I hope everyone enjoyed their long (hopefully) holiday weekend! We live in a great, wonderful country where we get to enjoy numerous freedoms!
Friday night we headed over to Riverfest to check out the carnival, music and food. We all had so much fun!!! Emily rode on a cool ride all by herself, one with daddy, the carousel with Mommy and the kiddie coaster with Daddy. I was very impressed with her riding the kiddie coaster! She LOVED it!
Remember when we were kids? The rides were so AWESOME and you never thought about safety?? You know you are getting old when you say things like “That kind of freaks me out that this ride is so close to the other ride” and “I hope the bolts are tight enough on that thing”. Oh to be young and stupid again!!! I swear I lose several years off of my life when Emily gets on a carnival ride!
After the rides, we played the duck pond. Emily “won” a prize. She picked out a unicorn. Of course it’s PINK! She was in love!!!! She named it “pony”. Every original! We then headed out to find some yummy food for dinner. We then ate until our bellies could hold no more! We had so much fun!
Unfortunately, mother nature had other plans for Saturday. It rained…….almost all day. Ruined our plans for the parade in the morning and our plans to hit some of the booths at the festival and get cotton candy. We thought we were going to get the fireworks in but started getting rained on. Luckily, we were on the church parking lot so we didn’t have far to run in the pouring rain. Emily was disappointed but got to see some neighboring fireworks going off while we were waiting, before the rain.
I can’t believe how big my little girl is getting! It was amazing to see all of the stuff that she can do now! We all had a wonderful 4th weekend!
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- Neigh- ha!
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- No fear!
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- “Pony”
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- Dancing to the music
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- Waiting for fireworks on the 4th
I hear that a lot. “All by myself”. Emily is very independent (yay!) and loves doing things by herself, for herself. Great when you are not in a hurry!
Today I had to call daddy because Emily got herself dressed “all by herself”. I had laid some clothes out for her to change into after our shower but she decided that she didn’t want to wear what I picked out so she got into her closet and chose her own clothes. A Dora shirt and jean shorts. The only thing she wore that I had out was her underwear and socks. She was SO proud!
She build a tower “all by herself” the other night as well. She brought me the camera to take a picture of it. This was not the final product. I didn’t get a picture of that one. It was as tall as she is!!!
Emily wanted to paint after her nap the other day. I thought it would be a good time to do a 4th of July craft. (The weather has been too beautiful for us to do any more! )
I saw this super cute craft on No Time for Flash Cards. The craft was fireworks made out of cupcake liners. Fun!!! We don’t have markers yet so Emily wanted to use “paint” aka bingo dobbers instead. I think they turned out cute! And she had a GREAT time!
My nephew celebrated his first birthday this past Thursday. We went to Centralia to celebrate on Saturday. My brother did a great job putting on a party, especially considering this was his first one ever to organize.
All the kids and adults had a great time. Thank goodness it was held indoors, as it was 97 that day! Emily and her cousins had so much fun running around, playing with balls and bubbles. We had a good visit with family as well.
I think Timothy really enjoyed his cake and ice cream, as they had to give him a bath in the sink before he could open presents!
Happy Birthday Timothy!!! I hope your life is full of love and laughter. You have a family that will always love and support you.
PS- I took a ton of pictures. They are in the Picasa album (June).
For 13 or so days we had 90+ degrees with heat indexes of well over 100. It was too hot to do anything. It was the kind of hot that takes your breath away. Emily was starting to get a little stir crazy so on one of the mid 90 days I decided to take matters into my own hands. I told Emily that she could play in the sprinklers after her nap.
We have an underground sprinkler system so I just turned on a specific zone and let her go to town. She was having such a great time, despite the pressure of the water. I think I need to head to Wal-mart or Target and pick up a hose sprinkler. I heard a lot of “ow, ow”. I am not sure who had more fun- Emily or Shadow! Definitely something we will be doing again soon! Thankfully, this week has been the break in the heatwave we have desperately needed. It’s still hot but not “can’t breathe” hot.
We were supposed to go to the Transportation Museum on Monday but decided that 95 was a bit too hot to be surrounded by pavement and metal. We’ll save that for the fall. We decided to head to the Magic House instead since that was on our list of places to go.
We went with our good friends Julie, Chase, Slade and their Grandma. Their Grandma is awesome. A lot of fun and easy to talk to. Emily fell in love and was calling her “Grandma” and had to make sure she was holding her hand. It was so cute! Emily is always in heaven when she is around her best friends!
It was so much fun! The last time we were there we didn’t get to see much of the new section so we explored that first. We played in a construction site, fairy tale land and thought about climbing a three story bean stalk. The girls decided that they were too chicken to try it though. What do you expect from a 3 and 2 1/2 year old?
We also spent much time in the “old” section. We had to hit Emily’s favorite part- the water table. I thought I was going to have to carry her out kicking and screaming. I really must find her a water table. The kids started getting hungry and restless after about 2 hours so we headed out. There was still so much to see and do though! Just means that we will have to make another trip soon.
I think a great time was had by everyone!
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- Digging in the rocks
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- Construction worker
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- In a worm? tunnel
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- Playing piano to see bubbles
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- Trying to make bubbles
Monday was the final weigh in for the Biggest Loser Challenge that I participated in. The goal was to see who could lose the most percentage of your body weight within 8 weeks.
I am not going to lie and say it was easy. It was hard. Especially because we had holidays, birthdays and special occasions occurring throughout the entire 8 weeks. It was a huge change in the way that I ate and how I looked at food. I still struggle with too many sweets and wanting desserts. It’s always going to be a struggle and that’s ok. I didn’t get to the root of my eating problems but I learned how to control my urges and binges better. I got my butt moving and worked out a lot throughout the entire 8 weeks.
The thing that I found to work for me was a notebook. My fatty patty notebook. I wrote down EVERYTHING I ate, along with the calorie count. I limited myself to an average of 1200 calories per day. I anticipated special meals and adjusted accordingly. Going to 1200 calories was hard. After the first week or two, it got easier. I was finding myself only at 1000 calories after dinner. I indulged in ice cream and other healthy desserts to make up the deficit. I made healthier choices and I know those choices are going to carry on long after the contest ended.
I was lucky because Stephen was working with me, not against me. Too many women have husbands who aren’t super supportive of their weight-loss efforts. Fortunately, I am not one of them. Stephen jumped on the weight loss train with me and lost quite a bit of his own weight as well. I am very proud of him!
I truly didn’t think I could win the competition. Some things came up in my life that prevented me from being able to work out at the gym as much and kept me from limiting my calories to 1200. With 3 weeks left of the competition, I found myself doing what I could do. If I won, I won. If I didn’t, I still won because I had lost weight and made major changes in my life. Guess what???
I WON!!!!!!!!!!! I lost 10.44% of my body weight in 8 weeks! I am so proud of all the women who participated in this challenge with me. We lost over 80 pounds as a group and there were only 8 of us! That’s huge!!!! A huge step toward improving our lifestyle and overall health. Not only looking better, but feeling better as well.
Our next competition sounds like a fun one. Walk Across America. Sign me up!
Taken on the day of the weigh-in. 10.44% smaller!
I hope Stephen had a great Father’s Day! He is such a wonderful Daddy to Miss Emily. She loves him to pieces, as every little girl loves their daddy.
We went to church, had a nice lunch at home and then spent some time over at Stephen’s parent’s house. It was a good day!
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- Emily being silly while helping Papa open his gifts
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- Chilling with Daddy on the floor
Last week was my father-in-law’s birthday! We went over after dinner and had cake and ice cream. Emily, very readily, helped him open his presents since he has a broken arm. She is getting in tons of practice for her birthday,which she talks about daily.
Happy Birthday Dan!!!!
I have been wrapped up in many life happenings lately and haven’t had a lot of time to devote to my blog. I will slowly be catching up over the next couple of days so I hope I don’t overload you with pictures and stories!
