SHE WALKS... EVERYWHERE!

The day has come when Thing Two realized she could walk and had the confidence to walk. She walked all over the house today, everywhere! I am so excited for her. Most parents dread this day, but I love it. Now when she is upset I am leaving the room she can easily follow. Besides our house was already baby-proofed so it's not like she can get into anything, well accept the drawers that she keeps yanking the clothes out of, over, and over, and over.. lol

YAY for her, and like my second prediction, before her first birthday! I am so proud for her!

In action after dinner- hence her not having a shirt on, she can walk but she surely can't eat with out making a huge mess of herself!

See what I mean? lol

The official update

Eleven days shredding, well minus the 4 days I didn't.. lol SO make that 7 days of shredding and I am at 136lbs. The waist went down to 34" and the hips to 37", and we won't talk about the boobs because we all know I will loose them anyhow! lol So far so good.. To be fair I couldn't find my other pants and shirt as promised, I bet they were in the dryer, and I did eat right before this picture too. Looks like progress to me!

OH!

For those of you out there who care.. I turned in my completed application to the Bridgeport Hospital School of Nursing today. Now I just have to wait on the Nursing School Gods to decide if they will accept me or not, so the wait starts now...

Busy-ness to sicky-ness, to boredy-ness.

I was supposed to work 5 days this week, and return to school. UGH!
However Thing One and Thing Two are both sick.
Sick enough that I had to miss two days of work, I had already taken a day off telling them that 5 days is too many for me and my family. When I called work to tell them today that again, I can not make it, that again I was at the Dr.s all morning, and that now both kids are sick. I offered to fax my Dr.s notes, and imagine my surprise when my words were met with a very emotionless woman telling me that even if I have notes, my absences will still count as infractions.. OH, nice.. we will see where that goes.
In the midst of all this coughing, sneezing lovely-ness I missed my first day back to school, and it looks not too promising for me to go tomorrow due to impending snow. Awesome, starting the second semester off right, right behind that is!
I am amazed that Thing Two has only been sick 2 other times prior to this, so I shouldn't complain. She has viral croup. It is croup that occured from a virus, making it different from the re-occuring at night time kind of croup. Let me just tell you how awful it is. She sounds like death at times, it's scary, she even was struggling so baddly this morning her skin was pulling through her little ribs. My heart sunk when I saw that, both kids got dragged out the door to go camp out at the Dr's office. To which I was told that it's typical and that it may happen more in the coming days, and to take her outside in the cold when she is like that. Otherwise we have to sit and wait for the steroids to work. So sad.
Thing One has had a cold that manifested into a sinus infection. Amazingly it doesn't seem to bother her much other than the cough from it. Typically she is MISERABLE when she has any kind of cold. Maybe she is letting her sister have a turn.
So tomorrow is my snow day- I am betting on it, even if school isn't canceled chances are really good I won't be driving 30 miles in the snow and ice to go to it anyways.
Then Thursday I have to surrender my sick little babies to my Mom to watch them while I go back to that incredibly un-understanding of a place I call work.
My potentially very busy week turned into a not so busy week, and for that I will shut up and not complain and be thankful. I had hours of time with my kids returned to me, and for that I am always thankful!

Shredding

So week one of shredding is officially done. Not bad. I missed 2 days. The rest of the days I did Level One, and on the 7th day I did level 2. Level one was cake, level two- kicked my butt a bit. Level two amps up the cardio it seems to really get you sweating. Either way I am enjoying my workouts and feeling great doing them. I can visibly notice my body looking a bit more toned, my legs especially, and my stomach is noticeably flatter. However according to the scale not a whole lot has changed. I can not weigh myself at this moment, but my lowest reading in the past week was 136lbs two days ago.. We will see if it continues to come off..

Telling on myself.

Ok, ok, so I was a bad girl. I have missed 2 days of shredding. I did two days, then missed two days. One of those two days I did walk a lot though. It will be even harder next week for me to find the time, Kmart has me scheduled 5 days! Hello? Who do they think they are taking me from my kids, especially the same week I am back to school!? So I don't know how well my 30 day challenge will pan out. I can report I have lost 4 additional pounds since my first day of shredding, whether or not is has anything to do with it I am not sure. So enough is enough, I must go shred now...

A Shredding I went, Day One!

After a bit of a hassle getting my DVD to me I finally have it in my possession. It was like a prized possession when it arrived, I was jumping and screaming yay.. then I realized I had to leave for work in a hour so it would have to wait another day, that brings us to today!
This is a 3-2-1 interval system that mixes cardio, strength, and abs for extreme weight loss, or so it says.. There are also 3 different levels, beginner, intermediate and advanced. All you need is a little floor space, hand weights and a good attitude.
SO I went with Level 1-beginner, no hand weights, the ones I have a 5lbs, and I can only find 1! Tomorrow I will be purchasing a new set. I must say the video went by amazingly fast. You don't do any one thing too long before you are on to something else.
I felt the strength training part of the work out was awesome, right up my alley, I can feel it in my muscles now, the giggly-ness I will call it. LOVE IT!
The cardio was good, I broke a small sweat, but was very winded due to my asthma, but nothing that I won't be able to handle, which is what I was hoping for.
The abs.. I was a bit disappointed, I am the person that can go to the weight room for the first time in YEARS and do 3-5 sets of 60 crunches varying 30lb and 50lb weights added, and not feel a thing the next day.. So I will have to add some of my own crunch-tastic moves to another workout another time in the day.. Or maybe I will start or end my work out with this..
All in all I am very please with my work out, and I can totally see myself doing it every day.
So for Day ONE of the SHRED I weigh in at 139lbs, with 35" of flubber at my waist.. Let's challenge Ms. Michaels clincher: Lose up to 20lbs in 30 days!

The weigh in

So I am waiting for my new work out DVD, I am thrilled, and I can't wait to give it a go. I am telling all few of you about it in hopes of keeping me motivated and on track with it. Its so easy to say I will do it to myself and then never do it, but if I have to report to someone thats another story completely! lol SO we will give me an estimated starting weight of 140lbs-145lbs thats me on average. I naturally fluctuate 5lbs all month long, I always have. My goal is to get back to 120lbs, and to be more toned. My waist around my belly button measures 35", it used to be 26"! I don't look too bad now, just a little round in the middle parts of the body, and not nearly as toned as I would like. Having been a long distance and short distance runner a good portion of my life I am used to nice toned legs, due to my asthma running is difficult for me so lets help the DVD can help get me into better shape all around. My hips are now 38", they were always 32". Then the chest, that was always 36", it's now 40", that can stay the same and I would be ok with it! I will post after my first work out, hopefully I get the DVD by the end of this up coming week! My before photo:

Let me start with saying this shirt was a shirt I used to wear all the time, and it was a little loose on me. In my defense I literally just finished eating dinner when I decided to take this photo! HAHA!I will try to wear this outfit for each weigh in and photo.. I suppose I will go with monthly weigh ins, unless the weight just pours off me! *Hoping-Praying* lol

My little Things

So last I reported about my "little things" (Thing One and Thing Two), I reported that Thing One was on the verge of walking. Well she still is! It's the most frustrating thing to watch. She took her first steps on December 19, well she is up to 3 steps now before falling. Part of the issue is she lacks balance. She has TINY feet for her cute little rolly polly frame, the other problem is she seems to lack confidence. She pulls up onto everything now, and will walk as much as she can holding on to things. She also gave me a wonderful birthday gift, as we ate breakfast she crawled over to me, got into a squatting position and just stood up. That was a first for her, I was so happy for her, I could see the happiness and excitement in her little eyes, it really was nice for me. So I move her projected walking date, I now say that by her birthday she will be walking, and if she isn't? God help me! lolGood timing with the camera, I was trying to just get her to stand, she decided she wanted the camera!

Thing One is getting more vocal, she said her first "word/words" which were "Uh oh".. Interesting isn't it? I guess we say that a lot these days. We are working with her to get her to label her basic things, baba, eat, etc. She yells aplenty these days, but not in a language that any of us understand!

Thing Two is into doing her own thing these days. She wanders off plays, only to come back in a few minutes to say, Look Mommy, Look, come here Mommy. It's cute, but tiring, especially when she proudly shows me the same things over and over. I am trying hard to remember these days are short, and to appreciate the little things.

She can tell you the names of at least 15 different animals (if not more) and the noises they all make. She can also name every pony she has (20ish), every pony in her books, and on her DVD movies of them! On most days she can correctly identify all the basic colors. She counts to 3, skips 4 & 5 and then sometimes resumes at 6. She has dropped the alphabet completely. We were getting up to E, and she just stopped. So I guess we will wait to see.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

So here we are in the new year, new promises, new everything, including goals.

Goal one, I have decided to take a more proactive role in my baby fat weight loss. I was trying dieting, thats really not for me. I have always been active (I still am), but I am less active now than I was pre-babies. So when a friend of mine told me about a program called Jillian Michaels - 30 Day Shred and told me she lost 20 lbs and 5 1/2 inches in 20 minutes a day I thought, hey I could do that! I know that my body will never look the same, my Dr. already told me that the skin damage was so bad that the only thing that would correct it is a tummy tuck. However if I can get the rest of my body toned and firm again and rid of excess fat I would be happy. Until I become wealthy I will just have to go buy a piggy bank for my Nip/Tuck fund. I have noticed that since my weight gain my self esteem isn't what it once was or ought to be, and I need to get that back. Maybe I will start a weight loss journal on here for those of you to follow, a little pressure never hurts, right?

Goal two is to work on getting into nursing school. At this point my application is half completed and I have a deadline of January 30th to get it in. Now just because I get all my stuff in order doesn't guarantee me a spot in a program, thats the scary part, but I am giving it my best shot. If I don't get in I will continue taking classes in an attempt to raise my GPA. It's not bad now, but the higher the better especially when the competition is so stiff to get into a program.

Goal three is to get my financial affairs in order. Somehow this ends up a priority every year. Enough said.

Goal four is to live a healthier lifestyle in terms of diet. I am working to cut out soda (I wasn't a huge fan to begin with). I also want to cut out juice, it's so easy to buy a little canister of lemonade or something and then make juice, and lord knows all those Crystal Lights and stuff are bad for you so I need to drink more water. I also need to cut back on caffeine, a little birdie told me that caffeine increases cellulite in women, when I think about the physiology of the human body, this makes sense to me so I will work on that. I also ingest entirely too much sugar, and not enough raw vegetables and fruits. I need to be a good role model for my children and this one is an important one for me.

Goal five is to complete goals one through four!

Good luck on whatever goals you may have made for yourself this year!

Christmastime again

Not too much can be said about Christmas this year. It came, it went, it was a success and the man in the red suit got all the credit again! I wanted to share a few photos for you though.

Thing Two with a gift from Santa.

Thing One tearing open a gift from her Great Aunt.