Waiting on the mailman

Happy birthday, Daddy!

Love, Cinderella

i guess i ate a few too many funnel cakes at the fair last fall

Before I had Joshua I was still carrying an extra ten pounds from my pregnancy with Julianna.  Now I'm sixteen pounds up from that which puts me at exactly 26 pounds pre-babies.  I've been bouncing around between fifteen and twenty up from pre-Josh for several months now and I am ready to get it off, if not more.  I would love to lose a total of 32 but I would certainly be happy with just losing 16 for now.  I think I can do that by Father's Day.

I have been doing very well with eating better lately but I still struggle with trying to find time to exercise with two kiddos.  The fact that mommy always comes last has been a hard reality to face.  The exercise thing is getting a little better with the warmer weather. 

Still.  I know what I should do.  I should either use the time that Julianna is in school each day to take Josh out for a walk or run.  I have been using that time to get stuff done around the house and actually take a shower each day.  Plus Josh naps some during that time.

I also could exercise after both kids are in bed but that's usually about 9 or 9:30 and then I'm so exhausted that I can hardly even stand up, much less exercise.

I'm also thinking about eliminating soda from my diet permanently.  Anyone do this?

I've been using sparkpeople.com and I've found it to be extremely helpful at holding me accountable for "journaling" my food each day AND there is an android app that I can use on my phone.  Since I'm still breastfeeding Josh I'm trying not to cut back too much.

Something else I've been pondering is adding some kind of protein powder or something similar to my diet.  Sparkpeople lets you compare the percentage of calories of each type actually consumed in your diet with the percentage of calories of each type that you should consume.  Mine always shows that I eat too little protein and even when I try to eat protein at each meal I don't get quite enough.  That makes me wonder what else I can do to increase my protein intake.  Anyone have any suggestions?

I welcome any advice you can give me.  I'm trying.  I really am.

BTW as I type this my daughter is sitting in front of me eating a grilled cheese that Daddy made her and she just declared it "FANTASTIC!"

Maybe I should go try on my bathing suit...?

chores

Just curious.  What's your favorite and least favorite chore to do around the house?

I love doing laundry.  There's just something about that nice clean smell that I enjoy and I also love how you can start a load and then get something else done while you wait to switch it over to the dryer.  It seems efficient to me and I love things that can be done without much thought and sorta mechanically like that.

I hate to clean the bathrooms.  I really dislike that strong chemical smell from all of the cleaners and I hate how quickly they get dirty again.  It's like all of your work is immediately ruined.  I also hate getting down on my hands and knees to clean the tub and showers.  Plus most of it is just plain gross.

As Julianna gets older we've tried to give her more responsibility to help around the house.  We pile our recyclables in a certain spot on the kitchen counter until there's enough to carry out to the garage.  It's her job to take it out to the bin.  Then there's also a lot of cleaning to do on Sundays before our Journey Group meets and she has to help clean up toys before that.  We also ask her to set the table for dinner occasionally but we try to get her to take her dishes to the sink after every meal.

Have you heard about My Job Chart?  It's a FREE online Chore Chart that teaches kids to work in a fun and productive way. Using an easy and fun online system, My Job Chart inspires kids to do their chores on time. An interactive point system tracks your child's progress, creating excitement and enthusiasm among kids. And the fully customizable chore chart allows you and your child to decide upon mutually determined rewards, fostering communication and developing responsibility. You even get an email or text message when your kids finish their chores or they earn a reward!

I really don't think it's ever too early to teach your kids responsibility and it seems that with Julianna's experience on the computer, she should be able to use this system pretty well.   Does anyone already use this system?  Do you use something different?

I decided to give it a try and created an online chore chart for Jules.  Setting it up was really easy and only took about one minute.  We'll have to see what kind of rewards we can agree upon and then see how it goes, but it sounds great and if you decide to try it out please let me know how it works for your house.

she's no roller derby queen

Julianna picked out some $3 roller skates at a preschool consignment sale a couple of weeks ago.  Here's a video of her first experience with them.  It only took her one attempt to realize that falling down really hurt her bottom and she asked for a... well just watch and see.


Untitled from c525600 on Vimeo.


Untitled from c525600 on Vimeo.

easy like Sunday morning

Hollywood