet. She had a blast eating up her little baby cake. I wasn't sure what she was going to think of it, but it was a big hit. Later that evening she had her first trip to the county fair. I don't think she was that impressed with it, but she enjoyed the animals.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Famous Allens

We had a wonderful spring break! Leslie had a friend over for a couple of nights and then we went to visit one of my good friends from Cracker Barrel. After that it was time to head out to San Antonio to see the sights and visit another best friend and her family. This is the first time our kids have been able to get together for an extended amount of time and play. They all had a blast and are counting the days until they get to see each other again. Leslie said her favorite part of the trip was the jumpity jump place and getting to go out to eat. My friend took us driving around in the hill country and it was beautiful up there. I was a little nervous on some of the curvy roads going down through the hills, but I was with a good driver so we had nothing to worry about. One time, we were driving through Arkansas and some of the roads there were very steep and very curvy and I thought I was going to have to sedate myself to be able to ride in the car with out freaking out. Anyways, we really enjoyed getting to spend time with friends and being able to relax. Michael had also took a side trip up to a town called Paint Rock. In that town, there are some rock paintings done by indians. They are all very well preserved. He took a ton of pictures, but i'm not sure what the link is to them at the moment or I would add that on. On our way home, we took a bit of a scenic route. We ended up going through New Braunsfels, then through Austin, then to Brenham and then to Navasota and then to Huntsville. It took a little longer, but we got to see some nifty things. And I had heard that near Brenham was the best place to see bluebonnets. I have never seen so many of them! Fields and fields of them all over the place. It was so pretty. If the children hadn't looked so ragged by that point, I would have pulled over to take their picture by them. I still plan on doing that, but I have a place in Huntsville picked out. I forgot to mention that when we were going past navasota and into Anderson, we made sure to try to take a picture of Chuck Norris' house! Can't forget that! Now we are back to the daily grind. Tomorrow, Leslie is starting her art class at the Wynne Home. I can't wait to see what kind of wonderful things made of clay she will come home with!

Monday, March 16, 2009

Happy Spring Break!

I'm glad it's finally here. Michael and Leslie both have needed a break from school. Leslie has done incredibly well this year in school. Not that I doubted she would, but she has has really excelled at everything. She came home with a 100 in math for the six weeks on a recent report card. I am so proud of her! And last week, Michael took his test, and passed, to become certified to teach jr high science. I feel a little left out in the achievements area, but i'll think of something wonderful that I have done lately. We had an awesome time at the rodeo earlier this month. Leslie, my mom and I met up with my sister there. We looked at all the amazing quilts that were there. Leslie went through the fake farm they had where kids learn about what goes on on a real farm. She got to milk a fake cow, feed fake chickens, pet a fake sheep and grow a fake carrot. They had real versions of these animals to look at there too. Leslie enjoyed the rodeo itself. It helped that we had really good seats on the end that the bull riding was on. The concert that day was Trace Adkins. I didn't recognize too many of the songs but I liked it anyway. Leslie was ready to go as soon as he started singing. It was loud and dark in there, but I managed to get her smiling and dancing during some of it. Afterwards, we went to the carnival and had a blast. We rode the tiltawhirl, which is my mom's favorite, and then we went on some kind of ride that goes in a circle over some humps and then goes backwards over the humps. My mom rode that with Leslie first and then I got on it with her. I couldn't stop myself from laughing and screaming the whole time. I hadn't had that much fun in a long time. Leslie also won a pretty good sized stuffed tiger from a game that involved throwing ping pong balls into lillypads. That made her night!
Today, she has a friend over for a couple of days and they went to the movies about an hour ago. Michael calls me when they get there and informed me that the movies didn't open until4pm. We had looked at the time that was for the weekends. So they are going to go rent a couple of movies instead. Later this week we are going on a short, but much needed vacation. We are heading to San Antonio! One of my best friends lives there and we are going to spend some time with her and her family and do some touristy stuff. Michael is going to Paint Rock, TX to go see some rocks that were painted on almost a thousand years ago. The things that were painted on them are what people back then were seeing in the sky. Some are of constellations, or astronomy events that were taking place at the time. It sounds pretty neat. He'll spend most of one day doing that. I'm just happy to be out and about. But ecstatic that I get to see my friend because I miss her a lot!
I'm going to go in the other room and catch up on some reading while the little ones are taking their nap!

Thursday, March 5, 2009

It's Thursday!


I'm a little behind in my blogs. And it's not because I'm extremely busy or writing a book or anything fascinating like that either. When the last kid goes to bed, something in my head suddenly feels sleepier than I ever thought I could feel and all I can think about is going to bed. But, then that doesn't happen and two hours later I'm finally crawling into bed. I have been getting more sleep though. Sophie doesn't wake up as many times a night as she used to and more frequently now, she is sleeping through the night!! And when I say more frequently, I mean once a week instead of once a month. I take it when I can get it.
As for fun at the girl scout camp, we had lots of it. It was great!! I don't know who enjoyed it more between the three of us. We got to see a couple of horses that we remember from way back when that still have a little get up and go in them. On Saturday, my mom, my sister, Leslie and I are going to the rodeo to get our fill of livestock smells and ferris wheels. I absolutely love the houston rodeo. The people watching alone is worth going for. I was lucky enough to work in reliant stadium one year during the rodeo and I got to see all the concerts and meet all kinds of interesting people. I was at one of the little plastic stands selling beer. I really enjoyed that job, but it ended up being too far for me to drive.
I feel the sleepiness catching up with me. Must....go...to...bed....

Friday, February 20, 2009

Horses!

I can't wait for tomorrow! Leslie finally gets to go see the girl scout horse program in action. I spent so much time involved in this program from the time I was in 6th grade until a little while after high school. There are very few places where you can get such detailed hands on training for little or no money. I learned everything that I ever knew about horses from all the weekends and summers spent at that camp. My parents also spent a great deal of time in this program also, so my mom is going with us to reminisce. I need to locate my camera and my thumbtack that operates my camera so I can get some pictures of this momentous occasion.
I keep getting distracted with myspace at the moment, so this little bit has taken me half an hour to type. And now it's time to get some sleep!

Monday, February 16, 2009

again and again


I haven't blogged in a long while and I promise I have a good reason for it. When I think of it, I will add it in. But there are somethings that have gone on lately that have kept me from the computer. I thought I had the flu last week and it got bad enough that I ended up having to go the hospital by ambulance and had to spend a couple of days there. That wasn't real fun. The best diagnosis that I got was that I had some sort of viral infection that attacked me as hard as possible. During the hospital stay I started having these terrible headaches that made me want to stay in the dark as much as possible. They don't bother me much now except for when I'm at the computer. I have to wear sunglasses in order to sit her for more than five minutes. And I don't have any adult size sunglasses, so right now i'm wearing Sophie's pink butterfly glasses that velcro in the back. It's a great sight to see. And in the last week, we are having trouble keeping all of the children well also. As of this moment, Leslie has a fever and Sophie hopefully will keep her dinner down tonight. Last tuesday, Sophie had a double ear infection and then Charlotte started with the stomach bug.
I did manage to get a quick night out last night. I already had a ticket to see a comedy show in houston. I got to go see Joel McHale who hosts The Soup on the E channel. He is hilarious on the show and I thought he was even funnier in person. He had some great stories about his funny kids that I could relate to. And after the show he was signing autographs. I bought a tshirt before the show and had him sign that. And I made friends with the women in front of me in line so they would take a picture of me with him and then email it to me. If it is a decent picture, I might post it on here.
I'm heading to be extra early tonight. Gotta grab sleep when I can get it!

Friday, February 6, 2009

Party Time!

Tomorrow is going to be a busy day! We are going to a friend's daugther's birthday party at a gymnastics place in Katy. And then, we are going to a friend's husband's birthday party at Dave and Buster's near Katy. It was a coincidence that both parties were in the same area, but I'm glad it worked out that way. I wouldn't have wanted to miss either one. Leslie is super excited about the gymnastics party and I can't wait for the other party. I haven't been to dave and busters in ages, but from what I remember, it is like chuck e cheese for grown ups. It will be awesome.
I have found an addicting game that I have been playing. Santa got us an xbox360 for christmas and we recently added rockband2 to our game collection. I love playing that guitar! I haven't gone past the easy level, so that is probably what makes me so good at it. I even did pretty good on the drums the other night. Leslie wants to play it, but she gets frustrated easily and after a couple of mess ups, she is ready to call it quits. And when we play another game that involves the controllers, we give charlotte the extra one and take the battery pack off of it, and she thinks she is the one that is playing the game and is as happy as can be.
I did something today that excited me a whole lot! I bought some drug rep clicky pens on ebay. I love pens and those are the best kind. I'm also the high bidder in a couple of more pen auctions, but I'm not sure I'll win those. The ones I bought today will be enough excitement for me for a few days hopefully.
Another exciting thing I have been doing on the side is going on a mystery shopping job. I get to go to random places that i'm assigned and report back on the service and employees. Sometimes I get to buy something and then I get reimbursed for it. Today, I went to an apartment community in town and inquired about renting there. A couple of days ago, I had to go a payday loan place and pretend that I needed a loan. I'm having fun with this. We'll see how well it pays in the long run. For the most part it will be just some extra gas money at the end of each month. Though I did get my taxes done for free! That definitely paid off for me!

gotta go get some beauty sleep so I can look partyrific tomorrow!!

Monday, February 2, 2009

hello again!

More long days, but productive ones! Today we went to get our taxes done and Geannie watched all three of the kids for us. With out the kids, we felt like we were on a date! This weekend I did a lot of running around with my mom. She's house sitting for a friend and it's not near town so I took her to get some stuff done. We went to conroe on sunday to hancock fabrics who was having a good sale on some cute flannel. She makes baby receiving blankets out of them. Saturday was a lot of local errands. And friday consisted of a slow day, but that evening I ended up in a bit of fender bender. And it was my fault. I was turning out on to the highway at the end up my road as another vehicle was about to turn onto my road. I didn't see the small truck that was behind that vehicle and I got hit on the driver side in the back. I also had all the kids with me. Charlotte and Sophie didn't know anything had happened, but Leslie was very shook up over it. The other driver was also fine. We had to wait in a gas station parking lot for about an hour for all the paperwork to be taken care of by the police and then we were on our way home. We were originally headed to town for pizza but figured we should skip that. I kind of saw that as God's way of telling me that I need to be eating better again. I'm trying to do that.
I just realized how incredibly late it is...I need to get to bed. I'll update more tomorrow probably.

Wednesday, January 28, 2009

bleh....

Leslie is finally better and went off to school this morning. I took her to the doctor Monday morning and it turned out that she had strep throat. She was all smiles when we left there because she found out she wouldn't be getting a shot. A while back she had a penicillin shot and had a reaction to it. So now they think she might be allergic to penicillin, so we got a healthy dose of antibiotics for her. I have had an exhausting last few days. My toothaches have become more frequent and more painful. Often at night so that's why I haven't really been updating the blog. And my desire for the treadmill or situps has gone away also. I have fallen off the wagon a bit. I think it's time to see the dentist.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

The Long Day

I've got a sick kiddo on my hands tonight. She's finally getting some rest now, but poor Leslie has been miserable all day. I did manage to talk to the doctor this morning and will be taking her to see him first thing tomorrow morning. Leslie was so upset that she was going to have to miss school. She's had perfect attendance so far this school year. Her fever today has been as high as 102.7, but has gone down from there. I'm worn out now and will be heading to bed quickly.

I ate:
*bowl of special k cinnamon pecan cereal and silk milk
*sausage egg and cheese taquito that michael brought home from whataburger
*grilled chicken wrap from sonic
*kellogs fiber bar
*bowl of spaghetti with meatballs
*1 bottle of water
*3 cups of coffee with all the extras

Saturday, January 24, 2009

Ladies Night!

I had a great saturday! Leslie and I went to the movies to see Paul Blart: Mall Cop. It was hilarious! And tonight, Michael went to see one of his favorite local bands play at a place in Humble. The band is Carolyn Wonderland and the Imperial Monkeys. She sings mostly folk/bluesy music. I went with him a few years ago to see her and really enjoyed it. Her band was even on an episode of Austin City Limits a few weeks ago. Since it's just us girls tonight, we got the little ones to bed and then Leslie and I had fun with nail polish. I now have a nice shade of glittery dark pink on my nails and it looks pretty neat.
I was pretty good with my eating today. I had:
*bowl of fruit and yogurt special k and silk milk(I put some silk in leslie's cereal today and she didn't even know the difference)
*2 bottles of water
*2 cups of coffee with the usual extras
*grilled chicken sandwich on special wheat bread
*small pork chop
*med size helping of lasagna hamburger helper
*small piece of sugar free angel food cake
*kellogs fiber plus bar
*1/2 of charlotte's corn dog ( i can't seem to get her to eat a whole one lately)

Almost time for saturday night live! tonight is a rerun, but next week Steve Martin is hosting...it's usually pretty fun when he's around!

I feel better!

I slept from 9:40 last night until 6am today. That's exactly what I needed. I got up and did 20 mins on the treadmill, 24 situps and some leg stuff. I would have done longer on the treadmill, but Sophie was in the room with me and she was getting a little too close to the treadmill. She's not afraid of it at all. Charlotte likes to get on it and stomp. We have to keep it unplugged because she is just tall enough to reach the on button. And on this one, what ever speed it is stopped at, that's what it starts at. Also, when you are going to turn it off, you have to put your feet out the side of the belt because it stops on a dime, there is no gentle slowing. I think I might go out and hit some garage sales this morning. Sophie is the only one awake at the moment, so she'll be easy to take along. All of a sudden, i'm hungry! I'm going to go eat my delicious special k cereal!

Friday, January 23, 2009

Quick

No big update tonight. I'm having a monster toothache tonight, so i'm about to head to bed. I did good on eating yesterday until dinner. We went to Golden Corral, but made the mistake of sitting in front of the dessert section and when Michael came back with this gorgeous piece of chocolate cake, I couldn't resist and had to have a piece myself. Today I decided to have a free day. Tomorrow I will get back on track.

Wednesday, January 21, 2009

The number keeps going down!

I did it again! I have now officially lost 9 lbs! And the pants that i'm wearing today actually feel a little bit looser. That could just be my imagination though. I have had good intentions of getting up around 6am-ish and doing some exercise, but the bed is just so warm and cozy and I give in. It would be different if I weren't already getting up once or twice a night with Sophie. It would be a little easier to get up that early if I could manage to sleep through the night. Michael is good about getting up with her all night on friday nights so that I do get at least one night a week of about 7 or 8 hours of sleep. Tonight Michael put together Leslie's bunk beds and she was delighted! Charlotte didn't really want to go near them, but Michael showed her how she could get on the bottom bunk and reach up to the metal bars that are under Leslie's mattress and swing like a monkey from them. She loves the bunk beds now. Thanks Michael.
Here's my grub for today:
*bowl of special k fruit and yogurt with silk
*2 cups of coffee with the usual in it
*7 triscut crackers with thinly sliced cheese melted and a dollop of salsa on top(really wasn't as good as I expected it to be)
*2 bottles of water
*small baked pork chop with green beans and small romaine salad with lite italian dressing
*2 pecan sandie cookies and 1 homemade lemon sandwich cookie

Lunch kind of slipped my mind today since I had to go pick up Leslie from school early and then take my mom a couple of places. I think I might have a quick bowl of cereal before I head to bed because I am a little bit hungry now.

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Happy Inauguration Day!

Today was a history making day and I'm glad I was able to witness it. It would have been awesome to have been there with the other millions of people, but I was happy with being able to be warm and wear shorts instead of layers of clothing like the people that were outside. Charlotte was watching with me and I was trying to get her to say President Obama. But all I could get out of her was Present Omama. Close enough! I have faith that he will help our country in great ways.
As for yesterday, I didn't blog because I had an awful toothache right before bed and with the help of some Tylenol PM, I was sound asleep very quickly. I don't quite remember what I ate yesterday, but I was a good girl. I also got on the treadmill yesterday for 30 mins, did 35 situps, 6 pushups and some leg lifts. I think I am going to save up for either a new treadmill or an eliptical machine. I would like to try some jogging on the treadmill but the belt slipping is going to cause me to fall one of these days. Geannie is the one that gave me this one and when she was here earlier I got on it and showed her what it does to me. She didn't have any problem when she was using it. Back in the day when I was going to Gold's Gym, I liked getting on the elipticals because I really felt like I was making some progress.
Today I ate:

*bowl of special k yummy chocolate delight mixed with some special k cinn. pecan and some soy milk....didn't see much of a taste difference so i'm happy with it
*large grilled chicken salad with organic romaine lettuce and lite italian dressing
*2 cups of coffee with splenda and lots of cream
*cup of mint tea with splenda

I got so caught up in stuff that I realized I forgot to eat dinner. I sent Michael and Leslie and Charlotte out for pizza while I stayed home with Sophie. Geannie brought over the bunk beds tonight and I just lost track of time. I was trying to tidy things up before hand and got really into it. There is nothing like having somebody come over to make you get in gear and clean house!
Tomorrow we are going to attempt to put together the bunk beds. Leslie is really excited. I'm excited too, I always wanted bunk beds when I was a kid!

Sunday, January 18, 2009

No cake for me!

Here's my food:

*2 whole wheat pancakes with SF syrup
*4 pieces of turkey bacon
*2 scrambled eggs
*3 bottles of water
*2 grilled chicken wraps on whole wheat tortillas with salsa
*small frito pie
*1/2 of charlotte's corn dog
*3 cheetos

I did something else today worthy of a pat on the back! The girls and I went to Will's birthday party at Mr Gatti's and I didn't eat anything while I was there. I made sure to eat before I went so that I wouldn't be hungry and give in when it was cake time. I was able to convince Leslie to keep her tickets that she won and save them for next time so she might be able to get a bigger prize. And we were late getting home so I didn't want to wait in line to cash in her tickets. Michael was supposed to go meet a friend of his at the observatory and he was bringing his daughter so Leslie would have somebody to play with. Her favorite thing to do there is to draw on the dry erase board. I went there with all the kids one time and Charlotte managed to draw on the wall under the board and I tried to wipe it off and made a bigger mess. I ended up getting a space picture that was lying on the desk and wedging it under the board so that it hung down and covered the spot. Eventually, I will have to bring some paint up there and paint over it.
I got on the scale today and got some good news! I have lost a total of 6 pounds so far! I keep thinking that i'm not doing enough exercise or eating well enough, but I must be doing something right! And to help myself a little more, tomorrow i'm going to try out the vanilla silk soy milk. When I told Michael about it, I think he thought I was kidding. We'll see how I like that.
Now I'm off to bed and to watch tonight's episode of Desperate Housewives that I recorded. G'night!

Saturday, January 17, 2009

so tired

Today was a great day! I went with Leslie and the girl scout troop to the state park this morning. It was pretty chilly, but since I have insulation of a polar bear, I am right at home in that kind of weather. We got there just in time for a presentation about alligators at the nature center. Most of the kids got the chance to pet a baby alligator. Leslie had no intentions of getting near it. After that we went on a pretty long hike. Then came lunch and we had a little visitor at our picnic table. A big fat squirrel came running over and jumped up on the table and scared the girls pretty good. We shooed him off of the table, but he didn't want to take no for an answer. He finally stayed in his tree until we were gone. I also discovered something today. The father of one of the girls in the troop is a guy I went to high school with. We weren't friends. He was the big popular football guy and we really didn't cross paths that much and I don't know if he even recognized me or not.
I need to get to bed...i can barely keep my eyes open.

*bowl of special k chocolate delight
*ham and cheese sandwich on special wheat bread
*2 bottles of water
*big apple
*choc/banana smoothie
*little bitty bag of ruffles chips
*med hunk of roast beef with bbq sauce
*half of leslie's ham and cheese sandwich from lunch

Friday, January 16, 2009

I'm a rock star.

I'm gonna start off with my food for today while it's still fresh in my mind:

*bowl of yummy special k chocolate delight cereal and 2% milk
*1 piece of wheat bread toast with sugar free strawberry fig jam on it
*2 bottles of water
*3 cups of coffee with splenda and lots of cream
*can of zesty gumbo healthy choice soup with extra chicken added to it
*air popped popcorn..a few handfuls
*small diet drpepper
*2 small grilled chicken wraps with chipotle bbq sauce and flour tortillas
*5 strawberries with splenda and a little bit of lite cool whip

I think that's all. It seems like a lot today. I think my favorite thing today was the strawberries I just had. They were on sale at Kroger this week and they were huge! I cut them up and put them in a ziploc with a packet of splenda. Then I shook it up and added it to some cool whip. It was wonderfully sweet tasting. I have a great timesaver trick that I use to cut the strawberries. I learned this during my two weeks at the Cheesecake Factory. If you take a boiled egg slicer and place the strawberry in it and just press it down, it makes perfectly straight slices. It might be a mushroom slicer, i'm not sure. But it works! Leslie was amazed by this and decided to cut all of the strawberries for me after that. We went to McDonald's for dinner tonight. I was good and had the little wraps with grilled chicken. They were very good and a tiny bit too spicy. Charlotte hasn't been to the playground there since she was little bitty and had a blast there tonight. She made it all the way to the top and just crawled around in a loop for a while. I think she was scared to come down the steps so Leslie eventually had to go up and get her. There hasn't been anymore jumping out of the crib since the other day and I'm thankful for that. We will be getting bunk beds in Leslie's room in about a week and I am thinking about letting Charlotte sleep on the bottom bunk. We'll need to go out and buy some of the rails for the sides so she doesn't roll out in the middle of the night. We are getting the bunk beds that are in my friend's son's room. His birthday is this week and he's getting a bigger bed that won't fit in the bunk beds. Ok, I got distracted and lost my train of thought on this.....but guess what! I registered to take the qualifying test for Jeopardy online later this month. I'm very good at it when I watch it, but when i'm on the spot I'm not sure if I could live up to my at home game. The only bad thing about Jeopardy now is that it got bumped from its afternoon time slot and now it comes on at 11:30pm. I know I am fast asleep by that time usually. Who watches it? I should start taping it to practice some more. If anyone wants to register for the test, I think the deadline is Jan 25 or sometime near that date. I have to go get some sleep. Tomorrow i'm going with Leslie's girl scout troop on a trip to the state park. I think that will be my exercise for the day! Oh yeah, I got on the treadmill for 30 mins(really 35 mins, after the first 5 mins the phone rang and i didn't get back on until 20 mins later) and I did 35 sit ups, 6 pushups and some leg lifts. Go me!

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Free Day!

I was up a little late last night and did some procrastinating and skipped my daily typing session. My main reason for being out last night and it wasn't that late, but I signed up to be a mystery shopper and one of my assignments was to go to the Wendy's that is part of a truck stop and buy two separate meals and check out the cleanliness of the place. And then this morning I had to go back to the same place but stay in the gas station part and have coffee. Each time you go you have to stay for at least 20 mins so you can observe everything properly. So, as Cari suggested, I have designated yesterday and today as my free days. And I have decided on free days, I'm not going to log my food or weigh myself. Tomorrow morning i'm back to the treadmill and situps. I'm actually going to try not to weigh myself for at least a week. That way hopefully i'll see a little more progress at a time. I had a diet coke with my food last night and that was the first soda I have had in at least a week. I haven't even missed it. When I ran out, I just didn't buy anymore and I keep the fridge stocked with water. I bought some more Special K last night. I have decided that the chocolate delight flavor is now my favorite. It's got just enough good stuff in it to make me feel like i'm eating something sugary and bad for me.
The weather today was so perfect. Chilly enough to bundle the kids up a little but nice enough to go outside and play. I took the little ones out today and put them on the swings and they loved it. Sophie thinks is the greatest thing in the world and I had to pry Charlotte off of her swing when it was time to go back inside. Today was much better in the nap department. Charlotte was a little more willing to go to bed, but I still put a big bean bag chair on the floor next to her bed. And I got them to take a nap at the same time. That is the key to making my day a lot more productive sometimes.
I am starting to nod off...better go get my beauty sleep!

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

I did it!

Guess what! I got on the scale today and it showed a number, not ERR for error. I was quite pleased with myself. It happens to be the same number I remember seeing on the scale right before Sophie was born. I'm still a little insecure at the moment about revealing that number, but I might change my mind once I make a little more progress. Tomorrow morning I'll be back on the treadmill and doing more pushups after that. I can tell that the pushups are doing some good because it hurts when I laugh. And with all of the Looney Toones that live in my house, I do a lot of laughing. Except this afternoon...Charlotte decided to cause me alot of worry. She was just about asleep in my arms so I went to put her in her crib. I had made it out of her room and shut the door, walked across the hall and she started crying and then I heard a thunk and even louder crying. She had decided she no longer wanted to be in that crib and flung herself out of it. I ran in there to find her sitting on the floor with a bump on her forehead that was getting bigger and bigger. It ended up to be about the size of half a walnut. I called the doctor to ask whether I should bring her there or to the hospital or just give her tylenol. The nurse talked to him and said that as long as she was not vomiting or acting disoriented she would be fine and to give her some tylenol. So I gave her some of that and she was back to her happy self.I had also given her one of Sophie's frozen teething rings to put on it but she just wanted to chew on it. She ended up falling asleep on me in the chair a while later. And now the bump isn't so bad, but there is a good size purple bruise there. I don't know who cried more, me or her. It's not the first time she's done this. About 3 or 4 months ago she managed to get out and landed pretty hard. We are getting a set of bunk beds at the end of the month so we are going to try getting her to sleep in a big girl bed and see how that goes. I was nervous putting her in the bed tonight, but with Leslie in there, she didn't seem to mind. I put some blankets down on the floor by her crib just in case. I ended up with a bit of a black eye myself yesterday after bumping heads with Sophie. We were on the bed and she was trying her best to get to the edge and I kind of dived over in front of her so she couldn't fall off and at the same moment she stopped and leaned back and my eyebrow connected with her hard head. She doesn't have a mark on her and I have a big purple bruise. So we are quite the interesting looking family at the moment. Tonight Michael went to college station, to the George Bush library, where there was an astronaut from one of the SkyLab missions talking about some stuff. And he was signing autographs too. I got Michael to take his camera along so maybe he could get a picture with him.
I'm pretty tired now. Typing all of that stuff that went on today wore me out. I'm going to go try to get in the bed an stay warm since it's going to be super cold tonight.
Here's my lovely meals for today:
*special k yogurt and fruit cereal ( I have decided this cereal is better than cap'n crunch!!)
*1 bottle of water
*2 cups of coffee with splenda and lots of cream
*pretzels
*3 thin vanilla cookies
*meatball wrap(my own invention:wheat tortilla, 6 meatballs, bbq sauce, a little cheese..mmm)
*2 tacos: wheat tortilla, lean ground beef, taco seasoning, little bit of cheese
*cup of peppermint tea with splenda

Monday, January 12, 2009

Magic Monday

Tonight is going to be an early to bed night. I spent a lot of time with Sophie in the recliner last night. I was up for good by 5am. Then I decided to make the most of it and did some exercising since I was already up. I did 28 mins on the treadmill. I am having some issues with the belt slipping and I almost fell a few times. I also did 35 sit ups and 6 push ups. And then some leg lifts that were painful. But I think it's all paying off! I got on the scale today and it lingered a long time on a number before it changed to the error symbol. So I think in the next couple of days I can actually start counting pounds!
Today I ate:
*bowl of special k cinnamon pecan cereal with 2%
*apple
*can of chicken tortilla soup with some extra chicken in it
*ham and cheese sandwich on wheat bread with lt mayo
*2 bottles of water
*salad with romaine lettuce grown in michael's dad's garden and chicken ( i haven't eaten it yet, but I will soon)

Sunday, January 11, 2009

Sunday again!

Not much to report today. Leslie and Charlotte came home from grandpa's house all in one piece. And they were perfect angels there. Even during church! They said that while Walter was up at the front reading some announcements, that Charlotte felt the need to say Grandpa really loud. But everybody thought it was pretty cute. Leslie took her cookie order form with her and got a couple sales while she was down there. Day 2 of the cookie sale and she is up to 24 boxes! My brother in Colorado ordered 12 of them. But I think she's the only girl scout at her school so she should get quite a few in the next week or so. Well i'm about to go in the other room and watch a movie with Michael. I rented Get Smart earlier today. My mom said it was hilarious. I got it from one of those Redbox rental machines that are at walgreens, mcdonalds and walmart. I also got one night free by using a promo code. This code only works at the redbox units located outside of walgreens. And i'm not sure if it only works on sunday or not. Right before you check out, press the button that says Add Promo Code and type in DVDATWAG and it will give you a free night for one movie.

here's my good eatin' for today:
*bowl of special k fruit and yogurt cereal with 2%milk
*banana
*1 cup of coffee with splenda and lots of cream(there's not much stuff in the cream)
*2 bottles of water
*2 grilled chicken wraps with salsa and guacamole on whole grain tortillas(and the tortillas were terrible! I bought some more whole wheat ones today)
*small hunk of sausage with a serving of delicious sauerkraut
*sandwich on whole wheat bread with thinly sliced cheese, ham and light mayo only on one side of the bread

I had to make the sandwich because Charlotte liked her dinner so much that after she ate it, she came over to my side of the table and proceeded to talk me out of most of my dinner. I'm just happy she was eating. She is doing that kid thing where one day she'll eat one meal and the next day she eats everything in sight!

Saturday, January 10, 2009

Go Me!

I want to start off today by thanking Cari for suggesting that I try some Special K cereal. I got the cinnamon pecan flavor and ate a bowl tonight and it was so good!! I was expecting it to be a little mushy, but not at all! And since the store had a good sale on special k, I bought some of the yogurt and fruit kind too. I'm sure it will be just as delicious. Earlier today, my mom, Sophie and I went to my aunt's birthday party in houston. It was a surprise party and she was very surprised to see everybody. We had a lot of fun and ate some great fajitas. I did good and only had about 5 chips and ate the chicken instead of the beef. Sophie even packed away some of the beans and rice.
*light strawberry banana yogurt
*1/2 banana
*3 flour tortillas with chicken and guacamole and salsa
*5 tortilla chips
*about 3 bottles of water
*bowl of special k cinnamon pecan cereal with 2% milk
*a few triscuts with guacamole

and I got on the treadmill for 30 mins today, did 20 situps and 5 pushups. I think today was a great day all around.

Hello

I'm a slacker! I meant to update last night but just didn't make it in here to do it. We had a good visit with Walter and Anne when they came to pick up the girls and I just plum forgot about this. Charlotte was all excited to be leaving with them, so I hope she is still excited when she wakes up this morning and realizes mom and dad are nowhere to be found.
Here's all the yummy stuff I had yesterday:

*bowl of maple brown sugar shredded wheat with 2% milk ( I finally got around to getting something other than the whole milk)
*2 grilled chicken wraps with salsa and fat free wheat tortillas
*handful of pretzels
*small apple
*grill chicken salad with romaine and spinach, salsa and some guacamole
*2 bottles of water

Today I'm going to a family birthday party at a mexican restaurant, so i'm a little worried about what I will find to eat there, but my mom is going too so I we'll be able to keep each other in line.

Thursday, January 8, 2009

Mmmm....coffee...

I can tell i'm getting a bit older when I have come realize that I should no longer drink coffee after a certain time because I'll be up all night. I just finished my second cup for the evening and I'll probably be up until midnight at least. But I have some house cleaning to do, so maybe I'll get that done. My inlaws are coming by tomorrow evening because they have wonderfully volunteered to have Leslie and Charlotte come stay the weekend with them. Charlotte has only stayed the night somewhere with out me a couple of times. Once when she was a tiny baby and once right after Sophie was born. But Leslie will be with her so she should be ok. I hope I'll be ok. I enjoy when they go off with friends and family but I miss them like crazy when they do. Back when Leslie was 7 months old, I went with Michael and some of his family to Germany for a couple of weeks and Leslie stayed with my parents while we were gone. I called home everyday and cried every night because I missed her so much. So maybe that is part of why I allow the kids to cling to me constantly. I have a hard time letting go of them.
I found out today that I have been a good influence on a couple of people! I know that usually my name and good influence aren't used in a sentence together very often, but it's true! I have been talking to my mom about my new healthy habits and she has started to get back into those habits herself. She has type 2 diabetes and really needs to be on top of that. And i'm sure that if I were to keep up the bad habits, I would be next in line for that. And tonight, Michael's stepmom called me after hearing what I was up to and wanted to be kind of a food/exercise buddy. And my good friend, Cari has given me a bit of incentive to do well also. I haven't been able to weigh myself because my scale doesn't go up that high, so I will figure out a place to do that at soon. I am trying to set small goals so they are easier to reach. So my first goal is to lose about 30lbs by May. I want to be able to sit comfortably in the seats at Minute Maid Park this year. Last year Michael and I bought a mini season ticket package and went to quite a few baseball games. We were up in the nosebleeds but we still enjoyed it. Towards the end of the season, the seats became a little painful to sit in. So I have decided this year is going to be better. Michael and I have new almost matching Astros shirts and hats. Hopefully we'll be able to make it to a couple of games together. Usually one of us takes Leslie or a friend to the game. Ok...I am just rambling. I didn't realize how long this post was getting. I keep stopping to talk to Michael or to do something else. I have a great story about Michael at one of the games that I'll share another day.
Here's what I ate today!
*2 pieces of sd toast with sugarfree strawberry fig jam( so delicious!!)
*a small bowl of frito pie(shared it with Charlotte)
*2 bottles of water
*a grilled chicken wrap with salsa and a fatfree wheat tortilla
*2 texas shaped waffles with sugar free syrup
*2 cups of coffee with lots of creamer and some splenda
and Leslie took a 30 minute walk this afternoon. When I got home from it I was exhausted. Walking outside with hills and grass and concrete takes a little more out of me than the treadmill does!

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

fun with mom and kids

Today started off with screams because the little ones both had to go to the doctor for checkups and both of them had to get shots. There were a lot of tears and quite a few bandaids, but they both had smiles on when we left. From the charts that they have, Charlotte is likely to be around 5'6" and around 125lbs if she keeps up her current growth rate. Sophie is very tall for her age and he said she should be near 5'10" when she's grown. And Leslie will be that way too. I knew they would all end up taller than me. I'm only 5'5" in thick soled shoes. Michael is the cause of all these tall girls since he's 6'4". My mom went with me to the dr office to help wrangle the kids. I need all the help I can get sometimes. Usually when I am with my mom we end up eating junk food for lunch and today was the same. But I was good and had grilled chicken strips from JackNtheBox. And then for dinner we went to the chinese buffet and I only had one plate of food. And afterwards I felt really full and probably won't be doing that again anytime soon.

*banana smoothie
*5 grilled chicken strips
*a few french fries
*diet coke
*bottle of water
*terriyaki chicken, beef eggroll, small side of fried rice, crab puff
*fortune cookie


Tomorrow I should have time for the treadmill again. I was out of the house for most of the day and since Sophie chose not to sleep last night, i'm heading to bed quite a bit earlier than usual tonight.

Tuesday, January 6, 2009

Just a day

Nothing exciting to report today!

*2 scrambled eggs with salsa
*2 cups of coffee with splenda and a whole lot of creamer
*lg grilled chicken salad with romaine lettuce
*5 mini choc chip cookies
*diet pepsi
*1 bottle of water
*6 skinny slices of pizza w/ranch dressing ( i know i lost it a bit at dinner, but I have been so hungry lately and afterwards my stomach felt awful. that is the first time i have felt that way in week. It used to be a daily thing.)

Monday, January 5, 2009

Happy Monday!

I saw the movie Bedtime Stories tonight and it was fantastic. And not just because Adam Sandler was in the movie. It was a very cute movie and I think Leslie will enjoy it a lot. I got to go into town by myself tonight! I just needed a tiny break from being home all the time. I went to Hastings and spent my giftcard from christmas. I got the new Buckcherry cd and a Dr Phil weightloss book. I bet those two things get bought together all the time.
This morning I had the most wonderful smoothie. I haven't made my own smoothies in forever, but I came across a recipe last night in Self magazine that I had to try out. It is a chocolate and banana smoothie. It takes 2 cups of milk, a frozen banana, 1/4 tsp vanilla, and some choc syrup...i think about 2tbsp of it. Blend it and voila! You have the most delicious and filling drink. I was full after I drank that. Charlotte tried it with me and liked it at first but then handed me her cup back and made a face that let me know that it was icky. And today I broke out the pilates dvd. I haven't done it in a long time and it's a little on the painful side. Leslie even tried out some of the exercises with me. What a good sport.

*excellent choc/banana smoothie
*delicious ham and cheese sandwich on sourdough bread
*small apple
*2 bottles of water
*diet pepsi
*chicken teriyaki flatbread sandwhich from subway that I snuck into the movie theater!

Tonight while i'm typing this, I have some company. Our kitty is sitting on the desk with me. This is a rare occurance since i'm horribly allergic to cats. But through the miracle of Zyrtec, he's hanging out with me today. I was so relieved when Zyrtec became an over the counter medicine. I love cats and it breaks my heart that I can't let me sleep in my lap or be in the house all the time like everybody else I know with cats. If I haven't taken any medicine, I can barely stand to be in a house that has inside cats. I don't know what did it to me. I was fine with cats until I was about 16 and it went downhill from there. I tried to tell myself that it didn't include kittens, but I found out the hard way that they are on the list too. I try to make the medicine last so I only take a couple of times a week. The other days I have to just let the kids play with the kitty. I know poor Gato (yes, out cat is named Cat) doesn't understand why I only play with him every now and then. He's so good with the kids though. Leslie is scared of him a little. More just scared of his claws and what they might do. Charlotte thinks he's the best thing since sliced bread. And little Sophie just wants to yank on his fur. He has been very patient with the kids up to a point. He finally decided Charlotte should know better and has given her a couple of warning pats when she has cornered him or pulled his tail.
Starting to get sleepy already! Maybe tonight i'll get a little more sleep. Sophie sleeping so good saturday night was just a fluke it turns out.

Sunday, January 4, 2009

Sunday, Sunday, Sunday

I said Michael was coming home today, but he hasn't shown up just yet. He has to be at work tomorrow so I imagine he'll be here eventually. I got the kids to bed pretty easily tonight like last night. But after an hour of being in there, Leslie comes and finds me and informs me that Charlotte has just removed her diaper. So that made the evening interesting. I ended up not going to sleep until after 12:30am. When I went to bed, I just knew that I would be waking up in the next hour with Sophie, but to my surprise, I didn't get woken up until 6am. That means she slept from 9pm-6am. Amazing! I am keeping my fingers and toes crossed for a repeat! I can hear Charlotte all the way down here already though. But she doesn't sound mad, just loud. I don't know what I did different last night with the kids than I do other nights. One sleeps good and the other stays up half the night.

Today's gourmet meals were:
*bowl of maple brown sugar shredded wheat with milk
*grapes
*the best grilled cheese sandwhich ever on sourdough bread
*baked chicken with a small salad and some chicken flavored noodles
*2 bottles of water-i'm really trying to work on drinking more water...I just hate water though
*and i'm about to go eat some graham crackers with peanut butter while I watch Desperate Housewives

Saturday, January 3, 2009

I miss him!

Michael will be back tomorrow! The kids and I have been having a good time these past few days. Normally I would be pulling my hair out by now since I haven't left the house since Thursday and it's been all kids all the time. But I have been in a very zen place and I'm even getting a chance to do some housework. I'm not sure what has come over me. The only thing that I wish I could fix would be sleeping most of the nights in the recliner holding the baby. I get up with her and fall asleep out there. It's hard to put her back in her crib because she is so used to sleeping on me now. But other than that, I have had a good weekend so far. Tomorrow I will finally take down the christmas tree. It is so much fun to put it up every year, but taking it down is something that I put off each time. I think I left it up until mid january one year. I'm almost embarrassed to admit that. This year I finally got smart and got one of those tree removal bags so that I don't end up with the needles all over the house.
Well here's my food list for today:

*1 1/2 slices of french toast with sugar free syrup
*2 bottles of water
*lg grilled chicken salad with lite italian dressing
*tuna fish with tbsp of mayo and some pickles
*peanut sweet and salty bar
*some grapes

I'm sure I ate more, but nothing else comes to mind at the moment. That doesn't look like much at all. I was just so busy with laundry and having fun with the kids that eating wasn't a priority today. I have a little bit more cleaning to do before I head to bed and hopefully I'll sleep more in the bed than in the recliner!

Oops

I'm sorry I haven't been updating daily as promised. My husband is out of town so it's been a little wild around here with all the kids. I have been doing well on my food though. I did have a little mrs bairds apple pie yesterday during a few moments of stress. I have been trying to keep up with my portion control. I think that has been one of my biggest problems. I enjoy eating, so this is quite difficult for me. I have made it almost a week now though. I just have to find the time to exercise now and I think things will really pick up for me.