ok, not like I would actually SKIP Christmas…even though I wouldn’t mind there is NO way Layla would let me. I tried to get away with a small table top tree. Nope. Just because I’m moping around hoping that avoiding Christmas will mean that it just wont happen doesn’t mean the 6 year old is. She is WAY ready and excited for everything that comes along with the holiday. I’m still stuck on the fact that this is the first Christmas alone in our home. I guess I shouldn’t complain that we’ve only been apart 2 of our past 9 Army Christmases. Those times though Layla and I were always in AZ so I didn’t have to ‘do Christmas’ in our home without T here.

So Layla wouldn’t let me skip it. She needed the big tree and the decorations. Not sure she realizes that I only put about half of them up…but it works. She’s happy. And I am too…I love love love the lights. Still ready for it to be over though…

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I’m hoping we can pack out and get our stuff shipped off to Korea RIGHT after Christmas. Which is going to suck a bit.

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And on another note…today was L’s first day back at school after a week of Fall Break.

Timmy was not ok with it.

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3pm couldn’t come fast enough.

For some seriously amazing Alabama/Florida friends family that made this year not suck so much…

My dad being able to get back to AZ…

Thomo being in Korea and not anywhere else for the year…

The Army approving our command sponsorship so we can be together again…

That both dogs passed the rabies blood titer tests…

And Korea for deciding to not care about the 90 day quarantine until NEXT year…

Gold’s Gym for being my own person little Cheers where everyone might not know my name but they all love and high-five my kid…

Nurse Pam at Lyster…

Mostly though I’m thankful that I get to be home with these smart, funny, loving, rotten little monsters every day…

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21. November 2011 · Comments Off · Categories: Uncategorized

No Scavenger Hunt Sunday this week. I just didn’t take many pictures.

I did get this one today though

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That summed up our day pretty much. Just playing. The kids played so well together all morning and after Timmy took a nap Elizabeth came over to play with Layla. It was just a good day.

A good start (I spose yesterday was the actual start) to Layla’s fall break. No school ALL week. I’m dancing! No lunches to pack, alarms to go off…even though Timmy and I are usually up earlier that the alarm anyway. No walking to school in the morning. Woo!

Also, Tuesday I finally took the reins and started to control my eating. I’m tired of working my tush off at the gym all week just to balance out the amount of junk I eat. Im a snackaholic. Especially after 8 when kids go to bed. BIG time. Now I’m planning meals, eating every 3 hours, high protein, low sugar, moderate carbs, and lots and lots of water. I suck at drinking water so this is the biggest for me. I’ve made it almost a week and while I’ve had some slip ups and have eaten some not so great things for the most part I’ve done really good and I like the new schedule.

So tomorrow is Monday and fall break or not, it’s cardio week and I’m dragging kids to the gym.

18. November 2011 · Comments Off · Categories: 2011, NROL

Today I finished Stage 2 of the New Rules of Lifting for Women. This stage was shorter than the first stage doing each workout (A&B) 4 times instead of the 6 times each we did in stage 1.

These exercises seemed to be similar to what we did in stage 1 just harder variations of them. Instead of a squat we did front squat push presses. Underhand pull downs instead of overhand/wide grip. Lunges were now lunging back from a step or a static lunge with your rear food elevated on a step. Deadlifts were now from a step making us go lower down. Same stuff but different and a few new ones too. Also stage 2 added cardio to the mix. Workout B days also had interval cardio after the weight training.

Stage2

Here are my stats for the exercises that required weights:

Workout A:

Front squat push press: Start – 55lb, End – 65lb
StepUps 5 risers: Start – 20#dbs, End – 25#dbs
DB One Pt Row: Start – 20#dbs, End – 25#dbs
That is all I went up in weight on. For the rear foot elevated lunges I stayed with 20#dbs and stayed with one 20#db to do the horizontal woodchop laying on a swiss ball since Golds doesnt have the middle pully, just high and low ones.

Workout B:

Wide grip Deadlift From Box: Start – 50lb, End – 60lb
Bulgarian Split Squat: Start – 10lb, End – 25lb
Underhand Pulldown: Start – 70lb, End – 100lb
Reverse Lunge From Box: Start – 10#dbs, End – 25#dbs
DB Prone Cuban Snatch: Start – 8#dbs, End – 10#dbs

There are a couple places where I’m sure I could have done more and some places where I know I started too light so my gains shouldn’t really be that much. Overall though I’m proud of my progress. Next week we have off from lifting and will start Stage 3 on the 28th. I’m scurred. Body Weight Matrix on top of our regular lifting schedule = Im going to die. Maybe. Or maybe Im stronger than I think.

Oh. My. Gosh. These are awesome. I saw these posted and figured Id pin it for another zucchini option. Usually I buy them to roast with other stuff but then they’re kinda mushy and I don’t really want them and they go bad. I tried this 2 days ago and again yesterday. I’m hooked. So easy and fast and GOOD. Omg good.

 

Slice up a zucchini, dip in egg whites/water, cover in bread crumbs/parm

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Lay them all out on a cookie sheet

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BAKE! 425* for about 30 min. Flip half way through. You want them brown and crispy. Not black.

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This is seriously my new favorite snack.

This weeks themes were: Before and After (photo edit), Opposing Lines, Custom Bokeh, Which Pair of Shoes Should I Wear?, and Little Features.

Before and After:

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after

Nothing super photoshop crazy but it fixed it :) Now if only she would keep her eyes open in a shot.

Opposing Lines:

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Custom Bokeh:

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I had fun with this one! You can look HERE to see how to do it yourself.

Which Pair of Shoes Should I Wear?

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Not the right pair. It was cold outside and she was digging and playing with Sadie. So she chose flops. Because THAT’s a good choice. And I just took pictures…

Tiny Features:

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This picture is special to me. I have a picture of L reading a book (shocker!) when she was little and it looks a lot like this.

This one…

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:)

12. November 2011 · Comments Off · Categories: Uncategorized

winner!

The winner of the FitBook is comment #5!

Audrey says:  I need one *sad face* and so does Richard *sad face*, so this could help me not spend $40 in one pop *sad face*. Love you!

 

My first project was so easy and now I think I’m addicted to it. I started off with this one…

 

Then I realized I had no color ink so instead of copying my fun paper I printed a tiny little black camera out to use.

So take your supplies…something printed, rubbing alcohol, and a lighter color nail polish.

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Dip your nail into the alcohol (hopefully you dont have any cuts on your fingers like I did…not fun) for a few seconds. You just want it to be wet. Next place your picture/pattern/whateva inky side down on your nail. It should soak up the alcohol and be totally wet. Try not to let it move around and hold it on there. The tutorial said 30 seconds. I wasn’t that patient.

Pull off your paper and voila!

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Transfered onto your nail. If there is paper bits left on still rub it off carefully with a wet finger/napkin.

O. M. G. How fun and fast and easy and totally awesome was this?? What else could I use?? Hellooooo free Wednesday paper sitting on the counter! That made me remember a million pins ago seeing “Newsprint Nails” but never reading into how it was done.

 

The words end up backwards but who cares. It’s FUN!

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Once you have your transfers done paint over it with a top coat. I just had clear but the chick on pinterest used a glittery polish.

09. November 2011 · Comments Off · Categories: Uncategorized

First off I just want to say that Pinterest is a life suck. A bagillion times more than Facebook ever wanted to me. So. Many. Pretty. Things…and soooo easy to just repin repin repin! If you’re not on Pinterest you’re missing out. And I still don’t totally ‘get’ it but I’m hooked. Big time.

Soo…There’s this Pinterest Challenge. 52 Weeks of Pinterest.

Since we all know I totally suck at sticking to any kind of weekly challenge I’m going to pretend like I can do this. But maybe not EVERY week. Just when I have time/motivation/materials.

I’ve made a special pin board just for this challenge stuff HERE

I’m trying to stick to thinks I think I can actually do lol

I love this one. I have a window out on the porch just waiting for me to do something with it.

 

And this one. I’ve got the paper and I used some Register Rewards to get free rubbing alcohol from Walgreens the other day. Now to actually do it..

 

And this! Easy and cute. I think Layla would like it.

 

I’ll work on something later and try to get it posted but now I need to hurry up and get to the gym. See…Pinterest = life suck. Must pull my self away…

PS – Don’t forget to leave a comment on FitBook Giveaway  for a chance to win one :)

PPS – Or is is PSS? Anyway, I made blog buttons :) If you you want one for your blog/site they’re aaaall the way at the bottom of the page.

Ok y’all first off let me just say that this post/give away is not at all sponsored by Fitbook or anyone even remotely related to the people that make Fitbook. It’s just me loving this stupid little fat book and everything it does and wanting to share it with one of you!

Now, on to my post. Lets back track to earlier this year when Kassie and I first started running. She raved on and on about this so called ‘fitbook’. It was sooo good at keeping her eating on track and you can write in workouts! Strength AND cardio! And make goals and blah blah blah. Kassie’s kind of a sucker for buying things (books) she sees online whether she means to or just doesn’t realize that Amazon’s 1 click buying means in one click it really is charged and on it’s way!

So I ignored the whole fitbook idea. I used fatsecret.com to track my food AND it had an app for my phone so why did I need a book too? And who tracks workouts. We were just running…

Well, now we are at the gym 5ish days a week lifting weights, doing cardio and not eating so well. Kassie mentions to me that she needs a new Fitbook. I roll my eyes because I have a little 5star notebook that I track workouts in. She mentions they now sell them at Target and she didn’t need to order online. Oohh…well I like Target. And Starbucks. And I needed a Dothan trip anyway…so we were off to check it out.

And I fell in love. What a cute little fat book for 20 freakin dollars. I’m too cheap for that. Maybe…and then I saw this…

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It comes with a tiny little Fitbook PEN! Eee!

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I was sold.

So I toss my little book into the cart and couldn’t wait to get home to play with it!

When I finally did bust into it I was pretty excited! There is a LOT in it.

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I may or may not have decoupaged the cover of mine…I found a ModPodge recipe on Pinterest and had to try :)

The first pages give you samples on how to fill it all out between your goals/food/workouts/plan…

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Here’s the sample page again. It gives you a place to track your servings of everything, water intake, and sleep…which I realized I don’t get more than 7 hours a night when I sleep all the way through…

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There is a page that tells you how many servings you need from each category of food and examples of different things so you get a general idea of what a serving size actually is.

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So maybe starting on Halloween wasn’t the best idea for me…but heck at least I’m filling it out! Even if I had mostly sad faces circled…

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And cake. I blame a certain baked good delivering friend for that after 8pm snack.

The whole book will take you through 12 weeks. At the begining there is a place to write down your starting date, weight, and measurements and your ending results too. You can make your 12 week big goals as well as each week writing down your fitness and nutritional goals.

I made my fitness goals this week but failed BIG time on my nutrition. Shocker, I know. But the cool thing is I can start over tomorrow. It’s a new week, I get to write down new goals and now I know where I’m weak (after bedtime snacking! Because I didn’t already know that. But now it’s staring me in the face) and I can adjust.

Also, in the back is a little pocket for an ID, gym card, whateva. It comes with a little “go buy a fitbook!” card to hand out to someone too. Not that I actually will…I’ll just blog about it.

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So, if you’ve stuck with me through this whole post about my love for the Fitbook then you have a chance to get one for yourself :D I’m going to give away one Fitbook to one of my (few) readers. If you want a chance at your own Fitbook just leave a comment on this post telling me why you want it. It can be because you’re ready to get in shape and this will help! Or because you like free stuff and give aways. Or because you just do, so there.

Next weekend I will select a random comment using random.org to pick a winner. So leave a comment beacuse this thing is super neat!

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