up to

reading: The last few books I've read include Insurgent by Veronica Roth, Night Road by Kristin Hannah, and The Principles of Running by Amby Burfoot.  All three were very good.  Now I'm reading Rules of Civility by Amor Towles and after that I'm going to read Wild.

listening: Uncaged by Zac Brown Band and The Sound Of The Life Of The Mind the new comeback album by Ben Folds Five have been the main things gracing my ears this week.

eating: Trying not to buy and eat Halloween candy yet, I've been prepping baked oatmeal and protein balls each weekend to snack on throughout the week.  I've also been chopping veggies and making an effort to really get foods prepared on Sunday so that I can make good choices when I come home from work starving and exhausted.  I also ate salmon for the first time since I was little several weeks ago on a date night with Jonathan and it was delicious. I'm thinking of trying to cook it myself soon. And speaking of cooking...

making: I've pinned some new recipes I hope to try soon, including this one and this one.  We got our last few bell peppers out of the garden this week and I thought I'd also try this one. We've also been working on our Dixie Classic Fair entries. Josh is making a torn paper collage and Julianna is building a Lego creation.  I cannot believe it's almost fair time again!  It feels like just a few months ago I was walking the fairgrounds timing contractions before Josh was born.

What have you been up to lately?

notes from Josh

Dear Daddy,
Thank you for bringing me a hat back from Detroit. I look incredibly cute in it! We missed you while you were gone. Don't go away so long again, OK?
Love,
Joshua

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Dear Mamaw,
Thanks for coming to play with me before school this week. I had a lot of fun getting extra attention and playing games. Thanks for coming to my school with me for Goodies for Grands. I hope you'll come back and wander the halls with me again sometime!
Love,
Joshua

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Dear Krispy Kreme,
Thank you for the doughnuts! It was a treat to celebrate pirate day with you and there's not a lot that I like more than a hot original glazed doughnut.
Love,
Joshua

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Dear Pap and Aunt Whit,
I love you and miss you. Where have you been? I wish you could come see me soon.
Love,
Joshua

thirty five months

Dear Joshua,
Right now you are upstairs talking yourself through nap time.  A very common occurrence these days.  You can talk more than anyone I know.  And that includes your grandfather which will amaze anyone who knows him.

I will look back on this month and remember it as the month you learned to pick your nose.  And Announce. It. To. Us.  Ugh!  Not sure what we can do to stop this behavior, but stop it already! It's so disgusting to be driving down the road and hear you say, "Mom, I like to get boogers out of my nose!" You also have started talking a lot about poop and pee and we've had to discuss "potty talk" and discourage use of these kinds of words so frequently that we've even talked about making you go stand in the bathroom when you say them.  It hasn't gotten to that point yet, but if something doesn't change soon then we may not see you much of your thirty-fifth month because you'll be spending it in the bathroom!

not napping makes it hard to stay awake at Target

Starting back to school this month was a little more rough than I anticipated.  Of course, you're fine now but for some reason at first you cried a lot at drop off.  We talked to you on many different occasions about being a big boy and not crying because we always come back to get you.  Then it became incredibly impressive to watch you recognize your sadness about leaving us and even pooch out your bottom lip a bit but then calmly walk on and tell us goodbye normally.  You are growing up so fast.

You've learned the Pledge of Allegiance, the days of the week and most of the months of the year.  You've started "pretend reading" books and actually telling the stories that are in the pictures.

We took you camping last month and you got to pee in the bushes.  This was intriguing to you and because we've never really encouraged you to use the bathroom outside you had a great deal of stage fright about it at first.  Eventually you got it and you've mentioned it a couple of times since.  Then this week your preschool teacher had you in the carpool line waiting to pick up the girls and you had to pee so apparently she let you go right in the bushes outside of the car because the school hadn't dismissed yet and the car was trapped in line.  When I picked you up that afternoon you exclaimed, "Mama, I got to pee in the bushes!"  I know you're going to read this years from now and wonder why it was such a big deal to me that you can pee outside, but I've never wanted one of those little boys that will pull down his fly and just pee off the side of the deck so I've tried not to expose you to that possibility. But then when you're finally the parent of a two year old and you experience a visit to every restroom in every retail outlet in your town at every inopportune moment possible you'll understand why it's nice to have a boy.

You've gone through a little bit of a growth spurt recently. You grew 3/8ths of an inch in a month and your 24 month pants are finally too short.

You're still a picky eater and of course you love sweets.  You like to steal your sister's gummy vitamin in the morning while she's not looking despite the fact that you've already inhaled your own.

We're getting ready for the big party next month and we've asked you what you want on your cake.  You've told us Blue's Clues, including Steve and Joe, Spiderman, and pirates all in the span of fifteen minutes.  Such is a conversation with you these days.  We'll figure it out.  Until then, happy thirty-five months, Buddy. I love you!

Love,
Mama

eighteen more?

I wrote this sometime last week.  It seems like ages ago now, but Jonathan was out of town all week for work and the craziness of life got in the way of me taking a current picture so I never posted it.

I ran 8 miles Saturday. Well, actually I ran 7.2 and then ran/walked until I reached 8.  The most I had done for a long run this month was 5.3 so I was proud of myself. But that's not what I really wanted to write about today.

When I was running I passed a friend I haven't seen in a while and she told me I looked great and it thrilled me so much that I can't even explain my happiness. It wasn't because of who said it. I mean, she's certainly great but it was more the fact that it was one of those kinds of compliments where someone who hasn't seen you in a while notices that you've lost weight and genuinely compliment you.  It makes you feel like they really mean it.

I've lost 21 pounds since school got out on June 11th and most people don't notice that I've lost weight at all.  I think it's mostly that I see the same people frequently and haven't run into anyone that hasn't been around me in a while, but it's still discouraging that my weight got high enough that twenty pounds wasn't noticeable.  I'm working on that.

I would like to lose 18 more pounds and I think I can do it. That puts me in a normal weight range for my height, a few pounds less than I was when I got pregnant with Jules.  I am currently at the weight I was when I got pregnant with Josh.

I'm not feeling the pressure to lose the weight quickly and I know that has helped.  That being said, it would be so nice to be below 150 by the time we go on our anniversary trip in a few weeks.  I'm pretty sure I can do that because I am close.

Here's a recent picture of me and below it, a Horrendous picture of me just before school got out. I wish I had taken better before pictures....

Better or worse? What do you think?
And more importantly, who's with me on losing the next 18 lbs?

bashing rocks

Earlier this week we "painted" cotton balls to look like rocks.  

I just mixed equal parts water and flour and a few drops of food coloring in three separate bowls.  Then the kids dipped cotton balls in and rolled them around with their spoons.

We put them on a cookie sheet.

We baked them at 300 degrees for 40 minutes and when they cooled they were like hardened rocks.

That's when the fun began!  Josh and Julianna had a blast smashing the rocks with a hammer.  They were kinda hard on the outside and soft on the inside which made them a lot of fun to smash.

There's not much my boy likes more than hitting things with his hammer. And not much mommy likes more than giving him something to smash other than the coffee table.

If you have littles at home you should try it!  It's easy and a lot of fun.

stories

One day recently Josh had me so confused in the car when he kept asking me what "that thing" is called.  "You know that thing, Mama? That flower thing? That tiger flower that you blow?"

Took me a while but it turns out he was talking about a dandelion.

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In the Target toy section I hear, "Mom! Come over here! You have to see this!"  "OK, I'll be there in a second."  "No, come on now! This will solve all of our problems. We have to get this!"

I look and see nothing other than a Dip 'n' Dot ice cream maker.


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Jonathan was out of town for work last week and I left Julianna downstairs while Josh and I went up for bath.  He asked for bubbles so I got him undressed and started running a bubble bath for him.  He got in the tub and I walked out into the hall to grab his pajamas and underwear and he started calling me back in.  I half paid attention to him until I heard him say, "MOM! There's a frog in my bath!"

Sure enough I look and there's a frog climbing up the wall of the bathtub, right out of the bubbles.  I hollered at Jules to bring my phone and grabbed a bucket to catch him with.  Within minutes the frog was caught and freed out the front door and I may never bathe the kids again.  [Kidding. Sort of.]

things i love

thing 1: 

Paul Mitchell's Tea Tree Special shampoo - This is the only shampoo that I've tried (and believe me, I've tried a lot) that will get rid of the scaly itch that's developed on the back of my head over the past few years.  I recently went a few months without it, tried several substitutions, and then the husband got so tired of me complaining and itching that he went on a wild goose chase to buy more of this. Good stuff.


thing 2: 

Google Play Music - Save your music in a cloud player like Google Play Music and listen to it anywhere.  I can play my own songs on my laptop, at work, and on my phone.  Love the anytime, anywhere aspect of Google's free services.

thing 3: 

Nestle Crunch Girl Scout Candy Bars - We grabbed a couple of these before our camping trip this past weekend and one of them was Swoon Worthy.  I tried the Thin Mint and the Caramel & Coconut and while I'm a huge fan of both of those Girl Scout Cookies, the Caramel & Coconut was far better than the Thin Mint one.  Tasted just like a Samoa and comes in portion control sizes which I love.

thing 4: 

Pleated Wolfpack Skirt and Scarf - I saw this on Pinterest this week and I love it.  The link is to purchase the skirt, but I love the scarf too. How great would that look at a football game this fall?

thing 5:

This was another Pinterest find.  I challenged myself in August to go 3 weeks without wearing my hair in a ponytail (except for during runs) because it was so broken and nasty in a line across the back where I was always putting it up (like everyday this summer and I'm not exaggerating).  I figured if I couldn't wear it down for at least three weeks then I needed to get it cut.  I managed to do it and my hair seems much healthier now thank goodness.  Anyway, I found this tutorial for how to make no-crimp ponytail elastics and I'm going to try it out soon. [Translation: Like maybe in November when school slows down.]

thing 6:

For all the years I've been running I've finally given up on trying to run in shorts.  No matter how hot it got this summer, I still just couldn't be comfortable trying to running in shorts.  They're always creeping up my inner thighs and my big booty makes them ride up at the waist.  For long distance runs I'd get chaffed in the crotch.  I usually run in capri pants and these remain my favorite.  I have three pair and would rather do loads of laundry than wear any of the million other things I have to workout in.  I get them for pretty cheap at  Target and can't imagine ever switching to anything else.



Note: These are all products I simply love.  I was not compensated in any way to write about them. I just thought their wonderfulness should be shared.

What products have you been loving lately? Please share with me!