Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Pics and Stats




Not of me, silly. Not yet, anyways. But I'm still on track. This was the first week that I actually felt tested. The weekend was very stressful with James up skiing and I desperately wanted to fill up on comfort foods. I ate SO many bananas, blueberries, and blackberries LOL. But I powered through and recorded a 1.2lb weight loss. As long as I'm in the 1 to 2.5lb range weekly I'm okay. Here's to my final week in the 200s!

I like this picture of Elle with her funny hat and impish grin. And I had to share this pic of Cecily all decked out in the outfit Grandma made for Christmas for her. There are such cuties, although I might be a bit biased.

Monday, January 24, 2011

Food All Around











Woot, I'm slowly catching up as I'm now recounting stuff from January. On the 5th (10 days short of six months) Elle had her first taste of solid foods. She took to it like a champ and I'm now glad I have some use for all of that breastmilk stored in the freezer (since this girl decidedly does not "do" bottles). I've waited longer and longer to introduce solids for each kid. I'm going to say officially it's because that's what the expert guidelines are changing to, but honestly I think it's because it's easier to do without the mess for as long as possible. We started with rice cereal and will be moving onto yellow vegetables and adding barley as a grain this week as well.

And, on a side note, GO PACKERS. Seriously, though, I wish that we were in Wisconsin for the Superbowl so that I could go to someone else's party and eat someone else's lovely food instead of having to host my own LOL. Hmm, I'm putting off a food obsession vibe lately, it seems. I must be "dieting".

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Proverbial Better-Than-Christmas




The kids got a bunch of toys for Christmas. I always start off with the best intentions of a toy-free Christmas because I'm so sick of picking up junk from every room in the house. Inevitably I get mommy-guilt and the kids do wind up with toys. And then, days after Christmas, they've lost interest and find better things to play with - like the attachments to my new canister vacuum. Some things never change, right?

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Allegra's Birthday











I actually feel rather current blogging about Allegra's 9th birthday today, as she finally had her "friends" party yesterday. We celebrated with a small family party on New Year's Eve, and then yesterday Allegra and three of her school friends went skating. It's hard to believe (I know, I know, so cliche) that Allegra is nine. Nine sounded so grown up for Hero. I don't know, though, I still think of Allegra as little. Maybe it's because she isn't pulling away, trying so hard to grow up quickly like Hero was. Allegra still likes to play with little girl stuff and loves to cuddle. I don't know that she, with her special personality, will ever grow out of it.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Photo Bomb

I forgot to post yesterday about my weigh-in. So, how many of you thought that was by design because I'd done bad?? LOL Actually, I did pretty good - I lost 2.4 lbs (exactly the same as last week). I'm a little nervous about this week, just because it'd be hard to sustain those kind of numbers for a third week, I think. But as long as I lose over a pound a week for the first two months I'm okay.


And now for a blitz of Christmas Day pictures - it was hard to pic just a few!








Monday, January 17, 2011

A Rant

I interrupt this regularly scheduled family blog for a personal rant. I want to (metaphorically speaking) tear my hair out over the Arizona shooting of the congresswoman and bystanders. No single rational person I know believes that Sarah Palin or the Republican party is legally culpable for the actions of the deranged gunman. None of us liberals think that they are responsible for killing and injuring those people. HOWEVER, this situation has opened a dialogue about incendiary rhetoric in politics and the damaging, divisive affects it has on this country. That absolutely is a useful, timely discussion. But it seems that many of the same people that are guilty of using violent metaphors as political fodder want to obfuscate the issue by screaming about liberals wanting to hold Sarah Palin accountable for murder. It's "the Democrats want to kill Granny" all over again. Let's hope that the electorate can see through the smoke and mirrors this time (who knew I was such an optimist LOL).

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Christmas Eve







As I mentioned in my last post, usually we do a family get-together at our house on the 24th, but this year was a little different. We kept all of the appetizer traditions (lil smokies, cheese/ham/olive picks, and ghetto dip), decorated sugar cookies, made Stollen in prep for the morning, made Eggnog cheesecake for Christmas Day dessert, and watched Holiday Inn. I love Christmas Eve - I think it will forever be my favorite day of the year. You have none of the letdown (or mess) associated with the post-unwrapping frenzy of Christmas Day, and all of the excitement, anticipation, and love is at a peak.

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Is That Wrong?


Usually we invite everybody over to our house on Christmas Eve, but we also like to host Boise State football parties, so this season we were met with a dilemma. Do we do the regular Christmas Eve thing, or invite everyone over for the bowl game two days earlier? BSU won. I think that might be bad. But what's done is done. We were all decked out in our blue and orange gear and enjoyed a smallish appetizer spread. The kids only peek in on the game, but somehow they manage to amuse themselves. Although she's not in the picture, even Elle was decked out.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

As Good As It Gets




Today was the end of my first week. I'm down 2.4 pounds. That's good, I suppose. I'm a bit disappointed because I wanted it to be more. But I know that I shouldn't be. It's a good number. As long as I can sustain that on a week-to-week basis, I'll be happy. I didn't get as much exercise in as I wanted to, so one thing to work on more for this week.




Here's the ONLY two Christmas pictures I got of the kids in their Christmas clothes before the Christmas program at church. Every year we take a family pic of the kids in their nice, new clothes. This year went on record as the worst picture ever. Basically we gave up. Better luck next year, right? Let's hope...

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Sisters











These pictures were taken at the same time as Elle's 5 month photo shoot. Ceci is playful and happy after her bath and she wanted to get into the fun too. I love this, and I hope it captures the essence of their future relationship - a whole lot of fun. I'm so excited to watch Cecily and Elle's relationship unfold as Elle gets older. I hope, hope, hope they will be the best of friends. As it stands now they seem to like each other a whole lot.

Friday, January 7, 2011

Elinor @ 5 Months




I totally missed Elle's 4 month pictures. How sad is that?! I had a good thing going with the monthly pics too. But I got back on board the wagon in December and did manage her 5 month pictures. She's really been working on hand coordination and is getting pretty good with them. She "talks" a lot, but is no better of a sleeper (yes, that's my self-pitying moment of the day).


On the lifestyle front - things are still going good. Going down the stairs is now pure torture, but I know it'll get better. The kids had a blast watching me get some exercise on the Dance Dance Revolution Wii game. They are convinced they are going to bring it to Grandma and Grandpa's house in April. I might pay money to watch them dance. :-)

Thursday, January 6, 2011

Only One Program







Technically, of course, that's not true. Allegra, Ian, and Colin all were in the Sunday School Christmas program, and Allegra and Ian were in the Maple Grove Elementary holiday program, but we didn't take pictures of those (bad mom and dad!), so all we've got to share are pictures of Colin's preschool Christmas program. He's such a funny kid - so imperious and fearless at home, but tentative and nervous around others. He likes school and has nothing but good things to say about it, but the thumb definitely visits the mouth when he encounters a new situation. Cecily and Elinor enjoyed their littlest big brother's show.

Wednesday, January 5, 2011

Our Budding Star

So I have decided to try my very best to add in some exercise daily. Kind of the cherry on top, I guess. I've been doing the Wii Fit (since that was the whole reason we bought it) for two days and it's surprising that something so basic has made my legs feel all trembly and jello-y. But I kind of like that feeling - it let's you know that you actually worked out some muscles that you don't normally work.





To backtrack to December, let's first hit The Nutcracker. As Hero is no longer in ballet (and Hero's mom is still trying to come to terms with this) she got to be in the audience this year for the first time in five years to cheer on her little sister. Allegra is Nutcracker-obsessed. She dreams of being Clara, and we had to watch her dance all of the various roles for the entire months of November and December. Her official roles were Party Scene and Marzipan in the Mini-Variations. She was just all aglow and we had such a good time watching her and the production at large.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

So Cliche


I promise this has nothing to do with lame-o New Year's Resolutions, but with the fact that Elle is almost six months old (and will be starting solids instead of breastfeeding exclusively) and Troy's wedding is in three months (and I ordered my dress two sizes down and I MUST fit into it). It's merely coincidental that I'm starting my weight loss program now. But whatever the reason, it has to happen. I'm so unhappy about where I'm at. Having two so close together really did me in - I've been making poor food choices now for the last two years and time for exercise is nearly non-existent. I'm not sure when the exercise thing will start to happen as Elle is still not a good sleeper AT ALL and I'm just too tired to make working out a priority, but I 100% own the bad food choices thing and that I can and WILL change. I've bought a 3 month Weight Watchers Online membership and I want to make that work, although I kept it relatively short term so that, if it's not working and I need the shame aspect of the real live weigh-in I can make the switch. I'm starting off at 206.8lbs (and I hope you can imagine the courage it took me to make that public, yikes!!)


Monday, January 3, 2011

Starting Out Small

I have way more important family stuff to cover since I've been so neglectful of my blog, but I decided to start out small with pictures of our kitchen paintover. For my birthday James gave me a coupon good for the painting of one room of my choice. It was completely his idea to get it done over the post-Christmas break, which was a big surprise to me (he's not a painting/remodeling fan). I decided to chose the kitchen because I thought it would be the easiest downstairs project. Boy was I wrong. It took us three days from start to finish to complete it, mostly due to cleaning, taping, and drying time. But it's done now and I'm so happy with it. We chose a color called Nocturnal Sea (with an accent called Bayou) which is a dark blue with strong shades of green and and grey in it. We're accessorizing with white, sand, and cloudy grey. I'm so happy with it and I can't wait to tackle the dining room and living room next!

Before:
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After:
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