Answers finally!

So I really have been a horrible blogger lately. I'm aware of this. I could make an empty promise to try to get better, but I won't. I will of course do my monthly weight loss updates (because, well those make me very happy!!), but when it comes to day to day stuff, well I just plain forget to most of the time. So anyway, here are my updates:)

Brandon is FINALLY home from Canada. He left Feb 4th and got home yesterday, that is way too long to be gone. It sucked. Not gonna lie. Thankfully it is a once a year thing, I couldn't handle more than that. 

We finally have gotten to the bottom of Miss E's cough that she has had for months (hence the title of this post). She has pretty bad asthma. It was always disguised by other things, she had brochiolitis, she had the flu, she had a viral bug, etc. These were all pretty spaced out, but her cough never went away. And it kept getting worse and worse. Then it got to where she couldn't run around and play without having these bad coughing fits. Nights were horrible, she would just hack her head off and neither of us would sleep. She was getting to where she was constantly wheezing.Brandon was in Canada when her symptoms really started to peak, so he missed all that good stuff. I chalked it up to allergies and started her back on her Zyrtec. Well last weekend was horrible. Her dance studio was throwing it's annual Sweetheart Dance and Miss E and her Pops went. She wanted to get her hair done so I took her to Famous 6 minutes away from our house. Someone was getting a perm and between that and all the hairspray, she didn't stop hacking. They were nice and kept giving her suckers to suck on and I had her water to sip on and that helped some, but not too much. I was thinking her allergies are definitely worse than they were last year and Zyrtec may not cut it this year. I made a mental note to call the Dr first thing Monday morning. We got home and I gave her some honey and she calmed down. Then Pops said that she was fine until the end of the dance and she started wheezing and having the coughing fits again. They lasted all night. Sunday was no better. We were at the Dr first thing Monday morning because something had to give. Long story short, asthma it is. She had to be on a 3 day steroid (which helped tremendously) to jump start her because it was so bad. Now she is on 2 inhalers a day, a maintenance and a rescue one. Hopefully we will get it under control soon and she will just be on the maintenance one and use the rescue one as needed. Yesterday she had a full blown attack at the gym and it scared the crap out of me. Watching your child turn purple is no freaking joke. I got her stabilized and then she had another attack shortly after. After 3 calls to the Dr,( I LOVE our pediatrician) we finally got on the same page about the inhalers and frequency of use and she hasn't had another attack since. So pray, send good thoughts, or whatever it is you may do that we can get this under control fairly quickly and Miss E can go back to her normal activities soon.

Now that I got that out, here is my princess about to go to her very first dance:)

I think she is pretty much the cutest little girl ever!

I am still going to the gym and working out 5 to 6 days a week. I love it. I feel so great when I leave there. Miss E loves the KidsPlex so it's a win win. You'll have to wait for my monthly update next week for all the details, but I'm still doing good:) I'm more motivated than ever!

4 week update.

Disclaimer: I'm blogging from my phone, so excuse any grammatical errors or lacks of paragraphs.

Yesterday marked four weeks since my serious weight loss journey began. I am proud to say that I am down 10 lbs and a few inches as well. I wish I had taken measurements at the very beginning, but I didn't, but I'm starting to notice that my clothes are starting to get a little loose. I am starting to notice a small change in the way my body looks and I'm overall happy with the results this far.

Another change I've noticed is how I feel. I have had so much more energy, I'm not craving the bad stuff as much, I wake up so much easier in the mornings and I'm sleeping great at night. I'm also not as achey as I used to be, I just feel better over all. My mood is also been better, I'm finding myself feeling a lot happier and a lot less stressed out.

So there is my update. I'm very excited to see where I'll be in another 4 weeks! 10 down, 30 to go!

Miss E is 3!

It's been a little over a week since I've updated, but in my defense, I've been really busy. Between the gym, Miss E starting dance back, and her turning 3 and having her party, it's been a little hectic. 

So the most important thing first, my baby is THREE now. Her birthday was Saturday and her party was Saturday afternoon at a local jump place.I ran around like a crazy person Saturday morning, picking up the food, cleaning out my car, loading everything into my car....by the time the party came around, I was tired. But that's the good thing about having her party there, once we were there, I didn't have to do anything, it was quite nice:) Her party was a success and we had a great turn out. She had a blast playing with everyone. Saturday night we had her family birthday dinner. She picked the place(Texas Roadhouse) and she thought it was the coolest thing ever when they sang "Happy Birthday" to her and gave her ice cream.

Here is my 3 year old on the way to her party:

Sunday we took her to Build A Bear and she loved it. She took awhile to pick out the animal she wanted, she wanted a chocolate lab at first, then something else and something else before she finally decided she wanted the Disney Bear. Then she picked out a purple bubble dress and purple shoes with jewels on them(of course) to match. To top it off, she HAD to have a princess wand as well. That was an expensive trip, but so worth it. She named her bear Princess and has been inseparable from her since.

Here is Miss E and Princess:

So this is my second week at the gym and I must say that I love it. I lost my gym buddy due to her husbands schedule changing so now I'm going solo. I thought going into it that it was something that I was going to have to make myself do, but that hasn't been the case. I look forward to going and sweating and burning those calories. I really like the body pump class. I did yoga too and I didn't enjoy it as much, but I still liked it. I've been doing the treadmill and the elliptical and on the days that I don't do pump, I'm doing weights as well. This is only week 2 so I haven't seen any results yet(didn't plan too, I know it takes awhile) but I'm looking forward to when I do. I can see how people become addicted to it, I feel so great when I leave that I always look forward to going back. 

I can really see this becoming a every day routine, I was at 3 days a week, this week I'll go 4 days...I got to stick with it if I want to see change!

Holy soreness!

Friday morning was my first ever gym class(well outside of high school anyway). It was at 8:30 am but luckily the gym is only 10 minutes away, but I got up at 7 to give myself plenty of time. We got there and Miss E was more than excited to go to the kid area(as she calls it). The only thing I wanted to accomplish was to actually finish the class. I'm not going to lie, that crap was hard. Much more than I expected. But I did it. All of it. I was so proud of myself that the rest of the day was just nothing but great. I even did the elliptical there after, and did a mile on my elliptical at home that evening. I felt fantastic. Saturday on the other hand, I didn't feel so fantastic. I hurt. The tops of my legs and my chest, even my butt hurt. I was holding my pee because it hurt so bad to sit on the toilet. But the pain made me make better eating choices over the weekend. All that pain was NOT going to be for nothing! Today was a little better, the squats are what got me because the tops of my legs are the only thing that are still pretty sore. And I'm doing it again in the morning. I'm really loving the body pump class(that's the only one I've taken so far) and I'm going to do it twice a week. 

No spectacular update. I'm just proud of myself for finishing the class. I'm proud of myself for the better choices that I am making. This year is all about being positive for me. I've separated myself from the people who bring me down. I'm making big changes in my life and I'm excited to see how this all turns out.

My first ever mile:)

Today will forever be known as the day I did my first ever straight mile on my elliptical! To be exact, I did 1.09 miles, but who's counting?! Yesterday I dragged my butt up to Body Plex and joined. I start my first class in the morning. I am NOT a morning person, so this should be interesting. I'm going to be doing classes 3 times a week, alternating between body pump(what I'm doing tomorrow), body combat, and yoga. As I get better I also want to try  spinning. I am more than ready to do this!

My other obsession has been my new camera. I've always been what you call a 'mamarazzi'. Anyone close to me can tell you that is the truth. I've had a camera in Miss E's face since the second she was born. Now that I've upgraded, the obsession is worse! I mean, at least this kid will have tons of baby pictures, right?? Anyway I skipped automatic and flipped straight to manual and have been learning ISO,Aperture,Shutter speeds,etc. I've been experimenting and seeing what looks best and such. Like I said before, I am in NO way wanting or trying to be a professional, but I do want to be able to take good pictures of my kid whenever I want:) Anyway here are some(out of the hundreds) that I have taken:

These are all straight out of my camera. I figure I'll learn my camera thoroughly before learning the editing process. Not spectacular pictures but I think they are pretty good for a beginner in manual:)

Anyway, that's all I've got for now. I'm off to bed early so I can get up and bust some booty in the am!  

Hello 2013!

I'm starting the New Year with nothing but positive thoughts. Why? Simple, because I CHOOSE to. But here are a few reasons:

We are going to pay off a good bit of debt this year. A loan that we've had for a year and a half, our last 2 credit cards, and my car(I will NEVER have another 6 year loan). I'm so excited that I can't see straight!

My baby is turning THREE! In just under two weeks Miss E will be 3 and it is just surreal to me. I can't wait to see what this year has in store for her.

Brandon gets TWO vacations after July and a couple of raises this year. Need I say more?

We will be celebrating our 5th wedding anniversary in September and our 12th year together in November.

I have lots of house plans this year. I want to redecorate our bathroom(which isn't really decorated, just painted, but I want to repaint and do some things in there. I want to re paint our living room, dining room, and hall, and I want to get our basement de-cluttered and organized into useful space. 

And the biggest thing I'm looking forward to....doing things for ME! Getting this weight off. I'm down 10 lbs since my first post about it a couple of weeks ago, but I slacked over the holidays. But now saying that I have 40 lbs to go sounds so much easier than saying 50 lbs to go, so I'm thankful for that 10. I'm taking a HUGE step and joining a gym ( I have a workout buddy) and doing two classes with her. I'm so excited about this next step. This is my biggest goal of 2013. Cliche, yes I know, but I don't care either. I AM going to do this!

Happy New Year everyone!

The flu=EVIL!

I took Miss E to the dr yesterday because she woke up with a bad cough again. We had been around so many people the last week so it wasn't really a surprise that she would pick up something. I actually just called the dr office and asked the nurse to call in a refill on her cough meds, but she insisted on us coming in. Thank goodness we did. When we got there her fever was over 102 and so they did a flu test and it came back positive. I woke up yesterday not feeling so great, and by the time we made it back home from getting her Tamiflu, my temp was over 103. Not good. Luckily my MIL works in a dr office and called me in Tamiflu, so we both have been taking it since last night. Great. Except our insurance didn't cover the liquid form for Miss E, so I have to take caplets apart and hide the powder junk in different things (i.e. mixing it with a small bit of yogurt, hiding it in between a piece of cheese folded in half) and so far it has all been a fail. It tastes horribly and I feel terrible, but it's not like I can mix it in a whole cup of juice because I have to make sure she gets ALL of it. I've been having to keep Motrin in her constantly because that is the only way her fever will stay down and even then it lingers around 101. And somehow the child still has energy and wants to play. For very short periods of time because she gets exhausted easily, but I have NO energy to keep up. All I want to do is sleep. All. The. Time. And that is just not possible with a toddler. "Mommy, I'm done, come wipe me", "Mommy I need more water", "Mommy, can I have a snack", "Mommy, can I play on the tablet"? It's never ending. At night is when it is bad for her, all she wants to do is lay with a cool wash cloth on her face and I'm like "finally"! Rest time for mommy too! My body aches to the core and I have chills that will not go away. But the OCD side of me still needs certain things done, so I'm the freak with the 103 temp doing dishes because I just can't sleep knowing they are in the sink(Brandon is out of town working). It's a horrible sickness and I fully acknowledge that.

Anyway, Christmas was great. We went to Alabama Christmas Eve day, then we did our family stuff on Christmas morning, then went to my in-laws to open gifts, then to Memaw's for more gifts and lunch. I must say that I am extremely lucky to have married into such an amazing family. Miss E got more gifts from Grammie than she did from us (same as the last 2 years). Brandon and I also got some great gifts, I got a new big crock pot(which I have been wanting), some kitchen things, some dvd's, clothes. I love that my MIL and SIL know me so well:) My big gift and the one I was most excited about was from Brandon and Miss E though. I FINALLY got my nice camera! I was so surprised and have been pretty much obsessed ever since. Anyone who knows me knows that this is something I've wanted for 4 years now. Don't worry though, I not one of THOSE people, you know, the ones who get a nice camera and in a month they are a professional photographer charging people for pics;) Although I have always been obsessed with taking pictures, I am in no way wanting to go that route. I just want to be able to take nice pics of my own kid whenever I want to, not on someone else's schedule. I do have 2 photographers that I absolutely love and will continue to use them as well. So yes, Christmas was freaking fantastic this year. I'm just glad we got the flu after it was over! 

Hopefully we will both be over this flu crap quick. I have a birthday to plan and invites to get out. I still can't believe that Miss E is going to be 3 in two weeks!