Another pound bites the dust!

As I have previously mentioned...I'm really serious about losing those last several pounds of 'baby weight' this year. And I'm happy to report that I'm still sticking to my guns, and I've lost 6.8 pounds in 3 weeks!!! Most of the credit goes to my bodybugg...the whole calories in, calories out concept has turned me into an obsessed calorie nazi! : ) But I've also started eating healthier, and even started drinking more water! (The only other time that I've been able to tolerate drinking boring ol' water was with each pregnancy!) I detest how boring water is, and don't want to add even more artifical sweeteners to rev it up, so I'm starting slow, and working my way up. Still haven't managed to bring down the amount of Cherry Coke Zero...but there is always hope!

I decided that it would make life easier if I also started getting some exercise on a regular basis (both to lose the weight, and then to maintain it once I reach my goal). I checked out the selection of work out videos on Netflix...determined to find one that I like before I actually spend the money to buy it. I chose Jillian Michael's 30 day shred, because I LOVE Jillian and her no excuses attitude about weight loss. I tried it last Friday for the first time...it was a 20 minute trip through hell, and I was quite sure that I was going to die before the 20 minutes was up! I was sweating so badly that I had to take a shower afterwards, and my arms hurt so bad that I had a hard time washing my hair! That's how out of shape I am!!!!! I could barely walk all weekend long, and my dear husband laughed at me everytime he witnessed my old lady butt walking up or down the stairs...my quads were seriously the sorest they have ever been (it even hurt to let my kids sit on my lap with their bony little butts)! However, I perservered, and even started another work out program (that I'm much more likely to stick with).

I decided that since I have a limited amount of time to work out, I needed to get the most bang for my buck...thus the idea of running came into my mind. However, NEVER have been a runner, and the thought of it scares me...REALLY scares me. I have a friend in Portland that I've reconnected with on Facebook, and she did this Couch to 5k training program, with much success and really liked it. So I figured I'd give it a try...downloaded the program to my iphone... and I've almost finished the first week, and it was way worse in my head than what it is in reality!!!! I really think I can do this running thing! And to keep me even more on track with it, I'm going to go get fitted for some running shoes (because we all know how cheap my hubby is, and how mad he'll be at me if I buy expensive shoes and then quit doing the program), what better motivator is there than a new pair of shoes! : )

Enough about me...the boys are also obsessed with something new...Super Mario Brothers Wii. I was informed this morning that they are now known as the Bowser brothers...how cute is that?!? Lucas is Dry Bowser, and Zach is Bowser Jr...pretty fitting I'd say! Last night Casey managed to save the princess and finish world 8! The boys were beyond excited with his accomplishment, and can hardly wait to see what is in the secret world 9 that he has unlocked!

I was reading my Family Fun magazine again yesterday. And this month they've provided me with yet another great idea! Whenever the boys say something cute and I tell someone, they always ask if I'm writing this down...and while it sounds like a good idea, I've never really known how to go about it. The family in this article has index cards with the date on them, one for each day of the year. Then at dinner time they all contribute something to the card about their day...and since sharing stories about our day is what the family dinnertime is all about...I'm going to try this out, starting tonight! You can put the cards in a card box, and save them for years to come. What an interesting way to keep track of the little things that made you smile or laugh from day to day!

We finally have a nice, sunny day! So after the dreaded nap time we're off to the park! It's a good thing for both of us...the boys LOVE playing outside, and mom can always use the exercise! Until next time....

Must make blog a weekly priority, AGAIN!

The boys in their new tent

H bowl game day

GO VANDALS!!

I don't even know where to start since my last blog attempt. It has been a whirlwind holiday season, and here I sit almost 2 weeks into the new year. I guess I'll sort of pick up where I left off!

I decided that this year I too was going to have a birthday WEEK. I pampered myself and when the going got tough reminded myself and everyone else, that it was my WEEK and I'd do it as I pleased. We had a fabulous date night on Thursday, Dec 17th. We went to Texas Roadhouse for dinner and followed up a dinner of 1 million calories with a friendly game of black light miniature golf. Since it was my birthday WEEK, I was declared the winner, even though the score was actually Casey -10 and me +2. Friday night, Casey's parents spoiled me with a cherry cheesecake, and the scrapbooking cubes for my scrap room. It was great fun to have them over. On my actual birthday, we went to Pojo's in the morning for a little family fun. Won some silly prizes with all of our tickets, but that's a huge part of the fun! And we topped the day off with a wonderful dinner of mexican food, at one of my fave restaurants, Casa Mexico! Ryan joined us for dinner, and brought over the movie The Proposal for us adults to watch after the kiddies went to bed. We also watched Up with the boys before their bedtime. It was a fabulous night, and I got a lot of cool CTMH scrapbooking stuff to make my day even better! : ) Sunday night my dad and stepmom came over bearing gifts and more CAKE! My fave gift, which was also a gift for the hubby was a Vandal snowman! He hates that I decorate the house with at least a million snowmen every year for Christmas...but this is one snowman he actually tolerates! I had a blast with my birthday WEEK, and will try for another fabulous repeat next year...minus all the calories in the food!

We had a WONDERFUL Christmas holiday again this year. We all got spoiled beyond all imaginable belief! Casey and I got a new computer for Christmas, which was planned. We also got a new garage door opener, and snow tires for his BMW...which weren't planned so much! We followed our tradition of cheese soup at my parents house in Kuna on Christmas Eve. The boys had a ball with their good buddy Osso, the sad thing is that he is getting older, and may not be around for many more celebrations, so they have to really enjoy him while they can! Christmas morning is spent at our home in our pj's. Santa spoiled the boys with a kitchen set, a new adjustable bball hoop, and a tent. It was especially fun this year, because they both know about and understand the whole Santa concept...and they were just ecstatic! Uncle Mike and his girlfriend, Sanjuana, came over a few hours later, bearing more gifts of course! Uncle Mike is like a grandparent or Santa times 1000! The kids ALWAYS love what he picks out for them, and he didn't disappoint this year. A HUGE race track, and a big ol' T Rex that walks and talks. After our celebration with Uncle Mike, we packed up the presents and headed over to Casey's parents house. Doug and Trin, Mike and Sanjuana were all there as well. We did the gift exchange with them, and sat around and talked and ate. We assembled the kids toys (a new garage that is WAY cool, and a new bball hoop to replace the stool/bucket assembly). We ate way to much, but had a great time with everyone!!!!

Our friend Joe came to visit from Seattle. He stayed with some other friend's of ours, so it was a pretty easy time for us. He made it just in time for the big Humanitarian bowl. The guys are all Vandals, and Joe bought all of the kids new Vandal's shirts for the game. A great time was had by all, and the Vandal's pulled off an amazing last 30 seconds of the game win! Truly AWESOME!!!

New year's eve was supposed to be a 'slumber' party at our house for the Neisen kids and ours. We had never tried it, so we didn't know what we were getting ourselves into...but we failed! Oh well. We did get to play one round of rummy, and even though I lost AGAIN, it's always fun playing that game when Joe is in town! We didn't stay up until midnight AGAIN this year... maybe next year the boys will want to try it!

The new year got off to an awesome start! I had the girls over for some serious scrapbooking at 9am on the 1st! We scrapped the day away. And our consultant for CTMH came over and did a private showing (along with free goodies) of the new catalog...it was HEAVEN! The girls left, the babysitter arrived, and we were off to dinner with Joe, Pete and Misty. We decided to give Jalapeno's bar n grill a go...some pretty good Mexican food there, but still not as good as Casa! We topped off dinner with dessert at the Cheesecake factory, and a 'friendly' round of the Farming game. I lost so miserably that I was a poor sport and didn't even count my money at the end! Once again, a very fun game to play when Joe visits!

I keep saying that "I'm serious this time, I really want to lose the last of that baby weight", and of course, I never do it! So I decided to get serious about it. After seeing my friend Sarah lose a ton of weight, I decided to give the Bodybugg a try. It arrived on the 7th, and let me tell you... I LOVE IT!!!! It is a dream come true for an OCD person such as myself! I have lost 5 pounds in less than a week...and am only 18 pounds away from my goal! I have always known that I like to eat...I never really had any idea what a pig I was though. It tells me how many calories I burn, and gives me a calorie budget for my day. Between the amount of money I spent on it, and my husband's reverse psychology (saying that I won't stick with it)...I'm on track, and VERY motivated to stay there!

The last of my exciting news, is from today....THE IPHONES ARE IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! We have decided to enter the new decade in style, so we purchased iphones. Soon the landline home phone will be gone, replaced with a magicJack, and it will mostly just be our cell phones that get used! I may (but please don't hold your breath) learn how to text message! : )

Anyways, apologize for the length of this post...but if you remember, I'm doing it for a journal keepsake. Hope I didn't put anyone to sleep. Until next time...whenever that may be!

December already!

The Christmas tree is up and decorated, the house is full of snowmen and cheer, the cards have been mailed...must mean Christmas is right around the corner! I LOVE this time of year, always have...but it is so much more fun now that I have 2 little ones in my world! They are so excited for Christmas that they can hardly stand themselves! Lucas did a countdown to Thanksgiving, because he knew we could start decorating and put the tree up after we came home from turkey dinner with the grandparents!!!! We have a little tree with drawers full of ornaments, and they get to put a new ornament on the tree each day, to count down to Christmas. And they also have a reindeer full of coins that lets them get a coin for each out of the pocket each day, to count down as well. It's funny how excited they get each morning to see what the ornament for the tree is, and how much money they get out of the reindeer to put into their bank!

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We had our traditional breakfast rolls that morning, followed by a wonderful lunch/dinner at Grandma and Grandpa Coltrin's house. Uncle Doug, Aunt Trin, Uncle Mike and Sanjuana were all able to make it, and the boys enjoyed entertaining all of them! We returned home to give Zach a quick nap, and then we were off to Kuna for dessert and snacks with Papa Ron and Grandma Mar, and who could forget Osso! Zach adores that dog...not sure what's going to happen when he passes, and he is 15 years old afterall, so it could be anyday now. We had a wonderful time visiting with everyone, and have sooooo much to be thankful for, just in the way of our family.

I decided to brave the whole black Friday craze this year. My adventure started Thursday night at Michael's. They opened from 5-9pm, so after I put the boys to bed I headed over there, expecting nothing short of hell on earth...and boy was I ever pleasantly surprised. I walked right in, found the organization cubes for my scrapbook room, checked right out, and saved 55% on them! Fastest trip to Michael's EVER! I figured that since that was such a success, I'd get just as lucky at Target the following morning. WRONG! They opened at 5am, and I detest the cold, so I didn't get there until just after 5am, and still had to wait about 10 minutes to get inside the store, the lines were tremendously long...have never seen that many people at Target at one time!!!! Got all of the stuff I wanted, and got right into line. It was moving and we were making awesome progess...I'm thinking, this is too good to be true...and I was right. The rude, selfish people of the world, decided to make their own lines, and cut right to the front of the lines, making it over an hour before I was able to check out! I either need to plan on it and not get bent out of shape for next year, not go next year, or join them!

I grabbed some Starbucks on the way home, and after breakfast we headed out to the Festival of Trees. The kids were in awe of all the Christmas trees. And Zach got to sit on Santa's lap for a picture, and to tell him what he wants for Christmas. Lucas decided to melt down for no apparent reason, and misbehave, so he didn't get to see Santa. But it was a great adventure all in all, and there were some beautiful trees. They didn't seem as extravagant as before, and they were far fewer in number...a sign of the economic times these days I'm afraid.

Finished the Black Friday experience off with a great evening of fun with the old Nampa Walgreens crew. Hadn't seen Marcia or Brian in a couple of years, and it was soooo much fun to sit and visit over dinner and drinks. We've vowed to do it again, and not wait so long.

The new computer that is our BIG xmas present for the family this year, is up and running. I'm still frustrated because Casey doesn't want to make it fully functional until the new Windows 7 upgrade has been installed...and it just shipped on Tuesday. It's been a huge lesson in patience for me...and we all know that I have a negative amount of that! One more week, and I should be able to do everything on it, instead of switching back and forth from old to new, while trying to figure out what is hooked up to which computer. I can do it! : )

I have a million things to get done, so must go for now. Will add some pics, once I logon to the other computer! : ) Until next time...

Where did the month of November go?

I seriously cannot believe that it's only a week until Thanksgiving, and just over a month until Christmas! HOLY COW!!!!!

The boys are doing gymnastics at Tumbletime on Friday mornings until next spring. I like to have a guaranteed time each week for them to run all of their energy out since most days are too cold to want to go outside and do that! This is Zach's first time, and he loves his 'nastics'. This is Lucas' 3rd season with Tumbletime. He really likes Miss Shania, so he was disappointed that brother's class gets her, and he has a new teacher Miss Jenn. He is really doing awesome. He has some pretty rowdy girls in his class, that don't pay attention and do what they should. But he's been doing great with the listening thing, and his beam and bar skills are improving greatly. I ask him each time what his favorite thing was, and it's always the same answer...I liked all of it mom!

The daycare that the boys are going to just got a new program started and it's amazing how much they are learning. It's like preschool, only I don't have to pay extra for it! And it makes me feel better about not having Lucas in preschool yet. He misses the cutoff by 4 days, so he'll be almost 6 before he starts kindergarten, so Casey and I didn't feel it necessary to have him in preschool forever. But it's one of those, everybody else is doing it kind of things, so I feel guilty every now and again, and wonder if I'm cheating him out of something. But now that his 'playschool' has stepped up their daycare program (even if it is only 1 day each week that he goes), I'm loving it!

I'm in full swing with the Christmas card preparations! Those of you who know me well, know how much I look forward to this every year! I'm really excited that I'm on facebook because I've connected with several of Casey's cousins that all live back east, and so I've got new names on the list this year!!!! They are all such sweet people, and I'm glad that I've had the chance to get to know them a little better. We're going to try our best to make it to Illinois in July for the family reunion, and I can't wait to meet several that I haven't previously met...and for everyone to get to meet my boys. The last time we went was the summer that I was pregnant with Lucas...I can hardly wait!!!!!!

I took Zach to the doctor on Monday because his cough was getting worse instead of better...and I was desperate for something to STOP the cough after a sleepless Sunday night. The doc said that he not only had bronchitis and a left ear infection, but he also has reactive airway disease. So we got the pleasure of doing a breathing treatment with him for a couple of days. He thought it was great fun at first, but he's since decided that it isn't for him, and he 'don't want to' do it anymore! I hope that it's just related to the swine flu and bronchitis that he's had, and not something more long term, which doc said is a possibility!

We had a football party here on Saturday for the big rivalry game between the BJC broncos, and the Vandals. The Vandals starting QB, Enderle, was injured and thus didn't play. And the lousy 2nd string QB threw at least 4 interceptions (there may have been more, but the game sucked so I quit counting, and watching). And evidently the Vandals, after such a great winning streak coming into this game, forgot to bring their defense with them. Terrible game. But it was fun to have everyone over for pizza, beer and good times! I couldn't believe it though, nobody wanted a repeat of the Superbowl halftime Guitar Hero show!

Jessie and Lynn gave us our Christmas present today. They had the guys from Concrete Raisers of Idaho come over and fix the huge gaps in the driveway and sidewalk. It was interesting to see how they pump the concrete under the existing slab to raise it up. Quite time consuming, but oh so belisimo! Now we just need to get a downspout extender to hopefully prevent the same thing from happening again across the sidewalk.

Anyways, the kid is requesting a beverage for his movie while Zach is napping...and I hear the Christmas cards calling my name. Until next week!

NOT pregnant, thankfully!

So much happening around our house since I last posted! Zachary has recovered fully from his swine flu, other than the occasional lingering cough. The Tamiflu was obtained the 1st day of his symptoms, and it just kicked the swine flu's butt! Lucas, Casey and I managed to avoid it all together so far (knocking on wood as I type this), or else it was so mild that we didn't even realize we had it!

We took the boys to the pumpkin patch for their 1st pumpkin patch experience! They LOVED it! The patch had so many things to entertain them...a little kiddie corn maze, a corn box (much like a sand box, only filled with corn kernels), a bunch of troughs with water pumps to race ducks down the troughs, PIG races (neither Casey nor myself had seen those before either), a cow train (cars painted like cows, and pulled around the field by a tractor), a giant air pillow to bounce around on, a slide, horse rides, hay rides, pumpkin patch...you name it, it was there! The only drawback was the freaking wind...we froze our butts off that day!!!

Lucas was a boxer for Halloween this year, and Zachary was a dragon. They looked adorable, and both had a ball trick or treating. It only took a couple of houses for Zach to get the hang of it, then he'd run down the sidewalk saying, 'next door, trick or treat, mommy'. Too cute! They didn't do the usual trick or treat option at HP this year, because swine flu was rampant in the area at the time, so we just hit up a few of the neighbors houses. The 'grim reapers house' down the street was their favorite spooky house! And only one managed to scare Lucas (of course Zach wasn't the least bit afraid of it though)...it had a giant rock speaker that a man was talking on, with creepy music playing LOUDLY, and then when he answered the door he was a mime and didn't talk. Lucas told me that we wouldn't be going back to that house next year...however he has since changed his mind and told me that it's not that scary really! ; )

I have had a strange week. Friday morning I woke up feeling like I was pregnant, the test said negative, but it has been forever since I had a cycle. So at my normal annual visit with my OB/GYN on Monday I told him about these strange symptoms, and begged for him to assure me that even though I felt like it, I wasn't pregnant. And he did! He said that this is all likely from a retained corpus luteum, which has resulted in a small cyst on my right ovary. The corpus luteum normally goes away and stops producing progesterone once an egg passes thru the ovary unfertilized. However, whether this happened or not, the little boogger is confused and decided to hang around and keep producing progesterone (as if there was a fertilized egg present)...thus producing the wonderful symptoms of pregnancy (REALLY sore breasts and ALL day long nausea, that just gets worse as the evening approaches). So, to try and couteract all of this, I get the privilege (this is of course heavily laced with sarcasm) of taking high dose progesterone (400mg of Prometrium), which makes my boobs hurt even more, kicks my butt, and REALLY makes me want to hurl, for 10 days. This is all in the hopes that when I stop taking the progesterone the withdrawal will trick the little boogger into thinking I'm not pregnant, and thus reward me with a cycle. However, it MAY NOT work, and then it's back to the drawing board, and more than likely a bit of a waiting game. I can do it, so long as I don't continue to feel like this! And of course I'm beyond words THRILLED that it's not because I'm preggo! : )

This weekend is the big Vandals vs Broncos football game, and so of course we're having a football party here at the house. I soooooo LOVE to host parties...and this seemed as good as an excuse as any. The Vandals have been kicking some serious butt lately, and the Broncos, even though they are undefeated thus far, aren't playing all that great. So we're at least hopeful that the Broncos won't kill the Vandals as they have for many years now. GO VANDALS!!!!!!!!!!!

Anyways, I'll hopefully be back next week to keep this ball rolling.

Figuring this out

Bear with me...this is all so foreign, but I saw an article in a magazine yesterday that talked about being able to publish your blog posts and pictures into a hardbound book. This could then serve as a journal of my life, so to speak. But it can't just be plain Jane, and since I'm technologically challenged, this is going to be quite an adventure for me!