Body After Baby

I'm joining Samantha at Mama Notes for her Body after Baby Challenge 2010!! During the next several months we will be blogging about our Goals, Plans, Challenges and Success in losing our "baby weight"( I like to pretend I need to lose weight because I had a baby not because I enjoy carbs way too much!).

At Ethan's 8 week check up, my midwife gave me the okay to start losing weight. With breastfeeding and following the Weight Watchers plan I was able to drop 20lbs in 3 months! I am still at my weight I was when I got pregnant with Ethan but I am a lot softer and still about 15-20lbs over my goal weight. I'm looking forward to losing these extra few pounds before Eli and I decide to start adding to our family:)

Goals:

• Lose 15lbs by April 1st.
• Workout (walking with stroller) 3x per week outside the house (street or mall)
• "Workout" in home 3x per week
• Drink 8 glasses of water a day (I should be doing this anyway!)

Plan:

• Do some type of workout everyday. This can include walking with Ethan in the stroller outside on nice days or in the mall on not so nice days, doing one of my many exercise tapes or DVDs or deep cleaning something in the house (bathroom, kitchen, etc.) I just need to get moving!!
• Tracking my points. I do very well when I keep my journal of what I've eaten and how much I still have left to eat! I love finding the points value of food. My Mom got me a points scale for Christmas that will really come in handy! Thanks Mom!
• Keeping my water bottle with me all the time! I am so dehydrated all the time but I don't drink nearly enough water and getting plenty of water is a secret to weight loss.
• Planing meals. I've have gotten really bad at my Meal Planing and need to get back on it. This keeps me from asking Eli to stop and pick up fast food on the way home from work! I look forward to posting my plans and new low fat recipes I find.

Wish me luck and hop on over to Mama Notes and join us if you want your pre-baby body, or something like it, back!

Austin Christmas and Birthday

By far one of Ethan's favorite gifts is the guitar Eli's parents got for him! Oh what fun he has every time we let him "play" it. This was the first time right after we took it out of the box.
He enjoys turning it over and using it as a drum.
Sometimes he plays it while crawling on top of it.
This is a new thing he is doing with everything: leaning his head on the ground while looking intently at what ever he may be playing with. Things always look more interesting from a different angle.

Happy 1st Birthday to our Baby Boy!!! (More to come soon.)

We got lots of great gifts including a new camera and cookbooks! We want to thank all of our family for everything. We love you all!

Wordless Wednesday: Just one more thing, Santa!

Wordless Wednesday: Got Milk?

Early Christmas with Aunt April!!

My only sister, April, is home for a few weeks and we are so happy to see her! Ethan took to her right away. It might be because she and I look so much alike, or so we are told!

And can I tell you how much Ethan LOVES Hooch and Sadee, her dogs??? He just laughs and laughs when they are around. He loves to "chase" them all over the house although we keep them separated most of the time because Sadee loves to lick him all over! Sadee LOVES him, too. She is such the little mother and will run to him when ever he cries. If she can't get to him she will find one of us to make sure we are taking care of him. At night, she will sit next to his door and stick her head in to check on him. It's the cutest thing I've ever seen! Hooch likes Ethan, too, but not anything like Sadee.
Hooch is the bigger one with the black face and Sadee has the white face. They are both Boxers.




We had our early Christmas on Saturday. This is Ethan's first Christmas outside of Mamma so it's his first time to open gifts! He was really into the first gift, chewing on the corner.

Then chewing on the torn paper.
It's pj's!!!

After that first gift, we really had to push him to even be interested in opening any more gifts even though the next few were toys. He got several toys and lots of clothes!




And after all that what did he play with? The dogs ball. (This is a happy face!)
Then it was on to visit Santa at the Fire station! I wasn't sure how Ethan would react to a "jolly" old man in a red suite but he loved him. He couldn't take his eyes off of Santa!

Ethan got to sit on the old fire truck with Santa. We went to visit him one more time later that evening. I'll post the photos as soon as I get them.



Then on to the Christmas parade. "Aunt" Karla has a way with kids.

He lasted for about 15 mins before crashing.

In case you've never been to a parade in Oklahoma, here are just a few things you might see: An old car.

A tractorA trash truck.

And no band:( I was told the band was busy with a concert and couldn't be in the parade. It was lots of fun even without the band!Then it was home for Mexican food and Birthdays!! I made these White Chicken Enchiladas and they were yummy! We had tons left over and some how they got left in the oven overnight so we had to toss all of them :( Sad to not have any leftovers but we are still eating on the cheese dip! Thanks Aunt Kathy!

We had 3 birthdays that we celebrated: Grandma, Emily and Ethan.

Ethan wasn't too interested in eating his cupcake but he got good and messy!

I didn't get any pics of Boo, Lil Earl or Emily but Karla got some good ones. Check them out here.

We were missing Eli who will be home soon and AJ (April's husband in Iraq).

Merry Christmas AJ!! We will be sending you a goodie box soon.

We still have another Christmas and Birthday when Eli gets home in a few weeks. Can't wait to see you, Eli!

Christmas Decorations

Fun times with Ethan

Ethan has discovered that he can open and close things. His favorite thing to open and close is the CD player that we play his ocean waves on when he sleeps. If I leave the door open to his bedroom (aka the office) he heads strait for it! Open and close, open and close, over and over. I know he is going to break it soon. He has also learned to throw things. He will sit in his highchair and act like his is just stretching his arm out and let go of what ever is in his hand (mostly food). He loves to sit in front of the front door on the tile and toss his toys to hear them make a loud noise! He likes me to play "where's Ethan?" and "chase" him once I find him.

He loves vanilla wafers! Here he is sitting in his rocker enjoying one.

Oh, how he loves to splash in the bath!! This is his kicking face while soaking me and the rest of the bathroom with water.

For Daddy

Eli is in Australia doing coral research and we miss him very much! He requested I post some more pics of the little boy so here they are!Eating some yummy spaghetti!Can you see the big bump on his head? Yes, he fell from a crawling position and hit his head on the kitchen floor :( Poor baby. But he was okay. We love you and miss you, Eli!!!

Wouldn't this have been a great Christmas card photo? Except he's not in his Christmas PJ's and I've already send out our Christmas cards with a photo where he's not smiling at all. Oh, well! There's always next year.