Corbin day!

Every once in a while I plan a day full of activities for Corbin. It was going to be tomorrow with friends, but plans changed so just the boys and I took off this morning for some fun!

First stop was donut holes. I mean how on earth could a day of fun start with no sugar?? That would just be crazy! Then we headed to the galleria to play some. We hit up the little galleria which is such an awesome spot for little ones to play. It's like a foamy replica of the mall to climb on building and slide down. Cannot be beat! The we headed to build a bear! Woohoo!! I was tryin to be on a budget, but then there was a Spider-Man costume for Corbin's bear and I couldn't say no. Both boys had fun stuffing, washing and dressing there bears. We don't at all need any more stuffed animals but build a bear is just fun! Then from there we headed to Corbin's favorite restaurant- rainforest cafe!! Both boys think that place is so much fun! And it was extra treat that daddy and uncle Chris walked over to meet us for lunch there! It was yummy as always. Oh and I can't forget that as we were walking through the mall Corbin spotted a mommy Spider-Man shirt! It was actually pretty cute so I bought it and put it on just for Corbin. It says "keep calm and call Spider-Man!"

Then we headed home.. It was a very fun morning that actually went smoothly! No melt downs, fits, begging, running off or anything. Not common we make it through a long more with not a tear! Good day. It's days like this that I will miss like crazy once Corbin is in school full time! :(. Better get as many in as possible! Here are some pictures!
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A mess!

I cannot stand when my house is out of order, when I can't find things, or when my bare feet get dirt on them when walking in my house. These things make me crazy!!! I can't stand spots on my cabinets, dishes in the sink, or finger prints on my cabinet handles. I spend a lot of my days picking up toys, vacuming daily, wiping stuff off and so on. I don't like to clean but it's way better than having a mess.

However, I have a 1 and a 4 year old boy. They love playing and digging in mud outside (and tracking it in!), they love to help me cook (and get dirty fingers on everything), they love to play with lots of toys (and leave the previous one out), they love to carry a cup of Cheerios around (and drop them on my floor and stomp on them the second they fall!),, and they love playing with stickers (and sticking them on everything (including themselves, my walls and everything else). It's part of the life around here and if I want to embrace their smiles and laugh when they do something cute (and muddy!) I have to get over my need for clean. It doesn't mean that at nap time and bed time I can't spend forever cleaning things, or that I can't have my vacuum out for a few minutes while they run inside after being the sandbox, or even put them to work with a rag after they smear browning batter all over my cabinet.

Learning to have a happy balance has been hard for me. I have either ignored my children to keep the house spotless and yell every time they move a thing, or I have just lived in dirty all the time while I spend any down time with some much needed relaxing. I've been trying in the past few months to be in more of a routine, and have times of the days for cleaning and times of the day (the majority) for enjoying whatever my kids are doing, no matter how big the mess! It's not perfect, but its making life run a little more smoothly :)

Here's a messy time! Brownies (and the spatula licking that comes with it!

Mind set

I have had a mindset of needing to lose weight for the past 5 years. Granted part of that I was pregnant, but I was still bigger than I wanted to be and so in my mind, I wanted to lose weight as soon as I had my bundles of joy. I always struggled sticking with something long enough to make much of a difference though. Now, I have stuck with something for 3 months and it has become a habit. That's not the problem.

The problem is that I still don't see myself as small. I still feel like I need to lose more weight and stay on my low calorie diet. I can see my scale, my husband, my friends all telling me that I am perfect where I am, but I am really struggling to see it myself. I've put in my mind that an 800 calorie meal is really bad for me, because I was on a 1200 calorie diet and that would have been a huge chunk of it. To maintain my weight though, I need to eat more like 1800-2000 calories, so that 800 calorie meal is not bad. But its a habit and a mindset that I have now. I am struggling more than you can imagine with this. I do not want to lose more weight, I want to weight lift more and in turn gain some weight with muscle. But I'm having a hard time changing my mindset out of needing to loose weight. Does anyone have any tips?

Growing!

When you start doing something, anything, you are a beginner or entry level or a first timer or whatever word you choose to use. You never start your first job as a pro, or have your first baby and are an expert, or start being healthy and know everything about it. It's just a part of life. You have to put in the effort, be willing to read and/research, be wiling to ask advice and hope and pray you get Better and grow.

The three examples used are the areas and clynt and I's life where we work daily on growing. Clynt has been an engineer for 7 years now. He has been learning the ins and outs since. He reads, and researches alllllll the time to stay up to date with codes. He is now even traveling solely to be a part of the standard changes in his industry and such. He has worked very hard in growing In his knowledge of what he does and in his position at his company. He is in leadership training this week in order to move further up the company ladder. He leads projects after projects and has other engineers who do some work for him now. And he continues (and knowing my husband) will always continue working his tail off to grow more and more. He has the desire to do more and better no matter how well he's doing. I love this trait so so much!

We are also trying to grow as parents and we will b trying to grow there till the day we die. I read, research, ask advice and do much more allllll the time! I feel like a failure often but those moments when I feel like I've made the right decision and my boys are so happy, make it all of it so worth it! No matter how old my guys get, we will still be trying to grow. We will never be perfect, but we will keep striving for as good as we can do!

Being healthy is something where I feel like the most beginner ever. I have to search for recipes, research why certain things are healthy and unhealthy and so on and so on. I know I will never b the healthiest person in the world, but I'm trying to grow my knowledge to make my family as healthy as we can realistically be:)

And last, but not least. Our relationship with Christ. Boy oh boy is this something we will b working on for a life time! We read our bibles, pray, attend church, have a small group, ask questions and so on. But we fail miserably every single day. Growing in Christ is the one thing that all else falls behind. But, I feel like I am only a beginner because this is such a HUGE priority in life and no one will ever even be close to being perfect. Praise God He sent his son so that the uncountable mistakes we make are forgiven!

So, life is about growing.. In every single thing we do, we can grow. I'm learning, with age, the importance of asking for advice, reading, and researching. Learning about things is the only thing that I feel will help me grow. :)

And I'll leave you with a fun new family picture!

Parent/teacher conference

This morning I was quite nervous to go to Corbin's parent teacher conference. Clynt was working but my dad watched the boys and up to the school I went. All the parents had appointments today, so it wasn't something that was because of behavior. However, I was still nervous.

I mean, let's get real. While, I've always thought Corbin is smart, he generally doesn't sit still for more than...hmmmm... 2 seconds! And, he definitely knows how to test his boundaries with me. So, I thought that he would be the same in school and that her conversation with me would be about maturity level and such.

I walk in the room and sit in her tiny little kids chairs, and she starts the conversation "I'm sure you know that Corbin is advanced.". At this point I feel like jumping out of my seat in joy. Not because I didn't realize he was smart, but because the first thing out of her mouth was not "I'm sure you have realized that Corbin can't sit still!". Lol. So good start, right? Well, it just kept getting better. She talked about how he has only received one sad face all year and that he follows directions great and that, while he needs some time to wear off energy, he is capable of handling and mastering everything they give him to do. Without boring you with all of the things he has mastered and bragging on him too much (but, really, what mom doesn't want to brag on their kids?!), ill just say it went well. We are still in limbo on where Corbin will go next year but, she reassured me that Corbin will have the ability to thrive in any program. It made my decision making much less stressful.

Here are some pictures I got of his. Before and after for writing his name, and being able to make great patterns in a line. There are a ton more, but I don't think it's necessary to put 1000 pictures on here.

I love my big boy!

It's booked!

Clynt has a conference coming up in Las Vegas for an engineering standards something something something (I don't speak engineer, so I'm not positive what in the world it is!). He is going to be gone 3 nights and asked for me to go with. I was scared to pieces. I have left my boys a few times over night, but I've never gone a whole day without seeing them, nor have I had a desire to! And the reality is that clynt will be working the whole time he is there other than 1 night and the other night is a dinner that spouses are invited to. So, it took a lot of thinking on my end to decide if it was worth going.

Finally, I decided I would fly out the day after him and only be gone for 2 nights and really there will only be one day I don't see the boys! I think that will be doable! And, I decided that even though I won't be spending the whole time with my husband, that is 100% okay. I'm not sure if I have EVER. IN MY LIFE. Gone out of town and not had to plan anything around anyone. I will have 2.5 days of the pool, books, the gym, and really anything I want. I will have an airplane ride to read, nap, play games or whatever I want! I mean after thinking about it a while, it didn't take my brainy husband to tell me it would not be a bad idea. We spent some extra dollars in order for me to be sure I will see the boys the morning I leave and the afternoon we return. So it is really only 1 day that I won't see their handsome faces. Im scared to pieces to leave them, but some freedom for a few days sounds so relaxing, I cannot contain myself!

Plus- I'm looking forward to a couple fancy dinners with my husband and maybe an afternoon at the spa. How can I go wrong?

It's not so hard!

I was going through old pictures recently and It made me realize how far I've come in my health and weight loss.  I really have never been one to give numbers at all because I'm embarrassed, but, hey, why not?   Remember im 5'7.  When I got married, I was 135 pounds.  When I got pregnant, I was 140.  My wedding gown was a size 4 and my clothes when I got pregnant were a size 6 or so.  I gained 60 pounds while pregnant, so that topped me off at 200 pounds!  When I got home from the hospital, I thought for sure the weight would have been gone, you know I just had a 7 pound baby so for sure the 60 pounds would be gone, right?? Well, I busted my butt and worked out and ran for months and months just to get down to 145 which was close to the weight I was when I got pregnant and I was happy.  I was still a size 8 and not in near as good of shape, but I was fine.  Then I gained another 5 pounds over the course of the next year until I got pregnant with Garrett.  I was 150 pounds and a size 8-10 when I got pregnant with Garrett.  With him I gained 35 pounds, a I was about 185 when I had him.  This time I didn't have as much weight to lose to be in pre Garrett clothes, so it didn't take as much effort.  I in fact got down to my pre Corbin weight at 140 when Garrett was about a year old.  But yet again, I was content and stopped even caring what I was eating or if I was being healthy at all.  This made me start gaining weight again! Arg!  I hit 148 pounds and got upset and decided that I couldn't just diet to lose weight, I needed to change the way I lived.  I needed to exercise and pay attention to what was going into my mouth, not just to get to a certain weight, but because it was healthy for me.  It needs to not just be a short period of time but a life time change.

So,  in order for me to just pay attention to how unhealthy I was eating, I downloaded the my fitness pal app.  Not only could I see calories, I could see all the other nutrients that I was under or over eating on.   I was amazed.  I mean, in all honesty, I'm sure that on some days where I was bored, I was probably eating up to 3 or 4 thousand calories a day!  What was I thinking?!?  It has taken just the eye opening of writing everything down to see.   Now, I have NOT given up the things I love.  I still love chips and salsa.  I just use different types of chips that are better for me.  And I still love cheese, I just pay attention and use 1/4 cup instead of a full cup!  I still drink my diet cokes (don't judge!), they are my guilty pleasure for sure!  I cheat once a week and allow myself to enjoy a full fat, full cheese meal (or whatever I happen to be craving!),

The other change I made was I started exercising!  I used to get on my elliptical and try to burn enough calories only to get to where my weight was comforortabke.  Now,  I am running outside because it can be fun.  I run in fun run races to enjoy it!  I do circuit training and weights on days I don't run, just to make running easier and more fun!  I enjoy having goals and making them.  I don't have to be gone from my family for very long and I still am doing cardio and strength most days. It's good for me in the long run and good for me now.

I have been doing these things for 10 weeks now.  And I'm down to 128 pounds and in a size 4-6.   And I am LOVING not only my body, but the way I feel, and the fun I'm having and honestly the recipes I'm trying.  I love food more than maybe anyone reading this, and I can still promise you that something like this is possible, and anyone can lose weight the right way!  

Here is a picture of me after Garrett and me now :)