Come and Knock on My Door

My local mom's group did a craft swap last week.  I missed the last one they hosted, and was so disappointed!  When they announced this one, I jumped on board immediately. 

I browsed Pinterest for ideas, and finally settled on a burlap wreath.  However, as I've mentioned in the past, I'm a crappy searcher over there and never seem to be able to find *exactly* what I want/need.  (of course, now that I go back and look, I see one that is just about what I did. Hmph.  What.ev.)  So, I modified different tutorials to meet my needs.

Here it is!  I wish, now, that I would've made two!  I love it so much!  (By luck of the draw, my bestie actually got my craft.  So, I have visitation rights and such.  Plus, her door is red, so the colors in the rolled flowers look fab and complimentary and stuff.)

My weight loss, my match book, and my goal that isn't my goal anymore.

I've always been the "heavy" one in my family.  My mom is skinny minny.  So skinny, that she has to GAIN weight for an upcoming surgery.  My dad weighed less than I do now when he was 30.  My brother, well, he used to drink protein shakes in high school to try to gain weight.  So, yeah, I was wearing the fat jeans in our house.

After I got married, and I was in control of what I was eating, I joined weight watchers.  (A total aside here.  But, its still so strange to me that my body looked better then, at 24 lbs heavier, because I was all non stretched out and stuff.  Anywho...)  I lost 30 lbs. that I maintained for about a minute before I got pregnant. 

I learned, with each pregnancy, what to eat, and how to stay active.  O's pregnancy I gained around 50 lbs (yikes!)  A was 40 (though I still had an extra 20 from O's pregnancy still hanging on) I was 35 (I did lose all of A's weight) and E was 28. 

I thought gaining less this last time meant that it would be easier and less time consuming to lose the weight after the baby was born.  That held true, for about the first 2 weeks.  Breastfeeding makes me hungry, and it makes me hungry for sweets and protein.  Around 2 weeks, I completely stopped losing weight.

Around week 4, I started running again.  I lost, maybe, a pound or 2.  Not much, and certainly not enough for me to be comfortable standing up in my little brother's wedding on my 30th birthday with 20 somethings who have never had children.  Ahem.  Moving along.

I went dairy free for Eliza in the beginning of December.  I started to, finally, see a little weight come off with the dairy free diet combined with running.  When I saw this, I quickly wrote down my weight as of that day, so that I could enter it into my excel weight loss worksheet (totally E's doing.  Not mine.)  I wrote it down on something I had handy in my bathroom drawer. 

Well, I never got around to actually entering it into the spreadsheet.  The next time I weighed myself and I had lost weight, I wrote it down.  This is how my match book became my weight loss tracker. 

Contrary to the match book's record, I did gain some weight back here and there, and I joined Weight Watchers February 19, with a starting weight of 159.  Since then, I've lost 11 lbs. (15 lbs since January)  Which, for me, is pretty amazing.

I've hesitated to share because 1. I was afraid I wouldn't lose any weight and I'd feel silly and exposed. and 2. I didn't want people to feel bad when I boasted about my weight loss/weight goals.  So, really, its because I'm afraid of what people think about me. (Sounds about right.)

But, now that I've reached my goal weight that isn't my goal weight (Its my pre-pregnancy weight with Eliza.  I liked how I looked/felt at that weight then, pre-her, but not now.  A change in my body from pregnancy, I think.) I feel like I can step out for a minute and say something about it.  I feel like I can tell you all that I still want to lose more, even though my lowest weight in my adult life was only 6 lbs less than what I weigh now. I have no idea what I want my final goal to be, but I'm starting with another 5lbs.  I feel like I need to share, so that when I start trying to maintain my weight loss, you all can help me be accountable.

Plus, I totally want to show you all my awesomeness in my bridesmaid dress.  The one I AM going to feel good about wearing.

There it is.  Its out there.  

I feel like this has happened before

Deja Vu. 

That's what I feel like is going on at our house right now.  O had her 7 year check up on Wednesday.  I was assuming it would go wonderfully.  She hasn't been sick much, her asthma is generally under control, she's thriving at school. 

The first thing O had done was measurements of height and weight.  Her height seemed a bit low to me, but I couldn't really remember what she was at her 6 year check up.  Her weight is always low, so that really wasn't a surprise. 

Still under my assumption of having a perfect appointment, the pediatrician walks in and says "well, we have a problem."  Really?  Already?  Because we haven't done much, yet.  Only taken measurements.  Oh.  I see.  "O has only grown .25" and gained 1.5lbs the last year."

Cue flash back...Now! We're back in the years 2005 and 2006.  Getting O weighed creates so much anxiety.  Has she gained enough?  Are we going to have to have more testing done?  Am I going to have to meet with the dietitian again who treats me like I'm abusing my child by not feeding her? The dietitian who says my breast milk isn't fatty enough.  Is my breast milk not fatty enough?  Is she allergic to dairy?  Please, please, please have a gain on that scale!

I thought we were passed this stuff.  After 1.5 years of trying to figure out why O is little, we (the pediatrician, O's GI, and E and I) came to the conclusion that she's just tiny.  Its just her.  She was hanging out on her little growth curve, albeit below the charts, but, she had a purty little curve going.  Unfortunately, this latest ordeal has her dropping off in her own curve in height and weight. 

So, we're back to more testing.  Some of the testing of the blood work O had done when she was 1.5 really wasn't super reliable. Things like Celiac may not show trustworthy results with just blood work until after the age of 5.  (They gave us the option to have a small portion of her small intestine biopsied, but we declined.)    She'll likely have a repeat of those kinds of tests. 

As for right now, we're keeping a food log.  Monitoring everything that goes into her tummy.  (Which is sort of funny, in a weird way, since I'm doing the same for myself for WW.  Although the intent with mine is to LOSE weight.)  She's bringing home apple cores and corners of sandwiches from school.  (Its kind of gross since its been hot.  It gets all smelly in her lunch box.)  We should hear from a dietitian in the next few days.  They'll come out and take a peak at O's food log and determine if she's eating enough calories (which, I think she probably is.)  Then, we'll go from there. 

This is real life deja vu.  I have done this before.  At least this time the dietitian can't blame me for breastfeeding O. 

Fresh Diet Pink Lemonade

The weather has been ah-mazing here.  Upper 70s, lower 80s.  I love it.

With the warm temperatures, I've been craving some yummy, cold, refreshing drinks.  Like lemonade (the real stuff!)  Aldi's happened to have lemon's on sale for $.99 a bag!  Then, I rounded the corner and found the $.79 strawberries!  I snagged a few of each the other day and decided to make some pink lemonade this week. 

I don't know if I'm just a lousy searcher, and I don't use the right keywords when looking for things.  Or, if there truly wasn't a good, yummy, fresh homemade recipe for Strawberry Lemonade (that didn't include club soda or simple syrup) on Pinterest.  Either way, I searched and searched and couldn't find one.  So, I made my own.

The awesome part about this lemonade?  Its diet and it only cost me $1.92 (with tax!) to make the entire pitcher.

My Fresh Diet Pink Lemonade

Ingredients:
6 Lemons, room temperature
1 16 oz package of Strawberries (washed)
7 packets (or more to taste.  I like my lemonade kind of tart) of Stevia (though Splenda would work well, too)
1 cup of water (and about 1.5 quarts added at the end)
Ice
Sprig of mint

You'll need a lemon juicer and a knife to cut your lemons and strawberries

*Wash and cut your strawberries. 

*Put into your 2 quart drink container and set aside.  I mashed mine a little bit with my pampered chef mixing do-dad.  But, you can mash yours with a fork a little bit if you want.  

*Roll each lemon back and forth a few times before cutting it.  I read something somewhere (isn't that the way it always is?  I can never remember WHERE I read it.) that you get more juice from your lemon if you roll it before cutting and juicing it.  It seems to work well.

*Juice each lemon half.  (I absolutely LOVE my lemon juicer from Pampered Chef.) 

*Pour the lemon juice over the strawberries and let them sit together for a while.

*Meanwhile, heat your cup of water up per your method of choice. I  put mine in the microwave for about 1.5 minutes. 

*Stir in your packets of sweetener. 

*Pour water/sweetener mixture over strawberry and lemon juice combo.  Stir well.

*Add extra water and ice until you have 2 quarts of lemonade.

*Pour into your pretend-I'm-on-a-tropical-island-alone-glass, garnish with a lemon slice and a sprig of mint, that you took from your neighbor's herb garden, and enjoy. (You could even go further and do a little sugar on the rim of your glass if you wanted to be super fancy)

I did find that wasn't super pink the first day, but the second day it was a glorious color!  I'd recommend making it a day ahead to achieve a beautiful color pink.



It was so.stinking.yummy.  Normally E doesn't really care for my low-calorie re-dos.  However, even he raved over this, saying "its very refreshing!" 

There you have it.  Diet Pink Lemonade.  Yum!

Dear O, my eldest child

Happy 7th birthday to my sweet petite princess.   How you've changed our lives. 

You were the first to make us parents.

You've helped us welcome your siblings into our family. 

Willingly, in fact.  You love being the big sister.

 Especially to a sister. ;)

I wish I wasn't so sick right now.  I wanted to finish your slide show.  I wanted to write you a beautiful birthday letter, and make you your birthday pancake breakfast and dinner choice of taco salad, and make you a chocolate cake with pink icing.  Hopefully you'll forgive me and that Daddy's rendition of birthday cake passes the test.  I promise to do some of those things when I feel better. 

Love, mommy