Dreaming of abundance

Today on Facebook, this post popped up from 3 years ago (time goes so quickly, I still remember writing it!).  Here I am still dreaming of making this world a more beautiful, and loving place.

"If you didn't have to work to provide a home, car, food, and clothing for yourself and family what would you do with your life? I would love to see the world change from one of scarcity to one of abundance and I would love to see the beautiful things mankind would do then. So tell me please, what would you do?"

Flowers and Lace

We took Macy in to get her 3 month pictures taken.

She was awake the whole time.

However, she was getting tired and hungry.

So we got more grumpy pictures than happy pictures.  Poor girl!  I brought a 3rd dress, but we didn't even change her into to it.  Maybe it will still fit her when we have her 6 month pictures taken.

You're beautiful sweet girl, even when you're hangry!

My baby has a mohawk!

Yeah, she's cool like that!

The Pandora Incentive

For years my mom has wanted to buy me a Pandora bracelet.  I always told her no, as I feel guilty when people spend lots of money on me.

Well, last year when I lived with her she took me shopping one day.  We ended up at the Pandora store and she told me she was buying me a bracelet (which came with a charm and 2 clips) and 2 additional charms for my birthday and Christmas presents.

The thing is, I had thought of buying myself a Pandora bracelet after Ali was born.  After Hiram was born, I decided I wanted to "earn" a piece of the Willow Tree Nativity each month by losing 5 pounds.  That incentive worked great!  I wanted to do something similar with a Pandora bracelet, but never got around to it, so I also never got around to losing all of Ali's pregnancy weight until about a month before I got pregnant with Macy.

Two of the charms Mom bought me were Murano glass in black and white, representing Leonard and myself.  In our family we each have a color.  In the catalog I got after Ali's birth, there were Murano glass charms in each of our colors.  However, in the new catalog there were no longer orange, yellow, or purple.  I looked online and found an Etsy shop selling Pandora charms, at a great price (maybe knock-offs? who cares?).  I went ahead and ordered charms for each of my kids (after all, I did earn those from losing Ali's pregnancy weight).  Kaleb is blue, Noé is pink, Gavin is green, Teague is orange, Hiram is yellow, Ali is purple, and Macy is aqua.

Of course, I got a red charm too in case my dream comes true and we are blessed with an eighth baby.

The other charm my mom bought me was this Home Sweet Home one.  I wanted something to represent Leonard and me.  After living apart for 4 months, I chose this house because I realized that HE is my home.

Now here's my new incentive plan.  Each month if I lose 5 pounds I will treat myself to a new charm to be added to my bracelet.  I'd rather spend my money on a charm than a gym membership.  Plus, I know you GET FIT in the GYM,  but you LOSE WEIGHT in the KITCHEN.  Don't get me wrong, I want to get fit too, but my joints are damaged from my excess weight, so I need to lose weight before I start working out again.  

I started today weighing in at 221 pounds.  Do you know how scary it is to post that number on my blog for the whole world to know? (Well at least the handful of people who read it.)  I'm a big girl, almost 6 feet tall (well almost 5'11" tall, I'm like 5' 10 7/8") and I'm medium-framed.  According to the body mass index charts I should weigh about 155 pounds.  I only weighed 148 pounds on my wedding day, but I was up to 185 before I ever became a mother.  That is the average weight I've been able to reach and maintain after each pregnancy.  However, when I ate healthily after having Hiram I reached 170, but unfortunately wasn't able to maintain it for very long.  My first goal is to reach 185 again, then we'll see if I make a second goal.  I'm sharing this publicly to help me be accountable for my eating.  I lost 20 pounds after Macy was born, then I gained 10 of it back again.  I have felt like I'm starving and have been binging on healthy foods as well as complete junk and lots of sugar!  I can't go on like this anymore.  I've wanted to "start" eating healthy again, but never committed.  I am committing now!

Here's how I plan to lose 5 pounds a month:

ONE

Follow a schedule for eating and drinking, something like this:

7:30 am- drink one quart of water

8:30 am- eat breakfast (today I had 3 scrambled eggs)

11:00 am- drink second quart of water

12:00 noon- eat lunch (today was salad with Boston lettuce, grape tomatoes, match stick carrots, yellow peppers, green and red onions, and some feta cheese instead of salad dressing)

2:30 pm- drink third quart of water

3:30 pm- eat snack (banana today)

5:00 pm- drink fourth quart of water (yep, I drank a whole gallon of water!)

6:00 pm- eat dinner (tonight's menu- chicken breast, baby red potatoes, fresh green beans, and cremini mushrooms in a light chicken broth gravy)

I'm not following a strict diet, just trying to eat healthy proteins, veggies, and fruits.  I will have some dairy and grains, but I'm trying to avoid sugary treats (that I love so much), except for special occasions.  The next special occasion is our anniversary where I'm hoping we'll go out for a steak dinner, but I don't want another cupcake (or dessert) until Ali's birthday- 33 days from now.

TWO

Even though I won't begin exercising rigorously yet, I still hope to get out and walk as often as possible.  I think spring may have finally arrived last Saturday, woo hoo!  The fresh air and sunshine are just as important as the walking!

THREE

Try to get back into a healthy sleep pattern.  I know I have a nursing baby and I know healthy sleep has been something I've struggled with most of my life, but I am going to try to go to bed early, rise early, and not nap.

Here's hoping by the end of May I'll weigh 215.  If you'd like to join me on this weight loss quest, please leave me a comment, so we can encourage each other!

Macy @ 3 months

Macy has reached some amazing milestones this month!

She can make eye contact now.

She can also smile in response to me (and it melts my heart).

She also loves to have conversations and sing with me.  

She has lots of wonderful things to say and I thoroughly enjoy our chats.

One word she has learned is NO!  Okay, she can't verbalize the word "no" yet, but she has made it clear that she says NO to the bottle!  When she was first born and in the NICU she drank formula bottles.  Soon I was able to pump enough milk for her that she was able to drink my milk exclusively.  When she came home from the NICU we brought home three large bags of my frozen milk.  I was able to finally nurse her around the clock, but Leonard would still feed her a pumped bottle once a day.  This would give me a little break, let him spend time with her, and use up all that excess milk.  Kaleb and Noé would also feed her a bottle if Leonard and I were out together.  Well now, she won't even drink a bottle of my milk, she wants it straight from me.  I am completely fine with that when we're together, but I worry about the few times when we're apart.  I guess I won't venture far away from her, or she'll get hungry enough to like the bottle again.  I like that she's finding her voice though!

She looks for me when she hears my voice.

She can also track objects with her eyes.

She doesn't like being held horizontally when she's awake, she much prefers being vertical and I love having her up on my shoulder- her face is much closer to smooch.

She still has to be woken up at night to eat, however occasionally she will wake me up.  She doesn't cry then, I can just hear her smacking her lips, ha ha!

Thank you Macy for coming to our family!  We love you so much!

Teague's #9

Teague's 9th birthday celebrations began the day before, with him bringing in 2 dozen cupcakes to his school to share with his classmates and teacher.

His birthday fell on a Saturday this year, and we turned our home...

...into a birthday palace (ha ha!).

I guess the good thing about not having any home decor up on the walls yet, means there is lots of room for balloons and banners.

Teague invited this super...

...and silly group over for a pizza party!

While we waited for everyone to arrive...

...we made up a little craft.

As soon as everyone was here, Leonard gave each of the junior chefs a ball of pizza dough.

 He showed them how to shape it, put sauce on, followed by cheese, and other toppings.

Half of the kids just had cheese, while the other half only added pepperoni, ha!

While their pizzas were baking, they watched the Walt Disney Short Films Collection.  I took pictures of each kiddo with their delicious creation, but decided not to add them as this post already has 20 pictures!

Time for more cupcakes and ice cream.

Happy Birthday to you!

Make a wish.

Macy was pouting because she couldn't have a cupcake.

The party ended before Teague had time to open his presents.  I think that's a good thing, since the kids were busy doing other activities.  Teague gave each of his friends a silly-straw building kit as they left, and he received lots of lovely things from them.  His family and of course both sets of grandparents always spoil him too!

Teague, always remember how much your Mommy,

and Daddy,

and brothers and sisters love you!

Another cake for the family to enjoy on Sunday, minus Kaleb who is in Florida for the week with his high school band class.  No, I'm not jealous at all, ha!

One more thing!  Teague wrote this acrostic poem recently:

T-oy lover

E-ven (he's the 4th child)

A-pril 21st is my birthday

G-oing funny (yep, he's silly)

U-nique

E-ight years old (not anymore!)

We love you so much Teaguey boy!!

Ice Storm 2018

Watch your step!  It is slippery outside as EVERYTHING is coated with a layer of ice.  This is hopefully the last snow day from school this year, but it seems that it is the first snow day that was extremely necessary!

Huge icicles keep breaking off from the tree above and shattering all over our yard. 

Both of our cars are covered, but you can see the ice on our neighbor's car much better.

Check out those icicles!

It does look beautiful covering everything in crystal!

There are two sounds I keep hearing right now.  The first is the constant drip of water falling from the top of our sliding glass door into a bucket below.  We had that door replaced while we were in India and either it wasn't installed properly or our tenants managed to pull it off track.  Luckily, we were able to contact the guy that installed it and he will be over soon to hopefully repair it, ugh.  The second sound is the LOUD crashing of ice sliding off our roof to the ground below.  I just hope none of it breaks the windshields on our cars!

*We're going to snuggle up as a family now with some popcorn and watch The Greatest Showman!  (The power has gone out 4 times now, so here's hoping we'll get to finish the movie before bedtime, ha!)