A New Backyard

Dirk and I have been talking and preparing to redo our backyard into a play yard for Munchi for quite some time. We bought a new play climber over two months ago, and dug out a bunch of the grass for wood chips over a month ago. As projects always seem to go around here, it continued to be derailed by weather and other immediate needs or desires. Well, no longer. I can happily say after three long hard days of work (admitedly, mainly done by Dirk), the back yard is completely redone into a wonderland playground. Though I forgot to take before pictures, those of you who have seen our backyard will appreciate the change. We removed a lot of grass and put in 4 inches of woodchips (Munchi agrees it is a very soft landing!), put together his play climber, added a sandbox, chairs and a teeter totter. While doing all this, we completely cleaned our patio off too, and now it is a safe, fun environment for Munchi and his friends. He loved every moment today and I know he will wake up bright and early tomorrow ready to go play. I am so excited for all the fun we can have outside, which is where he prefers to be. And this summer we will be adding a wading pool, water table and t-ball to the fun!

The new and improved climber


Sitting area and sand box


View from our grass area


Munchi enjoying his new climber (please ignore the outfit.... we had to use something he could get really dirty in the process)


Our backyard and clean new patio (and Abbey too)


Also, during all this, I was craving turkey and stuffing (if you know, no surprise there!), so I made a roast chicken and stuffing for dinner. It was delicious!! Here is a picture of the yummy bird, though it does not so it justice. I was so proud of how beautiful it turned out!

Handmade Challenge

Because I am dying to see what Carebear will come up for me, I am posting this challenge to all of you as well.

The first FIVE people to respond to this post will get something made by yours truly!!

I get to chose what it is, and make it just for YOU!!
However, this offer does have some restrictions and limitations:

1- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make! (although I'm hoping you do!)

2- What I create will be just for you.

3- It will be done this year. (before December 31, 2009!)

4- You have no clue what it's going to be. Unlike Cherry Tree Lane I am rather limited in my creativity channels but I enjoy photography, scrapbooking, card making... so it will definitely be a suprise as to what I make you!

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must re-post this on YOUR blog and make the same offer to the first 5 people who respond on your blog entry, thereby continuing the fun!

The first 5 people to leave a comment telling me they will be posting this on their blog will win a homemade treat by me!

Oh, and be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it!

I am actually looking forward to this and am welcoming the challenge!

Mental Health

So, for the last two weeks, at least, I have been struggling. I gave up on diet and exercise a while ago, unfortunately, and now spend my time beating myself up over it instead. And for whatever reason, I am in no mood to be a mother or wife. I told myself it was just because I am burnt out and needed space. But in the last two weeks I have had two full days of scrapbooking and several half days to spend with my mom. And it has done nothing for my mood. In fact, it just makes me dread the next day even more. I am seriously considering seeing a shrink and getting some meds. Something is just not right.

On a side note, through it all, my husband has been uncharacteristically wonderful. He has offered me time away without complaint. And even after an entire weekend of me doing my own thing and him taking care of Munchi almost all on his own, he woke up this morning with Munchi and told me to sleep in. And when I lost it this afternoon and started crying for no reason, he just went with the flow and said nothing to make me feel worse about myself. So through it all, I can at least say, I am grateful for my husband :)

Photo tag

So I was not tagged to do this, but I thought it was cute, especially once I saw which picture it was.

Here are the rules:

1) Go to the 4th folder in your computer where you store your pictures.

2) Pick the 4th picture in that folder.

3) Explain the picture.

This is a picture of my oldest niece on Easter, who was almost two. She is now almost 5! I forgot she used to be this little, since we have had two others babies in the family since then. Though not part of the rules, her is a picture of Lola now:



Yeah, she is hard not to love. Actually, I absolutely adore her! (And her sister too!)

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.