WW Wednesday

It's been a few weeks since I last checked in with my weight-loss progress.

Let me tell ya, today wasn't pretty.

 For the last 2.5 weeks I have pretty much just eaten whatever "fun vacation food" (aka, doughnuts, pizza, burgers, fries, ice cream, etc.) I wanted.  

I thought "I'm on vacation!  I won't go wild but I will have it if I want it."

Ahem.  Yeah.  Maybe I should have reeled myself in a bit.

SIX pounds, people.  

Six!

Oh well.  I'm actually really glad that the scale reflected my actions accurately.  

I showed very little restraint.

I enjoyed all those bites, though. :)

Moving forward I just need to remember that I don't have to enjoy every bite quite as much to still have an enjoyable meal.

Mother's Day to Memorial Day

Sunday we arrived home from 2 weeks out of town.

The day before Mother's Day we drove to Tennessee. I stayed there all week with the kids while J was in Arizona for work.
While there I visited with my extended family and friends and took almost no photos but here are a couple I did get.
(Grandparents, don't hate on me too much!  At least you saw the chitlins in person! ;))

What can I say?  I was trying to just have "down time." (That's Pa -- my own grandfather, and Kodi who now lives with Papa -- J's dad.)

After J arrived back in Tennessee, we drove to Orlando.

While in Florida we didn't do a Disney Vacation (we've been SeaWorld people the last few years), but we did do a character breakfast at the Polynesian.
We got to spend Thursday at a beautiful beach with our friends Kristopher (that's him in the gray and red shirt at the top of the next photo) and Monica. Monica, who used to work at Disney, suggested a character breakfast for Friday and she miraculously got us in at the last minute!

We met Mickey, Pluto, Lilo, and Stitch and BigBoy LOVED every minute of it.  Actually, we all had a lot of fun.

BabyCakes wasn't really sure what to make of it all but she seemed to like Pluto the best.

All in all it was 15 days away and over 2,000 miles of driving.  We brought home toys, sand, and sunburns (for J and I).

I learned a lot from this trip, but what I learned most was that I may be more of a "home-body" than I realized.
As long as the bodies of all four members of my family are in the same room, I will always feel at home.

Hello out there!

I hope everyone is enjoying the start of their summer.  We got home from vacation on Sunday and the resulting laundry is almost done.

I plan to do some blaaaahgging again soon to catch you up on things, but for now I just wanted to let you know I haven't tripped and fallen offline or anything. ;)

I'll be back tomorrow for WW Wednesday (I'm not expecting a loss tomorrow after lots of "vacation food" and zero tracking) and an update on how my classes turned out for the semester.

Making Rain

Yesterday evening after the rain stopped, I noticed how green the backyard was and thought it might be fun to take a few pics of the kids playing out there.

Wearing her beloved rain boots and a stinker face, BabyCakes ran from the camera almost the entire time.

 

The kids had fun shaking the rain off the tree limbs.

BigBoy is still 5 for a few more weeks.  I can imagine the time that he enjoys "making rain," as he called it, is increasingly fleeting.

BabyCakes, well she didn't really get it.  She had fun shaking the limbs but then would get mad when water got in her face.

Mostly she would tear off leaves and run to an empty flower bed and rip them to shreds saying "Make food!" like she was playing kitchen.

Whether they are "making food" or "making rain," 

Children easily know how to make their own happiness.

Non-Traditional

On Rutgers' website, they state that Non-Traditional students are: "students who for a variety of reasons have circumstances in their lives that may make it more challenging to achieve their academic goals."

As I exclaimed yesterday, I'm done with my two very writing intense classes this semester.    (I'm looking at a math class for the Fall.)

One of the requirements for online courses is that you participate in online message boards where you "get to know" your classmates and discuss weekly topics.

Here are a few things I took away from the experience...

At the beginning of the semester we had to introduce ourselves.  Surprisingly, the majority of my classmates at Community College were traditional students born some time in the 90's.
Here are a few differences between us:

Their hobbies: Playing Rock Band, going to concerts
My hobbies: Taking 2 classes online.

They cause gray hairs.
I try to cover gray hairs.

Their peeps throw parties.
My peeps throw tantrums.

They bribe classmates to do their homework for them.
I bribe children to let me do my own homework.

They wake up to hangovers.
I wake up to kiddie hugs and kisses.

As a student, I might be considered non-traditional, but as a mother, I'm as conventional as it gets.

I'M DONE!

My classes for this semester are finished!
Now for a celebratory cupcake high-five! 

Oh who am I kiddin?! I'm having the damn cupcake. ;)

(P.S. That's BigBoy at 4.  He had shark pj's back then, too, so he wanted to be called "Shark Boy" all the time.  Oh how the years fly by!)