July's Happiness Project

I spent July focusing on eating healthy in an attempt to shed those last few pounds of baby weight.  I started out with good intentions, but we all know where the road to good intentions leads us...  I'm sure I've had one too many hotdogs and ice cream cones, but can I be honest?  I really don't care.  July has allowed me to be more conscious of what I am putting in my mouth and how I am treating my body, so although I still have a few more pounds to go I think it's a success!

I am super excited for August's goal: being intentional about noticing my blessings.  In January I started a "blessing jar" where I write down how God has been provided for us financially.  I want to take time in August to notice blessings outside of the financial realm.  I'm including Amirah in the challenge.  Each night I am going to ask her what made her happy that day and write it down so we have a record of our blessings.  It's really important to me to teach my daughter that God loves to delight us and even during those days where things don't go as planned He is always showing us his love.

Summer List 2012

There are so many things to do on my summer list.  We have only checked off four items so far, which means there is a lot more fun to be had.  If you live in my area and have small kids I'm sure you've visited Britton Park.  If not, you definitely should.  They have a tiny pool with lots of sprinklers to play in.  

 Amirah splashing in the sprinklers.  I thought she would like it a lot more, but all she wanted to do was...

 eat lunch.  Apparantly I make the most amazing pb and js on the planet!

 I wasn't sure how Amirah would react to fireworks.  She doesn't like loud sounds.  I prepped her the week before by explaining that they would make a sound like thunder.  I even showed her some videos on youtube so she would be prepared.  She absolutely loved it!  Her mouth stayed open the entire time and she was literally speechless.  She sat on her Uncle Han's lap and refused to budge.

 Another thing on my list was to paint my toes sea foam green.  What do you think?  I definitely prefer my usual coral color, but this is a nice change.

 Lake Tobias is an awesome place, but I do not reccomend it for two month olds.  This picture was taken on our safari just after Xander send projectile spit-up all over my shorts and just before he had one of those up-the-back blowouts in his diaper.  I ended up having to take off all his clothes and he spent the rest of the afternoon in his diaper.

Amirah and Natalie really enjoyed feeding the animals.  It's pretty amazing to see all kinds of deer, bison, buffalo and birds in the same field.  It was a really neat experience. 

This was not on our summer list, but I thought I'd add it anyway.  Last school year a friend gave me a bunch of hats that belonged to her grandmother.  Amirah and I had fun trying them all on yesterday.  We had so much fun we didn't even realize that Daddy had come home.  (Usually we are counting down the minutes and looking at the window) :)

Spark People

July's goal for the happiness project was to lose those last five lbs. of lingering baby weight.  For those of you who have ever tried to do this know that the last five lbs. are ridiculously hard to get rid of.  Enter http://www.sparkpeople.com/.  I truly love this website.  Five years ago I weighed 154 lbs.  On a 5' 2" frame that's a good bit of extra weight to lug around.  A friend told me about Spark People and I decided to check it out. I ended up losing 20 lbs. in about six months or so and have kept it off. 

Basically it's a social network of people trying to lose weight.  I don't care about that aspect of it so much.  I really just like the nutrition tracker.  You can type what you weigh now, what you want to weigh and in how much time you want to lose that weight.  It gives you a calorie range that you should stay in to do that successfully.  It also gives a range for how much fat, protein, and carbs you should consume.  You then type in everything you've eaten that day and it records it for you.  There is something about having to write down what you've eaten that makes you think twice about the cookie calling your name.  Last night I really wanted a snack (not so much because I was hungry, but moreso because I wanted something to do).  Typically I would have had a bowl of ice cream, but last night I went to bed without a snack.  Simply because I didn't want to have to go the computer and write it down. 

Three days in I've already lost a pound.  I refuse to diet.  This keeps me aware of my choices, but still allows room for ice cream if I want it.  So for those of you needing a little extra "spark" you should check out this website.

The Happiness Project Marches On

For those of you who don't remember May and June were pretty much spent surviving.  I didn't do much self improvement.  I figured getting showered and making sure my children were fed were lofty enough goals.  My main goals for June were to get Amirah potty trained and have Xander sleep for more than 2-3 hours a night.  I am a success!  Woo-hoo!

• I know only the moms reading this will really care, but Amirah is potty trained. Well, sort of.  We do have occasional accidents, but I haven't had to clean out a pair of poopy panties in a week so I consider that a monumental success.  She does still wear a diaper to bed, but I'm okay with that for now.
• My sweet Xander has only been waking up once a night.  Usually somewhere between 3:00 and 5:00.  I'm okay with that for now, but would love to have him sleeping through the night by the time I go back to school.  We will see what happens...

My main goal for July is to lose this baby weight and start exercising again.  I've done two days of arm-toning exercises using free weights.  I've been giving Amirah wii remotes as her weights and she's my workout partner.  I am trying to cut up the massive amounts of sweets I've been consuming, but that is proving more difficult than I thought.  Yesterday I made it until 8:00 and then I put vanilla ice cream in a glass and poured almond milk over it and made a makeshift milkshake.  Wowza.  That was good.  Today is Ysmaille's birthday and I am making an oreo cake for him.  He told me not to make it "wheaty", so I guess I'll make the full fat version.  I'll try to have only one piece.  Or maybe only one and a half.  :)