Back in the groove

After a very fun girls weekend in Nashville, I'm home and back in the groove of things. I'm still lacking in sleep, that's to be certain. Getting in at 3:00 am and having my internal clock wake me up at 5:30 was excruciating. Horrible, since it was really a chance to just sleep in. Oh well.

I'd love to do the day time stuff again soon. However, the night life isn't one that I hope to see for a while. I think I'll take a bottle of wine to share in the hotel next time. $5 for a drink that I have to literally chug down isn't my idea of tasty fun (though, afterward I certainly thought it was fun, or funny. not sure which.) Apparently in Nashville, a rum and coke is 90% rum and 10% coke. Not yummy. Truly, not yummy.

Here are a few of my favorite pictures from this weekend.

Drowning my sorrows with alcohol

Thank goodness for my trip to Nashville with friends! I leave tomorrow after FPU. I really didn't think E was going to let me go (I say "let me" but I really mean he didn't want me to go...) But, I found the money (from my tutu venture, thank-you-very-much) for the hotel room and food. I may not be able to buy much, but I'm going! Hooray!

Are you ready, Devan???

Oh, and if you're wondering...Not an implantation dip... I'll be drinking it up in Nashville. (okay, maybe not "drinking it up". I'm a light weight. Maybe having a drink or two is more appropriate)

Started spotting today. Headed off to get some lady-things and Advil at the store before my hair cut today. I can't go to Nashville with out a big bottle of Advil and my heating pad... Fun, huh? (can you taste the sarcasm?)

Please don't let it take another 5 mths to get pregnant again.

I love falls

I know I'm probably a bad mom for posting these. But, you know what? I don't care. I think kids falling (when they don't get hurt, of course) can be a source of entertainment. (Heck, an adult falling can be a source of entertainment.) Maybe that's why I like AFV so much. :)

I don't typically think its funny when O falls. Mainly because she cries over almost anything. I don't want to laugh and hurt her feelings. My wild man, however, very rarely cries over falls. It so happens that he loves speed- running, sliding, jumping- he loves to do things fast. Unfortunately for him, that means more falls. Fortunately for us, that gives us more opportunities to catch him on video.

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In other news... I had quite a dip in my temperature yesterday, followed by a rise again today. One might hope that its an implantation dip. One can pray that it is.

Way Back Whensday

our first "date"

I should comment that Raechel actually did my hair for this formal.

it was on a day when we had two segments of rehersals for West Side Story.

She did an amazing job!

My Aunt Vickie, my mother, my cousins Jocelyn and Kim, and myself.

I got my belly button pierced on this trip. Accompanied by my father.

Sorry, friends.... these we're just too good to pass up.

Rebecca and I in West Side Story

My friend Raechel and I in West Side Story

Progress

We've made a lot of progress around our house the last few days. O has been talking back since we got home from Michigan. Slowly, we seem to be making SOME improvement. Yesterday was awesome! She did a wonderful job at the dentist, even showed an older child how to sit and get her teeth cleaned. She helped with baby S (my new job) a lot. She helped me get diapers, wipes, etc. She and I took a walk with her babies in the double doll stroller and we chatted. It was a good day for her and I. Very little talking back. Progress.

I've been invited to a lot of baby showers in the past 21 months. I haven't gone to a single one. Until last week. A dear friend, who had her own struggle with secondary infertility, had a little impromptu baby shower at Macaroni grill (which, by the way, turned out to be a horrible, horrible experience! Service stunk!) The momma-to-be didn't know it was a baby shower until towards the end of the meal (it was a surprise). So we didn't fully dwell on the baby and all that jazz. There were no "measure the belly" games or "guess what baby food this is" games. There was SOME baby talk, but it certainly didn't center around pregnancy as much as a normal baby shower does. I actually enjoyed myself. Progress.

We've made significant headway on our play set (I say "we" like I've had something to do with it besides encouraging the workers and keeping the children away from the saw). E decided to go ahead and find plans for a play set online, buy the raw lumber, find the parts from various places, and build it from scratch. I have to say, I was hesitant at first. It seemed like a really big undertaking. Seeing as E and ceiling fans have a reputation (another post...another time) I was sure that this building thing would end in swearing and cursing. But, so far so good. Progress.

Wood pile

to this: as of Sunday afternoon (and, it actually looks way different now, even...)

Progress is an amazing thing. It seems like the journey of life, (or the building of a play set) is always so slow. Almost so slow that you can't see if anything is happening for the better. You can't remove yourself and see that things ARE changing. Things are progressing.

Eventually, the kids will be able to play on the play set. Eventually, I'll be able to GO to a REAL baby shower. Eventually, O will learn about the correct way to talk to adults all of the time(we hope!). For now, we rejoice in the journey- the progress of good things in our lives!

Silent Sunday-sort of

This is so dang funny to me. Watching my darling husband try to fly a Mickey Mouse kite, while my dad talks to his barbie kite.

Maybe what makes it so funny is that the kids were out, literally 5 minutes prior, flying the kites like pros. Or maybe its because my husband is an aerospace engineer... (or an "aero-dynamicist" to be more exact) Its just humorous to me.

oh, and don't mind my snorting...

I'm starving

I think my stomach has officially started to eat away at my body. Good. Great, in fact.

When returning home from Michigan the other day, I haphazardly stood on the scale to see what the "damage" of vacationing had done to my weight loss plan. Well, I certainly wasn't expecting to see what I saw. Let me tell you folks, it was bad. Bad, bad, bad. While I'm not huge, nor am I considered "over weight" I didn't like the number I saw there.

The frustrating part is this: I almost always eat healthy and I exercise almost daily. We only eat whole wheat and multi-grain products (no white flour in our house, actually) and eat lots of fruits and veggies. My issue, though, it just too much. It started with the Clomid. The eating, and eating, and eating. Believe it or not, you CAN eat too much of that stuff, too!

Anyway, I've been sort-of-kind-of-not-really tracking points via Weight Watchers style. After returning from my trip I've realized that I'm at the "brink". The one where I either decide to NOT watch what I'm eating, or the one that I decided to get my butt in gear.

What I'd love to do is go back to weight watchers. They have an awesome program, and I do really well on it (basically, I do well when I have accountability...) However, I can't attend during the week because of my kiddos and I can't go on Saturdays due to our facilitating Financial Peace. SOOOOOOO..... I'm trying on my own again. Which leads me back to this:

I'm starving- and carrots aren't cutting it. Celery either.