Happy Birthday Alieson and Meredith!

Today is a big day in history, good people! Today is my sisters birthday! They are 27 years old today, which means I am about to turn 31, which I don't want to talk about. ANYWAY...today marks the day that I got my very own set of identical twin baby sisters. I was just about 4 years old and as excited as I could be. In honor of this day, I will tell a great story about the three of us.

I was probably 10 years old and the girls were about 6. We used to fight like cats and dogs back then...I mean knock down drag out fights. They frequently used their wonder twin powers to beat the hell out of me and get me in trouble. :-) We also used to have the best time together making up the silliest games in the whole world. Those were before days of computers and video games and all the crap kids have today. We had to come up with our own games and my sisters and I were champions at this. So, on this day, we were playing "hall ball". This game consisted of closing all the doors into the one long hallway in our house so that it was a closed off space. Then we turned all the lights out, making it pitch dark, and threw a ball. In the dark, the three of us would run blindly around trying to be the first to find the ball in complete darkness. As you can imagine, there were frequent accidents and several near misses on broken bones while throwing ourselves around a blacked out hallway fighting over a tennis ball. (I AM ROLLING WITH LAUGHTER THINKING ABOUT THIS!) During this game, we somehow got into a huge fight over who actually found the ball first. I don't remember logistics, but I remember that it got heated and we began beating each other up. In this hallway, there was wainscoating all down it and above the wainscoating were framed pictures. So in the heat of this fight, we slammed one of the hall doors so hard that the three framed pictures fell off the wall and knocked the molding off the wainscoating on that side of the wall!!!! It was the loudest thing you ever heard and this is after my mom had yelled at least 10 times for us to stop fighting. Immediately, we turned into damage control and joined forces again. When my mom exploded into the hallway, we chased her back out together claiming that she was ruining our game and that loud noise was just me falling or something insane like that. We smiled and hugged each other like all was well. When she reluctantly left (she knew we were up to something!) we worked together to hang the pictures back up and we SCOTCH TAPED the molding back into place. That is right, we used scotch tape to put molding back on the wall. The funny thing is that it took my poor tired mom weeks to notice that tape was holding up her molding and by that time, we had already taken the sister oath not to tattle and claimed total ignorance. My parents are lucky to be alive after raising the three of us! :-)

Some other time I will tell the story of Meredith and the great gum incident of 1985. hehe!

Happy Birthday, Girlies! :-)

Rest and Closet Cleaning!

Lots of stuff going on today!! For starters, Colin only woke up ONE TIME last night. He had a bottle at 2:30am and that was it. He then woke up for the day at 6:10am!! That is SO LATE! That was the second night in a row that he woke up later and decreased his night wakings. I have jinxed myself lots of times before, so I am not getting too excited about this. I am just taking the gift of good rest one day at a time and enjoying the good days when I can. Having almost a full night of sleep does amazing things for the soul.

I cleaned out my closet and drawers today. This may sound like small potatoes, but if you had seen my closet, you would think otherwise. My closet was a horror movie. You could not even walk in it and it is a walk-in closet! I needed to get all my suits and dress clothes moved out of the way now that I don't have to dress for work. That opened up a LOT of space! I spent the day sorting everything into "donate", "keep", and "toss" piles. I finally faced the fact that I am never going to get back into the size 6 jeans that I kept like an idiot, so I added those and all my super skinny clothes to the donate pile. That way I will jinx myself into becoming a size 6 again. HA! And the stuff was all from 2003 anyway, so it needed updating regardless!

Other things on my mind today...should I sell Colin's clothes to Kid to Kid? I have kept absolutely everything thinking that I would possibly need it for my second child...assuming it was a boy. But now I am thinking that maybe it would be easier to just sell it now and buy more down the line? I kept all the important stuff that I want for memories, but all the other stuff is piling up! The size of the storage at this point is huge and he is only 6 months old! After two years, I will have mountians of stuff! Maybe I should start getting rid of some of this. None of my friends are preggers with boys, so I don't really have anyone to pass it down to at the moment. There are some super cute things that I think I should keep just in case...lord, I don't know! I will probably just keep thinking about this and never sell it. ;-)

Oh, and for those of you keeping tabs...the philly burgers with cream cheese and mushroom topping were fantastic. As I knew they would be. Next week is going to be a rude awakening! ;-)

Fatty McFat

I am getting really fat. Sensationally fat. Ridiculously fat. Things are about to change PRONTO. Since I have been off work (which is close to a month now) I have been fine tuning my cooking skills. Every night of the week I have tried some different menu item that sounded fantastic. The problem is that most of these menu items that sounded fantastic did so because they called for heavy cream, butter, or butter and heavy cream. I have been having so much fun finding out that I like to cook that I forgot that I am also EATING what I make! I have not been on a scale, but I am willing to bet that I have put on 10 lbs this month. I am not even kidding. I look like a Chalna balloon. NOT GOOD! I needed to lose 40 lbs to start with and now that is probably more like 55. NICE.

On the schedule for tomorrow: go purchase healthy cookbooks and re-vamp
the menu for next week.

Since I already did all the shopping for this weeks menu's, I will have to stick it out tomorrow and Friday. Which means that tomorrow I am having Philly Burgers with cream cheese and mushroom topping. Gee...how on earth did I gain 10 lbs in a month!? GOOD JOB CHALNA. At least I had fun doing it.



Also involved in my new health kick was the Oprah show that I watched today. I am not sure if it was today's actual show since I tivo, but it was from this week for sure. It was Dr. Oz with all kinds of good info on healthy living and staying young. I actually watched it back again and took notes! I really want to make these changes now...I have not felt well in a long time and I know that it comes from too much weight and not enough activity. When Jer and I got married, I was very healthy, worked out constantly, and weighed about 40ish pounds less than I do now. That is a lot considering that I am only 5'2. Not only did I look tons better than I do now, but I FELT so much better. For me, this is not really about the number on the scale, but rather feeling good again. It is time...I am going to have a little boy to run after!!! :-)



Sidebar...Kid to Kid is the greatest store ever. For those who don't have them, it is a resale shop for kiddos including just about everything you can think of. We got Colin's bigger vibrating chair there for $15! He sits in it every morning to watch tv while I make breakfast and just loves it. It is a super expensive one that I would have paid $50 in the store for! At least! Also, they frequently have clothes that have never even been worn! Today, I got Colin three pairs of Talbots baby shorts for $2.50 each!!! TALBOTS! Two still had the price tags and one looked like it had maybe been worn once. Love it!

Just too much!

I took this with my phone today, so the quality is not great...but it still makes me melt!

The Glider

More changes in the world of Colin...although this seems like no big deal, it is to me. Before Colin was born, I carefully picked out the glider rocker that I planned to use and got it all set up in Colin's room. I had the room in perfect order with a pretty lamp right beside the chair. When I came home from the hospital with Colin, we quickly realized that Colin needed to be rocked often and for long periods of time. Rocking was just about the only thing that would settle him down in the beginning. So we moved the glider into our living room. It matches nothing there and is totally in the way, but it was a lifesaver for me. I rocked Colin in that chair for every single feeding and every time he cried. With the rocker in the living room, I was able to stay out with everyone instead of being locked away in Colin's room for hours at a time.

Things have been changing rather quickly around here lately...Colin does not like to be rocked anymore when he eats!! He insists on laying on his blanket on the floor to drink. I still have to hold the bottle, but he does not want to be held while he eats. The only exception to this is his feeding when he wakes in the middle of the night. He still wants to be rocked for that one. But other than that, no rocking for him! Now when he cries or gets fussy, he generally wants to play with something or be entertained, not rocked. Now he only wants to be rocked before naps and bedtime when he is tired. Then he turns into my little baby again. Bottom line...we don't need the glider out in the living room anymore. In fact, now I need it in Colin's room. Since Colin likes to be rocked to sleep, I end up carrying him to his crib and the little guy is too heavy now for me to carry across the house from the glider back to his bedroom. So, back in Colin's room it is going. This is a big deal for me because the gilder in the living room represents the early days with Colin. I am excited about all of these changes but I also wish he could stay tiny forever!!
:-)

Idiot Move of the Year

So, as everyone can see from my recent posts, I have been ATTEMPTING to pick up rollerblading. My husband is great at it and when we go on walks as a family, he will wear his blades and end up miles ahead of me. We bought a pair for me and immediately afterwards I got pregnant, so they have been gathering dust. I got them out again a few days ago and have been practicing. I usually only last for about half the time and then change into my tennis shoes on the road somewhere. My problem with these damn things is that I cannot for the life of me figure out how to stop. You have to lift up your right foot in order to use the rubber brake at the BACK of the wheels. This is impossible to me and I have been trying SO HARD. I have good balance and enjoy actually rolling around, but I cannot stop. Which brings us to yesterday. Another balmy day of 75 degree weather and since I am on my health kick, we lace up and head out. We have paved trails all around our neighborhood and we were heading down some on our way to feed the ducks at the pond. These specific trails were downhill, but it did not look extreme, so I headed down them in front of Jer who had Colin in his stroller. And all of a sudden, I was going fast. Really REALLY fast. So I try to use my brake, which results in both of my feet flying out from under me and me landing completely on my butt. Like all of my weight without breaking my fall AT ALL on my butt. Nice. So, not only do I look like a total jack ass, but now I hurt in places that I did not know could hurt. Luckily nothing was broken, but let me tell you...hefting around a 19 lb baby is not easy when you are in severe pain from the middle of your back down to your toes. I am such an idiot...I knew better than to be blading down those trails with nowhere to go (i.e. GRASS) to slow down. Yet another risk that a mom can't afford to make...SO DUMB! I need painkillers.

He Sits!

Last night my baby boy sat up completely unassisted for the first time! Has has tried it before, but always topples over in a matter of seconds. So yesterday he finally sat up on his own with his toys for several minutes! So this morning I decided to bust out the camera and take pictures of this big moment! As you can see, he is the most precious baby ever! Jeremy said that the first picture is titled "Elvis" and that he has no doubt it will become famous and used at some point during his wedding. :-) My little man is growing up!!

Good Morning, Sunshine!

Well, here we are at 5:30 in the morning. I have been up with Colin since 4:30. I tried so hard to get him to go back to sleep...I gave him a bottle, rocked him, layed him back in the crib with his music playing...everything. He was not having it and was ready to get up. I finally caved at 5:15 and came out here to the living room. Now we are watching Higglytown Heros. I will say that there is simply no getting around the fact that Colin has trouble with sleep. Last night he was awake at 11:30, 2:30, and then 4:30. He will have a sprinkling of good nights, which I consider to be when he does not wake up at all until after 3am. My mother said that I had lots of trouble sleeping as an infant and I fully recall how much trouble I had as a kid. Ambien is my friend to this day. SO, I am feeling very sorry for Colin and worried that I passed down this trait to him. Thank goodness I don't have to go to work now. I was at my breaking point before with staying up all night and going to work. Now when Colin naps (if Colin naps) I can get a little more sleep.