Thanksgiving Day Wrap Up

For Thanksgiving this year we went down to my parent's house in St. Marys. The trip down there went surprisingly well seeing as we didn't have our DVD player. It broke recently and I thought I was going to have to hear a whining/crying toddler for at least three of the five hours it takes to drive down there. :) She did great though and colored,did puzzles and listened to her Tiny Tunes CD...oh and had a little bit of a nap as well.

When we got there we went to my sisters house for yummy meatball subs and soup that my mom had made. The food was delicious and the best part was getting to watch Sophia play with her three cousins. She loves her cousin Josh and he is just one year older than her so they like to play the same games. Although I think she wore him out this night playing chase. :)

Thanksgiving day we woke up and got dressed so we could take Sophia to the park while everyone finished up cooking. We took a few pictures of her at some of the major landmarks in St. Marys including the church that Phil and I were married in. It is so special to me to take her back there...she has been a few times before but of course wont remember them. We continued walking downtown and there was a kind old man on the pier feeding pigeons he graciously gave Sophia some bread and let her feed them as well. She loved it..the pigeons weren't to sure of her though. Toddlers can be a little to gung ho on doing things they like! :) We finally made it to the park and let her play for a bit. We still had like an hour and a half to do something so we decided to drive to the beach and let Sophia see the water. She has never been to the beach and we were curious to see what she would think. It was well worth the trip she absolutely LOVED it! When she came over the crest of the dune she said "Oh mommy it so beautiful!"

We left pretty quick after she got to pick up a few seashells for nanny. We went back to my moms house for lunch and it was as delicious as always. We had some great time spent with the nephews. Phil went out and played with the boys and their air soft guns. Undoubtedly they had a lot of fun because they were dirty when they got back. :) The next day we left and I wasn't as nervous this time riding back. Sophia did great again. We were going to stop at the bass pro to get her picture with Santa but Santa didn't arrive until 5 and we passed by there at 4. After driving for so many hours already we were just ready to go home and are going to take her back another day. Please don't think we are weird for taking our daughter to bass pro to get her picture with Santa...we really don't go there often or really at all but they have one of the best Santa's around and the pictures are FREE! Most places sell packages these days.

Anyway here are a few pictures from our trip. I hope everyone else had a good Thanksgiving too!

Sophia outside the church Phil and I were married in. She told me this is how she wanted to pose. :)

I just thought this made a sweet picture.

Orange Hall in St. Marys Georgia. She asked me if this was a castle. :)

Sophia's first look at the ocean!

Taking a closer look...I did offer to take her shoes and tights off. She didn't want to but later she decided she would lay down in the sand...go figure.

Okay so this isn't normally how a dress Sophia. She had on a different shirt that goes with those crazy pants...This is her Thanksgiving shirt she made at school..then on top of that is a sweater because it was cool outside that day. So she looks a little like a bag lady. :) Oh yea that is her cousin Josh we were trying to get a picture of the two of them together...this is the best.

Attempt number two...Sophia kept acting like she was going to kiss him so he didn't want to stand next to her. :)

Taking a stroll.

My mom bought Sophia a ballerina dress up dress for her birthday. Can you tell she loves it. :)

On the way home...my sweet angel.

Worldless Wednesday

Adventures in Exercise!

Phil and I joined a couple of weeks ago so we could work out together. It is called Snap Fitness if anyone locally is interested in going. It is a really small gym but they offer classes and have child care so it works out great for us.

Well I've decided that I would like to try all of their classes at least once. Just to kind of branch out a little from walking/running on the treadmill which can get very VERY boring. Tonight I tried out Zumba for the first time. Zumba is a latin based dance exercise. So as you can imagine there is a lot of shakin going on! It was a lot of fun but I really couldn't stop laughing. I felt a little silly with some of the moves and was praying that I wasn't going to be showing up on some hidden video show. :) They make you wear these scarves around your waist with jangly bits on them. While we were exercising all I could picture is one of those jangly pieces flying off and hitting someone in the head. Even with feeling like a complete moron sometimes I would definitely do it again. I've always enjoyed dancing and that is basically what this class is. :)

A had a good find today! Sandwich Thins! They are on the bread isle normally at the very top. They look like really thin sandwich buns. A friend of mine said that she uses them with Boca burgers and a slice of 2% cheese. All this and it is only three points!! That is awesome for a lunch. Of course if you are doing Weight Watchers too make sure you check the points for yourself. :)

Join Me on My Journey!

I've been trying to lose weight for the past three years. Since Sophia has been born this has been a much harder task than before. I love her very much and like dedicating most of my time to her but that also means less time for myself. I've been mildly successful recently in that I have lost fifteen pounds and have managed to keep it off. I still struggle daily though and go on and off watching what I eat.

So I'm going to start dedicating a small part of this blog to my weight loss journey. I'm hoping that by blogging about it that I will stay motivated and accountable to other people. I'm not going to tell you my weight..but I will tell you that I hope to lose ten pounds by the end of December. I think this is a manageable goal. It adds up to a loss of two pounds per week. Since I'm starting this on a Tuesday I will write in then and tell you how much I have lost for that week. I'm planning on using the Weight Watchers plan. I've done it before and it works as long as you follow it. :) I will also try and write about what I eat and if I find anything good at the grocery store worth trying.

For this first week I'm hoping to lose two pounds by next Tuesday. It may be a little difficult as we have both my birthday and Sophia's birthday party. :) I've also already found a couple of good finds! If you don't get the hungry girl newsletter .you definitely should! The address is hungrygirl.com She has some great recipes and always has great recommendations for the grocery store. One of hers this week was the Jello Mouse chocolate puddings. They are fabulous and are only one point per pudding!! She also recommended bagel-fuls. I haven't tasted them yet but they look yummy! They are 4 points for one.

Now here is my completely horrible before pictures. :) I'm hoping to not look so bad in a few more weeks.

Pre-School Thanksgiving Party

This past Thursday Sophia's school had their Thanksgiving Feast. All the classes contributed to the feast by making something that they were going to be eating. Sophia's class got to shuck the corn and then boil it. Other classes made pumpkin bread, cookies, green beans and there was even turkey on their plates. Sophia ate all of her plate and some of Judd's plate. :) She had a good time and enjoyed getting to show me everything she had made. It was also a good opportunity to meet some of the other parents. She talks about several of the kids but I had never had the chance to meet their parents.

We are now getting ready to go down to my families house on Wednesday and spend Thanksgiving with them. It should be fun Sophia has been asking to go for a few weeks now and she is particulary excited about getting to see Josh. :) After we get back it wont be long until Sophia's THIRD birthday!! I can't believe it! It seems just like yesterday we were celebrating her first birthday. This really has been a fun year...she can do so many things now and she makes me laugh everyday with the things she comes up with. Here are a few pictures from her Thanksgiving Feast. Hopefully I will have more when we get back from my parents house.

Little Indian Sophia. She made the hat, shirt, necklace and placemat.

Sophia's table..L to R Sophia, Judd, Tyler, Amber and Cate. There was another table next to her with the rest of her classmates.

The rare mother/daughter picture..not sure what Sophia is doing. :)

Night Light

How could something so innocent cause soooo much trouble:

Sophia recently woke up in the middle of the night screaming and she never does this so I knew something was wrong with her. She kept saying her belly and her ear hurt and while she was complaining about that she kept telling me to turn the lights back on. So long story short I ended up taking her to the doctor and she has an ear infection. I was just amazed because she doesn't have any other symptoms. She normally will get an ear infection if she has a cold but has never just gotten one by itself.

While we were out that day I stopped by the toy store and picked up this night light thinking she must be getting afraid of the dark. She absolutely LOVES this lady bug night light!! She carries it all around the house rubbing the soft head and legs. She has told me several times that it is beautiful and that it is sooo cute. :) The only problem with this so called night light is that it turns off after 45 mins. Is it just me but I always thought that if you were selling something as a night light it stayed on ALL night??!! So as you can probably guess Sophia has been waking up in the middle of the night asking for it to be turned back on. She is still sleeping in her crib so she couldn't turn it back on by herself and we have tried explaining that the lady bug goes to sleep when she (Sophia) goes to sleep. Nothing has really worked so we stuck it in her bed with her last night and we finally got a full nights sleep. We had resisted doing this before because she is just about to out grow her crib and she already had her blanket and a doll in there with her. It was getting a little crowded. So I'm really kicking myself for buying it because she probably would have been find without it but now can't live without it. :) I'm not really sure what my opinion is about the night light....love it but hate it all at the same time. Well I'm off to put Sophia to sleep with her lady bug...sweet dreams everyone. :)

New Blogs I Love!

I've recently found a few blogs that I visit almost daily and thought I would share them. They are mostly geared towards educating toddlers but they also have recipes and fun sewing projects.


No Time for Flashcards

I LOVE this blog! She has lots of fun projects for little ones as well as book recommendations, songs, and field trip ideas.

Fun Snacks 4 Kids

This one hasn't been updated since August but she has some really great ideas for snacks.

The Domestic Notebook

Very creative blog with sewing projects and recipes.

Her Cup Overfloweth

Creator of Muffin Tin Monday! Each week she has a different theme. You use a muffin tin to put your childs food in and it has to pertain to that theme. I haven't tried it yet but am planning to give it a go! :) It reminds me of Bento Boxes if you have heard of them.

So these are just some of my recent faves but I still love the ones on my sidebar. Cake Wrecks is hilarious and I love getting new decorating ideas from Thrifty Decor Chick! Check them out I'm hooked!