I am very thankful for my husband who loves me exactly as I am, and the role model who he learned from, who I have never heard belittle his wife or his children, even under the "just joking" excuse.

update on the exercise "plan"....

Do Wii bowling, tennis, etc. count? Some very generous relatives got us a Wii for Christmas. Looks like we'll be getting a Wii fit shortly. But in the meantime, the Wii sports make for decent virtual exercise!

Merry Christmas!

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas, however it was spent. Hubby's side came here, and everyone except Great Grandma left today. Bear cried when her cousins left. We had a great time with everyone. Ate too much, but enjoyed it. :) And we got some good news. Two of my sisters-in-laws are expecting! We already knew about my brother's wife, but just found out the baby's gender. And hubby's sister is due at the end of July!!!! Congratulations, Caslon & Camera Guy!

I still haven't mailed out all our thank you notes for baby gifts, so I could not bring myself to get Christmas cards out. So, if you are waiting on a thank you note, please forgive me. :) And here's your Christmas card!

the bribe "drawing"

Rather than do an actual drawing, I asked hubby to choose a number between 1 and 17. He chose 12. The 12th commenter in my post for the Christmas bribe/giveaway was.....


Jacinda!


E-mail me your address and I'll mail you your prize! Congrats and Merry Christmas!!!

go away, murphy....

The drive to gymnastics should take about 25 minutes from my house, no more than that. 20 on a good day. We left the house right around 10 am, and arrived at 10:50. Traffic was horrible!!!!!!! EVERYTHING was backed up. Side roads, interstate, you name it.... all of us were moving at a snail's pace. One might think we had snow or ice on the roads... nope. Just rain. Then, of course Bear had to use the potty before joining her class in session.
Of course she had refused to go potty before we left (and it had not been that long since she last went, so I didn't force the issue.)

Ok, I've got piles of laundry to put away. Sorry I'm not posting much that is thought-provoking or remotely deep these days. Right now I feel like I'm treading water, and I have phone calls to catch up on...

Will you de-lurk if I bribe you?

I have some faithful followers of this blog, for which I am grateful. I mean, it's not like I pay to have a hosting site or anything, and the fact that anybody cares to read my mind's wanderings is good for my ego. But since this thing isn't private, I have no way of knowing who's reading. SOOO... in the holiday Spirit, I am going to do a little giveaway here. Leave a comment with your first name, how long you've been lurking or enabling my internet addiction by commenting once in a while, a random fact about yourself and/or your favorite thing about the holidays, and I will do a drawing for a $10 Starbucks gift card. If you don't like coffee, they have other fabulous drinks. And Starbucks is just more convenient for me than anything else. Trust me, I'm not going out of my way for this one. Well, unless I decided to stroll with the kids there. But in December, that could be grounds for being charged with insanity, even in the South.

I will do the drawing in a week or so....

vanity

Anyone who has given birth to a child will most likely express dissatisfaction with her post-pregnancy body. Oh, we might sugar-coat things by saying we earned our stretch marks, and we are not in a rush to lose too much weight. At some point, at least for me, I begin to feel dissatisfied with my body and the need to take some sort of action.

Well, this morning I decided to see if my size 10 jeans from Bass fit.... and they did! Snugly, but without impeding my breathing! AND this is that bloated time of the month, and they still fit. Woo hoo! So after we returned from Buddy's 3 month check-up, I called the hair salon I have been using... and they were able to get me right in. I got a trim and had my unibrow and moustache taken care of. Okay, so they weren't QUITE that bad. Anyway, I may be vain, but I feel MUCH better about my appearance.

As for taking action... I am pricing out options for gyms (can we afford the Y, or should we just add me on where hubby exercises), but also going to look into some dvd's on amazon. Any dvd recommendations? Anyone? I have yoga, I'm thinking lower impact cardio or pilates or something similar. I have an exercise ball, yoga mat, brick and strap, dumbells and a tower thingy which Bear uses as monkey bars... so I'm leaning toward using what I have and then maybe if I establish a routine at home, rewarding myself with a membership somewhere. In any case, I think this will help improve my physical and mental conditions... they say 30 minutes of exercise a day has the same effect as some anti-depressant meds. (Once you get past the initial soreness from doing things your body has not done in ages.)

baby steps...

no, not my kids'. I am surprised hubby has not password protected the computer to encourage me to get more done, but I think he knows that's probably a dangerous idea. You know you need to clean more when your 3 year old thanks you for cleaning the bathroom and voluntarily scrapes scraps from her plate into the trash... or tries to. Then she started apologizing for missing, scattering mixed veggies across the dining room. Seriously, who is this child? One minute we can be begging her to clean up a mess, the next she is taking initiative to help with something I would not expect a 3 year old to want to help with. Not that I'm complaining; maybe I should expect more from her, since she is so obviously capable. But I don't want to be a nag, either, so I'll just continue to encourage the steps she does take and focus on the aspects that we deem appropriate for a 3 yer old.

Anyway, there's a quote from somewhere... some flair, most likely, that basically says, "Be the type of person you want your kids to become."

Ouch. With that in mind, I am taking baby steps to try to set an example for my kids. Keep in mind that my baby steps are everyday habits or routine for some people, that's how lazy I am. Undisciplined. Lazy. Crap, they both mean the same thing. Today's accomplishments, not even worthy of being called tackles: empty the science projects out of the fridge. Continue working on laundry. Make dinner for the 3rd day in a row (veggie beef soup, using yesterday's pasa sauce as the base.... throw everything in the crock pot, and voila!) After dinner, I had a nice tea party with my little girl while daddy and baby brother napped on the couch. Our daughter offered Daddy some coffee, he requested hot chocolate, so she suggested cream and sugar. Hubby and I were cracking up. Gramma and Papa are training her young. Of course, when it's imaginary, you can pretend it tastes different than the giver intends, so the fact that hubby doesn't drink coffee did not really matter.

And we ventured out. After reading Amy's adventures up in hubby's home state, I am glad to be down here in the winter with a newborn. I mean, what kind of stroller is adequate in a heavy snowfall? Ugh.... And corralling the 3 year old in the chik-fil-a parking lot (or any parking lot) is hard when it's NOT slippery. So, even though it's not as monumental of a task as it would be in other regions of the country, venturing out with a newborn and a toddler is still an accomplishment for me. By the end of the excursion, my intentions of finishing thank-you notes were pushed aside in favor of a nap time, as said newborn actually stayed asleep in his carrier and the 3 year old fell back asleep in her bed upon our return home!

So if you have given us a gift, please accept this apology for our way past-due thank you notes.... and the fact that we will only be sending Christmas cards via e-mail, facebook, or blog this year. Sometimes even the baby steps get interrupted...

Tackle It Tuesday


Ok, it's time to get out of my laziness slump.....

.... to be continued
*******
I would love to report that I tackled a plethora of projects and still had time to read with my kids. No such luck... there is a newborn in this house, remember? And he is fighting a llittle cold, so he's extra clingy. Plus, he's jus spoiled. However, I did accomplish my manageable goal... I cleaned both bathrooms. And did 2 loads of laundry (one is even put away, the other is still in the drier, and I've got one more in the washer. I emptied and reloaded the dishwasher, and made dinner. And swept the floor, with Bear's help (and that of her trusty sidekick, sweeping Sam).

And now for the "fun tackle" ... I went into the attic and pulled the box holding Mr. Snowman downstairs. "Mommy, be careful!" Bear exclaimed as I carried the box. She didn't even try to hang onto my legs as I went down the steps. I assembled our festive friend, Bear and I retrieved the decorative candy canes which she picked out at the superstore a couple of weeks ago, and we headed outside while Buddy napped. In addition to putting out our token decorations, we pruned dead leaves off the day lillies.