Starting the Journey.....AGAIN

Same story...same tune...different time. Once again I am starting over, I am not at my highest weight ever but I am MISERABLE. Since I stopped writing on this blog I have had a baby (which totally wrecked my body and I now look like I weigh more than I did while pregnant I was pregnant...even though I weigh at least 15 pounds less) , minor surgery, and found out that I need a pretty major surgery within the next year. I went back to work, my husband took a new job with a lot more hours and travel, and my 3 oldest are going to all be in elementary school and the baby will be going to daycare. LOTS of changes....oh and I am getting my real estate license. It's never boring around here folks.

With all these changes, there has come a lot of stress which translates into a lot of bad eating choices on my part. Since having the baby, I haven't been able to work out because the only time I can go is when the YMCA nursery is closed. So many excuses....

I have ordered the AdvoCare 24 day Challenge (it's actually sitting on my doorstep and I sort of glared at it as I drove past it into my garage). I am excited to start this journey again but what if I fail AGAIN. I already feel like I am giving up on my dream to be a teacher by getting my real estate license and I am not sure that I can take another failure. My body betrayed me and I can no longer have kids so I feel like a failure in that department too. What happens if I fail at something else? I know...more excuses!

I am DONE with excuses. I am going to dive right into my new healthy living, look at my career change as a new dream and blessing, look at my 4 beautiful children and realize they are enough and I do not have to have more kids to feel complete, embrace my messy house and baskets of laundry so that I can find time to squeeze work out in at home while the baby sleeps.

I...CAN...DO....THIS

Father's Day

We did not knock do a lot of our Summer Bucket list this week but we still had fun!

1. I spent the week doing crafts with 3rd graders at a local VBS and all 3 of my children attended as well.

2. We had a date night with my 2 older kids that included dinner, donuts, and Toys R Us.

3. It rained a lot this week so in the afternoons the kids and I completed some Father's Day projects.

We made a candy card for the Papaws in our lives that turned out like this :

All 3 kids made cards for their dad. Jax's was an interview about his dad, Sawyer's was about how his dad is a super hero including a picture of them building Legos, and Isabella's was a Father's Day Mad Lib (I will find the links later)

We also filled up a cookie jar with Seth's favorite chocolate cookies and made a chalkboard label (we just spray painted a name tag with chalkboard paint) that said "Daddy's a Cookie Monster"

Last but not list we made a big poster with reason why Daddy is the best.

This weekend we went on a road trip. Let me tell you, my children are SPOILED! We almost always fly if the trip is longer than a few hours. Well, this time we were going to West Virginia for a wedding and we DROVE for a whole 5 hours and I thought they were going to die! They made it though and here is what they did at 10:30 pm when we made it to our motel:

We have a rule that you can only jump on motel beds so they were supper excited when we got there!

The wedding was beautiful and so is the scenery in WV and Virginia. Tennessee has mountains but they have MOUNTAINS. The drive up and back was so beautiful!

To finish off our great road trip we went to Pigeon Forge and used our season passes to Dollywood, it was a perfect day. Hardly any lines and we got to watch an awesome new bubble show!

Pin-tastic Saturday part 2

While all my children were playing nicely I tried out another Pinteret idea I had really wanted to do. Pretty much the only toy that Isabella still plays with are her dolls. Some of the dolls have some ratty hair! I had seen a recipe for doll hair detangler so I decided to try it. Here is where I got the idea : 

http://buttonsandbirds.blogspot.de/2012/03/majic-doll-detangler.html

I had a 6oz spray bottle and I used 1/4 cup + 1 tablespoon fabric softener and filled the rest up with water. I decided to try this recipe out on one of my old dolls (Kid Sister who is 25+ years old) rather than trying it on an American Girl doll first.

Scary huh? I covered a table with a towel and started spraying. I used the entire 6 ounces and the hair was dripping wet. 

I first just started brushing away but realized I needed to do it in sections. I separated out a section sprayed some more spray (I had made a new batch) and I brushed and brushed and brushed some more and it finally ended up looking like this:

I used a dog brush and a detangler brush but if I did it again I think I would try a wig/extension brush. The brush I used pulled some but not a lot of hair out. I ended up doing it in 4 sections and I was very pleased with the results.

After you have all the tangles out all you need to do is rinse the hair until all the fabric softener is washed out and then wait for it to air dry or blow it dry on a low setting. We decided to blow it dry.

I decided to put the hair back into the original hairstyle and she ended up looking like this  (Kid Sister is also wearing one of my favorite dresses that Isabella wore when she was about 9 months old.)

I need to trim the ends a bit but Isabella was so excited that her doll wasn't scary anymore she ran upstairs with her and played for 2 hours. This project took about 45 minutes to complete (including making the solution and blow drying and styling) but it was all worth it. I will try this on one of her American Girl dolls next!

Pin-tastic Saturday

We had a lazy Saturday today so I decided to try some Pinterest ideas. First up was an experiment!

I recently saw an experiment involving pennies and since all three of my children are obsessed with money I thought it might interest them. Here is where you can find the original idea : 

http://www.momto2poshlildivas.com/2012/02/penny-experiment.html

I had Isabella find all the pennies in our piggy bank and then pick out 40 of the dirtiest pennies. I then asked them how they thought we should clean them. 

Jax said water. (We used 10 pennies)

Sawyer and Isabella both said water and soap (we used 10 pennies)

I also had Isabella put in some pennies in a mixture of 1/2 cup vinegar and 2 tsp of salt that the experiment suggested. We put 20 pennies in this cup.

We waited 5 minutes and took out 10 of the pennies from the vinegar and salt solution and put them on a paper towel without drying them. Then after another 5 minutes we took all the pennies out and rinsed them. Honestly they did not look much different. The kids all thought that the soap and water solution cleaned some and that the vinegar solution cleaned best. In the original experiment I found the first 10 pennies that were not rinsed from the vinegar solution oxidized but ours did not. One cool thing we did though was stick a penny half way into the vinegar solution and this is what happened. The kids thought that part was neat!

The experiment was a little bit of a bust but they all enjoyed it and I was able to sneak some counting in there too!

Summer Fun 2014

I have decided to take this blog in a different direction. I am still trying to become a super Flab-U-Less Mom but while I am trying to do that I am raising 3 wonderful kids, trying to be a great wife, helping my parents who are up in years, and hopefully I am being a good friend as well. I want this blog to be something my kids can look back on and say "We sure did have a lot of fun doing that!" I love facebook but I don't necessarily want to put EVERYTHING on there. I hope that if people want to read this blog they can but if they don't they don't have to see my crazy life unless they want to. I hope some of you want to go on this journey with me but if not that is ok too!

This summer we decided to do a "Summer Bucket List" We did this last year as well but to be honest I didn't think through a lot of the kids choices and we were not able to do a lot of things. Here are some of the fun things we did the past 2 weeks.

1. We started out at the zoo (We got a groupon for a zoo membership and unlimited carousel rides for $45). The kids had a blast and we even got to go to an educational show.

2. Swimming with Daddy at the Y (this is a rare treat because he works so much)
3. A visit with Ms. Katie and Isabella's recital weekend (we went out to eat, got ice cream, watched a big girl movie, and went to Jumpin Junction).
4. The boys went to a super fun VBS and Isabella went to her first tennis camp.

5. We decided after bathtime and the kids already had their PJs on to go eat at Orange Leaf (the kids thought it was hilarious that we were leaving the house in their PJs and with wet hair!)

6. We made rain clouds

Here is the link where you can find out how to do this experiment:

diy-rain-clouds

7. We spontaneously decided to go to the pool (looked at the radar and there was NO rain!) but when we got there it started pouring! The kids ate some pizza under the umbrella and then I sent them to play in the rain

8. We had a bonfire and once again it rained but we had a lot of fun with our friends!
9. Today was National Donut day so we went to Chattanooga with some friends to Chick-Fil-A and McKay's and also went and got a free donut!

Not too shabby for the first two weeks of summer break. I know you are on the edge of your seat to find out what we do next week but you will just have to wait a week =)

New Year....New Lori

I started this blog by saying I have a "dirty little secret", well I guess it is not a secret anymore but I am still facing the same struggles. I lost almost 40 pounds about a year and a half ago and then I began having health problems. Let me just list them for you because it is really quite humorous for a 33 year old to have all these problems.

• When I exercise my foot started hurting....I learned I have Plantar Fascitis. This can be helped some with good running shoes and insoles but it still hurt a good bit no matter what I did.
• I started having problems with my Thyroid (again)
• I had an odd leg swelling....thought I just had a varicose vein that needed to be fixed....when I went in I found out most of my main veins in both legs were not working as they should. I had to have 4 separate leg surgeries that meant months of recovery.
• Now that all my leg surgeries are complete and my legs are healing...I find out I have a blood clot in one of my veins that is very painful but I will have to wait for it to go away on its own (which can take awhile). 
• For about 4 years I have had problems swallowing and I usually get choked on food weekly. At the first of December I got choked on a piece of steak and it got lodged in my esophagus. I had to have emergency surgery (while Seth was out of town) to have the food removed.
• During the surgery they did a biopsy and found out I have EoE (Eosinophilic Esophagitis) which means I am allergic to something (they have no idea what). What I do know is that it causes my throat to swell and make it hard to swallow. I am in the process of being treated for this right now - 8 weeks of drinking Steroids!
• Also during the surgery they found two places on my esophagus that looks like someone is pinching it. They did a CT Scan and there is nothing on the outside of my esophagus pushing in so now they have to figure out what those places are. I will go have another scope in February to see if the swelling has gone down and to have an ultrasound on those spots in my throat. I haven't even began to think about what those could be...one problem at a time.

On top of all that my family has all had major health problems and our personal life has been in turmoil.

• Seth has changed jobs twice in the last 18 months.
• His latest job involves travel which leaves me with 3 kids on my own.
• We changed churches and then went back to our old church (this was not easy for me)
• My grandparents now have to be cared for by my mom and aunt pretty much full time
• My father's health is declining
• My mother found out she has severe allergies, asthma, and a weird bacteria in her lungs that they thought was TB at first (she was quarantined Christmas Eve and Christmas Eve Day!). We are now going to an infectious disease doctor and the treatment for the bacteria will probably take 3 years. 
• My sister is going in for major surgery on Tuesday for a colon problem where she will be in ICU and then in the hospital for at least a week. She may have to have another major surgery to finish correcting the problem in a few months as well.

So I am not writing all this for you to feel sorry for me...I am writing this to say in spite of all these problems here are all the good things in my life.

• I lost 40 pounds and gained some back but I did not gain all of it back or did I gain more than I lost like I usually do.
• Even though Seth's job is stressful he has GREAT work hours and is home by 4:00 most days.
• I am involved in 2 local organizations that serve this community. Its very hard work and frustrating at times but I really enjoy the work we do.
• My boys have been home with me full time for the last 5 months. This is very challenging but I am enjoying my last year with them before they both go to school and I try to find a job in August.
• Seth and I celebrated 13 years together in December and have been married for 11 1/2 years.
• Even though my mom, dad, sister, and grandparents are all very sick they are still with us.
• In spite of 2 miscarriages in the past few years I have grown closer to God than I thought I ever could - I usually push Him away when things don't go my way.
• Seth and I have found great friends who help us with our crazy children when our families can't.
• Isabella is growing smarter and more mature every day and is excelling both at school and in dance.

Truthfully the list could go on and on. Sure I get overwhelmed by the first 2 lists A LOT of the time....but when I look at my children I realize its all worth it. They don't care that I'm sick - they love me just the same, they don't care that I can't exercise - they are happy if I can sit outside with them or read them a book, they don't care if I'm not happy with myself - they love me because I am their MOMMY.

I am going to try and be better about updating this blog. I will do little updates about my crazy life and I will also let you know about some great opportunities I have been given to help out our local community. Lastly, I have suddenly been chosen to try out a lot of different products here lately. I get these for free if I promise to let people know about them and this blog will be a good way to start doing that. 

Weekly Weigh in Winner

I finally did it....on the next to the last weigh-in I lost the most weight out of everyone in the contest for last week. 4.8 pounds. I have lost the most inches before but not the most pounds. Truthfully inches are what count when you put on clothes but everyone wants that number on the scale to go down each week. I usually stay the same or lose about half a pound one week and then pull a bigger number the next.

This week though I am hoping to at least lose 2 pounds but I don't think I am going to make it. On Thursday I weighed in and had lost almost 5 pounds...the next morning I jump on my scale (which weighs me just about the same as the Y's scale) and I had gained 3 pounds!! I was so mad! I kept jumping on the scale the next few days and those 3 pounds were just hanging around. My trainer says it is water and I sure hope so! I haven't changed anything. If anything I have been working out more (which I know could mean I am gaining muscle but I am doing pretty much cardio so I want to lose pounds!!!). I am eating between 1300-1500 calories a day so I am not starving myself. I have now banned myself from getting on the scale until I step on it at the Y for my final weigh in. No matter what the results I know I have done the best I could for the past few days and I can't change the past. I am sure there were weeks I could have eaten better or worked out more but I can not change that so why worry about it. If those 3 pounds hang on...oh well...does it REALLY matter? NO! But would it be nice to lose weight this week...maybe even win the contest....YES!!! I went into this thinking there was no way I could win the contest. Now that we are at the end I WANT TO WIN THE CONTEST....is it unlikely....YES....but I still want it to happen =)