Few pictures....this was when we went swimming recently.  Somehow B managed to escape the camera.

JB loves his little life jacket.  The tag says 'infant' but he still insists he can wear it.  All the boys still wear swim shirts, even though we were inside. Jbird loves to wear his big mask, instead of goggles.  They just crack me up.

Another weekend of no plans!  Yay.  Just might hunker down under the blanket and read some books.  I have been slow to blog because it just seems like we don't have anything going on these days.  I know it will pick up once the snow starts to melt!

The week is gone....Not sure where it went.  I was not crazy busy, but just seems since I am working out, it is taking up more of my day than I anticipated.  Not a lot going on, just another short post.

Things are still going well with workouts.  I will weigh in on Sunday and am anticipating a few pounds gone.  My goal is 2 per week, so hoping for 4 since I have not weighed in for the last two weeks.  My body is acclimating and I am finding that the circuits are a little easier each day.  Every year, around St. Patrick's Day, there is a Run to the Pub race.  There is a 10k and half marathon.  Last year my trainer did the 10 k (6 miles) and is wanting to do it again.  She and I are gonna start training for it.  As of right now, the boys have ski lessons that day, but hoping to juggle schedules to be able to participate.  All runners/walkers load buses and get dropped outside of town and have to run back.  At the end of the race everyone gets a beer.  Yuck.  I can't imagine drinking a beer in the best of circumstances, but after you have run 6 or 13 miles?  I am just excited to have something tangible to work towards.

Last weekend we got a hotel room for the night.  The boys had a great time.  One family joined us for swimming that night and then a different family for swimming that morning.  I think in all, they were in the pool for close to 8 hours.  The hotel had a really nice breakfast.  Although, with all the exercising I am doing, it is getting harder to sacrifice calories.  The biscuits and gravy were good, but not worth 880 calories.

B continues with robotics and loves it.  Other than that, we have no other extra curricular activities and I am loving all the down time!

Another quiet weekend.  Maybe I can make some headway on a few books!

I am loving my workouts.  I met with my trainer on Monday.  We did a few basic strength/fitness tests.  I did wall sits, crunches, push ups and a plank.  It was awesome having her beside me, pushing me.  For example when I did the plank (which is horizontal to floor, with your toes and forearms on the ground and you hold that position) I wanted to drop at 35 seconds, but she pushed me to 1:02!

She worked out along side me on Tues, Wed and Fri.  She has set up 3 circuits for now.  One is lower body (which we used nothing by body weight), biceps/triceps/pecs and the third is back and shoulders.  We also do ab work every day and a warm up and then cardio.  I have been sore, but honestly, I think she has been just as sore. (She is just getting started and has not worked out much since a shoulder injury several months ago.)  It is a great feeling to push yourself to exhaustion and you have nothing else to give.

Yesterday I was solo at the gym.  As I did my cardio, I got to talking with a man who I see there a lot.  He has coached track for 35 years.  He was giving me all kinds of pointers.  He would make his students lay on their back with books on their stomach.  Then they would have to breath and make books go up and down.  This is to train them to breath all the way down to their stomach, instead of the shallow breaths.  He would have his runners hold marshmallows, not squeeze them.  It creates so much tension in the neck and shoulders with fists clenched and arm swing too big.  Amazing the difference it also makes when you open up your chest and run with proper posture.

I have also found an app (myfitnesspal.com) that allows you to put in exercise and food and it will track all of the calories, carbs, etc and let you know how much more calories you need to burn to stay on target!  My favorite food thus far is a salad (I know, pick your jaw up off the floor).  Just plain red leaf lettuce, a few almond slivers, hemp hearts, low fat homemade croutons and chipotle ranch yogurt dressing.  I have been baking broccoli lately and the boys like it.  Well, instead of baking for 15 minutes, I baked it for 30 and loved it.  Nice and crunchy, like my kale chips!

I just love the gym.  The trainer, the track guy and the gym owner have been conferring together on a plan for me.  I have my own personal cheering squad there!  JB has gone with me a few days and he rocks.  He sits in the far back corner watching a movie.  People don't even know he is there until we get ready to leave.

Today is the end of the quarter at school.  So we are going to get a hotel room tonight and let the boys swim.  I am looking forward to the hot tub!  Hope to get some pictures and of course try out the workout room.  Gotta burn off my biscuits and gravy that I will treat myself to tomorrow!!!!!

A few pictures....
Recently a climbing boulder was put in at one of our favorite neighborhood parks.  It was warm enough to give it a shot, so Jbird, JB and I set out.....
Of course Jbird scaled it in no time.  This gives you an idea of the size.  That is their new elementary school in the background.

JB was very scared to try it.  I always watch it when older brothers lovingly come behind him and encourage
him.  Jbird was telling him where to put his hands and feet.

 
And they both conquered!

• Over the Christmas break we had the privilege of taking care of the stick bugs from JB's preschool class.  Very interesting creatures.  I guess I was a little surprised to see how much they really looked like sticks.  There are probably 8 of them in the aquarium.  Every other day we would feed them a piece of lettuce.  There was a flood light that stayed on top of them and then we had to spritz them with water several times a day.  Pretty low key.  Well, one day I asked JB to give them a piece of lettuce.  Did not think anything of it.  About 5 minutes later Jbird happened to go upstairs (where the bugs were) and announced that the carpet was smoking.  Yes, when JB fed the bugs, instead of just lifting up a corner of the lid and dropping lettuce in, he took the flood light off and place it, bulb down, on the carpet.  It burned all the way down past the carpet pad.  Within probably 5 more minutes my guess the smoke alarms would be going off and we would have been calling 911.

At one point during their stay I was certain that we had killed several of them.  They would not move for long, very long periods of time.  They liked to hang upside on the top, like this little dude.


One more picture....just liked the colors and the mountains.  We have been 45 all week and very little snow predicted for the next week.  Really warm for January.

Another very short check in.....

On Saturday JR headed up to the ski hill with the older two.  It was going to be the first outing of the season.  (They start lessons, along with JB, late February.)  It took longer to get out the door and a few unintended stops, but they finally made it.  They went to the ticket counter and as JR was grabbing his credit card to pay for the tickets, he was told the resort was closing because of high winds.  Take a look at the video that someone captured of those winds....
www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=712579838775110
((not sure if the video will link up..if not, copy and paste the above...it is crazy.  So glad my boys were not on a chair lift when this hit)
I was somewhat frustrated with how long it took them to get to the resort, but turns out, that the timing was perfect.  Once tickets are bought, no refunds are given.  We were about 30 seconds from not getting a refund.  Oh well, will maybe try next weekend.

As you can tell from the lack of posts, not much has been going on or I just have not felt like posting anything.  I know there are several pictures on my camera I need to download, but I am tucked in bed under my electric blanket and my camera is not close by.   Seems like as winter wears on, I find I spend more time under the blankets!

I meet with my 'personal trainer' tomorrow to do my fitness test.  Since she is not certified yet, she said she wants to use me as her guinea pig.  She is okay with my bringing JB too, if I need to.  Would be nice if I could do a few workouts with him with me, then the time he is at school, I could do other things, like curl up under my blanket with a book!  On Friday we set a first goal of 24 pounds by mid April.  It seems like a huge goal, but one I am committed to pushing towards.  She is setting up a circuit program for me and from the sounds of it, she will try to work out along side me a few days a week.

Off to bed!

I am a little behind here!  Guess just got caught up in life!

We had a quiet New Years Eve.  The younger two were out by 11 and my night owl (B) probably stayed up later than any of us.  On New Years Day we went to some friends house.  They had a few horses, so we tied up a sled to one of the horses and gave the boys a ride around the pasture.  They really enjoyed it.  Because the horse kicked up snow, they had to ride backwards, which added to the fun.

The boys went back to school on Thursday, January 2nd.  Ugh!  I guess given that Christmas was on Wednesday, it threw everything off.  From what a teacher told me, our school district does everything possible to avoid going to school the 2nd week of June.  I have always been in favor of starting later in Aug and getting out earlier in June.  However, this teacher had a great point - June can be such a questionable month with weather.  Why not go later into June and start in September, so we can enjoy all of the beautiful weather in August.  Either way, going back to school on the 2nd was a welcome relief to me but still felt like such a short break.

JR is staying busy.  As I expected, people are finding out about his self-employment and calling him up.  The guy that was hired to replace him at his last job is probably not going to work out.  So, looks like he will take back a few of his rental properties, at least for now.

I am going through my usual first of the year routine.  Getting organized, looking at my current situation and what I want to build on and what I want to change.  Last year my word for the year was intentional.  I made great strides in being deliberate about lots of things - financial goals, relationship goals, family goals.  This year I am striving to be prayerful.  So many times in my life I just make decisions, without really spending time praying for wisdom and guidance.  Even if it is taking 15 seconds to take a deep breath, pray and then proceed with a course of action.

This year I want to be more proactive in some life style changes.  Mid December I joined a gym, again.  This time it is a facility that is connected to a physical therapy office.  So, the PT patients use the gym and the staff are in and out during business hours.  Since most days I go in the afternoon, it has been nice to see the same people every day for they provide some accountability.  One of the gals has finished her course work to be a personal trainer but not yet taken the test or become certified.  She and I have had several conversations and we are going to meet later this week to come up with a plan for me.  She will be the one I check in with periodically to see how I am doing and what goals I am meeting.  I am excited.  I have been focusing on cardio and thought I was doing a good job.  Well, I found a HIIT program (high intensity interval training) workout online.  The goal is to push yourself 100% for short periods and then a longer recovery period.  My goal was 20 seconds of 100% and 40 seconds of recovery.  It just about killed me.  For the first time ever I hit my recommended max heart rate of 175.  It quickly dropped, but was crazy hard.  However, it felt amazing afterwards!  I have set up rewards for every 7 pounds I lose.  The scale is slowly moving.  I know that I am also building some muscle with the weights I am lifting.

Another thing I am hoping to be better about is cutting out the processed/packaged foods, as well as finally getting rid of harsh chemicals and making my own 'stuff' whenever possible.  My first experiment turned out awesome.  I found a website on making your own make-up.  Intrigued, I checked it out.  This was for facial powder - the loose kind.  Three ingredients....arrowroot powder, cocoa and cinnamon.  (I read that corn starch will work but arrowroot is much better).  I headed to local health food store and bought 63 cents worth of arrowroot powder, which was probably 1/2 a cup.  Then I played around with the cocoa and cinnamon to get the right tint.  The first use today was nice!  I am all for being good to the environment and all for cutting out harsh ingredients and all for saving money (63 cents versus my old $10 powder) but what I really love, is just being able to say that I made something myself.  Whatever that something is.  Now I am scouring the internet for my next DIY.

Off to the gym, just wanted to check in!