A title

I'm terrible at coming up with titles for my posts because my posts just seem to be about life in general. I suppose it could be "free soap!" because I got 5 bottles of free laundry soap yesterday using PYP and a $10 gift certicate. That should last us about 3 months! I was pretty happy about that.

I guess I could also title it "Happy Birthday JK" since today is his 15th birthday. 15 years ago today at this time I was checking in to labor and delivery. It was a textbook delivery. 12 hour labor, epidural at 12, prom at 2, pit at 3, push twice and deliver baby about 7. I wish I knew then what I know now but I learned things so it's ok. He is such a sweet boy! So incredibly responsible and easy to get along with. I tell him to be home at a certain time and he is home. Tell him to clean his room and he cleans it. We rarely argue about anything. JZ adores him and he is a very responsible babysitter.

I could title it "Finally over the sickies!" JA and A got it Saturday night but the only thing that happened was that they couldn't sleep and just didn't feel good. M and JK got it Sunday and they got it really bad. Both threw up and got diarhea and felt terrible for two days. Yesterday was the first really good day for everyone.

M saw the dr on Tuesday for her tummy pain. She said the symptoms point toward two things. Chronic constipation, which I doubt, and gallbladder. We did an xray to rule out the constipation and a bunch of blood tests. If the xray comes back normal we will do some tests on her gallbladder. I should hear back from them today.

For those in my area, you need to come to a pampering/ moms day (hour) out open house at my house. I have a friend that makes lotions and other pampering fun out of her home. Everybody raves about her lotions! Plus it's kind of cool cause she leaves everything unscented and you get to choose your scent from about 50 different scents. If you want to come it's from 11-2 on Saturday.

Hum I think that is all for this update. Oh yeah, rebecca asked me about recipes. The lasagna recipe was just a basic lasagna recipe. You don't have to cook the noodles first either. Just layer it in your crockpot, noodles uncooked but hamburger cooked, and then cook it until it's done. I started it on high about 3 and we ate at 6 and it could have used at least another hour. As for the yogurt, I will post that later since I have to look up the recipe.

And on it went

The bread I made on Tuesday never did rise so we attempted to make tortilla's. Attempted is the key word! LOL They turned out more like Indian fry bread so I saved them for exactly that. I haven't had time to make any more bread either so I think I will just pick some up from the store instead. My yogurt did fine and is yummy. Lasagna was ok. I trusted dh to be able to tell the difference between a lasagna noodle that was sort of soft and one that was done and, well, he didn't quite so the noodles weren't quite done. Still edible though so it's ok.

So, I went to Bye Bye Birdie and about 1/2 hour before the end of the play, dh texted me and said JZ threw up all over our bed. He hadn't any indication that he was sick before I left except that he wasn't thrilled with the lasagna. That isn't unusual so I didn't think much about it. He threw up the rest of the night and all day Wednesday. I feel bad because I couldn't help a friend move like I had promised because of him being sick. He threw up last night just before bedtime but he hasn't since then so hopefully we are done with it. I'm praying nobody else gets it too!

Life goes by fast!

Amazing how my "days off" get filled up incredibly fast! Sunday was crazy as always. We went to Grandma and Grandpa's house for dinner after Sunday. Dh's Sister and BIL were telling us how incredibly bad the schools are where they live. The kids are continuously faced with making decisions that I would never dream of at that age. It brings to mind the prophesy " Bad will be made to look good and Good will look bad", something to that effect. And you wonder why we homeschool! Of course this is the area 45 min south of where I live that is well known for it's crimes but I wonder how much longer before it gets worse in this area.

Yesterday I didn't have any prenatals until 6:30 so I had sort of a day off. My sil has been asking me to teach her how to use coupons and shop the sales using the http://www.pinchingyourpennies.com site. So I invited her down and just before she got here one of my sweet friends brought me 2 years worth of Midwifery Today to read! YIPPEE! Thats Christmas for me! I then spent about 3 hours with my sil teaching her how to do it and doing the actual shopping. Somewhere in between there my fil stopped by to pick up a drill that dh was supposed to get ready and didn't. So I had to go out to the garage amidst chaos and find this drill and two bits, not having even a clue what I was looking for! LOL I did finally find them after a bit of trial and error, thank goodness. But why is it my inlaws only come when I'm in the middle of chaos?

I left right after dinner to go to the prenatal we had and then got home about 8:30 and crashed. I was tired! Then I woke up at 4:30 and couldn't get back to sleep. So I'm very sleepy today.

Today I was scheduled to have prenatals from 9:00 until 12:00 but the last two didn't show so I was home by 12:00. That was nice but brilliant me, I decided I would use the time to make much needed bread and yogurt and put lasagna in the crockpot. I realized I didn't have cheese so, brilliant me, I took the 4 younger kids to the store. Great idea, Mom! LOL So here I sit, hoping my lasagna will get done by dinner time, praying my bread will raise and my yogurt will set. Oh, yeah, and with a burn on my arm to show for it. The tomato sauce for the lasagna spit at me while it was simmering. I couldn't believe how fast it burned my skin. Sigh! All the while I was wishing I was at calm prenatals. LOL

Tonight I get to go see Bye-Bye Byrdie with the Relief Society. I didn't think I'd be able to go although I dearly wanted to, but someone gave me a ticket they weren't going to use. Yay!

Weight loss ticker

I've decided it's time for more accountability in my weight loss success. I had lost 5.5 and now 4 lbs are back! Blech! I've been saying for several weeks that "today was just a bad day, I don't always eat like this". It suddenly occurred to me that every day was like that and, yes, I do eat that bad! Not good! My biggest problem is that I eat way too much junk food. It has got to change. Both my parents have Type II diabetes and I have a brother that is teetering on the edge of it and I am determined to not join them! I have got to start eating healthy TODAY!!! I don't even care so much about losing the actual pounds since I'm just barely on the edge of weighing more than I should. I just need to start eating right. Thank goodness I already have the exercise down. I go walking/bike riding with a friend 5 days a week. Dh and I have been making a small effort to go Saturday's too but the last month of Saturdays have been way too busy to go.

These are my hangups, the things I need to work on:
-I am breastfeeding so I feel hungry all the time. I need to just learn to stay out of the kitchen.
-I drive 2 hours one day a week, sometimes twice. I always get the munchies when I drive long distances.
-I am a huge chocoholic and so is the rest of my family. If we don't have treats around my family feels terribly deprived. I've been able to say no before, I can do it again.
-Date nights. I need to get dh to take me to better places so I can make better choices.

With that said, here are my goals:
-Stay out of the kitchen during non-eating times. Remember to take one extra minute to eat a healthy snack versus an easy grab.
-Take an extra few minutes the night before my long drive to get some snacks together for the long drive. Pick up some good for me crackers to keep in the car in case I don't have time or forget.
-Just say NO. I've done it before, I can do it again. My Mom gave me some turtles that she bought me on a trip to Yellowstone. I am so tempted to just hurry and eat them all today so I can start tomorrow but I know the better thing to do is to give them to my kids.
-Tell dh my plans so he can help me make healthier choices on our date nights.
-Update http://www.blogger.com/www.fitday.com everyday to help me stay honest with myself.

So, here we go! I have no goals to finish by a certain date because this needs to be a life long change but maybe I will give myself a small reward for every 5 lb loss or for every 5 days of eating right.

Grandma's house

The big kids have spent the last two days at Grandma's house helping her clean house. It is hard on my only because I get used to have big kids help when I need to get things done, so needless to say, I haven't gotten very much done!

Last night I went to a homeschooling meeting for our teen group. It has put a lot of my worries for the year to rest. I was worried because I knew the boys would want to take some scholar level classes and I knew they would be super busy, like studying 5 or more hours per day for each class. It turns out that all of the scholar level classes won't be offered this year. Each of my sons will have two scholar level classes, one each semester. They will also be taking them together, which also works really well for them. JA tends to push JK while JK tends to keep JA on earth so it's a good thing. They will also be taking a public speaking class/parliamentary procedure class and Shakespeare and JK will be taking Ballroom dance again.

In the midwifery news I learned how to draw blood this morning! I got it on the first try, too. I'm blaming it on beginners luck, though. The girl I did it on had great veins. We also went through the birth center that S owns and she showed us where all the supplies were. Now I just need to go on a few births.

It's time for my family to join the world of blogging

It seems to be the best and easiest way to keep in touch with those that I seem to be slowly losing contact with. Hopefully I can even get pics up, which I always seem to have a hard time getting around to.