Fall is coming, Fall is coming!!!!

Hello again, I realize it's been some time again, but I can tell you where time has gone! The days and months seem to be going by so quickly. I mean just this month my babies turned 3 (August 17th) & 1 (August 6th)!! And today is my husband's birthday (he turned 29!!) so we've had a busy month of celebrating. Then to top it all off this Saturday we're having a birthday party for the kids (and my husband) with family and some friends. I'm so looking forward to it because this year the party is actually going to be at our house instead of somewhere else......this is huge for us! Typically we have so many family members coming we don't really have anywhere big enough to house everyone, but this time there are only going to be roughly 24-25 people so about half of what generally attends. So with the party right around the corner, my urge to get projects done around the house has moved up to full blown obsession! Since I've been terrible with the fitness part of my days, I'm desperately trying to off set that with minor tweaks to my eating habits, such as less sugars. Which in general is just an all around better idea for me, pregnant or not. I learned my lesson when I was pregnant with my son, I purchased things with no added sugars and just tried to avoid the bad sugars all together and gained a wonderful 22lbs! On the other hand, when I was pregnant the first time with my daughter I didn't watch the sugar hardly ever and gained a devastating 40lbs! Now it's interesting to look back and compare them because when I was pregnant the first time I really didn't feel like I had gained that much weight..................until I seen the pictures! YIKES!! Even more interesting, even with all the weight I gained with my daughter she only weighed 7lbs 10oz, with my son, he was 8lbs 6oz and I only gained 22lbs!?? Apparently my daughter took all the sweetness and left the worst of it for me to deal with post pregnancy! So now I'm just hoping to keep the sugars in check and I'm trying to expand my eating habits into more veggies that I really hadn't tried before nor had a taste for, such as peppers! I'm finding I really enjoy red peppers and cooking with them is great! Speaking of cooking......................

Since it is the hubby's birthday, I spent a good amount of time in my kitchen this weekend baking him a homemade carrot cake (his fav!). Little nervous about this baking adventure as I had never baked a carrot cake before and generally me + baking = DISASTER. Surprisingly, this went very well and it was completely edible! A win, win for me!! Beau said it tasted really good, so that is also a plus and he ate another piece of cake tonight so it must not have been too bad or he wouldn't have gone for seconds!

After spending so much time in my kitchen this weekend I found that certain areas aren't flowing very well. So tomorrow, I'm exercising my organizing skills and working on my mental health and trying whip my kitchen cabinets into a more functioning unit! Sadly, this whole "project" has me uber excited! So I dug out all my organizing bins, buckets, baskets and shelves to figure out how to incorporate them into my work areas. I'll empty all my shelves onto my counters and table and observe the damage (a wonderful tip I picked up from one of my frequent blog stops, IHeart Organizing................LOVE!!). After all this I'll begin putting things back away that are absolute necessities and pieces that are used on a daily basis, and work my way down. Things that aren't used, or I don't feel an absolute overwhelming love for or basically just don't fit will be tossed! As will any leftover organizing bins. I'm really just hoping to maximize the space I have rather than shoving things here and there and keeping non-pantry items in the pantry, etc. I will even be organizing my refrigerator (another idea/tip from IHeart Organizing..................seriously check out her blog, it's amazing!) Here is a picture of my wonderfully clean kitchen (I said in my last post I would provide an updated picture now that it is completely unpacked and put together, that is until tomorrow!)

See that beautiful wooden drying rack!! I've been looking for one of those literally for MONTHS!! Couldn't find one in good condition or within my budget, until a random trip to Family Dollar one day! Seriously, I paid $5 bucks for that mama jamma!! I love it! I give a it a big, "I"m so glad I found you" sigh whenever I'm doing dishes! (too much??)

So all those cabinets will be emptied and re-organized to hopefully better suit my everyday kitchen needs. It's basically one cabinet that NEVER stays organized no matter what I do and it's just ended up a hodge podge of this and that. That doesn't work for this gal! I'll be taking pictures to share with you through my adventure, but be prepared for the crap that will flowith from those cabinets!

To leave you with a smile here are a couple pics of my babies celebrating their birthdays with cupcakes!

Have you ever seen such brown eyes! I love these two more than I could ever express :)

And then, just some extra tug at your heart strings sweetness......a total Grace and daddy moment <3

I'm back already!

I know, back so soon you ask?! Why yes I am. I forgot how much I enjoyed blogging until I sat down and gave you all a semi-update on what's been going on in mi casa! So last time I updated you on the move....pretty exciting stuff huh!? I know, my life is pretty excellent. But just to give you an idea of the sorta mess that consumed us for a few days I'd like to share with you a couple pictures of our kitchen before any boxes were unpacked. Brace yourself.....it's scary! Picture quality isn't the greatest because I had to use my phone.....didn't know where my camera was at that moment.

Told you......scary stuff..............but wait here's one more............

Oh yes, this is what every room looked like for a few days. Seriously, EVERY room. We actually couldn't close our bedroom door for days! It was boxes, boxes, boxes. If I ever see another moving box it will be too soon. But after just one day of my slighty OCD personality here is what it looked like.......

aaaaahhhhhhhhhhh......already so much better!

I'll take pictures of what it looks like now that it's completely done and share with you all. Moving is so tedious and boring. Although I do like being able to purge and reorganize, but again it's so tedious. And I really was feeling pretty exhausted with the pregnancy and all so I was feeling pretty worthless for about a good week or so, but you must push on!

So with the move, the unpacking and the new pregnancy, my workouts were, um, well,...................honestly close to extinct. I actually went a few days without even thinking about them and one day while I was vacuuming, I literally stopped and thought, "oh s**t! I've completely forgot!" So I really dropped the ball at the end. But I'm hoping to get some things put together and get back into it. At least on a smaller scale with the pregnancy. I think I'm going to focus on core strength and stretching. Those two things will make labor (and the rest of my pregnancy) easier for my body.

Not a whole lot to say today, but I'll leave you with a picture of my favorite man in all his cuteness!

Nibbling on his first ear of corn! He was loving it! And so frustrated when I took it away and put him straight in the bath! This is going to be one easy kid to feed. All he wants to do is eat off your plate, whether it's safe for him to have or not.....God love him, he always tries to get it! Isn't he the cutest?!! And getting so big!

two months??!!! yikes!

Okay so not a full two months, but pretty close. I'm officially the worst blogger ever!! Geez, it's taking me a second to get back into the swing of talking to you all again! Sssssooooo................since the last post (please don't look at the date, just know it was some time ago!!) lots of changes for our family, but I think most have been good ones! The most important and exciting one......I'm preggers with wonderful baby number 3! I'm so excited and can't wait to see who are newest addition will be! This baby will be the tie breaker, we have mom and daughter and dad and son! One team is going to get an extra player! I actually found out I was pregnant about two days before our big move.....seriously, timing could've been a little better, but we were so excited I don't think we cared. And I mean timing in the fact that, I had big plans for moving furniture and heavy lifting, all my big ideas and super organized moving plans.......right out the window with each positive pregnancy test (I ended up taking four total, never can be too safe!)

The big move from Lewisburg to the Parkersburg area happened on June 14th (so long ago, I know!) It actually went pretty smoothly considering the amount of "stuff" our family has. I was blessed enough to have my wonderful dad and awesome brother in law (Lance) come into town and help load the truck while the hubs was off taking the board exam in Charleston! I must take the next few lines here and give a VERY big shout out and HUGE, HUGE thank you to my dad and Lance because they worked their butts off. They were fantastic. They lifted, moved, grunted, pitted out shirts and smiled the whole time. Several times throughout the day I thought to myself, "these guys are the greatest!" And when I say they worked their butts off, that's nothing short of an understatement. Let me give you a "brief" run down of the moving situation....I rented a 24 foot truck, my dad brought a huge diesel truck and I of course, still had the mini van. I packed the mini van with the essentials of snacks, clothes, toiletries, paper products, bedding, personal items (passports, social security cards, etc), the kids (obviously!!), toys, and the dog. In the bed of my dad's truck, Beau's three bicycles, washer, dryer and our deep freezer (still full of frozen goods). Then in the cab of the truck other random items and boxes. Our 24 foot truck shrank considerably once we began loading it. There were literally boxes/rubber maid containers stacked from floor to ceiling in that truck with odds and ends items filling the awkward holes. We had that whole truck loaded in less than 3 hours, but when we turned around after the truck was full, there was still quite a bit of stuff waiting in a large heap in our living room, plus all the beds................not good. We were feeling a little defeated and this is when the day started to get very long. Quick thinking, I called U-Haul and rented a 5x8 trailer to hook up to my dad's truck....perfect! This is going to be great. So we got all the beds squeezed onto the back of the rental truck and closed the door. Then we started packing the U-Haul, it was loaded down and ready to go, but....................there was STILL more stuff. My dad, being the laid back guy that he is casually says, 'you're not going to make it! We'll have to make another trip." NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! I was so bummed. It was a three hour drive from Lewisburg to Parkersburg, which meant we'd have to drive there unload the U-Haul and dad's truck and drive BACK to Lewisburg the next morning, get the stuff and DRIVE BACK to Parkersburg! UGH, what a pain! Thankfully during this heart wrenching moment my children were safely in the care of my BFF Nicole who so courageously and thoughtfully volunteered to watch my two kids along with her 2 year old while I packed the truck.......great woman (maybe slightly crazy for volunteering for such a daunting task all on her own since she would be moving just two days after us, to Parkersburg, thankfully). So admitting defeat, we load up the vehicles and head out of town. I picked up the kids first, of course and we stopped and got lunch because by this time is almost 3pm and none of has eaten since 8:45am-ish. We were hungry, not a lot of talking during our meal, just a slight degree of inhaling what food we had in front of us!

Got to Parkersburg area right around 6pm. I don't even dare start unloading that truck that night, no way! We unload the beds and that was it. Get them all set up in the rooms and I realize the only "bedding" I put in the van was pillows......no sheets, no blankets....nada! Smack hand to forehead now genius! I DID NOT want to get back in my car to go to the store, especially Walmart. I hate that place, but I did because my babies can't sleep on beds with no sheets or pillows. As Lance is setting up the beds (I told you, these guys were better than any moving company!) my dad graciously volunteers to drive back to Lewisburg that night, load the truck and then drive back to the new house the next morning. I tell him he doesn't have to do that and to just get some sleep tonight and we'll go tomorrow. Too late, his mind is made up and he got in the truck and headed out. (*side note: I learned during this move that personality wise, I'm SSOO similar to my dad. He gets his mind made up to have something done and he does it and he won't stop thinking about it or working on it until it's done. He's a thinker and a planner and very much a "do-it-yourselfer"........just like his little girl!!). My dad got back to the house around 10am the next morning and then he and Beau busted their butts all day unpacking the truck while I started unloading boxes inside. My dad stayed until everything was unloaded and helped me return the rental truck and U-Haul that same day even though they weren't due back until the next day!

Once the truck was unloaded, it only took us a couple days to have the whole upstairs of our house unpacked and set up. The basement took some time because we did more purging as we unpacked down there. There is still so much I want to get done. Small organizing projects, etc that have taken a backseat right now because this first trimester is kicking my butt right into exhaustion by evening time. I was the same way with the other two also, so I'm hoping in the next few weeks that changes and I can get back to feeling a little more motivated. I'm currently 10 weeks pregnant and I'm already starting to feel a little better each day. Not as tired when I wake up, not practically passing out and drooling in my husbands recliner when the kids are down for naps, you know typical pregnancy stuff!!

I'll post before and after pictures of some of the areas of the house to give you a general idea of what chaos we lived in for a few days. But big things coming up for the family......my baby boy turns 1 in just a few weeks!!!! Then 11 days later my baby girl turns 3!!!! Lots of celebrating to do with my little ones so the party planning is starting as we actually get to have the birthday party at our house this year!! Plus the hubs started his 3rd year of medical school and is currently in his family medicine rotation and it seems to be going well. I have my first ultrasound on July 27th so I'll get to see the baby and hear their heartbeat which is always so exciting and a huge relief to know that things are going well.

But I think for tonight I'll close it up here and wish you all a happy friday and a wonderful weekend! And thanks for anyone who has continuously checked back for updates. I'll talk to you soon, heck maybe even tomorrow....haha!

Long time no.......see?

I apologize for the neglect this poor blog has suffered the last couple weeks. We got home from visiting family on the 16th and it took a couple days to unpack and get back into the swing of things again. It was kinda strange unpacking knowing that I'm going to have to turn around and re-pack everything in just a few short weeks. To be honest with you, workouts have been sporadic so I'll apologize to you for not being as consistent as I know I should be or that I originally set out to be. I'm disappointed in myself a little for letting it get away from me. That wasn't my intention, so each day now, I'll be getting back at it pretty intensely again and since I missed days during the week, I made them up this weekend.


Oh before I tell you about today's workout and I have to tell you, so far to date one of the best and most memorable moments throughout this whole process was with my daughter yesterday on our family walk. Any day that it's nice out and not raining, we try to take a family walk after dinner. Henry's in the jogging stroller, Grace is walking between Beau and I and even Crash accompanies us almost every time. (He's currently recovering from an injured foot, so we're letting him take it easy!) Yesterday Beau pushed Henry and I walked with Grace.....sorta. Just barely into our walk she decided that she wanted us to run so she and I took off ahead of Beau. She was just going as fast as her little legs could carry her, pumping her arms (in a very girly fashion) and giggling the whole time because we were running together. Well, our run ended up lasting pretty much the entire "walk" and it was fantastic. There was one point we were running together and talking; I mean actually having a conversation! It was incredible that she's at an age now that the dialogue between us is meaningful. I thought to myself, "this is the greatest thing we've done" and I really hope to do that again with her some time. Of all the workouts I've done, those moments with her, were my absolute favorite!!


...............today's workout...............not quite so meaningful or memorable! Just back to the grind of sweating my butt off and panting like a dog in the heat that consumes my living room! For example, this morning we woke up, it was about 65 degrees outside, but in my living room it was 75! My heat has been turned off since last week.....bbbbooooo to the hotness being inside. So today I did a rotation of my favs to get my spirits back up and into a good daily workout routine again. I did jump squats, jump rope, push ups, lunges and bicep curls. My butt was burning me something fierce while I cooked dinner tonight!! (After re-reading that sentence, that could really be taken out of context and interpreted SO many ways!) The jump rope was such a great addition and I am so thankful that Beau found the ones that he did. They also came with a poster of different types of jumps you can do and I was looking those over yesterday and I think I'm going to give a couple a shot tomorrow and see how it goes. Push ups are coming along. For some reason today my dog felt it was necessary to lay his head right in front of my face and breathe on me for each push up.....talk about motivation to push yourself back up again. Lunges were great......lots of cringing for those because I did jump squats first and then went right into my lunges. I do them the length of my living/dining room, so down and back counts as 1 and I do a minimum of 3 sets. I pushed it out to 5 one day and then laid on the floor wishing someone would come and cut my legs off. I should say though, that I see and feel a big difference in my lunges since I started this. My minimum 3 sets is almost not enough now and that made me feel really good today. I found myself today doing a lot of 'ow, ow ow's' and 'oh goodness'es on my very last few coming back up the living room. My bicep curls were good, did the most I've ever done today. Minus the jello arms I had afterwards, it felt really good.


I was also fortunate enough today that both kids napped at the same time today (woohoo!) so that's when I did my workout and I always try to do my jump roping when they're both napping because I go out to the garage or patio and I don't want to leave them inside alone for any length of time. Especially Henry, he's crawling EVERYWHERE and trying to pull himself up on EVERYTHING so he definitely can't be left alone for any amount of time because my house is starting to become filled with boxes....no further explanation needed!


I tried to go to the bodyrock website today to get some new workouts for motivation and a little pick me to pull me out of my semi-workout depression, but for some reason my computer runs SO SLOW with that website and randomly kicks me off the internet when I'm trying to watch a video; if I'm fortunate enough to get that far! So I'll ask my dear, supportive husband if I can borrow his computer one evening after dinner and sit down and find 5-10 workouts that I want to do and that way and I can mix things up a bit. I feel that I hit the workout wall because I was getting bored with my workouts and I have so much trouble with that site, honestly, I got very discouraged for some reason. But I'm getting back at it again, just in time for our move, which I'm wishing was over already. I'm anxious to get into the new house with the yard and have some much needed family time with my husband and not have to be watching the clock wondering when he has to get back to school! With that said, obviously the next few weeks are extremely busy for us and I look for our patience to run a little thin just over frustration with so much going on, but thankfully I've got an excellent team mate and we'll get through it all and have a big sigh of relief when it's over.


Before I go I wanted to ask you guys for some workout ideas or exercises that you've found that you really enjoy that maybe I could start implementing into my routines as well. I'm really open to suggestions and new ideas so if you have them I'd love to hear them.


Thanks for stopping by :)

workouts & family time

Hello again! The kids and I are visiting in Ohio until Monday....we got here last Thursday so this visit is a longer one. To be completely, honest I miss home :(  I miss our routine and sleeping next to my husband! The kids are doing really well surprisingly, although my poor Henry has a pretty terrible cough that he's currently trying to overcome and I'm praying that the end is very near!

So I've been doing my workouts during my visit and I tell ya it's not hard completing my workouts, but I feel weird doing them at someone else's home?!! Is that strange? I feel a lot more self aware than I do when I'm at home! Plus, my aunt has two German shepards who aren't use to kids (but, have been SO great with them) nor are they use to seeing someone working out so the workouts have been cautious ones some days and just entertaining for the most part. The kids and I are camping out in my aunt's finished basement that has turned out to be very accomodating so I have been trying to do my workouts there, but her basement ceiling is maybe six and a half feet tall! Makes for an interesting twist when I'm six foot!! I was using my tubing tonight doing some bicep and tricep work and realized I can't extend my arm above my head for tricep extensions!! So right off the bat, did one tricep extension, and man I pulled that tubing up and punched my fist right into the ceiling.....uh OUCH!! No damage was done to the ceiling, but I can't say the same for my fist or my pride! Some of my exercises are done in the laundry room....there is an unfinished ceiling with exposed beams, so I can move more safely there!! However, the doorway to the laundry room is LESS THAN six feet tall! Needless to say, numerous times I have walked straight into the top of the doorway instantly coming out the other side grabbing my head and mumbling some very un-motherly four letter words!!! But despite low ceilings and even lower doorways, my workouts are getting done, just with a few extra bumps and bruises along the way!

Tonight my workout was squats, push-ups and bicep curls. I unfortunately forgot my Gymboss in WV so I'm a little lost without my beeps to let me know when to switch exercises! I didn't realize how dependent I had become of that, but I miss it :( So I wanted to rotate through those three exercises for 10 mins or until I thought I was going to die....which turned out to be about the same! Typically my workouts are very verbal. I talk to myself CONSTANTLY, but being in my aunt's basement, Henry is sleeping in the same room as my exercising....interesting! But leave it to me, if I want to complain about anything I found a way to do it, I do part of my exercises in the living room and when I move to the laundry room, that's when all my panting and grumbling begin! It has been a pretty interesting few days between smacking my head on the doorway and not being able to whine out loud during my workouts, I think it's toughing me up a little bit! Teaching me to shut up and get it done, something I'm not always so great at......just ask my husband! I can have a smart ass, sarcastic, back handed comment for just about anything anyone says. Anyway, I wanted to do some jump rope, but my stupid foot still isn't back to 100% and I don't have my ankle brace with me. I miss doing my jump squats and jump rope. Those are probably my two favorite exercises of all of them. I like them because I don't feel like it's exercise when I'm doing them, so I'd do them all day!! My squats tonight felt great, my push ups were a little wobbley by the end and some what ugly! But I'm doing them (push ups) again tomorrow because as crazy as it sounds, they're also slowly making there way up my list to a personal favorite. Before you know it, I'll be loving burpees!! HA! We'll see about that.

Oh and since my last post was pretty much a rant about how much I disliked Parkersburg, I'd like to let you know I FOUND A PLACE!!! Woohoo!! Such a relief, it's actually in Belpre, Ohio but it is perfect for us and I'm SO looking forward to getting there!! It's a ranch style, with a finished basement, fenced in yard, attached garage, 6BR, 2.5 baths, plenty of space and I can keep my dog!! To look at it from the outside you'd think "no way is all that in that house!" But it is and my landlords sound really awesome, making it, thus far, perfect!!

So stayed tuned for more, of what I'm sure will be an interesting rest of the week!!

Hitting the road!

Hey everyone, I just wanted to drop a quick note that it might be a few days before my next post. The kids and I are heading to Ohio tomorrow morning and we'll be staying with family so depending on computer access my blogging could be limited :( But have no fear, I have packed my jump rope, tubing and bands so I can still do my workouts even though I'm not in my own home. So tormorrow we'll be traveling the majority of the day, Friday is my dad's retirement party and my brother will be home, Saturday I could be going back to Parkersburg (more on that in a minute), Sunday is Mother's Day, Monday I'm going to try to spend the day with the in-laws so they can see the kids and catch up with them, Tuesday and a few other days are open thus far, but we'll see what happens once we get into town.

So tomorrow I was suppose to have an appointment to see a possible rental for us next year. I called and made the appointment LAST Thursday. I called today to get the address and confirm and the lady told me that they rented it to someone else on Monday!!! What the heck??? I had an appointment and then you didn't even call me to let me know?! Is it just me or is that overly tacky and rude? So right now I'm not in a good mood. I go from insanely frustrated to extremely worried and scared that we might not find something therefore leaving us no option, but to have my husband go to Parkersburg without us for a while and the kids and I go to Ohio with family until we can find something :( I am trying everything in my power to keep that from happening, but right now to say that I STRONGLY dislike Parkersburg would be a complete understatement. And of course to make everything SO much better Henry isn't sleeping well and is waking up already!! Every time we plan a trip home, the night before we leave he sleeps terrible and is up numerous times because he knows I have to get up early and drive all day! I tell ya, I'm having one of those days when it hits the fan it hits hard! Oh even better.....now Grace is crying also! This is turning out to be a swell evening!!! Maybe I should've saved my workout for tonight so I could get out all my frustrations and work through the emotional rollcoaster that has been my evening. So thanks for letting my vent and thanks for actually reading the entire blog!! I guess not everyday can be the best day :-/ but when you're down, the only way to go is up so here's to praying that tomorrow is so much better than today <3

Hot day makes for a hot workout!

Hey I'm getting my blog done early today!!  YAY for me :) It's only 1:00pm and so far to day I have completed the following since we all woke up around 8:15am:

breakfast
kids up & dressed
all beds made
dog fed & put out
oil changed in the van
grocery shopping done
lunch
dinner laid out
workout completed :)

and I'll be putting the kids down for their nap as soon as I'm done telling you about my workout! I also dropped off a case of water bottles to my husband at his school. Apparently I was feeling pretty bad ass since I thought I'd be nice and take the bottles up to his room so I carried my (approximately 25lbs) son in one arm and 24 water bottles under the other while letting my daughter walk in front of me! Everything was going very well until I got to the door of the building and my daughter isn't strong enough to open the door.....interesting! So I sat the water bottles done, opened the door and then quickly grabbed the case of water while trying to get through the door before it shut! Henry thought it was hysterical! But, ta-da! I did it :) Got to the room, put both the bottles and my son down and my arms were pretty shaky. Just a little insight into the degree of my stubbornness for those who didn't already know!

So today is a pretty warm day; sunny and in the mid-upper 70's.....and you won't catch me complaining one bit! I love the warm weather and sunshine! Our house is pretty warm so my workout was a hot one. I let Grace turn my iPod onto for my workout and she did really great: she plugged it into the speakers and turned it on, but much to my surprise she also had cranked the volume ALL the way up so as I'm finishing my stretching, 'Holla Back Girl' came screaming through my living room at an insanely loud volume! It scared the daylights out of her...she jumped and ran away a little scared with her hands over her ears. I'll admit, it scared me too! As for the workout, today I completed two sets of: squats, lunges, push ups, flutter kicks, toe touches, and jump rope. I wanted to do some jump squats, but the ankle/foot was still a little tender so the last thing I wanted to do was re-injure it. This workout felt so great and I was so happy I did it because I had kinda been feeling like a workout slacker! Today made up for that. My push ups were a little bit of a struggle today. I hadn't done any in a while, but that might have been a good thing because at times my foot hurt a little when I was doing them. So I did them the girly way and just added 5 more to the set :( I really look forward to the day when I can just hammer out a really awesome set of push ups. So I'll continue feeling like a wimp while I complete some sets on my knees :( I'm hoping to spend some time on the bodyrock website tonight and look into some new workouts; so fingers crossed that my computer isn't running ridiculously slow.

That's it for today. Workout was pretty self explanatory. I'll be attempting to get more packed and I'll finish putting away the rest of the laundry because currently my laundry baskets are empty!!!!!!!!!!! Take notes because the possibility of that every happening again are, um..........very, very slim :)