Three on Thursday: Random Rant Edition

Because I know you are all DYING to know the things that are really ticking me off these days. So here we go, in no particular order:

1. Freeze and Frost Warnings in May: Seriously?? I was pumping gas this morning, wearing a fleece jacket, and still shivering. Ridiculous! And for the record, I don't care how frosty it gets, I am NOT going back to real shoes this late in the game. My toes may turn blue but I shall not forsake my sandals and/or flip flops!
2. The Biggest Loser: Not the show exactly, but the fact that my beloved Jillian is leaving and is being replaced by...wait for it...Anna Kournikova. I'm interested to see if there will be an increase in treadmill related injuries next season with all of the male contestants drooling. Now please don't assume from this rant that I won't watch next season. Oh no, I will. I will just bitch and moan about that skinny blonde tennis player. And I will mourn Jillian.
   
3. More Weather Annoyances: Okay, so even if you are capable of getting past the frost issue (which I'm clearly not) the rest of the weather for the "unofficial kick off to summer weekend" totally blows. Pretty good chance of rain every.single.day. This is peeving me more than usual because the big project on the agenda at Chez Homburg this weekend is power washing and repainting the deck. Except the deck needs time to dry after the power washing and it needs to stay dry for at least 24 hours after painting. Did I mention AJ's birthday party is in 2 weeks? Sigh..

And as a reward for sitting through that rant, here's a cute picture or two of the aforementioned little dude:

(Sometimes the little dude steals my glasses so he won't be recognized at Walmart.)
(And when he's really trying to go incognito, the toy bin provides substantial cover.)

Tales from the Scale: Week 9

Down 2.4 for a grand total of 19.8lbs lost.

SO close to my 20lb goal.

And not too far from 10%

Sounds like a pretty good way to say goodbye to my 31st year.
Here's to starting 32 on a good note.

Ten on Tuesday: Wacky Week Edition

SO much going on in the next few days, figured I would document a few things here while I have a few minutes (I'm anticipating naptime ending any minute now, so we'll see if I can actually make it to 10.)

1. Body Hiding Friends: Did you see this article that was floating around Facebook and Twitter yesterday? Awesome read. It made me totally thankful for the friends I have in my life who will listen to me vent, overlook my disaster of a home, and never judge the decisions I make. Which leads me to...
2. Mama Competition: I had no idea before I became a mom that the world of mothers (particularly, it seems the stay at home variety) is seemingly one big competitive clique. Everyone things they're doing it the right way, their kid is smarter/bigger/stronger/fill in the blank-er than other kids. I know comparing kiddos is natural and in some ways inevitable, but it happens too much and it leads to too much mama insecurity. Because really, now that I stay home, raising AJ is kind of my job. And if he's lagging behind a part of me will always wonder if it's because his mama isn't doing a good enough job. Which leads me to...
3. Tot School: In my crazy blog hopping that I did during nap time yesterday I wound up finding a blog (or rather several blogs) devoted to pre-pre school activities for little dudes and dudettes. Now, many of these blogs are written by homeschooling moms and so their goals seem to be to get their kids into the homeschooling mode as early as possible while also teaching the older kids. I'm not currently planning to home school. I'm pretty sure I would suck at it. But those blogs? Have some pretty stinking cool ideas. So AJ and I might be having some pretty fun learning adventures this summer thanks to the internet. Which leads me to...
4. Emily and Henry's visit: Okay, so that connection is a bit of a stretch, but I did meet Em on the internet and so far all I've seen of the young Henry are pictures on the internet, so work with me! I am very excited to have mama and littlest dude come to visit this week. The trip will be short. The goal is to sell off some of our scrappy stuff (and in my case to not use the money earned to buy more scrappy stuff). I am going to try to remember to take pictures with something other than my cell phone. Which leads me too...
5. Project Life: I bought the kit in December. I journaled and took pictures faithfully for the first almost two months of 2011. Then, the crappy stuff started, and to be perfectly honest, I'm not really sure there's much of late Feb and March I want to remember. So I'm kind of a drop out. BUT!!! I'm just looking it as taking a semester off. I've cleared out my album, moving the stuff I did in January and Feb to the end of the 2010 album, and I'm ready to start fresh on June 11th. Which would be...
6. AJ's birthday: Party preps have entered the "am I really going to be able to pull off the things on my to do list" stage. I'm guessing I'm probably not alone in that my ideas of things I'd like to do often does not match up with the amount of time I have to accomplish the tasks. I also may or may not have a problem with procrastinating, so while I've been collecting ideas since February, I haven't actually moved forward on many of those things. But when it comes down to it, he'll have fun, he'll remember none of it, and my one main goal is to make sure this party doesn't land us in the ER like last year. Which leads me to....
7. Allergy Boy: We had our first real birthday party guest experience this weekend. AJ has been to parties in the past, but back then he wasn't really eating big people food, so we could get by on a couple of snacks and some nursing. We were incredibly lucky in that the hostess of said party called and asked about AJ's allergies and planned a meal that he would be able to enjoy most of. It's pretty hard to find an AJ friendly ice cream cake though, so I baked a batch of cuppycakes to bring so the little dude wouldn't feel left out. Of course we left as they were cutting into the cake because AJ was overtired, he fell asleep on the way home...and didn't eat the aforementioned cupcake until the next day. Ah, well. At least we tried. And I was left with nearly two dozen cupcakes in my fridge, which leads me to...
   
8. Weight Watchers: I was super stoked to be down a pound this week. That puts me about 2.5lbs from 20 pounds lost since I started in March. It just so happens that my birthday (32!!) is one week from today, so I've decided to shoot for hitting 20 at my weigh in next week. Whether it happens or not, I'm pretty proud of making so much progress in a short period of time. And speaking of progress...
9. The Bathroom is almost done: Back in February, Karl decided it was time to turn the downstairs storage closet into the bathroom it was initially intended to be. At the time we were thinking we'd have to move AJ to one of the downstairs bedrooms when our new baby arrived, so we wanted the bath to be down there to make life easier. He had already pulled permits and began construction when we miscarried, so the project went on as planned. It took three months and many nights and weekends of Karl slaving away downstairs, but the closet is now an (almost) fully functioning bathroom. There are a couple minor things to be finished, but it's pretty stinking awesome to see what Karl accomplished in there. He even built the vanity cabinet himself. Ty Pennington has nothing on my husband. Well, except a megaphone. And an endless budget. Which leads me to..
10. Barb wants to be a millionare: Did you read this post? That Barb is a funny girl, and an awesome friend. Yes, I am kissing up, just in case the reality show pans out...

Wow, that was a long ten! How about a cute photo flashback to end this entry? I found this picture recently from May 2010. The little dude had hardly any hair and had just recently started taking his first unassisted steps when we took this trip to Florida for my 31st birthday....

Time flies when you're having fun, right?

Tales from the Scale: Week 8

Down 1lb for a total of 17.4!

Happy about this since there may or may not have been some ice cream cake consumed this weekend...and a brat! Gasp!

We talked about the importance of breakfast this week which forced me to confess that I am *terrible* about breakfast. More often then not I try to skate by on a banana and some coffee.

Anyone have some great breakfast ideas for me?

Five on Friday; Fast and Furious Edition

So many things to say and no time to say them. Here's five quick bullets of my week in review.

1. Cut, Color, Cash: I *finally* scheduled a cut and color for myself this week, after a 14 month salon hiatus. I was also reminded it's always a good idea to get a rough ballpark for price so that you don't pass out when the bill comes to nearly 200 dollars. The good news is I had a gift card for part of it. And if you divide the rest of the bill by the 14 months I didn't spend anything on my hair...well in that case it's a bargain! I really loved the experience though. Wish I could afford it more often.
2. B-A-N-A-N-A-S: The little dude has always been a fan of the bananas. But in the past couple of weeks he seems to have an insatiable appetite for them. Because he is still determined not to speak, he resorts to dragging me into the kitchen ten times a day and pointing furiously at the bunch on the counter. Let me tell you he is NOT happy with me when I cut him off for the day at two bananas. Potassium deficiency will not be his problem, that's for sure.
   
3. Does he sound like a barking seal? Wait what does a barking seal sound like?: That would be what I said last night while listening to the poor little dude hack up a lung in his sleep. We've never had any cough/cold/congestion experience before and he sounds so pitiful that I completely had myself convinced it was croup. It's probably just a normal cold, but I am nothing if not a worrier and let's face it, my kid does have a flair for the dramatic.
   
4. Party Animals: We're celebrating the birthdays of two awesome little kiddos this weekend. It's hard to believe Sean who was AJ's age now when we first met him is now 6 and Abbey is 8! Random birthday gift shopping observation: it is virtually impossible to find modest shorts for girls. I mean, seriously. She's going to be 8. I don't think it's developmentally appropriate to have her booty hanging out! I finally located a pair of bermudas at Old Navy. Maybe this is why God gave me a boy.
   
5. Speaking of Birthdays: It's less than a month until the big Birthday Luau for our little surfer monkey. This party? It's going to be fantastically tacky. Because while I'm sure you *could* do a lovely luau theme, I have no interest in such a thing. I'm going for cheese ball! We're talking tiki hut signs, plastic pink flamingos and hideous flower leis. And it possible I purchased a 5 foot tall inflatable monkey to be used as a photo prop!

And, since I couldn't find time to do a bits of my weekend post this week, here are a couple from our Mother's Day gardening adventures. Mother Nature has kindly watered our new additions every day this week!

(the kid climbs like it's his job. It should be no surprise that he made a bee line for the ladder!)
(his grandparents sent his some stuff to help with the yard work for Easter!)
(so happy to be outside. So not in the mood to stop for pictures!)
(I don't know what I love more. The cheesy grin or the crazy running around the yard hair!)

(I love him. SO much!)

Almost Wordless Wednesday: Story of My Life

Editing April 30th wedding.
Friend of couple asked if the images were ready one week after the wedding.
I laughed.

Tales from the Scale: Week 7

Down 2lbs for a total of 16.4

I'm a happy girl tonight.

That is all!

:)

Wordless Wednesday: Due Date

I miss my baby. There's nothing else to say.

Tales from the Scale: Week 6

Down 1.4, for a total of 14.4lbs.

Not much to say this week. Saturday's wedding was a true test of my break up with diet mountain dew. Normally that sweet nectar of the gods is what gets me through an insanely long day of running around making stressed out people comfortable in front of the camera. But, this week I made it and didn't even cave when Karl offered me a sip.

Next week....15lbs!

P.S.- Bits of my weekend will be coming later today.