the life and times of mommiehood, part deux

No clue how long it's been since I posted, probably sometime shortly after getting the Wii Fit, which is almost 6 months ago! Really, until recently, there's not been much exciting to write about. My weight hadn't changed much and I was still exercising several times a week and trying to eat well.

Mid May Andy surprised me with an awesome present. A personal trainer for my Wii! While I still pulled out the Fit once in a while it wasn't near as exciting as it used to be and there were a few things about it that bugged me (several of which might be changed with the new Fit Plus, we'll see).

Ea active

EA Active was like a breath of fresh air! Right off the bat I started the 30-Day Challenge and though I certainly did not finish in the 30 days (more like 40, but who's counting) it's been great. My pants are fitting looser and I've lost a few pounds along the way as well. Maybe not many, but at least SOMETHING!

After playing for a month and a half, and starting the 30DC again today with the other trainer (maybe I'll do it in 30 days this time??), here's my brief review of the game.

PROS

• While I've never had a real, live personal trainer, this game is the next best thing (and significantly cheaper too!). You don't just have to do the 30DC to get that effect either.
• There are many workouts designed within the game to target just about everything. For someone like me who doesn't really know what to work and when to work it and how much of this to do with that, having pre-set workouts in the 30DC that vary activities and keep things fresh has been great.
• You can work out with a buddy. I haven't been able to do this much, and it doesn't work with the 30DC or register in both people's profiles that you did the workout, but it's always more fun to have a workout buddy!
• There isn't as much lag time between exercises (unless you have to watch the how-tos).
• You can pick your intensity, low-medium-high, and no matter which one I've always ended tired and sweaty.
• The trainer encourages you along the way to hang in there and do your best.
• On days when I go to the gym and do cardio I can easliy uncheck all the activities where "running" is involved.
• I really want to do this most days and like that with the 30DC there are rest days built in so you don't push too hard.
• Once you have a feel for the game and the activities you can design your own workouts and vary the intensity of different activities within the workouts.
• When I decided to try the 30DC again, I chose the female trainer and she says different things to encourage/motivate you and it seems like a whole different experience.
• You can get other resistance bands to up the intensity of the resistance for the upper body workouts if you need to.
• As part of your journal you have to keep track of things like how many small meals you've eaten, how much water you drink, how many servings of veggies you've eaten and how many sugary beverages. It's been pretty effective at getting me thinking about what I'm eating and making positive changes ... since I have to document everything.
• There's no shaming aspect. If you miss a day they don't make you feel bad. You don't have to weigh yourself each time and be told you are obese every day (regardless of certain physical characteristics). While I still weigh myself once a week or so with the Fit, it's much less intense.
• I just discovered a whole website for the game designed to help encourage and motivate you. It also has tips on living healthier.

CONS

• There's no way to do the 30DC with a friend.
• I HATE RUNNING IN PLACE. While you can do jumping jacks or jump rope or something else, there's a lot of "running" involved in the 30DC.
• Hard at first to get into a rhythm when you have to mess with the equipment and watch all the how-to videos.
• There aren't many exercises that incorporate the balance board (which can also be a good thing because it's one more thing to manage during workouts).
• Sometimes the exercises are tricky to get right and it gets frustrating when you have to hold things really long because it doesn't realize you are doing it.
• There's no way to change from right to left handed so even as a lefty I'm stuck doing all the exercises with the Wiimote in my right hand.
• There's no way to say that you are pregnant or have some other health condition where you might need the 30DC modified in some way (you can go in and uncheck certain exercises though).

What prevents your city/town from being the best place in the country to live?
Submitted by Cherney.

NOTHING! Denver ROCKS!

While I really like evite, and think it's cool ... people like me who stress about stuff should never use it. You can constantly check the invite to see who's RSVPd, who's looked at the invitation and done nothing (even though they already said they'd be able to come??) ... it doesn't really change that muchfrom day to day ... hour to hour. Ugh. And then there's the two people who's email addresses didn't like the evite and thus haven't gotten it. Grr. Let's just say it's not a perfect system!

Andy went to pick up our new table and chairs today, and our friend and his son came and got grandpa's table. Things couldn't have been timed more perfectly. Andy pulled in with our table and chairs (they all fit in our Vue!) and our friends pulled in just behind him. With how heavy the table is, I'm super glad Andy had help lugging it inside too.

I know I'm biased, but it's gorgeous.

Being a glossy black it also magnifies finger prints too, but oh well.

Here's Stephan drinking some water:

new dining table1

Another shot with both Andy and Stephan:

new dining table2

Lately, I feel so busy I don't even know what to write about. Who wants a list of everything we do. It might make you tired just reading it! I'm amazed at how fast the business just creeped up on us. I'd thought about taking Stephan bowling on Thursday and when it came to Thursday I was so pooped we did nothing. Absolutely nothing ... and it was GREAT!

On Friday we met a good friend of mine and her two girls at the zoo for the morning. We found an awesome "just because" gift for daddie ... a stuffed crocodile with Steve Irwin's name and signature embroidered on it's belly. I just knew Andy would find it cool and worked hard at convincing Stephan that it was for daddie, not him. He likes to think all stuffed animals are his.

After an attempt at nap we took the bus up to Boulder to hang with daddie and go to the Celestial Seasonings factory. Stephan had a B-L-A-S-T on the bus and was so excited! While we were waiting at the PnR for Andy to pick us up he kept wanting to get on another bus. He was also confused thinking "Boulder" meant "daddie's office" and was quite disappointed we never went to the office. He kept asking when we were going to Boulder and disagreed with us when we told him we were in Boulder. I got several new flavors of tea, all of which are of course delicious, and a bottle of vanilla flavored agave syrup. Pricey stuff. I want to go to the Madhava factory store in Lyons next and see if I can get a better deal on the stuff. After a delicious dinner at CPK we headed back home, and yes, Stephan was still upset we hadn't gone to "Boulder!"

My favorite part of yesterday was getting a new table and chairs. I've been searching craigslist now and then looking for something that would fit our home, be in decent condition, and of course, be cheap. So many things out there that were just not right, and looking through 4+ pages in listings is not really much fun. We had gotten a coupon in the mail for Furniture Row and being that we LOVE both our couches and our mattress, we decided to go check out what they had on Saturday morning. After dragging Stephan to the store and sitting at many, many tables, we found a winner. The salesman even took off more money since we bought the warranty and still let us use the coupon we had. I'm excited for Andy to bring it home tomorrow. We also found someone who is going to take grandpa's old table and chairs as well. A couple in our Sunday school class who will be getting a house soon wanted a bigger table, good thing Andy thought to say something this morning!

I'm not feeling the greatest and hope to feel better here soon. Tomorrow morning I'm going to help out with VBS in the kitchen putting together snacks for the kids. Last night I went to bed early with a cup of tea and Emma and didn't make it to the end of the movie.

In case you were curious, Stephan is rocking the potty! He's had five accidents in the past two weeks and more often than not is staying dry. He's even getting very good at noticing that he needs to go and getting to the potty all by himself! I'm so proud of him. (And thankful we are only wearing diapers at night now!)

Some days, I'm super duper thankful for nap time ... even when I don't take one myself!

We've had a good weekend. Stephan has been 100% dry since Friday and we've all been enjoying the perks. We went bowling Friday evening and all had a blast. Andy and I got to try out our shoes for the first time.

bowling

Saturday we went to the museum to pick up a birthday and Father's Day gift for my FIL and then drove up to Loveland to celebrate.

Andy and I attempted to put Stephan down for nap and then go on a mini-shopping date. While Stephan didn't get any rest, we still got some shopping done. First stop, the Coach outlet. I wanted to find a wallet to coordinate with the purse I got for my birthday and we ended up finding one for Andy too. Everybody has a water buffalo ... though Andy's is not exactly a pet :)

Sunday of course brings church. Andy taught our class and then I taught the 2yos. Service went LONG. About 30 minutes long. Thankfully, we didn't have too many kids and it wasn't chaos. Several parents picked up their kids early too. Still sucks that we didn't get home till almost 1pm, and Stephan got down for nap late ... and is now a mess attempting to go to bed. He did accomplish staying dry during his Sunday school so we once again went bowling this evening. We decided to get some pizza this time and make an evening of it. Stephan even enjoyed the pizza and ate a few bites like mommie and daddie.

eating pizza

After our second bowling extravaganza of the weekend we did a little grocery shopping at Target before heading home. In the past when we've given Stephan a choice between two things he's chosen one and gotten upset he didn't also get the other. This time he wanted both popcorn and a Matchbox car. I don't mind rewarding him for being a good boy at the store, but wasn't going to do both. He chose the car after some deliberation and didn't fuss at all about not also getting popcorn. Amazing what a few weeks can mean in his understanding of things. Target had a few buy X amount of X and get a $5 gift card so we stocked up on diapers (Stephan's still wearing them at night for the time being) and frozen treats. I discovered mini slow-melt popsicles. They are awesome little toddlersicles. Stephan wanted one when we got home and We pulled one out. It was about 3-4" long and 1' wide. Perfect size for him. We stripped him down to his shorts and I made him eat in the kitchen, but he didn't lose a drop!

Here are a couple other pics from the week too. My flowers opening up, Stephan reading in bed (click here if you want to watch the video) and my homemade Keurig latte, lukewarm since we don't have any ice in the freezer and it was too hot for a hot one!

On to Monday!

While you aren't supposed to count your chickens before they've hatched and all, here goes nothing.

For a few months now I've been wanting to be able to be more consistent with the potty training thing, but while working and sending Stephan all over the place it just wasn't feasible. Last week we went to Gunnison, which entails a 4+ hour drive, and once again getting more serious with potty training was put on hold. (I did take underwear, and he did keep them dry, but we only wore them around the hotel.)

Over the weekend, we determined that we were finally just going to take the leap and nix pull-ups for everything but sleeping. I took one of our waterproof mats for use with the car seat ... not perfect, but it does the job .... and so far he's been making significantly more progress!

Monday evening he stayed dry and we were out for a couple hours. He had one oops-I-crapped-my-pants incident at the gym that morning and that was his first time at the gym in undies, so not bad.

Tuesday he stayed dry all day and after dinner we were out driving looking at a dining table we found on craigslist. On the way home he wanted to go to the park. We decided sure, we can do a few minutes at the park. When we got him out of the car he was wet. Stephan was not happy we put him back in the car and went home, really not happy. We reiterated that he needs to stay dry or we have to go home.

Wednesday there were a couple errands I needed to run and he again mentioned the park. We didn't get out of the house till late, but I told him that if he stays dry, we could indeed go to the park for a few minutes before going home for lunch and nap. He. Stayed. DRY! The only time he was wet was after nap and since I put a pull-up over his underwear to minimize my clean-up it wasn't too big a deal.

This morning, he stayed dry the whole way up to nana & papa's house, for an hour in the car!

I'm so stinking proud of my big boy!

He's finally getting there. I'm no longer as stressed about him being able to start preschool in the fall, especially since I know he can stay dry at naptime, it's just not quite 100% yet. I think the external motivation of not being able to do fun things (like bowling, going to the park, spending time at Elitch's and free movies at the theater) unless he stays dry, are working much better than potty candy. He does still ask for potty candy on occasion, but it certainly doesn't hold the same power as not being able to do something he finds REALLY fun.

We just might have to take him to mini-golf sometime soon ... and get that refurbished iPod too. (Which I'm secretly super happy about as it should make our flight to Chicago much easier if he can watch movies and shows on his own iPod and not mine.)

I know, I know. It's supposed to be spring cleaning. I don't think I ever really got around to doing anything during spring though.

We are looking at getting a new dining room table and chairs since ours is pretty much toast and need to make sure we have space.

We've also been wanting to lose the desk in the living room now that we have a laptop and don't really need the whole desk, though I am actually sitting at said desk right now. It's not the most comfortable, with our old monitor and computer stashed underneath but it's working for now. I've got amulti -purpose table in my room that I think we will use instead when we want to sit at a "desk" with the computer. So now we need to determine what to do with the desk, and possibly our old-falling-apart-table if we do find a "new" one.

I searched through the listings on craigslist and found two that were cheap enough and looked nice. We hoped to look at them both last night but the number I had for the second one was disconnected. So we saw one. A nice table, comfortable chairs, all wood. The table top is a bit of a mess which isn't an awful thing as I typically cover it with a table cloth. The one thing that will make me offer lower than their asking price is that when pulling out the leaf, which stores in the middle of the table, it was all sticky and didn't seem to slide very nicely. Apparently, there was a "juice incident" with a toddler, that I get, but if I'm the one who has to completely clean and resurface the table that's at least $50. Some of the chairs, while sturdy and not broken, had some nicks in the wood. We'll see.

The other table is still avaliable, and 1/3 the cost of the other one. Wood and wrought iron. Pretty, but again the table top would need to be sanded and stained again if we ever wanted to use it without a table cloth. Andy and Stephan might try and go see that one tonight.

So after working at getting the "office" area cleaned up I still need to go through the filing cabinet we have and determine what we need to toss or keep. That should be interesting. I don't actually use it much. Neither does Andy. Who knows what lurks inside. We probably should make more use of it. Maybe once we clean it all out we can.

Next on the agenda is tackling the "craft table" area in our bedroom. There are things piled under it that I probably can get rid of or pare down. I also hope to buy a book case, maybe once they start pushing the dorm sales this summer at Target. We need some more storage in our bedroom, and I don't have a nightstand, just an old end table for a couch. I'd like to get a new end table, or shorter book case, for the couch and donate both of the ones we currently have. The book case for my night table will give me more storage for books and magazines and such. Which, hopefully, will help the "craft table" that no matter what ends up a disaster. We'll see.

On to getting some stuff done whilst the toddler sleepeth.

If this works, here's a slideshow of our excursion to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison. Truly an amazing thing to see. At one point I teared up a bit. God sure created a beautiful place for us to live didn't he?