The hands have a mind of their own...

Recently I've noticed that Jake has started talking to his hands. That's okay with me. I figure it's kind of like having an imaginary friend except he can actually see his friend and there are two of them. Then I started to listen to the conversations he was having with his hands. They all go pretty much like this, "GO TO TIME OUT!" "YOU'RE GOING TO GET A SPANKING!" Hmm. I wonder where he gets all THAT from?

Last week it seems his hands were having a really hard time with self control and keeping to themselves. We were on our way to school one morning when I realized that my child was in his carseat hitting himself upside the head multiple times. Hard. Really hard. Then he would say "HAND! Stop doing that or you're going to time out!" So, just to clarify, I asked him who was hitting him. He said it was his hands. I said make them stop. He said "I trying to make them go to time out!" Try explaining to a 2 1/2 year old that he actually controls his hands.

Then I started realizing that it must be hereditary. Because I too lose control of my hands at times. How else can we explain the unstoppable shoveling of chocolate cake or brownies or whatever into my mouth even when I know I'm not hungry. Even when I tell myself I really shouldn't be eating all of this junk. Well, it's my hands fault. They are of the devil.

The ultimate in mind/hand control happened to me last Friday. I've been suffering from a pinched nerve or just really sore muscles for some time now. So, I finally decided to cash in on a massage gift certificate my wonderful hubby gave me at Christmas time. I went in and met my masseuse who was a very nice lady. However, she was a little overweight. Normally, I could care less about what a person weighs. Heaven knows I'm struggling right now too. It's just that at one point she actually had her belly resting in the palm of my hand during my massage. It freaked me out! I didn't know her well enough for that. My first reaction was to exclaim "OOOHH!" But I thought that would be rude. So I just laid there with her tummy in my palm. Then, I felt my fingers starting to twitch and realized just at the last second that they were planning on tickling that tummy! I couldn't get the thought out of my mind. And then I thought about Jake. I just put that hand in time out for the rest of my massage and told those fingers that if they didn't behave they would be getting a serious spanking when we got home.

Diet Diaries

Yipee! Oh, I know it's not a big weight loss, but it's something. The main thing I did this week was to cut back on snacking and add more veggies into my diet. By more, I mean at least one a day. I'm not a huge fan of the veggie unless it's dipped in chocolate. Really, I think the biggest thing so far is that I switched to Coke Zero from regular Coke saving myself over 100 calories everyday. Also, I have pretty much given up my nightly bowl of ice cream. Life is hard.

Not every meal we eat is healthy by any means. But here is one I'm proud of. Baked salmon with an avocado, tomato, onion, cilantro relish with lemon and lime juice on top. Delicious! We served it with asparagus and a baked sweet potato. It was prettier than the picture gives it credit for but I'm pretty sure I had already devoured half of the potato when Mike took the picture.

Wordless Wednesday

Goodbye to an old friend

This is what's left of the last chocolate cake I will make until I see 130 pounds on the scale. I know it's hard to tell what it is what with the frosting being gone and all. I had a moment of weakness on Sunday and while I was on my way to the trashcan to throw away the cake I buckled and just mowed down the remaining frosting along with that thin layer of moist topsoil at the top of the cake. Oh, and it was good. I highly recommend making this coca cola chocolate cake if you're looking for a cake that will stay moist over time. It was in our house for a week (which is a miracle in and of itself that a cake could last a week with me around) and it just got better with time. Much like fine wine, blue cheese and Patrick Swayze's performance in Dirty Dancing. Here's hoping for a better week in my diet diaries.

We have a sitter!

Diet Diaries

Okay, don't ask me how I managed to lose almost a pound this week eating the way I did. But I'll take it! The only thing I can think of is that I didn't snack all day long like I usually do. So, my plan for this week is to try and cut back on sweets and incorporate one vegetable a day into my diet. I'm shooting to work out four or five days this week. The problem I'm having with working out is injuries. Seriously, how long can a person have a pinched nerve in their shoulder/back area? I'll tell you how long. At least four weeks and counting. It looks like I'm going to have to walk for exercise for awhile instead of doing my workout videos with all the weight lifting and push ups. Tune in next Sunday to see how I did!

Diet Diaries

Last day! Well, it's the last day that I will bore you with my eating habits in detail. From now on I plan to weigh in every Sunday and I will share my weight with you but no more detailed menus. Clearly, I have a problem. And I think we can all see what it is. Sweets and carbs my friends, sweets and carbs.

Breakfast: bowl of oatmeal with blueberries, water

Snack: half a piece of cinammon streusel coffee cake

Lunch: two pieces of leftover Digiorno pizza (supreme), coke zero

Dinner: steak, baked potato, dinner roll

okay does it count as a piece of chocolate cake if all I did was to eat the frosting off of a section of the cake in the pan?

Workout: 25 minute walk through the neighborhood

Diet Diaries

Wow! Two more days of writing down what I eat every day. This has been some quality entertainment my friends. I'm starting to see a pattern about my diet which may have something to do with the fact that I'm not losing weight. But I'm gonna wait until Sunday after I do my weigh in to put it into words. Here we go for Friday.

Breakfast: bowl of Kashi cereal with blueberries, tall non-fat vanilla latte from Starbucks

Snack: one cube of cheese, one very small cheese quiche

Lunch: small prime rib peppercorn sandwhich from Quiznos, coke zero

Dinner: avocado cheeseburger, water

Diet Diaries

I almost didn't post my daily eating for Thursday because I'm just so ashamed. But, here goes. Apparently, it was Taco Thursday at our house.



Breakfast: bacon, egg and potato breakfast taco with hot sauce

Snack: little, itty, bitty piece of cinammon streusel coffee cake

Lunch: taco bell bean burrito w/extra cheese, beef taco, grilled steak taco

Snack: some m&m's

Dinner: two fish tacos, water, chocolate cake, milk

Wordless Wednesday

Diet Diaries

Breakfast: Luna bar, water

Lunch: two pieces of papa john's supreme pizza, coke zero

Snack: one mini hershey's nugget candies

Dinner: okay dinner with friends equals one stuffed avocado, black beans, chips and salsa and some margaritas

Workout: Chasing ten three year olds around all day.

Diet Diaries

Okay, once again started off good, ended up not so good.

Breakfast: a bowl of Kashi cereal with blueberries

Lunch: turkey, cheese, lettuce and mustard on wheat, Dannon fat free yogurt, water

Snack: wasn't going to have one but then Mike offered me a bite of his chocolate cake which resulted in me hovering over the cake eating straight from the pan in what resulted in a full piece of cake. i think i might have to bury the cake tomorrow.

Dinner: 2 1/2 pieces of Digiorno supreme pizza with ranch to dip the crust in and a coke zero.

Also, no workout. I seriously need a workout motivator.

It's never easy to say goodbye

Our friends Mike and Ivy from California have been out here visiting for a few days. We've had such a good time and hated to see them go. They were kind enough to buy us a few things for the house including three trees for our backyard! So now we actually have to do something with the backyard. We have big plans. Now we just need to get started. I'll be posting before, during and after pictures of our progress. Meanwhile, here are a few pictures we took while they were here.

Diet Diaries

Perhaps I shouldn't have started this whole blogging what I'm eating while we have friends in town. But I'm gonna go ahead and follow through on it. After a week of this I'm going to evaluate things and see where I can make changes. Then maybe I'll just do a general blog about how things are going once a week. We'll see. I don't want the public to get bored with me! Okay, here we go.

Breakfast: bowl of cereal with blueberries on it (how come i can start out so good in the mornings and go so far downhill after that?)

Snack at school: one unfrosted cupcake. (it was one of our kid's birthday and i like to celebrate with people!)

Lunch: turkey and cheese sandwich on wheat with mustard, banana, coke zero

Snack: three sour gummy worms

Dinner: we went to Texas Roadhouse-prime rib, loaded baked potato, house salad with ranch, multiple rolls, strawberry margarita (oh, yes it was good)

The upside? I was so full that I didn't eat a piece of chocolate cake when we got home.

The downside? No workout today either.

Diet Diaries

So, I bought a scale yesterday and this is what it said this morning when I woke up. I will only be weighing myself in the mornings, completely naked, before any food enters my system.



Looks like I have about ten pounds to lose before I'm back to my pre-pregnancy weight. This is how I did today.

Breakfast: bowl of oatmeal with fresh blueberries, half a piece of bacon, glass of water

Lunch: small Dan's cheeseburger, a few curly fries, coke

Dinner: Rudy's brisket sandwich, creamed corn, potato salad, Corona, chocolate cake and a glass of milk

Workout: none-we have friends in town and even God rested on the seventh day

Diary of an over tired, out of shape Little Mama

I think I'll just call this The Diet Diaries for short from now on. Problem is I hate the word diet. So maybe I'll call it the trying to control my cravings while motivating myself to work out hard enough to sweat diaries. But that's not really shorter so who knows?

The point is that I'm trying to lose the rest of the baby weight. You know, that portion that just doesn't melt off after you have the baby even if you nursed the baby. For me, it's the last ten to fifteen pounds. I don't own a scale so step number one is to go buy one to see what we're looking at. That will be followed by a brief period of mourning followed by some prayer and a candle light vigil and then I'm going to get busy losing this weight.

I've actually been doing a workout video for the last month but I don't think I've lost any weight so I'm going to write down everything I eat and record my workouts to see if I can spot any trends that might help me get over the hump. I know this will be incredibly boring to anyone out there reading so please feel free to skip my ramblings. However, I really think if I blog about it I can hold myself more accountable for my actions. Also, if you have any friendly advice to help me out feel free to comment.

Okay, here we go.

Today's workout consisted of 25ish minutes of a boot camp with trainer Bob from the Biggest Loser. I will tell you I work hard on the cardio but the weight training is becoming exceedingly hard for me because I seem to always be sore through my neck and shoulder muscles. This also makes push ups difficult. So I may have slacked off a little during this part of the video. Also, I was interrupted once by the phone, once by the doorbell and innumberable times by the little boy. Not making excuses, I'm just sayin'.

Here's what I've put in my mouth today.

Breakfast: bowl of oatmeal with fresh blueberries and banana slices, water

Lunch: handful of lays potato chips, a bite of Jake's grilled cheese sandwhich, turkey and cheese sandwhich on wheat bread, three sour gummy worms, a handful of m&m's and a coke zero in a tree.

Dinner: 2 pieces of supreme pizza and another coke zero, two more gummy worms, a piece of chocolate cake and a glass of milk

After dinner we went for a 20 minute family walk ending with a 60 yard sprint race between Mike and Brady and myself pushing the kids in the stroller. We both almost collapsed but I'm sure it made up for the chocolate cake. Looking back on today I'm seeing a trend here. I like to eat crap. I'll have to work on that.

Happy Six Months Emma Mae!

Today is Emma's half birthday! She had her six month check up yesterday and had to get three shots plus a finger prick. What a way to celebrate your half birthday! Here are her current stats.

Weight is 14 lbs. 2 oz. which puts her in the 25th percentile.
Height is 25 1/2 inches which puts her in the 50th percentile.
And her head circumference is in the 75th percentile meaning she has a huge brain.

She is rolling all over the place and scooching herself around. She gets up on all fours and rocks back and forth and even lunges at toys. We're anticipating an early crawler. Still working on sitting up by herself. I keep telling her to use her core but she just blows bubbles at me and falls over. Silly girl. She is much happier now that she has the right combination of meds for her reflux problem. She smiles, plays and vocalizes all over the place now. We love her to pieces.

Although you can tell they're related, I think Emma is starting to look less like Jake did when he was a baby. What do you think?

Wordless Wednesday

If you give them paint, they will sit still

Last week we had a visit from Mike's brother and his family. It's good that they're stationed close to us now so we get to visit from time to time. Jake and his cousin had a great time chasing each other around. The only way we could slow them down was to suggest water coloring. They were both enthralled for a solid fifteen minutes or so. Who would have thought? It was totally worth risking the mess to see our budding artists at work.

The Great Debate

Mike and I had many a discussion over how we wanted to decorate Jake's room. Mike really wanted to do everything in the theme of the Cars movie because Jake loves that movie and he loves to play with all of his little cars toys from the movie. I was hoping to just do some red, blue and yellow paint and accessorize a little bit with pictures of cars in general or balls or something else little boys like to play with. I really didn't want to do a movie theme because I figured that next year Jake would be onto the next movie and we would have to redecorate with Finding Nemo Two stuff or Ice Age Four stuff.

In the end, Mike won the battle. I just gave up. Except I did convince him to not put up a Cars border around the room and instead convinced him that he could paint a black and white Nascar-ish flag border around the room. I bet you anything he wishes he hadn't conceeded on that point now. It took for freakin' ever for him to get that border done right! It's very hard to paint a border on textured walls we found out. But I think the final product looks really good. His room is almost finished. I'm just looking for a dresser and a picture or two to hang on the walls. And we need to paint the letters for his name and put them above his bed. I'm thinking red.

Here are some pics. Prepare to be amazed at my skills as a photographer. It's almost like I gave the camera to Jake.





My dad built his bed. He's had it since he was a new born. As soon as we can figure out how to get the rails from Amarillo down here, we can convert it into a full size bed.



Jake has seen Cars so many times now that he can quote a lot of the movie. The cutest thing is that now he has started acting out all of the scenes with his toy cars. Whatever cars are on screen at the moment are the cars he'll be playing with, saying their lines for them and everything. Just think about what he could do if we used his time more wisely! He could be quoting the classics or learning to play the piano with his feet or something. Oh, well. We did spend some time today saying hello to the sunflowers.

I love how he lines his cars up in his bed. He sleeps with every single one we can find at night and naptime. Along with Crabby. He will always have Crabby.



This is the last thing I'm going to say about Jake's room. I showed Mike a picture of some cars and trains at Target the other day because I thought it would look good above Jake's bed. He told me we couldn't get it because it didn't match the Cars theme and all. Then a few days later I came in and saw Mike hanging glow in the dark stars and planets from Jake's ceiling. I was all "um, that doesn't have anything to do with Cars either!" And he was all "this is my room to decorate, get out!" Minus the "get out" part. But still. It didn't seem quite fair to me...however, Jake does like to count his stars and "moons" at night before he goes to sleep so I guess I can't complain too much.



The kids like to hang out together in his room also.

Do the Chicken Dance

Who doesn't love Chick fil-A? Tomorrow you can get a free chicken sandwhich just by showing up at your nearest Chick Fil-A store wearing your favorite team's jersey or t-shirt. Also, if you go to this site and are one of the first 250,000 people to join their chicken wave you can get a coupon for a free chicken sandwhich. Love it!

Mama by day, interior decorator by night

Since I can't seem to put more than one coherent thought together per day I decided to document the progress of our house while we're "getting it together." I think I'll start with Emma's room because it's my favorite. Mike let me decorate her room and I eventually gave in and let him decorate Jake's. They both turned out really cute. We went with a pretty green for Emma's room with a lot of bright accents. Here are some pictures.

This is the crib we bought for her. I thought black furniture would look really good with the wall color. I love, love, love this crib. It has a lower than normal front so short people can actually reach their babies without standing on their tip toes and then bending way over to get them.



One day while I was perusing the aisles at Target I came across these polka dot decals and fell in love with them. Then I proceeded to buy a polka dot curtain and a polka dot stool that also match her polka dot crib set. Her room is very happy and bright. I just hope she doesn't grow up with an unnatural fear of dots.


No, she didn't fall out of her crib here. She just enjoys playing on her hot pink shag carpet.



I found these nice, big letters for her name at Michaels. We slapped a little black paint on them and I think they look very chic. I also love calling her by her full name. Emma Mae. Very cute. I love the polka dots on the lamp but I don't love the lamp. I'm currently looking for a smaller, black one.



We found a dresser on Craig's list and painted it black to match...



And last but not least we got my favorite picture of our newborn girl at only five days old framed and put it right over that dresser. Isn't she sweet? (Picture by Elle Mendenhall)




Jake likes to hang out in sister's room.



I think Emma Mae likes it too.