Ups and Downs Week 1

Been trying this healthy eating/ exercising thing for a week now and it has definitely had its up and downs. The ups are that my energy levels are higher, and in general am feeling pretty good. Have lost a few pounds too.
Now the downs, my muscles are so not use to this amount of activity and are fighting me on it. for 2 days straight I could barely get up and down off a chair my thighs were so sore. I don't think they were liking all the squats I have been doing! But they are better now!
I have also started walking in the mornings when i get to work before work actually starts. Have a coworker/friend who is also on this weight loss journey so we are walking together.

Thank you to everyone who has offered me words of support, I so appreciate them and can use all I can get!
I know that it is not all about weight and while I do need/want to lose weight, I mostly want to get healthy, I want to be able to take off a race Dean across the yard without feeling like I can not breathe!

I am ready for week 2~

A New Year

So my New Year's Resolution as cliche as it sounds is to lose weight. I am involved in two weight loss challenges so hopefully this will be the incentive I need to carry through with this and actually get the job done!

Here is the last picture that was taken of me in 2011. Hopefully very soon i will have another one in which there is less of me!

I wish each and every one of you a Very Happy New Year! May all your wishes come true.

Goodbye 2011, hello 2012!

Christmas pictures from my new camera!

Merry Christmas part 2

Once I opened my new camera, it was time for Dean to dig in. He was very excited when he opened his first present from Santa and found out he had brought him the Nintendo DSI xl finally. Dean has been asking for it for a few years now. He was also given several games to go with it as well as some matchbox cars and a case the holds 100 cars!
On to the gifts from mommy. I gave him a few accessories to go with his new video game system that Santa brought as well as about 30 new books, some new clothes, matchbox cars, and Legos.
After that it was my turn to open my gifts from Dean. Dean spent almost solely his own money this year to buy gifts, money he had been saving from working at my parents house over the summer. HE got me a candle, a #1 mom ruler to use at school, and a 3 crock slow cooker. This will be great to have when I am hosting a holiday at my house! Can't wait to use it. He came up with all of these ideas on his own, no grown up help at all except for getting the slow cooker into the cart and up on the check out counter!
Now I have to tell you that the living room at my parents was still full of gifts as we had to wait for my sister and her family to get there to open rest of them.

My sisters family showed up about an hour later and we opened presents again. The first present was to our parents. We got them a picture of the grandkids on a 16x20 canvas.
Next the kids got the their gifts from the respective aunts followed by my sister and I exchanging our gifts. The gift giving ended with my sister and I getting our gifts from our parents and our parents gifts to each other.

When every piece of wrapping paper had been torn off and every ribbon ripped from the packages we let the men clean up, the kids play, and my mom, sister and I made breakfast. Rest of the day was spent with everyone playing with their new gifts, munching on finger foods and just enjoying being with each other. It was a very Merry Christmas for all of us.

This is the picture we gave to our parents, only it was on stretched canvas.

Letters to and from Santa

Dean set about writing his yearly letter to Santa and wanted no help from me. When he was finished he asked me to come read it. The majority of letter came as no surprise to me as he asked for all the things he had been telling me he wanted for the past several months. The end of his letter brought me to tears though. My sweet generous little boy asked Santa to bring his mommy a new camera. Apparently Dean had heard me complaining about the fact that my camera had died one too many times and decided Santa needed to fix the problem!

Dean also wrote Santa another letter that he left for him on Christmas eve right next to the cookies. He asked Santa if he ever gets presents from Mrs. Claus or the elves and what were they? He also asked what it was like to be Santa?

So Christmas morning arrived with presents from Santa as well as a letter to Dean. It answered his questions and at the end told Dean to let mommy open a special present first! Yep, Santa brought me a brand new camera, just in time for Christmas morning pictures!

Christmas Eve

So we also have Christmas on Christmas Day of course. Dean and I actually go to my parents house on Christmas eve. This year we got there about 2pm. Unloaded the massive (embarrassingly massive) amount of gifts from my car as well as food. We spent the day just hanging out until it started to get dark then we jumped in the car and took a drive to look at Christmas lights. We saw some beautiful light displays as well as a living manger which was just beautiful! We came home, had a hot bowl of chili (or 2) got cookies ready for Santa as well as the letter Dean had written to Santa. Will post about that next. Every year Dean gets to open a present on Christmas Eve. He got new Christmas pj's (he gets them every year but hasn't seemed to realize that yet!)
Dean let my parents open one gift Christmas Eve as well. It was the book, "Frosty the Snowman" with him recorded reading it. Very cute. After this is was bath time for Dean and off to bed to wait for Santa to come.

Once he was in bed mom and I set about for our annual Christmas Eve activities. Watching "It's a Wonderful Life" while wrapping all of the last minute gifts.
I think we finally went to bed about 1 am. Dean woke us up about 6 very excited that Santa had come and had even left a letter behind for Dean.

Picture with Santa

Dean had told me earlier in the season that he did not want to get his picture taken with Santa this year. That made this mommy pretty sad but he is almost 9 years old so I wasn't really shocked. We had seen several Santa's and he had no desire. Well Dean did write Santa a letter 2 actually( more about that later), He got a video message from Santa, a letter from Santa and on Christmas morning even got another letter from Santa.
One day we were in a store shopping for something that wasn't even related to Christmas and there he was. SANTA!
Dean immediately wanted to go talk to him and get his picture taken. I of course ran on it and got us over to Santa in record speed. Dean was not in any sort of Christmas outfit as he normally had been for Santa pictures but I didn't care. This could very possibly be our last picture with Santa so it didn't matter to me, just glad it was happening.

After talking to Santa and Mrs. Claus, and getting his picture taken with them, Dean very excitedly told me that this was indeed the real Santa! I asked him how he knew. His response was that he (Santa) talked just like he did in the video message so he knew it was the real one! IT was a priceless response. He was so positive of this. It made this Christmas season start off with a bang for my little 8 1/2 year old boy!