Thursday, November 22, 2012

Thankful Thursday - Kids Edition!

I bet you thought I was gonna say I am thankful for my kids right?  Well of course I am thankful for them, but I figured in honor of Thanksgiving, I would let my kids write the blog.  Well, they would dictate & I will write it.  :)

I asked AJ what he was thankful for and he said:  books & video games, mom & dad, Daniel, the Christmas tree & everything that God gives us.  (Aww!)  I asked him "What about Zak?"  "Oh yeah, I'm thankful for Zak, but I forgot about him because he's just a baby."

Then I asked Daniel and he said he was thankful for Two Face, Lego Batman 1, the bad guys from Lego Batman 2, Sponge Bob mac & cheese, his Tigger pillow & Daddy.  I asked "What about Mommy?"  "Nope.  Oh, I am also thankful for Pop Pop & that he bumps his head!"  I'm thankful 3 only lasts one year!  ;)

Finally I asked Zak and he said "AHAHAHAHAH!"  Since I'm an interpreter I can tell you that means "I'm thankful for Mom, Dad, AJ & Daniel.  And I'm thankful that this is my first Thanksgiving with this amazing family.  And that I can eat real food not just that baby food anymore!  Pass the turkey!"  Well, that's a loose interpretation, but you get the idea.

I am thankful for so much not only today but everyday of my life.  I will continue to do these posts to remind myself of all that I have to be thankful for. I hope you all had a great day with your loved ones!  Happy Thanksgiving from my family to yours!!


Saturday, November 17, 2012

Thankful Thursday - Weight Loss

Sorry this is a few days late.  It's been a busy week.  Then again, aren't they all??  ;)

This week (in case you aren't one of the 66 people who liked my status on Weds) I hit my pre-baby weight!!  I am so thankful for finally hitting this milestone!  I have been working hard, eating right, training for the marathon, etc pretty consistently since July.  And I couldn't have been happier to finally see this number on the scale on Weds.  My next goal is a certain weight before my birthday.  I have to lose 2 lbs/week every week to hit it.  I'm not off to the best start (one 1 lb/week for the past 2 weeks), but hopefully I'll make up for it.  I'll keep you posted.

I'm also thankful for all the things that have helped me reach my goal.  I'm thankful for my gym & their awesome class schedule.  I'm thankful that I got in when they opened on an awesome deal & now only pay $3/month.  I'm thankful for the friends & teachers there who constantly encourage me to do more & tell me how great I'm doing.

I'm thankful that my friend Anne started a secret Facebook group for a few of us who want to lose weight.  Some were friends before & some are now virtual friends.  They keep me accountable, encourage me, share awesome recipes & make me laugh.

I'm thankful for all of my family & friends who are putting up with me on this journey. They listen to me complain, tell me how great I look (I love the compliments, they keep me going, so keep them coming!) & keep me on track.  I couldn't be doing this without all the support I'm getting!!  Thank you all for reading & listening to me!!

Monday, November 12, 2012

Daniel's Imagination

Daniel has been entertaining all of us with his imagination recently.  He comes up with great games to play & things to do.  He is also super artistic.  He loves doing crafts at school, church & at home.  I love seeing how much he can do & how is improving all the time.  He is getting really good at staying in the lines when he colors, cutting things out & fingerpainting.

His Halloween costume was one of his recent inventions.  He wanted to be a ghost because his favorite ride in Disney World was The Haunted Mansion.  But AJ was being The Joker from Batman & we all wanted to be "Batman Bad Guys."  Instead of caving to the family "pressure," Daniel decided his costume would be "A Ghost from The Haunted Mansion who Should be a Bad Guy in Batman."  Yes that was the full title.  Yes he came up with it on his own.

The Costume
Daniel also really likes to tell stories.  He comes up with all different stories to tell me during the day, usually when we're waiting for AJ's bus.  He also tells Adrian bedtime stories at night.  Most of his stories are retellings of shows he's seen, video games or other books.  But he always puts his Daniel spin on them!

Sunday, November 11, 2012

Zachary - 9 months

Wow, I can't believe Zak is already 9 months old!  He is growing up so fast!!  It's definitely faster with the third kid, probably because I'm so busy with all 3 of them.

Zachary has had a busy month again.  He has been really branching out on what he's eating.  He has tried tons of finger food & has even had pizza & chocolate cake.  He has also stood on his own for a few seconds a couple of times, well on his way to figuring out how to walk.  He is constantly exploring & getting into everything.  He loves to play with his big brothers! 

We did have a few setbacks as well, I guess he's human after all.  :)  He got pink eye a few weeks ago & then has had a cold pretty much since then.  With all of that we have had quite a few sleepless nights.  I can't complain though, he is such a good sleeper most of the time!  But boy was I used to sleeping, very hard to go back to being tired.

First taste of chocolate cake at a friend's birthday party!

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Thankful Thursday - New Additions

This week I am SO thankful that we finally got a second fridge!!  We were blessed when we moved in to our house to get a used freezer as a gift.  We keep it in the basement & I try to keep it stocked with both cooked & uncooked foods.  Recently, I've had a seriously overstocked fridge all the time.  I know this is a good problem to have & I'm also thankful for that.

A few weeks ago, one of my friends told me there were moving (closer to me, yay!)  They had a fridge in their basement that they were going to just leave in the house.  I offered to buy it for $50, she said sold!  Yay!!

This weekend they were cleaning out their old place & we went to pick up our new fridge.  We have it in the garage now.  I immediately stocked it with some of the overflow from the inside fridge.  I also put the 20ish pounds of apples we still have left in it so they will stay fresh.

I was trying to figure out why my fridge is always packed.  I don't feel like I over buy.  And we use everything, it's very rare that I though something out.  Today I realized what it is.  We are eating very healthy these days.  Almost everything I buy is fruit, vegetables & dairy.  All of that needs to be in the fridge.

The other positive thing coming out of the new fridge is that Adrian is so impressed with how nice both fridges look now, he wants to put shelving in our garage so we can split our pantry as well.  If he does that, I would feel like I have a whole new kitchen!  Hopefully I'll be writing another thankful Thursday post about those shelves soon!!

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Halloween!

Happy Halloween from the Jones boys!
We love Halloween around here!  The boys love getting dressed up & going out to get candy (duh, who doesn't??)  I was never a fan of the holiday, until I became a Mom.  The boys ask us to dress up too, which is fun.  Plus it feels like it's the only holiday where I don't have to "do" anything.  I mean, I buy a few costumes, get dressed up & go beg for candy.  No cooking, no cleaning, no wrapping, etc.

Halloween for us also includes all the fun fall activities that we do, since a lot of them allow us to wear our costumes.  This year we missed a few of the due to other commitments like my marathon & my brother's wedding.  But we packed a lot into Halloween weekend, even though we were dodging raindrops most of the time.

We started out Fri morning by going on our last apple picking trip of the season.  The boys & I picked 10 lbs of goldrush apples at Lynd's.  I read that these stored well & was hoping they would at least last through the holidays...they said they will last until the summer!  Yay!  I love fresh apples!!

Friday night we broke out our costumes for the first time & went to a trunk or treat at a local church.  The boys had a blast!  We were the Batman "badguys" this year...AJ was Joker, Zak was Penguin, Adrian was Riddler, I was Catwoman & Daniel was "a ghost from the Haunted Mansion who could be a Batman badguy" (yes, that is the full title of his costume, he came up with it, I love it).  We met Batman at one of the stations & AJ thought it was so funny!

My bad guys :)

Meeting Batman!

Saturday we finally went out to The MAiZE at Little Darby Creek.  We learned last year that our boys love corn mazes & found this one but just didn't have time to make it out.  This year, we made it a priority.  It was very cold & rainy, but we still had a great time.  It took us about an hour & a half to finish the huge maze & we found 16 of the 20 "corn-nundrums" that were hidden in it.  There were also numerous other things to do there & we got to wear our costumes & trick or treat.  It was a very fun, very tiring day.
Zak & I ready to head into the corn maze
Sunday we headed down to The North Market for their Halloween party.  They did a great job with it!  There were tons of candy stations (with good candy!), music, a bug guy, balloon animals & lots of free samples for Mom & Dad.  We had a blast!  And it was all indoors so we didn't get wet...bonus!
Daniel changed his costume for this day.  He didn't fit the theme, but isn't he the cutest Tigger ever??
From there we headed to another church's trunk or treat.  They had to move it indoors, but it was still really nice.  They had a ton of games for the boys to play, food, petting zoo & of course the candy.  The boys had a blast playing the games & earning tickets to get some fun toys.
AJ & Daniel in a donut eating contest.  They didn't win, but loved eating the donuts!
After all this you would think we'd be tired of it by the actual Halloween, but nope!  On Wednesday, I picked AJ up from school & we headed out to Pickerington.  They have an indoor trick or treat & since the weather was horrible, I wanted to do that in case we didn't do much that night.  It was a very nice set up, they decorated their whole city hall & gave out candy.  You could tell they were overwhelmed but handled it great, people brought in extra candy while we were there.  Great job!!
AJ & Daniel outside Pickerington City Hall

Another Batman!  This one was at City Hall & then he followed us to the library.  :)

Finally, Wednesday night we headed out into our neighborhood for trick or treat.  It was cold & rainy & not many people were out.  It also seemed like less people were handing out candy, I would suspect the bad weather impacted this too.  We walked around the block & the boys were done, tired & cold.  We took a quick break in the house, then loaded up & went to our church for trunk or treat.  Even that was too cold, Daniel only made it about 1/2 way before heading back to our car.

Our final Halloween adventure was Fri afternoon when we went to a local dentist to donate most of the candy we collected to the troops.  The boys like the act of trick or treating, but soon lose interest in the candy (yay!)  And since Adrian & I are eating healthy, we don't need it all in our house!  We took a bag with 12 lbs of candy & they gave us $10 ($1/lb but there's a $5 limit per kid).  All in all, we really had a great time celebrating the season!  Now we're into downtime before we start up again with our Christmas stuff.  Hope you all had as much fun as we did this season!!

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Busing AJ

So a few weeks ago at my book club meeting, one of my good friends was complaining about her experience with the school buses the past 2 years.  After listening to her crazy experience I said "I'm so glad we haven't had any problems with AJ on the bus."

The next Monday, AJ got off the bus all upset.  Since he only goes half day, there were only 2 kids on the bus ride home this year.  Apparently the other boy was going to be picked up from now on so AJ was the only one on the bus to go home.  He didn't like being alone on the bus, but still loves the bus so we decided to keep him on it.

Then on Wednesday, a minivan pulled up in front of the house after school & AJ got out of the back crying.  I talked to the driver to find out that since he was the only kid on the route now, it didn't require a bus & he would be on the van to come home from then on.  She also apologized for not giving us any notice, she didn't know until late Weds morning.  I do have to say, I love our driver!

I talked to AJ & he said he didn't like riding in the van because there was no car seat (Woot!!  Go Mom & Dad!!)  He asked me to please do "express" (pick him up) from now on.  So I talked to transportation & now I pick him up from school every day.  I figured this wouldn't be so bad since I pick up Daniel 2 days/week & can go right to AJ's school.  The other 3 days I would plan to go to the gym & do errands.  Plus the school is literally 3 houses away.  I can leave at 11:50 (dismissal time) & still get there on time...not that I would ever cut it that close.  ;)

This worked great...until Mon when I had sick kids...and the baby fell asleep 30 minutes before I had to leave to pick up AJ.  Oh well, AJ is super happy about it & most of the time it won't be a big deal.  It also makes it easier if we want to do anything together, we can just leave from school (like our Thursday lunch bunch). 

 Also, if I didn't pick him up, I might have missed this gem of a conversation (for those who didn't see it on Facebook or just want another laugh):
AJ - Mom, today is November 1. Why do they call it November?
Me - I don't know sweetie, that's what they decided to name this month. Maybe we can look it up later & see why.
AJ - OK. I think they should call is "Yesvember" that sounds nicer.
Me - (speechless) Yeah, that's a good idea AJ!
AJ - I like to say Yes instead of No, it's nicer.
Me - Yeah, I like that too.
AJ - Mom, Can I have Halloween candy for lunch today??

Thursday, November 1, 2012

Thankful Thursday - Jersey Style

A few of the other blogs I follow do a "Thankful Thursday" post & I love this idea.  While reading theirs I'm also reminded of all the things I have to be thankful for.  I have been wanting to start doing it weekly here too & thought November is the perfect month to start doing it.  I had another idea for this first post, but events this week have changed my mind.

This week I am thankful to be a Jersey Girl!  While I haven't lived there full time in 18 years, I always consider it home.  Seeing & reading about the destruction Hurricane Sandy caused there has been heart breaking.  I am so sad to read about friends whose homes are destroyed & see the beaches & boardwalks wrecked.  Seaside holds so many memories for me, some are a little fuzzy but I hear I had a good time.  ;)

Now that may not sound like something to be thankful for, but here's the part I'm thankful for.  I'm thankful to see people reaching out to people, friends, family & strangers.  I'm thankful to see the NJ pride & strength.  I'm thankful that my friends & family are all SAFE & that the things they lost can be rebuilt & replaced.  I'm thankful for all my memories, which are now a little more sweet.  I'm thankful that Seaside will be rebuilt & will probably be nicer than it currently is.

Even though I don't live there now, I'm a Jersey Girl at heart, always will be.  I've been oddly homesick this week.  Hoping we can get back there again this summer.  Until the next trip, I'm thankful I got to take all my boys to see where I grew up.  Stay strong Jersey!!

Here is a picture of the 5 of us at Seaside.  The pier in the background is now destroyed.