Multiple post day!

As many of you know my best friend Jenny is the co founder of Heroes for Children. Her organization helps families with children (ages 0-22) that are battling cancer. This organization is near and dear to my heart. They just finished their new video that shows some of what they do. If you have the time take a few minutes to watch the video, I think you'll love it! :)

The whole family

We went to a birthday party this weekend for Megan's boys.It was so much fun. She had it at a park and had all of the fun outdoor toys for the kids to play with. I didn't get any pics of Ben except for the last shot because he was busy playing in the bounce house type maze thingy the ENTIRE time. And poor Beck didn't make it in many photos either thanks to his super fast crawling abilities. But check out what we have:

She had the best face painter I have ever sen at a party. Hannah was first up and had a butterfly with flowers painted on. It looked so pretty!

Ella had fun playing with the big red ball!

Not my fave pic of me but love Hannah's face. :)

Brandon and Hannah flying a kite

Daddy fun time :)

And she snapped this shot for us right before we left. It's not very often that I get a shot with all of us in it so I had to post. :) And can you believe how big H is getting? She's almost up to my shoulder. When did that happen?

(i know i used everyone's names. too tired to edit it all out. please don't stalk my children. believe me you would return them if you took them, they move so slow it would drive you crazy! kthnxbai)

Guitar Pic Earrings

I don't know if anyone would be interested or not but my sweet 9 year old has been making and selling guitar pic earrings on Etsy. Check out her page and see what you think.

The Shred- Day 16

Okay I'm a day late in posting this. I really wanted to get to it earlier but life disagreed with me. :) But now with the big kids at their dad's house and the babies in bed, I have a quiet house all to myself.

So how are you guys doing? Is everyone still sticking in there? I have to admit we did miss this last Thursday and Sunday due to horrible allergy days. But I think we have gotten that under control now and are back on track. We are halfway through Stage 2. I still haven't seen any real weight loss but have definitely lost inches around my waist and legs. I'm seeing a lot of muscle tone in Nancy's arms as well. We decided we will post pics of before and after at the end of the 30 days. Halfway through the pics are really starting to show change. I LOVE it. :)

We are changing our diet up a bit to see if it makes any changes on our weight. Still sticking to the 1500 calories a day but doing the whole no eating after 8pm. We did that last night and woke up with flatter stomachs. Normally we wouldn't do the shred until about 9pm, and then we would eat dinner afterward. We stay up pretty late so we figured that this worked in our schedule. But we'll see if this change makes any difference.

And those of you who still haven't opened your dvd, get off your butt and get moving. If Minivan mom can find time to do it while working 80 hour weeks with 3 kids (2 of them in baseball) you can do it too! If you haven't bought it yet, I highly recommend it. 20 minutes a day is not a big commitment. Give it a try and you might like what you see! :)

Okay hear a baby still crying upstairs better go check some diapers!

Some long over due baby pics

Comments

I was going to post this in the comments section but then realized it was a novel and I should probably put it out here instead. Loving everyone's comments and all of my new blog friends. Keep up the good work! (and yes I know I'm addicted to !!!!! I try to lay off but I really am that excited about it all! )

Amy B- Way to go! Make sure your front knee does not bend past your toes when doing the lunges. That can cause some major knee trouble as well. Good luck and keep me posted. :)

Sam and Ben's mom- You are rocking it! I noticed stamina before anything else at first as well. Push ups are still one of my hardest things. My upper body strength sucks. Keep it up!

Tara- You are cracking me up! It so sounds like something I would do, drinking and working out!!! Glad to hear that you are feeling the same way about level 2.

Holly- Yea! You opened it, now get off your butt and get busy!! LOL! Don't make me go all Jillian on you!!! When you do the first day, come back and let me know how you feel. I know you can do it!

Pantuf (Stacy)- Don't you love telling people all about it? It really does rock. Keep up the hard work! And I'm really thinking its all the muscle we're building which is causing our love hate relationship with the scale. That's my story and I'm sticking to it!!!

Meredith- So happy you have joined us in this torture, oops I mean exercise. Your body will be so happy with you in the end. :)

Kelly MN- I am so sure I jinxed myself. Yesterday when we did the level 2 we were dying by the end. Go figure! I've been sticking to the easier on the joints versions on level 2 and it wasn't so bad on my knees yesterday. Even though I really wanted to use the knee excuse to just skip a day, we powered through and did it. I know if I stat skipping I won't finish.Someone told me the next dvd to try. When I find that I'll post about it as well. We have to keep our hard work going, right?

Tammy- Can you say sweating vats of sweat?!?!? We sweat more during this 25 minutes than doing anything else!! It is craziness. I'm ready for the weather to get better so that we can just jump in a pool as soon as we are done!

Peggy- I felt the same way at first. Not so sore, and then half way through it hit me. It just sorta sneaks up on you right? I'm using 3lb weights. Nancy is doing the 5lb and says she wants to do the 3lbs instead. Worrying about arms bulking up. And I totally hear you on the diet and exercise together. I suck at doing them both. That's why I'm doing the whole calorie count thing. I'm still eating some sweets but making sure they fit into my calories per day. That way I don't feel deprived but am able to moderate all the yummy things I love to eat. Because as soon as I tell myself what I can't have, its exactly what I go for. Keep it up! Just focus on the exercising for now and work your way up to "dieting". You may find you like the results enough that you don't have to work as hard on the dieting.

Sara L- Did you start? Let me know how you are doing!Still not sure about the photos but I may post them soon.

Jamie J- I love hearing your comments. Congrats on your baby! I think this will be a great way to put the control back into your own hands. Keep up the good work and positive thinking!!!

Amanda- You are doing exactly what I was doing. Elliptical 4-5 days a week. I have to say Jillian has something working in all of her theories!! Did you look for it in the exercise section and not just the video section? That is where I had more luck finding it. Let me know when you get it and get started!

amanda- Go get it!!! I really think you'll love it. And just keep telling your self I have 20 minutes a day to do this, right? Thats what motivates me!!!

Susan's 365- You are doing a fabulous job! Doing the shred and couch to 5k, that takes some serious dedication and I think you are going to be so happy with your results. Keep it up and keep us updated!

Amy B- Do it! You'll be so happy you started it when swimsuit season comes and you don't have to stress about it!

Mommy Mo- Keep it up girlfriend! You are rocking it!Love the motivation.

Anonymous- YEA!! So glad you started it. We totally should do a shred blog for the dfw area! I'll have to look into that. :)

Carolein- So how is it going? Did you start on Monday? Let me know how you are feeling! I can't wait to hear. :) Good Luck!!

Missy- Embrace the fear and let it motivate you. I just keep imagining Jillian showing up if I slack off. That enough to keep me going! LOL! You can do it!!

Debbie- Let me know how you like it. I am so excited you ordered it. You will rock it!!!

Day 12 Shred

First off, I am so proud and excited of all of you guys that are doing the Shred with us!!! That makes me so happy. And it motivates me to keep going even stronger.

We just started Phase 2 on Saturday. We are doing the shred in 10 day increments. So 10 days for the first level, 10 for the 2nd and 10 for the 3rd. And I think we have decided that Sunday's are our day of rest, the last two Sunday's both Nancy and I have been too tired to do it. So why not just make it a rule and stick to it, right? LOL!

I'm not sure about you guys but for those of you that have started phase two, does it seem easier than phase 1? It may be that we just rocked out phase one and worked our way up to phase 2 so that it isn't as hard as we expected. We keep looking at all the moves, trying to make sure that we are not missing anything and doing them correctly and so far it seems like we are. Now phase 2 seems to be a little harder on the knees. Are any of you doing any extra stretching before you start to help your legs out? I think we may start doing that.

I have had reconstructive knee surgery so I do have to be careful of certain moves and I do do the easier version of a few on the 2nd phase. But my big problem right now is that my good knee has started to hurt as well. So I am trying to figure out the best way to go about all of this. It may just be my shoes though. I have been doing all of this in running shoes that are a couple of years old. I think I may need to pick up some new cross trainers to help out with the support I need.

I think someone commented about the scale not being their friend right now. Personally the scale hates me. My weight has not changed for the last month. I just keep bouncing around the same 3lbs over and over again. I am so FRUSTRATED!!! I can see the changes happening in the mirror but according to the scale and the Wii Fit I have not improved at all. I seriously want to pull my hair out. We took pictures again and I could see a slight difference in the images, and my clothes are still fitting a lot better. But the scale is my nemesis!!! I know I shouldn't worry about it because muscle does weigh more than fat but its still disheartening. I am at the point where I just want to say screw it with the 1500 calories and just eat whatever I want.

But we have decided to give it one last chance. We are adding in some more cardio every day to see if that helps boost the metabolism into dropping more weight. I'll let you know if it works or not. I have decided that I am not willing to post any pictures until the end, I promise I will put the whole series up. Unless of course one day I just look fabulous and have to show everyone before the end! ;)

And for those of you who still haven't opened your dvd, DO IT NOW! Opening it is one step closer to actually doing it. Baby steps people!!!