No Wonder I Never Make It To The Gym...

We've had a lot of stuff, random and otherwise, going on here in our house. And after going through these pictures, I'm like, holy moly, no wonder I never have time to go to the gym. We are busy busy. I mashed all of our going on's into one post here, because I'm lazy like that. Yeah, I said it. Oh wait, maybe that's why I never make it to the gym. Moving on...

This boy kills me. He is such a busy body. And a stinker. Here is his first time-out:

He actually stayed there for a whole minute, and even showed me his "soft hands" afterwards (he was there for hitting me in the face).


And here is Magnus learning to play the piano. Not really, but for some reason, he is in love with the piano. At least once a day, he makes his way into the living room, climbs up on the piano bench, opens the piano up, and plays and plays. It's pretty cute.

We made our way to the kids' dentist appointments a month ago. For some reason, that I cannot remember, I made an appointment for all 5 kids at the same time?! It was a little crazy, but thanks to our old school dentist office with ancient arcade games, they were plenty entertained while they each had a turn back in the chair. Vintage fabulous.
Pac Man. Enough said.

Yeah, new tooth brushes! We made it through, and without one cavity. I have to say, I think my kids are awesome. None of them have ever had a cavity. Good teeth? Or good brushing habits? Not sure, but I'm glad either way! We'll be back in 6 months Mr. Dentist.

Magnus can dis-assemble my kitchen (and entire house, for that matter) in about 5 minutes. This is the aftermath of me ignoring him for 20 minutes so I could make dinner. What he does in 5 minutes usually takes me at least 30 to clean up. Sigh.

We had a fun day at the library on Dr. Suess' Birthday. They had a party, complete with story times, games, crafts, cupcakes, and juice.

Laylah had a performance with her Spanish club, Tres Amigos, at a culture fair. They sang songs and danced. It was pretty cute, and fun to watch.

Can you see her back there with her hand up by her mouth?

Los Tres Amigos

After her performance, we were able to check out all the fair had to offer. We ate crepes from France, sausage from Germany, and sugary chips from Mexico. We watched lots of performances, dressed up in some cultural clothing, did some arts and crafts, and were able to try out some instruments in the play room. It was a really fun day.

(In case you may be wondering where the other half of my family is (aka, the boys) just know that I try. They literally run from the camera these days. They were off doing who knows what...)

Baron continues to be bored at home during the day (only 2 more months until summer, yay!) Sometimes we make blanket forts. He will set it up just the way he likes it, and then hang out in there all day.
Daphne had a mother/daughter girl scout activity at Pinkadilly Tea. We had so much fun. We had High Tea, and we were able to try cute little tea sandwhiches, lots of petite desserts, scones, fresh fruit, and delicious fruity herbal teas with lots of cream and sugar. Yum :)

Daphne opted out of tea, and instead had pink lemonade.

The tea shop was darling and had a whole slew of hats for the girls to try on. And try on they did.
These three little gals went to preschool together and I'm glad they get to stay close through girl scouts.

Once again, we have little Magnus. This baby has been so different than all of my other babies. He is into and onto everything. Literally.

He doesn't just like to play the piano, he likes to be on the piano too.

I don't even know how he got onto our counter height table. It's pretty high, and I came down the stairs to see him proud as can be, sitting up there, eating crumbs off the table.

This one kills me, because he pushed his ottoman over to his dresser, emptied out his drawer, climbed onto the ottoman, and then climbed into the drawer. As always, he was so proud. I was just relieved the whole dresser didn't tip over onto him. If you've noticed, he is not a tiny baby...

We did happen to celebrate St. Patrick's Day, even though I feel it is one of the lamer holidays. I made these awesome pancakes. The idea came from one-little-minute.com (I would link, but for some reason my link button is not working, sorry!)

The gold coins at one end and the cloud at the other. Pretty clever :)

And I think I have mentioned this before, but I am definitely not a fan of having the leprechauns come and destroy our house and make messes, much to the disappointment of my kids. Oh well, at least I allow them (the leprechauns) to drop off green treats.

Here we are, back to Magnus (can you tell that this kid alone keeps me very busy? He does.) He absolutely loves to be outside. The problem is, of course I have to be out there with him, and I'm not always able to do that. I am usually dragging him into the house kicking and screaming because he just wants to run into the street and in general, away from our front door and anything that has to do with being inside.

One day, I decided I would just let him go where he wanted to go and see what happened. I followed him and he ran down the driveway, into the street, and over to the neighbor's yard where he stood for about a half an hour. It was kind of weird. He walked back and forth around the yard, sat down for awhile, tried to open their car door, and finally, I picked him up and we headed home (kicking and screaming, of course) Funny boy.

A few weeks ago, I was running through our neighborhood at nighttime and caught this awesome picture of the gorgeous cherry blossoms that line our street. They're all gone now, but it was lovely while it lasted.

We were able to go to a neighborhood Easter party at our clubhouse. They served breakfast, had crafts and an Easter egg hunt, and the Easter Bunny even showed up. Good times.

Magnus wasn't a fan.

The kids had a day off of school, so we biked over to the park and spent a few hours playing. We had a picnic, and I even got my first sunburn of the year.

We've been able to admire and enjoy our own lovely blossoms in our tree. I love Virginia in the spring. It is breathtaking.

Jonah had a few weeks where he decided that following the rules wasn't his favorite thing to do. My mom suggested I put him to work so that he was too tired to make mischief anymore (thanks for the great idea mom!) I supervised while he weeded my entire front yard. It took him 4 days (after school, of course) for a total of about 9 hours, and it sure looks nice in my front yard now!

I think it worked. He's been mischief free since, and quite a good listener as well.

We had a little scare with Laylah a couple weeks ago. She had been having pain in her right side for a couple days. Finally, when she was in tears and couldn't get out of bed one morning, it convinced me that she needed to be seen by a doctor. I took her to the ER because I feared it might be appendicitis. They got her right in, because they thought so too.

Experiencing her first x-ray

Laylah has always been terrified of needles and was practically hysterical when they were putting her IV in. They also took a urine sample, and were about to take her for a CT scan when the doctor rushed in telling us they found out it was a UTI with inflammation of the kidneys.

We were relieved to be discharged with a prescription instead of surgery, and on our way home.

General Conference is so wonderful, but it sure is hard to stay awake while listening to those soothing voices of our modern day prophets :)

And lastly, we have the one picture I was able to snag of my little group I was in charge of when I went with Jonah on his field trip last week to the Children's Museum of Richmond. We had a blast, but it sure was a long exhausting day with a bunch of 2nd graders.

And now, you are caught up on our happy, crazy little lives. It continues with soccer season, of which 4 of my 5 kids are participants in this spring. The busy busy continues...

Keep On Keepin' On

I suppose if I would like to stay accountable, it's time for an update on my path to a healthier and happier me. So, here I am staying accountable. Or something like that.

I have now been committed and working towards my goal for about 6 weeks. I am so proud of myself just for the fact that I have gone 6 weeks straight of recording every bite I take in my account on myfitnesspal.com. It was amazing to me to see how much I was eating at first. I had no idea how many calories some food had, and I continued to just eat it, unaware of how much I was consuming. I measure everything now, and I realize that when I eat healthier foods that are more filling, I'm not hungry throughout the day and I don't have that 4 o'clock craving for something sweet..... well, most of the time :) I have always loved healthy food, but it does take more time to prepare and I have to think ahead so I'm not scrambling for something when it comes time to eat. I eat 5 small meals a day and I am rarely ever hungry. It has been working great.

I haven't been as good about the gym as I should. It is really so hard for me to keep up with life and all of my responsibilites lately. Some days I feel like I'm drowning with all that I need to accomplish. However, I really love the gym and I love to workout. Getting there is my only problem. Once I'm there, I'm happy to sweat and burn my muscles to the breaking point. It feels terrific. If I can get a better gym routine down, I would feel much better about things. As it is, I'm making it there about 3 times a week. I would love to be able to make it 5-6.

That being said.... I have lost 8.5 pounds in 6 weeks. Discouraging? A little, yes. But at least it's progress, slow as it may be. Sometimes my greatest frustration is that I feel like my health issues and hormone imbalances hold me back. I really try not to use that as an excuse, but my doctor has told me it can hinder weight loss. That alone is a huge discouragement to me because weight loss used to be fairly easy. I worked out, I ate healthy, BOOM. Lose weight. Not so much anymore. There have been weeks where I didn't lose an ounce.

My other problem is sugar. I know I am addicted to sugar. I also know that it has gotten much better over the last few weeks, as I have denied the craving. Now, I think everything is okay in moderation, and some days, I do give in to that craving. Even though I record everything I eat every day, I'm not always under my caloric goal. But that's okay. I just need to remember to moderate, and not binge.

Anyway, things are going slowly, but steady. I think the hardest thing for me to realize is that I need to just keep it up and not beat myself up over mistakes I've made, which I tend to do. I don't want to fall back into old habits, ever. So I keep plugging along and hopefully, I'll be able to fit back into all of my clothes that are waiting for me in my closet, and not just the biggest and loosest pieces :)