I Hope I Win!...(sort of.)

I visited one of my favorite blogs The Meanest Mom and she is having a swimsuit giveaway contest. That's one of the swimsuits above, cute, huh? So I decided, what the hay, I'll give it a shot. But to make it more interesting and hopefully up my chances I told her that if I was picked I would post a picture of myself wearing the won bathing suit. What was I thinking?!?!

So if I win hopefully there will be a really cute picture of me in my brand new bathing suit. If my worst nightmare comes true you may find a picture like this instead...

Maybe I should start doing some sit ups!

Purging

With our move fast approaching in June I am getting the Spring Fever to clean out the garages and purge anything and everything that is of no use to me. I can't believe some of the junk that I have held on to, some since before my marriage.

Here is a short list:

Old Tests
Old Essays
Random Doodles of no importance
Tapes (which are not labeled)
Clothes with holes

And I have boxes of these things! Useless junk!

The thing about moving military style is that they will pack everything up for you. I could easily just have them pack it all up and then I could shove those boxes into corners at the new place. But really, what would be the point?

I feel a sense of liberation with so much of this stuff being purged. I think I am a reformed pack rat, and I am embracing the change!

Weightloss Update

Okay, old plan not working.

New plan:

1.) GAIN 100 pounds
2.) Get on The Biggest Loser

It's an iron clad plan. I have already started my journey with the Colonel by my side.

Success will be mine.

Two Cybil's

I am living with 2 Cybil's. My girls officially have split personalities. So now instead of trying to make two little girls happy, I have the daunting task of making 4 girls happy. This is very difficult considering that one personality always wants the opposite of what the other personality wants.

Ex. 1
I was getting Miriam some chocolate milk, and asked Emma if she would want some in my sweet Doris Day sing-song manner.

"No!" was her answer.

"Okay." No skin off my teeth, that just means one less sippy cup to prepare. I put the milk and syrup back in the refrigerator and started to walk out of the kitchen.

"NOOOOOO!!!!" she yells and my head snaps around, you would think I would get used to this type of outburst, but it still shakes my nerves every single time.

"Milk!!!"

"So you want some chocolate milk now?"

"Uh-huh." Shaking her noggin in the yes direction playing up her big brown eyes and talking in her most sweetest tone so I would forgive her of anything.

Ex. 2
Whenever I put Miriam to bed we usually have a bedtime routine of me reading a book to her, then we sing 5 songs (I had to put a limit after we reached 20 one night.) and then I lay with her for 1 minute. She tends to tell me to leave before the musical concert begins.

"Are you sure?" I say over and over.

"Yes, get out." Not in a mean way or anything, just like she is stating the facts. I start to walk out and ask one more time, "Really?, this is your last chance."

"Good night, Mommy."

10 minutes after settling into my bed, hook Hannah up, turn on the t.v. and even set up my laptop to start my nightly surfing, here comes Miriam.

"Go to bed Miriam."

"But you didn't lay down with me!" she protests.

"Are you kidding??? Get into bed!"

Sometimes she wins and sometimes she wins. This split personality thing is getting a tad old.

My First 10K!

I ran my first 10K last Saturday. I would have posted earlier, but our camera died and I have been waiting for my friend to send me the pictures her husband took. (No pressure K!) So I just decided to use a picture of my official number and my awesome running shoes as evidence that I actually did it.


I was unusually calm when I woke up. I imagined just going for a good run and the nerves didn't get to me. It was a beautiful morning, not too cloudy or too cold. There was a 20K that left before our group went. When our group started out I stuck close to the friend that got me into this, K. She is super tall, but good for me she kept a good pace that wasn't too hard for me. There were hills and gullies and lots of mud. This one lady behind us slipped. Even parts of the path were covered with a stream of water coming from off the mountain. It wasn't too deep and my socks stayed pretty dry, thankfully. When I got to 4 miles I felt that I had reached my limit. I stopped running for a little while, like 1 minute, and once I had my breath back I picked up the pace again. 4-5 was probably the hardest, but 5-6 my body was on cruise control and that was pretty awesome. I think the hardest part of the whole race was at the very end, there is a slight increase that goes on for a little while and I was really pushing myself not to stop running. As I came around the bend into the clearing where the crowd was waiting and cheering, I see Tobie running up to the side fence with a sign they had made while I was gone that read, "Mom, You Rock". It was such an amazing thing. I was so glad that my family came to see me accomplish something that I have worked so hard for.


I think my time was pretty good, 1.09. First place was a pregnant lady! Then there was another pregnant lady who came in behind me, and another lady with a 5 week old baby there! These people are hard core. It was such a nice run and I don't blame any of them for wanting to participate in it.


I'm not going to lie, I was hurting afterward. As soon as I got home I drew a really hot bath and soaked for as long as the water was warm. Then I took some Ibuprofen and lazied around the house as much as I could. After the race I was asked if I was bitten by the running bug, and at that moment I felt like I had been there, done that. But as time has passed I actually think I have been bitten. I feel more proud of myself when my ankles aren't throbbing, and I think I could definitely be a part of something like this on a regular basis. And maybe I will. This could be the beginning of a wonderful adventure!

Fabulous Five

Fabulous Five
OK! So this is how this works...the first 5 people to respond to this post will receive something made by me for you. My choice. Made especially for you. Of course there are some restrictions and limitations:

1 I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!

2 What I create will be just for you.

3 It will be done sometime this year.

4 You have no clue what it will be... it may be a story. It may be poetry or an article on properly cleaning your face before a masque. I may draw or paint something. I may bake something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure. ;-)

5 I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch? The catch is that you must re post this on your own blog and offer the same to the first 5 people who do the same on their blog. The first 5 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they did will win a FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift by me!!Oh! And be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it!!

Talk Slowly

Being the fifth kid of seven, you learn to hold your own, and talking fast is essential if you want to get a word in edgewise. I have a natural talent for talking fast, but lately I have discovered that I need to tone it down a bit. My Miriam is such an awesome talker, she's fast like me and some of the phrases she says are comical genius. Tobie and Emma on the other hand seem to be having a difficult time keeping up with me and now they have suffered.


Tobie has been struggling with a stutter, which has increased since he started the 1st Grade. I have been thinking that there is stress from school that is causing it, which there may be because during the Christmas break he didn't have any stuttering, and then it started back up when school was back in. So I don't take FULL responsibility, but now I know how I have contributed. On Sunday I got a little insight as to how my fast talking is effecting him. He began to tell me a story about something that happened at school. He was stuttering on every single word and laughing in between because it was a funny story, and I couldn't understand one word of it. I did something that you should never do to a kid with a stutter, I cut him off and told him to calm down, think about his words and then start again slowly. I could tell immediately that I hurt his pride. I had embarrassed him, and he stopped talking all together. I began to apologize over and over, and asked him to start again. He refused and then said something that put things in a different perspective for me. He said, "How come I can't talk as fast as you, Mommy?". I looked at Theo, and he looked at me and said, "You do talk fast.". It had never occurred to me that my talking fast is what Tobie was trying to accomplish and by doing so was stressing him out and causing him to stutter.


Emma has a delay in her speech. She is 29 months, but has the speech ability of a 21 month old. She has been meeting with a Speech Therapy weekly for 4 weeks now and is slowly making progress. Lisa (Speech Therapist) comes every Wednesday after Miriam gets home from pre-school. Yesterday I discussed with Lisa my fast speech and she agreed that it makes it harder for Emma to know when one word ends and another begins. Miriam asked for some play-doh, but it came out like this, "canihavesomeorangeplaydoh". I understood what she wanted, but Lisa told me this is fast speech and it's hard for Emma to emulate her also.


We discussed my fast talking and Tobie's stuttering and I came to the conclusion that I need to start talking more slowly. This is really difficult for me, something that I am really going to have to be consciously aware of when talking around my kids. Hopefully I'll get the hang of it before Hannah starts trying to talk. I would feel really bad if 3 out of 4 had problems because I tend to talk to fast.