I overloaded on carbs today. I don’t feel great because of it either. I had cinnamon rolls and dinner rolls and chicken noodle soup (which included rice). All of that adds up to a major carb binge for me. It is making me realize just how much better I feel on the Atkins diet. I really don’t miss the carbs all that much. I told myself that I’d just be happy and eat whatever today. Now I am paying for it. I’ll still have a few extra carbs tomorrow, but I am going to try to do better than I did today. On Monday I am back onto Atkins hardcore.
Christmas was good. Both kids eventually napped this afternoon. Laura and I did puzzles for a while while Warren cuddled with Robert on the couch. Warren even fell asleep on Robert for a while. I am aiming to get to bed much earlier than we did last night. There are some things that I feel like we should do tonight yet, but I just don’t have the energy. We’ll get packed up in the morning to head up to Dallas. We need to be out the door by 8am. Considering that Warren wakes up between 6 and 6:30, that shouldn’t be a problem for us. I am going to start heading to bed now.
Santa was good to us this year. The kids got a large Jump-o-Lene. It’s here. Both kids have been loving it. If we try to put it up out of the way a little bit, Warren insists on pulling it back down. It is large, it will probably get in the way at times, but it will be worth it. The kids each made out pretty well gift wise so far. Warren seems to like his car ramp. Laura likes playing with it too. I need to go through the toy box and find her princess dolls so she can play with her princess castle a little more.I guess I was hoping she would be totally taken with it, but so far she isn’t. I think we may try out some of her new puzzles this afternoon once she is up from nap.
Laura fought her nap bitterly this afternoon. I put her down around noon. She didn’t actually fall asleep until about 2:15 or so. I hope she gets a nice long nap in. Warren has been close to on schedule today, with the exception of a short morning nap. He is currently napping.
While writing this up, Robert is shooting furry woodland creatures. I gave him Big Buck Hunter Pro for the Wii. It took a little getting used to, but he is doing pretty well. Hopefully he will enjoy it even after today.
As for me, I got two gifts to unwrap. My first was my perfume. I am out of it, so it is perfect timing. The second gift was a Cricut Expressions machine. I love Mandy’s, and now I get my own. :D I am so excited to break it out and play with it. Now I really don’t have any excuses to not do scrapbooking in between our monthly days. My next step is to clear out my space downstairs and actually get to it again. My next purchase with the use of Christmas/birthday money will be Sure Cuts A Lot. I’ll really be rocking once I get that!
I feel like I should get up and be productive. I’ve spent most of the last week reading the Bridal Quartet series by Nora Roberts. I just finished the last book this morning. I have another series of hers waiting for me down the hall. I really need to get the kitchen cleaned up first though. Oh well. It is Christmas. Maybe I’ll unpack my Cricut and play with it for a bit. 
Laura made me laugh so hard last night. We were heading out to buy a radiator heater for our bedroom. I told Laura to climb into her car seat. I had to do something else quick. When I cam back to buckle her in, she was giggling and laughing. As I got closer, I smelled it. I did my usual, “Laura!”. “I tooted!” she replied so happily. It was a strong one. I actually had to pull my head out of the car while buckling her in it was so strong.
It is hard to believe that in 4 days we will be celebrating Christmas. I feel like time got away from me again this year. I am not sure why either. I don’t have a young baby to be dealing with. I think working has thrown me off a bit. Not that I mind getting out of the house and having interactions with adults (even if some of them act like children). I am almost ready. I have a few more gifts yet to wrap, but they aren’t here yet. Stocking stuffers are purchased and waiting for Santa to come. I have the Christmas letter written and printed. I have ordered prints of the kids to include. After work Robert is picking up stamps, the pictures, and envelopes. I am hoping that I can knock these out tonight so they can be in the mail tomorrow.
To be honest, I am close to having the preparations done for Christmas. I am having a hard time getting into the spirit of it all though. I think part of it may be that Laura isn’t excited, which boggles my mind. We have a count down going for the number of days until Christmas. Each time she takes a link off the chain, she says that she doesn’t want to see Christmas. I explain to her that we get to open presents and Santa comes. Then we go see Grandma Kathy and get more presents. She still fights it. I wish I knew why.
Speaking of that word, I am getting close to detesting it. Abhor is another word that could work too. I realize that I got lucky with Laura that she didn’t scream “no” back at me all the time. However, I am getting really tired of the whys. I try to give reasonable explanations to her most of the time. When I can’t, I have used the line “Because that’s the way God made it” which is true when I use it. What bothers me so much is that Laura doesn’t seem to listen to the explanations. When I give one and she asks why yet again, I’ll tell her that is enough. Sure enough, the next word is “why”. I don’t mind explaining, but she needs to listen to what I am saying.
It would also seem as though Laura has gotten my perfectionism gene. She now cries and has a fit if a letter she is writing doesn’t turn out just write. Keep in mind that she is only 3 1/2. I don’t expect her letters to be perfect. In fact, they are better than some older kids’ writing. Leave it to my daughter to be upset that the letter A isn’t just right. This morning she wrote a very nice looking 2. She ended up erasing it because it wasn’t right. I don’t know what was wrong with it. If I ask, all I get is, “It’s not right!” School is going to be a challenge for me with her. I remember the tears I shed over homework. I’m not looking forward to being on the other end of them.
Time to read for a bit while Laura is watching a movie and Warren is still sleeping.
I’ve been super busy today! With the flu hitting the house over the weekend and into this week, the housework get let go. I worked on reclaiming the house today. I was able to:
- Do the dishes
- Find and wipe down counters
- Sweep and mop kitchen floor
- Scrub bathroom
- Sweep and mop bathroom floor
- Pick up living room
- Vacuum living room
- Vacuum Stairs
- Sweep and mop entry way
- Fold laundry from last week
- Get supper started
Thankfully the kids were very cooperative while I cleaned. Truth be told, they slept through most of it. That makes life the easiest. I did get the tub scrubbed while Warren was still awake so I didn’t have to worry about waking him up.
I have our Christmas letter all written. I have it printed out even. I just haven’t decided what to do about the picture I want to include. I tried to get both kids together and they weren’t cooperating. I need to get individual pictures, but finding the right time is so hard. I am tempted to send out a letter without pictures for now and then send out the pictures later. The problem is that would cost extra. I need to decide soon.
Tomorrow I work from 8-4. After I pick kids up from daycare, I am heading to Eau Claire. Jess wants to get together with Mandy and I. She said that she has lots of news. We haven’t seen her in a long time either. I’m excited to get the three of us together again. It will also make it easier to give each of them their cookie packages.
Saturday is a quiet day so far. Sunday is Laura’s first Christmas program. It should be lots of fun. :) Of course we’ll be getting video of it. I don’t know if we’ll but the DVD through the church (that Robert is making) or just do our own. The current plan is for Mom and Dad to come up for it. I haven’t mentioned it to Laura yet though. I don’t want her to get excited to see them and then risk plans changing (such things do happen in winter).
Time to turn on a few more lights. It tends to get a bit dark in here early on. Robert will be home from work soon too. The kids love when he comes in the door. Warren just runs over to the gate to see him, no matter what he is doing. Laura joins Warren at the gate to see her daddy too. I love the excitement they show when Robert comes home.
Warren is such a character! I love watching him and laughing at him. His latest thing is stomping his feet when he gets excited. Of course he has a big smile on his face while doing this. He also stomps his feet to dance.
This morning he climbed up on the futon. He bent over so his head was down and facing me. He was literally folded in half. He smiles at me and goes, “Mama!” Such a goonball.
He is really becoming a monkey and climber. He can climb up on the speaker we have sitting on the floor between the futon and entertainment center. Apparently this makes a good seat for Warren. When he didn’t get the attention he wanted, he stood up on it. He kept looking at me with a look in his eye that said, “What are you going to do about it?” Apparently we didn’t give enough of a reaction. He then climbed up onto the entertainment center next to the tv.
Yesterday I noticed that both kids had ventured down the hall. This normally worries me only slightly. My worry increased as the door to my bedroom was shut with both kids on the other side of it. I go down to investigate the squealing I’m hearing. I open the door to find Laura up on my bed dancing around and falling down (on purpose). Warren is standing at the edge of the bed throwing a fit because he can’t get up there. I am in such big trouble when these two figure out how to work together!
The flu has hit our house hard. Laura had it first. After sleeping for close to 6 hours she was feeling fine. I got hit with it last night. It started around 5 or 6 P.M. The worst of it was over by midnight. All day today I haven’t felt 100% yet though. My stomach is still slightly upset. Robert is down for the count now. It started to hit him this afternoon. Tonight it really started to hit him. It seems as though he will be out in the living room tonight to sleep. I’ll take the bed tonight. It’ll be nice to get back to a comfortable bed. I left it around 11 last night. Robert will be home from work tomorrow. I know that it is going to be up to me to do everything tomorrow. I am just hoping that I can get enough rest tonight to keep on trucking tomorrow. Time to get things ready for bed now.
I have a sick baby girl. Yes, I still call her my baby girl. She woke up at 5:30 this morning and had puked. She’s been sick off and on all morning. :( She was laying on the floor at 11. By 11:15 I had in bed ready for a nap. It was been a struggle since Warren wants to be in the middle of everything but Laura just wants to cuddle with me and have Warren leave her alone. This is one of those days that I really wish I had family closer. It would be so helpful to have one person be able to just rock Laura all day. I am hoping that a nice long nap will help her feel better this afternoon.
This past weekend I was able to get away… overnight even! I ended up leaving my house around 6:00. It was a good thing I didn’t leave any later either. We were getting a bit of a snowstorm and the roads were not pretty. Any later and I probably wouldn’t have made it. As it was, I did a 180° turn instead of a 90° at one point. Thankfully there weren’t any cars coming fast enough that I had to worry. Definitely go my heart racing though! I made it safe and sound to Mandy’s house. She was nice and let me park in her garage too (she had to move some stuff around so my car would fit).
She had dinner ready when I got there. She had frozen Bona she made. (Bona Casa is a favorite restaurant of ours that is at least an hour drive. You can buy their food frozen to take home.) After we ate, we went downstairs to look at something on her computer. While down there, we started on her final reflection paper. Part of the agreement for me coming Friday night was to help her with said paper. About 2 hours later (with a glass of wine in there) we finished the paper. HUGE weight lifted off her shoulders. We are not the wild and crazy people we once were. It was 11pm, and we were tired. We went to bed.
It was so wonderful to sleep and know that I could wake up whenever I was done sleeping. I didn’t have to worry about any little people during the night either. I slept until 8am. It’s been a while since I’ve done that, and even then I could hear the kids playing out in the living room. Mandy had woke up before me and started the coffee. I poured myself a cup and we started talking about plans for the day. The original plan had been to head to Eau Claire that evening to meet up with a friend and go see Tangled. This friend sent us a text at 9am saying her husband’s grandpa had passed away. We knew her husband was close to his grandpa, so we said not to worry about not making it. We’ll meet up another time. This changed our plans for the day. We decided to scrapbook for a while in the morning, eat lunch, go see Burlesque, do some shopping (she needed to find a tv for her mom), then come back and scrapbook some more. I got through the shower and started to unpack my scrapbooking stuff. I then realized that I had forgotten Laura’s album (it’s the one I’ve been working in for a while). Thankfully, I had extra blank pages and the pictures that needed to be put in yet with me. I was able to just do the pages and add them into the album later. We took a break for lunch and the movie.
The shopping became its own adventure. We started out at Target and found the tv she wanted. It was even on sale, with the sale ending today. Of course, this meant that they were sold out, and Target wouldn’t do a rain check. We decided to try out Best Buy (about 20 minute drive). On our way there, we decided to stop at the Wal-Mart that was closer to see what they had. Well, Wal-Mart had the tv available, but were also sold out. We asked them to check other local stores. The Wal-Mart in the town where my friend lives had one. We asked them to hold it for us. They said they’d hold it for one hour. We practically ran out of the store and raced back to the town we started in. We did get the tv she wanted. By that point, we were tired of running around. We ate dinner at Perkins and went back to Mandy’s house. I finished the pages I had started during the day. Mandy worked on the last piece of her portfolio project (she’s taking grad classes). We packed up my stuff and vegged out upstairs for a bit. We watched an episode of Cupcake Wars. At 9pm Saturday night, I figured I should return home. I would have loved another night out, but I knew Robert would be waiting for me to get back home. It was a wonderful weekend away.
Sunday morning when I opened Laura’s bedroom door she was super happy to see me again. She last saw me Friday night. We had picked her up from daycare, came home, then I ran off. Warren was also quite happy to see me again. My kids do like their mommy.
Once again it has been a while since I’ve posted. It seems like life just doesn’t slow down. By the time the kids are in bed and I have time to post, I am just too tired. Warren woke up at 5:30 this morning. I got up with him and let Robert sleep. He is enjoying a poptart and milk while I have my coffee. I’ll make my breakfast in a bit.
Yesterday Robert and I just about finished up Christmas shopping. The only person left is him. He still has to get my stocking stuffers. He isn’t sure exactly what he wants yet, so it’s a bit of a waiting game. He has been looking at some air compressors.
One of the stores we went to yesterday was Kohls. I told Robert that just for fun I wanted to try on some size 16 jeans (I’ve been in 18 forever). They fit! I was so excited! I had figured that I’d be able to get them on and zipped, but I’d look like a stuffed sausage in them. I was SO happy to be wrong about that! So now I am officially down one pant size (or is it 2? I am never sure how that works). Last night before bed and this morning when I got up I stepped on the scale. I am also below 200 pounds now. 
I had made it my goal to hit this point by Christmas, and I made it! I realize that I’ve used lots of exclamation points in this paragraph, but I really am so excited to hit this point! It feels wonderful. I looked at some pictures of me taken earlier this year (I don’t remember the exact time they were taken). I can really see a difference in my face between now and then. It really has slimmed down and the double chin is almost gone. Hitting this point is a huge motivator to continue on. I figure once I loose another 10 pounds I’ll start adding in more foods to my diet again. I am really looking at this as a lifestyle change and not just a diet anymore. I love how I am feeling, I feel good about what I am putting in my body, and I don’t ever want to go back to how I was.
The kids are both doing well. Warren had his molar finally pop through so he is much happier. He is still a very picky eater. We just keep offering foods for him to try. Laura is her happy self most of the time. She is doing very well with going in the potty, even the pooping. We are working on getting her to go in and do everything by herself. She doesn’t like to flush it though. I can live with that for the time being.
Both kids are up now. Time to get off the computer for a bit and take care of them. Maybe we’ll make something special for breakfast this morning.