Take A Picture of Me!

For the first two years of Peyton's life, she has been an uncooperative model.  Whenever I attempted to take pictures, she quickly managed to look away, sad or angry.  It was a rare moment that I was actually able to capture a good picture.  It annoys me to no end, because I just love ‘perfect pictures’, but simply had to be satisfied with whatever I could manage.
It seems that the times of camera avoidance may be coming to an end.  I find that Peyton is actually starting to pose for pictures.  But only for moment.  That moment probably feels like forever for a two year old though.
Peyton got ahold of some stickers and attached them in a few random places.  Including the middle of her forehead.  I was taking some pictures, and she said,  “Take a picture of me!”
Shocked, I quickly turned to take pictures of her, only to have her run away once again. But… too my surprise, she ran to the tree and stood in front of it.  Then said, “Take a picture of me here!”  Of course I took the moment.  Didn’t get a very good picture with my iphone, but it was a picture nonetheless that she requested.  I feel that the future of good pictures is on the horizon:)


What a cute kid if I must say so myself!

Coming To A Close

Our annual Boxing Day Dinner at my mom’s tonight marks the official end of the 2012 Christmas Season for our family.  It is the last time of over-indulging in food and treats.  Our last family get-together for the year.  As much as I love the time leading up to Christmas.  The days of Christmas.  And everything to do with Christmas.  I am officially done. 

I am looking forward to the remainder of the week.  I took the whole week off just to stay at home with my kids and take care at least one of my DIY projects.  Taking time off and not going away is something I have NEVER done before.  So it should be interesting. 

My goal is to finally complete my Buffet redo.  This piece has been sitting in my garage for the past year, just waiting for some TLC.  I am so looking forward to seeing what I can do with it.  I have a vision of what I hope it will look like at the end.  But… this is my first ever furniture redo.  So, fingers crossed.  I am going to tackle it.  Hope that I can show off a completely transformed Buffet early in the New Year:)

 

A Christmas Eve To Remember

Our day started slowly.  The best way for a Christmas Eve Day to begin.  Our children were so tired from the past few late evenings, they let us sleep in.  We made our way through the morning, and then into the afternoon without too many challenges.

It became noon and we were still moving at a relaxing speed.  We did have a tiny bit of shopping to wrap up the Christmas Gift Giving purchases. I was cringing at the thought of doing any shopping today, but unfortunately it couldn’t be avoided.  Crazily enough, it was peaceful in both the stores we ventured out to. A total shocker!  The two stores I thought would be a disaster were Wal-Mart and Future Shop.  It seems that we made a great decision in strategizing the best time to go out today.  We sailed through our little lists and were quickly headed back for home.

Then it was time to prepare a buffet of goodies for Jeremy’s mom and Trevor to enjoy with us before we headed out to Christmas Eve service.  I took advantage of Peytons mini-nap to get as much done as possible without the usual distractions.

Our guests arrived and we enjoyed a nice late afternoon together before we all got on our way to once again to our yearly tradition of Christmas Eve Service.  We enjoyed some singing, laughter, candle lighting and of course some entertainment from our little ones.  My favorite thing about the service every year is that it is a reminder of to my family of the peace and love of Christ and what it is we celebrate at Christmas.  It brings the season into perspective for me year every year, and it didn’t disappoint once again.

We then went home to spend some more time together and unwrapping some gifts and our Christmas Stockings. And of course a little more eating. The cheer and joy was fantastic.  We all were thrilled with our treats and gifts and went to bed dreaming of a White Christmas.  Well, it is now 12:30 am and the snowflakes haven’t started falling.  Sigh.  What a disappointment:(

Peace on earth, and goodwill to all men!

 

Christmas Breakfast Denbow Style

The weather today couldn’t have been any better for our fourth annual Denbow Family Christmas Breakfast.  It was sure cold, but the sun was shining which always helps brighten our day.

We had a record breaking amount of people joining us for the yearly tradition. 84 men, women and children in total. It’s hard to pinpoint exactly what it is that draws the families from their homes so early on a Saturday morning to take part in a company event.

Is it the promise of the usual delicious buffet, full of fantastic choices?  The games that I plan?  The employee Christmas bonus that gets handed out?  The chocolate the significant others always go home with?  Or the present that all the kids receive?

Maybe it’s simply just getting together with the Denbow Family.  Whatever it is, I sure appreciate seeing all the laughter and joy I see on everyone as they leave with their bellies full and gifts in hand.  I eagerly look forward to planning it all over again next year.

Cheers to hopefully many more mornings like it!

My Health Challenge Journey

Success in Maintaining

It has been over 9 weeks since I took part in my last Health Challenge Competition.  Because I had so much success and was able to win with perfect points for three challenges in a row, I decided to take a pass on the last one and simply organize it for others.

Many times over the past weeks I wished that I had taken part in the competition because I still have many pounds to go to my final goal.  But, I quickly reminded myself to simply enjoy some well-deserved time off and practice maintaining my current weight.

To my great surprise, I have had no problem maintaining!  I really was worried that I potentially could start swinging up in the wrong direction on the scale.  But after 9 weeks of simply enjoying slight lifestyle improvements that were part of the challenge, I have gained only 3 pounds and held.

This has been so valuable for me. I now know that when I get to my final goal, I am confident that without to great a difficulty, I will be able to stay there. 

For the past 9 weeks I followed some of the Health Challenge guidelines and was relaxed on others.  I made sure to drink my daily water, get my fruits and veggies in, exercise 3 days and week and stay away from eating most times after 8:30.  I was able to re-introduce some treats daily and increase my base calories to a reasonable number.  And still maintain!

I know that I will always need to be mindful of how easy it can be to gain back my weight if I am not a little bit careful.  But after 9 weeks of maintaining I also know that I do have more than enough freedoms also.

Best wishes to all those who are on the same journey I am!

My Health Challenge Journey

Scale OCD

“What the heck is scale OCD,”  you might ask? Or you may be saying, “Me Too!”  Scale OCD is when you have an addiction to weighing-in daily.  It probably isn’t a real illness for real, but it sounds good:)

All fitness and weight-loss experts tell us not to use the number on the scale as a guide to how much success we are having at losing or gaining weight.  We’ve all heard the saying, “Muscle weighs more than fat” so it can throw your numbers off.  “Measure your losses by how your clothes are fitting.”  I know these are great tips, but still have a driving need to weigh-in daily.

Long before I even started losing weight I weighed-in daily.  I don’t really know why, because the numbers were doing nothing but going up and down by a pound or so. It was just something I did.

If you are anything like me, it takes a minimum of losing 15 pounds before there is a drop in size of clothing.  That is a whole lot of pounds to wait to know your going in the right direction.  Sure my clothes were slightly getting looser along the way, but I still needed to have a number to see it. Thus, my desire to still use the scale as my guide.

I will say that I have learned an awful lot about how different types of food and hormones will affect my number on the scale daily.  I know that if I eat a chinese food dinner, I will weigh at least 2 pounds heavier the next day.  If I eat a lot of sugary treats after a whole week of none, I will weigh at least 2 pounds heavier the next day.  At a certain time in a month, I will weigh in at least 2 pounds heavier the next day.

The great thing about weighing in daily, is that I am no longer surprised by ‘jumps’ on the scale, therefore I no longer get frustrated and just quite trying to lose.  And that is why I accept that I have Scale OCD, and am not looking for any interventions:)

My Health Journey

What make The Health Challenge work?

Probably the biggest driving force behind my success in finally losing weight, and a lot of it,  was that there was an opportunity to win some money. 

Really, that’s it?  For me that was most certainly the first contributor.   The next reason was that it was a simple plan to follow and only cost me twenty-five dollars.  Following that was the fact that I would be on the journey with others and accountable to them.

When I started my first Health Challenge I was easily sixty pounds overweight.  I was healthy but unfit.  I was not as mobile as I would have liked to be when it came to playing with my kids.  My feet and my back also always hurt.

When people ask me what it is about the Health Challenge that makes many people who take part in it be successful I like to point out the following:

1) Drinking 8 cups of water- easy once you get used to it and certainly helped my joints.  I bought a water-bottle that I liked to drink from.  I also drank a full 3 cups 1st thing in the am and always had a full water-bottle with me.  I easily got into the habit of drinking up to 12 cups daily.  And I was a serious non-water drinker prior to the challenges.

2) Staying away from all ‘treats’ except for 1 day per week.  Was very challenging for me because I love my treats.  But I simply saved all my favorite things for my 1 treat day.  It helped me mentally get through the next week, knowing I just had to wait ‘6 sleeps’.  I only purchased snacks for my family that I didn’t love.  This helped to keep the temptations away from home.

3) Exercise- making the time was a challenge at times.  But I did find that I started to enjoy exercising with my kids.  Biking, walking and hiking.  It also got my kids off the couch. The trick was to pre-plan the ‘when’, or it wouldn’t happen.

4) Getting all my fruits and veggies was also a slight challenge in the beginning.  I had always thought I ate enough of these until I had to track them.  I was quickly informed that I was lucky to get in 2 servings prior to the challenge.  I made sure to set myself up for success by preparing all my veggies and fruits in the am.  I kept it simple by including an apple which is always easy to grab.  Also I would chop fresh veggies up and make a simple salad.  If I didn’t quite get enough in, I would drink a glass of V8 Low Sodium Tomato juice.

5) Tracking my food and exercise via ‘My Fitness Pal’ app was fantastic.  It kept track of my calories for me and how much protein, fats and carbs I was consuming.  This helped keep me dialed in to the right foods to eat.

6) The last very positive thing to contribute to my health loss was the tool of Facebook.  Just being encouraged by what others were going through and writing about was very motivating.  The tips were also very helpful.

My hope that everyone gives the Health Challenge a real effort.  Not every week will be as good as the last, but keeping the eye on the end goal is always key.  If the end goal takes longer, it OK.  Just as long as each foot steps in front of the other, week by week, that goal can always be reached.