We're Having Another Baby?! (8/365)

Isn't that AWESOME?!!!

I'm totally kidding! We are NOT having another baby! And Mom, if you're reading this, I certainly wouldn't tell you through my blog.  Sheesh!

But I do know a TON of people that are having a baby.

Lately I've been thinking, "What if we did have anoth..." NOPE. NOPE!  I can't even seem to finish the thought!

I can say this... The people that I know that ARE having babies are either already great mothers, or will be terrific first time mothers!  I would like to celebrate all of you.

I'm finally in a place in my life where I can enjoy other babies.  This may sound weird or harsh, but I couldn't for a long time. Having my own babies distracted me from being able to get to know or enjoy anyone else's.  But now that my kids are growing up, they're a little more self-sufficient.  I have found lately that I am engaging so much more with other kids, getting much more involved. More so like my girlfriends do with my kids.  I've always envied that.

I can't wait to enjoy all of your babies this time around!  I'm truly very excited!

I posted something today on Facebook that I learned last night, and it shocked me...

"Each day, about the same number of babies are killed by abortion as people were killed on 9/11."

I am SO thankful for life - and for the women who choose to give it!  THANK YOU!  I don't judge those who have or will abort, because that's not my place to do so. But my choice is life!

I can't wait to meet all of the new little lives that will be in the year 2012!

The Pact (6/365)

Today I made a pact with a friend.  Most of it was over Facebook, just commenting back & forth.

The other part, the real part, was in a phone call with her later this evening.

Last year, I had a goal to lose 25 pounds by my 30th birthday.  I started in January, and by April 9th, I had lost 30 pounds!  Throughout the rest of the year, I lost another 5-7 (it fluctuates), and kept off the 30 pounds I had lost earlier.

Of course, this is all baby weight. And we can talk baby weight all we want, but let's be real.  When I say baby weight, I mean, for both of my pregnancies, I ate what I wanted, didn't exercise, and I had two girls, so the sugar cravings were GINORMOUS!!

I totally did it to myself.  I'm being very honest here when I tell you that I gained 65 pounds with my first pregnancy.  Of which, I lost 20 lbs in the two years in-between pregnancies.  With my second, I gained another 60 pounds.  And I thought I was doing great! By the 5th month of that second pregnancy, I had only gained 9 pounds!  But come Thanksgiving and Christmas and all the food and the winter months, I gained A LOT in those last 4-ish months.  If you do the math, that means from pre-pregnancy to just after my second was born, I was over 100 pounds heavier than ever.  EVER.

Mortifying.

I lost 35 of those pounds pretty much right away after having my second baby.

And that's where it stopped.  My baby is almost 3 years old.  I have allowed life to take over me!

Last year, I said enough was enough.  I worked out every day of the week but one.  I was burning over 1,000 calories each day.  And it worked!  So, I'm down 70-ish pounds and have 30 more to go.  Wow!  I just read that back and I've never actually thought about how much weight that is!!

But when April came last year, I had my 30th birthday and right after that... SUMMER!

Who wants to work out in the summer??  Not this girl!

I know how to lost weight.  Calories in vs. Calories out.  It will be that same way until the end of time. 

So, getting on with it, today I made a pact.  I posted on Facebook, "Someone please give me a start date and hold me accountable!! Ahhhhh!"

Well, someone took me up on that and now I have to follow through with it!  I meant what I said, I just have ZERO motivation.  Zero.

So when my friend called me tonight just to vent about how she thinks she looks (she is B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L) and areas that she wants to work on and reasons why she needs a buddy... I knew I was hooked.

I am very grateful for the phone call, the shout out on Facebook and the encouraging words that she shares with me every time we meet.

I am looking forward to getting my life back.  It's more than just a few vanity (baby) pounds, it's a state of mind. It's overcoming so many things by feeling good about myself.  It's choosing good habits and making good choices - and having a great time doing it!

So, thank you, Friend for the call.

We're gonna do it together.

We Had Some Words (5/365)

I am having so much fun right now!

But... I'm not really getting anything done that I should be.

I started playing Words With Friends a couple of weeks ago and

I.

Am.

Addicted.

At first I only had a couple of friends that liked to play. Then I hooked my husband's iPod Touch up with the game, and more friends were found in the meantime.

Tonight I had 6 games going at the same time.

Oops!

Well, needless to say, I put the girls to bed around 9:00 and I have been playing ever since!  Instead, I should have been folding laundry, cleaning the kitchen, going through the mail... something else besides playing this game.

So, tomorrow starts a new day. I needed a new routine anyway, so I'm looking on the bright side and saying that just as I did when I first joined Facebook, I will find a happy medium.

I will say this though, anyone who has ever seen my Facebook status updates on the weekends knows that Scrabble is a serious super-fun pasttime of mine and my husband's.  We play it almost EVERY weekend, year round, after the girls go to bed.

Today, I'm thankful for pasttimes, and technology that brings people together.

Oh, and I won all 6 games - beat my husband by 4 points on the last word!

Little Giggles (2/365)

I am NOT a morning person... AT ALL.

I like to get up, turn on The Today Show, have a pot of coffee (yes, I said a pot), turn on the computer and have quiet time to myself to wake up.


This thing is... I have kids.  Young kids.


My (almost) 6 year old, Hannah, is like me. She likes to watch a little tv and chill before she actually has to DO something in the morning.  For this reason, I wake her up 30 minutes before she has to even think about getting ready for school.


My (almost) 3 year old, on the other hand, is a TOTAL morning person! She wakes up bright eyed and bushy tailed, ready to tackle the day. She likes to get dressed right away, likes to get up and get going!

So today I was trying to do my thing, drink my coffee, check my emails and she is ALL OVER ME! She wants to play the Wii, wants to play a game on the computer, wants some juice.  I just want to wake up!  So, I pick her up and put her on my lap.  I figured I'd show her what's up on Facebook (as if she would be interested)!

Instead, I seized the moment.

We started tickling... and the belly laughs were free-flowing!

And we put our foreheads together and moved our heads from side to side, making our eyes move sideways.  She LOVES that!  We could not stop laughing!

Then she leaned in and put her nose to mine and gave me an eskimo kiss. And another. And another. 

And we laughed some more.

I love the giggles. The belly giggles, the little giggles, ALL the giggles.

Needless to say, my morning started off better than any coffee or computer could have kick started!