Gearing up for the New Year

This has been a rough week.  This month has been difficult all together.  Wednesday afternoon my brother and sister came over and they were supposed to stay the day and we were going to play games, and watch movies and hang out.  Shortly after they arrived we started getting text messages from mom about grandma.  She had a brain hemorrhage and was dying.  We decided to all head over to grandma's house.  I brought a movie for the kids, and we said our goodbyes.  I was able to talk to her and tell her some of my memories at her house from when I was younger.  She couldn't move but she started crying when I was talking to her.  I was crying too.  Shortly after I talked to her, she passed away.  It was a very emotional afternoon.  Couple that with my older sister talking about her pregnancy most of the time and I was an emotional wreak.  I really tried to not show any negative emotion when she was talking about her pregnancy but it just brought back all the feelings of disappointment and sorrow from losing my own pregnancy.  It was the perfect timing, we were going to be pregnant together, our kids were going to grow up together being the same age, I would be through with the worst part of my morning sickness by now.  It was tough.  Matt came home from work early to pick up the kids from my grandparent's house so I could stay a little longer.  I am sad about losing my grandma.  It is the first person in my life who has been close to me who has died.  It was time for her to go though.  She had been suffering from dementia and the aftermath of some major strokes for about 10 years.  She just kept getting worse and worse, and now she is no longer in pain.  And while I am saddened about losing grandma, I know she is in a better place now, I think the deeper pain is in seeing how grief stricken my own mom and my grandpa are.

Thinking about the new year.  I have hashed out a plan.  I am taking all the parts and all my experience over the past three years and putting them together this year to make a livable and workable plan.  It's not going to be easy.  Easy is not the goal.  It is supposed to break my bad habits such as emotional eating, snacking too much, binging on sugar, getting out of control, being on plan and off plan and on plan and off plan, and cycling up and down.  It should help me stabilize my eating.  So there is no on and off, there is just the eating plan and trying to be my best.  I am going to drink Shakeology for lunch every day.  I hate making lunch, and I can never seem to eat something that is healthy and fills me up.  I remember really liking shakeology when I tried it that one month, so that has been added to my daily routine for 2016.  I am going to eat similar to the Whole 30 but not so strict, in that my mayo is not going to be home made, I can have honey in my meals, I am allowed to have a treat on special event days such as holidays and birthdays.  Eating out I am just going to get the healthiest yummy thing I can find.  I am going to stay away from sugar as much as possible.  No sugary treats except on special occasions.  I have got to break the grip sugar has on me.  No soda pop.  Matt bought me a soda stream for Christmas!  I have come to realize that I really just crave the bubbles more than I actually crave the soda now.  So I have my soda stream and I'm just going to drink carbonated water when I want a soda.  I also have some of the La Cruix carbonated and flavored water.  That will help too.  Breakfast is going to be some variety of eggs, vegetables and a healthy fat like avocado or macadamia nuts.  It is one of my favorite breakfasts.  I usually do hash browns for my vegetables.  A mix of potato and sweet potato.  Matt bought me a grater attachment for my kitchen aide so I can quickly shred my potatoes!   I think I am ready.  I know it isn't going to be easy, but it's necessary. 

Merry Christmas

We had the best Christmas this year that we have ever had together as a family.  We stayed home for the first time this year.  The kids had a blast.  We took several breaks for breakfast and lunch and just to let the kids hang out and play with what they got.  Lily really enjoyed getting her doctors kit and play tool set.  Those are two things she really wanted and we just hung out for a while after she opened them to allow her time to enjoy the gift.  We tried to remind them throughout the day of the true meaning of Christmas and teach them why we give gifts at Christmas time. 

Matt bought Lily an art set because she loves to draw.  He is teaching her about pastels and charcoal... she looks like she's asleep!  She had a hard time paying attention as she just wanted to grab the colors and jump right in.

Cinderella Crown for my little Princess. 

My husband loves maps.  This one is magnetic and came with several magnet pins.  The present to his right (the giant one) is the kitchen we bought for the kids.  we had to put it together (and by we I mean me) and then I wrapped it.  We made the kids wait until the very end to open it.  They loved it and were so excited when they found out what it was.

Got her tool kit

Her new Super spinny dress and she is making bead necklaces.

We watched Inside Out in the afternoon.  The kids loved it.  I thought it was really clever and funny.  Very well done.  So we had a great Christmas. 

I've been thinking about the new year and what I want to accomplish next year.  My biggest goal I want to accomplish next year is to get my eating under control permanently and get rid of bad habits and make new long lasting good habits.  So I've decided to do a year of Whole 30.  It's not going to be super strict, I don't think I cold do that.  So basically when I am at home and on every normal day I am going to do Whole 30.  When we go out to eat I am going to focus on picking something healthy off the menu and eating a normal sized portion.  For Birthdays I can have a slice of cake to participate in the festivities.  For Holidays I can have a free meal especially if we are eating at family's house.  But every other day, I am going to adhere as closely as I can to the Whole 30 guidelines.  Hopefully after one year, I will get into a routine that I can keep going.  Hopefully after a year I will have squashed some bad habits.  I've tried to do moderation, but I'm not the kind of person who can control myself easily around food.  The only thing that I have done this past year that really made any difference in the way I felt and the way I ate and my moods, and energy levels and my attitude was the Whole 30.  So I've got until January first to prepare myself.

Life Goes On

Lily turned five this week.  The weekend was all about her birthday party and making sure she had  a great party and birthday.  It was actually quite therapeutic for me.  I spent a lot of time decorating with Lily.  She had a blast decorating and when I was done she kept putting streamers up on the walls by herself.  We had wall decorations, streamers, ceiling hangers, and one of those giant wall coverings.  The theme was princesses.  Lily is all about princesses this year.  She wanted a castle cake with princesses on it.  One of her presents (her first present) was a pack of magic clip princesses.  And we put them on the cake.  If you remember my disaster trying to make Lily's cake last year, you will understand why there was no way I was going to try to make a castle cake.  I bought it at a bakery.  It tasted so yummy and looked amazing.  Lily loved it.

I also planned four games for her party.  She just had family over but they all got into it.  We had them draw a dragon and then Lily picked the one she liked best.  We had a quiz about Lily and whoever got the most questions right won the game.  Lily asked the questions and then provided the answers.  Then we had a castle building competition with blocks.  I had two boxes with identical blocks and we had team Chloe and Team Lily.  There were three challenges: fastest castle built, tallest castle, and best moat.  Everyone was involved and had a great time.  The last game I was pretty proud of.  I had a bell you can ding and I split everyone up into two teams and two people would come up at a time and I would ask them a question and they would have to answer with the name of the princess.  The first person to ding the bell and say the name of the princess won a point for their team.  I called the game "name that princess" and I thought up all the questions myself!  It was lots of fun.  Some of the questions were:
Which Princess lives in France?
Which Princess falls in love with two men?
Who is the fairest one of all?
Which princess is friends with mice?
Which princess has a tiger for a pet?
Which princess marries Prince Phillip?
Which princess has magical hair?

So we all had a good time.  Now I have to start planning Chloe's birthday.  She is into Cinderella, so her theme is going to be Cinderella.

Last night I finished Lily's stocking, or rather, my Mom finished Lily's stocking.  I can't sew.  I helped iron... and Made the charms. 

So Yea!  It's all done with 8 days to spare.  It's absolutely beautiful.  But there is no rest for the weary.  I need to get started on Chloe's stocking so it will be ready for next year and  then I will finally be all caught up.  For now....

With it being the holidays, I have not  been eating well.  Too many treats around.  Birthday cake, toffee, cheesy popcorn, cookies, party food.  Bleh.  I'm going to have a lot of work to do to lose the holiday weight when it's all said and done.  But interestingly enough, I seem to have lost my taste for soda.  I'm not sure how it happened.  Somewhere between morning sickness and miscarriage I lost my taste for diet pepsi and I've just been drinking Perrier.  Bubbly water.  I'm drinking more water than ever before each day, and willingly.  Because I want to.  I don't know how it happened but one step in the right direction is still a step in the right direction.  It is one piece of the puzzle, and a problem I thought I would never solve.  I thought I would never get off of diet pepsi, and yet here I am.  No desire to drink it.  And I have a giant case in the garage, but I keep choosing Perrier instead of pop. 

I'm doing better emotionally but I'm very tired.  Part of it is my eating habits at the moment, but I think a big part of it is just recovering, and all the blood loss.  I still have to go into the doctor for blood draws (I sure hope the insurance will help pay for all the lab work my doctor is requesting), plus the kids are waking up a lot at night with leg aches.  Poor Chloe had terrible leg aches last night. And so life goes on.  I hope all of you are enjoying the holidays and spending lots of time with family and building lasting relationships. Christmas is next week!

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly

Well I guess I will just go in that exact order.  First for the good.  I finally finished all the cross stitching and back stitching for Lily's stocking! 

I'm going to the fabric store today with my mom to get the lining and the backing so we can sew it all up.  We probably won't get around to actually sewing it until sometime next week since this weekend I have two birthday parties and a Christmas party on the schedule.  We are celebrating Lily's birthday on Saturday.  She is turning 5!  She is super excited.  We ordered her a castle cake and bought her some princesses she has been asking for and we will put them on the cake so she will have a princess castle.

I guess now it's time for the bad.  Well let's just cut right to it then.  I had a miscarriage last weekend.  It was absolutely the most miserable and horrifying weekend of my life.  I have been pretty fortunate all my life.  No one that I am close to has died.  All four of my grandparents are still alive, both my parents, all my siblings, I've never had any friends die.  I have been fortunate up to this point.  But now I can no longer say I've been untouched by death.  I was pretty early in my pregnancy, I hadn't even announced it on the blog.  I was debating whether or not to even say anything on the blog, but then I decided that my blog is about real life, and this is a part of life.  Also, how am I going to write anything without mentioning how I really feel inside and without writing about what I am really going through.  I was 9 weeks along, and I was feeling pretty good.  My morning sickness which usually hits around 6 weeks didn't hit until 8 weeks, and was more mild in week 8 than what is normal for me.  I suppose now I know why.  I've heard that if you don't get morning sickness it can be a bad sign.  I know all the statistics, I know how 1/3 of pregnancies end up in miscarriage, how 70% of miscarriages are due to chromosomal defects, how each miscarriage is usually an isolated event.  However, it doesn't lessen the pain of the loss.  We were very excited to be expecting our third child.  The baby would have been born at the beginning of July, and I would have had all July to recover before Lily went back to school.  The kids were super excited.  Lily really wanted a little brother.  When we told them the baby died, Lily cried and was really upset for a little while.  They seem to be doing better now, secure in the fact that we can try again later.  In fact, Chloe keeps telling me "it's ok mommy you don't have to be sad, you can have another baby in your tummy."  It's super cute.  Now that I'm recovering, my emotions are settling a little bit.  I'm trying to focus on the children that I have and the hope for the future, instead of thinking about the past.  The evening is the hardest time.  When I'm lying in bed trying to fall asleep is when I tend to think about it the most. 

And now for the ugly.  With the holidays and the stress I've been under, My weight has increased to 161.8.  Actually I'm surprised it's not higher.  But I'm not happy to be in the 160s again.  That's a number I vowed to never see again.  I need to start paying more attention to what I'm eating and make healthier choices.  Also, since I am no longer pregnant I'm asking for a new exercise program called Cize.  It's from beachbody, and it's a dancing exercise program.  It looks like a lot of fun, especially considering how much I like Zumba.  It's a high intense program like Turbo Fire and you can't do something like that when pregnant. 


Photo from Amazon

I want the delux kit since it comes with two extra DVDs. 

Well I guess that is all the news.  I'm off to start the day.