One Good Choice

So for those of you who are around me on a daily basis you know that I have been trying to lose some weight. Not huge amounts, but I want to get down to pre-pre-baby weight. What is that? The weight I was before I thought "I'm going to get prego and gain bunches of weight. Why worry now?"

Anyway, I've been doing this since last May off and on. After Thanksgiving last year, I decided to start working out on a regular basis. I don't think I ever worked out before in my previous life, nor did I ever enjoy it. And all that bull about actually having more energy? I thought it was a lie. My next door neighbor introduced me to Zumba, which I love and since the Round Rock YMCA offers it almost everyday its a good bet that I can get there 3 times a week unless someone is sick or there are special plans or we are out of town. You can imagine this is fairly often. Anyway, I actually feel like I want and need to work out. I'm a much happier person these days. (Kristen a year ago is laughing.)

Last week, Greg challenged me to go 5 days without any sweets. Again, for those that know me, that is a big deal. As my children know, I bake homemade cookies at least once a week. However, I did actually have will power and I succeeded! I also ended up losing over 2 lbs. last week. Maybe I eat a few too many sweets.

So why am I writing all this? For background. So we are in Katy this weekend to visit Greg's family. What do we do when we come here? Eat and Eat and Eat! It's like any family's get together. It's all yummy! So here was today's meal plan -

Breakfast: Go take the kids to Mr. Donut.
Lunch: DoubleDave's buffet
Pre-Dinner: Queso, chips, onion dip
Dinner: Hamburgers, Hot dogs, and birthday cake at Heather's house.

Don't get me wrong. I love me some good, fatty food and any special event as an excuse.

My one good choice? I skipped donuts with the family and went to a BodyStep class at the Y at 7:30am.

It may not seem that good of a choice, but here is what I was thinking as the chicka was killing my quads.
Donut: 300 calories
Kolache: 250 calories
_________________
550 calories

My breakfast: granola bar: 90 calories
banana : 105 calories
pb cracker snack: 50 calories
______________________
245 calories

Calories saved by not donuting =345
Calories burned working out = 450 (it says 660 online, but I take the low intensity route so I round down)
___________
795 calories I could eat today to equal my other morning option

That is a HUGE difference! What if I made a good choice every day? Now I'm not planning to eat donuts every morning so it wouldn't be as much a difference as today, but whoa! I'm motivated for the rest of the week.

Now will I make bad choices this week? Maybe. Probably. But today I made a great choice. Let's see if I can resist the birthday cake tonight.

I challenge whoever is reading this to make their own great choice this week regarding working out and eating. Once you do it, you don't miss what you didn't eat and you feel better, too.

More Random Kid Sayings

I've been meaning to get these down for awhile and since I have a cute comment from today's snow play, I thought I would go back and catch everyone up on the cute things my kids say everyday. Some are from a few days ago, some are from months ago. Greg will just be excited to get our answering machine messages down to zero. Every time I hear something I want to remember I call and leave myself a message so I won't forget. Turns out now that I have listened to the 14 messages on the machine 11 of them were actual people calling that just needed to be deleted. So here are the 3 off the machine plus Logan's snow day quote. Enjoy!

Dylan: "When I get older, I'm going to have a green minivan. I'll need some paint and gas to get it started." **He's going to build it himself.

Response when Dylan is asked what he likes best about IHOP: "Why don't they have green syrup? I always like green syrup."

Since 2 Dylan has always been fascinated with the walk/don't walk signals on the stop lights. He calls them handicaps and came up with that name on his own. I've tried correcting him by calling them "walk men," but that has never gotten through. Instead, he just calls the picture of the man a walk man and the picture of the orange hand a handicap. One day in the car he asks, "Can we go handicapping tonight?" which though mommy translation means 'Let's go push the buttons and cross the street.'

Someone has been watching too much Frosty!

Mommy: "Now we need to get this snowman's other arm on."

Logan: "And then he'll COME ALIVE!"

This guy would scare me if he came alive for sure.

Logan's Love

So Logan is going though a rough spot in the 3 year old world. He is into randomly screaming when not getting his way, sticking his tounge out, and just being difficult. Greg and I have decided to respond to his sticking out his tounge with "I love you, too, Logan." which tends to annoy him enough to stop.

Here is today's response:

L: (sticks out tounge)
Me: Love you too, Logan.
L: I DON'T love you.
Me: That makes Mommy sad. (pouty face included)
L: I love you, just not that much.

I guess I'll take that over nothing. =)

Logan's First Soccer Practice

It was finally here. The day Logan got to play soccer. Ever since he was about 1 1/2 he has wanted to play. Why? Because when he was 1 1/2 Dylan played soccer in the 3 year old league at the Y. Of course, for those of you who were around for"The Soccer Balls" you never got the full update. Dylan played the first game and then after someone "stole" the ball from him he never went back on the field. Except for that time when we somehow convinced him to go out and he took it down field and made a goal. Then he came back and sat on the bench never to go out again. The whole time Logan at a whopping year and a half was trying to run on the field and score.

So we always told Logan he could play when he was 3. It has been a long time coming. Every time Dylan had any sort of sports practice Logan was all over soccer when he was 3.

Today was the day. 4:45pm on January 5th 2010. I told him today after quiet time that we would go to practice. He threw his hands up in the air and shouted, "Soccer practice, yeah!" After quiet time, when he saw Kaley was up (that's when quiet time ends), he yelled, "SOCCER PRACTICE!"

Its indoor soccer and practices are in the YMCA gym. The "plain" YMCA as D & L call it. Sometimes we go to the Round Rock YMCA so that is how we distinguish between the two. Greg took Logan in the gym and he's ready to go. He has a new, cool, red soccer ball that we got at Academy. The coach asked us to bring one if we could. Logan was the only one with a ball that was not bright yellow belonging to the Y. Oh well. All the kids on other teams would come and take it. At least we could find it again. Red does sort of stand out. I'll post a picture next time. I forgot my camera today.

Anyway, Logan gets out there after a long intro by the coach who seems like he'll be one of our best coaches yet. Logan is a little slow and sluggish and doesn't seem into it which is strange for him. He loves balls and has been waiting for this forever. He actually reminded me of a 3 year old Dylan out there. Then after running around, well, actually walking, he comes and sits with me on the bleachers. I look at Greg and mouth, "What's wrong?" Greg responds, "He says his stomach hurts."

That means only one thing when Logan says his stomach hurts. He has to poop. Now for those of you not up to speed on Logan's potty training progress you must know that he is essentially potty trained except that he holds #2 in for almost 3 days and refuses to go in the potty (Can I even really consider that potty trained?). I've given up forcing him to do it on the potty so he usually goes in a Pull Up right before bed or if I don't catch it, his undies.

I acted quickly and asked him if he wanted to poop in the potty.

L - "No."

K - "Do you want me to put on a Kaley diaper so you can poop?"

L - "Yes."

Great. So I take him to the family bathroom, lock the door, and put a size 4 diaper on him. Its a tight fit at best. I ask if he wants me to leave him alone. He says yes. So I sit down on the bench in the family bathroom and look the other way. He precedes to stand by the sink and do his business. The sink right next to the potty. We clean up afterwards and go back to practice which is over by now.

So to sum up Logan's first practice:
10 minutes - Coach talked to parents
5-10 minutes - Logan walks around not to excited about kicking the ball
15 minutes - Logan poops in a diaper when he is literally 5 feet away from a toilet.

Let's hope the second practice goes better.

The Past Decade

I was thinking about the last 10 years and thought I would give a brief bullet list of the big things I've accomplished.

• Graduated from college
• Started first real job
• Got married - I would like to say I did meet my husband in '99, but just didn't know...
• Bought a house (and have built 3 Duffey spec homes that we've never moved into!)
• Was pregnant for about 25% of the 2000s
• Had 3 kids
• Had 4 cars -I kept outgrowing them with each kid, I suppose. Should have just bought the mini-van right away.

Wow. I can tell you that besides getting a new car, I'm not going to be doing the rest of the list this next decade. I'm thinking that there aren't that many more big life changes I have left.

So far this decade I have...

• Woken up at 7am and gotten a sick girly in bed with me to cuddle up and sleep in for 40 more minutes.
• Made biscuits for breakfast
• Took a shower
• Put up some laundry

Have a great 2010!

Kaley's First Movie

So Dylan saw his first real movie in the theatre when he was 3 years old. It was Alvin and the Chipmunks. Logan saw his first movie in the theatre when he was 2 - Ice Age 3. As I was told, everything happens sooner with the next kid and so on.

Kaley just saw her first movie today, not that she fully appreciated it by any means. I took the boys to The Princess and the Frog this afternoon. Greg was playing golf this afternoon, Kaley woke up early from her nap, Dylan isn't feeling wonderful, and I was feeling BRAVE so I decided it was time to take everyone to see the movie before the school age children descend next week.

The movie was pretty good and Kaley did a great job. She only had a couple of moments. One of which was during the sad, quiet scene, but what can you do?

Dylan and Logan both had Icees, candy, and popcorn. Kaley got some of the M&Ms and popcorn as did I.

I'm excited her first movie was a Disney Princess Movie as everyone knows I am all about Disney.

Snow Room

Yesterday we went to one of Dylan's t-ball teammates house to see the "snow" room his mother makes every year. You have to see it to believe it. Ben and Ace, Dylan's classmates, came along for the fun. Each snowflake was a piece of small paper. There was Christmas music playing and we brought donations for the Rainbow Room. She is letting anyone come this year to play which is awesome. My kids want to go back before the snow room closes. I have to admit that I had as much fun as they did!

Logan making snow angels.

Grandmommy and Granddaddy joined in on the fun. We all played and threw snowballs at one another.

The best part was when they cranked up the leaf blower and the "snow" went everywhere!