Week 2

I've decided to just completely skip my weigh in for this week. That's not to say that I didn't weigh myself, just that I am going to ignore the scale. Cuz I didn't like what it told me. Apparently, having an all night eat and drink fest for your birthday followed by a couple more days of eating and drinking yourself into oblivion might possibly annoy your scale and make it say mean things to you, like "Fat Ass! Get off of me!"
Or something like that.

Hopefully, the scale will have recovered from it's psychotic break by next Sunday.

Week 1 success!

First week weigh in: 171 lbs!
Down 3 pounds this week.
Good thing I don't weight in again until next Sunday, as I sit here with my Starbucks Caramel Macchiato ice cream. What? They gave me a coupon for my birthday. How could I say no?

It's snow fun!

   
It's hard to believe we were just wearing sweatshirts on 1-1-11. 

1-11-11 was spent in snowpants, hats, and gloves.

Even Buddy joined in the fun.

Waterproof gloves make all the difference. Of course, I had to take a break from the spending freeze to get them, but good winter gloves for four little peeps were hard to pass up when they went on sale.

The freeze hasn't been going all that great anyway. I knew I'd spend a little picking up dinner for the kids last week between orthodontist appointments and work. However, our Sonic dinner got a little expensive when my battery died in their parking lot.

My husband had to come save the day and bring me a new battery.

And he's been spending ever since......... but that's a whole nother post.

Since we're failing at the spending freeze, perhaps I'll do a little better working towards my weight loss goal.

I started the Special K challenge on Sunday. Let me just say, it is so easy to eat nothing but cereal. If only I didn't have to feed everyone else. :op
 

Okay, maybe I am simplyfying it a bit, there's a bit more on the plan than just cereal, but you know what I mean. I think any diet is fairly easy, as long as you don't have to feed anybody else food that's not on the plan.

I've been trying out J. Michaels new 6 week Ab video too. That first day about killed me. If you think it's just an ab workout, think again. I don't think I had a muscle that wasn't hurting the next day. I had to take a two day break between instead of just one. Today was my second try at it. I'll let you know how I feel tomorrow.

What not to do

Want to know why it's not a good idea to sit on a bench with your hands and your feet tucked into your sweater?

Because this cute boy......

Might turn into this boy.....

Teagan did a faceplant right off the dining room bench. Unfortunately, since he thought it was a good idea to sit there with his arms and his legs tucked up into his sweater, he had nothing to catch himself with besides his face. It's hard to hold back the tears when you listen to the screams of your child.  And the nurse in me all but disappeared as I fought off the dizziness while watching blood poor from my child's nose. His dad swore he must have broken his nose. It was so flat when he first picked him up and like I said, the blood just poored from it.As if that wasn't bad enough, he managed to bust his lower lip open on his teeth. I don't think he broke it. I mean, it would hurt more if he did, right? I don't know, but it sure is swollen right across the bridge and you can tell around his right eye is turning a little purple and is swollen. Remember the last major fall this kid had? Check out the scar above his right eye that required 30 stitches.

This pic is actually from the next morning. The day of the event it was pretty ugly. The poor kid looks like a prize fighter. I asked him if Mommy punched him in the nose and he said "you would never do that." Good answer since he has to go to school tomorrow and there may be some questions.

Revolutions

Or is that resolutions? Whatever. Looking back to last January, I found my goals for 2010:

Lose 10 pounds.

Pay off 2 credit accounts.

Stay in school.

Not surprisingly, they were my goals for 2009 as well and I plan to revolve them right back around to 2011. Go with what you know, eh? You know me, ever the recycler.

I heartily failed at goal #1 last year. Not only did I not lose 10 pounds, I actually gained 10. I made a sorry attempt at losing weight towards the end of last summer and again right before the holidays. Alas, my heart wasn't in it, so I failed, again. That little weight loss tracker over there on the right? Ignore it. It will be stricken from view shortly. I'm starting with a clean slate.

Paying down debt? I'm always working towards that. And although we acquired a little more debt when we bought our camper, I did manage to pay off Tanner's braces. Good thing too since Travis has an orthodontist appointment today. Let's hope we can go another year before #2 needs braces. In case you don't know, orthodontia is flippin expensive. Multiply that x 5 kids.....

Anyway, in order to focus on reducing our debt, I have become a crazy mad coupon cutter. I still seem to spend quite a bit at the grocery but that's because I haven't figured out how to make my family survive on cleaning products and toothpaste. For whatever reason, there are rarely coupons for meat and produce. You know, the things you actually eat.

I'm also reimplementing the spending freeze, which has become a January tradition. It just feels right to move past that huge spending month of December by spending less. And it only makes good sense as we move further into the Great Recession to be proactive about spending responsibly and saving what we can.

I'll be starting that on the 4th though since I know I'll be cheating today. Orthodontist appointments at 4pm, 30 minutes away home + work at 7 pm = drive thru dinner. And I just had to get a yummy congratulatory Cold Stone cake to welcome a certain little someone into an absolutely awesome family.
 
And goal #3? Without question, the easiest. I can actually see the light at the end of the tunnel now. When I started this journey, my littlest T was only 5 weeks old, it seemed like the end was so far off. But, I have it in my sights. This quarter I'll be finishing off two classes before moving on to clinicals next quarter! Woot, woot! Class of 2011, here I come!
 
How's your 2011 shaping up?

Welcome 2011!

The hubby and I welcomed in 2011 with the toddler. Okay, not really. She was in bed before midnight. And we were actually in the middle of a movie marathon when 12:00 am rolled around, so maybe we didn't welcome it so much as notice it.

Aunt Krista took all the boys to her house to have their own NYE party and Miss Tate spent the night with her best bud. So Mom and Dad figured it was the perfect night for chowing down on some Pad Thai while watching a crapload of movies without interuption. Although, technically, the toddler didn't feel too good and did interupt the movies a few times. So we rang in the new year like the homebodies we are and avoided any and all parties that may have come our way.

So far it's shaping up to be a great year. One of the nicest couples I know got to ring in the new year with their brand new baby boy. My niece, Mia, will finally be coming home this spring, and I will be graduating from midwifery school this fall. 2011 is looking pretty awesome!

She strikes again

Gosh forbid I take a phone call and leave my purse, with makeup in it, lying around.....

I wonder what could have happened.

Hmmm, it must have been someone with small hands.

Uh huh, I think I found the guilty party.

Tess the Mess strikes again.

Dancin machine

If you noticed the sneak peek yesterday, you may have already figured out what this post is about.

Aunt Krista gifted the kids with a Wii dancing game for kids.

Tatum and Braeden were jamming pretty hard.

Tess thought it was a little too much excitement for her new baby and had to put her to bed on the beanbag.

Even Aunt Kristy got in on the action.

Truth be told, it is kind of hard. Tatum really kicked my butt on the pop songs.

But hey, I rocked out to If you're happy and you know it. :op

And the aftermath.....

Christmas recap (beware, lots of pics)

Before they tore into things

I had to switch over to the flash. They were moving too fast to prevent the blur factor.

Yes, this is a crazy sing a ma jig and before you comment how weird it is,

I'll let you know that Tess loved it and promptly kissed it on its freaky mouth.

And now that that's out of the way, it's time to play!

You may notice the fading bruise on Tess's cheek. We took a tumble down the stairs. I thought I would share the bruise on my cheek too, you know to document the whole experience on the blogosphere and all. But that would require me to take a picture of my BUTT cheek. :op And I just don't feel that comfortable with ya'll yet. I slid down 5-6 stairs while holding Tess. To prevent dropping her, I didn't catch myself. Have you ever seen those cartoons where someone slides down the stairs with their head bouncing on every step? Yeah, that's what it felt like. Despite some bruised cheeks, a massive headache, and some severely bent glasses, we survived with no broken bones or concussions. Needless to say, my bruise was a whole lot bigger than hers.

See that stroller there? Already broken. Yep, Tess buckled herself into it then tried to stand up. She pulled the seat cover completely off. You just can't get high quality in a $7 stroller these days.

Time for a little breakfast with a new Dora movie.

We did it, we did it, we did it. Yay!

The rest of the family came over in the afternoon to stuff themselves and dig into more presents.



Teagan and Braeden

 

The unwrapping goes in age order, in case you were curious.

It was all a blur after this.

What you got there, Tess?

Ooh, a sneak peak of what's to come.....