Adorable, but messy eaters!

Daddy's 50th Birthday

Jimbo turned 50 on the 27th of July! I planned a surprise party for him on the Saturday after his birthday. It was really hard to be sneaky and not tip him off. I think he figured something was up when I was cleaning the house at 10:00pm on Friday night. :) Oh well, we still had fun and he enjoyed seeing his friends and chatting with everyone. Here are some pics of the event.

I made the cake. :) Not professional, but I though it was pretty good. Alyssa was helping Daddy blow all the candles out.

Cute family picture. Alyssa was busy playing with the kids. Hannah would not let us put her down with strange people in the house.

It was a very nice little party. Food and friends are always good.

Happy Birthday Jimbo!

Here are the cuties!

Here are some more recent pictures of the girls. They were dressed up for Daddy's birthday party. The bow didn't stay in their hair long, so I had to hurry and grab a few pics. Hannah waving and Alyssa's hand.

It is so difficult to get them both to look at me at the same time.

Pretty Smile Hannah!

It is hard to catch a good picture of Alyssa, she is always on the go. This one is the cutest.

July 4th fun in North GA

We traveled up to the north Ga mountains during the 4th of July weekend to visit with my family. We went to my Aunt Marsha's 10 acre spread. She had really outdone herself setting up lots of fun things for the kids to do and lots of shady places for adults to sit and catch up. All but one of Grandma's 6 living kids were there and almost all my cousins and their kids. It was so nice to see everyone again. Last time we got together was for Grandma's funeral, so it was nice to get together for a happy occasion. :) We all had a great time. Here are some pics of the girls having fun in the sun.

Marsha had a little kiddie pool for the little ones. She really thought of everything. We couldn't keep Alyssa (in the pink hat) out of it. Even once I had dried her and dressed her. As soon as we turned to look at something else she was back in it. Hannah was happy to stand on the outside.

Sisters swinging in the hammock

Aunt Marsha built this huge water slide on the side of her mountain. This is Alyssa going down with my cousin Sean. She wanted to do what the big kids were doing. She loved it.

Hannah with her Daddy.

Alyssa loved this little chair. She climbed up in it all by herself to eat her snack.

Hannah didn't care for the water as much as Alyssa. It was cool mountain water. She would sit on the outside of the pool and splash a little. She hung out with me most of the time. She is enjoying her snack too.

Operation Bathing Suit: week 10

Good news, I have slid down off the plateau I was on. After 2 weeks of losing very little and even gaining a touch, I am happy to say I have lost 2.4 lbs. this week. I am now at a total of 18 lbs. lost. WooHoo! I look and feel different. My clothes are lose. I am ready to lose the rest and buy a whole new wardrobe. :)

Operation Bathing Suit: weeks 8 & 9

Well I am slowly but surely making progress. I started in May in the 1*0's and now I have entered the 1^0's. I am happy about that, but I am kind of reaching a plateau. Week 8 I lost only 1 lb. and then week 9 I gained .2. Which isn't as bad as I thought it would be. It was Fourth of July weekend and I ate whatever I wanted so I expected a gain. Luckily it was a small gain. I haven't made working out a part of my daily routine yet. I need to keep it going! I want to buy a bunch of new clothes. :)

Sisters having fun!

They have so much fun in the tent. This day, they had knocked it over, but were still having so much fun climbing in and out of it. They laugh and tumble around in their. Fun! Fun! Fun!

My Little Helpers

The girls love to help me clean. They take my towels off the stove handle and wipe the floor. They will pour their milk on their chairs and then take a paper towel or rag and wipe it clean. If I leave the pantry door open, they will grap the broom and mop and clean the floor just like Momma does. :) They are so cute!

Operation Bathing Suit: week 7

Yeah! I lost a good amount of weight this week. I had to be good and make up for last week. I lost 2.4 lbs. this week. That makes the grand total 14.8, but let's just call it 15. :) I can already tell a big difference in my clothes. My niece Brandi noticed right away when she was over on Sunday. That felt nice to have someone notice my hard work. AND, I worked out today! I have a Kettlebell DVD set that Jim got for me months ago. I like it. I am feeling a bit sore in the hips and thighs. I will do my best to keep it going. I realized that I don't just want to lose weight, I need to firm things up too. I have hammocks under my arms I have to get rid of. The week for bathing suit time is coming quickly. I only have 5 more weeks. I hope to lose another 8-10lbs at least.

Look what the Florida bugs are doing to my baby...

She has about a dozen bites on her face, neck and arms.

(She is blowing her nose, something she does anytime she sees a tissue.)

Some by her eye have made her eye swell.

She is still in good spirits, even with a swollen eye.

I have vacuumed, stripped her bed and kept them inside. I can't find the bugs that are getting her while she sleeps. Hannah doesn't have bites, or if she does her reaction isn't as bad. Alyssa must be more allergic to them. They are getting better today. She didn't have any new ones when she woke this morning. I hope I have solved the problem. I hate seeing my babies with bites.

Operation Bathing suit: week 6

Well Jim was out of town this week at Scout Camp so I did not cook proper meals. I ended up just snacking and eating Healthy Choice microwave dinners. I stayed within my points and didn't cheat, but I did not lose that much this week. I am only down .2 lbs. That's point 2, not even 1/2 a pound. I am a little dissappointed. I learned that you have to eat to lose weight. You can't starve yourself. I could have added exercise too, but nope. Oh well. Maybe next week will be better. :)

Operation Bathing Suit: week 5

Doing good still. Lost another 1.4 pounds this week. Still haven't exercised. I'm sure I could do better if I did, but I am just not motivated to make myself sweat during the day. It is hard to do it while the girls are awake. While they are sleeping I need to either sleep (haha) or clean or catch up on the computer. So, exercising doesn't get squeezed in anywhere. Oh, well! I'll try to do it this week. Leave a comment to motivate me. Please!

I'll post more pics of the girls too. :)

Operation Bathing Suit: week 4

Yeah! I am still losing weight. I thought this week was going to be not a real good loss because of a pot luck dinner at church. It had been so long since we had one and we are kind of celebrating our newly renovated building. So, I said "Oh well" and gave into temptation. I ate a plate full of good food and then a plate full of desserts. I was so full that the next day I was extra hungry. I guess I stretched out my stomach a little. Anyway, I am happy to say I have lost another 2.6 pounds for a total of 10.8 in 4 weeks. I can already notice a difference in my clothes. I only have 7 weeks left to lose enough to look decent in a bathing suit. I need to also get a little color on my arms and legs before we go. I am going to embarrass myself with my farmer tan. :)

Operation: Bathing suit week 3

Week three went really well. I lost 2.6 pounds for a total of 8 pounds so far. :) YEAH! I still haven't really "worked out", just worked around the house and playing with the girls. I do a lot of lifting, carrying, chasing and horsey rides. That is my exercise so far. I really want to start doing some more exercise this week. Wish me luck. :)

Our cool new igloo tent from IKEA

Look at this cool new tent Daddy got us from IKEA. It is soooo fun! We love it! We bring our couches in it and sit and talk. We bring baskets of toys in it and play. We have so much fun all day. Thank you Daddy!

Our little fashionable girls

They love to get ready for church and put their pretty dresses on.

Thanks for the pretty dresses Granny.

They love to wear hats.

Thanks for the cool hats Aunt Tami.

They love to get Mommy's shoes from the closet and put them on. They didn't get far in these

They even love to fix their own hair. They got a hold of the barrettes and insisted I put ALL of them in their hair.

They especially love to wear necklaces.

We are so blessed with beautiful, smart, funny, independent, precious and absolutely incredible daughters. Having them in our life is immensely better than I ever imagined. I am who I was meant to be because of them. Jim is a terrific daddy because of them.

The first Pee Pee!

Pee pee in the potty, Pee pee in the potty!

I went ahead and bought a little pink potty for the girls. I wanted to let them have some time to get used to sitting on it and get comfortable with the idea. They are able to say "Poop" now so I thought it would be good to start teaching them where we do that. :) Daddy thought it would be a good idea to set them on it at bathtime and see if they start making the connection. For the first week, they sat on it for a few minutes and then got up and then peed on the floor. :( But tonight... Alyssa was sitting on it and went pee pee in the potty! YEAH! I know we still have a long way to go until they are trained fully, but I think this is a good first step. I was going to include a picture of the pee pee, but decided to go ahead and clean it up before Hannah started to play in it. :) So just use your imagination, it's a little pink potty with a soft cushy seat and a little pee pee in the bowl.

Operation: Bathing Suit week 2

This week was not as good as I hoped. I want to blame it on Jim, so here goes. Jim was having a procedure done and that included having only a clear diet for 2 days prior. Jim does not do well without food, so it wasn't the best two days. However, not having to cook a real dinner left me just snacking all day and not really cooking. I was pretty good and stuck with 100 calorie packs and such. There are a lot more good snacks available now. Anyway, once Jim's procedure was finished, he wanted to eat and eat and eat. So we went to his favorite Mongolian/Chinese buffet. I tried my best to just get veggies and such, but not many options for me there. I just planned on using my extra weekly points. I knew it wasn't too bad. Then on Sunday Tutu brought over yummy, cheesy, lasagna and all the fixings. It is really difficult to calculate points when you don't cook the meal. So I was conservative, but also had all the leftovers to contend with. Anyway, to sum the week up, I didn't gain but I only lost 1 pound. I will have to work harder next week to make up a little. My time schedule works out to losing 2 pounds per week. I HAVE to exercise! I have a good program on DVD, I just have to do it when the babies are asleep. I will work on that this week.

I have lost my first 5 pounds though. I feel pretty good about that. :)

Fun in the Sun

The girls had such a fun day on Saturday at the Jacksonville Zoo water park. They have a little splash and play area in the zoo now. It is really well done and the girls had a blast. At first they were a little hesitant, but fell in love with it within a few minutes. They were playing and sliding and stomping and laughing and trying to make new friends. It was great!

I know this is hard to see, but I thought it was cute. I will add a slideshow so you can see them better.

The girls love to dress up

Alyssa is getting tall enough to reach things that a few weeks ago were out of her reach. She can now reach the dirty clothes hamper in their room. She loves to pull things out and put them on. She only has the hang of putting her right leg in the pants so she will have several pairs of pants on her right leg. I helped her get these on after she brought them to me about a dozen times. Her sense of style is not quite developed yet, but she loves to get dressed up. She sees the dresses hanging in the closet and she wants to put them on. They both love jewelry too. I got them some necklaces and some of my dangle bracelets. They both love to put them on. They also love shoes. I am in trouble I fear. When we wheel the cart past the shoes in WalMart, I hear "shoos, shoos, shoos". They bring me their shoes to put on so we can go out side and swing. It is so fun to watch their likes and dislikes develop. They also love to fix their hair. They got a hold of the barrettes the other day and had to have all of them in their hair. It was so cute. I see lots of trips to the mall in my future. :)

Hannah and Alyssa

These are just two of the cutest pictures I have taken of the girls recently. I had to post them. :)

Operation: Bathing Suit week 1

I am stealing this idea from a friend of mine. It is important when you are trying to lose weight to be accountable to someone. She started posting how she is doing each week so all her friends can help keep her on track, give a little praise, and motivate. I am doing Weight Watchers Oline instead of going to the meetings like I did before. So I thought it would be helpful to be accountable to my friends on the web. :) Each week I will post a message about my journey towards looking decent in a bathing suit. Jim's parents have invited us to celebrate Jim's and his sister's birthdays in the Keys at the end of July. I would like to be able to wear a bathing suit without being totally yucky and blumpy. :) So I decided, I have 12 weeks, I can make a huge dent in the 40 pounds I need to lose. Maybe my journey can inspire others just as my friend inspired me.

My first week went really well. I enjoy counting the points. It is like a game to me. I love that I can still eat regular food. There recipes are great too.

I lost 4.4 lbs this week. Yay! I know it will slow down some in the coming weeks, but it is nice to have a good jump start. Operation: Bathing Suit is underway. My next weigh in is Tuesday. I'll let you know how I did.