Making cards

As always I am inspired by my friends Carebear and Ami, and made my own thank you cards for Christmas. Of course, deciding to make them myself I did not get them out until over three weeks after Christmas, but it's the thought that counts right?

Ami and I have started talking seriously about starting a small little side business of making cards, journals, scrapbooking kits, and file folders and selling them at craft fairs and on etsy.com. Honestly, Ami makes everything way better than I can, and they come out so profesional looking! I am hoping to take lessons from her and get better at what I do. Here are pictures of the Thank you I just made:

Update on Everything....

First and foremost, my mom came out of surgery surprisingly well. We will find out the results of her lymph node biopsy this week, but the surgeon was highly optimistic that she got all the cancer. Praise God! And my mom's recovery has been amazing! She has taken no pain meds, and is up doing her own thing, extremely bored because we are all insisting that she do nothing but rest right now.

On another medical note, my niece, Lola has ended up in the hospital with RSV. She is doing well, but her oxygen levels are low, so she has to stay there until she can keep them up with out oxygen support for an entire night. RSV sucks because there are no meds to help move it out of the system. She has to fight it on her own, but have some support while she does it. We all hope she will be home by Wednesday. Prayers for my brothers family, as they are EXTREMELY exhausted going between their sick kid in the hospital and their sick kid at home (Belle also has RSV but is doing fine recovering on her own).

Aside from medical issues in the family, all is going well. We had a birthday party for Munchi on the 10th, went to the LA zoo on the 13th, and went to his friend DDT's birthday party on the 18th. Munchi was super spoiled on his birthday, so our house is overflowing with new toys from Christmas and Birthday. I am currently sorting through, deciding what we want to store for a possible next kid (not coming anytime soon) and what we are giving away. For now though, Munchi is in car and train heaven! Munchi also loved the LA zoo, and the tigers were his favorite! Here are pictures of both birthday party and zoo:

Munchi's cake made by his Grandma


Munchi's friend, Peanut


Munchi (what a hansome kid!)


Munchi's friend, DDT


Munchi enjoying his cake!


Mr. Cool Guy at the zoo


Kangroos playing dead


DDT and Munchi brushing the goats


My favorite, the Hippo


Munchi's favorite, the tiger

The diet and exercise plan update

Well, I have made it through the first two weeks of my diet and exercise plan. Not as smoothly as I hoped but I think I did well.

I walked at least 4 times a week, if not more (I forgot to track), and I followed the South Beach diet religiously until yesterday. I made the mistake of weighing myself after the first week (which I told myself I would not do), and then became FRUSTRATED when I did not loose through out week two, but started gaining! Of course, week two is notoriously the week your body freaks out and holds on for dear life because it thinks it is going into starvation mode, but mentally that did not matter to me. I should have waited like I told myself to do and weighed in this morning for the first time. Anyway, over the last two weeks I lost 9.5 pounds, and I think that is something to be proud of.

This week I am going to start adjusting what I am eating, as I am now allowed more carbs. I actually think that South Beach is a little too strict on the carb thing, since it even restricts fruit consumption, so I am going to tweak it a little. I will be weighing in once a week from now on. I also think I am going to take my measurements and update those once a month, since exercise will be changing my body even if the weight is not coming off like I would like. I will post measurements and a before picture soon.

Munchi's Second Birthday

Today is Munchi's second birthday. And we had such a great time today celebrating it! We opened presents in the morning from his cousins in Tennessee, which included a Geotrax train. He was soooooo excited! Then, after a good long nap, we headed off to the Aquarium. He found every single fish to be so amazing. And really wanted nothing to do with the seals.... He lasted a full two hours without incident, until we went to the gift shop to get him a birthday souvenir. We were talking to him about getting a stuffed animal or a book, when he found a truck! Yes, that is right, my son was able to find a truck at the frickin' Aquarium. Well, mom and dad wanting nothing to do with it! It was cheaply made, NOT age appropriate, and our house is full to the brim with trucks. So, I had to take him out for a small time out, and afterwards we read some books, and picked out the cutest clown fish stuffed animal and went on our way. And I don't think he even cares about the truck now, because he is fast asleep in his bed, with his arms around fish.

So, while the day was great for Munchi, Dirk and I got a little something too. The Aquarium was celebrating their 10 year anniversary or something like that, and we won their grand door prize!! Just because of when we walked in the door.... It is a one night stay at some hotel in Long Beach, in their Jacuzzi Suite, with complimentary champagne and breakfast!! Oh la la! I was so excited, I asked the ticket lady if she would baby sit Munchi for us so we could go :) But the best part was, when looking at the certificate later, Dirk discovered it had expired 12/31/08. Uh oh! So we took it up front and the manager was so embarressed that not only are they mailing a new certificate to us in the mail, but she gave us four free tickets to the Aquarium! Like I said, today was a great day!

Some pictures of our adventures:

As always, climbing up where he is not supposed to, and mom encouraging him by taking a picture


A REALLY big fish!


The eel and I became good friends


I really wanted to swim with the bat rays, if daddy would just let me go!


AMAZING!


I pointed all day, I am sure my finger is very tired

And so it begins

2009 has been officially kicked off with my first day on the South Beach diet. Don't have any comments yet, except that I am hitting Costco this afternoon, as my house is not stocked for a carb free life. You will also notice that the weight loss tracker is back on my blog, but this time it is only set on 40 pounds. My goal is to loose 40 pounds this year, with hopes of doing more. I will not be weighing in the next two weeks, as I want to start the diet just focused on the health benefits, and not worrying what the scale has to say.

Here's to a new, healthy me by 2010!

Quick update

For those of you wondering, my mom goes into surgery on January 14th. She is doing so much better mentally than I ever expected, and I am so proud of her. She is even going on vacation this week with my dad, and I pray she can sit back and enjoy it a little. She is still in a lot of pain most of the time, so the cancer never seems to let her forget, but I am hoping some time away from the routine of life lets her have some fun!

Santa is fun!

So, amidst all the health fun in my family, I have been trying to enjoy Christmas time with Munchi as much as possible. He is at the age where he does not understand everything, but a lot of things are really exciting. One of those things being Santa. He loves him! We talk about him all the time, and love looking at pictures of him. We read books about him and about baby Jesus. He has a baby doll whose name goes between Santa and Baby Jesus on a regular basis. Though the love is true, he has never wanted to go see Santa up close by himself. After Thanksgiving we saw him once and he would only go near him if Daddy came to (see post below about boredom = family time). Anyway, I have taken him to the mall with me several times this holiday season, and all he is willing to do is admire his Santa from afar, then talk about him the whole way home.

So last week during the torrential rain, Munchi was going stir crazy, so I packed him up early one morning and took him to the mall just as it was opening. We finished our shopping, and as we were leaving I noticed Santa had arrived. As usual, I took him to admire him from afar. But the mall was deserted, and Santa was bored. So he started talking to Munchi, offering him a candy cane, a stuffed penguin, anything to get him to come over to say hi. Eventually, the were engaged in a game of catch with the penguin, but we could still not convince him to sit in his lap, or even come close enough to hand him back the penguin. So, we left to get a pretzel at a near by stand. We were sitting at the table having our snack, when who came and sat at the table next to us? SANTA! Munchi almost jumped out of his skin with excitement. Within the next ten minutes, Munchi was sitting in Santa's lap at the table, sharing his pretzel with him! And no, I have no pictures to prove it, because he was a professional Santa and they did not allow any personal pictures to be taken :( Anyway, Santa had to go, because other kids had showed up for pictures. When the line subsided again, I took Munchi back over to visit. And this time he JUMPED into Santa's lap! Santa read him the Night Before Christmas and they played with the penguin some more, which Munchi got to bring home with him.
Here is the only picture taken of the whole event, showing Munchi having the time of his life. I really will never forget it!