Praying for Stellan

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I noticed on my friend Crystal's blog, a post called Pray for Stellan. I clicked on her blog and then followed her link to the original post about Stellan. It broke my heart. A poor family is sitting in the hospital on their youngest child's first birthday. Please say prayers for this family and young boy that he gets better soon. I can't even begin to imagine being in that situation. My little boy means the WORLD to me and my heart breaks for them just to have to experience this.

Please say lots of prayers. You can click on Crystal's blog (on the right) for more info.

Thanks.

Bring it on...

I decided that while I'm feeling extremely motivated, I'm going to register for the St. Louis half marathon in April. It will be perfect. Nick and I were thinking about thinking about more kids sometime next May or June, so training for this half marathon will get me in good shape if we do start really thinking about that then...did that make sense? :)

I'm already registered and it's paid for, so no backing out now. The half marathon is Sunday, April 11 at 7am. So that means training officially starts in about 3 months. But I think I'll start training earlier than that.

But it's done. I can't change it. And I'm excited!

Grammie's 83rd Birthday

My Grandma is turning 83 on Monday and we had a birthday party for her this past weekend at my Aunt and Uncle's house in Herman, MO. They live on a lot of land and it was gorgeous out. We were able to hang out by a fire, roast marshmallows, play badminton and just catch up.

Here are a few pictures from Saturday:







Hopefully I get some really good ones of Dommie and his cousins on Halloween and can post those over the weekend!

Weigh in

Yesterday I had my first official Weight Watchers weigh in.

I lost 6.2 lbs!!! :D

And the greatest part is I did it the right way. No crash diets. No sacrificing and being hungry. Just eating healthier and drinking plenty of water.

Well I'm on my way! (and yesterday I wore my "skinny" jeans!!)

Big Boy

My baby is 9 months old today!? EEK!

I was thinking about this last night. Pregnancy - approximately 9 months - seemed to take FOREVER to me. And actually, I only knew I was pregnant for 8 months to the day. :)

(And I only know this because when I was in the hospital being induced and my friend Mike came up to bring Nick dinner, he asked me if I wanted to hear something cool. I said of course. He showed me two text messages I had sent him. The first was on May 22, 2008 and it said, "It's official!!! I'm PREGNANT!!!!" and the second one was on January 22, 2009 and it said, "They are inducing me as we speak. More later!". I agreed with him, I thought that was pretty cool!)

Anyway, so pregnancy lasted forever. I didn't think it was ever going to end. Those 8 months, were the longest 8 months ever. These last 9 months?? Over in the blink of an eye. I can't believe it's been 9 months since we were in the hospital! It's crazy.

And beautiful. Simply beautiful.

Happy 9 month birthday Dommie! ♥

A whole new world

I'm so excited. A whole new world has been opened up before me. I logged onto weight watchers eTools today and discovered they have an online community! It's basically facebook for weight watchers. You have a wall, you have "friends", you have groups, challenges, pictures, etc. I'm in heaven.

I love being a part of a group so determined to lose weight. I love it. I love checking in and sharing recipes and getting extra motivation.

I calculated my Body Mass Index today and I'm considered "pre-obese". That's scary. Terrifying even. That is so motivational to stick with this and do good.

It's not the official weigh in, so I'm not holding my breath for it, but I weighed myself on Saturday at home and I weighed myself this morning on my scale and it shows a weight loss of almost 5 lbs! And the best part, I'm doing it the healthy way! I drink at least 8 glasses of water now, I eat my 6-8 servings of fruits and veggies, 3 servings of dairy, a multi-vitamin, lean protein, all of it! I'm just really watching what I eat and I'm continuing to work out. And I can already see a subtle difference in my face. Yay! :)

I can't wait for the official weigh in Saturday morning, even if it's just 1 lb, I'll be thrilled!

Jillian Michaels

kicked my butt! I started the 30 day shred DVD last night and man, was it tough! And I was only on Level 1! There are 3 levels! What the heck is gonna happen to me on the 3rd level??

But all that aside, I really like the DVD. She does 3 'circuits' of 6 minutes each and they do the 3-2-1 system. 3 minutes of strength training right into 2 minutes of cardio right into 1 minute of abs. No stopping. And when you finish the 1st circuit, you go straight into the 2nd circuit and start the 3-2-1 over again. It kind of helps knowing that you will only be doing 3 minutes or less of a certain exercise. Because they are tough circuits!

For one of the cardio workouts you jump rope without a jump rope. I thought that was silly at first but then 10 seconds later and that was the hardest thing I felt like I had ever done!

I think I'm going to try and do the 30 day shred 4 days a week. I think I'm going to do Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Fridays if I can. Wednesdays is basketball and then Saturdays are kickball. Sundays are lay on the couch and watch football days!

Day 1 of my 30 day shred down. Whew. Hopefully it shows at my weigh in on Saturday. Stay posted...

30 Day Shred

I got the DVD in the mail! Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred.

Now when am I going to do it? Tonight we have dinner at a friends house...tomorrow night we either have a work dinner, or I'm going to basketball if we can find a babysitter...Thursday night is Nick's graduation dinner....maybe Friday night??

I've heard it's really really tough. I'll let you know!

It's time...

I have decided to re-join weight watchers.

Now that I'm done with the half marathon and it's getting really cold outside, I'm slowing down on my exercising...but not my eating. So something has to be done. I think that weight watchers is a good choice for me. I did it once before, right before my wedding and I lost about 20 lbs. doing WW. Hopefully I can do that good, and better!

I have set a high goal for myself. I'd like to lose just over 45 lbs. I know that's a lot, but I need to and I think I can do it. This is going to be a hard time to start WW. The holidays always are, but I am confident.

The cool thing about Weight Watchers right now is they have eTools. You can go on their website and track your "points" there along with looking up the point values of any food, looking up recipes, joining buddy groups, all kinds of good stuff. I looked up a bunch of recipes yesterday and made two of them last night for dinner.

I made a grilled shrimp salad and some mini Philly Cheesesteak sandwiches. They were pretty good for "diet food". :)

I'm actually really excited about doing this and sticking with it. My mom joined with me even though she doesn't have to lose weight, and it's great to have someone else there with you. It makes it easier to talk to someone about the recipes and how hungry you are at first.

We had our first meeting last Saturday...I'm hoping for at least a 1 lb. weight loss this week! (I'm not looking at getting more since I went to a wedding and Nick told me I can't start a diet on a 'football' day and ordered us Dominios for lunch on Sunday!).

1 pound! And then just 45.6 more after that! ;-)

As promised -

pictures of Dominick feeding himself. He is a messy guy!

It's amazing how much he loves feeding himself when he actually eats so little because it all ends up on the floor, or on his face, or in his hair, or in his lap.

But he's growing and learning and it's so fun to watch.






Such a cutie!

No more baby food

We can't get Dom to eat the baby food purees at all anymore! We started giving him the Gerber Puffs or Cheerios so he can learn to start picking food up on his own to eat. Well he's great at it (although somewhat messy at it!) but now he only wants to eat that way. No more spoons. Unless he can hold the spoon. And just ask Nick, that's not a good idea.

So we've completely moved on past spoon fed food. We're doing cheese, avocado, meats, bananas, pears, peaches, peas, really mushy green beans and carrots, and just basically making a mess everywhere.

But we're a big boy now. No more being fed. Dommie likes to feed himself.

(Pictures to follow...when I finally remember to bring in my camera!)

Pictures

Here are the pictures of Dommie in his big boy car seat (isn't it a nice one??!?!) and a picture of his little shoes! They have cute puppies on them.





You can see how his skin is broken out around his mouth. That kid spits up with his binky in and we don't notice it at first! Poor guy!! I now check randomly to make sure he's "clean" under that binky!! :)

Big Boy Carseat!

Dominick is TOO big for the pumpkin seat now. He's approximately 31" long and 24 lbs. and his legs go up the back seat since he's too long. And don't even get me started about trying to carry that seat with him in it!

So we decided to get a new one. They are expensive!! But my sister told me about a program here in St. Louis called "Safety Stop". It's at Children's Hospital here in St. Louis (on Kingshighway by highway 40) and it's amazing! I will give them the best review ever!

I called them to discuss getting a new car seat installed. I told them that I had heard that they had car seats for sale too. The woman I spoke to said they did and she gave me an appointment time to come in. It's so easy.

They only schedule one appointment at a time, so there's NO WAIT! They have a designated parking spot for Safety Stop so you can pull right up, nice and close. We went in and told them we were there. They checked our old car seat, checking for any new recalls, and we put it in our trunk. Then we went inside the little room.

She told us about the car seats they have (all basic models) and the different car seats that children need through the years. She went in the back and brought out a convertible car seat. She showed us how it worked. How to make the shoulder straps tighter, how to loosen them, how it goes in the car, etc. Then she put Dommie in it to make sure it was at the proper setting (shoulder straps and bottom buckle). Then she and Nick went out to the car to install it. It took them about 10 minutes. And now Nick knows how to do it!

She gave us a packet of information on the various car seats and some other stuff in a bag. All very useful information. Then we went to pay. The BRAND NEW CONVERTIBLE CAR SEAT cost us $25!!!!! Seriously??? Those are normally almost $200.00! And it's a good car seat! It has to be since a hospital gave it to us, right?! :)

It's working out so fantastic already. Dommie is so much more comfortable in it, you can already tell. We love it.

I tried to take pictures with my phone and post them here, but I can't get them to show up...I'll try again in a bit!

Thank you Safety Stop!!

(If anyone is interested in using this amazing service, call this number - 314.454.KIDS or 800.678.KIDS, then press three.)

Exercise

I don't know why, but lately I've been wanting to work out and exercise more and more. I did the half marathon and since then I've wanted to keep going. But I'm ready for a change from just running.

My sister and I just signed up for a spinning class. It's Monday-Wednesday-Friday mornings at 5:30 am to 6:15 am. We did our first one Monday, neither one of us went on Wednesday and we both went again today. I love it. It's hard and I get tired, but I love it.

I'm still playing basketball on Wednesday nights. The new session has started and that's a great workout too. But it's only one night a week.

I'm still playing kickball on Saturdays. I know everyone thinks this is kind of a joke, but you really get a good workout playing kickball! But again, only once a week.

I'm looking for something else to do a few days a week. I've heard great things about Jillian Michaels (the trainer from Biggest Loser) 30 day shred video workout, so I think I'm going to try that and see how I like it. I ordered it off of Amazon.com and should get it early next week. You are supposed to do that workout 4 days a week with other cross training or cardio in between. Well I have spinning! So problem solved.

I was never this motivated when I was an athlete in college, so I really don't know why I'm so motivated now, but I am. I'll let you know how it goes once I get the DVD. I already know that it will probably be hard and I'll hate it at first. But we shall see...

We got ONE!

I can't believe I forgot to blog about this!?!?!

On Saturday morning during the brunch, Dominick did something amazing! He was walking around the coffee table, like he usually does, when he saw me. He turned to me and I held my hands out. He let go of the coffee table and STOOD BY HIMSELF! And as if that wasn't enough he TOOK ONE STEP!!!!

Then he fell into my arms. But hey! It's a start!

We got ONE step. Many more to follow I'm sure! :-)

Sleep

I forgot to tell you all that Dommie is back to sleeping all through the night! Woohoo! It really only lasted a few days. Now we are back on track of getting into bed between 8-9 p.m. and sleeping until at least 6:00 sometimes even later.

Way to go Dom!

Happy Halloween!!

Really early!

My sister and I had the kiddos try on their Halloween costumes on Sunday. Unfortunately, the costumes are so small on the kids that they will probably out grow them by Halloween. Cecilia is a lion and Dommie is a horse. Luckily, Cecilia's Grandma also got her another costume that is bigger. So probably when it gets to be Halloween, Dommie will be the lion and Cecilia will be a bunny. But here's a few pictures of them anyway!




How cute are these kids?!?!?!?!

Lauren and Brian's wedding

My good friends got married on Friday night. It was a beautiful wedding and the reception was a blast. Lauren looked absolutely gorgeous.


The wedding reception was a cocktail style reception and the food was great. They had a sushi bar! I LOVED that part of it! We danced the night away and had a great time. Thanks Lauren and Brian for letting us be a part of your special day!

Also, something I thought was cool (but a lot of people made fun of me for it!) was there was a soap opera star at their wedding. The gentleman who played "Stefano" on Days of our Lives was there. He's a family friend of Lauren's. I grew up being a HUGE follower of Days of our Lives and was therefore thrilled to meet him. So, of course, I have a picture of me and Stefano!



After the reception, our friends Jim and Leslie spent the night at our house. We decided to do a big brunch on Saturday morning with some more friends. Well the breakfast casserole I was making had to be refrigerated over night. Jim and I made it at midnight after drinking all night. Surprisingly, it still turned out great!

Here's me and Jim "cooking":


We all had a great time at brunch. It was nice to hang out and not have to rush off to another event or anything. We were all in sweats and just hanging out. Here are a few pics from brunch:

Me in my "snuggie":


Jim using my "snuggie" as a robe:

(I couldn't even tell you what we're laughing at!)

And one of Jim, Les and Ash:


I honestly have the best friends in the world! Love you guys!!

Vacation!!!

Our vacation is booked!!

Nick and I bought a "revolving timeshare" about a year and a half ago and haven't used it yet! Basically this means we bought "points" to use at various resorts throughout the entire world. We can use the points however we want and we decided we're going to Disney World!

We booked the vacation two days ago and had 24 hours to cancel if we changed our minds. We didn't and I got the confirmation today. It's official!!

We're staying at the Sheraton Vistana Resort in Orlando. We have a 2 bedroom villa with a full kitchen. We're hoping that our friends, Lauren and Brian and their daughter Josie will be coming with Nick, Dom and I. They are getting married on Friday and we thought this could be a fun little honeymoon for them, so I really hope they can come. Plus Dom will need a little girlfriend while we're at Disney! :-)

Here are a few pictures of the resort. It's 16 minutes from the airport (with free shuttles back and forth) and 1 mile from Disney!! It has 13 tennis courts, 7 swimming pools, 7 hot tubs, a miniature golf course, 6 rec centers, 2 snack bars, 1 full service restaurant, a food court, and a grocery store!! I'm so excited! Can you tell?!?! ;-)




The resort is also on a lake, so there's fun stuff to do there besides going to Disney and Sea World. I can't wait!!