'shun' stage

I'm liking this part of the two's. Colt is past the I-throw-fits-every-five-minutes stage and is now onto the I'm-two-but-still-likable stage.

His funny thing lately is all his 'F' words come out as a 'Sh' sound instead.
Kinda funny.

Ex:
Fun=Shun
Flower=Shower
Fork=Shork
Flag=Shag

This morning in the bathtub he yelled Shart! Then I saw a bubble.
That was a new one.

Meh : /

5%

You might remember earlier in the summer, a few weeks after I had Molly I ran a 5k and lived to blog about it. Since then I've kept up on my workout regiment pretty well. I continued to run after the race until my knee started to hurt. I bought new shoes thinking that was the problem but my knee still hurt so I decided to take some time off running, do some other sort of cross training and try running again after it had healed up or whatever was happening to it. That was my though process, although really I had/have no clue what I'm talking about. I've never worked out this much in my life, so ya.

Kaley had been doing P90X with her hubs [because they're superstars. you can practically see their six packs when they wear tight shirts] and I knew I wasn't ready for that sort of a beafy work out. I was down for some cardio, maybe some Jillian Michaels so I started to look for alternative workouts. Kaley then told me about this other work out she'd been doing that was all cardio but it was pretty insane, hence the programs name INSANITY. Sounds like ablast, eh? She invited me to come work out one morning...I said 'sure'...since I wasn't running I had to do something.

At the beginning of summer I decided that my new motto would be, something is better than nothing. I've never been a big fan of gyms. Don't like people staring at my jiggly parts when I'm trying to get my workout on. So I was going to do other things just to simply keep moving. Kaley's house is cheap to work out at too. And sometimes she makes me coffee afterwards :)

I headed over to Kaley's one morning at 8:30a and we headed down to her basement/work out area. I kept telling her that I was going to die and she said, Don't worry, Everyone dies in this workout. All these people are ripped and they're hunched over on the floor it's so hard. I think she said that making me want to feel better when really it made me want to run to my car as fast as I could and drive far, far away.

I stayed and finished the workout. I remember half way through the warm up asking, Is this STILL the warm up? She nodded. I shed a single tear and kept moving.

Since that day a few months ago I've been driving over to Kaley's house almost every morning during the work week. We work out together and sweat our hineys off while Avalon [her little girl] laughs at us from her play pin. I would probably laugh too.

I've slowly started to add running back into the mix. I got a knee brace and it took care of the knee problem so I'm glad I figured that one out. I like to mix it up though. Running everyday would bore me but I like it as an option. I've got a 4 mile track in my neighborhood. The more I run it the less it feels like 4 miles, which I like. My mom, Andy and some of my other family are running another 5k on Thanksgiving morning so I'll do some training for that too.

Since the 5k I ran on June 5th I've lost 20 lbs. I'm pretty proud of that. I said that I wanted to try to loose 30lbs this summer but a more realistic number was probably 20. I'm loosing it slowly but I'm also enjoying life. If I want a cookie, I'll eat one. I just try to make sure I eat really well the next day and push myself during my next days workout. I'm not into depriving myself to try to loose weight. I don't do well with that and it would probably backfire.

A few nights ago I challenged Andy to a little competition of our own. Who ever could loose 5% of their body weight by Nov 1st gets $100. He likes competitions and has been wanting to loose a little more weight so that is my next goal. I'm kinda nervous just because I know how easily he can loose weight when he puts his mind to it. AND I'm still a hefty one, so 5% of my body weight, well, I won't say how many lbs that is for me, but I've got some work to do! It's a lofty goal for sure but I'm going to try hard. And really, do you know how long it's been since I've had $100 to blow?!? Years. I've already started a mental list of all I want to buy.

Andy told me tonight, You should blog about our competition. It would be good accountability for us. So here you have it. World, we're trying to loose alot of weight next month, Biggest Looser style.

Let it be written.
I think I'll go throw up dinner.

cupcakes and cowboy boots

Colt's 2nd party was a few weeks ago and I'm finally around to blogging about it.  Unfortunately,  my mind went to silly details & getting all my ducks in a row for the big bash which caused me to forget my camera completely.  So the pictures I've taken are the few I snapped with my camera phone.  They don't start remembering things until they're, what? Three?  Hopefully he'll forget who I blew it in the picture category.

I decided to do a Cupcakes and Cowboy Boots theme for Colt's party.  I was trying to think of what he was into so I figured, Eh, he wears his cowboy hat around and thinks that's kinda cool.  Lets go with that.  Actually, my first thought was...let's do a balls party...cause Colt really likes playing with balls.  Baseballs, footballs, juggling balls, etc.  But what exactly would that invitation say? 'It's my party and I've got balls!' or 'Come play with my balls'...wrong.  There are about a million more ball jokes I could keep throwing out but surely someone would defriend me or report me to CPS.

So, cowboy party it was.  Here was the invitation I made.  I thought it was pretty cute:

To protect my parents identity[who allowed me to use their house since mine is the size of a nutrigrain bar] I slapped a gigantic fake mustache over their address. 
That was not apart of the original invitation.
Obvi.

As a party favor [which I forgot to handout, or no one really wanted. haha!] I had cowboy hats & just for fun I bought a bunch of fake mustaches.  My brother and a few other friends had a jolly good time sporting the stache'.  Colt, of course, wanted nothing to do with anything cowboy/mustache/fun related.  Figures.  He was in a semi-weird mood that day.  At first didn't even want his cupcake!  He eventually snapped out of it.  Honestly, I'm not sure he likes all the birthday attention and/or is a fan of large crowds.  He was much more himself after the party when it was just us.  Which is why in the future we're ordering pizza and inviting over the grandparents.  I'm pretty sure I'm the only one that cares about his party. 

Here's a picture of the decor and the cupcakes/cupcake toppers which I spent 86 days making.  The cupcakes were good.  I made the frosting from scratch and piped the frosting all on my own.   Thank you Martha Stewart...I'm glad you're not in jail anymore.

Although our picture taking sucked we did however take lots of video so I sliced together a movie showing the highlights.  You'll see Colt's 'big' present.  We [Andy's family, my brother, my parents and us] all pooled our bucks together and surprised Colt with a John Deere Gator.  He loves it.  But he loves to sit on it and pretend he's driving it more than he likes to actually drive it.  He'll drive it for a few minutes but then gets a little scared.  He'll grow into it...Cross my heart, hope to die, stick a needle in my eye.  If not, guess what Molly's getting for her 1st birthday?  She loves John Deere.

All in all it was a great time. 

I love my little doodie head.

Yeehaw.

schwing!

We went to the park today.  Although it looks like Colt and Molly were both really enjoying the swing in this picture, Molly was truly the only one having fun.  Colt a few minutes prior had fallen off another swing when Daddy was pushing him.  He has a slight fear of slides & now swings too.  From now on we'll play with the mulch.

squishy

"I shall call him squishy, and he shall be mine, and he shall be my squishy." -Dory

molly moo, she's 5 months old.

My bouncing baby girl is 5 months old tomorrow.  She brings so much joy to my life.  I like to go to bed early with her and we have a slumber party.  I tickle her,  kiss her, smell her arm pits, make her smile...kiss her some more.  Sometimes I want to bite her, so I bite her paci and hug her at the same time.  It gives me the biting sensation.  She's that good.

She's still sleeping in her seat next to my bed every night.  She probably should have been transitioned to her own crib a few months ago like her brother was but I feel like breaking all the rules I've created in my head.  She's my buddy and honestly, I would miss her.  I figure when I'm ready to move her to her crib it will make sense. Until then, she's my baby girl and I'm going to let her be my baby, right there next to me.  I can promise you she won't be sleeping next to my bed when she goes to kindergarten.

Here's what she's really good at:
-Smiling
-Being sweet.
-Pushing her legs down on the ground and lifting her butt in the air.
-Rolling to her belly when I lay her on her side.
-Telling me she loves me without saying a word.
-Eating [8oz. 4x's a day].
-Wearing cute clothes [size 9-12mo].
-Laughing.
-Crossword puzzles.
-Drooling.
-Sleeping [12 hours a night].
-Eating her fingers.

If I could love her any more, my heart would explode.

my giggle girl

triathloner

This summer Andy decided he wanted to try out a triathlon. In August he packed up his bike and headed up to Eagle Lake. I'm pretty sure I was more nervous than him the entire time because he did great. I helped him get his bike all set up, watched his swim and then headed back home to get the babies [Don't worry...They weren't home alone by themselves. Mom was with them. I'm not that kind of mother]. Although it was a lot of running around back and forth it was nice for the kids to be there when Andy finished.

At the start of the swim I walked up and saw this gigantic orange buoy floating in the middle of the lake. I heard the announcer explain the swim course and that's when I broke out into a sweat. Wait, Can Andy swim that far?!? What the heck! I'm not sure if he can swim that far!?! Now, now...Andy would slap me for saying this because he's a good swimmer, but I guess because he hadn't ever practiced swimming across a lake before and because I'd only see him do laps in Mom and Dad's pool, I was freaking out. Sure enough, a few minutes later he was swimming back to shore. He even was smiling so I guess it wasn't that bad.

I walked up after his swim to see him transition to his bike but when I got there all I could see was him flying down the road! I was impressed by his speediness. He was passing all sorts of people too. I was proud of him.

I then ran back to the car, headed home...woke up, changed and fed my sleepy heads and we all went back and found a spot by the finish line to see him run in. Mom tagged along. She was my lifesaver. I typically don't go places where there are lots of people involved with both babies, by myself. It's just too much, especially with my firecracker Colt. I'd rather have a colonoscopy. I was glad she went with me.

I put together a quick video of some footage I got. Andy is in the middle of the pack wearing a white/red/black/onesie/speedo thingie [stayin classy] with an orange swim cap on. [I'm glad they gave him an orange swim cap because the entire week before his race I kept making fun of him for buying a clear swim cap at walmart. I won't tell you what I kept calling him, but he looked like he had a form of contraception on his head. nuff said.] The last part of the video was supposed to be Colt and Andy running towards each other for a hug, one of those slow motion type of moments but that didn't really happen.

Andy's actual time was 1:52 not, 1:57. I'm sure he'd want me to mention that.

Just last weekend Andy competed in his 2nd Triathlon. This time it was an Olympic length tri, a bit farther distance swim and bike. Watching the swim made me want to vomit. It was longer and he hadn't swam since his first triathlon a month previous. I kept looking and looking for him and finally I saw him start to swim in...but I thought for a few minutes there he was lost a sea. Whew!

He really liked both his experiences this summer and I can see more Triathlons in the future. His next big thing will be the Sunburst Marathon 2011. Now that I've shared his personal goals with the internet there is no turning back...I, on the other hand choose to commit to nothing.

I'm proud to be Andy's wife.

my monkeys

Inspiration for their Halloween costumes? I think so...

choose love

I've been holding on to my babies a little tighter this week. I know it stems from the loss of the little girl, Ava that I blogged about earlier this week. When someone you know leaves this earth at a such a young age you want to ask questions. There are so many things I don't understand. Being a mother it hits too close to home. That could have been my baby girl.

Andy was at work when I heard Ava had passed away. I grabbed my babies, left my house a mess and brought them to bed with me. Colt hadn't ever spent the night in my room before so I wasn't sure what I was in for I just knew that I needed to hold him tight and tell him how much I loved him. He saw me crying. He scooted his head over to my pillow and gave me some kisses. We had been praying for Ava every night so we prayed together some more. He finally fell asleep with his feet on his Dad's pillow and his head at the foot of the bed. Molly slept like an angel in her bed next to mine. I watched them sleep and prayed for them.

When my cousin Marie was 2 she was hospitalized. She had gone to the doctors office multiple times that week and was sent home every time. They said she had allergies or a cold, I forget the details. She slowly deteriorated at home for a few days until my Aunt and Uncle had had enough. They knew it was something more. They were watching their baby die. They rushed her to ER and determined Marie had double pneumonia and her left lung had collapsed. She was in intensive care for weeks in an unconscious state. We almost lost her. It was scary.

I remember my Aunt sharing a story with me that happened while she was in the hospital and it has stuck with me forever. She was sitting in the intensive care room, watching Marie sleep, talking to God...having a hard conversation. If I lose her God, will my faith be strong enough to carry me through? During her prayer, Marie's doctor came in to check on her. She walked in the silent room, didn't say anything and before she left said said to my aunt, 'You know, she's not yours'...

It's so true. We're on this earth as a loan to the people that love us. If God wants us back. He can have us. We're not any ones but his.

I have never met Ava or her family. I just know them through some friends. If I've been effected by her life like I have I'm sure there are others out there getting a wake up call. That's my prayer. Choose love. Live with no regrets. Wake up. Quit waiting. Be thankful. Forgive. Life is short. Love your family. Love Jesus more.

'twuo'

Happy Birthday to one of the sweetest, funniest kids I've ever met.

So lucky you're mine!

Colt is 2!

ima diva, ima ima diva.

Molly's Newborn & 3 Month Pictures.  She's so cute.

All photos taken my Julie Schwartz of Classic Image Photography.

porch sitting

Colt really likes to sit on the porch.  When ever we open the door he wiggles his body outside like a dog does when they try to run away.  Colt doesn't want to run away.  He just wants to sit on the porch.  Sometimes he goes with Daddy to get the mail and then sits and reads the paper.  Sometimes he waves at our neighbors...or looks for birds and air planes.  It's always very exciting times.