Fresh Beginnings

 This year brings fresh beginnings of all sorts for us!  In early November of last year Nick was offered a job with a company in York, Nebraska!  So on November 15th we signed a lease on an apartment here, and on the 18th we officially moved in!  I am so thankful for these new beginnings for our family, but they were not without heartache and growing pains.  

Our home in Plattsburg (which we have sold and are closing on in 8 days!) was such a comfortable and homey place, and it was extremely hard to move out, especially since we were moving into a 2 bedroom, 900 square foot apartment.   On the flipside, it is much quicker cleaning up around the apartment than it was the house since there is less space!  Also, I feel like with less space we are spending more quality family time together since we can't all spread out in our own spaces as easily.  The girls have done remarkably well with the move and transition and sharing of a bedroom.  It has been tricky for them when they DO need to have some space from each other and don't have a bedroom of their own to retreat to, but we have found solutions that work for us!

The girls loved playing in this tree in our front yard!

Olivia was so small here, about 6, I believe!  Posing on the front steps for homeschool pics!

Decorating the apartment for Christmas

All done!  Definitely the quickest we have ever decorated :)

Leaving one of our next-door neighbors in Plattsburg was another tough change.  The girls played with the neighbor kids frequently, and their folks were amazing, godly people!  Emma learned a lot about football (how to play, what different fouls are, rules) and she learned that doing something she loves in more important that doing what someone might expect of her since she is a girl!  Olivia was able to nurture her caretaker tendencies with their youngest and loved having someone her speed to play with and keep up with! I think this part of move was the hardest on all of us.  I pray that the person who has purchased our home has children of her own for them to play with!

It was also difficult leaving the dance studio where the girls had taken lesson from and performed with for the past several years.  Meri's Dance Studio in Cameron is top notch, and we highly recommend them if you're considering enrolling your kiddo in dance!  They are knowledgeable, kind, loving, patient, and understanding and I am so grateful that the girls were able to have a solid foundation of dancing techniques, skill, and confidence built by Meri, Julia, and Wendy.  The girls both had made some good friends there over the years, and so saying goodbye was hard there as well.  However, Tuesday we are beginning dance at a studio in York called the York Dance Center, and the girls are sooooo ready and excited!  The past month and a half since moving have felt and been extremely chaotic, and so we are all ready for things to settle down and settle into a familiar rhythm.  I am hoping dance can give us that.

Recital 2021

Recital 2021 (she LOVED this outfit...not really!)

Finally, since the move my healthy lifestyle plans have all but gone out the window :(  I have maintained an average weight of 171 pounds, which is 22 pounds down since I began in August.  With the move we were eating out more because we were up late packing, and I didn't want to waste that precious time cooking.  Then Thanksgiving came and Christmas, and my will power was ground down even further.  However, I am thankful that I didn't regain all of the weight I had been working so hard to lose (though I had gotten down to about 167 just before Nick got the job offer, I still count 171 as a win through all of the chaos.)   So now as I sit here, gazing out our patio door at a snow-covered field, and eating a brownie, I am also making a menu and a plan to get back on the healthy lifestyle plan I began a little over 4 months ago.  And boy, am I ready for that!  After having been doing so good for a few months, then going off the tracks for a few months I can definitely see how sugar affects my body through my energy levels, my skin breaking out and being red, and my mental clarity!  It's okay if you fall off the horse, just get back on!

I didn't realize until writing this how much we have grown in the past two months as opposed to the past two years!  I remember when Nick was talking about how much he wanted this job (did I mention that we live only an hour from his family?!) how I did not want to move because I knew all of the heartaches and headaches that it would bring.  And all of these feelings were borne out of selfishness.  I didn't want to move because of the hassle it would bring ME.  I didn't want to leave our friends because making friends is hard as an adult for ME.  I didn't want to find new doctors for Olivia because I was comfortable with her current ones and didn't want the headache of taking MY time to find new ones.  But when God revealed to me that I was looking at things all wrong, I began to have a change of heart.  I prayed, instead, that the Lord would give Nick this opportunity to put all of his hard-earned skills and certifications to use, and that He would allow me to sacrifice for Nick and he has sacrificed for us.  

And that, my friends, is what has made the whole process easier than I ever dreamed it would be!  Submitting to God's will and authority and knowing that He knows what we need before we even need it, this has been my new mindset and is serving me well.  Am I ready to get out of the apartment and into a home of our own?  You bet!  But instead of praying for us to find a home, now I pray for patience as we wait, because right now we are exactly where God wants us.  And where He wants us is where I want to be. 

1 Month Down

 I am nearly a month into my new, healthier lifestyle, and I'm feeling great!  I have more energy to play football and basketball with my oldest, and find that it's not as uncomfortable to sit on the floor and play Playmobil with my youngest :)  Last blog I had decided to lock the scale in our safe to keep me from being tempted to think about weighing myself constantly, because let's be honest, that's not healthy on any level.  That lasted about a week, and then I left it out one morning, and have found that when I weigh myself daily, although weight can fluctuate from day to day, I am able to stay on track better and see how what I am eating affects me.  Surprisingly enough, I haven't felt like a slave to the scale, which has been nice.  Another thing I have found helpful has been to keep a food diary, for much the same reason that I weigh daily.  It helps to keep me accountable to myself, as well as lending insight if I'm having a stall in weight loss.

In fact, I feel less and less that food the same control over me that it used to, and that goes for drinking anything other than water, as well.  I'm also finding that my complexion has really cleared up once my diet did.  I think I have drank more water in the past month than in the last 5 years, which is really embarrassing to admit, but I was a big pop drinker and when I was thirsty that is what I typically reached for. 

So, at this point, almost a month in to the Trim Healthy Mama (THM) lifestyle, I am down almost 13 pounds. I know the weight loss will slow as my metabolism adjusts and such, but it is a good motivator to keep pushing, especially as those clothes that haven't fit well for quite some time begin to loosen a bit :)

My Wake-Up Call

It has been so long since I last wrote that I had forgotten my login creds!  I recently had a wake-up call in regards to my health, and this is my attempt to chronicle it.  I hope to be more consistent than I have been in the past, but make no promises :)  Also, fair warning, this could get lengthy as I like to be able to look back and have details, so if you make it to the end, I will be impressed!

I officially started on my journey to health a week ago on August 17th.  My starting weight was 193.4 lb, which is nearly the my heaviest weight ever (down a few pounds unbeknownst to me from May, so technically my heaviest is probably about 198.)  I found out a few years ago that my A1C was at a 5.9 and in the prediabetes range, but at that time, though I was discouraged, I didn’t feel the urgent need to get my act together.  About a week ago I went to the eye doctor, and the vision in my right eye had gone from a -1 script to a -.50, which means that my eye needed but half of the strength prescription from a year ago.  My eye doctor was concerned as she told me that at my age they wouldn’t expect my eyes to improve like that, and proceeded to ask me if I had had any health changes…any thyroid changes? Diabetes? Etc, and it got me thinking.

After reading up a bit on type 2 diabetes I became concerned that I had possibly progressed from prediabetes to full blown diabetes.  It had been almost 3 years from the last time my A1C was checked and it is typically thought that if a person has prediabetes that they will progress to type 2 within 5 years if they don’t make lifestyle changes, so I was understandably worried.  So on Friday the 20th I went to see my doctor for a physical and to get a full work up done.  I prayed and asked God to give me the opportunity to become a healthier mom and wife once more, without the diagnoses of diabetes.  I had known for a few years I was in the prediabetes level, but now I knew that I was ready and willing to make the lifestyle changes necessary if He would just give me the opportunity.  

When I woke up Saturday morning I saw that I had a new test result in my portal from the doctor, and you cannot imagine the relief I felt when I saw that my A1C was 5.8!  Yes, still in the prediabetic range, but better than three years ago by a tenth of a point.  God had answered my prayer and I was so thankful!  So, I began to research some groups on Facebook and found out about Trim Healthy Mama and saw that it is a sustainable way of eating and cooking for myself and my family, so I decided to give it a go.  As of today I have not had any soda in 5 days (not a long time, but when considering I was drinking upwards of 3 cans of Mtn. Dew per day, a pretty big deal for me!) and I have been eating healthier and more balanced meals for lunch, and healthier options at dinner and snacking.  

This past week I weighed myself daily and was thrilled to step on the scale this morning at 189.6.  I realized that this is mostly water weight and such that I am losing, but I am moving in the right direction and I don’t feel deprived or so restricted that I should not be successful.  So this afternoon I took the first round of photos of myself to compare against another set a month from now.  I chose a shirt and a dress that both fit snugly that I should be able to see results in as I continue on my path to health.  These pictures are hard to look at for me, and I’m trying to work up the courage to share them, but I’m not there yet.  I am embarrassed at how I have let myself go, and at the role model I have failed to be for my girls.  I don’t typically wear tight fitting clothing, for obvious reasons, and seeing myself looking 9 months pregnant in one of my favorite dresses was a wake up call.  As was the photo of my face with no visible definition from the side, and little from the front.  I believe it’s important to be kind to yourself and give yourself grace, but man, it’s hard when facing  the photos and the truth that I have not taken care of myself and hoping that I haven’t hurt my daughters in the process.

Today at lunch my youngest, 8, looked at my salad, grapes, and protein that I was having instead of sharing in the mac and cheese and hamburgers with them (not the healthiest, but I am working on changing their taste buds!), and she so innocently said, “Mom, I’m glad to see you eating healthy food.” Now if that’s not motivation to do my best everyday, then nothing is!  

Also, I have decided to put my scale away in our locked safe that way I’m not tempted to use it daily.  I’m shooting for twice a week, that way I can see if I am staying on track, and make corrections if needed :)  So, if you know me and see me out and about and I’m holding a pop or eating junk food (except for Tuesday, those are our dance/eat out nights! ) please remind me why I’m doing what I’m doing and encourage me to do better :)

A few pics so I can look back in a few months and see where I began and how things have changed.

Cooperation....not Competition

It's not often that I come across a product that I love so much that I feel a need to share with others, but that is what I am doing here today!  Recently I applied with Tryazon to try out three new board games that encourage cooperative play rather than competitive play.  In our house we are big board game players, especially in the winter and at family gatherings, so the timing of it was actually impeccable!  The three games we were provided were Hoot Owl Hoot, Race to the Treasure!, and Sunny and Stormy Day.  Sunny and Stormy Day was a matching/memory type game that included a charming little book to read before playing to introduce players to the idea of high and low points during a day, and how you can always turn it around.  This was the game that Olivia was able to participate in most fully and really enjoyed playing with the little bag of "coins!"

Hoot Owl Hoot was an innovative new game where you're attempting to help little owls make it around the board and bag into their nest before the sun rises completely.  Each player starts with 3 cards which can have either a color on it (similar to Candyland) or a sun.  A color allows them to move to the next color on the card, whereas a sun card advances the sun a space, moving it closer to sunrise.  What was unique was the cooperative aspect where you were encouraged to move different owls each turn to help each other out in getting them back in the nest in time, instead of the typical scene where everyone has just one owl and is competing against each other to see whose can get to the finish first.  Emma and Olivia loved the anticipation of getting a new card and turning it over to reveal a color or the (GASP!) sun!

The third and final game was called Race to the Treasure!, and while Emma really was able to engage fully, Olivia was a little more of an observer rather than a player for this one because of the abstract and critical thinking that it required to manipulate the tiles into a path that would lead to three keys that were needing to be collected before the Ogre reached the finish line.  However, Olivia did contribute in an insanely cute way by calling the villain an "Ogurt" (i.e. yogurt!) which we all got a kick out of!  This game the board won on, as we were just one square away from the end, but I found it to be a good teaching moment for both girls.

Competitiveness is something that I think is healthy in older kids, but when you're 4 and 7 learning to cooperate and work together to solve problems is going to serve you much better than competing against each other.  These three games did a wonderful job in fostering that cooperation that I so desire for the girls to obtain and exercise throughout their lives.

Sunny and Stormy Day

Time for a tat!!!

More inking going on :)

Introducing Sunny and Stormy Day

Hoot Owl Hoot was a hoot to play!

The darn "Ogurt" just beat us in Race to the Treasure!

The Big 4

So I normally try to be more timely with these particular posts, but alas, time got away from me and I am 5 days late for my birthday post to Olivia. Not that she can read yet, so it doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things :) Yet again we have been blessed with another year with our little lady, for which I am eternally grateful. The longer we know her, the more we can't help but love her and all of her little idiosyncrasies including: laughing at the silliest things, playing make believe with anything and everything (i.e. spoons and books), asking to "nuddle" (snuggle) when she's tired, and so many other cute things. This year in lieu of a lengthy post, I have decided to post some pictures chronicling her life this past year :) Enjoy!

Cujo Control Dog Training Collar Review

When Nick and I first got married we got a puppy pretty much right away.  He was a ten week old Siberian Husky we named Akiba, and was quite the handful :)  We still lived in the condo in Omaha, which was tiny, and Huskies can grow quite large.  Here's a visual:

After being married for 6 months we decided to start a family, and at this time, really decided that our home was going to be incredibly crowded with 3 humans and a dog, so we found him a good new home with a yard and room to run.  I was also working full time and didn't feel like it was fair for him to be kenneled all day, so as hard as it was, it was the right decision. 

When Emma turned 2 we decided we wanted to try the pet route again, but decided this time, as we were still living in the tiny condo, that we would get a cat.  Enter Jax.

He really was a great cat and all was going great with him, however, he began consistently urinating around the house, outside the litter box, the last time being while sitting on the couch right beside me.  As we had just found out that we were expecting baby number two, we once again had to make the hard decision to rehome him because of health risks associated with pregnant women and litter boxes. 

So, our history with pets is a less than stellar one to say the least.  However, last September we bought a house in northwest Missouri with an extremely expansive backyard, and much more indoor space, and after some mouse problems to begin with, Nick said that he thought having a cat around would be good.  So, we adopted a pair of brothers which I named Smokey, and Emma affectionately named the other Pom Pom (it was unknown at the time that Pom Poms favorite toys would actually be pom poms!!!) 

We were heartbroken when Smokey (the black one), met an untimely end with a car, but Pom Pom is still with us 11 months later, and we love him to pieces.  This is the longest that it has worked out for us with a pet, and it is a great feeling.  Now for more exciting news, we have a new addition to our family.....

Isn't he handsome?!  A blue merle Miniature Australian Shepherd.  We decided that since we have a large yard and I stay home with the girls because of homeschooling, that this is the right time for us to add a puppy to our family.  However, I didn't want to build a fence out back because I love the view of the treeline at the back of our property, and didn't want to lose that.  Therefore, I began researching wireless fences, but every one I found would only emit the signal in a round shape, which meant that there was less of the back yard to be used because the signal would run right through the middle.  My Dad mentioned training collars, which are more convenient and you can use them and take them anywhere, so you aren't limited to just having the control at home, but can take it anywhere.  I found one such collar called the Cujo Control Dog Training Collar, and was thrilled when given the opportunity to offer an honest review in exchange for a free product. 

So, now about the collar.  It is extremely convenient as the collar is fully adjustable and has two size prongs to use with it, which we use the small ones.  Another feature that I love is that it isn't just a static collar, but rather, offers the option to use vibration or sound in order to correct the dog's behavior.  I plan to use the static feature as a last resort, as tone and vibration is much preferred to me.  The collar/receiver works up to 300 yards apart, which is more than enough to give him free range of the back yard without me having to worry.  I think that one of my favorite features so far is the fact that I can take it with us so that when we are traveling to see our family and taking the pup with us, we can still let him go outside with us, off leash, but he's learning that when he hears to beep or feels the vibration, that he's wandering too far and needs to return.  I am anxious to see as he ages, how he remembers the boundaries of the yard, and am hopeful that eventually we only need it on special occasions.  I am so glad not to have had to build a fence in order to make our dreams of successful dog ownership a possibility, and it's all thanks to Cujo!  You can check them out: http://Go2Azon.com/g/B01JS4AJAO-DTC   #cujocontrol

Big Decision

There is something that Nick and I have talked about before. Something that would be life altering for us. It would take a lot of hard work, dedication, and self-sacrifice to accomplish. It's something that many people won't agree with, but that's only because they aren't aware of the resources and support out there for it. So, what am I talking about? Homeschooling. One word which has many negative connotations attached to it. "Weird." "Anti-social." "Neglect." However, those misconceptions overshadow the positive aspects to is, such as, individualized attention, spiritual growth, and great support communities.

Homeschooling is and idea that Nick and I have toyed with in the past, but never seriously considered until now because Emma is preparing to start Kindergarten, and when she attended their Summer School program here, we saw and heard some thing that we were not happy about, and thought that if we could afford to lose my income so that I could homeschool, then it would be selfish and greedy not to, especially since I have a teaching certificate and feel as though this is why God pushed me to get it in the first place.  Our school year will be starting October 3rd, instead of mid August, because we need my job for a few more months in order to save the money needed for a building here at our house for storage.  Our finished basement will be our school room/canvas, and I have begun acquiring the supplies necessary, including a curriculum from the accredited school Our Lady of Victory.  It is a predominately Catholic curriculum that covers every area done in a public school setting, which I will be supplementing with my own art, music, library, and technology classes once a week, along with daily physical education time, and a time each day where I teach the girls how to perform a new thing around the house including dusting, loading/unloading a dishwasher, feeding the cat, etc. 

I am fortunate to have a great support community here in Plattsburg and north Kansas City, called Saint Margaret's.  I have recently learned that most of the families in our parish homeschool and the church is having a "Back to School Night" on August 27th with a special mass, as well as a potluck dinner afterwards, which will allow us to meet all of the other families we have been conversing with via email.  Something else exciting that we learned was that this school year many activities and parties and such will take place here at our church, St. Ann's!  This co-op group gets together for holiday parties, field days, and other times throughout the year, which I think is really going to benefit us.

I know that we will face criticism, questions, and negativity in this endeavor.  However, we know that it is the right thing for our family, and by keeping that at the forefront of our thought, we will be able to focus on all of the positive aspects!  I also know that there will be days that are H.A.R.D., but isn't that the way it is with any job?  Speaking of jobs...I think I am going to find it hard to leave the preschool scene that I have been a part of for the past four years.  This group that I am teaching now is especially dear to me, as I have been with them for quite a while.  It will also be hard leaving my coworkers, especially the woman that I work with 10 hours a day, 4 days a week!  We have really developed a great friendship and it will be strange not seeing and talking with her on a daily basis.  Therefore, I think a few lunch dates each month will be in order!  Overall,  I am extremely excited to begin this new chapter in my life!  Prayers for us (and my sanity!) are much appreciated :)