My Dress!

It was on the Biggest Loser last night! It was crazy.

I don't remember if I blogged much about it or not, so I'm going to re-blog if I did. Sorry!

A few weeks ago was the Incarnate Word Academy Spring Auction. I go almost every year along with my family and see high school friends, former teachers, and former players I used to coach. Well when I coached at Incarnate a few years back, I was at my all time high for weight. I was about 210 lbs and wearing a size 16 pants. Yuck.

Then I got pregnant, had Dominick and finally started weight watchers. A lot has changed since I coached there.

I now weigh 167.8 (according to last Saturday's weigh in) and I'm wearing a size 10-12. This is huge for me. A big accomplishment. I wanted to show it off!

So I took two of my best friends shopping with me. This in itself was a big deal for me because I took two of my smallest friends shopping with me. All my friends are smaller than me, but these two are little. Size 0 and size 6 maybe (and that size 6 is pregnant!). But for the first time since college, I felt like I could go shopping with them, try stuff on for them, and not feel like the "fat girl".

I didn't feel like that. I actually felt skinny. I told one of my friends when we walked in that I'd either be a Large/XL or a 12-14. So we picked out a bunch of stuff and I tried on the first dress.

When I showed her, her response made me feel like a million bucks.

"That is huge on you! It looks baggy. We need to go down at least one size."

What?!?! Baggy?? Huge?? Go DOWN a size??

This was a great day. I fit into a size 10 dress. I haven't seen that size since early college.

Anyway, this isn't supposed to be about my weight loss journey. Sorry, I got side tracked. I was blogging to say that while I was watching the Biggest Loser last night, I saw my dress.

Here's how it happened:

One of my favorites, Stephanie, got voted off last night (I say one of my favorites, but I think they are almost all my favorites). When they did her flash forward moment I had a weird sense of Deja Vu!

They showed her "now" or 7 weeks later in a mall. She said that she wanted to get a brand new dress to show off her brand new body for her 30th birthday. She was going to White House Black Market (my FAVORITE store). I laughed and told Nick, "That was me two weeks ago!".

Then she went in with her friends and started trying dresses on. I kept watching and saying, "I tried that on...I tried that on...How funny would it be if she tried on my dress?!" but they never showed her in the dressing room with "my" dress on.

Then it flashes forward to her party, she is walking in the door and I see it! She is wearing MY dress! :-) It was like I just saw a celebrity! I was yelling at the TV and Nick thought I was crazy. And I definitely am, don't get me wrong, but it was something in that moment that really connected with me.

I understood her. I felt like her. I used to be ok with being the "big" friend, but I'm not ok with that anymore. I'm 5'9" so I'm always going to be bigger than my 5'2" friends, but I don't need to feel like the fat girl anymore. I've worked hard to get where I am and I'll continue to work hard to get where I want to be. I hope to buy many more dresses from White House Black Market that make me feel just as skinny and pretty as this one did.

Wiiii!!

We got a Wii! And a Wii Fit!

We got both of these at the auction a few weeks ago and I've been dying to set them up. I really want to start doing some workouts on the Wii Fit and see how they are.

Well we finally set them both up last night. Yay!

We each tested our fitness age on Wii Sports (I was 27 and Nick was 32). And I'm so excited we have it up and running.



Tonight I plan on playing with the Wii Fit. I want to do some "strength training" and some "yoga" and just really try it out. Get a feel for it.



I plan on buying the Biggest Loser Wii game and trying that out soon too.

Yay for technology! :-P

It's official

Ruby is a puppy.. A YOUNG puppy. I honestly don't even know if she's one yet.

This is a hard adjustment for me. I've NEVER had a puppy. We got Yosha from my sister when he was almost 4. We got Brady when he was almost 3. Both of those dogs were settled when we got them. Ruby is anything but settled.

We went to a wine dinner with my parents on Friday night. It was delicious and we had a great time. But we came home to Ruby having eaten our camera bag and all the cords. She didn't eat the actual camera, which is great, but she ate the cords so we can't get any pictures off of the camera right now, which is not great.

We give her chew toys, but she eats those so fast that she then eats something else to go along with it. Both food bowls are practically destroyed. Luckily (and please knock on wood here) she hasn't gone for any furniture. It's just things that are left out. I'm doing double/triple checks before I leave the house now just to make sure nothing will get destroyed.

We are locking her and Brady in the kitchen during the day now, because that way she can't eat anything that matters a lot to me and then they can still play. I don't want to crate her if I can help it. Hopefully this "phase" ends soon.

We FINALLY have her trained to "stay" when we open doors. She hasn't run in almost two weeks. I don't trust her yet, but we're getting there.

Every time I get frustrated and say that we're taking her back, Nick defends her and wants to keep her. So I was right about one thing...

I knew that Nick would pretend he was mad that I got her but then he'd come around and love her!

Baby Sale!

It's that time again! The Story Lady baby sale is this week! I'm so excited about it.

Here's the website if you want to take a look: Baby Sale!

I found out about this the fall before Dominick was born. I spent a TON of money but got some really cool toys that Dom still plays with, like a big plastic toy box, and a plastic tool bench with toys, and a basketball hoop, etc. We also got some cool things for the house, like a pack n play for $5, our diaper bag for $10, a TON of burp cloths (since Dom was a spitter) for less than $1 a cloth, and a bag of bottles for $10.00.

Well it was so great that I've gone back every sale since and the sale has gotten bigger and better.

It is now located at the old Macy's at Crestwood Plaza. It's a HUGE sale that has baby and kid toys, clothes, furniture, bottles, diaper genies, strollers, and it goes on and on and on. They expanded to have stuff for pregnancy too (maternity clothes, etc.) and even stuff for the house (like toaster ovens, and VCR's).

They have kids books, movies, and DVD's. They have books for expecting parents. They have video game consoles, and games. They have a TON.

Volunteers get to shop early so I started that last year and I loved it. It's a lot of fun to work at it. I get to shop tomorrow night and the sale doesn't open up to the public until April 1.

I'm so excited! I'm hoping to get Dominick some more clothes, maybe a little tricycle, some DVD's, some books, and maybe even a big boy bed if they have one. We are getting ready to move Dominick out of the little bedroom upstairs and put him in a big boy room on the first floor.

I can't wait to go shopping tomorrow!

Memory

Dominick amazes me every day. He is picking up on so much and he is so smart. He likes to play with my phone. A lot. If you give him a "fake" phone, or an old one without a battery, it's not fun because it doesn't make noise or light up. So I let Dom play with my phone a lot. He loves it. He will just walk around and talk and talk and talk. Then he puts it down and moves on to something else.

Sometimes I don't see where he puts it down and this makes me nervous. But so far, Dom has remembered where it was every time! All I have to do is ask.

"Dommie? Where is Mommy's phone?"

And he stops whatever he is doing and goes and finds it and brings it back with a big smile on his face.

Such a sweetheart.

He amazed me even more than that this morning.

I know Dom knows what a phone is, or what Mommy's phone is. He plays with it everyday. But this morning, I was finishing getting both him and I ready, when he wanted his socks out of my hand. I wadded them into a ball and gave them to him to play with until I was ready to go downstairs and put them on him along with his shoes. Well, when I was ready to go downstairs, Dom didn't have the socks in his hands anymore. 'Great' is what I was thinking. I have a hard enough time finding any two socks, let alone socks that match, so this was going to make us late. I started digging through laundry baskets with Dom just watching me and I couldn't find a single sock of his. Finally I turned to him and asked,

"Dommie, where are your socks?"

Well wouldn't you know it? Dom got up from the floor, walked over to the bathroom door and picked up the socks he had set by the tub. He brought them back to me and sat down for me to put them on his feet.

Are you kidding me?? When did my baby get so old? Or so smart?

I just need to come to terms with the fact that my baby is getting to be a big boy. And I'm so proud of him and so excited to see what tomorrow will bring.

Another new cousin!

My cousin Tommy and his wife Val, had their baby this morning!!

They had elected not to find out the sex so we were very excited to "meet" their baby girl! Gianna Lynn, 7 lbs. 10 oz.

A beautiful baby girl!!



So now this is two new babies born this week, I have 2 friends that are due with their babies in the next 3 weeks, 4 friends pregnant and due in August/September and another one due in November!!

The baby fever is coming on strong!! If I hear about one more pregnancy, I'm just going to have to go and get pregnant! Geez!

Uh oh!

I just was looking over my blog and noticed one of my tickers on the right hand side...The one covering the St. Louis Marathon...

It's in 18 DAYS!?!?!?!?!

Yea, I'm SO not ready for this. At least my Mom and I are walking it instead of running it, but still! Geez!!

18 Days??

Wish me luck. I'm gonna need it!

New Cousin!

My cousin, Kevin, and his wife, Diane, had their baby yesterday! Yay!

They had a beautiful baby boy, Theodore Kevin (Teddy). He was born at 9:20 am. He was 7 pounds, 2 ounces and 20-1/2 inches long.

Congrats Kevin and Diane!!

New Glasses

Did I ever mention that Ruby ate my glasses??

Well she did. My beautiful wonderful perfect Vogue eye glasses. I LOVED them. Here's a picture of me and Dom when I'm wearing my glasses:



Anyway, Ruby ate them. I was devastated. They were expensive, first off, but also, they were perfect for me. I liked how they looked, but I also liked that they were big so I could see really well with them. I liked how they were big on the sides so it wasn't blurry off to the side (which really bothers me for some reason!) and I don't know what else, I just liked them.

But I needed to get new ones. So I went to a new eye doctor and found out that my insurance covers glasses, which is awesome. But I also found out that my new eye doctor doesn't carry Vogue or much like it. So I had to branch out and try some new stuff. I was looking at a ton of different styles when I found these glasses from Elle. Not exactly the same as my old ones, but pretty darn close!

Here's a picture of me and my Momma with my new glasses (yes this is the same picture as my post from the auction).


I like them. They still aren't my Vogue glasses, but like I said, pretty darn close. I'll take it!

Teeth, teeth, teeth!

Dommie's got more teeth!

I haven't posted in awhile and I apologize. Dominick got his top molars! It's amazing how much those hurt my poor baby. He was so fussy for awhile and we finally figured it out. He was getting those molars. Now that they are in, we have a whole new baby.

We also got Dommie a toothbrush and some Sesame Street toothpaste. And who would've guessed but tooth brushing is our FAVORITE time of day now! I guess it tickles, because Dom opens his mouth and I start brushing and then we get the giggles for the next 15 minutes!

It's so cute though. I'll have to try and get a video or at least a picture of it...I'll work on that!

The Auction

Nick and I went to the auction at IWA last weekend. We go almost every year but this year was very different. First off, my sister decided not to go. That was a big change. She always goes. But this year she decided to stay home since she had been out of town, away from her daughter for the previous three days. She wanted to stay home with Cecilia and I understand that. So already this auction was going to be different. Then, we called on the way to find out which table we were at (we were running late, which is NOT different) and found out my dad was sick and going home. So this year we were without my sis and my Dad.

We still managed to have fun though. I love going to the auction because I get to see people I haven't seen in years and there can be some pretty good stuff!

Here are a few pictures of us at the auction:
Me and Nick at home getting ready to leave (both in brand new outfits!):



Aunt Lisa, Sam and Rick:


Me and My Momma:


Me and Nick at the end of the night:


Me and some friends from high school:



We had a really great time even though it was "different". Nick and I got a Wii and a Wii Fit! I'm so excited to set it up and get to working out on it! I have to go buy the Biggest Loser DVD!

It's the MoSt WoNdErFuL time of the YEAR!

March Madness!!!

I love this time of year. College Basketball NON-STOP! The tournament starts this Thursday and goes until April 5. I just love it.

I am already going through my bracket deciding who I want to make it to the big game in Indy!

I'll let you know when I finish my bracket!! I have NO idea who to pick since my Tar Heels aren't in it...

Dommie's First Road Trip

My sister and I both went to Incarnate Word Academy for high school. My sister used to coach basketball there. I used to coach basketball there. My sister still works there.

So when IWA made the State tournament for Basketball, we both really wanted to go. Their first game was Thursday afternoon at 3 pm in Columbia - about a one hour and forty five minute drive from our houses. So that wasn't going to work. We kept our fingers crossed for a victory and they got it. Yay!

So IWA was playing in the championship game on Saturday night. We decided to take the drive. We put an extra car seat in our Durango and piled us in. Angela, Andrew, Cecilia, Nick, Dominick and myself. Dommie's first road trip.

The kids were so cute on the drive there. They slept like little angels!


We went to Shakespeare's Pizza when we got to Columbia. A place I had never been but always heard about. Their pizza was delicious! (Yes, I definitely cheated on my diet this weekend!).

After dinner we hurried over to the Mizzou Arena for the big game. We took our seats (up VERY high) and watched. It was such a good game! IWA was losing at half time and we were nervous. But we didn't need to be. They came out strong in the second half and won the game! The kids actually watched the game. It was cute.




Our cousin, Julia, is a senior this year so we were so happy for her to get a State Championship ring. It was so exciting!

(Julia is #5)


I'm really glad we went. Dommie's first road trip was a success!

Easter Egg Hunt

This past Saturday, IWA held an Easter Egg Hunt for the kiddos. Nick and I took Dom and my sis and Andrew took Cecilia. Both of Dommie's Grandma's came too.

It was really neat. We got there and there were some crafts for the kids. Dommie colored an Easter Egg with Cecilia. But that's all the crafts that Dom was up for.


He was such a good boy waiting for the hunt to start. Just colored and ate some food.

After awhile, the Easter bunny came to see the kiddos. I was really curious to see how Dom would do with meeting the bunny. He wasn't too excited about meeting all the characters at Disney so I wasn't sure how meeting an Easter Bunny would be. But he LOVED the bunny! He just smiled and petted the bunny and loved on him. We didn't get a great picture of how excited he was, but we did get a few pictures.




This is him looking at me and smiling. He was SO excited!

After all the kids met the bunny, the hunt began. I really liked how IWA did it. They split up the kids into different age groups. The youngest was 0-3. This was good because all the kids got to get eggs. Also, they hit enough so all the kids could get 15 eggs. This was nice too. I thought Dommie would get one or two eggs, but 15!

Dom got into it! He loved hunting for eggs. He went straight for them and kept going. I was so shocked! We forgot to bring a basket or bag for Dommie, so we had to use the camera case as an Easter basket.

Here are a few pictures of Dom getting some eggs:




After he got his limit of 15 eggs, we started walking back to our stuff and Dom spotted the Easter Bunny again. He ran, literally ran, up to the Easter bunny to start playing again. It was SO CUTE!



I am so glad Dommie had a good time. I love seeing him get so excited about things. My little man is growing up so fast!

Hair!

I made a pretty drastic change to my hair on Friday. I chopped it all off and put red and blonde into it. I love it. Absolutely love it.

I don't know why I decided to change it so drastically but I'm so glad I did. It looks good just rolling out of bed, and that was my goal! I am such a low maintenance person when it comes to my appearance that I didn't want any more time to go to doing my hair in the morning.

Here's a before picture:


Ok, that's not the closest picture but you get the idea. It was always in a ponytail and always a dirty blonde color. No fun at all.

And here's my "after" picture:


I just love it.

Sorry that last pic is a little weird. It was taken with my cell phone.

Organic?

In November, Nick and I joined a food co-op here in the St. Louis area. What that is, is a place where you can get locally grown, organic food. My sister had joined and raved about how good the food is and told me to join. I finally caved in and joined.

Here's the website if you want to check it out.

So you pay a set amount at the beginning of the month and you get a "share" of food on Thursday of each week. You can trade items if you don't need something or just add something if you'd like more food for an additional amount. All the food is locally grown and organic.

I've never been a "health nut". I eat whatever I feel like eating. Sometimes I crave healthy food, but I crave un-healthy food too! But since joining this food group, I am an organic nut!

Last week we got some organic pizza (Dogtown Pizza - available also at Urzi's on the Hill and at most Dierberg's in the "Whole Life" section) which I made for Nick and he craved more all weekend long. I also got some honey roasted peanut butter and some blackberry jam. So I got some whole grain whole wheat bread and made a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. I swear, I've never eaten something so delicious. It was amazing.

Last week we also got some spaghetti noodles. I made the pasta one night for dinner and added some olive oil, some garlic, and some goat cheese (also from the co-op) and Nick LOVED it. My picky picky husband loved it.

I'm so glad we joined! Tonight I'm making some trout we got from there. I can't wait to try it.

This Thursday is the last week and then there's a 5 week break. Starting on April 21, the next season starts. Instead of a partial share (which is what I've been doing) we are doing a full share with friend, Mike. We are splitting it. There is so much more food with the full share and I can't wait to get started!!

I might go completely organic after all this. I never knew food could taste so good!

Newest Member of the Family

So we welcomed a new member into our family yesterday!

She's beautiful. Her name is Ruby and she is 3 years old.







She's a German Shepherd mix and she was brought to the APA because her family was moving to a smaller home. She's good with other dogs and kids. Not so great with cats though...yet.

She LOVES Brady and has been trying to play with him non stop since we brought her home. She even loves Dominick, although she gets excited and runs into him sometimes. Dommie is already starting to say "Ru-beee". However, Ruby and Peyton don't see eye to eye yet. We're working on it.

I love her. She slept in our bed last night all curled up in a ball at the end of the bed. She's such a sweetheart!!

The Hairy Elephant

So we did it. We got Dommie's hair cut. Nick was so excited about it. I had mixed emotions. We got to the place a little late (stupid construction :-) ) and our lady, Andrea, was up front waiting for us. She led us to the back of the salon and had us pick out a movie for Dom to watch while getting his hair cut. We picked out "The Wiggles" because it had a lot of music, and Dom LOVES music. Then we got to pick out his chair. There was a train and a jeep. We went for the jeep because it was closest and had a steering wheel for him to play with.

Then we got started.





He did so great. I was amazed. He just sat there and played on the jeep while Andrea did her thing. And I was very impressed with how well she did. Dom would randomly jump up and she never messed up! If I were cutting his hair, he'd be missing a big chunk of hair! Or worse, an ear! She was perfect.

In the end, she took a picture and made a certificate for his baby book that also contained a lock of his hair. The whole experience was great.

I'm not sure we'll drive all the way out there for each of his haircuts, but for this one it was perfect!







And just for fun, a picture of Dommie on his rocking horse with his new hair cut. He loves this rocking horse!!