Walking

My father-in-law came into town yesterday. When that happens, my husband insists on a spotless, immaculate house. So, even though the house was still pretty clean, I spent about 3 hours making sure that it was spotless. I love my floors, but it takes a long time to sweep and mop all of them. Anyway, the point of that story is, once I was done, at about 11 am, I wanted the house to stay clean. So, since it was such a beautiful day, Lucas and I decided to walk until Grandpa arrived. We ended up walking nearly six miles altogether (well, I walked, he rode in his stroller). It was awesome!! I love walking so much. I had my headphones, my music and some water. I wish I could do that every day. But, eventually the kids will be out of school, and they will probably want to do more than just walk all day.

Later on, after my husband came home from work, and my father-in-law arrived, they took off for bike night. The kids and I had the rehearsal for the wedding I'm officiating today, then had to go buy a couple last minute things for the wedding. I wanted a new pair of dress pants, but I am so picky! One of the worst things about being overweight is that everything I try on, I hate. However, after like 15 tries, I finally found something half way decent. My body was so tired and sore from walking by the time everything was done! I need to get used to long walks again.

However, I'm apparently a glutton for punishment. Lucas had taken a very late nap, so he was not even close to ready for bed. Alyssa was sound asleep, and Matthew went to his dad's. So, at like 11:30 last night, Luke and I set out on a late night walk. It was such a beautiful night!!! It didn't take long for Lucas to pass right out :)

This is my favorite kind of weather, and I am going to take as many walks as I can before the kids get out of school! If anyone ever wants to walk, with kids even, let me know. I don't get much adult interaction ;)

                       HAHAHAHA ^^^^                                     

                                       Every time I try on clothes ;)

Back At It!

Wow. It's been a while. I have been very busy, and usually pass out at night sitting up, with a kid or two in my lap. It makes it very hard to update this blog. I apologize to anyone who actually reads it, if there is anyone left! I downloaded the Blogger app to my phone though, so hopefully that helps ;)

Matthew and I have been trying out different things, but we really haven't been pushing ourselves like we should be. The weather finally warmed up though, so we have been walking a lot. We did an MS walk, we walk around town, and today we finally started the Couch to 5k. Walking is one of my favorite forms of exercise. Plus I finally kicked Lucas off the boob, so hopefully my metabolism will speed back up again. That would be lovely. Our nightly walks help him sleep too :)

Unfortunately, Zumba has to be on hold for now. I LOVE going, and miss it very much, but Lucas is just too crazy. It's not fair to the other people in class. Lucas disrupts us way too much. My dear sweet friend Jessica never says anything, but I feel bad. I am hoping that one of these weeks I can get Lucas to sleep before Zumba, so that I can go. I would love to be able to just leave him home with my husband, even awake, but sadly that is not how my life works. I don't get to do things without my kids. So, no Zumba for me right now :( My husband can do whatever he wants though, and frequently leaves for hours, or even days, on his motorcycle. Speaking of that...

Last weekend my husband went out of town for Memorial Day weekend. He was gone from Friday morning until Monday afternoon. It was just me and the three kids. We had such a great time! We hung out with friends, went for walks, and completely cleaned and organized the entire house. Friday we had dinner, and watched Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs 2. Saturday we had friends over in the morning, cleaned the entire downstairs, went for a long walk, then my daughter had a friend here for a sleepover. Sunday we had more friends over, went for ice cream, cleaned the entire upstairs, went to dinner, then my daughter had another friend over for the night. I stayed up way too late chatting with my friend on Facebook that night, considering we got up at 7 am every morning, and went to bed very late after tons of cleaning and walking all day. But that's okay ;) Then Monday all four kids and I went uptown for the Memorial Day event my town does. Then we went to the beach for a bit, then went and barbecued at my mom's.

I am going to be walking every single day while the kids are at school, plus doing the C25k with Matthew at night. There is only two weeks of school left though, so after that Ill have to drag them along too ;)

I do wish that I had a walking buddy, or two, but that's okay. I am used to walking alone. I have music if I need it. Plus Lucas is a chatterbox! My husband and I still plan to buy a pool too, so that will be nice.

Okay, I think that's everything that has been happening around here these days. Hope everyone is doing well!

                                          The MS Walk

                              Matthew and I, doing the two week challenge.

                                      Walking to Zumba one Thursday

                                               More MS Walk pictures

                                                 Our fun weekend :)

It Works! Sort of...

A few weeks ago I had my It Works! wrap party. It was fun, and I had a pretty decent turn out. If you have never heard of this, this is the official website, and this is the Facebook page of Jessica, who did my party. I have been to other parties, and am actually going to one more next weekend. They are fun, and I like them.

However, the wraps are not that great, honestly. They sometimes work okay, for some people. The results are temporary though, and for some people, you actually look bigger after a wrap.They also cost $25 to try, and $100 for a box. This time, it didn't really work very well for me. Here are pictures from when we did my sister's party.

                                                                     Before

                                                           After

And here are the pictures from my party. Sorry about my very visible underwear.......

                                       

See, not a huge difference, but a little. And it makes my upper stomach bigger every time, which is annoying, since that's the part that I want gone. I mostly wanted the Greens, which are vitamins that are in powder form. You put them in juice or water, and drink them daily. They kind of taste like Flinstones vitamins. I really like them, but they are very expensive. And the thing that I really dislike about this company, is that in order to get any product at an even slightly reasonable rate, you have to be a Loyal Customer, which means that you have to have something shipped to your house, and have the cost automatically deducted from your bank account, for three months. Things like that rub me the wrong way. What if I don't want something every month? Well, they I better be prepared to pay full price. I got 5 sample packs of the greens for $5, with the intention to buy more later. Honestly, I drank them every day, and did not have any more energy then normal. I had hope that it would help with my extreme fatigue. It did not. I will probably still buy them, just to see, but if they don't do much this next time, I'm done.

So, what I'm saying is, if you get invited to a party, go if you want, they really are fun. But be prepared to spend at least $25, if you plan to wrap, more if you plan to buy :)

If it's not one thing....

It's another. I really wanted to finish the 30 day shred. But every time that I restart it, something happens. This time, about a week in, I got this awful, constant, pain in between my shoulder blades. It was incredibly unpleasant. All Google told me was that I was having a heart attack, so I slathered on some icy hot every couple hours to get through the day, and hoped it would go away soon. Once it did, I decided that God, or whomever you believe in, must be trying to tell me something. I started this because MATTHEW AND I were on this journey TOGETHER. He can't do the 30 day shred, so we sat down together to find something that we could both do. We finally decided on this:

Now, we probably wont lose ten pounds in two weeks, but at least it gives us something to get us back into a routine. Also, Zumba is cancelled for the next two weeks, so now we have something to keep us occupied.

I started writing this post on Saturday, and while I was writing it, we got a HUGE storm (Tornado? The jury is still out on that, but most people say yes) that knocked out our power. It just FINALLY came back on this evening. The damage to my town is pretty extensive, but luckily no one was hurt. Many houses, businesses and cars were, however. Mine, thankfully, was not one of them.

The weather here has been pretty great lately, when our town isn't being destroyed, so we have been walking a lot too. The day after the storm, we walked 2.7 miles to my mother's house. We didn't actually intend to walk all the way there, but that's where we eventually ended up. Luckily, she had power. The power came back on just in time for the temperature to drop below freezing tonight. Hopefully we get our nice walking weather back quickly!

So, that is what's going on with us these days. I am going to keep this blog updated more often, or at least try. I have the post about my It works! party half way written as well, but I'm tired, and Lucas wants to curl up in my lap and watch Frozen for the 7 billionth time, so I will finish that tomorrow.  Night :)        

                                                                                                            

Slacker

I'm sorry. I'm a huge slacker. Not with the exercising and all that jazz, we are been doing that. I've just been terrible with updating this blog. Lucas lost my measuring tape, so I didn't start the 30 Day Shred back up, since I couldn't measure myself. Matthew and I have just been doing boring workouts ;)

Today, however, I went and bought a new one. And even though it's not a Monday, it IS the first of the month, and that is just as good. So, today I will be measuring and restarting the shred. I will also do my best to update every day, or at least every other day.

Matthew and I have still been going to Zumba, of course. And this week the weather has FINALLY started warming. Very soon it will be walking weather :)

My children are obsessed with the movie Frozen, so we are constantly either watching it, or listening to the soundtrack. Lucas knows the words to every song, and randomly recites lines while we are driving. It's adorable. If you haven't seen the movie yet, I highly recommend it.

Oh, and in other news, I decided to play an April Fool's day prank on Matthew and Alyssa this morning. I woke them up, in a panic, at 7 am and told them that it was 9 am, and we were late. It kind of backfired when I had to spend the next ten minutes consoling a hysterical Alyssa, who has perfect attendance and no tardies, and very much wants to keep it that way. Whoops! I got her to school in plenty of time ;)

Oh, I also had an It Works! Wrap party on Saturday. But I will wrote a separate blog about that.

Hope everyone is having a good day!!

                                   One of the Irish Zumba songs

                                             Our new Zumba prop, ha ha

Weekend Craziness

HAPPY ST. PATRICK'S DAY!!!

Did you know that four hours of heavy house cleaning burns over 800 calories?? Neither did I. But on Saturday I spent the entire day scrubbing my house from top to bottom, and when I put it into MyFitnessPal, it told me that I burned 824 calories! Wow. No wonder I was so tired ;)

Sunday was supposed to be a relax at home day. Until my husband said "Hey, let's run to Meijer". That turned into hours of walking around the store, of course. Then I went to my sister's for a bread party, then home, where my awesome husband had cooked a chicken pot pie for dinner :)

Today is St. Patrick's day, but we really didn't do anything special for it. I dressed the kids in green, but that was about it. I thought about dying my wine green, but I'm not drinking wine. I plan to restart The 30 Day Shred today. Hopefully I can get Lucas to go to sleep quickly! And hopefully I can stay awake ;)

I am going to retake my measurements, and just basically start it all over again. I NEED to stick with it this time. I do not want to start over any more!! Wish me luck!!!

Haircut Friday

Today was crazy. I think that I spent more time in my van then anywhere else. First I had to take my husband to work at 6:30 am. Then home for an hour to get the kids ready for school, then off to school for Matthew and the bus for Alyssa. After that Lucas and I came home long enough to get him properly dressed, then we had to go to VGs to get cupcake trays for the Pi cupcakes for Matthew's math class. We then dropped those off to the middle school, stopped at home to grab the check I forgot, ran by my husband's work to get his Herbie Hancock ;) then went to the bank and Meijer. After we were done there, we came home. We got home just as Lucas' teacher was pulling up. Once she left, it was time to get the kids from the bus, and go to mine and Alyssa's hair appointment. That took 3 1/2 hours!! But it was fun, and we love our hair. After that was done, we ran to grab dinner, came home long enough to eat, then went to pick up my niece for a sleepover. While I was out, my husband called me to pick him up from work. By the time I got home again, I had less then an hour before I had to take my sister to work. I took her to work, and then finally got home at 11:20 pm.

Now, why, you ask, did I just tell you that boring, long winded account of my day? Well, I'll tell you why. I am wondering if driving can be considered exercise? If so, I burned plenty of calories today ;)

Seriously though, today was just nonstop! It is now midnight, and I'm trying to get this blog out, so that I can go to bed. These kids will be up early, as usual. Tomorrow's workout will be some high intensity... house work. I know, I lead an exciting life!

 Just in case you didn't get the reference. In which case, I'm very sad for you...

                                                         Pi Day cupcakes

My new haircut and highlights

                                      My pretty girl, and her new haircut