Tonight's dinner

Tonight we had Miles' birthday party. His birthday isn't for another 10 days. Yeah, I know, but next weekend my parents are out of town. Then that Sunday Jared leaves town for three weeks! He's going to be out of town for Miles' third birthday. :( I'll post pics tomorrow (or Tuesday, Monday's are busy), but we had lots of fun. It was just a small family get together...lots of fun though.

Another day, another post!

Well, how time flies. It's been 8 days since I posted. I was doing so well too! We just haven't been doing too much. Today we did something. Something big! Miles went to Mother's Day Out for the first time today. I have never left Miles in the care of someone other than my immediate family while I wasn't in the same building. The ONLY exception to this is when Jared and I wanted to drive our friends sports car (Lotus Elise *drool*) and there was no room for a car seat. We left him for about an hour with our very dear friends who have a child less than 3 months older.

Before we left for the MDO, and the whole way over we were talking about the toys that would be there and the other kids. He was pretty excited to go. We had to fill out a little paperwork in the director's office, then it was off to his classroom. He was ready to run in, the director opened the door, he saw the other kids, then ran back and grabbed my leg! It was so sweet, but he was a little scared. We got into the room and somehow he saw, on the top of a six foot tall cabinet, a front loader! I have no idea how he saw it. I didn't even see it at first. He asked to get it down and another little boy got excited about having it too. I sneaked out. I knew he'd do fine. When I got home, I cried and cried. All I wanted to do was go back to bed! Four and a half hours later I picked him up, and it was like he didn't even miss me! His "teacher" said he did well, but didn't nap...Good enough for me!

On working out

Today was much better. We mostly just laid low and hung out at the house. We did go out to an indoor play area at lunch.
During nap I worked out. I haven't worked out since I got sick on the 9th. I'm glad to be back at it, but I feel like I'm at square one. Before I started working out I messaged a friend to see if she wanted to go for a walk when the kids got up from nap. She didn't text me back so I assumed she was busy and worked out. When I finished she replied with "sure, tell me when you are ready!" We had a nice 45 minute walk too!

The best thing about today...

is that it's over!


What a disaster! Today was a total nightmare. I slept poorly and had a hard time waking up. Jared got up and got ready to leave for work. Miles was stirring, but not really awake yet so we left him alone. Jared pulled out of the driveway, and in less than ten minutes he was back. He said that he drove to the freeway, and it was bumper to bumper and really slow. Even the HOV lane was slow. He just decided to turn around and come home.


After a conference call this morning Miles was in the office with Jared and managed to put a huge scratch in one of the flat panel monitors. Super upsetting! He knows better than to touch them too. This afternoon he accidentally scratched the tank on Jared's motorcycle.


All day he was testing his boundaries. If you would tell him no more of something he would say just a little more? It was so aggravating! The day ended with kicking and screaming and was punctuated throughout with the same.


Along the lines of "if you have nothing nice to say..." I'll stop talking now. Where is my glass of red wine?

Our Day Yesterday

I guess we are all beginning to feel better (although don't ask before the morning decongestant)! For some reason we took a lot of pictures yesterday, so here is a post of our day in photo form....


Miles helping to make breakfast.

Our breakfast. Yes, I know it isn't on the diet...don't look at what we ate for dinner!

Miles pretending to be asleep. This was taken mid snore!

We decided everyone needed to get out and it was warm enough to go to the park.

Here I am pushing Miles on the swing.

Jared thought it was fun to slide on his back head first...Here Miles came down right after him and they crashed.

This was how we found Miles after nap time. His crib does not go on that wall. He moved it overe there and got a book off of the shelf to "read" during nap!

After nap there wasn't much. We got up and headed over to mom and dad's house. They'd invited us over for chili the day before. We hung out there, played The Settlers of Catan until too late and came home!

Shoot Me #3

Sorry this post is late. I've been sick. Today Miles and I both felt better, and all three of us went to the park (Jared isn't sick). We had lots of fun...Here is Miles on the swing!

Goals Sharpened

Ok, we are two weeks in to the year 2010. I've given my goals a lot more thought. At the very beginning of the year I had some general areas that I wanted to work on. Here they are in a much sharper form. I'm not saying that I'm going to meet all these goals (there are a lot), but it is something (big) to strive for!

* Meal Planning Goal - I already do well with this, but I'm not ready to drop it from my goals yet.
~Meal plan for each week.
~Plan a vegetarian meal once a week.
~Plan for leftovers.
~Cook once every 2-3 months for the freezer.
* Weight Loss Goal
~Plan healthy meals and snacks.
~Weekly weigh ins.
~Weekly photo of progress (at least until goal is reached).
~I have a goal for 15lbs in the first 3 months of the year.
~I think once I hit the 15lb goal I'll have 5 more to go, but I'll re-evaluate.
* Cleaning Goal
~Help Miles pick up toys every night before bath/bed.
~Give Miles chores (put away jacket, clear place after meal, unload his cups from dishwasher).
~Keep floors clean (swept & mopped) - I do this pretty well, but needed it in writing.
~Keep horizontal surfaces cleaned off. - Jared has a tendency to move things from Miles and put them...wherever. This makes it hard, but how nice to have a home where you are never worried about opening the door.
~Schedule? Monday/Thursday laundry Tuesday floors Wednesday work Friday pickup for weekend? - Six lists?
* Bible Study Goal
~Have a daily Bible study.
~Read the Bible in a year - after having trouble getting started I've decided to begin with the minor prophets.

* Stop Biting Nails
~Paint Nails.
~Stop biting for a week or two.
~Grow enough nail to get manicure without embarrassment.
~Get manicure.
~Maintain manicure every 4-5 weeks.
* Work Goal
~Set up childcare for Monday and Wednesdays.
~Work!
~Think of this as time to do something different but less important than my "full-time job."
* Picture Goal
~Complete 52 of 52 challenge.
~Try to take pictures of Miles at least three times a week.
~Take Mother's & Father's day pictures this year!
* Gardening Goal
~Use garden for each gardening season of the year.
~Use items grown in the garden for food and gifts.
~Make home made jalapeno jelly for gifts!
* Budgeting Goal
~Jared and I still need to sit down and work on this one! I think we are going to make a full budget soon. We are dragging our feet.
* Sewing Goal
~Finish quilt sampler.
~Take another quilting class?
~Finish Miles' baby blanket (now that he's no longer a baby).
*Christmas Goals
~Hand make at least 5 Christmas gifts this year.
~Work on one every other month.
~Keep running Christmas gift list all year.
~Try to have complete list by early/mid October.
~Buy 3 stocking stuffers a month (16 stockings to stuff).
~Create Thanksgiving Tree/Jessee Tree.
~Complete Advent activities.
* Organizational Goal
~Simplify my space (I.E. have a closet with some space in it).
~Work on closets this year - I'd like to have a place for everything. Everything may not alway be in it's place, but at least it will have one!

Those are my refined goals. Now it's time to attack!

FYI, feeling much better. I'll be working out again this afternoon. I'm thinking about adding a daily walk...at least as weather permits!

Sharpening Goals

I'm working on sharpening my goals for the year. In the mean time, I found this "2010 Handbook." It's very cute and has some great ideas!

But first, along the same lines, check out this Valentine's Day dare.

The 2010 HANDBOOK

Health:
1. Drink plenty of water.
2. Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince and dinner like a beggar.
3. Eat more foods that grow on trees and plants and eat less food that is manufactured in plants..
4. Live with the 3 E's -- Energy, Enthusiasm and Empathy
5. Make time to pray.
6. Play more games
7. Read more books than you did in 2009 .
8. Sit in silence for at least 10 minutes each day
9. Sleep for 7 hours.
10. Take a 10-30 minutes walk daily. And while you walk, smile.

Personality:
11. Don't compare your life to others. You have no idea what their journey is all about.
12. Don't have negative thoughts or things you cannot control. Instead invest your energy in the positive present moment.
13. Don't over do. Keep your limits.
14.. Don't take yourself so seriously. No one else does.
15. Don't waste your precious energy on gossip.
16. Dream more while you are awake
17. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need..
18. Forget issues of the past. Don't remind your partner with his/her mistakes of the past. That will ruin your present happiness..
19. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.. Don't hate others..
20. Make peace with your past so it won't spoil the present.
21. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.
22. Realize that life is a school and you are here to learn. Problems are simply part of the curriculum that appear and fade away like algebra class but the lessons you learn will last a lifetime.
23.. Smile and laugh more.
24. You don't have to win every argument. Agree to disagree...

Society:
25. Call your family often.
26. Each day give something good to others.
27. Forgive everyone for everything..
28. Spend time w/ people over the age of 70 & under the age of 6.
29. Try to make at least three people smile each day.
30. What other people think of you is none of your business.
31. Your job won't take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.

Life:
32. Do the right thing!
33. Get rid of anything that isn't useful, beautiful or joyful.
34. GOD heals everything.
35. However good or bad a situation is, it will change..
36. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up and show up.
37. The best is yet to come..
38. When you awake alive in the morning, thank GOD for it.
39. Your Inner most is always happy. So, be happy.

A post for the sake of having a post.

Can't write a coherent post today...All foggy and congested...Check back tomorrow.
BTW, I did get dressed because people say it helps...it didn't and now I'm old. Bah!

Edited: That should have been cold, but today old works too.

Ack!

I woke up this morning and had no voice!
I usually work Monday mornings, but not today. I didn't want to infect my friend and her 2 kids with whatever stole my voice. Doris has kindly said that she'd still love to play with Nicholas for the morning, so I have a quiet morning to myself...emphasis on quiet!

Here are a couple of pics from Friday when we helped my friend Elley work on her condo that she rents out.

I sanded baseboards and painted them while watching Miles run her puppy around the condo. Here is Miles helping paint (he loved this)

And here is the puppy after Miles ran it all out of energy...he was too cute, and Miles loved him.

Feeling mostly better

I'm still running pretty slow today, and my throat hurts. I'd hoped I could work out today even though it would not be super intense, but that didn't happen. Tomorrow should be fine though.

My hubby is so sweet

For the last several days I've felt an illness coming on. I didn't think it was anything major, but I'm just not 100%. This morning I was feeling like I was run over by a truck. Jared let me sleep in a little and got Miles out of bed. I got up to help him with breakfast and ate with them. He said that he was thinking about going to an electronics store with my dad and he'd take Miles so I could rest some. After breakfast I felt worse that I did when I woke up. I went back to lay down and he got Miles ready to go. I asked for a decongestant, and he said why don't you take NyQuil and get some rest. I hadn't realized it, but his plan was to take Miles and pick up my dad. The three boys would go to the electronics store and browse around. Then pick up lunch for them and my mom. Jared said he was hoping that Miles would fall asleep in the car on the way home after lunch...and he did! I took the NyQuil, slept ALL morning. At 1ish I decided I should eat even if I wasn't hungry. I texted Jared and he said he was on the way home with a sleeping Miles and lunch for me too! I really haven't done much else at all today. No working out either :( I'm hoping to reserve energy and be back at it tomorrow.

No pics today

Just sore.
Two days ago I started working out during nap time. I did it again yesterday. Then in the evening we unexpectedly went to help a friend sand/paint baseboards. Tired. Sore.

I'm working out again today though! Go me!

Ok, just one picture.


This is from last weekend. Jared and I bought and are donating to the church 8 cameras, a computer to store the data on, and the instillation (with his dad's help for the labor). We had just received the cameras and were testing them out. Jared left the room to check on something and called me back to him. When I went to check on Miles I found him making faces into the camera and laughing at himself on screen. Too cute! Sorry for all the junk in this pic. We have got to do something about the game room!

I added a weight loss ticker at the bottom of the page. I'll try to update it at least once a week through the beginning of April at least. I'm currently in 2 weight loss contests and they both run through then. For posterity, here is what it looks like now...

Shoot Me! #2

Miles and I went to the science museum yesterday. We had a great time. In the kids area they have an infrared camera and a screen to display the video. I thought that might make a fun "shoot me" picture.



I couldn't get Miles to pose, but I think it's a fun alternative for the challenge. I promise not to use it every week!
For more go to:

Science Museum

For Christmas I asked my parents to give us a family membership to the local science museum. They were happy to do it! We've been once so far (forgot my camera) and Miles and I went again today. They are supposed to have story and craft time on Wednesdays. Either I wasn't in the right area, or they didn't have it today but we had a lot of fun anyway!

Miles playing with their huge water table.

There were not a lot of people there and seemingly all of them were there for the children's museum. It was not crowded at all, but there were enough other kids that everyone got to share and enough other moms to be able to make small talk.

Miles playing at the sand table

They have lots of little areas set up for kids to play, learn, touch, and participate. We started off in a little area where you can play house. That didn't last long, then we headed through an area with exhibits on electricity, heat, sound, and some gear toys to their water play area. They have a nice water table set up with lots of smocks. They have scoops, waterwheels, and ducks. We didn't play long there when Miles decided he was done. As we were looking for the next thing to play with he found a sand table. We played there for a long time.
He would scoop, pour, dump, pile, and rake the sand. He was really loving it. Other kids would come in and play for a bit then wander off. Not Miles! He knew right were he wanted to be! He did a great job sharing with the other kids, but I think he was never sad to see their parents take them off. Eventually he decided he needed to climb on the table. I told him that if he wanted to do that we would go upstairs where they have a paleontology exhibit. They have two huge sand boxes with shovels and brushes where you "discover" some cast dinosaur bones. We'd walked through this area coming in, so he'd seen it and was all for it! We made it upstairs (with detours to see the snakes) and he was in heaven! We spent the rest of the time there and he had the sand box to himself. At some point several other kids came in and used the other sandbox in the room, but he had the one to himself.

After playing for a little short of three hours we left the museum. On the way home we called grandma to say thanks for the gift and see if she wanted to go out to lunch. She was thrilled to get away for a while and we had a nice visit. Miles fell asleep on the way home, and I'm off to work out!

I want salad

1:30 A.M. ~ I hear screaming...what is he saying?
I went into his room and he is throwing a total temper tantrum demanding salad! He even knows it is in the refrigerator, and he wants it now! What on earth? He's been waking up once a night for a while now.

Here is hoping for better sleep tonight!

Weight Loss Goals

I posted a while back about a weight loss challenge (#5). There were a lot of things going on in everyone's lives at the time. We decided to hold off and start over on the first Monday of the new year. Guess what? That's today!

We are starting the three month weight loss challenge again today and we'll go though March 31, 2010. My goal is 15 pounds. I'll work on keeping track of it here!

Wish me luck!

Photo Book

I'd forgotten last year that I blogged about making a photo book. It was a bit of trouble because I ended up trying three different places before settling on one company. After deciding not to hand out the books to the grandparents at his birthday party and instead have the book include photos of this it got back burner-ed (I thought I just made that word up, but spell check put in the hyphen). We ended up not ordering them. Around Thanksgiving blurb.com sent out an email with a 20% off coupon code and free shipping! I'd been on their mailing list for a year and hadn't seen a coupon! I was so excited. We received it in time to give them out at our St. Nicholas Day get together!

At any rate, I said I'd upload pictures of the book when they came. Here they are! I can't recommend blurb.com highly enough. I'm not getting paid to say this, and I'm (sadly) not getting any discounts either.

What have we been up to?

Here is a December month in review...photo format.

My dad bought his own Christmas present early in the month. A Traxxas remote control car.

It is super fun to drive!

We always have a get together on St. Nicholas day. From his first December I told the grandparents that they didn't need to get Miles anything for St. Nicholas day, but if they did decide to we didn't want anything more than books. This year for St. Nicholas day we surprised both sets of grandparents a photo book of Miles' first two years. It was great fun to make, and even more fun to give!

Of course I didn't get any pictures of Miles opening his books. Jared and I gave him a compilation of Little Bear stories, and one called "Santa's Favorite Story." One set of grandparents gave him a book about St. Nicholas' life, and the other set gave him Growl Tiger!

We got our tree up, then wrapped presents.



We had some weather which didn't permit outside play, so we made do.




We also managed to make it outside some in little better weather.


I asked Jared and my dad about setting up a different
camera solution for Christmas morning, and they got right to work with a little help from Nicholas.

It didn't end up working out, but we are looking forward to using it on another get together.


Jared's mother's birthday is Christmas eve, so we always have a little family thing that day.




We have Christmas morning at our house.




Here is grandpa and Miles having quiet time before bed.



Fun the morning after Christmas.


Miles napping .


Nana and Grandpa took him to see a train exhibit on the thirty-first.



That and a couple of crafts pretty much sums up the whole month. We had fun, but it was busy. I also started working this month. What a blessing. Jared's mother had just offered to take Miles on Monday mornings when this opportunity opened up. For a couple of months I'll be able to keep it at one day a week. After that I'll have to work out care for him another day a week too, but that time will come.