Back to the drawing board.. part 2

Another positive thing that has come from my surgery is weight loss. Not my most recommended way of losing weight, but hey, whatever works i guess... I was at 167 before I had my surgery, I am now at 158. I was 153 lbs before I got pregnant with bryleigh, and have always been about 147 my whole life... I gained a few lbs before i got pregnant with bryleigh lol.

I am now more motivated than ever to lose that last 5 lbs. I can see the finish line, and oh man i want it so bad.

Here are my strategies:

Since the surgery, I have been weaned off of soda. All i drink is water, and the occasional gatorade, and 1 warm tea a night to help my throat. The tea is not caffeinated. So i plan to stick to these drinks. I like water now.. wierd. I figure in this way I will be saving at least several hundred calories per day.

We found a perfectly working exercise bike on the side of the road that someone was giving away. It has the time/calories burned/ etc. program on it too! I plan to start riding it 20 minutes when i wake up, during naptime, and before i go to bed. That will be an hour per day, which calculates to about 400/calories burned.

Lastly, I plan to start working on our meal choices better. I cook everynight, but sometimes what we have isnt as healthy as it could be. So back to the drawing board. Back to meal planning, and only buying the healthy stuff at the grocery store.

Well, wish me luck!

Back to the drawing board..

I had my tonsils and adenoids taken out on 10/7.... I am on day 11 and still in remarkable pain at times, and other times im okay. There is a spot behind my tongue that doesnt seem to be healing. Everytime i talk or swallow, the sore comes open again, shoots pain through my ears, and i have to hold my face/ears for at least 10 minutes curled up, trying hard not to scream in agony.

Anyways, thats the negative part..

The positive part- I have beeen able to rest, and sleep, a lot.

As most of you know, I had a really hard time with my mom the first year we were here. She has a pretty bad personality disorder, and the doctors were not able to find a good balance of meds to have her on. It was making her life really hard, and in turn, she was living at my house. So i had to take care of my babies and her. Anyways, it was rough.

Well, since she moved back the last time, back to virginia, she has landed a great job, gotten her own house, bought a car, and found the right doctors. Her meds are excellent, and she is doing so great. I cry to think how proud of her I am.

She flew down here the day before my surgery to help me the week after. She was such a huge help. Cooking, cleaning, taking care of the girls. Never complaining or upset that i wasnt able to spend much time with her, although i felt terrible that i couldnt see her as much as i wanted. I cried when i said goodbye to her. I didnt want her to see me cry, i just knew that I had my happy, healthy mom back, and it felt really good.

I am so thankful for all that she did while she was here. I could not have got through that week without her. I pray that these meds continue to work, and she continues to stay happy.

ch chhh chhh changes

Big changes are coming my way. BIG changes....

My cuddler, my sweetheart, my easy easy easy child, my BABY is now crawling. My baby. It still melts my heart everytime to see her going, because shes like a new baby learning how to walk with her crawling, she falls over, and splats face first into the floor, and tries so hard, and everytime she finally gets where she wanted to she looks at me with the biggest grin to make sure I was watching. Oh I love that kid. So now that shes crawling, she has also mastered getting herself into the sit up position. And since shes been able to pull up on things for a little while now, now that she can do the two things that were supposed to come BEFORE pulling up, she can actually put it to use. Every morning when i go to get her up she is standing in her crib smiling just waiting for me. Brooklynn says momma, dada, and byebye. I think she is trying to say quack too because shes always gotten really excited to hear a duck quack on a cartoon, or if we say quack to her she laughs so hard. So recently when she hears quack she says cack a few times.

As much as i wanted her to start crawling, a part of it saddens me. When Bryleigh started crawling, it was all over... Her baby-ness was over. She was crawling, and soon after was walking, and now shes almost 2 going on 20. Brooklynn is mommas little baby... I just cant believe she is getting so big so fast. I feel like I just had her. Soon she will figure out that with her newfound ability to crawl she can get into everything... soon after that she will be walking, and talking...

Todays Funny Story:

The other day brooklynn was sitting by the kitchen watching me cook. Bryleigh had on footy pajamas that were slippery on the kitchen floor. She ran through the living room and into the kitchen and wiped out. She fell down so hard just right on her butt. While Bryleigh found this to be a terrible traumatic experience, Brooklynn thought it was HILARIOUS. Brooklynn laughed SO hard, like ive never heard her laugh before. I was trying so hard to console Bryleigh but couldnt help but laugh a little at Brooklynns amazing "little sister" ability.

Today... a typical Friday?

Not even close.......


Tonight was about as close to an adventure as we ever have in our household... Once you get passed all the chasing, changing, feeding, playing, crying and laughter that goes on with having two small kids in the house, life around here is pretty boring... I like boring.. Boring is routine and predictable, boring is always safe..

Today was different from the very beginning, wes was off work...

Once a year Independence Missouri has this huge fair called Santi Caligon.. It is a celebration of Independence Missouri being the starting point of the Oregon Trails. Its this huge even with TONS of venders that sell the crafts/clothes/food they make, concerts, a carnival, and TONS of yummy food. It is jam packed, and a ton of fun. I love the feel of the small town life that it brings about. Everyone is happy and acts like they all know each other there. People travel a long way to come to this thing, and it is by far one of the coolest events ive ever been to.. It goes on for 4 days.

It opened at noon today, so we made sure to get there right at noon to walk the tents and have a good time at santa cali gon. I bought a casserole in a bag for chicken almond casserole, and a steak/chicken rub that tasted pretty delish. They had a lot of cute baby things, but I am too cheap for the stuff they were selling at such high prices.

We got home at 2 in time for my nieces to get here. I have been having a lot of trouble with the youngest niece Nova who is almost 7 months old. She has been exclusively breastfed since birth and is now getting switched to bottle fed which she is not liking very much. She was pretty much refusing to eat at all the past few times I have had her, so she screams forever. She is a very loud screamer also.. So if I have got 3 out of the 4 babies to sleep, and she starts to scream, the whole house wakes up. This happens everytime she is here and it makes me cry. Well today she did really well. She only screamed for about 30 minutes instead of 2 hours, and took a really good nap. She even drank a little of her bottle.

After the girls left is when our adventure began. I cooked dinner, and then asked wes if he wanted to go to the local bowling alley because they were having 99 cent games. We went and bowled 2 games and it only cost us 4 dollars to bowl. I thought we were having such a great family outting. Bryleigh did great at the bowling alley, she walked back and forth with us while we bowled yellling HOORAY, YAHOO, or OH NO if we missed.

We got to the car to leave with our two babies, and found out that wes had locked the keys in the car. We called OnStar and they couldnt help us because we never activated it. This was rough. We had our two babies, and we were stuck at this ghetto place at nighttime with no car. ArGH!
A while later we were rescued by Wes' brother and we came to the house to get our extra key.

This is why i like routine.... Crazy stuff always happens when we try to take the girls out. Next time I will know to just stay home and play parcheesi.

I think its that time..

Its been a while since my last post... I have a few minutes now to myself for a change, and figure i would update my blog.

THis has been such a busy summer... May 31st was our anniversary and Wes and I took a 4 day trip to Los Angeles to celebrate. We try to do that once a year where just him and I get away for a few days alone... We love our kids, and the minute we are away from them we miss them like crazy and they are all we talk about, but I think the time alone for the two of us is important too.

In June we went to Florida so that my dad and Florida family could meet Brooklynn, and see us and bryleigh as well. It went okay. I really enjoyed seeing my step sister Kayla. I hope one day we can see each other more.

In July I went to Virginia with Brooklynn for a week. I loved this trip. I missed bryleigh SOOOO bad it was rough, but great to see friends and family at home.

In August Bryleigh and I went to Delaware to see the girls from olive branch play in the little league world series!!! I was SO proud of those girls. What an accomplishment!

Next week the four of us finally all get to take a trip together. We are going to Branson Missouri for 4 days just to relax and spend time together as a family. I look forward to the pool time, and taking Bryleigh to the aquarium so she can see the "shishies" thats what she calls fish.

It has been a busy, eventful summer. I have had a lot of fun, but look forward to the weather cooling off and routine coming back our way. My girls have really gotten older and smarter this summer.

Bryleigh has so many words added to her vocabulary each day. She pee pees on the potty every now and then. Not consistently, but i think she is getting it. She is still young so i am not forcing anything, just let her decide when she wants to. I ask her every couple hours if she has to use the potty.. Sometimes she says yes, sometimes she ignores me. She is sweet and has become a lot more loving towards Brooklynn. When brooke cries bryleigh tries to give her cuddles and kisses to make it all better.

Brooklynn has really been starting to do things lately. In the last couple of weeks she has started to get up on all fours, pulls up on her crib bars and stands, gets herself to a sitting up position, and rolls allllllll over the place.. she rolls wherever she wants to go. and she is quick too. She now says momma and dada, and is still as sweet as she can be.

Wes is still working crazy long hours, and even working all day today which is a saturday. blah. I cant wait til we can be on a ship again..

Well, thats all I got... Hope everyone has enjoyed their summer!

Throw it in

Today I had ground beef thawed out. I had been thinking off and on all day about what i wanted to do with it. By dinnertime i still hadnt decided, so i decided to just throw things together, and hope foro the best. I went to the garden and picked 5 carrots, and a medium sized onion.. cut some oregeno leaves, and some parsley.... decided id just go with it. This particular recipe i was able to keep trying it until it tasted just right.. and boy did it turn out delicious.. It took about 35 minutes, but that was only because i was trying to feed two babies, cook, and all the other fun stuff that comes up while youre trying to do something with 2 kids!

Its another one skillet meal i have named: Throw it in the pan!

Ingredients:

3 large carrots sliced pretty thin, (I had about 5 smaller ones from the garden because our garden carrots havent gotten THAT big due to be planted so close together)
1 lb ground beef
1 medium onion
2 cups of instant white rice
2 beef bullion cubes, or 2 cups of beef broth
2 cups of water if using bullion cubes
good sprinkle of oregeno
good sprinkle of parsley
salt

1) put ground beef, carrots and onions into skillet until hamburger is brown. Drain pretty good to get the excess grease off. Return to skillet

2) add rice, oregano, parsley, 2 beef bullion cubes, and two cups of water to skillet, stir VERY good often

3) you might need to add a little more water if all the water gets absorbed before the rice gets good and done

4) once all rice is done, sprinkle with salt to taste, and stir really good.. and walla..


We are really big rice eaters, so everyone in this house loved this meal. Bryleigh especially. I can always judge a meal on if bryleigh sits in her highchair saying NUM NUM NUM after every bite. She even ate the onions lol

Ashleighs Recipes

I have set a goal for myself for the next week. Every night of the week, *other than Tuesday because i have a 4 hour class* I am going to create and prepare a new recipe that I have never made before.

I am going to create these recipes myself, and i expect there to be nights where we decide that i should add something to them, take something out etc. I try to come up with quick, easy recipes with normal items most people have at home. I also try to make everything that a toddler would eat too that way i dont have to cook twice for us, and bryleigh. I am going to type these recipes in here, and for those of you that follow this, if you decide to try it, let me know what you think...

I started this new goal this afternoon while the babies were sleeping. This is a one skillet meal called...............

Cheesy Chicken and Potato goodness

Ingredients:

Two golden potatos, scalloped. (sliced VERY thin)
2 chicken breasts, sliced into approx 8 pieces per chicken or so
a cup of green beans- I like the french style canned green beans, but im sure any would do.
2 slices of bacon cooked and cut up into very small pieces
3 tablespoons or so of oil
salt and pepper
sage
2 1/2 cups of water
1/2 cup of milk
1 cup of cheese of your choice. I used cheddar and jack.
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder

sprinkle sage, salt and pepper onto chicken
1) heat oil in a large skillet and cook the chicken until its done.
2) Add milk, water, and sliced potatoes to skillet and bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cook for about 7 minutes.
3) Add cheese and garlic powder, stir very well.
4) let cook on low until cheese is nice and melted in the mixture, and potatoes are tender.
5) Add cooked bacon, green beans or corn or vegetable of your choice and mix well. Let cook another 3 minutes.

SERVE.

It might sound kind of odd to some, but it was actually delicious. Wes loved it, Bryleigh loved it, and I loved it. What i would do differently is add corn and green beans, and some onions.. probably green onions. I would definitely cook this again. From start to finish it was about 30 minutes.