Movie review: Whip It

Last night after Betsy went to bed Ben and I watched the latest movie in our Netflicks queries...Whip It, directed by Drew Barrymore and starring Kristen Wiig and Ellen Paige.

We both really liked it. It's set in a small town outside of Austin, Texas. It talked about the 'Bluebonnet Brewery' being the only reason people visited Bliss Cavendar (Ellen Paige) home town. This made Ben and I think this was supposed to be based in Brenham, Texas where the Bluebell Ice Cream factory is. Ben used to coach right outside of Brenham and we can attest to its small town authenticity. I'm not going to give a summary of the movie (because I don't want to ruin it for you if you plan to watch it) but we enjoyed it. How could we not, we sang along with the main character to 'Deep in the Heart of Texas!'. It had a great cast, Ellen Paige, Drew Barrymore, Kristen Wiig, Eve, Jimmy Fallon, Marcia Gay Harden and Andrew Wilson (brother to Owen and Luke Wilson). We give it a Bralley two thumbs up.

Diagnosis: Ear Infections X 2

Bets was diagnosed with infections in both ears today (boo!). We were given a script for antibiotics and a refill if necessary. Anyhow Betsy had her first round of meds tonight, and a dose of Motrin before bed. I'm keeping my fingers crossed the sweet girl sleeps well tonight and feels better in the morning!

Sick Betsy

Once again Betsy is a little under the weather. She's had a low grade fever off and on, hasn't been sleeping well and has been tugging at her ear. She also has a super snotty nose. Daycare said she was happy but uncomfortable yesterday. I went ahead and scheduled the first available doctors appointment, today at 4:30. It's not with our pediatrician but with one I hear lots of good things about.

Save Ronan fund

If you'd like to donate to help Kelly with her legal fees associated with her custody case please click the link above. Thank you!

Ouch.

With Ben's blessing I decided to sign back up for Weight Watchers online today. I had been using Spark people for free tracking but for me it doesn't have as much structure and guidance that WW online does. SO! I signed back up (free registration right now). I've been tracking my food for the day and (yikes!) I think I was in denial about how much I've been over-eating. I guess the beauty behind WW is that I learn to eat more healthy foods and eat the bad stuff in moderation. I DID hit the gym today (without my coworker) and started strength training as well as spending some time on the Elliptical machine.

More about the weekend.

This weekend was really low key and fun.

Friday while Ben was coaching at a tournament I met a few friends in Round Rock for dinner and a trip to the outlet mall. Betsy and shopped and walked ALL DAY! It was nice being out of the house and the weather was perfect.

Saturday I did stuff around the house, Ben and I watched a movie in the morning and we got the new treadmill. Saturday afternoon while he was coaching soccer I did some walking on the treadmill, played with Betsy when she was awake, and hung out with my SIL and nephew.

Sunday we had lunch with Ben's family and Aunt and Uncle who were in town. We stopped at Academy to buy some new tennis shoes and the grocery store for this week's haul. Then we took a nap, played with Betsy, watched football and worked out.

I really enjoyed the weekend and I am SO excited to go see my family this coming weekend. Betsy and I are heading to ATL Friday and my Dad's coming up from FL to see us too! I can't wait for the weekend and between work, the house, chasing Betsy, laundry and packing it'll be here before I know it.

It's an investment.

The big news in our household this weekend was the purchase of a treadmill. Not just ANY old treadmill but a nice gym quality treadmill. I found it on Craig's List for about 1/3 the new cost and it's in fantastic condition. It still has all the stickers on it so it basically looks like a demo model. These pictures are from the previous owners, an older couple with one young child.

My favorite things about this model...it folds up, it's really sturdy, it recognizes my polar heart rate monitor so it accurately reads my heart rate while I'm working out, and it's really quiet. I see this as an investment in my health. I'm not motivated to leave the house once I get home from work and the best time for me to exercise is after Betsy has gone to sleep! This makes it possible. We bought the treadmill Saturday and since then I've walked almost 12 miles and burned over 2,000 calories. I really hope all the walking helps speed up my weight loss!

Betsy's conversation

Last night I was chatting with my Mom via cell phone on the way home from work. I held the phone over my shoulder so Betsy could talk into it (speakerphone) and she reached up and snatched it away! She chattered for a bit, started pushing buttons and promptly hung up on her Granny. We soon pulled up to our house and I parked in the garage, turned the car off and leaving Betsy strapped in the backseat I grabbed the mail and walked back to get her.

When I opened the backseat I found she had called my Mom BACK, put her on mute and was chattering away to herself.

"Ehwoah (hello)? Are you der? (Are you there?) DADDY!! DADDY DADDY DADDY DADDY DADDY?"

I should start saving now for all the cell phone minutes we'll be buying for my chatterbox.

Self-absorbed post

I've been thinking alot about the saying "you need to take care of yourself before you can take care of someone else." I've struggled with the concept. It seems self-explanatory but it's not. I know how to take care of Betsy. Feed her, bathe her, play with her, cuddle her, don't let her eat dog food. She's thriving! What is the difference between *surviving* and thriving? I want to thrive like Betsy!

I've decided it's about focus. Last year while our life was WONDERFUL, brimming with love from our family and friends, I didn't make myself a priority (this is another idiom I've been contemplating). It's selfish for me to not make myself a priority. What I mean is, I ENJOY doing for other people more than taking care of myself. I PREFER to plan things for others rather than planning how I can focus on my health. I need to learn to enjoy planning for myself. So I'm in the throws of making it happen!

I'm back using Spark People to track what I eat. I just have to accept that at this point in time I can't just eat what I think is healthy and expect to lose weight. I need to write down how much and look at the nutritional value. Maybe after a year of doing this I'll be back into the good habits, but at this point I'm not even close. I'm taking my vitamins (yes it might be two chewy Flinstone completes but if that was good enough according to my doctor for prenatal purposes then by golly it's goon enough for my non-pregnant-self too). I've started working out on my lunch breaks at work. A half hour of cardio a day isn't great but it's a half hour more than I've been getting.

Rome wasn't built in a day. For me having a healthy lifestyle can happen overnight but I won't be Wonder Woman overnight! I have noticed however that I'm happier and more energetic than I've been in a while and Ben enjoys that I'm happier. I've heard 'the best thing you can do for your marriage is to take care of yourself'. I'm starting to believe that.

I'm sure I'll be blogging about my weight loss, fitness and healthy changes only because when you focus on something you talk about it all the time. I mean, I focus on Betsy more than anything else and look at how much I blog about her!

Current happenings.

Betsy is a wild child (in a good way). She's a happy little camper until she gets tired and at the first sign of fatigue I put her down for a nap. She's become at eating fool, and the routine set by daycare agrees with her. We've started putting her hair in pigtails i.e. schnauzertails to keep her bangs out of her eyes. She looks like a cross between Cindy Loo Who and Pippy Longstockings. Betsy's new favorite thing is flinging herself onto the pile of decorative pillows in our bedroom. She gets a running start and bounces face first off the pillows onto her behind. She laughs hysterically at this. Betsy also has discovered how to play hide-and-go-seek. Mostly we hide and she seeks. We can stay in the same spot, she forgets us, then seeks us AGAIN. It's wild around here I tell ya.

Ben's soccer team is doing well. He says they didn't play well last night but they still won their game. He's hopeful for a great season. This coming weekend is his last tournament and I look forward to having him home weekends the rest of the year!

This weekend I detoxed from caffeine (mostly). Diet Coke has been my vice for years but I'm trying to cut it out of my diet completely. I'm down to one small diet coke a day and I'm having some withdrawal symptoms. I have a headache, I'm a little nauseated and my shoulders feel tense. Luckily I slept off the worst of it this weekend while I was recovering from a bout of stomach illness. I'll give myself a week or two of one DC a day before cutting it out completely. This is the fifth day I've limited my caffeine consumption to one can of DC. Tomorrow a coworker and I are going to start exercising on our lunch break together. I'm excited to get out of the office, make a healthy change but not have to lose sleep in the morning or cut into my precious time with Ben and Bets in the evenings. AND I'm gearing up for another trip to visit my Mama soon! Hopefully in 3.5 weeks Betsy and I will spend the weekend with Granny.

That's all! 2010 is all about healthy choices in our household, Ben and I are trying to get in stellar shape so we can be stellar parents to Betsy and Madison.

Home on MLK day!

In honor of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. the college gave us the day off from work. We used it wisely! When Betsy woke up we snuggled in bed for an hour while she drank a bottle and we watched PBS cartoons. Then she ate breakfast and I got her dressed and took her to visit her Grandpa and Grandma! They graciously watched Betsy for about an hour so I could go get new tires put on my car. It was a successful trip, there are some pretty sweet Michelin Destiny tires on my Camry now.

I came home from Discount Tire but first stopped to pick up breakfast for myself and a snack for the babies. Betsy and William split a box of Chicken Minis. Betsy LOVES chicken minis. After snack we met my mother and sister-in-law at Target and Ross to do some shopping. Grandma found a little dress on sale for Betsy for next Christmas. I think I can put her monogram on the dress, so I'm a happy camper :)

I got a call from my cousin Cynthia and she and her baby Isaiah came over to play for a while. Betsy and Isaiah play SO well together. They played chase inside the ball pit. They had some goldfish snack together. Cynthia and I had Isiah walk back and forth to us, he's up to 6 steps at a time! My Uncle Bo stopped by to say hi to us and those cute babies. I didn't take many pictures but here's the dynamic duo in action.







After Cynthia and Isiah went home Betsy *finally* went down for a nap. I got the dishes done and the house organized while she slept. I also sewed a baby blanket (you may laugh, but the girl who always takes my order at Chickfila is having a baby boy and I happen to know the name, and we ARE on a first name basis so YES I did bring her a monogrammed blanket on my way to work this morning).

Betsy woke up, I fed her dinner, she got a bath.

Does this face not scream "Mom. You've gotta be kidding me. In the bath?!"

It's too bad Betsy doesn't have any toys to play with in the tub.
Look how long her legs look in this picture. What a big girl!
Her new thing is to throw a toy out of the tub then peek to see where it landed. Like this-

Perhaps her least favorite part of bath time, rinsing of the hair.
While bathing all she talks about is duck duck duck and Daddy Daddy Daddy. It's not often I get to give the sweet girl a bath!
After bath time, it was PJs, webcam with Granny for a while, bottle for Bets, baby to bed, cleaning the playroom, shower, pack lunches and SLEEP for me!

Playdate!

Sunday we had several friends over to play with Betsy! Cousin William, Christian and Saxon came over to play. Check out the pictures of cutie pie babies.

The give-away goes to...

post #7, Miranda! I'll be getting in touch with you about what you'd like your bag to look like. Thanks everyone who participated, and I'll be doing this again. I thought it was fun :)

Betsy loves baby doll

Funny faces

Betsy chattered away and ate cheerios while I cooked dinner last night (you read that correctly, I COOKED). Citrus chicken and rice with corn on the side. It was ok, a little bland but it was nice to try something new. Here are a few pictures of the sweet girl from last night.









Also, the give-away is still on, if you blogged about it make sure you leave a second comment. Thank you :)

My first blog give-away!

I always get lots of encouragement when I post my sewing items on the blog so I've decided to do a give-away every now and then. I hope this is a success, it would be pretty sad to have a give away no one wants (ha!).

Today's give-away is a personalized cosmetic bag or snack bag. I have red fabric available for a boy snack bag, or pink for the girls. You could use either one for a cosmetic bag. I'll line it, and add either the name or monogram of your choice in the color and style of your choosing.

If you want to enter the give away just leave a comment on here. If you don't have a blog be sure to include an email address. I'll use the random number generator to post a winner this weekend. And if you blog about the giveaway you can enter twice! I'll make the cut-off for 5 pm CST this Friday, January 15th.




Thanks guys for all the positive reinforcement of my crafty pursuits!

Ten reasons this week is great.

1. After working about 55 hours LAST week I've left work on time everyday this week.

2. Betsy's two molars came through so she's back to sleeping through the night.

3. This weekend I got lots of organizing done so I can find anything I need in an instant.

4. I've been getting lunches together at night so our mornings have been running smoothly and on time.

5. Family fun last night. We all played in the playroom for an hour and had a blast.

6. I got to Skype with my mom Monday for the first time in weeks.

7. Bets seems completely adjusted to her new full week schedule at daycare and the new class.

8. Work has calm down significantly so I've caught up most of my paperwork.

9. I'm having a playgroup over to our house on Sunday! Lots of baby friends for Betsy.

10. Ben's team won its soccer game Monday night.

What makes this week great for you?

I tried.

It was recently pointed out to me (by Granny, who frequents the blog in search for her daily Betsy fix) that there's not many recent pictures of Betsy on the blog. I try, I really do. But Betsy is faster than me. She's also not interested in looking at the camera when there are other more interesting things to check out. Take this morning for example.

Daddy's box of workout DVDs, infinitely more exciting than the camera.



I snuck a face shot this morning. It takes 15 bad pictures to get 1 good picture of Betsy. Since I only took 1 picture guess how it turned out?


Getting her morning workout in is high on her priority list. Here Betsy is doing the 30 day shred with her 2 pound weight. You didn't think she came by that awesome figure and muscle tone just by playing with her baby dolls and ball pit, did you?


And finally, if you feel like Mommy doesn't feed you enough breakfast you can always sneak into the secret stash under the sink. I've told Betsy that's DOG food but she forgets.


In conclusion, I'm too busy chasing around the twenty pound terror (not really, she's precious) to worry about getting good pictures. I'll remedy this the old fashioned way and take Betsy back to Portrait Innovations so I can watch someone else jump around like a monkey in an effort to get eye contact and smiles from my sweet baby.

Date night with Granny

Betsy had a full day at daycare yesterday. I picked her up after work, we stopped at my in-laws to pick up Madison then headed home. I immediately signed onto Skype and we talked to my mom for a while. Ben had a soccer game out of town so it was girls night in.

Granny saw Betsy eat her yogurt meal and goldfish. Then we headed in the playroom to have a tea party (Betsy poured the tea, would drink out of her cup and SAID 'Tea!'. We played with the balls in the ball pit. Betsy repeated the colors more but the only one my Mom heard was 'Geen'. We turned on the Laurie Berkner DVD and Betsy did a little dancing. Betsy rode her bike, and did acrobatic tricks standing on her bike, and Granny saw all of it! Granny also got to hear Betsy say "Tank you"! After we hung up with Granny we played with Madison. We call Madison 'Nauzer' as a nickname, and Betsy kept calling her 'NowNow'.

I feel like the kiddo has become super verbal overnight. We try to spend at least an hour each night reading or talking about colors, or naming things with her and she picks it up so quickly. Ben came home late and I guess Betsy woke up and he fed her a bottle. I slept through it all, I didn't hear a peep out of her until it was time to get up at 6:00. It was a great night, I felt so blessed to have that time with Betsy after not having much time with her at all last week. And I caught up on some much needed rest!

Clean Sweep

We did some organizing and rearranging this weekend.

First, we moved the desk from the office to the playroom. We have friend's kids over all the time and it's a nice set up for them to watch movies in close proximity to us if we're hanging out in the living room. Also, Betsy likes to listen to musical DVDs while she is playing alone.


This is a new table and chairs I picked up for the playroom. The Osborn kids came over that night and loved sitting at the little table having a tea party. Betsy loves sitting at it too and if she's not sitting at this table she moves whatever toy she's playing with right next to it. I think she likes having something her size and the box says it's for use for kids up to age 8. She'll grow into it.

I straightened up the playroom a bit.



I spent the majority of Sunday cleaning out the office, the embroidering closet and catching up the filing. It was our messy room, but not any more! Since we removed the desk (that we didn't use) it gave me some space to add additional storage. I hung this old curtain in the office, and added a television since the old one (think older than I am) no longer works. I watched a movie while I worked on the filing. I really enjoy having this room organized and having a television so I can listen to movies while I do crafty stuff and sew.