Thursday, February 28, 2013

Thankful Thursday - Routine

This week we finally got back to our routine after weeks of things disrupting it.  And it has been the best week we have had in a long time!  The kids were well behaved, I was calmer, everything went smoother.  Both boys went to school with very little complaining.  Soccer & gymnastics went great!  I have been to the gym every day.  Even bed time has been easier.

It got me thinking who really does better with the routine...them or me?  Was this week so good because I like the routine & I was less stressed so therefore the boys were better behaved?  Or do the boys like the routine & behave better when they know what to expect so therefore things go smoother & I am less stressed?  It's probably a little of both...or maybe a lot of both.

I am thankful to finally be back to our routine & finding our groove.  Of course, I'm sure something will throw it off soon (like the possibility of bad weather tomorrow).  But for now I'm going to enjoy the routineness!!

Monday, February 25, 2013

1/2 Marathon Training - Week 7

So this week was awful!  Actually it was a pretty great week life wise, but a horrible training week.  I had a bunch of out of the ordinary things happen so I missed a few workouts & then it snow balled from there.  I wasn't even going to write this post, but decided I needed to hold myself accountable.  I worked out Mon & Tues last week, then that was pretty much it.  I am proud to say that I have still stuck with my plank a day challenge & the love my abs challenge.  So even though it wasn't a great week, at least my core got some work each day.  I'm back in the groove today & have some fun & exciting things planned for March so stay tuned!

Sign in the locker room at my gym - love it!

Instead of detailing my training, I thought I'd take a minute to share a few highlights of my week. 

My parents were here visiting last weekend & into this week.  It was great to see them & have some time for them to spend with my boys.  Everyone had a great time & the boys were super sad to see Nana & Pop Pop leave.  Hopefully they will be back this summer to visit again.

I had Daniel's parent teacher conference.  It went awesome.  He's doing great in preschool, already mastered everything he should for a 3 year old so now they are working on kindergarten readiness stuff with him (what he will focus on next year in preschool).  His only weakness is his social skills.  The teachers are going to work on that for the next 3 months.

I was able to volunteer in AJ's class on Wednesday.  It was great to see what he does on a daily basis at school.  I helped with some evals of other students in the class, then ran a center where we played a rhyming game & sight word bingo.  AJ loved having me in there!  I'm already signed up to do it again in March.

We had an ice day on Friday.  Everything was cancelled.  School for AJ.  Zumba for me.  We stayed in our pajamas & played all day.  So great to have a day to relax!

We took AJ & Daniel to Disney on Ice last night.  Such a fun show!!  The boys loved watching it.  Their favorite part was Peter Pan, especially when Captain Hook was eaten by the crocodile.  I liked all the couples skating in the second act, especially The Lion King.  Watching those 2 "lions" skate to "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" brought tears to my eyes.  I also really liked all the princesses...I don't see them too much around here.  :)

Hope you all had a great week!  Will be back to the normal blogging next week with a great training week & some info on some March challenges!

Thursday, February 21, 2013

Thankful Thursday - Birthday Parties



OK, so I'm cheating a little because since I've been having so much fun celebrating 2 of the 3 boys' birthdays, I didn't do a blog for any of the boys this month.  I decided instead of trying to do them now, I'll just wait 2 weeks & do their updates next month & just give you a quick glimpse into their past month.

Today I'm thankful for the fact that we were able to celebrate their birthdays with 5 different parties!  We had a birthday for both Zak & Daniel on the 7th with our lunch bunch friends, one on the 8th for Zak's first birthday, one on the 9th for both boys with our friends, one on the 10th for Daniel's 4th birthday and one on the 16th for Zak & Isabelle's first birthdays.

I'm thankful that we have so many amazing people in our lives who love our boys so much that they wanted to celebrate with them.  And I'm thankful with how generous they all are, they both love all their new toys, towels & pajamas!

Finally, I'm thankful my parents were able to come up this past weekend to celebrate Zak's first birthday.  They have been at all 3 of my boys' first birthday parties.  That is very special for me and for them.

Here are some picture highlights of the parties:

Zak's gift from us - he loves bouncing!
Zak's cupcake on his birthday

AJ & Daniel working on the birthday cake for the party
Daniel loves Killer Croc from Batman!
Daniel's Oreo cake
Zak & Isabelle's first birthday!
I love their expressions!

Cake face!
All the friends who came to our birthday party!

Monday, February 18, 2013

1/2 Marathon Training - Week 6

Wow, this week flew by!  We have family visiting for the kids' birthdays, my parents are here from Florida.  I've also been fighting a cold, not sure that I'm winning, so I've been a little fuzzy this week.

I managed to keep up with all my workouts this week, I'm actually really happy about the way the week went.  My long walk should have been 5 this weekend & I had planned to do it on Sat.  But with the cold I decided I should split the miles.  Also in my foggy sick state, I thought I had to do 6 miles, so I did two 3 mile walks.  I'm glad I did, I don't think I could have handled more in this weather with this cold.  The 2 walks were also my fastest walks to date, yeah!  I'm excited to see that I'm getting faster.

I have also kept up with my 2 strength challenges for the month of February.  I've been doing at least one plank every day for the whole month, I'm up to 1:15 for my longest prone plank.  And I've done ab reps everyday, I'm up to 140 each day & will go up to 160 for the last week of the month.  I'm definitely feeling & seeing a difference.  Need to keep up the core work after this month!

Here are the workouts I did this week:
Monday, 2/11 - 50 minute TBC class, 10 minutes on bike, 50 minute yoga class
Tuesday, 2/12 - rest day
Wednesday, 2/13 - 60 minute Zumba class, 50 minute yoga class
Thursday, 2/14 - 50 minute Kick boxing class, 15 minutes on bike, 15 minutes on elliptical
Friday, 2/15 - 60 minute Zumba class, 15 minutes on bike, 10 minutes on elliptical
Saturday, 2/16 - 3 mile walk in my neighborhood
Sunday, 2/17 - 3 mile walk in my neighborhood

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Thankful Thursday - Love!

I skipped this weekly post last week because we celebrated both Daniel's & Zachary's birthdays.  My plan was to do their monthly updates and combine them as my Thankful Thursday for last week because I am so thankful for both of them.  But I fell behind on those posts, I'll get to them eventually, hopefully this weekend.

Now, in honor of Valentine's Day, this week I'm thankful for LOVE! 

I'm thankful for the love of my husband.  I'm thankful that we found each other & complete each other & are so unbelievably happy together.


I'm thankful for the love of my children, both the love they show me & the way they taught me to love in a way I never knew was possible.


I'm thankful for the love of my family.  My parents are visiting this week & that is awesome.  I'm thankful for my brothers & the women they married who became my sisters & the nieces that they gave me.


And I'm thankful for the love of my extended family including grandparents, aunts, uncles & cousins, who never felt "extended" because we are all so close.

Finally, I'm thankful for the love of my friends.  I'm a very, very blessed lady to have so many amazing people in my life who I love & who love me!

I hope you are all having a very Happy Valentine's Day!! 

Monday, February 11, 2013

1/2 Marathon Training Week 5

Yeah, this wasn't a good week.  Some of it was my fault, some was out of my control.  Teachers didn't show up for classes.  Dirty diapers had me called out early.  Birthdays lead to too much celebrating, not enough exercising.  I even skipped my long walk on Sunday, just didn't feel like getting up & moving.  I'm hoping this is the worst week I have in this 16 week training series.  I'm also hoping planning to have a much better week this week.

The good news of this past week is that I kept up with my 2 strength challenges.  I did at least one plank every day this past week & even held my longest plank of 1:10!  I also did 100 ab reps Mon-Thurs & then moved up to 120 ab reps for Fri-Sun.  I'm loving these 2 challenges together.  I'm already seeing my core muscles get stronger, yay!

Here are the workouts that I did get done this week:

Monday, 2/4 - 60 minute TBC class (the teacher didn't show up but the 10 of us who were there ran the class anyway), 10 minutes on elliptical, 10 minutes on bike.  Missed yoga & Zumba in the evening due to snow.
Tuesday, 2/5 -30 minutes of Zumba (called out due to dirty diaper), 10 minutes on elliptical, 10 minutes on bike
Wednesday, 2/6 - 60 minutes of Zumba in the morning, 40 minutes of Zumba in the evening, 40 minutes of yoga
Thursday, 2/7 - 30 minutes of Zumba (had to miss kick boxing due to a dirty diaper & no new ones in the diaper bag)
Friday, 2/8 - 15 minutes on elliptical, 20 minutes on bike (Zumba teacher didn't show so I did this instead, it sucked!)
Saturday, 2/9 - planned rest day (birthday party!)
Sunday, 2/10 - unplanned rest day :(

Monday, February 4, 2013

1/2 Marathon Training - Week 4 & Race Recap

This week I've been dealing with sickness and weather and sickness and weather, repeat infinity.  Yeah, it's been that kind of week here.  But I still managed to get in a workout every day, yay!  I also started 2 daily challenges for the month of February to work on my core strength.

On Sunday I met my friend Tammy to do my second race in the 13 in 2013 challenge.  I did the virtual "Tackle the Miles" race and this also satisfied my "5 by the 5th Virtual Race" for February.
The Bib
I decided to keep it at a 5K again this month since I'm still building up my miles.  Next month I think I will move up to a 5 mile race. 

Bundled up in my Jets stuff ready to "Tackle the Miles!"
 Tammy & I met at one of our local parks that has a 4 mile loop.  We were going to go out about 1.5 miles, then come back but decided to just do the whole 4 mile loop but stop at 3.1 for the official race.  We got to the park & it was lightly snowing, had been for about 24 hours.  I was questioning my sanity again but I got out & did it.

This was my first walk in snow & it was different.  I could feel that I was using different muscles to make sure I didn't fall.  My thighs were  are still burning from the walk.  The trial wasn't cleared, but it also wasn't very icy so it was actually a pretty nice walk.

Tammy & I kept a nice pace & had a great conversation, as always.  We got to 3.1 miles & were right at the sledding hill.  It took us 53:01.  That's about 2 mins slower than our last race time, however for the snowy conditions I think we did fantastic!  We are planning to meet up again in mid-March to celebrate that we are both March babies with another walk.
A picture of the trail as we were walking.

Here's how the rest of my week's workouts went:
Monday, 1/28 - 60 minute Total Body Conditioning Class, 40 minute Zumba class
Tuesday, 1/29 - 25 minute Wii Workout (semi-rest day)
Wednesday, 1/30 - 40 minute Zumba class
Thursday, 1/31 - 30 minute Zumba class, 60 minute Kickboxing class
Friday, 2/1 - 60 minute Zumba class, 100 ab reps, 3 planks
Saturday, 2/2 - 50 minute Zumba class, 10 minutes on elliptical, 20 minutes on bike, 100 ab reps, 3 planks
Sunday, 2/3 - 4 mile walk (1:06), 100 ab reps, 3 planks

Sunday, February 3, 2013

2013 Goals Update

So I set goals for myself this year for the first time in a long time.  I've decided I will update at the end of each month to see where I am.  I tweaked them a little & added a few things since the first post.  I'm thinking this will be an ever evolving process.  Thanks for holding me accountable!

Exercise Goals

1.  Do 13 races in 2013 - I finished one race in Jan.  And I have more than 13 scheduled & a few more I'm still looking at.  I'd say I'm on track for this one.
2.  Exercise 5 days/week - In the month of Jan, there were only 5 days that I did not exercise.  I think I killed this goal.

3.  Train for CapCity 1/2 Marathon in May - My training has been going really well!  I love the plan I found & am enjoying the training!  I am blogging the training every week so check back on Mondays for updates.

4.  Do monthly challenges - I didn't do any challenges in Jan, but am signed up for 3 in Feb.  I'm doing Anne's Fit February Challenge, Plank a Day Challenge & Love my Abs Challenge.  I'm super excited!


Weight Loss Goals
1.  Stay under my calorie goal for the day for 13 out of 14 days - Didn't do great with this goal.  I was over my calorie goal 7 of the 31 days.  But I did log my calories 29 of the 31 days with My Fitness Pal so I will count that as a victory.

2.  Lose 1-2 lbs/week - I've lost 10 lbs in 5 weeks, perfect!  :)

3.  Get under 200 lbs by my birthday - I'm currently at 229.  This is going to be a stretch.  The 1/2 marathon is a more realistic goal right now.

Family/Personal Goals
1.  Declutter this house - So far I have decluttered AJ & Daniel's room & closet, Zachary's room (not closet yet), the play room, the living room, the coat closet & I started on the kitchen.  We have gotten rid of a TON of stuff, yay!
2.  Read at least 12 books this year - I finished 3 books in Jan:  "Life of Pi," "Grafiti," and "Men are Like a Box of Chocolate" 
3.  Take one picture each day - This has been a super fun challenge so far!  Not like I needed to take more pictures, but it is a really cool way to chronicle the year.  You can check out the pictures on Facebook.
5.  More consistent blogging - I have done really well with this.  In Jan I blogged for each of the kids once, every week for Thankful Thurs, every week for marathon training & am updating these goals.