Oh Happy Day

Today is a great day! Not only have I already exercised for an hour, but the two older kids are FINALLY back in school! This off track time was a long, long break. We went off before Christmas and are just going back. Something like 5 1/2 weeks! Crazy. But luckily I've only been going crazy for about a week. It wasn't too bad for the most part. Thank heavens for the Wii we got for Christmas! I was very ready to send them back this morning though. I'm ready to get back into a groove, to get our routines back down. To get chores done every day and to have the TV off! It was hard having this break during the winter. The kids played outside some, but the last 2 or so weeks we had that awful inversion and I didn't want the kids outside breathing that gunk up. Especially Bree with her asthma. She suffered enough being inside! We did take a trip to the aquarium during our break, and we went to lunch with Daddy and we had fun just being together.

Today should be a good day, since I'm off to a great start. I have to clean the whole house since I'm having a movie night over here tomorrow night. I'm so excited about it, it's going to be so fun! So I'm off to shower and run some errands and then clean, clean, clean!! It should be a lot easier to clean with just 2 kids at home though!

Good Start

Well I'm off to a good start today. I exercised!! Yay!! Thanks to everyone for the motivating words. It's all in my attitude if I'm going to do this. There is aerobics at the ward 3 days a week that I could go to (thanks Tori for reminding me!) but during off track time, I'm not taking 5 kids down there! I babysit the little boy across the street after school and during off track and 5 kids is more than I like to impose on people! Maybe I'll start going to the church again on Wednesday when the kids go back on track (a fact which thrills me to the core). But today is starting out great. We have no goodies or snacks for me to fall victim to, so that's a bonus too. I have a ton to still do today though so I'm off to tackle the list. I'm writing the list down so I can remember, maybe I'll try to be tricky and cross them off of here when I get them done! Ok, so I can't figure out how to cross things out but I will change the color when I get it done!

Shower
Put laundry away
Vacuum upstairs
Sweep and mop kitchen
Prepare preschool lessons
Prepare FHE
Sam's Club
Get the kids to clean their mess in the basement
Girls to dance
Fix dinner-Tracy did this since I was busy running the girls back and forth to dance. Thanks hun, love you!!

A pretty good list, but I think it's manageable!! Thanks again for the motivation everyone!!

Frustration

You know, I am finding it hard to get motivated to get back into shape. I know I should exercise and all that jazz but I can't seem to make the time or have the energy to do it. I used to do so good! I exercised at least 3 days a week, or more. I ate well and I lost weight. Then I got so sick about 18 months ago. I had liver problems and after weeks of suffering, not knowing what was going on or what to do about it and seeing doctor after doctor and having test after test, all the problems just went away. I was so thankful for that! But I'd lost my "groove" by that point. I haven't gained any weight since that time, a fact that I am very thankful for. I eat well, not perfectly, but good. I still like my sweets but I don't eat them all the time. I have been stuck at the same weight for 18 months now and I know I could get off the plateau if I could make myself exercise like I need to. I've had different people tell me about gyms they belong to or how getting up early works for them, and that just doesn't help. I don't have money to go to a gym and I can not for the life of me get up an hour earlier than I need to to exercise. What am I going to do? I know I need to still loose about 40 pounds and to get there, I need to exercise. But where am I going to find my motivation? I hear about my friends exercising and doing well and all it does is make me depressed.

Well I had to just get that off my chest. I don't know what else to do or how to fix the problem but I just had to vent for a minute. If anyone knows how to get me motivated, I'll listen!!

I know, I know

I know it's been a month since I posted and part of that is because it's been busy and part of it is just me being lazy! We had a wonderful Christmas and New Year. We had a great Christmas Eve dinner and Tracy's grandparents with his whole family, aunts, uncles, cousins, everyone! It was really fun. We got home and the kids were so excited to get their present and they all loved their new jammies. Christmas morning came and we made the kids stay in bed until 7. As soon as it was time we started the present frenzy! It was a lot of fun and everyone loved their gifts. The biggest thing we got was a Wii and that has been so much fun! It's also been a lifsaver on the longest off track time ever! Christmas day we had a blizzard. It was crazy how much snow we got. My in-laws plowed their way over for a breakfast of cinnnamon rolls, bagels, oj and hot chocolate. It was yummy! It was fun to watch the snow fall and being nice and cozy inside. Finally about 11 we had to venture out to visit and have yummy lunch and dinner. Tracy had to shovel about 2 feet from the driveway before we could even get out of the driveway! It had pretty much stopped snowing by then but the roads hadn't really been plowed. We actually followed a plow down our street. Funny story. The plow stopped at the end of the street and backed up to come back up the other side. Well at the bottom, some hot shot in a little short sports car decided that it didn't want to wait for the plow to turn around, and sped around it. Well we saw it start to go around the plow, but it never came around the other side! When the plow moved, this guy was stuck in the snow bumper deep! We laughed pretty hard, he got out and yelled at the plow, like it was it's fault and we drove on. Tracy was going to get out and help but another plow was coming down behind us. We had a good laugh about that one.

After lunch with Tracy's family, we headed to my mom's for dinner. It was a nice day visiting and spending time with each other. We headed out as soon as more snow started to fall. As it was, it took us about 20 minutes to get home when it normally takes us under 10. We got home and the kids played with their new toys and Tracy and I played the Wii. It was a wonderful Christmas!

For New Years we had some friends and my parents over and we played games and ate yummy snacks. When every ones little kids had enough, they left and we spent the rest of the night just hanging out. 3 of our 4 actually made it to midnight! We all had sparkling cider in "fancy" cups and we went outside and yelled at midnight. New Years Day we went to Olive Garden with my family. My brothers, sister, parents, nieces and all significant others. It was a fun time. Oh!! My sister got engaged 2 days before Christmas! So that's way exciting!

Our holiday's were so much fun, we were so busy and I really felt the spirit of the season this year. We had a small Christmas but it was nice to be able to keep is small and focus on Christ. Since then our family has just been dealing! The kids have been off track so it's been a little crazy. We will have been off for 5 1/2 weeks. I wasn't ready for them to go back right after Christmas, but with a week and a 1/2 left, I'm ready now! It will be good to be able to really get back to schedules and routines. We have new chore charts that we've been working on this week and when we go back, we'll really be buckling down on chores and helping around the house. Anyway, I don't think I have much left to say. I'll try to post more, I don't know what about, maybe just my ramblings which will bore the crap out of you!! :) haha

Here is a slide show of our Christmas. I got a new camera from Santa so that was fun!