Pics of our life the last few weeks

Today we had the day off from school. So we went to lunch at Logan's Roadhouse with Erica, Grace and Carter. It was a good restaurant experience. Afterward they came over to play and we walked down the street to our park to play.

Here's Logan "hiding" in the tall grass plants. Do you like his new hat? Cute, huh?

He always climbs up way to high for me. I hope he waits until after our new Aflac accident policy kicks in on March 1st to do any major damage to himself!

So what would it mean to be a big brother if you didn't harass and irritate your little sister. Here's Logan putting Ellie's barbies in the tree.

It actually looked pretty funny to see them hanging there like that!
There's a really sweet cat named Snickers that lives across the street from the park. She's very friendly and likes to be petted.
I guess 4 kids is a little too much for even Snickers to take!! Run Snickers, run!!

Here is a picture of Logan's cub scout pine car derby. If you're unfamiliar with what that is, as I was, it's basically where they give you a block of wood and some wheels for it and you have to cut it out into the shape of a car. We are not wood working people, so after a horribly failed attempt to cut it with a hand saw, we went to the cub masters house and used his band saw. It turned out pretty cool. Logan painted it himself. We also put some decals on it. He didn't place, but he didn't come in last either. Not bad for our first time. :-)

Here is Logan on his basketball team. He is really enjoying it so far. He made 1 basket in each of his last 2 games! Way to go Logan!!

He's the tallest on his team of 1st and 2nd graders, so they always have him do the tip off. Watching their games is quite entertaining as they don't follow all of the same rules as in regular basketball. They do pretty well though. Maybe I'll take some film of his next game so you can all see.

Back in January Logan's cub scout pack was invited to stay aboard the USS Lexington in Corpus Christi. They got to have a tour and actually eat and sleep on the air craft carrier. It was pretty cool. We all got to go on board and have lunch, then just Stuart and Logan went back for the evening and spent the night. They had fun. Here are some pictures from that occasion.

Logan eating chow in the mess hall. (Which they informed us while we were eating was also used as a temporary morgue during WWII when they were bombed- lovely)

The water that morning was so calm on the bay. It was almost eerie. It wasn't moving at all. Ellie's all girl, isn't she?

Ellie with the Lex behind her.

You can see how calm the water was.

Logan and some of the cub scouts from pack 685. Logan's right in the middle bent over wearing a yellow cap.

They have this huge propeller blade (I'm sure that's not what it's called and that it's from one of the engines under the water or something) out front that you can climb on. cool.

Hoped you enjoyed some of our pictures from the last few weeks. I will try to do some blogging now and then. Just don't completely give up on me!!

Blog on hold

I've figured out that some things are going to have to give. This whole working 5 days a week thing is getting the better of me. I feel like I'm chronically running behind. I don't know how people do it. So I just wanted to let everyone know that I'm not giving up on my blog for good, but that it's going to be on hold for a while. I'm not sure that anyone tries to look at it anymore anyway!

Thanks for your patience!

A new year, a new me!

May '08 - December '08

( I didn't start using the patch until August and

got to my present weight/size in 3 months)

I still by no means consider myself "done", but I am so happy I don't look like the first picture anymore. The patch has been a miracle for me. It has helped me lose weight and inches, feel better, have more energy and sleep better. And I think the best thing of all is that I didn't gain any weight over the holidays. I didn't exercise at all in December and hardly any in November. I ate a lot of bad foods and still didn't gain any weight back!!!

I'm getting back on the eating right and exercising band wagon in January, so hopefully I'll be getting even slimmer soon and will have a new picture to show everyone!

The newest thing I am excited about is the new power shot by Nexagen. It's awesome. It takes the great things about the patch to a whole new level. I've been taking a 2 oz. shot everyday around lunch and it makes my afternoons amazing. I'm not hungry, have even more energy (even on days when I've been up late and would usually feel terrible by the afternoon!) and am just generally happier and in an even better mood! It's fantastic!

I'm also really excited about the money I'll be making this year with Nexagen. I'm going to work really hard to make myself financially "free". I feel confident that by the next school year, I'll be able to cut back to 2 or 3 days a week working at the preschool or maybe not working at all!! Wouldn't that be awesome! Right now I have 34 people on my team and that's with hardly doing anything for the past couple of months. I'm going to get some new business going and I know it's really going to take off!!

I just had to share all of my excitement with you all. I hope you all are as excited about the upcoming year as I am!!!

A December to Remember

It's been a crazy month. I'm just going to post a bunch of pics to look at from this month. Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and I know it's going to be a fantastic New Year!!

These go in reverse chronological order just because that's how they uploaded. So these first few are from our trip to the SA zoo yesterday.

The train ride is awesome!

Logan and Ellie at the SA zoo yesterday.

Logan and the Hyena. For some reason he really likes this animal.

Logan on his favorite Christmas present from Nonny and Papa (my Mom and Dad).

Isn't it cute. It holds up to 150 lbs which means that I rode on it too!

Ellie and Grace with Jack. Yes, he's huge. He's Ellie's favorite toy.

Logan, Garrick, Ellie and Becky on Christmas at Stu's grandparents house.

Ellie and Aunt Becky.

Stu, Paw paw (Stu's grandpa), Grandma Cindy (Stu's Mom), Logan, Becky and Ellie and Garrick in front of Paw paw's garden.

Logan opening presents Christmas morning.

Ellie opening presents Christmas morning.

Sue blue with her new long brown hair. Lovely! Here are our new Dooney and Bourke purselets from Dad. Thanks, Dad!

Grace making gingerbread men for our family Christmas party.

More gingerbread cookie making.

Ellie and Grace roasting marshmallows.

Logan and Ellie's feast in front of the fireplace one night. They thought they were pretty fancy. Notice the glasses their milk is in?

Ellie as an Angel in the Thursday Christmas pageant. Since she goes 5 days, she was in the pageant twice.

Ellie as "Mary" in the pageant.

Here is "Joseph" wheeling her in the "donkey" wagon.

Yummy Christmas cookies the kids made.

Here we are in Taylor at the courthouse lights display.

I'm not sure what to say about this. I think it speaks for itself.

3 sweet kids.

Well, at least Grace and Carter are excited.

Ellie and Grace at their Christmas party for their ballet school.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

Can Logan really fly?

You be the judge:Boys, gotta love 'em!!

These were taken on our trip to the Christmas tree farm in Elgin. It was a fun and beautiful day.

Thanksgiving, etc.

Hello all!

I just joined facebook tonight upon the recommendation of my lovely sister. It seems pretty cool so far. I guess I just assumed it was like myspace, which seems to be aimed at the younger sort. I already have some friends. If you have a face book page you can look me up and be my friend!

Ok, I just spent like 20 minutes trying to load my pictures in my old computer and found out that one of our USB ports isn't working! Woo hoo! Yet another reason we need a new one. Come on Patches, let's buy momma a new computer!! So now I'm loading the pictures on Erica's laptop, again, thanks sis!

School's going well. I can't believe that it's already December. I really like the idea of teaching these little people new things. Things they didn't know before. It's powerful. They're parents have said to me a few times little things they've learned in my class and it's very rewarding.

Erica and I just bought tickets for us and the girls to go to the Nutcracker! I'm excited. I hope they do well. They both love ballerinas so we'll see.

I know this is lame. I started doing this post last week. I've decided just to post it and start anew!