Friday, December 18, 2009
Nothing too important
Yes I realize it has been awhile since I've done an update. And no, I'm still not going to catch up on everything on this post, I have to start getting ready for work here soon. This month has been so excessively busy that some things just have to get neglected. But I just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! Maybe after Christmas, I'll be able to sit down and do an actual post.
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Halloween 2009
We had a lot of fun this year for Halloween. On Friday, Natalie's school had their fall festival, so we went to that! It was a lot of fun. They had a bunch of great games that they got to play and the win candy. The games were easily adjustable to be simple enough to be able to accomodate the younger kids or more difficult for the older ones. The most popular of the night was, by far, the bouncy house! The girls just loved that! They also had a bean bag toss, a bowling the monsters, hay treasure hunt, stick the nose on the jack-o-lantern, plus a few more. That was all in the gym. They also had the classrooms set up with other games like bingo, a cake walk, painting pumpkins, and a secret science laboratory where the kids stuck their hands in boxes with the icky things hidden. I made Natalie do that one and she thought it was icky.... but had to do it again later too. The local fire department also came out with a couple of their trucks for the kids to climb in and honk the horns and set off the sirens. That was a lot of fun for the girls too! There are a couple funny stories to share for the night now.
First. Mrs. Benson (Natalie's teacher) dressed up as a clown. Big frowie wig, face make-up, the works. She came up to Natalie and said hello and asked if she was having fun. Natalie came to me and asked why this stranger was talking to her. I laughed and told her to look again to see if she recognized her. So she did and after a couple minutes (she was literally just staring at her for a few minutes while Mrs. Benson and I were laughing pretty hard) before she saw something that she recognized and then shouted "Mrs. Benson!!" and hugged her. So funny!!
Second. I thought Alexis might have been a bit overwhelmed with things and turn into her shy personality. But she did great! She was running around with Natalie and her friends just like she knew them too and had a lot of fun! Seeing her interact with the kids like a kid herself was amazing for me. She grasped onto the rules of the games veyr easily and was able to play them pretty well.
Third. It was very windy that night. Very windy. We were just about done, just checking out the book fair that they had going on, when the power went out. When it originally went out I panicked for the few seconds it was out because I had left Alexis a couple steps away from me because she was nicely looking at a book and Natalie wanted to show me something. Natalie's school is old so it doesn't have any emergency lights or anything so when the power went out, it was BLACK and you couldn't see a thing. I immediately told the girls to freeze until I found them. I turned around prepared to crawl on the floor if I needed to to find Alexis, but then the power came back on. I knew it wasn't going to last long, so I grabbed Alexis and Natalie just as the power went out again. If you know Natalie, you know she freaks out easily so I started talking to her telling her it was ok that the wind just caused the power to go out and that we were going to go home now. Natalie was actually doing really well. I was very proud of her. Then the parents in the room started freaking out. "Oh my gosh, I don't know where the flashlights are!" "What do we do?!?" "How do we get out of here and make sure all the kids are with their families?!?" etc. Finally, before they could get Natalie going, I said, "There are two fire trucks outside with a bunch of firemen hanging around them. Guaranteed they have a few flashlights. Wait until they come in with one." Sure enough, seconds later a fireman walks in and asks how we're all doing. As I was leaving, I overheard one of them saying that they didn't realize they were going to actually work and have to do an evacuation. I giggled.
On Halloween, we dressed the girls up again and tricked or treated in the Sedro-Woolley business areas. They did great! They made out like bandits. Then we went and visited the aunts and uncles and grandparents (Peter's) in the area. They all thought that Natalie and Alexis were adorable. We planned on going to the mall for their Halloween trick or treating event, but when we got there it was just one continuous line around the mall. It would have taken FOREVER to get through it all, and by that time the girls were tired and hungry, so we skipped out of there and came home for dinner!
There are pictures above in the new slide show of the girls at the fall festival. Enjoy!
First. Mrs. Benson (Natalie's teacher) dressed up as a clown. Big frowie wig, face make-up, the works. She came up to Natalie and said hello and asked if she was having fun. Natalie came to me and asked why this stranger was talking to her. I laughed and told her to look again to see if she recognized her. So she did and after a couple minutes (she was literally just staring at her for a few minutes while Mrs. Benson and I were laughing pretty hard) before she saw something that she recognized and then shouted "Mrs. Benson!!" and hugged her. So funny!!
Second. I thought Alexis might have been a bit overwhelmed with things and turn into her shy personality. But she did great! She was running around with Natalie and her friends just like she knew them too and had a lot of fun! Seeing her interact with the kids like a kid herself was amazing for me. She grasped onto the rules of the games veyr easily and was able to play them pretty well.
Third. It was very windy that night. Very windy. We were just about done, just checking out the book fair that they had going on, when the power went out. When it originally went out I panicked for the few seconds it was out because I had left Alexis a couple steps away from me because she was nicely looking at a book and Natalie wanted to show me something. Natalie's school is old so it doesn't have any emergency lights or anything so when the power went out, it was BLACK and you couldn't see a thing. I immediately told the girls to freeze until I found them. I turned around prepared to crawl on the floor if I needed to to find Alexis, but then the power came back on. I knew it wasn't going to last long, so I grabbed Alexis and Natalie just as the power went out again. If you know Natalie, you know she freaks out easily so I started talking to her telling her it was ok that the wind just caused the power to go out and that we were going to go home now. Natalie was actually doing really well. I was very proud of her. Then the parents in the room started freaking out. "Oh my gosh, I don't know where the flashlights are!" "What do we do?!?" "How do we get out of here and make sure all the kids are with their families?!?" etc. Finally, before they could get Natalie going, I said, "There are two fire trucks outside with a bunch of firemen hanging around them. Guaranteed they have a few flashlights. Wait until they come in with one." Sure enough, seconds later a fireman walks in and asks how we're all doing. As I was leaving, I overheard one of them saying that they didn't realize they were going to actually work and have to do an evacuation. I giggled.
On Halloween, we dressed the girls up again and tricked or treated in the Sedro-Woolley business areas. They did great! They made out like bandits. Then we went and visited the aunts and uncles and grandparents (Peter's) in the area. They all thought that Natalie and Alexis were adorable. We planned on going to the mall for their Halloween trick or treating event, but when we got there it was just one continuous line around the mall. It would have taken FOREVER to get through it all, and by that time the girls were tired and hungry, so we skipped out of there and came home for dinner!
There are pictures above in the new slide show of the girls at the fall festival. Enjoy!
OWIE!!
Well, I did it! I took the first bootcamp class, and I made it the whole hour!!!! I was hurting and REALLY wanted to stop halfway through it, but I pushed myself and finished it out! Oh but I hurt now! I am so sore, but that's a good thing! Tomorrow I get to do it again, and I can't wait! Although I hope that my muscles will have loosened up a bit before then.
Now, do I let my muscles heal and take today off from working out, or do I push myself a little bit and do a smaller, not quite as intense workout?
Now, do I let my muscles heal and take today off from working out, or do I push myself a little bit and do a smaller, not quite as intense workout?
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Scared... Inspired... Determined...
I didn't know which one to title this post, so you get all of them. They're all accurate so it works that they're all in the title.
Scared: I weighed myself today and I'm just 5 pounds from being at the weight I promised myself I'd never get to. 5 pounds! Right now, I'm the heaviest I've ever been in my life, including when I was 9 months pregnant. If I don't do something now, I'm going to hit that mark that I told myself I'd never get to, and who knows when I'll stop. I don't want to become a person who can't play with her kids, or has to ride in a motorized cart at the grocery store, because she's too fat and doesn't have the energy.
Inspired: There is a lady at the health club that I work at that has met a very, very impressive goal. Last year, at this very time, she was very heavy, like over 300 pounds heavy. On November 4, 2008 she set a goal for herself, to lose 100 pounds in a year. She not only has met that, she has surpassed that! A week ago, when I last spoke with her, she had lost 115 pounds!
Determined: Now I don't have 100 pounds to lose. But I could lose 50. So here is my goal. I'm going to lose 50 pounds in 6 months. If she can do 100 in 12 months, then I can and will do 50 in 6!
Here's the thing. I didn't get to this point because I love to workout and hold myself accountable. Frankly, I'm just the opposite. I hate to workout! You'd think that since I work at a health club, and have a free membership because of that, it'd be easy for me to get in and use the facilities. But that's not the case. Part of it is that now with teaching so much and then going to the club afterwards three nights a week, plus a Saturday, I don't want to take any more time from the girls. Another part of it is that I work there. You'll always hear people who work in retail that they hate to shop in their store on their days off. It's no different for me at the health club. I already spend so much time there, I have a hard time coming in to work out. But I realize those are just excuses. No more! Tomorrow I'm going in to sign up for bootcamp this month and see if I can maybe do that for all six months. The health club has this thing where you can sign up and workout with a group with one of our trainers in a high intensity workout. They meet twice a week for an hour each time. That would mean at least two hours that I'm currently not doing now. It would have to help! I'm hoping that having something that will keep me accountalbe to showing up will help me actually show up and do the workouts! Today I went out and bought a kettle ball to do at home workouts. There are so many excercises you can do with a kettle ball that I don't think I'll ever get bored with it. At work, at the health club, I will do a 10 minute walk on the treadmill, bike, or whatever cardio machine I can get on during my break!
A friend and I have a private blog that we had started to help encourage each other to keep up the good work and lose weight. We started out OK, but we both just quit doing it. So I'm making my journey public. I think I'll post pictures there of my progress, and maybe put my actual weight there so that those aren't quite as public, but I will occassionally update this to let you know how I'm doing. But I need your help. I need your help keeping me accountable. Ask me occassionally how I'm doing. Encourage me, especially when I'm thinking that this is going to be impossible, because there will be those times. Thank you in advance and here's to me becomming a better, healthier person!
On an unrelated side note: We had a fun and adventure filled Halloween weekend! I will post more about it tomorrow and I will make a new slide show to show off costumes and some of the activities the girls did!
Scared: I weighed myself today and I'm just 5 pounds from being at the weight I promised myself I'd never get to. 5 pounds! Right now, I'm the heaviest I've ever been in my life, including when I was 9 months pregnant. If I don't do something now, I'm going to hit that mark that I told myself I'd never get to, and who knows when I'll stop. I don't want to become a person who can't play with her kids, or has to ride in a motorized cart at the grocery store, because she's too fat and doesn't have the energy.
Inspired: There is a lady at the health club that I work at that has met a very, very impressive goal. Last year, at this very time, she was very heavy, like over 300 pounds heavy. On November 4, 2008 she set a goal for herself, to lose 100 pounds in a year. She not only has met that, she has surpassed that! A week ago, when I last spoke with her, she had lost 115 pounds!
Determined: Now I don't have 100 pounds to lose. But I could lose 50. So here is my goal. I'm going to lose 50 pounds in 6 months. If she can do 100 in 12 months, then I can and will do 50 in 6!
Here's the thing. I didn't get to this point because I love to workout and hold myself accountable. Frankly, I'm just the opposite. I hate to workout! You'd think that since I work at a health club, and have a free membership because of that, it'd be easy for me to get in and use the facilities. But that's not the case. Part of it is that now with teaching so much and then going to the club afterwards three nights a week, plus a Saturday, I don't want to take any more time from the girls. Another part of it is that I work there. You'll always hear people who work in retail that they hate to shop in their store on their days off. It's no different for me at the health club. I already spend so much time there, I have a hard time coming in to work out. But I realize those are just excuses. No more! Tomorrow I'm going in to sign up for bootcamp this month and see if I can maybe do that for all six months. The health club has this thing where you can sign up and workout with a group with one of our trainers in a high intensity workout. They meet twice a week for an hour each time. That would mean at least two hours that I'm currently not doing now. It would have to help! I'm hoping that having something that will keep me accountalbe to showing up will help me actually show up and do the workouts! Today I went out and bought a kettle ball to do at home workouts. There are so many excercises you can do with a kettle ball that I don't think I'll ever get bored with it. At work, at the health club, I will do a 10 minute walk on the treadmill, bike, or whatever cardio machine I can get on during my break!
A friend and I have a private blog that we had started to help encourage each other to keep up the good work and lose weight. We started out OK, but we both just quit doing it. So I'm making my journey public. I think I'll post pictures there of my progress, and maybe put my actual weight there so that those aren't quite as public, but I will occassionally update this to let you know how I'm doing. But I need your help. I need your help keeping me accountable. Ask me occassionally how I'm doing. Encourage me, especially when I'm thinking that this is going to be impossible, because there will be those times. Thank you in advance and here's to me becomming a better, healthier person!
On an unrelated side note: We had a fun and adventure filled Halloween weekend! I will post more about it tomorrow and I will make a new slide show to show off costumes and some of the activities the girls did!
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Excitement is...!
A post of things that have made me excited lately!
There is a Chinese restaurant in Pullman called the Emerald. It is by far the BEST Chinese restaurant I've ever been to, ever! My favorite thing there is their almond chicken and pork chow mien! They make a gravy out of the almonds for their almond chicken and it is absolutely devine! Since moving away from Pullman, I've been searching and searching for another restaurant that makes the almond chicken like that. Well, it took 5 years to do it, but I finally found one!!! It's not nearly as good as the Emerald, but still mighy delicious! I'm so super happy!
We got our family pictures done this past week. It's the first professional pictures we've had since Alexis was born. It was a late birthday gift Peter got me! They turned out awesome! We got a deal on them, where when we ordered the package we got a CD of all the pictures we took, not just the pictures we ordered, and the copy release for them, so I can go and print out ones that I didn't get to order! It's a good thing because I couldn''t just pick out a couple, I wanted them all!
I have been subbing pretty much full time this year. Most of the jobs I've been getting are from teachers that have requested me specifically too fill in for them! I even have a secretary that calls me when a teacher gives her the task of finding a sub for them! Now I just need to get in with whoever it is that does the hiring in the district.
There is a Chinese restaurant in Pullman called the Emerald. It is by far the BEST Chinese restaurant I've ever been to, ever! My favorite thing there is their almond chicken and pork chow mien! They make a gravy out of the almonds for their almond chicken and it is absolutely devine! Since moving away from Pullman, I've been searching and searching for another restaurant that makes the almond chicken like that. Well, it took 5 years to do it, but I finally found one!!! It's not nearly as good as the Emerald, but still mighy delicious! I'm so super happy!
We got our family pictures done this past week. It's the first professional pictures we've had since Alexis was born. It was a late birthday gift Peter got me! They turned out awesome! We got a deal on them, where when we ordered the package we got a CD of all the pictures we took, not just the pictures we ordered, and the copy release for them, so I can go and print out ones that I didn't get to order! It's a good thing because I couldn''t just pick out a couple, I wanted them all!
I have been subbing pretty much full time this year. Most of the jobs I've been getting are from teachers that have requested me specifically too fill in for them! I even have a secretary that calls me when a teacher gives her the task of finding a sub for them! Now I just need to get in with whoever it is that does the hiring in the district.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
We've been invaded!
By LADYBUGS of all things! We came home this afternoon from a full day of being gone and there are THOUSANDS of ladybugs all over the house! Mind you, there weren't ANY when we left, so this is an accumulation of just one day. I've never seen so many ladybugs in one place before! The house seriously looks like it's moving! As you can tell by one of the last pictures, not even I was immune to it as I was taking pictures! We had to all gather around the door, so we could quickly get inside with the minimal amount of invasion inside, it would be impossible to come inside without a few getting in, but I'm proud, we only let in three (that we found at the time)!
Thursday, October 8, 2009
On a more positive note
My last post was a bit depressing and I've been meaning to update with a more positive post for the longest time, but I've been very busy with subbing, working at the health club, birthdays, and being a mom and wife that I just haven't had the time. To be honest I only have about 10 minutes now to do a quick update. So you get two funny stories.
Lately, Kathy has been buying gallon jugs of chocolate milk. One morning, Kathy mixed some with regular whole milk (the chocolate milk is too sweet to just drink by itself) and then warmed it up for Alexis. Alexis drank it up and very seriously said it was good "Tchosfee milk!" (Coffee milk). We all about burst with laughing so hard! Ever since then, she's had to have her 'tchosfee milk' every morning.
The other night I woke up to one of the girls off and on crying. I laid in bed for a few minutes to see if the cryer would stop (I honestly couldn't tell which one it was), but when it didn't I got up and decided to see what was the issue. I first checked on Alexis thinking that she'd be the most likely one to be fussing, but she was fast asleep. I then went to check on Natalie, but she wasn't in her bed. She fussed again and it came from to floor so I looked down, and still couldn't find her. Again she whimpered and there was a quiet "Mooommm" and again I looked on the floor. I finally found her and was laughing so hard, but as quietly as I could so not to wake up Alexis. Somehow she had rolled off her bed and then rolled underneath her bed. Being sleepy and disoriented, she couldn't figure out where she was and how to get out.
I love my silly girls so very much. Moments like these make all the rough moments totally worth it! I'm glad these silly, great moments outweigh the trying difficult ones!
Lately, Kathy has been buying gallon jugs of chocolate milk. One morning, Kathy mixed some with regular whole milk (the chocolate milk is too sweet to just drink by itself) and then warmed it up for Alexis. Alexis drank it up and very seriously said it was good "Tchosfee milk!" (Coffee milk). We all about burst with laughing so hard! Ever since then, she's had to have her 'tchosfee milk' every morning.
The other night I woke up to one of the girls off and on crying. I laid in bed for a few minutes to see if the cryer would stop (I honestly couldn't tell which one it was), but when it didn't I got up and decided to see what was the issue. I first checked on Alexis thinking that she'd be the most likely one to be fussing, but she was fast asleep. I then went to check on Natalie, but she wasn't in her bed. She fussed again and it came from to floor so I looked down, and still couldn't find her. Again she whimpered and there was a quiet "Mooommm" and again I looked on the floor. I finally found her and was laughing so hard, but as quietly as I could so not to wake up Alexis. Somehow she had rolled off her bed and then rolled underneath her bed. Being sleepy and disoriented, she couldn't figure out where she was and how to get out.
I love my silly girls so very much. Moments like these make all the rough moments totally worth it! I'm glad these silly, great moments outweigh the trying difficult ones!
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