Mink Mink - Goone Goone

Well I am pleased to report the pacifier is now just a memory. Mylieh has done very well without it. She still asks when I put her in the car but I just remind her she's a Big Girl and she say's "Big Girl No mooe Mink Mink" I will say I think it kept her calm. Since she's been without it she has been more of a handful and very busy. But that might just be a coincidence.

Well Christmas is over and the house is a disaster. We are slowly finding places for all the new stuff. We had a great Christmas. Kermit's parents came for a few days. The girls enjoyed that alot. I had a fun Christmas but am glad it's over I must say. I need to get back into my routine and so do the girls. Being off, going to parties and having house guests has killed my diet. So far I think I have went up and down but I am hoping the result Sunday is the same as 2 weeks ago. Pray for me...

Here's a pic of the house after Santa left :o)

Mylieh got a doll bed and high chair! Kashyn a Nintendo DS!

While Christmas was wonderful. I did feel a void knowing we are missing a family member this year. I hope each year that gets easier especially for my cousin and Chloe. I know I wasn't super close to Maddie but she is missed and I know my cousin would do anything to have her back. Please keep Darren and Chloe in your prayers.

I do have some good news to end with though. My brother asked Whitney to marry him while they were on their cruise the week before Christmas. She was totally shocked. She did say YES but she didn't see it coming. Which I think made it ever cooler!!! I hear there will be a wedding in September sometime. I am SO excited. Here's a pic of the proposal.. SO ROMANTIC!!!

Operation Bye-Bye Mink-Mink - FAIL!!!

Last night I tried my first attempt at operation "Bye-Bye Mink-Mink". Mylieh threw a huge fit in the middle of Hobby Lobby yesterday because she wanted her mink-mink, which I didn't have. I mean to tell you it was so bad I ended up just leaving Hobby Lobby with a cart full in the aisle. I told her then and there mink-minks were gone, no more. There is no reason to act that way. She goes all day at school without one she could last another 30 min. So I did really good. I got them all out of her bed and put them away. I made her go to bed without it. She cried but wasn't too bad. She did alot better than I thought she would. She woke up about 1 and Kermit took care of it. Not sure what he did but he didn't give her a mink-mink and she went back to sleep. But at 4:30 she woke up again. This time there was no way to calm her. I tried for over 30 min then finally I gave in and gave her a mink-mink. OPERATION FAILED!!! She is kinda sick maybe now is not the time. So the idea tonight is no mink-mink still but if we can't get her calmed in the middle of the night we will give it to her. I hate this and potty training these are the 2 I dread. I thought it was going to be ok. I even had her telling Kashyn "Sissy I big girl no more mink-mink"

I did it!!! I put in an order at Amazon yesterday for some Visual Basic Programming books and guess what they are to be sent to my correct address!! YEAH ME!!! I am off work next week for 2 weeks and my life would be 100% easier if I came back from my time off knowing VB for Excel. I am lost at work right now without it.

Christmas time is hard when you are on a diet. I know it's only one day, but it just doesn't work that way. For the last 2 weeks every morning when I get here some one has left a gift on my desk and most of the time it's food. GOOD FOOD! So far I have been good but Wednesday it was nuts and I ate them. I guess if I am going to cheat nuts aren't so bad. I can't really blame anyone though my gift this year to all of them was food too. ( Remember all those mini-loaves I told you I made the other night.) Yesterday was snack day at work. I pretty much ate whatever I wanted and paid for it all evening. I felt like total crap last night because my stomach hurt.

On a funny note Mylieh is saying alot more words. Like Santa Clause and Rudolph. Not sure you'd know that's what she's saying if you didn't see her pointing at it too. Last night I asked her what Santa brings and she said "Presents!". I said what do you want Santa to bring and Kashyn coaxed her into saying "Puppy!". It was cute, but no more puppies at our house. :o)

Baby It's Cold Outside!!

It's COLD actually it's FREEZING outside!! I woke up this morning and checked the road conditions. It's slick in spots where I am and slick and hazardous where I am going so I decided today would be a great day to work from home. And it was a good day to do just that. I got some work done. I took my lunch hour and was able to pickup the kitchen, living room and Mylieh's room and wrap some presents for Kashyn's class. I could get used to this, actually it's not bad from time to time but I do like going to work. But the cool thing is I have been really wanting to watch some training videos and feel bad doing it at work because I keep forgetting my headset. So this morning was a great morning to do that. In the afternoon I had a conference call to prepare for and lead.

Last night I made 23 mini loaves for teachers and my co-workers. I found the recipe for Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Pecan Bread on Mommy's Kitchen. It sounded good so that's what everyone is getting. Hope they like it I was in the kitchen for about 2 or 3 hours cooking. The house smelt yummy last night :o) I did some licking when I was done. Probably why the scale is yelling at me today. Oh well I'm entitled from time to time.

Picture Catch Up!!

Kermit & the girl's Gingerbread House! Our Christmas Ornaments (Finally Painted)

Kashyn ready for her school play!
(She plays a dancing princess doll)

My Little Snowman (Snow Girl)!

Tough Week

It's been a tough week in our family.

We lost the wife of my cousin Darren. She was a sweet and beautiful girl. She will be missed. He's doing as well as can be expected. It's going to be a long road for him, but I think he will be ok in the end. He has a great family to support him and more good friends than anyone could imagine. The funeral is tomorrow morning so say a little pray for him and her daughter Chloe.

Last night we welcomed a beautiful baby boy into our family. His name is JC and he's the cutest thing you ever did see. My cousin James and his wife Christina are the parents. He's getting extra care due to some problems with his lungs. But I have got news today one lung is better already. So we are praying he's better soon and that his mom is able to hold him soon!

Kashyn will be performing her school play tonight so that should be fun to watch. She's very excited. She's a princess doll. Should be cute.

Sad Days Ahead

I am very sad today, because we lost a family member yesterday. I don't feel like going into details, but she will be missed and my family needs lots of prayers this week and through the holiday season.

Well it's offical I did lose 40 lbs, 41 to be exact. Yea I get the green bear for Christmas!!! Yea for me and my mini-goal!!

We went to the old house Friday to get our packages. They let us come in and showed us around. They have painted all the rooms except the living room. They got rid of the wall paper in the kitchen and the hall bath (both were past due). They painted all the cabinets in the kitchen cream and them antiqued them and got new hardware. It looks really nice. I mean the kitchen looks totally different with that done. Heck I think now that they are done we can move back :o) Too bad we moved because we needed more room. I think I need to have that girl come decorate my new house. She's good.. :o) She said she was worried I wouldn't like it, but to be honest I didn't see one thing I didn't like. I mean only sad thing was she painted over Kashyn room paint but it was SO needed.

I Don't Believe It!!!

I often wonder does anyone even read this or am I talking to myself. I wish it told ya. Oh well even still it's documenting the girls and I will be glad I did it in a few years. Besides I kinda like talking to myself. :o)

I plan to go pick up my packages tonight from my old house. How fun!! I love going to see people to basically tell them I am an idiot! Oh I found out today one more package is going there. How annoying? They told me they got that one changed in time. Oh well what can I do now?

Oh I had a little happy moment at the doctor's office today. The nurse weighed me and said "This darn scale! It's weighing so off we need a new one". I said "What's it say?" She said "It says you have lost 40lbs, have you?" I said "Yes I have!!" 40lbs can you believe it!!! Ok that's not official, but on Sunday when I really weigh in I hope that's what it says. If it does I have lost 5 lbs this week and I will get the 40 lb bear for Christmas!!!

New Tradition

OK so I am a total sucker for traditions. Although not very good with keeping them up, but I do have a few. I just want my kids to look back on things and say mom did this every Christmas, Birthday or whatever.

Anyway I read on a blog about this tradition this lady does in her home at Christmas and I decided to try it. She wraps 25 Christmas type books and puts them under the tree. Each night her kids get to unwrap one and they read it as a family. Well I went through my house and found 11 Christmas type books. Some are baby books some are regular type books. So far the girls are LOVING it they can't wait until they get to open one to read. We have only done it 3 nights now but the girls really love it. The cool thing is once you do it you have 25 books already and don't have to buy every year. I wrapped up The Night Before Christmas and wrote Christmas Eve on it. :o) I thought about wrapping up Christmas movies too and saving them for the weekend but Kashyn loves to watch them I hate to make her wait for them. The first night of this was really funny because I didn't tell Kashyn what it was all about I just told her to pick a present from on the tree and open it (only the books are under there right now). My plan is to not wrap anything else in the paper I have used for the books incase you are wondering how I keep them separate. Anyway she got them all out and sorted them she said one stack was books and the other stack was something else. I laughed and told her they were all books. I think she was a little disappointed at first but she's not now. She already had her book picked out last night before I even got home from work. Last nights book was a pop-up book. I think this was Mylieh's first experience with a pop up book because every time I turned the page she freaked out laughing and hollering. It was so cute Kashyn and I were laughing so hard it took us forever to read the book.

If anyone has any good Christmas book ideas please comment and let me know.

Bear Crazy!

I know I am 31 years old, but I have turned into a sucker for these Nutri-System bears. Every time you lose 10 lbs Nutri-Systems sends you a bear.

10 lb bear 20 lb bear 30 lb bear

When you hit a 10 lb goal you get the bears in your next food shipment. So I am now hoping to get the 40 lb bear for Christmas :o) They all have names and little sayings like Ty bears but not as cute. What do I do with these bears you ask? Well so far they are on my dresser, but my NS friend in South Dakota and I have thought about putting one in each place in the house we go for food. Although we have thought that our husbands might have us committed when they see a NS bear in the freezer :o) Funny thing is everyone I have talked to on the NS site are suckers for these bears (even the guys). They say when they get their shipment the first thing they do is dig for the bear. I have to admit I am guilty!!! I did it just this week when I got my new order. I was SO excited because I was supposed to get 20 & 30!!! I only got 30 they missed it but I emailed them and 20 is on the way to my house right now. See it's like I am 5 again. So if any of you guys want to feel younger join NS! :o)

Crisis Averted

I found the person who bought my old house on MySpace and sent her a message. She was SUPER nice and said she'd get the packages for me. I am such a moron. I didn't sleep very good last night due to all this crap. I really need to be more careful. I went in last night and deleted all addresses from my Amazon account but my current one. Good thing I didn't send it to any of the other addresses they were out of state and old; every one of the people who I had sent to at those addresses has since moved. This whole thing could have been much worse.

Last week was a true test to my weight loss. I went into the week with the goal of maintain and a little hope for a loss of 1 pound. As the week went on the goal seemed to slip away. I ate out 3 times and then had Thanksgiving dinner where I ate whatever I wanted. The end result was a loss of .5 pounds. Hey that's right in the middle of my goal and hope so I am pretty happy about it! I think I was really lucky this week because eating out 3 times is not good especially what I ate.

Happy Birthday to Kermit!! Sunday he had another anniversary of his 29th birthday. He spent the day pretty much doing what I wanted. Poor guy. Maybe for my birthday we will do what he wants. Every year our church has this craft night to kick off the Christmas season. It's my favorite church event of the whole year. So we had to go. I am sure it's not top on his list of birthday activities, but he doesn't hate it. We did let him choose Qudoba Grill for lunch and Logan's for dinner. Kashyn wanted to have a surprise party and invite his friends over to play XBOX and take a nap because that's what he likes to do. :o)

Kashyn is in the church's Children's Choir she sings and plays the hand chimes every Sunday in advent. This past Sunday was her first Sunday, she was SO cute. She has also been practicing for her dance Christmas programs. As well as her school play where she is a ballerina. She has alot to remember this time of year.

Mylieh is home this week with one of those childhood illnesses. She's fine just considered contagious. Hope it clears up soon I think she misses her best friend BELLA!!! :o)

Guess What I Did!!!

You will NEVER guess, so I am going to just have to tell you. I decided to be all cool and do some online shopping Friday. Well today I start getting emails from Amazon saying when my orders will arrive. I am SO excited I open the emails to check it out and guess what I see. I see my old address there plain as day. I shipped every single one of them to my old house. And they are already at UPS so I am pretty much stuck. I guess I will be talking to the new owners this week since a box is set to arrive Thursday and Friday. I am SO mad. I really think steam came out of my ears. Good thing is they were nice Christian people so I think it will be ok, but I really hate to bug them. STUPID STUPID!!! ARGH!!! And to think I was thinking to myself "hmm don't really have anything to blog about today". God is really funny isn't he? He's probably just there having a good laugh at this one. :o) Well I am sure once this week is over I will find all this funny too. Moral of this story.... Don't online shop when you got up at 4 am to do Black Friday Shopping and are still tired. I guess I need to go delete my old address out of Amazon so that won't happen again.