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 :)