8th Week of Pictures - Something Red

Week 8 brought Something Red.  I was looking around my house and some things popped out to me that were red.

 

Jacob (being his usual climber) fell off one of our dining room chairs and skinned up his nose.  He had the cutest red scrape on his nose I had to take a picture of it.  Yes we did call him Rudolf for a bit.  He thought we were hilarious.

This is my red toy.  A few years ago we bought me a 4 wheeler and it was a great investment.  Not only is it a great toy to play on in the summer, it is very handy in the winter since we put a plow on it.  When we bought the plow, we just envisioned us using it to plow the cul-de-sac we lived in.  Now we know we had a bigger purpose for this 4 wheeler - our very long driveway at our new house.

This red tote is causing me stress so I had to take a picture of it.  I still have a corner in my garage that is full of things still to unpack.  This tote was hiding when we were unpacking and I was so sad when I found it a few weeks later.  This tote is full of more kitchen stuff and I have my kitchen full.  So now I need to go thru my kitchen and decide what I am keeping and what I am selling so I can fit the things in this tote.  Ugh!

This is one of my favorite new red things.  Our swing set.  My mom and dad bought us this awesome swing set when we moved into our new house and our family is in love.  We didn't get much time to play on it before the season changed but we are excited for spring to come to get our playtime in.  I love the bright red roof (even though it was a pain to put together).  I can see this roof from a distance and it always puts a smile on my face.

On to another week of pictures.  I have to admit, I am loving this challenge.  I love taking pictures and I am blogging more.  Thanks Nicole!
http://iotamaker.blogspot.com/2013/02/52-week-photo-project-week-8-something.html?m=1

7th week of Pictures - Someone I love

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY!!!!!

 Wasn't my hubby sweet.  I love him!

So this week's pictures are about someone we love.  I thought about this so much.  I love a lot of people.  I mean I love my family, my parents, my in-laws, my visiting teaching sisters, my girl scouts, my friends, my girl scout leaders, my primary class.... you get my point.  I knew I wanted to take pictures of my hubby and kids because they are whom I love the most!  But I wanted to expand and really think about what I love about them.  I love them all the time... I despise them some of the time.  haha.  I needed to think about what I love about them.

Lets start with my youngest, Jacob.  This kid is my favorite right now.  I shouldn't say that but he makes me mad the least.  haha.  No he is a doll and I just love everything about him.  My favorite love about him right now is how I am his everything.  I am super mom to him and can do anything.  He loves me no matter my mood and shows me all the time. He always makes me smile.

Next is Matthew.  He is a great kid.  There are so many things I love about him and he is starting to get that age where there are a lot of things that drive me insane.  One thing I love about him most is his zest for life.  When he loves something, he puts his all into it.  For example, if I ask him to clean his room up (most of the time), he will clean his room and the play room and the living room.  He does all this because he knows it will make me happy.  He loves school and is so excited every day to go.  He loves to play sports and will put his heart and soul into it.  If he wants to go outside and practice baseball, he will spend hours out there perfecting something. I hope he continues this.



 

My oldest is next, Kimberly.  As much as we fight and butt heads, there are a lot of things I love about her.  Her talents are remarkable.  When she loves something, she puts her heart into it.  To watch her dance, my heart swells.  But one of the things I love most about her is her kindness.  This girl is a friend to everyone.  She makes friends so easily.  I wasn't worried about her at all when we moved because I knew she would find friends and she has.  But she doesn't have just one kind of friend, she is friends with everyone no matter what they look or act like.  I love being at a school function with her and hear all the kids excited to see her and say hi to her.  She even thinks and wonders about her old friends.  For her to pick just a couple friends to do something with is a very hard decision for her because she doesn't want to leave anyone out.  I love this about her.  This quality will help go far in the future.

Last but not least would be the person I love the absolute most!  My hubby Brian is so wonderful and an amazing man, hubby, dad.  There are so many things I love about him... hard to choose.  One of my favorite loves about him is what made me fall head over heels in love with him in the first place... he is such a gentleman.  He insists on holding doors open, opening car doors for me, taking out the trash, fixing things.  Things like that are such a great quality in a man and I hope my boys follow in their father's footsteps.

This was a fun week to reflect on my loves for these people, especially on Valentine's Day.  We don't do anything special... we just give cards, treats, and have a nice dinner.  We have found it isn't fun to go out on Valentine's Day so we stay home and make a nice steak/shrimp dinner.  I have tried to improve it each year (change mashed potatoes to smashed potatoes, add garlic butter to the steak, add fancy veggies, etc).  Of course we have to end our Valentine's Day with our usual... chocolate with bananas, oranges, and stawberries.  Yum. (Jacob below is enjoying some chocolate oranges).

Next week is Something Red... hmmmm.  This one might be tough!

http://iotamaker.blogspot.com/2013/02/52-week-photo-project-week-7-someone.html?m=1

Matthew's First Tooth

Matthew finally lost his first tooth.  He was so funny.  The week before Kimberly lost her 9th tooth.  Matthew was feeling bummed because he hadn't lost a tooth yet.  Just a couple of days later, he noticed one of his teeth was loose.  He played with it every day and always told me he forgot he had a loose tooth.  Then just a few days after finding it loose, he pulled it out.  He was just in the back seat of the truck heading to SLC and he casually tells us he pulled out his tooth.  Soooooo different from his drama queen sister.  I was impressed at how cool and calm he was.  The tooth fairy visited and left him the usual at our house, 50 cents.  Only he couldn't find it.  In the night, he must have knocked it off his bed because it was underneath the next morning.  He was so happy for money and told us he is going to save this and lose more teeth so he can use his money to buy Jacob a birthday present (Jacob's bday is in Dec).  So cute.  Well just a couple days after this picture, he noticed another tooth loose.  He is so excited... this one is taking longer and it is killing him.  haha.
Love this kid.

6th Week of Pictures - Kids Room

This week's picture theme is Kids Room.  Now I could show you how we have not finished organizing our boys room and how the toys are still in totes... or I could show you how we converted Matthew's bottom bunk into a place for trains and car tracks.  But that isn't what is pressing in our house when it comes to kids rooms.  My nightmare is my daughter's room and I would like to display it.  No matter how many times I ask, she will not clean her room.  I am lucky if she pushes stuff out of the way once a month (her version of clean).  How she decides what is clean and what belongs in the dirty clothes is beyond me.  We have had numerous fights about her cleaning her room.  When she turned 8, we made her a deal that she could change her room to whatever she wanted.  Unfortunately we were putting our house up for sale and thought it wouldn't be a good time to overhaul a room.  So we promised her when we got into our new house, we would make her room hers.  What she wants is a zebra closet (I talked her down from her entire room being zebra to just her closet), one hot pink wall, and accessories that are zebra hot pink.  Well at Christmas she got all these cute things from her Grandparents that are zebra hot pink.  We made her a deal.  If she could keep her room clean for 1 week, we would paint and hang stuff up.  It is now almost mid February and it hasn't happened yet.  So this picture week gave me the advantage of cleaning her room and trying to help her get her room the way she wants it.  When she came home to find a completely cleaned room, she was so happy and eager to keep it clean for her room painted.  We shall see what next Wednesday brings. (I am bugging her to death about it cause I would like to see her get her room.)

 

This is what her room looked like Wednesday morning:

 

This is Wednesday afternoon (after I attacked it):

 

It is now Friday and so far we have had a clean room for 2 days.  We shall see.....

 

Next week's theme is Someone You Love.  This should be a fun one!

http://iotamaker.blogspot.com/2013/02/52-week-photo-project-week-6-kids.html?m=1

5th week of Pictures - Bathtime

Week 5 is bathtime.  Kimmy is old enough (most days) to jump in the bath/shower and get herself clean.  Matthew and Jacob still like to bath together (that is about to end). My favorite part of bathtime is just right after when they are still a bit wet but smell so yummy.

 Can you tell she has been a bit under the weather?  Her eyes do show how she feels.

 I told you I might have a flasher!

 Jacob loves his fun towels. He is so cute in his shark towel... he comes and pretends to bite you.

Silly kid smile.
(Notice no Matthew close up because he was being a stinker)

One day bathtime will be uneventful.  We will just enjoy it while it lasts.
Next week is kids room.... ugh.  This should be interesting since I have one child that refuses to clean her room.
:-)
http://iotamaker.blogspot.com/2013/02/52-week-photo-project-week-5-bathtime.html?m=1

My motivation

So I am making this post to keep my motivation going.

As most of you know, I am overweight and have been since I started having children.  Well I am fed up with it and decided it was time to do something about it.  Call it tired of everything or really want to be like these people here in Millville who are always exercising... something sparked under my behind and I am determined to get healthy.

I started my "diet" on January 1.  Here is the deal... I cut down on what I ate.  I still eat things I like... just in moderation.  I have hashbrowns for breakfast 2 times a month now instead of 4 times a week.  I eat chips but only in small quantities. I use a little kid bowl for my cereal instead of the big adult bowl.  I only snack at a certain time of day and quit eating anything after 6 p.m.  I quit having nightly ice cream and popcorn.  Those are special occasion treats.  For dinner I eat normal but I am finding I am not as hungry and don't finish my plate.  Oh and the biggest thing is I don't eat sweets.  No more candy bars or candy.  2 times in the month I did have a dessert but they were for special occasions (Schrieber dinner party and refreshment after a Primary meeting).  So as you can see, I am not on any specific diet... just modified eating.

The next step was to start moving every day.  I thought I was moving by chasing around a toddler but I really wasn't getting my heartrate up.  So every morning I do my sit ups, planks, and arms and sometime during the day I move and groove.  Because I get bored so easily with the same type of workout, I change it up everyday.  Yes I have even broke out those old VHS tapes (anyone remember TaeBo).  Now I haven't done this everyday due to sickness or busy or just Sunday but I have moved most of the days of the week.

I am noticing a difference.  I don't step on the scale every day.  I hate that.  But I do notice the way my clothes feel and the way I look.  I can look down now and not see a stomach that looks like I am 6 months pregnant.  I feel stronger.  I have more energy.

If anyone is keeping track though, the last time I did Wii Fit Plus, I was down 8 pounds.

I am determined to keep this up.  I have a big yard that needs a lot of work this summer and I want to look and feel good outside working on it.
Wish me luck!

Big Boy Bed

Yes my little baby is now a big boy and sleeps in his big boy bed.  He loves this bed and is so excited to go sleep in it.  The only issue we have is Matthew (his roommate) thinks it is great that Jacob can get in and out of his bed so he constantly tries to lure Jacob out at bedtime.  Yes he has been punished for it and one day will learn.
So happy for my little man.  He is growing up so big!