5 Down, 25 To Go!!!!!

I'm so proud of myself, I lost 5 pounds in my first week of Farewell to Fat! I cut out soda, and I'm trying to eat more.... yes I said more.... I realized that the reason that I wasn't losing weight in the first place was that I was starving my body... not intentionally, I just was. I was so sporadic with eating that I would unintentionally skip meals. But even now I'm struggling to eat more than a 1000 calories a day. I'm really keeping track, and even when I'm not hungry I'm forcing myself to eat a snack of fruit or nuts. The nutritionist told me that that was the best thing to eat to add calories that weren't empty. I'm pretty excited about all of this! Who thought that by eating you would lose weight? Not me, but wow is it nice! I haven't kept myself from eating anything that I wanted, I've just made sure I didn't eat to much of it, but that I did eat. I could really get used to this!

In other wonderful news!!!!! I am only 8 pounds away from my pre-baby weight! Finally it has literally taken almost a year to do it, but I have! So hopefully by the time that Paul gets home I will be about 5 pounds under that weight!

Last night after I weighed in, and between the class times I took a spinning class.... and let me tell you today I am itching for something to do on my feet because it hurts to sit down on my butt! Ah the things that we do for good health! Now if only this cold would go away!

Farewell To Fat!

Tomorrow begins a competition that I entered at the gym I go to. It's called "Farewell to Fat." It's an 8 week competition to see who can lose the most weight. We get trainers to work with, and we are on a team with 4 other people, the goal of course is to lose as much weight as you can in 8 weeks. They have this specialized formula to find the percentage of whatever they are looking for so that it is a fair competition. I'm REALLY excited about it, if there is one thing that I have always thrived on it's competition. So tonight I had my last hamburger and soda for 8 at least 8 weeks. Probably longer, because once I try to bring them back in I'll probably get sick from looking at them!

Anyway wish me luck at being the skinny woman that Paul married again!

Breaking Heart For Hurting Friends

When we get pregnant with our first child all we can think about is the perfect little baby that we will be bringing into our home. How he/she will have 10 little fingers and 10 tiny toes. How we will watch our baby grow and progress, from their first smile, laugh, time rolling over, crawling, sitting up, walking, talking. We never think immediately about what could go wrong with that child. All we see is a perfect gift.

Last year when I met Crystal she had just found out that she was pregnant and I was getting close to delivering Kenneth. She was 18, newly married, in the greatest time of her life because she was able to get pregnant despite doubt from doctors. She was full of questions, of excitement, of hope and faith that everything would be fine. Then when she hit the third trimester it seemed like little Sidnee wanted to come out long before her due date at the end of May. She was in the hospital for what I think was about two weeks with them trying to stop her contractions. She suffered through the pain trying not to take pain medicine that could potentially hurt her baby. She was a trooper! While there they gave Sidnee steroid shots to help develop her lungs in case she came early so that she would stand a fighting chance. Sidnee cooperated and didn't come out before she had "fully cooked" being born on May 30th as a perfectly healthy baby girl.

She was however born with a bump on the top left side of her head. They told her that it was nothing to worry about. Now almost 4 months later after having a brain scan yesterday her young parents have been told that their perfect little girl has a brain tumor, and that she has a hemorrhage, and that she has had some bleeding on the brain.

What do you say to your friend who often calls for parental advice when she tells you such devastating news? How do you console her? How do you show optimistic support without seeming to play down the seriousness of the situation? How can you tell her that everything will be okay, no matter what the outcome? They are so young, and they have felt so blessed to have a baby against the odds, and now they have been devastated by news that their 4 month old will have to have a major brain surgery and/or risk permanent brain damage. Even if you aren't a praying person, give it a try for this little family. They could sure use the love and the prayers lifted on high for their little Sidnee. I just pray that God will bless them with the comfort that only He can give them. This is so heart breaking.

PICTURE EXPLINATION: These are pictures that Kristy and I had done of us and the boys on Monday. They turned out so cute!

I am finally back in Utah after a wonderful month back in my home state of Georgia! I have never been so happy to see my son's bed in my whole life! He slept all night, he was happy to do it, and as soon as I put him to bed he just laid down and went to sleep! Tonight didn't even take a bottle! And today he only had one bottle! Could it be that I will soon break him of the bottle? He wouldn't take it at all today, he ate like such a big boy! This morning he had Activia Yogurt and Cheerios for breakfast (I am trying a more natural approach to dealing with the stomach issues that he has, we'll see if it works, at least he loves the taste of it!), then for lunch he ate Chicken and Carrots Ravioli's with a cup of whole milk and a couple more Cherrios, and then for dinner tonight he had a jar of carrots mixed with oatmeal and the rest of his Chicken and Carrot Ravioli's with water and a bite of Mommy's taco! You might think that this is a stupid thing to write about but there are a couple of things that I have realized lately. I'm going to call it, "You know you are a parent when..."

1. You don't remember what a warm meal tastes like for trying to feed a baby that you can't shove food in to fast enough.

2. You get a full night's sleep and wake up the next morning more tired than if you had had to get up 3 or 4 times.

3. You catch yourself talking about bowel functions at the dinner table and it doesn't ruin your meal.

Ah how I love being a Mom! Oh and I think that I have found the perfect PT "job" for me!!! Needles don't bother me at all. AND did you know that people still pay you for blood platlets? $55 bucks if you go twice a week here in Utah.. That's 22.50 an hour. So I will be contibuting to my family's financial stability by giving platlets. If nothing else that will allow us to go out to dinner as a family or save for Christmas. I'm excited about it. And the best part is that while I do it, I won't have Kenneth so I'll donate while watching a movie or taking a nap! What could be better?