Random stuff.... because I attacked the laundry today and my brain is mush.

I have so many random things going through my head today... this is going to be disorganized... like my closets.

First, Today is Kristin's Birthday.

Did you know God has a sense of humor?

When I first met Kristin I unfortunately believed her to be a self righteous, annoying Christian....

(Christian was bad thing in my opinion... by the way.) 

I have grown up, a lot... become a Christian... and she is now one of my best friends and my sister.

(Just for the record she grew up a bit too... but I did have further to go to meet in the middle... anyway.)

I have learned from her and leaned on her so much over the last eight years.... 

Thanks for being born Kris!

Daniel has got another tooth! I found it this morning.

That makes the score:

Bottom- 3

Top- 0

Sorry sweetie... no steak just yet.

Tommy... well, nothing new with him.... still just plain adorable.

Bella too... she just finished her first "big kid class" at church.

It had a detective theme.

(... I'm still not sure I even want to show you this...)

I keep finding these around the house and I get a little startled thinking I've seen a mouse.

 The weather has been beautiful for this time of year... so we can use the fireplace Tom built last year.

It's not done yet, obviously... but hopefully by June it will be pretty and polished!

But of course we can't just have one project going on... we have to have at least ten.

So here is the next big thing at our house...

Daddy is building a tree house! 

To remind us each time we go out to play, or look out the window that we are loved... 

in an extravagant way :) He has big plans for this thing.

While I wasn't looking he somehow lifted that platform up there BY HIMSELF.

He salvaged it from a deck they tore off a house and it was already put together... so he left it that way.

I'm disappointed and a little relieved that I missed it. I would have been freaking out, and probably tried to "help" and then I would have made him somehow hurt himself.

He tried to explain how he did it to me but I'm not the brightest crayon in the box 

so I gave up trying to picture it.

We have moved this project to Top priority because these two are pretty anxious.

I'll show you more when its done, probably a week or two!

Happy Weekend!

Fat Friday... Failure and Forever.

I have just looked back over my "Fat Friday" entries.

I only went back three but I didn't find the last time I weighed-in.

I've stepped on my mom's scale at her house but I haven't been to a meeting in a while.

Life, illness, car's breaking down... all excuses when you get down to it... I should have tried harder.

I thought I was maintaining, maybe I gained a pound or two.

I wasn't counting points, not exercising either.

And slowly but surely over the last 20 days or so I have gone back to my old habits...

they die hard you know.

My Stats:

Starting Weight: 265.6

Lowest Weight: 228

Gained Back: +7.2

Current Weight: 236.4

Yes you read that right.... Gained Seven Pounds.

Its not easy to write this.

I usually weigh-in at my Thursday morning meeting, but this week I went on Wednesday because I knew once again Thursday wouldn't work and I was getting tired of the excuses... 

I knew I had gained, 

I knew I needed the wake up call, 

I knew I needed to get back on track.

 

 I just didn't think I had gained so much.

In retrospect I can see exactly what I did to get me here.

So since Wednesday I've been trying to decided what i would say here, and last night Tom gave me a pep talk that was my answer.

It was not rosy or happy or upbeat.

It was not what you generally hear from people who are losing weight.

He said its "forever." 

What i should learn from this is that I can't ever do what I was doing, I can't ever go back to that.

Its one day, 

one week, 

one pound at a time.

Its doing it for the rest of my life so I don't ever end up that miserably overweight again.

It's not "I'm on my diet", 

It's "I'm not that person anymore."

I have been back on the plan since I left weigh-in!

I am struggling a bit but I feel better already. All that junk food was making me feel sluggish and yucky...

that is such a mystery to me, that I crave things I know will make me feel "blah"

I am making plans to get to my meeting every week from now on, lining up babysitters.

I am keeping good food in the house and planning ahead.

I'm watching biggest loser...motivation.... I love Bob.

I'm mowing the grass again (which is so so much easier than this time last year!)

I'm praying about this like  I did when I first began.

My first week I only lost 1.6, 

I was very disappointed... but I didn't give in and give up like I so often do.

and the next week I lost 4 pounds, and look how far I've come! 

Little by little, for the rest of my life I will do this.

I'm beginning again,  

I'm going back to the person I was when I started this so that.....

 I never go back to the person I was when I started this.

Stop and smell the Transmission Fluid.

My car broke down yesterday... maybe a quarter mile from my house.

But I live on a very busy street so there was nothing to do but sit with three whiny kids and wait for my Knight in shining Cadillac to come... my Daddy. 

He is my go to guy. 

I can always count on him.

And I love how he loves to save my day.

Sometimes I think he is just waiting for me or mom or sister to have car trouble, or see a mouse, or spot a huge spider so he can swoop in and rescue us.

And I love that he does it in a luxury car.

I do not love that my car was broke down,

and I have to wrestle three car seats from a minivan into one back seat.... 

where they could unfortunately all touch each other, and steal each others toys.

So my car is done for probably a week or more. And I'm going to be mostly stranded come tomorrow when my mom's "weekend" ends and I have to give the Caddy back.

Tom's car is near breakdown as well, and even if it weren't I'm not sure all our car seats will fit in there.

My washing machine is bleeding to death all over the basement.... 

I'm trying to remain calm and not look down.

Every time I see more oil I just throw an old sheet over it and try to stay in denial.

I am absolutely terrified of the thought of dragging the three of them plus our laundry to a Laundromat. 

I'm not entirely convinced its even possible.

Oh yes, and last but not least.. Weight Watchers What??? 

I have eaten my weight in Chocolate chip cookies in the last three days.

They are calling to me, seeking me out, plotting to sabotage me.

I am so weak.

They are so yummy.

*sigh*

I'm gonna go bury my head in my pillow and pray tomorrow is better and the cookies stop talking to me.

The Lighthouse

Where do I begin?

Ok, its Tuesday morning... my house is a mess and so am I... but i am slowly pulling both together.

I was gone from 10am Saturday till 1pm Sunday. 

So.... 27 hours... 

Wow, not much really.
Shockingly that is all it took for me to get out of "mommy mode".
Even to the point where it is hard for me to get back at the house work at full force, even today I'm still being a bit lazy.

Kristin picked me up and we hit the road. The kids were actually very calm about me leaving, only Tommy protested... "mommy no go, mommy." he said as he tried to pull me away from the door... he almost cried but then I told him he needed to watch Daddy for me and he immediately brightened up and started to take his job seriously... three hours, and lots of good conversation later, and we were at a a Subway by our hotel...

Then came the wedding. It was beautiful and simple. The church was old, beautifully detailed, and perfect. 

Then we had an hour to kill between the church and the reception.

Enter Todd... Todd is the only person Kristin knew at this wedding besides the bride and groom.

This is Todd...
he said he was going to find a lighthouse...
we said cool and we invited ourselves.

Some interesting facts about Todd:

He said i could blog about him :) so I am

He had two loaves of white bread in his car. weird.

He (obviously) has red hair.. which makes him automatically cool.

He is a nurse... in a Pediatric ICU... I am in awe.

He took off his shoes at some point to "experience the same thing" we were... 

we had our heels off... and it was not warm.
 But it was fun.

We found a girl's drivers license laying on the path leading up to the rocks and started speculating that she had been murdered and the killer was just very sloppy about covering his tracks...
Thank God that was not the case, she was alive and well a little further down the path.
You should have seen her face when I said her name!
It was like she expected hidden camera's or something... too funny.

more randomness from our walk to the lighthouse...

a cool little tree.

It was fun trying to climb over there in a dress... let me tell you.

Very worth it for these cute pictures... and no we didn't plan to match, we are just awesome like that.

And the actual lighthouse

notice Todd has no shoes :)

Fun times, old friends and new, and now I'm off to the playground because Tommy is hanging on my saying "mama we go, mama we go?" .....
Its good to be home...
I think :)

Spanx and Nyquil... its not as interesting as it sounds.

Its one in the morning, the babies are sleeping and I should be too.

Instead I am reading blogs, checking facebook, and eating an Ice cream bar...
and a nutter butter,
and a diet pepsi,
(don't judge me)

I'm going with my sister in law to a wedding three hours away tomorrow,
I don't know either of the people getting married nor will I know any other guest in attendance other than my sister in law... who has seen me in labor and delivery...
there must be something really wrong with me because I am still planning on wearing spanx.

I care way too much what strangers think of me.

But obviously not enough not to write about my underwear here.
The irony.
Anyway.
I'm having a bit of an aching heart feeling. This will be the first time I have ever left my husband and all my kids overnight.... ever...
It is the first time in five years that I will be neither a wife nor a mother for over twenty-four hours.
(why do I keep saying "nor"?)

I left Tom for a weekend once but Isabella came with me...
I didn't mean that how it sounded...
I didn't leave him leave him. We went to my cousins for the weekend.
I missed him deeply and constantly and I had every intention of returning from the beginning... I swear.

And I've been away with Tom quite a few times since Bella was born, at least once a year.

But being the dutiful wife and mother I am... I have never left them all.

I will miss them, but I am interested to see who it is I am now...
you know when I'm on my own...

This is me before I was a mommy at midnight or any other time.

I'm afraid I'll get a little giddy being away from the kids (and almost anyone I know)
and do something ridiculous.
Let's just all take a moment to be thankful that I don't drink anymore.

Amen.

Well....that is if you don't count the Nyquil I took right before I wrote this.
Okay... I think that's enough damage for one night!
I'm going to go dream Thelma and Louise type dreams...
minus the bar scenes,
the felony's,
Brad Pitt
(happily married, sorry Brad!),
and the suicide... but I will take the convertible!

Fat Friday

This time I didn't make it to weigh-in because I am sick....

at least its a nice change of pace huh?

Oh well.

Never surrender right?

Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any other.

~Abraham Lincoln

Defeat is not the worst of failures. Not to have tried is the true failure.

~George Edward Woodberry

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm

~Winston Churchill

I am Woman, Watch Me Bake.

I am feeling so much better today!

Thank God!

I discovered this morning that we are almost out of bread and the thought of trying to take them all to walmart made my skin crawl...
so I'm making Easter Bread.

I found this recipe on Tasty Kitchen.

I made it for the first time last week. My Aunt had mentioned something to my mom about wanting easter bread, I had never heard of it so I thought I'd look it up. I made it without the eggs baked in. 

It was awesome! My first real attempt at making bread, not bad. 

But they are serious about the milk mixture only being warm,

it was hot in my first batch and I think it killed the yeast. 

Anyway, right after I made that first batch (seriously Right after, the bread was in the oven!) there was an article on Yahoo about the top 5 rules of baking...

follow the recipe EXACTLY was the basic rule... repeated in 5 different ways...

The first batch was more like pretzel dough, very heavy,
great for dipping in coffee but not light and fluffy like I wanted,
so I tried again, and followed carefully this time.

And it was awesome :)

Every time I have a new culinary success I hear the song "I am woman hear me roar..." in my head.

 Oh the irony...

Feminists everywhere are rolling their eyes. 

The career of motherhood and homemaking is beyond value and needs no justification. 

It's importance is incalculable.  

~Katherine Short  

Remember, Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, 

but backwards and in high heels.  

~Faith Whittlesey