A Kiss, A Hug, A Day of Love...

Or an entire weekend.

Friday Paul got home from work early and I got a special delivery. My parents came to watch the kids and we got to start our date night.
We went to an early dinner at Thai Drift. It was delicious and we are both craving more chicken satay.
Then we headed to the movies.
We saw Valentine's Day. It was very cute. I am so glad that we went.
After the movie we went to Chili's for a snack and dessert. We love their molten chocolate cake!
Saturday I worked hard getting everything ready for when the kids got back from Grandma and grandpa's.

This is my first time time making cake balls. I don't think I will be making them again, but they sure were cute.
The candy cups made their appearance per Andrew's request.
Everything is ready.
The kids loved their bouquets.


Emma loved her rose from daddy.
This is our 14th Valentine pizza.

The kids liked the In-N-Out shirts and magic cards we got them.

I love balloons!

Emma made us some origami gifts. I got a heart and Paul got a toothpick holder.
The kids couldn't wait for their sparkling apple cider, and then they wasted most of it.

I threatened to keep all the chocolate for myself.
Emma liked the cake pops. I think she is the only one who did.
My little Valentines.

Tonight we get to start watching the Amazing Race again. We are so excited to have our two favorite family shows back on. I love the time we get to spend as a family laughing, snuggling and cheering for our favorite players. This time we are cheering on Jeff and Jordan. We fell in love with them on Big Brother. I hope they do well and stick around for a while.

Tomorrow we are going to see The Lightning Thief and we will probably go bowling. I love a holiday!

All Signs Point to Spring

And I say "Bring It!"

Blue skies and warmer weather.

Buds are forming in Feb. (I'm convinced the earlier these start the longer winter lasts)

And daffodils are sprouting. Last year it wasn't until March that I saw these. (I think) 

Green Makes you Horny?

As some of you know by now I love to do fun, themed, dinners for all the "Hallmark Holidays". The kids love it, I love it and Paul is a great sport and endures it.

Here is a tip if you want to do something similar to this (Click Here) at your house. (The sundae cups full of M&M's have been requested again this year for V-Day and St. Patrick's Day. I wasn't planning on doing them again, I even put my glasses in storage, but they were a hit and I aim to please.)

Right now, for Valentine's, they are selling bags of all green M&M's because, well, you know what they say about the green ones ;) (I don't know if you can see this on the bag but it says " Sweetie, it's all true" LOL!)

Buy them now, put them away (unless you need some for this weekend) and save them for St. Patrick's Day. I'm guessing they won't be around after this weekend.

FYI~A week or so ago I found all of my Valentine's decorations. They were buried in the garage under the stuff that we plan to yard sale this spring. As I was unpacking I realized how out of date some of them are. Next year I may need to do an overhaul.

I still love this group of stacked hearts, even if it is a bit mauve.

I think I got this last year at Rod Works. I still like it a lot.

I picked this up this year.  Cute! 

A lot of the stuff I didn't even unpack. 

I'm excited for this weekend and want to wish lots of love to everyone that is a part of my life. Happy Valentine's Day.

It's Back...

 

And we couldn't be happier. 

Ipod PSA

We got the kids refurbished Ipod touches for Christmas this year. They have been a total hit. Sometime in January Andrew's started acting weird. None of the apps would work. We thought we had gotten a bummer pod but Paul got ahold of tech support and got it up and running. Something he did in the process of fixing the Ipod required a credit card.

See where I am going with this?

Last Friday the kids did not have school. By 11:00 am they were Boooooooo-red. (yes they made it a two syllable word) It was a loooooong day for all of us.

When Saturday rolled around I was very willing to do all the Superbowl grocery shopping, ALONE! I left and headed for Wal Mart first. I checked in while at the store to ask Paul's preference on something and all was still right in the world. I called again when I was done and I could tell something bad had happened. I knew something was seriously wrong. I could just hear it in Paul's voice. He was beyond pissed.

I asked what had happened and he told me that Andrew decided to buy a really expensive app just for fun, not realizing that it would charge a credit card. Emma was there the whole time and said he could do it because it would just say that there weren't sufficient funds. (That is what it did to her since she didn't have a card linked) I asked how much and he said Andrew thought it was $400 dollars. Holy S-word!

Paul could not get through to a real person at Apple. Everything had to be done by email and all over the website warnings were posted,

"All Sales Final". 

On his account he could see another charge for $150. Oh good grief! Seriously? 

$550 on crap apps? 

Oh this was not good. I suggested he call the credit card company to see about disputing the charge. I hurried home without going to the other store that was on my list.

When I got home Paul had calmed down, a little. The credit card company said they would work with us but not until Wed. when the charge posted. He also realized that it was only one download and it was the $150 one he could see on the account. 

It took a while, and some lunch, before Paul could relax enough to almost laugh about it. We removed the credit card, disabled his wireless so it wouldn't down load the app, and talked to the kids about what had happened. We found out yesterday that Apple would give us a credit and everything would be okay.

Now do you want to know what the app was? It was a navigation app, for Europe, 

written in 

GERMAN.

Superbowl XLIV

 

Yesterday we watched the long awaited Suberbowl. We had lots of good food and lots of fun. 

I made pulled pork sandwiches and twice baked potatoes.

                                       

We had a lot of snack food. The kids even used some to entertain themselves when things got a little boring. 

There was some snuggle time too.

I tried making Rice Krispy footballs. There weren't nearly as cute as the pictures but they tasted wonderful.

We weren't quite sure who we wanted to win. I liked the Saints best but thought it would be fun for Austin Collie to get a superbowl win. I hate Manning though. Hate! In my heart I was rooting for the Saints. When I saw these images after the win I wondered how I could have ever second guessed myself. How cute are these pictures!?! 

Congratulations Saints!!!

Frustrated

I really started gaining weight when I stopped working in ‘07 and it has just been a slow and steady climb since. Last spring, when we got back from Hawaii, was when I noticed a big increase. By last summer I hit my highest weight ever. I was heavier than when I went in to give birth to my 10-pound baby boy. It really bothered me when I saw these pictures from our family vacation over the summer. I knew something had to change.

Oh. My. Gosh.

When the kids started school last fall I began exercising fairly regularly. It started with the occasional workout using the 30-Day Shred and some long walks with Maggie twice a week. Then I decided I would pay myself $5 each time I exercised so the workouts increased.

I was eating smaller portions and trying to make some better choices. It was nothing too drastic but I did lose several inches around my waist and lost about five pounds. That put me into a new set of numbers on the scale. I was thrilled.

Right before Christmas I slacked on the exercise a bit. I didn’t really see a weight gain so I was happy. At the beginning of the year I was up a couple of pounds (back in the old numbers by the way) but didn’t think much of it. I figured it would come right off when I started working out on a regular schedule again. 

These were taken in Dec. I think I can see a bit of a change. Am I imagining it? 

                             

To motivate myself I joined an online group and our challenge was to lose 10 pounds by Valentine’s Day. I had a little over 5 weeks. I knew I could do it. Boy was I wrong!

I have done the 30-Day Shred every Mon-Wed-Fri since. I have walked for 30-40 minutes and biked for 10-20 minutes on each Tues & Thurs since. I have eaten crappy tasting Smart Ones meals for a lot of lunches and some dinners. I think I have only been to Taco Amigo twice in the last 5 weeks!

I have lost nothing, no inches, no weight. As a matter of fact I have gained weight and if anyone says it’s muscle I will scream at you and then rip your head off. Seriously.

What gives? Yes I still eat some junk food. Yes I still go out to eat and have the occasional soda. Yes there is room for improvement, but with the changes that have been made you would think I would see some kind of change.

Paul says my heart sounds healthier. (Apparently even at a resting heart rate it sounded like it was going to explode it would beat so fast.) I don’t give a crap. I want to look healthy. I heard that muscle helps boost your metabolism. That’s why I used the Shred DVD but I am thinking that it was a mistake. I can tell that I have built muscle but it is still wrapped in layers of fat. Honestly I don’t want muscle if that’s how it’s going to be. I don’t like the way the muscle looks. I just want to be thinner. Nice and lean.

I don’t like to fail and I have. Come hell or high water I was going to exercise 5 times a week for five weeks. Where did it get me? Unless I chop off a body part I am not going to be 10 pounds lighter by Valentine’s Day. I have no motivation to even try this week. It sucks. I’m frustrated and I don’t know where to go at this point. Why isn’t what I’m doing working anymore? Where do I go from here? What do I try next? This isn't a "please validate me" post. It is just something I have to get out. I mean it is my journal right?