That's Random

So, my friend often (actually it's been a while) posts on her blog with the title "That's Random." I thought this story fit into that category...
I was in Starbucks today and the girl in front of me seemed to have this white powdery stuff in one section of her hair. I say, if you're not going to wash your hair and you're going to use that spray shampoo stuff (which is totally acceptable if you can pull it off)...make sure you brush it all out and there isn't a big chunk of white powder on the side of your head when you have a low side ponytail going on.

Generations

One day, I picked up my 9 year old cousin to take her to my house. We were at a stoplight near a gas station...a gas station that I think is one of the few that still has an actual pay phone. She said to me "hey, isn't that one of those phones they have on the freeway?"

Audio Books Update

So, I finished Water for Elephants in a couple of weeks or so and I thought it was excellent. When you're listening to a book, it's like you really get to know the characters. It was a really great book. Then I listened to The Help which I just finished last week.This book was amazing! I was completely hooked. I actually didn't want it to end. I can't wait to check out the movie.

Next up: Stories I Only Tell My Friends by Rob Lowe. I'm interested to see how this one goes since it's actually narrated by him.

Confession...

My three-year-old thinks it's completely normal to go looking for your clothes in a pile on the floor because we are so bad at putting the kids' clothes away. He says "can you help me dig?" Sad, I know, very sad...

Audible.com

I'm always wishing I had more time to read books. Usually by the time I pick up a book at night before bed, I'm ready to crash out, so it just doesn't happen. I've also been spending a lot of time in my car since my commute is much longer now--it gets old listening to the same music on the radio all the time and the news channels can be interesting, but only for so long.

So, I decided to try audio books. Audible.com is part of Amazon and it allows you to pay a monthly subscription where you receive credits and you can download books with those credits. They have a free trial, so I thought I would give it a try. I have to listen on my phone, and not through the radio, but that's no big deal for me since the speaker on my phone is fine.

It was tough to decide which book I should listen to first. I looked through some of the best sellers and I just wasn't sure. I went back to my friend's trusty blog (thanks, Melissa!) and looked at some of her book reviews. Based on her review and some of the others I read online, I went with this one:

So far it's been good. It's nice to have something to look forward to during my drive. I'll keep you posted on how I liked the whole book--but I'm almost half way through and I'm enjoying it!

O...M...G!

So I'm getting the kids ready go bed and watching the Bachelorette and this was my conversation with Lexxa:

Lexxa: Mom, is she going to give out roses tonight?
Me: Yes.
Lexxa: So, whoever doesn't get the last rose has to go home?
Me: Yes.
Me: Ok, time for bed.
Lexxa: Tell me if there is anyone that I might like.
Me: What do you mean? Someone you think who should have gotten a rose.
Lexxa: No, like if they are cute or something.

Really? She is not even 6 yet! I guess I need to censor the TV shows that she sees me watching!

Perks

Last week, I went to a conference in Sonoma for work. The company hosting has an annual client conference. We are not clients yet, but were invited to attend to see what they were all about. The beauty of client conferences is that they make sure to add in lots of fun activities along with the regular conference agenda. Since it was held is Sonoma, there was a lot of good wine and food! And, the hotel was fantastic too.

A shot of my room at The Lodge - a Renaissance Hotel where the bathtub area opens up so you can see the TV. I sat and watched the Bachelorette from there!

 The view of the grounds from my room.

 First winery: B.R. Cohn

The weather was beautiful, so it was great sitting outside with a nice glass of wine. It's so peaceful there.

Jacuzzi Winery. This place was beautiful. And yes, this is the same Jacuzzi family that invented the Jacuzzi. We also had a lovely dinner reception there.

 Another shot at Jacuzzi.

On the last day, we also got to learn about some wine and cheese pairings at the hotel with their sommelier (I learned what a sommelier was that day too). We tasted different wines from Sonoma along with local cheeses. It was excellent. I didn't take any pics...I was too busy eating and drinking! All of the food there was so fresh and delicious--even the hotel food at lunch.

And last, but not least, Ravenswood. We did a team building exercise where we made our own blend of wine, had to name it and market it. It was a lot of fun and we got to take home a small bottle of our very own blend.

It was an excellent trip and believe it or not, I actually got a lot of good information that was work-related. I could get used to this. :-)

Wishing for some energy

I feel like I need another day off after the busy weekend. It was fun stuff, but still a lot. Here is the quick rundown.


Friday evening after work. Back and forth three times to Brad's cousin's to pick up kids and drop off stuff for Lexxa to spend the night. Good news = she lives in town so no big deal. Thanks for having Lexxa over!


Saturday. Morning, pick up Lexxa, go to the grocery store. Head to afternoon BBQ at Brad's dad's. Pool, food, sun. Go home, kids napped, got ready and went to my friends Stella & Dot launch party.


Sunday. Slept in a little, got ready to go to BBQ #2 at my brother's girlfriend's house. Pool, food, sun. Headed home and got ready for July 3rd street dance. Waited for Brad to get home from work and then headed out to street dance. P.S. It didn't even cool down much that night.


Monday. Morning, parade. Afternoon, BBQ #3 at my cousin's house. Food, friends, playing in the back yard. Head home. Get ready for fireworks. Head to fireworks. Get home at 10:45 and have to think about work the next morning.

Ugh! My alarm going off at 5:30 this morning was not cool!

All in all, it was an great weekend, but I am so exhausted! Getting ready for another busy week and weekend coming up...

The Cheeseburger Challenge

So, back in April we went to Maui for a friends wedding. The night we arrived, there was a dinner outing planned for the people that were there for the wedding. It was at a place called Cheeseburger Island Style. The place was just ok, but it accommodated a big group of people. We knew some of the people there and some we were meeting for the first time. So, as we were perusing the menu, my wonderful husband decided that he should try their cheeseburger challenge. The girls we sat with were definitely encouraging him to go with it...I, on the other hand, was not as excited about it. #1, we barely knew many of these people, #2, I didn't want to deal with him complaining about a stomach ache on our first night in Hawaii. Needless to say, he went with it. The cheeseburger had two patties, cheese, pork, bacon, lettuce, onion, tomato and it was all on top of chili cheese fries. The goal: eat everything in a half hour. The prize: a t-shirt (woohoo!) and bragging rights.

Here is the burger.

Still going strong and almost finished.

Last bite.

He was easily finished in a half hour. The difficult part was the heavy chili cheese fries at the bottom.

All for this fabulous t-shirt. It was the highlight of the night for the group of 40. Good times.

The Poopy Diaries

This one is for you Maryanne...something to look forward to.

So, I've been dealing with a lot of sh** lately. I know he's already 3, but we're finally getting Logan potty trained. Things are going well so far, particularly with going pee, but the #2 is a different story. Here are some things that I've experienced so far (NOTE: some descriptions may be a little graphic):

1. Logan had been holding his poo for a few days because he's still nervous about going on the toilet. So, one night, he sat on his little potty seat (note that this is the one that you have to clean out each time they go to the bathroom because it's just a little plastic seat). He was sitting there for quite a while and I thought he was just kind of playing there. Then I realized that it smelled pretty bad in there. So, he went to get up and sure enough, there was a big, huge #2 in his little toilet. I've dealt with a lot of kid poop in my day, but this made me gag. I carefully dumped the stuff from the little potty seat into the regular toilet. Bad idea. It wouldn't flush. What do I do next? I had to figure out how to break it up--I grabbed one of those wooden skewers for bbq and started poking at it in the toilet. I had to turn my head away and I was gagging the whole time. I even blew up at Lexxa at one point because she was trying to be all up in the mix and see what I was doing. I felt bad after the fact. So, after making sure everything went down the toilet, I had to clean out the little potty seat still. Yuck.

2. On Father's Day we spent the day with my family and went to a San Jose Giants game. We came home and relaxed for a bit and then just decided to go and get pizza for dinner. So, we go to the pizza place and Logan is wearing his big boy underwear. They are playing and eating like normal and then he tells me he needs to go to the bathroom. We go into the bathroom and his underwear are completely loaded with poo. Gross! I noticed when I was getting ready to put him on the toilet and it got everywhere. The underwear went in the trash and we cleaned him up and headed home. At least I got to eat my pizza before all of this went down!

3. Logan has been doing so well with wearing underwear and going on the toilet. But, last night he decided to go #2 in his underwear again. This one wasn't as bad, but still no fun.

I'm really looking forward to him being completely potty trained so we don't have to worry about all of this...but in the meantime, I will just suck it up and deal with it!

When Life Gets In The Way...

Or just laziness. Wow, I haven't posted anything since March--it's really hard to believe that it's already the end of May. I feel like I have so many things to blog about and catch up on. Here's a list even though I don't know if I'll ever get to all of these:

• New job



• Trip to Hawaii



• The Cheeseburger Challenge (part of Hawaii trip but worthy of its own post)



• Logan playing soccer



• Kid's activities - Children's Discover Museum and beach day



• Mother's Day

Did I mention that I started a new job? Maybe my next post will be about my Hawaii trip so I can daydream about being there again...no work, no kids and carefree in paradise! My life is not all that interesting so I suppose my posts might be boring either way.

Hopefully you'll see me here again soon!

"Comfort Habits"

Many kids have what's called "comfort habits" according to BabyCenter.com. For most kids, this would include taking things like blainkies and stuffed animals to bed--something to comfort the child and help them self-soothe. Logan, on the other hand, is different. Every night when it's time to get ready for bed, Logan wants to take some random thing with him. Sometimes it's a teddy bear, other times it's blocks, lincoln logs or bouncy balls and on occasion it's fake food--like chicken or hot dogs. It's pretty funny when he's saying "where's my chicken?" when we're getting ready for bed! Oh yes, and some of his other favorites include a microphone and his dinosaur flashlight that yells "raaaaaar!" every time you squeeze the tail. Tonight, it's the hands from his Mr. Potato head set (and Lexxa in the background acting silly):

Weight Loss Challenge - Final Results

So, the final weigh-in was today and all-in-all, I lost almost 6lbs. This doesn't sound like much, but I'm happy with it. It puts my total weight loss since the competition we had last year to about 20lbs. I would still like to keep going, but I just have to stay motivated. It's going to be interesting with all of the changes coming my way...stay tuned for another post about that!

Proud Mom

My last three posts have been about weight loss (or gain), so I felt the need to post something more interesting.

I had such a proud moment last month when I found out that Lexxa got an award at school - Principal's Student of the Month! Brad took her to school and the teacher suggested that he attend the assembly for the lower grades because Lexxa was going to get an award. So, he was able to see her accept her little yellow certificate and a pencil from the Principal. I was so proud that she's been such a good student in Kindergarten. And, the rest of the family was proud too--Uncle and Angela (my brother and his girlfriend) took Lexxa on a little shopping trip to celebrate her fabulous award. Below is one of the things that she chose--Strawberry Shortcake pajamas.

Great job Lexxa!

Weight Loss Challenge Update

It's been a few weeks since I last updated you on my weight loss challenge. It's been pretty uneventful. I've been doing better for the last couple of weeks. I weighed in today and lost almost 2lbs since last week, so that was good news. My total weight loss for this round is just over 3lbs (for a total of 17lbs since last April). I'm fine with this because at least I'm losing weight, but I'm still in at least 7th place in the competition (out of about 12 or so). The extra cash at the end would be nice, but I'm not counting on it.

Frustration

Week 2 weigh-in = up almost 2lbs. Ugh! I did Zumba twice this week (I know that doesn't sound like much, but most of the time, I do it only once a week) and ate fairly good throughout the week. I wasn't all that great last weekend, so maybe that is biting me in the butt. I'm frustrated because I thought I was doing pretty good to where I thought I would at least maintain this week. But, instead, I weigh more than I did at my first weigh in for this competition! It's not looking like the money is headed my way.

I will try and keep some sort of motivation going, but it doesn't seem to be working out too well.

Weight Loss Challenge

So, last year around April, we started a weight loss challenge at work. We all pitched in $25 and whoever lost the most percentage of their original body weight would win the pot. During that competition which lasted 2 months, I lost a total of about 12lbs. I managed to maintain that and I even lost a couple more pounds after that. Then, I gained a few pounds back over the holidays and all.

We decided to do round 2 of this challenge at work and it started last week. At my first weigh-in, I was exactly the same weight as my last weigh-in of the first challenge. The scale at work is a little off compared to my home scale, so I think my weight is actually a little lower. But I guess that doesn't matter because we are using the work scale for the competition.

Well, this round 2 challenge has been super challenging already! I really don't feel motivated this time and I'm not sure what it is...geez, I have a Hawaii trip in a few months, I should be totally motivated! It's not happening though. So, today was the first weigh-in day and I was down 1lb. I guess it doesn't feel like a great start for me, but at least I lost a little.

Hopefully since I'm posting this on my blog, it will force me to make an update every once in a while to tell you about my progress...good or bad. Maybe this will give me a little more motivation.

Wish me luck!

Flashback to Newborn Days

I went to visit my cousin and her new baby at the hospital yesterday. Cali Rae is a beautiful little girl!

Every time I visit a baby in the hospital, it makes me think of when my own babies were born. So, I thought I Flashback post was appropriate...

My tiny miss Lexxa weighing in at 6lbs, 9oz. Wow, our first baby and all of a sudden life changes in a major way!

She was Daddy's little girl from day one.

It's crazy to look back at the day she was born--she's five years old already!

Fast forward almost 3 years...and then there were 2. Note the shirt that Brad is wearing below...yep, it's the same one he was wearing when Lexxa was born! I know, sad.

My "little" man weighed in at 9lbs 11.8oz, over three pounds heavier than his sister was when she was born! Holy Moly!

My sweet babies.

Big sister was so excited to hold and love her little brother.