INSANITY!

Brian recently bought the Insanity workout and nutrition program.  I was skeptical about deviating from my loved workout of running.  When it arrived I read through all the info and decided that I would like to try it with him.  :)  We first used the formula they provide to figure out how many calories we should be consuming while doing the workout.  I then chose which meals we would be eating during the first week, made a shopping list for the week based on the meals in the nutrition guide, and bought ONLY the items on the list.  


We are now into the second week of workouts and eating...the workouts are killer and the food is surprisingly good. I am proud to say that I have not really felt much of an urge to eat other foods, this may not sound like a huge deal to you, but let me tell you that I am the girl who can eat tons of candy without really even realizing it.  It used to be that I could consume all this candy without any weight gain (probably from all the running and my loathing of certain disgusting and fatty foods! :)) and while I knew it wouldn't last forever I wasn't really motivated to stop.  


Recently I decided to try and stop eating so much crap and eat more healthy balanced meals.  At the same time I was running 5-10 miles 5 days a week....no change in weight no matter what I did.  Three weeks ago
I found out that the migraine medication I was taking was the cause of some weight gain and keeping me from losing, I was not a happy camper.  I immediately stopped taking the evil pills and then proceeded to wait two weeks to call my dr.  (Can you tell that I am a procrastinator??)  I then waited to pick up the pills and start taking them, more procrastination.  Now I have only been taking them for two days so hopefully they will help with the chronic headaches and migraines, which returned with a vengeance this weekend, I guess I know when the other meds totally left my system.  The pharmacist assured me there would be NO gaining with these pills, YAY!!  


So after one week of eating right and workout to the Insanity program I have lost 2 lbs. I think that part of it is the EVIL pills leaving my system and the other is the intense workouts and eating so healthy.  


My goal is to try and post weekly updates on how it is going.  I will not be posting my before pictures...not pretty, but I will post an after pic and then and only then will I think about posting the befores...they really are not pretty...


Have you done Insanity or any of the other BeachBody programs?  What did you think?

My sweet Ashlyn turns 4!!

My sweet little girl turned four today.  It is so weird to have your child grow and change so much so fast.  I know every parent must feel this, but it is so surreal.  Ashlyn is an amazing little girl and we have so enjoyed watching her learn and grow into the amazing person she is.  I can't wait to see how she changes over the years!

Birth May 2008

 I am so in love with this little girl, it is amazing how much you can love someone!!!

Not even a week old and already our world as tilted to revolve around you in the best way possible!!!

1st Birthday May 2009

 You are such a character!  I love you babe! Your shirt says "It's Fun To Be One!"  and it sure was a fun year!

 You and your sweet friend Lila (see below for another pic of Lila and Ash! :))

 Such a sweet beautiful girl!

 I am not sure you quite knew what to do with this large cupcake in front of you, especially since there is a flaming candle on it

  Okay you decided the cake was awesome! Way to dig into it babe!

Ashlyn in the dress that my grandpa bought for my mom on her first birthday, every girl in the family has worn it for their first birthday pics.  So glad that my sweet girl was part of this tradition! :)

2nd Birthday May 2010

 Ashlyn sporting her new cute haircut! Such a sweet girl!!

Such a funny birthday moment!  Auntie Tracie said now that you have big girl panties you can get a boyfriend and this was the response from Ashlyn!

3rd Birthday May 2011

 Smiles for park time!

 Love this 3year old beauty!!

Love this pic and how excited Ash is for her butterfly cupcakes!

4th Birthday May 2012

 Such a big girl now that you are 4!

 Ashlyn and Grammie Pam ready to party

 Ashlyn and her Papa Bob

 Sarah and Ashlyn! They will go from preschool through high school together!

 The birthday girl and her mamma, love this girl so much

 Ashlyn and Soraya!  Such cuties!

Lila and Ash, friends since birth! 

I love this picture so much! Such a beauty!

 me and my big girl :)

 Daddy got her a tee-ball thingy, they have already been having a great time with it!

 Happy Birthday Sweetie

 Love this one!

Yummy pink lemonade cupcakes for her garden party!

 Daddy and the birthday girl! Getting ready to do the last birthday present!

 wondering what all this gear is for! She guessed a scooter....

 I think she likes it!

Yay!  A scooter! What a good guess Ash!

 Ashlyn is really such an amazing girl, there isn't much that she can't do.  

Ashlyn here are some of the things that have mastered by four.  

• Numbers up to 14 (you mix sixteen and fifteen, then you could go on for ever because you have the pattern of counting down)
• You are adding and subtracting single digit numbers
• letters (you have known them since 21 months old)
• almost all letter sounds
• You are starting to read a few words
• When we work together you can sounds out words and read them, you do seem to have a perfectionist attitude about this and get really frustrated when it doesn't come automatically
• I know you wish you could read everything already, you are measuring what people can do by if they are readers or non readers
• You can cut out shapes really well
• You are a master artist, staying in the lines and free drawing all sorts of things.  your people are amazing and you have drawn a helicopter that was so spot on I was shocked, you also drew daddy riding his bike and we thought that was pretty awesome too!
• You are a skilled linguist and put your skill to use throughout the day :)
• You love playing word games like opposites and rhyming
• You are a puzzle expert
• tee-ball, soccer, riding your tricycle and scooter...Took you about four minutes to become a scooter pro!  
• There are a million more things that you do so well and to be honest I think my perception is off since you do so many things so early.  I have to really pay attention to comments others make "like she can ____ already, Wow!" then I know this is not what other kiddos your age are doing. 

Two updates to our home!

So both of these updates were long over due and the materials sat around for far too long.  Pretty sure that by the end of this post there will be a lesson learned!  The first one Brian and I did a month or two ago and I forgot to post pics.  I had been wanting to do some uppercase living since I first heard about it when we lived in Spokane, but neither house felt right since I knew they were not "long term" homes for us.  Last Mother's Day Brian got me a gift cert. to get whatever I wanted from UL.  I picked a saying for the girls' bathroom mirror "Yes, you are fairest of them all."  "Bon Appetit" for the kitchen.  and for the living room "A double with "FAMILY" large underneath and "where life begins and love never ends" on top.  We got the bathroom and kitchen ones up right away, but the "family" one just sat there taunting me...it seemed like such a daunting task since we worked together to put up Bon Appetit and it was about 18" long.  The family one is over 3 feet long...I wasn't sure how it was going to go!

Lots of nerve racking time spent wishing it was up, but too scared to just buckle down and do it!

Finally one Saturday we decided we better get it up now or never.  It was actually really easy to put up and the largeness just meant a little more to peel and moving the ladder down to remove the backing.

 Before...see it was around Christmas time :-)

 Brian adhering the second layer to the first...this part was making me nervous

Tada!  Doesn't it look great?

I love how it turned out and am sooo happy that we finally took the time to get it up!

The second project was a bit more expensive and time consuming, but I think it looks wonderful completed. :-)  Again this took a substantial amount of time to get up on the wall.  We had family photos taken back at the end of Oct.  This was by the RIDICULOUSLY expensive lady we found through living social...didn't end up being much of a deal, but she took fabulous pics and how were we to say no to some sweet pics of our girls?  So after spending a small fortune on pics, another small one of the frames, hours of arranging them until I found the perfect configuration, (or at least one that didn't say "oh"or "ho"....haha.  Brian pointed out that the H and oval frame were spelling oh and ho in a few of my configurations.  Whoops!!!) and then sometime yesterday...they are up and look GREAT!!!

before a blank canvas!

 Template configuration

 Brian hammering the nails...No I don't need help hammering, this was just his contribution to the project :)

 All done, view from landing/hallway What do you think of the "H" I am not sure if I am a fan of the gold or not....thoughts?

 View from front door. 

I love that these two projects add so much of  "us" to our home.  While there are still about 8 million things I want to do with our house, these little things help me bide my time until I can get the big guns out and do an actual remodel...Oh, I can't wait for that day!!  Stay tuned for the dining room reveal one more thing is needed before I will be ready to unveil that baby! 

***Lesson Learned***  Procrastination stinks....just do it already!

No more diapers for Kelti!!

Yay!  Such a joyous occasion!  Kelti is potty trained, I put off posting on this as long as I could because I wanted to make sure that she really was potty trained and this wasn't some fluke.  I really started working with her on Feb 22.  A few weeks before that she picked out a princess potty seat at the store and it was golden from there.  Since we took a trip down to see Brian's parents (looong drive) I didn't want to really start the potty training before that, have to switch to diapers for the drive and all that nonsense. 

It is so weird to me that two kiddos can be sooo different...I know that this is what everyone says, but I mean come on. Ashlyn first went number 1 and 2 on the potty at 13 1/2 months old, and she went pretty consistently from there.  Actually I take all some of that back.  I was just thinking over Kelti's journey and realized that last Feb. When she was 13 1/2 months old she was actually going on the potty multiple times a day and had dry diapers when waking from her naps.  This lasted for a couple months and then she had no desire until recently.  I didn't want to deal with Ashlyn having accidents while being pregnant with Kelti and her pediatrician thought it would be best for Ashlyn to get used to having a baby sister before going hard core on the potty training.  So she ended up being completely potty trained at 24 months.  We didn't want to "push" either kiddo, but let them guide the process so they were ready...I mean who really wants to fight about poop???...Not stuff I am willing to go to battle over!  So it took Kelti a little longer to be motivated, but at 26 months old she is fully potty trained and doing just fabulous.

 Discovering that you get two m's for going number 2!

 I love this little laughing smile, such a happy sweet girl! You also might be noticing that this is a different seat, we had to get another to make the most of our house layout so this one is Elmo!

 So proud of going on the potty, this is one of her first times and you can even see her princess seat!

I think this one is sooo funny!  Love this girl and I am so proud of her!!

For those of you familiar with Ashlyn and her potty dance, yes we have taught it to Kelti, and hers is cute too (note Ashlyn was doing a "potty dance" WAAAY before the pull up one) :)  Hers was also for going potty and getting a jelly bean. 

Here's to no more diapers in our house!

Valentine's and a Valentine Pinterest party!!

Valentine's day was a huge hit in our household this year.  The girls are very aware of holidays and the joy that they can bring not to mention the gifts that come with too! :-)  

I was excited to make some new decor since I had about three no make that four things total!

I made this conversation heart ball to put on top of my mercury glass candle holder.  I think that it turned out sooo cute...both girlies loved watching me hot glue each heart one...thankfully it went pretty quickly!

Real Deals wood decor find 50% off too!!! :)

Old Real Deals blocks (this is one of the four original decorations I owned)

I love these frames that I constantly get to change to match the ever changing seasons! 

Love sign for door

Heart garland that I made with the girls, they had a great time watching our garland grow :-)

another RD find 50% off!! :-)   I later got another set of blocks from RD that are larger and spell LOVE.  They were 75% off!!!!  I love a good deal!!

For Kelti's room

A little out of order, but this is jello painting at Ashlyn's preschool party.  It still smells delicious, look at how well Ashlyn can stay in the lines...she does this great coloring too!

Family conversation hearts....I didn't want to go with the normal colors that conversation hearts are though.  It says kisses between Bri and me and hugs between Kelti and Ashlyn

Painted clothes pins in Valentine colors. 

Another shot of the clothes pins...I love how this simple project turned out!

Ashlyn holding the paper heart wreath that we made

peek a boo I see you!!

Here it is on the door...sadly it didn't hold up that great outside, I caught it before it was ruined, but it started to warp with all the wet weather!

These are my version of chocolate croissants.  they are actually really good!!!

YUMMM

The girls enjoying a Valentine snack

I was amazed by how well Kelti was able to bead her bracelet and she picked nice coordinating colors for hers, she seriously did a wonderful job, then considering that she is two and the other kids are 3-4...I was just blown away!

Happy Valentine's Day!!

These are the super cute frames and ABC I love you pics we gave to Ashlyn and Kelti's teachers!

I also hosted my first pinterest party at the end of January.  We made some of the things I showed and had a ton of fun eating, drinking, and crafting... sadly I have realized that I have become horrible at taking pics during any type of event....sooo I have no actual pics from that evening, but I am going to try and be better with the camera, especially since we just got it back and fixed....better not poop out on me again!