9 Months

I cannot believe Ally turned 9 months old yesterday.  Our little baby girl is growing up so fast!  She had her nine month check up today and she did great.  Thankfully there were no shots.  She weighs in at 21 pounds and 3 ounces and is hanging out in the 90th percentile for weight.  She is at the 75th for height as well.  

Every day she is just learning more and more.  It is amazing to me how much they start to understand.  Ally is all over the house now and we have to keep all doors closed because she wants to be right where she shouldn't be (for example the laundry room which has the cat litter or in the bathrooms) and if you can't hear her babbling as she explores and plays she is up to no good.  She tends to get really quiet when she knows she is somewhere she shouldn't be, or she gets really quiet when she thinks she has found a treasure (i.e. something of Sam's that could be a potential choking hazard if she puts it in her mouth) and doesn't want it taken away from her.  She is also pulling herself up to standing and very proud of this.

She can usually get herself down but when she is tired she will want someone to help her down.  She likes to figure out how things work and has already wanted to attempt crawling up the stairs so we have to be careful and always keep the gate locked.  I opened up a doll that she received from my sister and niece at Christmas and am amazed at how much she is interested in it.  She is always staring at the face and pointing at the eyes and nose.  She is mostly gentle... but then she tries to eat the baby doll's head :)

She also loves her brother.  She laughs and laughs when he is near her and she is always watching him when he plays.  He usually does really well with her.  We have to remind him to be gentle a lot and to tell him he can't use her as a chair.  He also has a really hard time sharing toys and Sam is perfecting the art of the trade.  If he sees her with a toy that he wants, he goes and finds something to trade her because he knows if she doesn't willingly give him her toy he gets in trouble from us.  

Last night I wish we had taken a video because we had four hex bugs running around a big bin and both Sam and Ally were laughing together and playing with the bugs.  It is just so weird to see them interacting together and I love it.  

As an update to my goals I posted just a few days ago.  On Goal 1 there hasn't been any major progress, but I have started tracking my food again which is a start to being an active part of Weight Watchers again.  For Goal 2 we have gotten a lot done!  On Sunday Paul and I drove to my dad and step-mom's house because my step-mom had two great storage bins for toys that she wasn't using.  We have those up in the loft and are starting to figure out toy placement and what toys need to be in closed containers that we have control over and what can be out and about for the kids to play with.  We also moved a sling bookshelf upstairs.  Sammy loves his books and we have a ton.  The board books are so easy to store because they will line up nicely on a shelf, however the paperbacks are so hard to keep nice and not forget which ones you have.  So this bookshelf is a great way that Sammy can see the covers and when he puts them away there is a lot less chance for them to get damaged.  We have a long ways to go on the organization but we are making progress!

Goals

I need motivation to continue to work on my goals... perhaps putting them in writing will help me continue to work towards my top two!


Goal Number 1: Go back on Weight Watchers.  This is very hard for me to put on a public forum, but I need to get it out there (even if no one reads this but me!) so that I will hold myself accountable for my eating habits and exercising.  My weight has had its ups and downs.  I was always very active in sports during high school so I didn't worry too much about my weight until college.  I definitely gained a lot of weight during college and started to become very self conscious about my body image.  I didn't realize how much I had gained until my sister-in-law got married and I was asked to be a part of her wedding.  I was measured for a bridesmaid dress my junior year in college and needed to order a size 16.  They actually said I would have needed an 18 but there was an extra cost to that size so they recommended I order the 16 and alter if needed.  I was in shock... I had always stayed around a size 8/10 in high school and never paid attention to the college pounds I was gaining.  So... this was the summer before my senior year in college and it kicked me into health mode.  I joined weight watchers watchers with my mom and followed the plan for about 15 months.  It was a great program to follow because of the flexibility in what you eat and I think I was very successful on it!  Here is a photo from September 2003 and Denise's wedding. 
 

For her wedding I had already lost about 15 pounds, which meant that the dress fit fine.  However, I was still unhappy and continued weight watchers through graduation which was May of 2004.

Because we weren't all digital back in 2004 this is one of the few digital copies I have from graduation.  Ignore the absolutely goofy look on my face (I was laughing because I had just graduated from college and my whole family was coming back to my apartment and I realized I locked myself out of the house... oops!).

I was really feeling great about my weight loss to that point and had plans to continue.  One of my high school friends and I ended up doing a work travel program in Ireland after graduation.  So I lived in Ireland and worked for Guinness from July of 2004 to November 2004.  I must say I did not actively follow weight watchers while there but still followed the main guidelines and didn't do too badly while there.  I gained a bit of weight but was still way below my weight in college! 

  

After coming back from Ireland I didn't go officially back on Weight Watchers but followed healthy eating habits and my life was so absolutely crazy at that point I just ended up losing more weight until in July of 2005 I was at my lowest weight ever.  I was working full time as a secretary, working 30 hours a week as a consultant for a bridal store, a full time grad student, and in the process of building a house and planning a wedding.  I had no time to eat and was always on the move.  Not to mention that I absolutely loved my job as a wedding dress consultant for my diet!  We worked non stop and didn't get breaks to eat other then a 2 minute stop in the back to eat whatever we could find and were carrying wedding dresses above our heads the entire time at work (so they wouldn't drag on the ground).  I was in the best shape of my life!  I wonder if that store is still hiring... I could really use the exercise again!  In September I quit my job at the Bridal Salon and while I didn't really gain a lot of weight back, without the constant weight lifting I did gain a little back.  However, I was very happy with my body size for my sister's wedding in October of 2005.  My dress was a size 8 and I was ecstatic!

By my own wedding in March of 2006 I was still not thrilled with the weight I had gained back from no longer working at the bridal store.  However, looking back at these photos I would love to look like this again, and know that after giving birth two times, my body shape has changed and it is no longer possible.  I wish I would have appreciated it more!  Here is a photo of me getting ready for the wedding, during the wedding and a photo from our honeymoon. 

 

 

I stayed fairly consistent with my weight until I finished graduate school.  Because I was working full time, completing my internship, and going to class every evening I stayed pretty busy and because of having to fit my meals into very short time periods I was maintaining my weight.  However, once I graduated from school and started working only 1 full time job and that job required so much time in my car, I started to gain weight back.  Because I spent about 2.5 to 3 hours a day in my car, I was sitting more then I was use to, my job as a counselor has a lot of time spent in front of a computer, and I found I was so exhausted from spending the time in the car each day I wasn't wanting to exercise when I got home.  So those three things really started to let my weight creep back up on me.

When we found out I was pregnant with Sam on April 1, 2009 I was pretty close to the weight I was in college.  I wasn't happy, but being pregnant really wasn't the time to go focus on weight.  I only gained about 25 pounds with Sam and managed to have that weight off within the first three months after having him.  However, I never continued on the weight loss plan and ended up pregnant with Ally when Sam was only 11 months old and went back to not worrying about my weight.  I gained 20 pounds with Ally and I signed up for weight watchers 8 weeks after her birth. 

One of my friends was getting married in October of 2011 and I would be 10 weeks postpartum.  I had to pick my dress size while pregnant with Ally and I was completely stressed out.  I really wanted to order a size 18.  I had no idea how quickly I would lose the baby weight after my second pregnancy, not to mention I would be nursing and had no idea how much that would affect the dress size.  However, this particular dress was only made up to a size 16...  Which much stressing I went ahead and ordered a size 16.  The dress came in, and I don't know what I was thinking I did not try that dress on until 5 days before the wedding...  I am so thankful it fit because I didn't leave myself any time to get it fixed at that point!

So... full circle at this point.  It all started with a size 16 dress that was worn in September of 2003 and I was back in a size 16 dress in October of 2011.  However, at that point I had two absolutely gorgeous children (one of which was only 10 weeks old) so I feel a little bit better about the second size 16 dress. 

After the wedding I got serious about my weight loss after the wedding.  I was very happy to be back at my pre-pregnancy weight again by the time my maternity leave was over and I used weight watchers fairly consistently for the next 2 months.  I lost 15 pounds and really felt great.  However... I stalled for the last month and have actually gained 3 of those back.  In fact, right before I started writing this post I ate two Otis Spunkmeyer cookies (and not even the cookies just the frozen dough...) and I realized I needed my motivation back. So here I was when I had lost those 15 pounds and I need to continue on with a serious look at losing the weight. 

I am going to be on vacation in 8 weeks with my family and in 12 weeks with Paul's family. I think I can realistically lose at least 15 pounds by then and I need to do it!  Just the thought of having to wear a swimsuit terrifies me.  I also hate having my picture taken and looking back on Sam's early years when I was so self conscious about what I looked like, I never got my photo taken with him and that just makes me sad.  I need to get my confidence back and to do that I need to start eating right and exercising. Whenever I need the motivation I am just going to reread this post and see that I have had success before, and while I might not ever get back to my lowest weight, that's okay, I just need to make sure I am back in healthy range.


Goal Number 2: Organize like crazy!  Paul and I don't really hang on to a lot of stuff, but we aren't so great with the organizing either.  I am great at stacking and hiding, but I don't really feel like every item in our house has a home.  A lot of the problem is that we have only a 3 bedroom house.  We also don't have a ton of closet space.  I mean, we have huge closets but I can't decide what goes in each closet.  Like the baby items we have that we are no longer using.  Some of those items I have loaned out to friends, but there are other items where I am unsure where to store.  Part of me just wants to give them away, but what if we do decide to have a third child later on and I still want them.  Ally's closet is the smallest in the house, and she actually needs all her closet space for just her stuff since we currently have a twin bed in her room so her dresser is in the closet.  Sam has a huge closet, but we are using that as a storage place for toys that he either needs to grow into or are just a tad bit to old for Ally still.  We have one big closet in our room that I organized today.  But it just doesn't feel like it is a great solution.

It just doesn't feel organized.  In our closet we have our luggage and clothes which make sense.  But we also keep random baby items and all of the Christmas decorations because there is no other closet space for them.  I also have all of my scrap-booking items tossed up on top of the shelves.  Which if I ever do get the time to put these together is not going to be very easy to get to.

So my goal... to organize every closet and room in our house by summer break.  I also need to do this to the garage.  I need to pitch or give away everything we don't use and then make a game plan on where everything should go.  I also need to go to IKEA and see what cool ideas they have for organizing.  I need to make the most of the space we have! 

Happy Easter

This past weekend was great.  It was Easter weekend and we spent it with our families.  My goal for next year is to really plan some lessons with Sam so he can start to understand what Easter is all about.  Our church gave us a great activity to do as a family and unfortunately we never found the time to do this with Sam.  It was a cooking lesson making resurrection rolls.  Basically you take Hot Rolls and have the kids put a marshmallow inside of it, and then dip it in butter and cinnamon and sugar.  You can give the kids a way to see that when we put them in the oven there was a marshmallow inside of it, but when they come out the marshmallow is no longer there because it has melted.  To try to get them to understand the concept that Jesus died and was buried, but that his tomb was empty.  So, because of time limits this week and also due to Sam still being a bit young for some fun Easter activities, we didn't get many lessons in at this time.  My goal for next year is to really change that.  He did get to church for Psalm Sunday and for Easter.  And we read the Easter story in his Bible to him many times this week.

On Saturday we went to my sisters house in Marshall, Illinois.  Her outside yard is perfect for Easter egg hunts.  We had four little kids and then my older niece and nephew in the hunt.  For the four young kids we had 48 eggs that were labeled 1 through 12.  Emma is the only one that knows her numbers so she had to find numbers 1 through 12.  We had my niece and nephew (Ben and Anna) find Ally's eggs numbered 1 through 12.  And then Sam and Luke got to grab whatever eggs they could find and we would divide theirs out inside.  Then Anna and Ben each had an egg that had a dollar in it for them that they could find.  Their eggs were not numbered and were hidden higher up where the kids couldn't find them.  Sam was really into the Easter Egg hunt this year. He knew what was going on and would pick up the eggs in his basket.  

   

 

 After the hunt we went inside to let the kids open the eggs, their Easter baskets from the grandparents, and have lunch.  Lunch was delicious and Sam actually ate ham!  It was a first for him and he ate several pieces.  Of course he dipped it in ranch.. but still, he ate it!  Ally just sat in her high chair people watching and playing with puffs.  Of course she didn't actually eat any...

Sam was very excited about opening the eggs.  My sister and mom got very creative with what could fit into an egg that wasn't all candy.  There were cars, hex bugs, play dough, and lots of other fun treats in the eggs!

After lunch we went outside and let the kids run around and play.  I didn't really get any photos of Luke, but he needed a nap and was asleep for most of the time we were there.  I also didn't really get many photos of Ally that day either.  But, Ally was getting lots of attention inside from some Aunts and Grandma's while we were outside with Sam.  Ben was great with Sam.  He let Sam follow him everywhere and even took him for a ride in Emma's play jeep.

Right after we got done playing outside we had to load the kids into the car to drive back home.  We had about 30 minutes at home to get Sam fed and then we were off to church.  Sam went into the Turtles class without too many tears.  We are trying to get him to associate church as his time to play in the Turtles classroom and to know that we always come back for him.  Because we have been so fortunate to have Mary watch Sam and Ally during the day, he never gets left alone with someone that isn't a family member that he knows really well.  Church has been a struggle for many reasons.  We kept Sam with us for a long time during service.  Then we got him use to being in the nursery.  Well... then we had Ally and it took us a long time to get him back in the hang of going to the nursery again after she was born.  We just got him into a routine and he switched classrooms.  The turtles room is always busy and it's a big adjustment for him.  We are working on it every week.  That's the main reason we go on Saturday nights.  It is less busy and it seems to be a better fit for him at this age.  Ally of course is perfectly content in the nursery. 

Sunday was Easter, and because we had already been to church we had a pretty relaxing morning.  We let the kids open up their Easter baskets and then made a big Easter breakfast.  We had pancakes, bacon, and eggs.  They actually let us sleep in as well and we didn't get up until around 8:00 that morning.  I might have gone a little overboard on the Easter baskets...  They each had two baskets and then a puzzle outside of the baskets.  Plus, Sam's Cars Legos came in on Thursday, so I figured I might as well through that into the mix as well.  Next year I will buy some nice baskets (I borrowed some from my mom since we don't have any yet) and they only get what will fit into the basket!

 

   

After breakfast we spent the day at home and enjoying the day together as a family.  I spent the kids nap time prepping for some meals for dinner this week since I go back to work tomorrow and I also made a meal for Dave and Denise.  We woke the kids up from nap to be over at Paul's parents house by 4:00.  We had our Easter with his family at 5:00 and we let Sam hunt for Easter eggs before dinner.  He really had the hang of hunting Easter eggs by that point.  As soon as he got one, he would open it up and they were filled with alphabet cereal, marshmallows, and a cookie so he was snacking on eggs as he hunted for the rest. 

 

 

 

 

After hunting eggs we tried to get a few photos of the kids together.  That did not go well!  Sam is in the stage where if you ask him to look at the camera he will look everywhere but the camera.  He will not smile and doesn't want to look at you as soon as he sees the camera out.  Then there is Ally who was much more interested in the grass then looking up at us.  So... we didn't get a great shot, but we got some cute ones of the two of them together.  Surprisingly we got a decent one of all 4 of us together as well! Here are the best two we could get...

                       

And the ones that didn't turn out so great... Oh... and of course an airplane flew over as we were trying to take these, so we lost all focus we could get as well.

 

After the first Easter Egg hunt we had dinner, opened Easter baskets, and then the kids did a second Easter egg hunt.  Dave, Denise, Kiersten, and Cameron weren't able to make it at 4:00 because of an Easter lunch with Dave's side.  So Paul took the eggs Sam found and put them back outside so Sam could join Kiersten in the hunt.  I also don't have any pictures of Cameron from Easter because he was inside since it was a little cold and was getting held most of the night!  He is I think 2.5 weeks old and still so tiny!  I wanted to hold him, but I didn't get a chance last night because there were several people there who hadn't had a chance to hold him yet and I live a few minutes from them and can stop by anytime.

 

 

 So it was a great Easter weekend spent with family.  And, just as a look back to end this post, here is a look back to Sammy at last year's Easter :)