The Challenge

I am not weighing in this week, I will wait until next Friday.


For exercise this week:
Sunday I rode the exercise bicycle for 20 minutes.
Tuesday I did two pilates workouts from the Caribbean Workout video.
Wednesday I attempted to ride the bicycle, but Austin woke up from his nap so I only rode about 8 minutes.
Thursday I did TRX at work.

Last weekends fever was brought to us by...

Tooth number 19!  Starting Saturday night Austin woke up at 10:00pm and was on fire.  He was around 102.  Then the rest of the weekend through Monday he had on again off again fever.  The problem this time was he kept refusing to take the ibuprofen, oh silly toddler!  Tuesday night Dustin was brushing A's teeth and spotted the top left molar and last night I got a quick peek at it.  19 down, 1 to go- I will not miss this phase with him!

I think when he is teething it suppresses his immune system and he gets whatever viral crap is going around.  Even though the tooth is out now his nose has been pouring and last night it drained into his throat/lungs and he was up often choking it out.   I am keeping him home today for extra rest and lovins.

At 10:00 last night I went in to his room and set up a humidifier.  I also tried putting a small pillow under his mattress to prop up his head.  I brought him out and gave him a teaspoon of honey.  So I think the honey gave him a sugar high, seriously this kid was buzzing around the living room giggling until midnight.  Then when I finally put him to bed I heard him in there carrying on so I went to check it out and he was playing around on the elevated mattress and using it to try and reach his Thomas the Train wall decoration.  I yanked the pillow and made him sleep flat so of course he was up coughing and choking.  Poor kid, we are staying home today to rest and recuperate.

Aloha Friday

My question:

What is your favorite way to exercise/lose weight?

My last post talks about my plans to get in shape and lose weight.  I think my favorite way to work out is to swim, especially since I have bad knees and swimming puts more of the focus on my arms.  To bad that where I live there are only outdoor pools so my swimming is limited to June-August!


If you would like to participate in Aloha Friday head on over to An Island Life and link up!

The Challenge

I have been wanting to work on getting into shape lately and my employer just started up a new fitness program called The Challenge.  Basically everyone who wants to participate signs up and they weigh you in.  They wanted to focus on BMI, but it's just calculated from your height and weight, and you can't really change your height so it's just another way of tracking your weight.  The contest goes until April and you just have them check your weight every week or so.  In the end there are prizes, but they didn't really specify how they are deciding the categories. 

I really want to keep at exercising and trying to cut back on eating junk food, so I'm periodically going to post about my progress to give myself the incentive to stick with it.  It's called accountability!

So it's confession time:
My starting BMI is 25.6, which just puts me in the overweight category.  My goal is to get down into the normal range, but ultimately to feel better and have more strength and energy.  I feel like BMI is hard for me because I have a big boned frame and I think I would probably always be at the upper end of the BMI scale categories because of it.  It would be nice if there was some way to account for frame size.

A side consideration is at my last physical the doctor also recommended that if I plan to have another baby in the future that I should drop some weight.  We are not in a big hurry for that, but it is our goal for the future.  Although I have to admit that unlike most, having Austin actually made me lose weight.  My pre-pregnancy weight was 170, which was way too much and makes me sick to think I got that lazy and big!  I got up to just under 200 at the end of my pregnancy.  I pretty much came home from the hospital back at 170, and with breastfeeding got down to 140.  At that point I looked really skinny and people were worried about me.  Since I stopped breastfeeding I have been inching back up and am currently at 154.  I would ultimately like to be back down around 145. 

I have to be careful about what I do for exercise because I was is a bad car accident when I was 11 that knocked out my PCL in my right knee.  All through middle and high school I participated in sports as part of my rehab, not knowing I was missing that ligament until my senior year.  I was on swim team and was kicking with paddles when I felt a huge pop in my knee.  I went to an orthopedic surgeon who had me get an MRI to see that the ligament was gone.  Going all that time with my knee out of alignment tore up everything in there so the week after I graduated they scoped it and removed all the cartilage and meniscus. So basically I am not supposed to run or do any high impact activities. 


This week I started to work out. With the new schedule I talked about in my previous post I am able to workout in the afternoon while Austin naps.  On Monday I rode our exercise bicycle for 20 minutes.  Wednesday I did two pilates workouts from The Carribean Workout video.  Yesterday I attended a class through my work to do a TRX workout.  It is a strange workout, they call it suspension training, where you lean against ropes and use your body weight for resistance, and it's kind of like pilates in that it doesn't feel like you are doing a whole lot, but your body aches afterward.  Today I did a 3 mile power walk. 

I am also trying to cut back on snacking, and trying to eat healthier.  I love Mountain Dew and Coke, but am trying to limit my pop consumption and instead limiting myself to 1 cup of coffee, ice tea sweetened with Splenda, skim milk, and of course water.  I also try to buy things that are low-fat or no-fat, especially now that Austin is over 2 and no longer needs the extra fat. 

I hope that my rambling about this doesn't scare anyone away.  I will label any post about this as "The Challenge" so you can skip it if you are not interested, but I think by updating on here it will hold me accountable and I will reach my goal.

New schedule

The last two weeks we have been adjusting to a new schedule.  Before on Monday through Thursday our schedule was something like:

Allow Austin to wake on his own 7:30-8:30
Snuggle/cartoon time till 8:30-9:00
breakfast 8:30-9:00
play time till 10:00-10:30
nap 10:30
wake up at 12:00
daycare 12:30
work for me 1:00-5:00pm
home
dinner 6:00
bath 7:00
bed 8:00

Austin was really only getting the one early morning nap and would sometimes nap when we got home from work/daycare.  He would be so tired by bed time.  And about a month ago he stopped taking the morning nap.  They claimed that he would take a nap at daycare, but even if he did he was only napping an hour. 

Since he turned two they had space available in the morning for him at daycare, so I jumped at the chance to switch.  Now I get up at 6:00 and have coffee and me time.  I wake him up at 7:00 and get him dressed and we head to daycare.  I am at work by 8:00 and work until 1:00.  I pick him up at 1:30 after he is just finishing lunch up there.  He has been falling asleep in the car and naps at home until about 4:30.  He is much more rested in the evening and we bumped back his bath time to 7:30 and bed time to 8:30.

It is taking time for me to get used to getting up first thing in the morning as I used to sleep until I woke up on my own.  I am much more productive at work and it's easier to coordinate with other people in the mornings.

Birthday Bash

Austin's party was last Saturday and it was FABULOUS!

We had eight little friends from daycare attend with their parents, so it was a good group. The weather was amazing, high 50's so we did most of the party in our yard.

Here is what we did:
As they arrived the kids decorated a Boo Boo paper bow tie. When they finished I taped a mini paper clamp to the back so they could clip it to their shirt.  The parents ended up wearing most of the bow ties.

We ate- I served PBJs, a veggie tray with dip, goldfish crackers and deviled eggs.  Then we played the first game which was we hid play food all over our yard and told the kids that Yogi was at it again and they needed to bring all the food back and put it in my pic-a-nic basket.

We played the second game which was the teddy bear pic-a-nic. I put a quilt on the ground and put a numbered teddy bear on there for each kid. We played the song the teddy bears picnic and the kids danced around like musical chairs. When we stopped the music each kid grabbed a bear and we drew winners. We played three rounds and in the end every kid got to pick a prize.

To wrap up a great party we did cake and ice cream then opened presents.  Austin blew out his own candle this year and we got it on video.

Link to a giveaway

My friend Brandi is doing a giveaway on her blog Life of a New Mommy for a cool website CSN that sells everything including kiddy stuff.  Go check it out and enter to win!

The cake

We just finished up with the party and it was awesome!  I will make a post all about it, but for now I wanted to show the cake.

What a Day!

We had no plans for today until this morning, but we decided it would be good to get outside since the weather was so beautiful.  We also decided it would be good to make a shopping trip to the big city to get supplies for the birthday bash and we also decided to buy a new bath tub for Dustin's bathroom since the old one got a crack in it. 

We headed out after breakfast and first we went to Lowe's for the bath tub.  I am not full on potty training Austin yet, but we have introduced him to it and he sits on the potty most nights before his bath.  As we walked down the isle in the bathroom fixture section Austin spots the potty display and starts yelling "potty, potty" so we had to go sit on the display model.  Don't worry though, he of course still had on his diaper and pants!

Next we head to our favorite restaurant, Texas Roadhouse, for lunch.  They seat us against a wall that they have a big mural painted on, it's a picture of Lake Powell.  At first Austin sat in the bench with Dustin, but then he crawled over to my side.  Above my seat the mural has a lady in a bikini.  Austin notices it and I'm thinking, I feel like the mom on A Christmas Story when they set up the leg lamp and Ralphie is checking it out.  Next thing I know Austin hones in on her belly button and reaches up and pushes it and says "buzzz".  When he was first learning body parts I taught him belly button and to make the buzzing noise when he pushes his button, so he did it to the mural girl.  We were laughing so hard!

Then we went to Zion National Park where we were thrilled to find out that it is a free park weekend.  We are avid parkers and always have an annual pass, but ours expired a couple months ago and we were going to have to pay the $80, but since it was a free day we were good to go.  It was still pretty snowy so we decided to just do the Temple of Sinewava trail that follows the Virgin River.  First off we found out that Austin no longer fits in our Kelty Kids backpack, it was a squeeze to get him in there and he was miserable.  So we took him out and expected to have to carry him, but sure enough he walked most of the way with us.  Our only problem was 1) he really wanted to go to in the river, and 2) any time he saw something cool he wanted to wander off the trail to it.  It was really cool to see him be so independant, man is he growing fast.  We didn't do the whole length of the trail, but it was nice to be out and get exercise and fresh air anyway. 

Birthday Invite

Here is what I came up with for Austin's birthday party invite.  In the space between Hey There and , I wrote in the kids' names that I know from daycare and sent blank ones for the Nanny's to fill out for the rest of the kids.  I was playing off of how Yogi Bear says "Hey there Boo Boo."  So far we have 3 RSVPed on Facebook and one maybe, it could be a huge turn out.
I need to get working on stuff for the party, but little man has been keeping me up the last couple of nights.  I thought maybe we had strep throat because one of the early morning wake ups my throat was sore, but we both went to the doctor and got clean bills of health.   Now I'm wonding if it is a tooth for him because one of the nights when Austin got up at 3:00am I gave him Motrin and he slept for over 6 hours straight.  I hate that he does not yet have the words to tell me what is going on. 

I have been debating making up a t-shirt for Austin to wear at the party.  Last year I got him a Sesame Street babies "my first birthday" hat to wear and he was less than thrilled with it.  I can't decide on the wording to put on a shirt if I did make one.  I was just thinking of using t-shirt transfers and using one of the Yogi images I found online.  I was think about doing some Yogi catch phrase, but I don't know, now I'm think of just having it say "Birthday Boy."  What do you think?

A unique place

This past weekend my husband took us on an adventure to a truely unique place that is way off the beaten path.  It's called White Pockets and it's on the northern Arizona border.  It's near the famous rock formation called "the wave" (aka Coyotte Buttes) and probably has similar history in its formation.  It is lesser known so not many people venture out to it like the wave.  Austin had a blast, he was so in his element.  We put him in his snow suit to keep him warm, but it ended up being a good layer of protection for his skin since the slick rock sandstone can he hard on a person and he had a blast rolling around and climbing.  He of course was making Mommy nervous though!

Wordless Wednesday

My Christmas cactus is finally blooming!

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