What? The Grinch?

so, it's over...christmas...it's come and gone. and i survived...how 'bout you? we still have festivities planned with family including a trip to utah but the main deal is over. christmas is over.

and how did i fare??? i did NOT want to check the scale today. i have NOT been good...not to mention, my exercise has been NOT where i want it to be. swizzle's exercise challenge did not go as well as planned. to bad it was during december....but there's always january and a NEW YEAR, right? BUT i got a late christmas gift today...down one more pound. so, incase you are not counting, that's down 8 pounds so far!! yippee and hooray! i don't know how i did it. i tried not to stuff myself at family gatherings so that was good. but i DID allow myself one dessert every day. every day. and still lost one pound!!

many people ask "what did you get" for christmas...right? well, i decided this year i was going to ask, "what did you give?" i gave a lot of gifts...great ones and not so great ones (we had 2 white elephant parties, ha ha). but one thing i did not intend to give...

my family has a tradition of going up to Buca di Beppo's during the season to eat and enjoy. the food is very yummy and not low fat at all. makes me smack my lips just thinkin' about it. it's a fun atmosphere and we love it. however, tonight i unintentionally gave away almost my whole christmas. our car was broken into. me and a few of my siblings had been up in seattle shopping, returning gifts, spending christmas money and gift cards...and i had basically bought almost my entire christmas. and my siblings lost quite a bit tonight also. it was gone when we came out of the restaurant. so, what did I GIVE? ha! everything. i have a pit in my stomach as i write this. i'm just glad i am not the person who steals from others to "get by." i would hate to make others feel the way i feel tonight. my things can be replaced. i'm just thankful to have my family intact and the true spirit of christmas in my heart...still.

i LOVE these BOOTS

and thanks to my brother, keith, they are mine!! thanks for the giftie cardie for my bday brother! you are awesome and now, so are my feet!!!

Dear Santa,

AAARG it's Christmas!


YES! I LOVE CHRISTMAS! i love christmas trees, lights, stockings, holly, carolers, nativity scenes, cookies(duh!), everything about christmas...except the LACK of extra hours in the day! i have been doing so good, so great with my NEW ME, new weight-loss, new exercise program. make that HAD been doing do great. and now i am bombarded with too many things to accomplish in a day to get to my ME time. i am not saying i want christmas to go away. i just want santa to bring me some extra time...slip it silently into my stocking (which usually is filled on christmas eve with just candy and nuts). i wish i could keep working out 3 days a week. i had hoped that december would not only bring me christmas joy but also 5 DAYS OF WORKOUTS PER WEEK, weight loss AND more muscle tone.


how many of us work really hard at making sure our families enjoy the christmas holiday and have the perfect book of memories at the end of it all? sacrificing ourselves along the way. i don't think it's WRONG to do so...but, how can we DO IT ALL?


so, today i'm at the gym thinking about all the things i could be getting done at my house. and as my ipod is shuffling through my music, "be yourself" by audioslave comes on while i'm doing my situps and i start to think "to be yourself is all that you can do..." and i resolved to just be myself. it is what it is.


i just wish santa could give me a little time to workout EVERY DAY this month--that's what i want for christmas. or, i'd settle for world peace.

the non-blogger

i have been slacking lately...

my only excuse is that i have been trying to get some sleep. the boy is now sleeping (sometimes) 6 hours at a time at night. so, instead of staying up on the internet, i am hitting the pillow. much better for me!

but i do need to report...i lost another pound...in fact, i am now down 5 pounds total. yippee!!

and, if you are interested, my sister-in-law is now a blogger so check her out...
http://kariannsjournal.blogspot.com

she's trying to lose weight also...and has been inspired by all of you WW ladies!! so, thanks to you, she's getting on track! much love to ya!

blessing a 9 month old baby

at least that is how it looked...

people kept asking me, "now how old is he?" because brandon football carried him up to the stand and it was obvious to the congregation that this baby was NOT a newborn. yup, 15 pounds. heh heh. he's still yummy, though.

the budding photographer

my neice, lillian, is only 4 years old. this girl cracks me up! her teachers at school described her as very well rounded and says does not get "cross" with anyone. and apparently, she gets a hold of a digital camera once in a while. i was over there tonight and thought i would share some of the moments she "caught" in her viewfinder. very cute!

The NEW Mrs. C. Bronson Lauper...

this past weekend i went to LA to witness the eternal union of Rosa and Bronson.


when you wait until 32 to get married, doing so can be a very big deal!! and it was! it truly was rosa's day. the sealing took place in the newport beach temple. the ring ceremony was completely the way this chunte would be expected to carry out her vows. there were 9 bridesmaids, yes, i said 9! and a number of other girlfriends in attendance. it was awesome! she was a stunning and graceful bride. see for yourself!

reminisce on the love we had

all of my girlfriends from college were at rosa's wedding. quite a reunion, complete with dancing to some hip hop straight out of 1999. back in those days, there were about 10 of us girls who were as tight as family, they were my family then. and as fate would have it, all but one of us left our significant others at home (not planned) so it truly was a weekend "just like old times." while we have all grown up and become responsible adults, it was fun to reminisce on the days when we were care-free, a bit wild, and very crazy. these girls each have a special place in my heart. we carried each other through some very tough situations (and rucks) and helped each other to enjoy every minute of every day. we never missed a night out on the town in SLC. and we never took what we had (each other) for granted. in those days i felt the world was mine and i have these girls to thank for that. i didn't realize how much i missed them and love them all until this weekend.

i could eat YOU for breakfast!

there's another mom at my church who had a baby exactly a week earlier than macrae. and well, i think he eats breakfasts bigger than that baby. today we went up a size...yes, it's true! this guy is little more than 7 weeks now. and i am not kidding, we have graduated to size 3-6 months already. i weighed him tonight...and with clothes on he's 14 pounds! that's right folks (cue circus music)...step right up...see the amazing GIANT baby!
...he ate 40 ounces yesterday...incase you don't know formula nutritional facts, that's 800 calories. now that's MACRAZY!

p.s. this is my first time with a big baby...isla was 14 pounds at her 4 month check up

Halloweeners and Things

yes, it's a little late. but i have been feeling a little crazy these days. so, here is PRINCESS GENEVIVE from the 12 Dancing Barbies movie. and NO, i DO NOT SEW, this was purchased.

isla has been obsessed with this princess for over a year now...so this was her dream come true...

she filled up that whole pink bucket at the trunk-or-treat and couldn't carry it....but lucky for us (and brandon's sunday school class) she only ate a few items before bed and hasn't asked where the candy went.

and if you are wondering where macrae is...well, he was a no show for the festivities! that guy fell asleep on the way to tricks-or-treats and slept all the way until we were done. so i didn't even put him in his costume which was going to be a chili pepper. and i'm not the kinda mom to put him in it for the picture...i guess i could have but then i would feel obligated to scrapbook a whole page around it. ha ha-not really.

and incase you were wondering, I DID MAKE IT through detox last week...halloween festivities and all! i recruited my sister, marion, to come on board with me so that made it easier. we called each other when we were feeling weak. candy bars and such are not my weakness (as discussed) but halloween was still hard. i made chocolate/marshmallow/pretzel spiders with isla for her preschool party and i popped one into my mouth without even thinking!! oops! i realized how many cookies, candies, and what-not i put into my mouth without even calculating it. just getting throught BREAKFAST without doing it was hard!

so now maybe i can be a more normal dessert partaker...? i hope.

freeze tag

there's this new game of tag...BUT it's too exclusive for EVERYONE to play...so it's ONLY for bloggers.

I got tagged on kjrsten's BLOG and here are the rules:
1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog (which i don't know how to do so just go see http://kjrst.blogspot.com/)
2. Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird
3. Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs(which i won't be doing because they have already been tagged)
4. Let them know they are TAGGED by leaving a comment on their blog (i only know 3 other bloggers-other than the bloggers who visit me because they are becky's friends and she tagged them ALL)

unfortunately, for me, i don't know any bloggers other than those who have already been tagged along the way. so, i'm thinking this one is freeze tag and i am it, but everyone else is frozen already so do i lose?

oh well, here's my facts:

1. I, like kjrsten, took 7 years of piano but do not read music and only remember about 1/4 of one song, Minuet 3 by Bach. But i do play the violin AND read the music.
2. i love to read and thought i would someday be a writer. so much so that i was accepted to the Young Author's Conference in elementary school with my best seller "All that Sparkles is Not Lost"-i'm sure you've read it
3. in third grade i won 1st place in the Tacoma Humane Society Art Contest but I DO NOT HAVE ANY ARTISTIC ABILITY now. it must have all been used up on that one poster.
4. i passed out at the birth of my niece, stella, and the doctor had to revive me while my sister's baby was crowning ---very embarrassing but funny to talk about NOW (sorry kjrst)
5. my husband and i sleep under seperate blankets since our body temperatures are about 20 degrees different
6. i love math
7. i do not like bananas AT ALL


wait a minute...i know one other blogger...http://www.andreally.blogspot.com/ --and she's really funny...a good read so go check her out too!

mare, this one's for you...

marion, your boo is getting much fatter. we are talking rolls in the thighs (yum!)--like three of them on each leg. oh yeah! it's delicious! too bad he doesn't like being photographed...he's so ashamed of his size!

we carve our family

and then we carved our pumpkins...isla says this is the pumpkin family. the baby is obvious...but incase you were wondering, the mom is the angry one. thanks a lot. but i guess it's probably true. ha!

'tis true, 'tis true, i'm now 32

so, i turned 32 last week. is that old? when i was in my twenties, i thought 32 was officially old. but now that i am here...the 30's are the new 20's i say! heh heh. i was treated to a day in seattle. lunch at the cheesecake factory and shopping with my mom and kjrst. it's so great to be in anthro again, after being prego. yippy! and sunday dinner was complete with a cake studio delight! yum!! i ate about half of it. and am now on baked goods detox for a week...and that includes halloween!

Who Are YOU...?

he looks so much like isla when she was a baby...and when i look at him, i mostly see brandon. i mean, he's a total "mini-me" when brandon is holding him. but some say he looks like my brother, andrew...even i see that at moments. i don't know if it's the "blobby-ness" that reminds me of andrew as a baby. but this kid is a tank. he eats all day and all night. he sleeps and he eats. that is what new babies do, i know. but he's getting huge. see for yourself. (sorry, i can't decide which pic is the cutest so i'm just posting them all)

Rain or shine, we get a pumpkin!

so today was preschool field trip day...to the Shilter Farm. this place is gorgeous...old nisqualley basin.

today was a fall day out of the story books. i kept trying to get isla to pose "just so" with the orange and yellow trees in the background. it was all out raining like it does here and i did not bring an umbrella because TRUE washingtonians DO NOT carry umbrellas. but did the rain stop the 3 and 4 year olds from having fun? no way! i'm talkin' petting the barn (isla called it a "varn") animals, riding the hay ride, doin' the hay maze, and pickin a pumpkin--in the rain.

i could not resist taking of picture of her touching her nose...the lady in the "varn" said "touch your nose if you can hear me" and she kept her finger on her nose the whole time. it was too cute.

then, we pick her pumpkin... she walked that whole patch to find just the right one. they said, "if you can carry it, you can have it." and thank goodness! i was NOT about to haul the big ole 20 pound pumpkin she wanted. there i am in the pouring rain with Macrae in the baby bjorn sleeping but getting soaked...and i'm trying to bend over and pick up a pumkpin? i told her she had to be able to pick it up. so we settled on a 3 pounder charlie brown pumpkin. perfect! and we rode the hay ride back. what a day! i needed a nap.

let's talk about your big butt

okay, okay, i give in already!

everyone i know has a really big but (it's just ME that has the big BUTT)
a blog or webpage or myspace or whatever...

everyone has pictures of themselves on the web...somewhere

so, here's mine...my big BUT
i didn't want to BLOG because i'm a middle of the road, boring, every-day, stay-at-home (for now), mother of two. and here's my daily routine...we get up (late because i have a newborn), get bathed, dressed, and eat something-usually. then i pick up toys, make the beds, do the dishes, start some laundry, and try to get out of the house.

here's my BUT...

previous to the arrival of child #2 i worked part time. and what i used to think of as "work" was actually my luxury. i didn't know how great i had it. don't get me wrong. i love my babies. i love time with them. but it's days like today that i wish i had my old part-time/oxbow mortgage/assistant to duff/marketing manager/ME time back. i mean, how bad is work if you only do it part time and it's with duff??? because, most of the time it was just me and duff going to lunch at the Keg or goofing off (just like the old plush pippin and harley days). duff and i have worked together a long time...it's going to be tough NOT working with duff. and it's going to be tougher than i thought NOT working at ALL.

so here i am, looking for a place to "unload" it all...

here's how today started off---

first, it was crying over not being able to find the princess panties that we had bought at Target the day before. and yes, i did just say "panties." we cry over panties. and then it was the socks and the way i had put them on her...and then it was having to carry her own doll to the car...and on and on.
yes, i love her. she is the apple of my eye. she is the reason i decided to make another baby. i loved it so much-and still do. but sometimes i just feel crazy.

so...i started this blog to be like everyone else. and put my big butt out here on the web for all to analyze. or not. maybe no one will read this. who cares.

i want to start running again. my butt really IS big right now. i NEED to start running again. but WHEN?? in between feeding sessions in the morning? i really don't know. i'm going on little sleep and by that, i mean this baby eats every 2 hours through the night. i praise him when he gives me 3 full hours of rest in a ROW! yes!