A Fun Weekend-Recap with Pics

Can't believe it's already Sunday night, the weekend flew by, but we got to do some really fun stuff!

Friday night I had the privilege of teaching Bre's school teachers and staff CPR, that is my 3rd job, I'm an CPR & First Aid Instructor, if you've ever had a CPR class then you know the class is long and boring, even though it's interesting and I do my best to break up the "boring parts" its a very long class, Friday night I put in 13.5 hours, I'm not complaining it's a lil extra money, not much but a lil!
I did have a great group of students to work with that fed me lasagna, bread, salad and cake with a homemade icing, oh my it was to DIE.FOR! I also got to let Bre tag along as he could play while I taught, he stayed for half, he was great and quiet and played with two others! I hate being away from either of my kids, so nice to have him with me!

We had our small town festival this weekend, we went, had a great lunch, bought a cute Chevron plaque for the house, bought a Tickin' Tater, which is a fun game that holds a water balloon, kind of like hot potato, and whoever is holding it when the timer is up, gets wet! :) We played that tonight and it was super fun! I went to a wedding with EE, he was my date, it was in the middle of nap time, so the hubs stayed home with Bre!
Look how handsome my date was!

There was a photo booth, I have seen pictures of these, but never attended a wedding that had one, so we were excited to try it out! I know we look super goofy, but we had a blast, he didn't want to leave! Might have helped that Carly and Annie Sue were there, he took pics with Carly in the photo booth too, he thought it was too much fun!

After the wedding we went back to the festival to let the kids do the trampoline, jumpy thing, it was an extra long wait, and so not worth it, but hey we were cool parents for trying! Super thanks to the HUBS for going with me, twice, I like to shop there, so that's no easy task with two wild kiddos! :)

Today has mainly been a chill day other then cleaning and laundry! Here is a picture I took of my dinning room, we are trying to decorate for Fall around here, but I can't find my tote of fall stuff, the hubs said he would locate it tomorrow, here is my dinning room, the candles must go, and I need a couple of small real pumpkins for the middle of the table!

We don't have mix-matched chairs, this table seats up to 6, we only bought the 4 chairs, I'm going to get the other two now, they have to be ordered which is fine, but since mom has been eating with us a lot, we moved one of the kitchen chairs to the DR for now! The orange thing on the one chair is a pumpkin cover, found it at the Dollar Tree, but it's cute for the boys' chairs!

We also had a fun Birthday celebration to attend today, the Interstate was closed due to a bad wreck, so we took the back roads and so did everyone else, the party we were going to was 45 mins. away from our home, and with all the traffic it took 2 hours and 36 mins, the boys were great, they were watching the Ninja Turtles, I called about 3 mins out to find the park, and Braden's dad told me they were headed to the ER because Braden had fell and had a huge knot on the back of his head, so we went ahead to the park, everyone was leaving, I let the boys out to play and ofcourse stretch their legs! They played for a bit, then we headed to ER to drop off our present! Braden will be fine, so that's good news!

We got back into town and picked Nana up, she had lots of goodies for the kids, she had bought donuts, and Uncrustables, and snacks! She is always buying them something! We cooked a healthy dinner, it has about 150 cals total. Can't beat that! I thought I uploaded a pic, but can't find it now!
I had half a baked potato loaded with salsa, and Pico, a side of steamed broccoli, and sautéed mushrooms, in zero calorie butter! So I ofcourse ate a donut Nana sent! Which is exactly why I don't buy them, the kids aren't deprived we live one mile from the donut shop, and they get them about once a week! That way I only buy one for them, and none for me!

The running plaque I mentioned that the hubs made is awesome, he really can surprise me when I least expect it! I LOVE IT! I hope to fill it up with lots of running bibs! I will have one next month and I found another run that is two days after the Black Cat, I'm contemplating running that one too, it's for a good cause, the hubs is off work, so seems meant to be!

He is so creative, I love it, and can't wait to find the perfect spot in the house to hang it!

 

 

Great weekend, great family, and great friends, you just can't ask for any better!

 

So blessed!

3 more pounds gone and pics-Toby update

I have lost an additional 3 more pounds, and I couldn't be happier, I am now 3 lbs away from being the smallest I've been in 10 years, I will so take that after 2 kids! :)
I was trying to find some pics to compare, and before I started my weight loss journey, I never took any "before" pics, so we have to make do with what I can find!
Here they are:

The first picture I was at my heaviest and the picture in the purple shirt I'm 3 lbs away from my lowest weight, in 2 years for sure, but I only stayed that weight for a few weeks until my dad's cancer diagnosis. The weight loss difference between the two pictures is 25 pounds. As of right now I'm down 33 lbs.

I'm still using MFP and counting calories, not really very hard, I eat ALL.DAY.LONG!!! I've been running, now I have increased my distance to 2 miles, still doing 2 miles, 5 days a week! Starting 10/1/13, I will be doing 3 miles, so that I can train for the Black Cat! I'm super excited about that for sure!

Speaking of a race, my super awesome hubs, made me a running plaque, I showed him pics of one that I wanted, and he surprised me with one, I LOVE IT, thanks hubs, YOU'RE the BEST! :) He is almost finished with it, I can't wait to take pics of it to, so that I can post it!

Tonight I did 14 mins. of  Tae-bo, it's really my rest night from exercise, but I was a lil over on cals.

I did sign up for the Biggest Loser at work, so I love me a good competition, I can't wait to see how I do, it's for 12 weeks and is over the first part of Dec! 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, place win money! Free money in Dec, I'm totally in for that! We have to weigh-in weekly, so be looking for my weight loss post, I think we weigh in on Tuesdays!

This lil guy here went to Heaven on Tuesday, we are all super sad, but the Vet found a baseball size tumor on his spleen, and said his liver was 100% full of tumors, so very sad for sure, but I'm glad he isn't in anymore pain! We miss him soooo much!

Half a Year and Toby Starbucks

How in the world has it been six months since my dad died? He died on the 23rd of March, 2 days before his Birthday! We are a very close family, I use to call my dad every night before I would go to sleep, my routine was to watch the 11:00 news, turn off TV and call Poc! Every morning, driving the kids to school, we would call Poc and tell him good morning, for two years I went to their house everyday on my lunch hour!
Dad was my very best friend and my biggest cheerleader! I miss him soooo soooo soooo much!
He was a great man, and is in Heaven, he couldn't be happier!
Here are a few pics from my Wedding, which he made wonderful, he said he would let me have the most lavish, beautiful wedding I wanted, and he did that for sure! He wrote check after check for that Wedding!

Sorry for the quality of the pictures, I think they were scanned into our computer! These were taken by my friend, and I'm so glad she got a couple of great shots! :-)

I miss Poc more then anything!

Well some more bad news, Toby has been with us for almost 10 years, his Birthday is next month, in Oct. When we first got him he looked like this!

It was LOVE AT FIRST SITE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  He loved that Dalmatian quilt, it would fall off the bed some and we would find him laying on it, so stinkin' cute!
He started vomiting last week, we took him to the Vet and the Dr. seemed concerned but not as much as me and the hubs, I knew something was wrong, he wasn't acting like himself, the Vet put him on 3 meds, liver pill, acid reflux pill, and a antibiotic.
Over the weekend his belly was swollen twice the normal size, so I took him back in this morning for fluids and pain meds, they gave him all of that at the Vet and decided to keep him, he was so dehydrated, the Dr. is pretty sure he has a tumor on his liver and is in-operable, they are going to do exploratory surgery in the morning. The prognosis is grim, we will do all we can to keep him alive, but the Vet said if its a tumor like they think, that we need to put him down, I have a super hard time with this, so lot's of prayers please!
Boston's have a life expectancy of about 16 years, so as you can imagine we are all super shocked and sad, as all the blood work and xrays lead us to believe that it is indeed a tumor!
Toby needs a miracle from God, I know with all my heart it can happen!
We will be praying like crazy tonight!

Here is a picture of Toby that was taken about 4 years ago, he ofcourse still looks like this, he is 14 lbs, and is one of the smallest Bostons I have seen!

Don't forget that I'm a photographer, and I most certainly took his picture and made us some wallets, I mean how cute is he?
Say a prayer for the boys too, they are extremely sad, my mom just lost my "dads" dog at 8 years old just 2 months ago, and now Toby is super sick. It's hard to lose a family member! Toby is just that! We love him to pieces!

Sorry for the sad post tonight! I've been an emotional wreck all day!

What I was doing..........................WRONG!!!!!!

Great title huh? NOT! More on that in a minute!

So the 5K went great! Nice, cool morning! Sitters worked out nicely for the kiddos so that I could go! Alison and I got to ride together, so yay for some girl time, the race started at the bottom of a hill!
We walked most of the race! We got to catch up on girl time, which is super rare for me!

I'm disappointed I didn't run anymore then I did, but there is always next year! :)

So I FINALLY figured out what I THINK I'm doing wrong, when it comes to running! I've been training around 10-11 weeks and I thought by now I would be jogging the entire 5K, which I'm a far cry from.
The longest I have jogged without stopping is 1.5 miles, which is great for me, but I thought I would have worked up to a longer distance by now!

So my new method is going to be to stay on the treadmill for 3 miles, 20 days a month! Normally I would run my 1.0-1.5 miles then get off and do weights, or bike or the elliptical! So now I will stay on the bike until it reaches 3 miles and jog as much of that as possible, until I build up my endurance!

Oh the race shirts were cool, they are long sleeve which was nice! I was able to buy an extra for the hubs which was nice!

I'm looking forward to signing up for that race again next year!

Next up is the Black Cat, then the Biggest Loser 5K also! I'm excited for sure!

My work is hosting a Biggest Loser Contest again this fall, last fall I won 3rd place, so not bad, I'm down 30 lbs from my heaviest already, but I'm hoping to lose 25-30 more! Wish me luck, the winners get money, and free trips to Ky Parks! Very exciting for sure!

I'm weighing in on Friday of this week, I will be sure to post my results!

An UNEXPECTED 5K

I searched Google for some local 5K's and found one in the town I grew up in, just one county over from where I live now. Who knew this race even existed? The website said 7th annual?

It's a race to Honor Fallen Firefighters? My husband is a Fireman, I had no idea about this race, but was super excited to find it, at the very last minute and register for it!

Since the Cross-Country 5K was in the 90 degree weather and on rough terrain, and I beat my previous 5K that was in Oct. on pavement, I'm hoping to do even better, this race is in the morning with the weather in the 50's and we are running in a very shaded neighborhood! EXCITED!!!!

I think I've said it before, I have done the Black Cat for the past 2 years, this year will make race #3, and I would always wait for it to come around, then I started thinking to myself, that I wasn't going to wait to run one race all year long!

With my husband working shift work, it's hard to find a sitter and hard to justify babysitting money for me to run! Right now I'm trying to do as many as I can within reason!

There is a Biggest Loser 5K coming up and a Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving day, so I will do one of those for sure, I typically host T-giving at our home, so that might be harder to do, but we shall see! :) They are both in Nov. and I have Black Cat in Oct. so not bad!

I feel in love with a "Run like a Girl" running plaque that holds your race bibs, I want to recreate one, so wish me luck, I have 2 bibs that I have saved for now, so that's exciting too, I think it will be an Oct. project for me and the hubs to do together! :)

Speaking of the hubs, who has always been fit and doesn't need to lose a pound, he has been running some now too, he wants to be heart healthy, which is awesome and a great example for the boys! I'm excited, he said he might run a race with me, but he would leave me in the dust, he is way faster then me.
Would be so fun to run a race together though!

The race is Sat., I will post about it for sure! A big thanks to Ali for running it with me, she is a ton of fun, and we don't get to do much anymore, so will be a fun morning! Fingers crossed Melanie decides to run it too!

Here's to hoping the shirts are cool..................

2.6

YES, you read that right, 2.6 lbs is what I lost this week, and I'm stoked! Hard work pays off!

I did well over the Holiday weekend, and even passed up cake at Alison's (I was secretly dying to dive into it)  ha ha ha! It looked yummy! We had cake at the inlaws that I took over and I used the 3 bite rule, and I left the cake at their house! (I made it, and didn't want it in the house all weekend)!
It's getting easier and easier to stay on track on the weekends, I don't want to "cheat" because I think of all the hard work I put into the gym!

This weekend I worked on ABS, and boy I can tell mine are under this tummy somewhere, I was soooooo sore from just one workout! Like sore if I coughed, laughed, or just getting in/out of bed! I decided to give it a few days to rest the ABS because I'm sure I tore lots of muscle fibers, they never get a workout!
I went back to working on Abs yesterday at the gym, and feel fine now, so I really want to make Abs a part of my routine.
My gym time is limited, I have extremely bad mommy guilt as well as wife guilt, I HATE to leave my family, I know that working out will hopefully prolong my life, and show the kids how to be a great example!

I weighed on Tuesday (I always weigh at the dr.'s office inside my work) and it showed a 2 ounce loss, I was bummed but I know that I'm not going to be dropping the numbers like crazy each week, so I figured by this Friday it would be down a whole pound, I weighed again on Wed. and it said another -2.4 loss! So that's a total of -2.6 for this week! I'M STOKED!!! That's a great loss, so my total weight loss from my heaviest until now is 29 lbs, my bestie said I can't count being pregnant as my highest weight, but I only gained 9 pounds the whole pregnancy! I am now 6 pounds from being the smallest I've been since Oct 2011, so I will hit that goal again very soon, hopefully by Oct. 1!

So I have been jogging around 8-9 weeks now on the treadmill at the gym, I thought for sure after 3-4 weeks I could up my mileage, around week 2, I was able to jog a mile, and had got up to jogging 18 mins. straight, then it seemed like my body shut down, I know it's a mental, but I surely couldn't run more then my one mile, so I was mad on Tuesday night, so I thought to myself, I'm going to push it tonight and get in 1.5 miles, and I did!

I'm going to have to buy myself a few magazines, I've been a member at this gym for over a year and they have the same ones, and I'm sick of them! I think if I can read something good, it will distract me from getting bored!

See for yourself....

I know it says 1.46 but I assure I started it again and ran the .04 to make it 1.5! The treadmill messed up when I started it, and I just put in the 22 mins. knowing I'd stop around 16 mins, so I didn't care it made me set the time, typically I just turn it on manual and go with it, but I couldn't this time!

And that's the hot mess I looked like when I jumped off the treadmill, I'm not going to lie, it felt good, I had that "runner's high" I really did, that's the 2nd time I've felt that!

It has taken me 8 weeks to be able to go from 1 mile to 1.5 miles, I know it's crazy, but that's just how it is for me! And it's working with my exercise, so the numbers are going down!

The MFP congratulated me when I typed in my -2.6 weight loss this week then it said it would re-program my fitness plan, it dropped me from 1300 calories to 1220! Sheesh, I wasn't expecting that!

In the picture above I'm wearing the hubs size L tee shirt, I hate size larges, they are too tight and clingy, so I always buy a XL for shirts, and now they look sloppy, ha! I'm pretty sure he isn't going to like me wearing his shirts all the time! Sorry babe, I apologize in advance!

My clothes are starting to look sloppy, but I'm not really able to buy a size down either, so I guess I have to wear them sloppy for awhile, my pants today were big all over, which is great, but I hate to look sloppy for sure!

Excited to see where I'm at on the scale at the end of the month!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABE!!!!!

Happy Birthday to the best husband and daddy ever! :-)

The hubs is 37 today, and we pretty much love him to pieces!

We celebrated one day last week, because he was snooping, and I didn't think I could keep the secret much longer!

A lil back story, he has always wanted to go to a UT game at Neyland Stadium, and I've been trying to coordinate that to happen for what seems like the entire time we've been married, he works shift work so to be able to find a game on his day off and to be able to stay the night and actually enjoy the evening has been hard.

It just so happens that we will be coming thru Knoxville during one of the games, so it worked out perfectly.

I've learned one thing for sure, life is too short, not to enjoy it when you can. 

He is so excited and so is EE, they are going together, while me and Bre stay at the hotel and have some fun and one on one time! Such a great experience for the both of them, EE is old enough to remember it, and the hubs will take pictures so I can scrapbook about it! I'm thrilled for them and slightly jealous! I love all sports, but I know they will have a great time, and Bre and need some one on one time!

Since EE gets to go to this and got to go to a Cubs game with daddy, I booked Elmo Live, for me and Bre! So we will have a fun night together too! :-)

Back to the Birthday we celebrated with Pizza Buffet and that cake, I had mentioned last week, it was so good, and look how cute it was!!!

Leora did a great job on the cake, and it was soooo good. I was able to freeze 4 big pieces for later!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY B MAN!!! WE LOVE YOU BUNCHES!!!