Trailer--Trash or Treasure?

It just premiered tonight.  I'm reserving judgement until the morning.  I'm trying desperately to stop writing now.  I just have to say, though... Oh my Edward!  (Wiping corner of mouth with husband's shirt.)

Dear Friends

Look at this frozen moment of childhood.
Staring at this picture warms my heart.
Four young friends, simply enjoying each other's company (and freshly popped popcorn).
I love it.

The Big Five-O.

Fifty Pounds. I've lost fifty pounds.

For some reason this milestone seems "bigger" than the rest, ha ha. Maybe it's because I'm now under 15 pounds from my goal. Maybe it's because I can now fit into most of my old clothes. I am currently wearing a pair of jeans that I had in college--I remember outgrowing them sometime during my pregnancy with Nate. No, my body doesn't look anything like it did back then. There is a lot more hanging over the top of these pants than there used to be. But hey, they zip and they're comfortable and they fit. And so do all of my other pants. Most importantly, though, so does my wedding ring!

Fifty pounds is a lot of weight. It's 10 pounds more than Abbie weighs and Abbie is a big girl! So right now I am not going to focus on the fat hanging over my pants, or the circumference of my upper arms. I am going to congratulate myself for dropping over 25% of my body weight. I am going to celebrate joining the population of Americans who have a normal BMI because I do now. I am no longer considered overweight. I think that's the biggest thing for me--Aside from how I look, even by health standards, I am at a healthy weight. That's good enough for me.

BEFORE AND AFTER:

This is a picture from last June in San Fransisco with Alan's little brother and sister. I think that this was about as big as I got. Ack. It takes a lot for me to post this.

Here's a picture from this past weekend in Rhode Island with my kids and my nephew.

EDIT: Someone asked me how long it took me to lose the weight. Even though the pictures I posted are about a year apart, it wasn't that long! I have lost the majority of this weight since about mid-December.

Nate Has The Coolest Hair EVER

Nate is like the epitome of cool. He's easygoing. He's friendly. He's hilarious. He's nice. He smiles all the time. Everything is fine with him. He's adorable. Then to top it off, he has the most unbelievably awesome hair. Check this out:

He was only disappointed that we couldn't get it to stay like this outside of the bathtub.

Last Thursday, Nate's elementary school had Crazy Hair Day. I tried to get him to let me dye his hair, but he was VERY concerned that it would never come out, so we settled on making it HUGE. This is the back. Awesome, if you ask me. Nate is just so cool.

New Moon Poster Revealed

The New Moon poster has been released:


I would like to write this post as a list of points:

1. Hush. Just because I'm not currently reading Twilight doesn't mean that I'm not still in love with Edward, nor does it mean that I have stopped stalking the current filming of New Moon.
2. Yes, I know that I am talking to myself. Nobody that reads this blog is NEARLY as obsessed with Twilight as I am. I get it. I will list off a million thoughts about how jacked this movie poster is and nobody will care. Got it.
3. This poster is jacked!
4. I HATED New Moon the first time I read it. (SPOILER ALERT!!) Edward leaves. He's gone for basically the entire book. It's depressing. Bella is depressed. It's the darkest period of her life, hence the title, New Moon. So why in tarnation is Edward in the very front of the movie poster? He's supposed to be gone! This movie is about Bella and Jacob.
5. Um, is Bella holding on to Jacob's gun? No, thank you! I guess it would work, but only if she couldn't see Edward. Otherwise she would be reaching for him.
6. Jacob looks good. That 30 lbs of muscle he gained since Twilight to become a werewolf did him good. No complaints there.
7. Since when did Bella start wearing makeup? She's completely depressed throughout the entire book. She has to drag herself to school. She's hardly going to make herself look gorgeous. She's supposed to be plain. (SPOILER ALERT!!!!!!!!!!!!!) Plus when she turns into a vampire in Breaking Dawn, what are they going to do with her then, if she's been looking gorgeous with tons of makeup through New Moon and Eclipse? She didn't wear any makeup in Twilight!
8. If this is New Moon, why does it look like there's an Eclipse in the trees?
9. Does it look like Jacob is stabbing Bella in the stomach?
10. I do like that Jacob is trying to keep Bella from Edward. Ironically, Jacob is the only one I do like in the entire poster. Hmph.
11. The colors are a lot more brown than in Twilight. Twilight was really gray and blue. Maybe they're changing things up because of the wolf pack?
12. That's enough. I'm sure my husband is wondering where I am. This is two days in a row spent on Twilight activities. Uh oh...

Scuba Nate and Pirate Abbie

Nate and Abbie both reached the top of their reward charts! I laugh knowing that Nate had 20 spots to move and Abbie had 10 (Nate laughed too--quietly). But we are so proud of both of them. Nate had to keep his bedroom clean, pick up his toys, clear the dining room table after dinner and load the dishwasher. Abbie had to keep her bedroom clean, pick up her toys daily and clean the bathroom counter 2x/week and be polite. The new thing for these charts was that they could move backwards on their charts. We had never done that before. I think that Abbie probably moved 30 spots before she actually reached the pirate ship at 10. Abbie got to go to Sonic and Nate is going bowling--These are the treats that they selected. It worked! Here we go again!

The Bishop on Twilight

I've been doing so much better. Seriously. I've haven't read a Twilight book for at least 2 months now. I still wear my Edward shirt (and I got a Forks High School t-shirt--oops, that was backwards movement), but overall my addiction is, well, not getting worse. I haven't watched the movie in several weeks now and the CD in my car is my sister's CD, not the Twilight soundtrack. I'm still addicted, but it's controlled... My psychiatrist husband would just laugh at me right now. Anyways... I just had to post this. I'm definitely Team Edward, for the record.

Bitty Bakers

Abbie is participating in a cooking class! Her class is called Bitty Bakers! It is a class for 3-5 year olds at Bean Sprouts Cafe in Middleton. She loves it. Last week they made Vanilla Ice Cream and Honey Cookies. She'll be going every Wednesday morning. Here are some pictures from her first week.

Making the cookies

Stirring the ice cream

Eating the ice cream! (They rolled their ice cream in chocolate chips--Super yummy idea!)

This was us making cookies for a friend's birthday at home, but I just thought it was a funny picture. (And Abbie loves her new apron.)

Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

Please see:

Somebody Actually Said That? for some quality jokes courtesy of a three-year-old brain.

Olbrich Gardens

This morning, Abbie and I were lucky enough to meet some friends at Olbrich Gardens. It was sunny and warm and beautiful!

How can a tree named Crab Apple be so gorgeous?!

Abbie was completely baffled by how water was coming out of the middle of this rock.

This was definitely the highlight of her trip.

I want a rock pool when I grow up.

Abbie and Brennan (and Heather) enjoying a big leaf

Cherokee Marsh

Last Friday, I was able to accompany Nate on a field trip! His class and the two other kindergarten classes from Van Hise went to Cherokee Marsh. What an experience! We spent about 2 hours with some naturalists, hiking and examining marsh water. It was pretty fun, other than lasting way too long and the fact that we didn't have any water. The kids got bored, hot and thirsty. And the ticks. Yes the ticks. We spent the entire field trip pulling ticks off of all the kids. But other than that, it was fun. :)

Here we are looking at a red spider mite.

These are not good for the trees. All the kids got was that they were nasty cause they looked like worms.

Here is my group of kids dipping cups into the marsh water. We found some mosquito larvae and a snail. Only one kid fell in (not from my group). :)

I remember going to Cherokee Marsh a lot as a child. One of my favorite memories was catching snakes. I told Nate about that and he about peed his pants. Nate is, well, terrified of snakes. He got a book for his birthday about snakes and hid it behind his bookshelf. He won't even enter the herpeterium at the zoo. We only saw one snake at the marsh and wow---I think that I'm going to sign Nate up for track. That boy can run! He came home and told Alan that we saw a rattlesnake. I love that kid.

For My Honey

This was a coupon that came in the Dollars & Sense magazine in our mail today. Alan pointed it out to me and then proceeded to laugh hysterically. This IS his sense of humor. And that's why I love him.

It's All About Perspective--Gratitude

Last week, as I wandered around a bookstore, I happened across a book that caught my eye: This Is Not the Life I Ordered. (What is the grammatically correct way to write the name of a book when you cannot underline it?) Ha, I thought. This was, "coincidentally", the day after the worst day of Intern Year. All I had been thinking was that this was not the life I ordered. Now somebody had written a book about it! Fancy that! "50 Ways to keep your head above water when life keeps dragging you down." Even better! This was it--God's life jacket, if you will.

The book is written by four women: An award-winning filmmaker, a best-selling business writer, a groundbreaking journalist, and a U.S. congressperson. These women have been through it all. Successful careers and career failures. Happy marriages, deaths of spouses and affairs. Children and step-children. Being shot. Infertility and miscarriages. You name it, they've probably lived through it. A number of years ago, they started a kitchen table group. It's exactly what it sounds like. They started meeting at least once a month around each other's kitchen tables to survive. They supported each other. They encouraged true honesty and courage. The book is about these meetings and friendships. It describes how to form your own kitchen table group. But more than that, it is filled with quotes and inspiration for how to survive when life seems hopeless. I highly recommend it.

I'll probably be posting a few entries about this book in the coming weeks. Last night and today, however, I was struck by an idea and had to act on it. GRATITUDE. Here is some of the science of gratitude:
*Dr. Robert Emmons, professor of psychology at the University of California, has been conducting scientific research on gratitude and its importance for nearly twenty years, funded by the National Institute of Health. He found that:
*Those who wrote in gratitude journals on a weekly basis also exercised more regularly, reported fewer physical symptoms, felt better about their lives, and were more optimistic than the control group that did not keep the journals.
*Participants who kept gratitude lists were more likely to have made progress toward important personal goals over a two-month period compared to those who did not.
*Grateful people reported higher levels of positive emotions and lower levels of depression and stress.

The idea of counting our blessings is nothing new. I'm ashamed to admit, though, that with science to back it up, I am more likely to try it. I have been feeling very ungrateful lately. I've been working on that. But a recent experience made me realize that it's all about perspective. I found that I was judging somebody for complaining about how difficult their life was--How they didn't know if they could go on like this anymore. When I looked at their life, I saw blessing after blessing after blessing. But to them, it was very difficult. I know that if somebody else looked at my life and heard the way that I carry on, goodness! So instead of letting somebody else look at my life and think about all of the blessings that I have, I have decided to do it myself. I am starting a gratitude journal. Abbie helped me pick one out at the store today. I will write in it at least once a day and I will write in it whenever I am feeling sorry for myself. I will write in it whenever I want to say, "Poor me." I know that this won't fix everything, but the attitude adjustment that I've made in myself in the last week has had a profound change in the happiness scale of our days. So this can only help. I won't be posting these things online because they're private, but as inspiration, I'll give a couple for today:

*I'm grateful that I found true love
*I'm grateful that I have a home
*I'm grateful that my children have enough food to eat every day
*I'm grateful that it didn't rain all week like it was supposed to
*I'm grateful for the friends who invited us over for dinner tonight
*I'm grateful that I have a car
*I'm grateful that Alan is not still in medical school
*I'm grateful that I have been able to lose almost 50 lbs
*I'm grateful that I am not depressed
*I'm grateful for brownies

Happenings

Yeah. This is how it goes in our house.

Alan worked super hard to remove and then replace the sway bar linkage on our car. He finally finished today!

I have a very clear understanding of why God made children so cute when I look at Abbie's adorable little face. If she weren't this precious, I would definitely have her head on a plate most days.

We met a friend at the zoo earlier in the week. Abbie rode the penguin on the carousel. She has recently had an odd fascination with penguins...

We've been spending lots of time at one of our neighborhood parks. It's amazing to me how much more manageable life is when the weather is nice.

Abbie has found a new love in cooking and baking. We've planned out an intricate new menu this week so that she can help out with dinners every night.

Kindergarten Soccer

Nate had his first soccer game yesterday. He is playing for the Regent Swifts and all of his teammates are from his school. He loves it. The kids are so much fun to watch. A few of the players who have older siblings who play soccer sort of know what they are doing, but for the most part, it's comedy. The out-of-bounds concept does not exist. Running after you kick the ball is a foreign concept. And the best descriptor I can give for watching it is "swarm soccer." But they did a great job. His team always knew which way they were going/where their goal was. They knew the general rules and they had a great time. I'm so excited for next Saturday!

I know I'm biased, but I can't get over how cute he is. Ahh!

Go Nate!