Hip Hip Hooray!

Or, Hooray for smaller Hips. I have reached pre(this)pregnancy weight! Now, on to losing even more. I started making sure the cardio I was doing lasted for over 20 minutes at a time and it has really made a difference. Same for eating less. And not having much sugar (though the last three days have been awful). One of these days I should throw my scale away...

What stinks about ebay...

is when you buy something from a seller who has what looks like a good feedback score and it turns out when you look three weeks after purchasing an item and not hearing from the seller or receiving the item that what's really going on is that they sell so much stinkin' stuff that the hundreds of negative and neutral feedback comments they have barely make a dent in their score.

All for an $8.50 camera cable.

Poo.

New Family Blog

We've got a new family blog:

palewis.blogspot.com

This blog is now my personal blog, so if you're looking for pictures, etc, check the other one!

Exercise

I've decided that I actually want to have a waist again. And I really don't want to wait the 9-10 months that it took after Chub was born, and that only gave me a partial one anyway, so, I've come up with a plan. I've already been going to the gym Monday-Thursday morning and doing yoga on Friday mornings, plus I added in a run on Saturday morning this past weekend as well, which I'd like to keep doing. Unfortunately, due to time constraints related to having children and a husband who actually does need to leave the house sometimes, on the days I go to the gym I'm only able to do 20-30 minutes of cardiovascular exercise on a combination of stationary bikes, ellipticals, stairmasters, and treadmills, with some abs and weights for a few minutes afterwards. I also walk there and back, which is about a half mile each way. So, until we can afford to buy a double jogger (I REALLY want this one, but this one will do), I've decided on a "crunch plan":

*For every piece of candy I eat (which isn't very frequent, but it's post-Halloween right now...), 50 crunches.
*For every dessert I eat, 100 crunches
*For every meal with potato or white rice, 100 crunches
*For every time I eat white bread, 100 crunches

This helps me eat better, and helps offset at least a little when I make poor eating choices.

Think it'll work?

A Happy Hello

I've been working out at the gym with a friend for the last three weeks, which has been really awesome! Usually when I get home everyone is either still asleep, or Daddy and Chub (and maybe Shrimpy) are downstairs eating breakfast or reading. But today, as soon as I opened the door, Chub turned around from the recliner and said "Mommy!", giving me a huge grin. I walked into the living room to see Chub sitting in the recliner by herself, with her Pooh bear, her dolly Atigun and her stuffed eagle, Kenai. Daddy was nowhere in the vicinity. So I went upstairs to find Daddy still asleep in bed, along with Shrimpy. So how, you ask, did Chubby end up waiting for me downstairs? Well, when she woke up, Daddy got out of bed and opened her door and promptly fell back asleep, so Chubby grabbed her toys and took them downstairs and sat and rocked on the recliner with her toys for company until I got home. Now, this may not seem like a big thing to you, but Chub is ALWAYS on the same level of the house as us, and does not usually just sit still in a chair for fun. It was such a cute sight to come home to!

Our Earthquake

We had an earthquake on Tuesday. It was pretty scary, but only because of the idea of earthquakes, not because this one was particularly bad, because it wasn't. It was a 5.6, and twenty miles away or so. We could hear it coming before we felt it, which was really strange. All in all, it was very different from the way I expected it to feel. And I've gotta say, feeling the earth move under you like that sure makes you feel powerless and insignificant! After it happened, I didn't want to let Chub out of my sight. So, it probably seems like I'm totally blowing the whole thing out of proportion, but, we almost didn't even apply to Stanford because I was afraid of living in the Bay area with its earthquakes... And here we are, earthquakes and all. Hopefully this will be the worst of it!

For the Ladies

Check out these awesome articles written by my smart and insightful sister in law:

http://women.ldsblogs.com/

Really, truly, you won't be disappointed. Read them!

Wow!

Check out this cool blog (more particularly the cool things to make):

http://heatherbailey.typepad.com/

I really want to make some of those cute little booties!

Chub Loves to Play

Shrimpy is 6 weeks old!

The Answers

Well, I was trying to give people some time to answer, BUT, enough is enough. It's been a whole week people!

1) maintain a house that is always clean and comfortable

YES! It is so satisfying (and comfortable) to look around and see a lack of mess--order, cleanliness, a shining kitchen floor, etc. I'm doing pretty well, but when most things are great, there is almost always at least one messy spot in the house.

2) travel to New Guinea

No. That's Peter's dream, but I'm going with him. I'm always too concerned about safety (or should I say unreasonably paranoid?) for wild places to be my dreams. I feel safer dreaming of places like New Zealand, all of Europe, etc.

3) do the Ironman triathlon

No, but I do think it would be fun to do a shorter one sometime. My first goal in this area is to do a relay triathlon and do the swimming portion. Who knows when that will even happen though.

4) learn to play the piano well enough to play in church

YES! Not that I necessarily aspire to play in church, but I want to at least be good enough that I could (without freaking out about it).

5) go back to school and get a graduate degree in linguistics

No. I love linguistics, and I will if the chance comes up, probably, but it's not a goal anymore. I don't like the pressure of assignments, papers, and all of those scary things that graduate students have to do.

6) own a small hobby farm

YES! I want horses, goats, chickens, etc so much! And land for them to roam on. And lots of garden space with lots of fruits and veggies.

7) learn how to cook a perfect souffle

No. I LOVE to cook, but there is no particular dream or goal associated with it. We had a souffle enrichment activity, and it didn't look too hard though. I think I'll try it soon.

8) be the Relief Society President

Um...NO! This was your free NOT. Who does, anyway?

9) be in a community orchestra

YES! I've only ever played in bands, and I really want not only to play again someday, but to experience playing in an orchestra and play some great music, like Beethoven, Dvorak, etc. Bands don't have that, unless someone rewrote it for them.

10) swim on a Masters swim team

YES! I've always wanted to do this. Swimming is my sport. I love it. I love water. I love being in shape, and competing in swimming is tons of fun!

So, there you are. Of my 2 participants, Little Mama beat Real by 1.

I know I have more than two readers!

Clearplay

We used to be subscribers to CleanFlicks, and when they closed because they lost their lawsuit, we were pretty durn bummed. But recently, a friend of mine told us about Clearplay, which is pretty much exactly the same thing, except instead of renting an already edited DVD, you rent or buy a normal one, and download the edits from their website with a little USB thingy and plug it into a special DVD player you buy from them, and voila! You have a nice edited movie. You also have to pay a low monthly membership fee for access to the movies. We're trying to decide right now if we want to spend that much money just to be able to watch lots and lots of really good movies that will no longer be inappropriate.

Apparently, Clearplay faced a lawsuit similar to the one CleanFlicks had to deal with, since certain filmmakers consider the editing of their movies to be akin to removing measures from a symphony, or covering up the naughty parts of the Venus de Milo. Fortunately, Congress decided that we have a right to filter the content of movies in our own homes, so as long as we're not purchasing something that has already been altered, it's okay. That's why CleanFlicks went down the tubes...

A Quiz for YOU!

Per my husband's request, here is a little quiz for you. I don't necessarily expect you to get the answers right, since I'm not sure myself what I'm going to put yet, but here goes.

Out of this list of ten things, which FIVE are some of my personal (somewhat passionate) life goals? (I even gave you a free "NOT")

1) maintain a house that is always clean and comfortable
2) travel to New Guinea
3) do the Ironman triathlon
4) learn to play the piano well enough to play in church
5) go back to school and get a graduate degree in linguistics
6) own a small hobby farm
7) learn how to cook a perfect souffle
8) be the Relief Society President
9) be in a community orchestra
10) swim on a Masters swim team

Now that I've finished, I think if anyone guesses all five, they were just lucky. And if anyone guesses the "NOT", then we need to spend some one on one time together...

Feel free to do one of your own, or have a go on Peter's blog.
Good luck!

Fall Fever!

I have a very bad case of Fall Fever. And watch out--it's contagious! All I can think about is making goodies (pumpkin pie, pumpkin bread and muffins, ginger snaps, decorating sugar cookies), Halloween costumes, parties, crafts, getting together with family and friends, and other generally fun and exciting things. And of course, that leads me to Christmas and winter, and I'm pretty much ready to listen to Christmas carols now.

I'm ready to break out the apple cider and hot chocolate, my sweaters and slippers, and oh boy do I wish I had a fireplace right now!

Mmmmmmmmmm! I love this time of year!

It's All About Me!

Well, I never got around to posting my last pregnancy photo. I had Peter take this picture the day before The Shrimp was born, when I thought there was a good chance it was the last day I would be pregnant. So, this is 38w3d:


These next two photos show my really awesome new mommy toy, The Ultimate Baby Wrap. This is the best baby carrier ever! Basically, it combines things like the Snugli and Baby Bjorn and other slings into one, and it is super comfortable and easy to use! I LOVE it. Unfortunately, I'm wearing a shirt the same color as the carrier, so it's hard to see all of the details, but you can see the basic idea. (Especially if you click on that link...)

More Pics of The Shrimp

These pics were taken at 3 weeks 2 days old:

Super Chub!

Little Chub is such an awesome toddler! She seems to be pretty well adjusted to having The Shrimp around now, and she especially loves playing with all of Shrimpy's things, as you can see in the picture above. You can also see another of her favorite things to do, which is to spread everything all around the floor...


Little Chub also now lets me put her hair up, which is VERY exciting to both Peter and me, because now no one can tell she has an extreme mullet! In the pictures above and below, she actually has what I call a "triceratops" hairdo (there's a ponytail in the back too...), which was just a joke, but I kept the top two in all day, even though they look silly sticking straight up. We usually keep her hair in cute back of the head pigtails, which you can kind of see in the top picture.


Some of Chub's other accomplishments are speaking in little sentences (our favorite is 'That's a whale!'), learning to count, and popping out with vocabulary we had no idea she knew, such as 'woodpecker'. The first time we realized that she knew how to count to ten, we counted up to five slowly, and then she said six, we said seven, she said eight, we said nine, and she said ten. We were amazed! We're also starting to work on her letters, and she loves to get out crayons and paper and have us write letters and words. She also sits with her Daddy to read and makes him drag her finger along the words as he's reading. So far I have no idea what she knows because she usually keeps it hidden until she can completely surprise us with something.

One other very cute thing Little Chub does happens at bedtime. Her Daddy almost always puts her to bed, and she always goes to bed with dolly, pillow, and her special quilt her Aunt Margaret made for her. Daddy puts her blanket on her, then goes and turns off the light. As he's walking to turn it off, Chub is holding the blanket at her chin with a little twinkle in her eye. He turns off the light, and then goes over to kiss her goodnight, and EVERY time, she pulls the blanket over her head and makes Daddy find her. She's done this with me a few times at naptime, but she stopped doing it because it's just not the same with Mommy! Little Chub and her Daddy have built a very special relationship since The Shrimp was born and it is very cute!

Old Pics of The Shrimp

These are from the first two weeks...

9.8.07

9.8.07

9.9.07

9.14.07

9.19.07

Ta-Dah!

The Shrimp, 3 days old

The Shrimp has been breastfeeding shield-free for a few days now. Yippee! We'll find out on Thursday how much weight she's gained, but we know she was only 1 oz below birth weight at 1 week old. Her cheeks are starting to fill out, which is super cute, and Peter HAS been taking lots of pictures, so we'll put them up soon.

How We're Doing

Lest you all sit at home biting your fingernails with worry that things are not going well over here, I thought I'd let you know that things are going GREAT! They could be better, a little, but all in all it's great. My midwife gave me a nipple shield to use with The Shrimp, since she has such a tiny mouth, and now, even though we still use that for almost every feeding, and for the whole time, most of the time, she is at the breast for every feeding which makes me very happy. Now if I could consistently get her to stay awake while she's eating, we could transition off of this thing! (It's a miracle, by the way. I think it really would have helped with Little Chub.)

Aside from that, Shrimp's bilirubin level went down, so we don't have to take her back to the pediatrician anymore, and thank goodness for that because we think she already caught a cold there. She only had 5 heel pricks and 1 shot total in her first week of life. Welcome to the world Shrimpy! It actually got harder and harder to watch them prick her and squeeze blood drops from her heel. I would have thought it would have gotten easier, but by the last time, I was pretty much crawling in my skin. Shrimp has almost no jaundice left, and she's really cute.

Little Chub is doing great. She sometimes gets a little jealous of The Shrimp and tries to throw her off of my lap, so I try to make special time to read stories with her on my lap, because that's her favorite thing in the whole world. She is trying to learn how to be soft ("sof") and gentle ("jettow"). She is having a blast playing with her Aunt Chicki who is here visiting with us. She also has really big feet all of a sudden. They grew through 2 sizes in a matter of weeks, and now I have to go to the store and buy her more, when I just bought her two new pairs about 4 weeks ago. And one of them was actually not on clearance. Go figure. At least now The Shrimp will inherit a really nice barely worn pair of shoes in a year and a half or so.

Little Chub also is a little bit jealous of the fact that The Shrimp gets to nurse. I let her try every time she wants to (we even tried tandem nursing once), but she has no idea how to do it anymore. I wish she did. I feel sad that she was weaned so early. The big change in Little Chub's life is the hardest part for me in the transition to having two kids. Sometimes she's sad now and there's nothing I can do about it, and it makes me feel like I've abandoned her. But we're trying to get into a rhythm, and eventually, Little Chub will get used to having her little sister ("sissi").

As for me, I wouldn't mind if every postpartum period was just like this one, because I'm not sure if it's possible for it to be any better! I had to force myself to sit around for the first few days, on the command of my midwife. I feel great! The only physical complaint was those durned afterpains. And those are a distant memory for me now.

Hooray for having babies! I even had them both, all by myself while they both needed me...for about 30 minutes...

The real fun begins next Wednesday.