A Walk In the Park

This particular day it was cloudy and cold not a terribly great day to venture out. With two girls cooped up and a mommy that craves a little exercise off we went. We trekked down to the "trail park" as the girls call it and they ran more then they rode. I love days like this. These are the ones I am thankful for and the kind I need to remember when these two rascals are working against me. These are the days I hope to remember 20 years from now..

Polar Express

One of exciting moments of Kindergarten is when the kids get to host the parents for a parade! This month they did a Polar Express Parade. They got to wear their jammies to school and the families had to create a box car for their kindergartner to wear.

Natalie of course chose Princess wrapping paper and I decided she needed a smokestack but the silver glitter pipe cleaner smoke was all her idea! We added some wheels, and some festive suspenders and I thought we were through. Until....

She was checking out her best friend and classmate, Jillian's boxcar on Facebook. Then we had to add a name, so she dubbed her car the "Pretty Express". Not to out shine her best bud's, Princess Express.

The parade was a success! It was so much fun to see all the kids (about 120 of them) parade around in their different car-boxes. Even Allison was seated courtside with her friends.

Afterwards Natalie's class continued the parade down to the 5th grade classes and we drank cocoa and ate festive popcorn while Merry Christmas Charlie Brown played in the background. The kids were so excited about their fun day, a break from reading groups, math and writing, that they were chatting away sharing what they were hoping would under their tree.

Merry Christmas to my kindergartner girl! These are the tiny moments that we will forever remember, "when they were small".

Trick or Treat?

Our 50's girl and pink poodle...
Watch out sissy don't steal the camera!
Harvest time fun on the front porch.
Our family of pumpkins...mom and dad had to share...

This is the only evidence that there may have been a pumpkin for sale at this "patch".

I think Ally is looking for the pumpkin...

These days the trick or treating is becoming less and less popular. The girls are still of an age where they don't care to go door to door hoarding candy. This makes us very happy. Instead we can keep it mellow with lots of fall fun and keep the treats a little closer to home with school activities, MOMS Club and passing out some treats of our own. As for tricks...well they were as close as our neighborhood mall. This was called a "pumpkin patch" I don't see much patch and really aren't the pumpkins looking like an after thought?

MOMS Club Potluck in the park lots of fun!

Natalie waiting for the next trick or treaters...her highlight of Halloween...

Girls Trip to Tahoe

3 years ago Nicole and I started planning an annual girls trip and like anything worth doing it is worth doing well. SO well in fact that our twosome has grown not by one but by two and three and four...this year we all caught a Southwest flight north to Sacramento and rented a car. Nicole drove us through the foothills and we stopped off at the grocery store before arriving at the cabin.

How do 4 women grocery shop when there are no picky kids, meat and potato husbands and PJ's are the dressiest we plan on getting??? Like crazy ladies. And, you should have seen our driving skills with the grocery cart. We had Andrea who tore out a recipe from the complementary magazine on the flight. She was walking backwards and forwards gathering all the items on her list. We had Nicole, the deal seeker, who was shopping for the bargains AND mentally adding to her ingredients what she had in her cabin's kitchen already. We had the bachelorette, Jess, who was captivated that three moms could handle a grocery store with such skill. She insisted on lots of water (altitude) and cranberry juice! Then me, the planner of all things cheese and cracker related, along with some fruit - you have to have fresh fruit.

We LOVED the cabin, many thanks to Nicole and her husband to welcome us to stay for a wonderful weekend of PJ fun!

We got to see our good friend Jen who was ironically visiting the area from Wisconsin. We ended up grabbing some appetizers in town and enjoying each others company in the chilly fall weather.

Then next day we stayed in PJ's until 5 o'clock. SUCCESS! We enjoyed a day of girlfriends, bagels, coffee, naps, and reading on the couch. When dusk settled Nicole's friend, Angela, was up from her old neighborhood in Sacramento. She joined us for some chit chat and then we went for sushi in the village.

Sunday morning, we had some much need greasy Jimmy Dean Sandwiches and a movie, yup! You guessed it, in our PJ's!

It rained ALL day and we had some cleaning up for the houses' next guests...then we hit up a fantastic burger joint in Truckee. YUM YUM!

An excellent girls trip for 2010.

GiGi and the Magical Pumpkins @ Summer's Past

In my blogging world there is a slight delay, in all my spare time, I don't immediately rush to my laptop and document the fresh details...although if I just ruined your images of our sometimes odd and crazy life, I apologize. Whenever someone sees in full view the man behind the curtain, it can be disappointing...

A surprise weekend to Nana and Papa's left us refreshed and full of love.

The weekend just came...soccer happened, breakfast, almost a nap and then I called down. They were free, we were free and so an impromptu weekend bash ensued. The girls always enjoy seeing GiGi and when we arrived they were surprised to see her in the family room. The girls popped in and out of her room for the rest of the day. This is where my blog delay benefits the family. The following weekend, grandma went back to the hospital. One of the first things I thought of when I spoke to my mom and found found out what happened was how thankful I was that my girls had that unexpected visit.

I remember it rained all day, we visited the pumpkin patch at Summer's Past, in the mist of Sunday morning. The girls were the only kids in the patch and we had a magical time searching for a pumpkin and getting tangled in the vines they were attached to. One of my memories for down the road is that the pictures look surreal, but secretly the girls were arguing over the wagon and mad at each other for something only sisters can understand.

We ended up staying for dinner and Natalie gave the dinner prayer. Even cool SDSU freshman, Caitlyn, stayed for dinner.

It was a wonderful weekend that was heavily blessed with the gift of time.

Being a loser can be GREAT thing!

This is me, 90 pounds ago. We were on a family vacation to Washington DC to visit our cousins. This day we were at Busch Gardens and I am holding Natalie who was not yet 3 and Allison was somewhere nearby in her stroller, she was only 3 months old. I knew I had weight to lose but I had no idea that after 90 pounds I'd feel more like myself then I'd ever had.

Weight creeps up somehow when you aren't looking...much like laundry, weeds in the garden, junk mail on counter - you get the idea. Unlike, all these other "collections" we can't commit to one long day (or weekend for my laundry pile) to catch up and be even again. Weight is an issue that isn't discussed openly and everyone has a different perception of what is ok. Losing weight isn't fun! It is hard boring work, I often am unmotivated and even depressed during dieting because my family centers everything around FOOD! When I'm not eating I'm not engaging and trust me I WANT to engage!

Many people have asked me along the way how I did it, what was my secret??? I did what we all know you are supposed to do. It was boring, it was disappointing at times, it was LONG - a year and a half to when I reached my skinniest. I was finally done! That was my motivation, I wanted to be thin...I also wanted to see if I could really do it, I knew there was nothing stopping me and that there were no excuses. So I took a step and began walking and exercising and eating healthy....That worked for the first 5o lbs...

I did have a baby, that helps:) But 8 lbs 1o oz of baby does not require a 90 pound weight gain...However the baby weight came off and then I slowly began chipping away at my own pounds. One thing I remember over the span of these 50 pounds was that no one really noticed. I also only went down 2 sizes, 50 pounds and a girl only loses 2 sizes that is terrible!

Then I stalled, I couldn't get through any more weight. I was back to my comfy Suzanne size and could have probably stayed there. I wasn't too fat but I wasn't too thin either...this was the deciding factor - Why couldn't I be thin? What was stopping me? The week of Allison's first birthday, I gave myself a present - Jenny Craig!

At first I was embarrassed, I felt I had taken the easy way out. That I didn't want to tell anyone for risk of being judged or questioned. At this point of my weight loss I didn't feel FAT any more, I just wanted to be skinny and I felt selfish. Selfish that I was eating this pricy food (although I continued to cook for my family), selfish that I was spending money weekly on "eating healthy", selfish that I wanted this new figure...I haven't got completely past but it's getting better.

Once I lost the first 20 with Jenny, for a total of 70 pounds people began talking...FINALLY, mind you I still had only gone down 3 sizes...this is the fine print no one reads about being tall. At 5-10 I lost 70 pounds, and just now people are noticing??? Seriously, that is not fair!

The last 20 was definitely the hardest. As you get thinner and thinner you think this is pretty good, this is good enough. But I saw it to the end all in all at my skinniest I am down 94 pounds from the day I gave birth to baby #2. I have a few friends that weigh 94 pounds...isn't that weird? I am in a 10 sometimes an 8. I'm not always a medium...I am happy with my weight, satisfied that I lost so much. I didn't intend to lose almost 100 pounds, if you had asked me, I don't think I would have thought I had an "extra" 100 pounds on my body - that's the weird part. Many people don't realize how much "extra" they are carrying around...figuratively and literally.

To the nay sayers of Jenny Craig and the like...

The food tastes great!

There is not much of it!

It teaches portion control.

Namely, calorie counting - I truly know how much 1200 vs. 1500 calories look like.

The food has loads of preservatives, additives, has an obscene shelf life and gave me headaches for the first 2 weeks...

I easily made the transition from boxed food to real food - but continue to count calories and eat small portions.

In essence, I ate unhealthy foods to get to a healthy weight. I'm still losing, a little bit here and there and exercising, and training at the gym...it is a little selfish of me, I know - but with added health comes more energy for my family and teaching them good nutrition is a gift.

Seriously 94 pounds???? I still can not believe it!

My Daisy Girl Scout

On my honor, I will try

to serve God, and my country

To help people at all times

And to live by the Girl Scout Law

Any of you remember this? I know I do, as well as searching for 3 quarters to drop in the coffee can for my dues...what sound does a $5 dollar bill make? - "woosh" That's right times have changed! Instead of surgery packaged snacks the girls will probably be eating organic apples and nut free butters too!

Part of kindergarten has been growing into big girl activities. Soccer first (blog post to follow) and now Daisys the youngest division of Girl Scouts meant for 5 and 6 year olds. My friend Jackie is Natalie's troop leader and the 10 girls met today for the first time. All the girls wore their uniform to school and made quite a fashion statement on the playground!

Natalie nudged me while I was enjoying the early hours of morning snug in my bed (6:45) and when I woke up she was completely dressed in uniform and wanted to know when her meeting was?

The girls crafted, sang and enjoyed snack and Natalie and her friend Jillian skipped out to my car when the meeting was over - they loved it and can't wait for the next meeting...