Some things

This is going to be kind random because I have several things I wanted to post about and I’m doing it all in one post!

My besty Shelley came to visit from CT a few weeks ago with her precious boys and I was so happy to see Wes! Holy smokes, look at that face! He is so adorable and I loved seeing them. Shell and Bre came to our house with their 4 kids and we had a great time. I’m stealing some pictures from Shelley’s blog!

Brielle and Thad ran around in the yard and played before it got dark and luckily I have invested in a toy box for the times when we have kids come over so they were pretty entertained. It also helped to have their favorite cartoons on TV too! (I love Comcast OnDemand!)

We had a yummy dinner and just chatted. It was so nice to visit with these girls and I just love them so much. We have been friends for so long (since I was in 7th grade!) and I will always love them. I adore their cute kids and seeing them as moms now makes me so happy! They are wonderful moms and I’m so glad we got to spend some time together.

Dan kept them entertained and got them really really hyper. He does that with kids a lot.

Brielle loved wearing my earrings. It was so adorable and Breanne put them over the top of her ears and she walked around really carefully so they would stay on!

Holy Wes.

The picture above is a late Christmas present that I sent Shelley some time in January. I made her some subway art with my silhouette and I forgot to take pictures so she sent me this! I had Brian send me a bunch of their addresses and cities they have lived in (a lot), and I mixed them all up and made a stencil with my silhouette. Then I painted it and distressed it a bit. I think it turned out great and I might make one for us with places we have lived and traveled.

I just have to post a few rants and raves about pinterest. First of all, I love it and think it’s a great idea and I use it all the time!

Here are my rants:

• When people pin things without checking if the link goes anywhere or if it’s a legit site/recipe/etc! They just pin it and never click on it so when I actually do, I find out that it goes nowhere!
• When people pin 10,000 pictures of super freaky buff/skinny women with quotes about working out really hard. Very dramatic.
• “healthy” recipes that are not healthy
• I hate how pinterest randomly doesn’t work and I have had one of my entire boards just disappear. The pictures and links are gone but the board is still there! This has gotten better but I think the site grew too fast for them to maintain very well.

And here are my raves:

• Tons of recipes that I’ve made and liked:
  • honey lime tilapia
  • banana blueberry bread
  • parmesan baked zucchini
  • oven baked asparagus
  • breadsticks
  • asian bbq chicken
  • pf chang’s lettuce wraps
  • sweet potato fries
  • yogurt drops
  • orange teriyaki salmon
  • parmesan roasted potatoes
• Things I’ve actually done :
• New workouts: tabata, running on an incline, the 100, some great arm work outs
• Great cleaning ideas: vinegar (cleaned showerhead), stove top, how to whiten whites (really worked but it’s a lot of effort)
• Actually using the board to plan my Halloween party and upcoming bedroom design
• Guide of how to pluck your eyebrows

And finally, I wanted to do one more update about losing some weight recently. When we went on our trip, I had been tracking my calories and changing my eating habits for about 6 weeks. I was glad I had already started before we left so it was easier to stay on track while we were in Puerto Rico. I was really nervous that I would get home and have gained all the weight back, but I only gained 1.5 pounds and I lost it and a little more the week we got home. I think the fact that we were active while we were there as well as the habits I had been working on before the trip helped a lot too. And we ate pretty healthy while we were there but I did have a lot more treats and desserts than usual and I’m glad that I did!

So far I have lost 18 pounds in about 3 months. I have almost dropped 2 sizes and I’m 2 pounds away from my goal weight but even more importantly, I want to get to my goal pant size! I took some measurements back in December and compared them to now. Here are the inches I have lost so far:

Calf: –.5”
Thigh: –3.25”
Hips: – 2.5”
Waist: –4.75”

I’m really happy with the changes that I’ve made with my lifestyle and eating and I don’t feel deprived at all. I don’t feel like I’m on a diet because I don’t want to just stop doing this and gain weight again. If I gain weight in the future, I will be okay with it and it’s not something I want to obsess over. But I feel really good and healthy and I’m proud that I have done it! It’s something I will continue as a lifestyle change and whenever I get pregnant (yes I do want to have kids at some point!), I want to have a healthy pregnancy and continue exercising regularly, eating healthy and gaining a healthy amount of weight that will hopefully come off easier when I have a baby because I took care of my body!