Goals.

It's good to have goals, right? And to be accountable. So that is what I am doing. I'm giving myself some goals to drop some LB's. And by telling you, I'm making myself accountable. So, here we go.

Goal: Drop weight by 17 pounds
Method: Eat healthier + be more active.
Reward: Milestone rewards!
Deadline: Vegas, baby! (A group of friends and I are planning a girls getaway to Vegas in September)

With each milestone, I will reward myself with some of the stuff that I've been wanting, but never buying because it's a little too self-absorbent.

FIVE: this beautiful bracelet.


TEN: an embroidered pillow that I've been eying at Target. I'd better act fast, cause this may not last long on their site!


FOURTEEN: Now, a dishtowel may not seem that exciting, but I am in love with this one. All the beautiful stitching just makes me melt. And I'm not the type who would buy it and never use it. I actually think it would look even better with a little wear. So, really, I'd be doing it a favor, right?


SEVENTEEN (the end!!!): this magnificant piece of equipment!

I have been wanting a new camera for a while, but always felt guilty for spending the money. I've read a lot about this particular camera and even hope to take a online photography class taught by one of my favorite bloggers, Karen Russell. I'm not so sure that the class will work out, cause her courses fill up within minutes after she opens them. But, a girl can try, right? I guess if I can't get in her class I'll have to find a different one - cause I definitely will need help learning how to work this thing!

THE KEEP-IT-OFF-REWARD: now, everybody knows that keeping weight off is almost as difficult as losing it. For this reason, I am giving myself incentive to prevent that. At six months, if I haven't gained more that 2-3 pounds (we gotta be realistic, the holidays are in that window of time :), then I am buying some big, new, fabulous lamps. Again, something I have been wanting for a while, but never indulgent enough to buy. Don't have these picked out yet, but they may look something like this.


Okay, so there you have it. Now I've put it out there. There's no turning back. I'm really hoping this rewards system is the ticket to geting me to the end! So, next time I'm craving a chocolate Reeses Peanut Butter Cup Blizzard, I can just think of all my "prizes".

I've never really lost any serious weight in my life - besides the lbs. I naturally dropped after having babies. Other than that, never more that five or so pounds. So, if anybody has any tips, please share! I've also been considering setting up rewards for working out. That is actually the hardest part of this commitment. I always have about twenty things to do, so getting the gym to the top of my priority list is always a challenge.

Wish me luck!

Happy Birthday to Daddy.

So, it's not actually Brady's birthday, but Lilah kept getting confused when we'd mention that it was Father's Day. So she sang Happy Birthday to him instead. In honor of the holiday, I'm sharing a few recent shots of Brady with our kids.






We spent the weekend in Clay Center with Brady's family. Saturday afternoon was rainy, but that didn't stop us from boating, tubing, grilling and playing at Milford Lake.

All these activities left my kids like this:



This shot was taken about thirty seconds before Lilah accidentally dropped her sippy cup on Graham's forehead. Very tragic - left both of them crying for quite a while. A big dilemma I now have - which child do you comfort when they both need you??

And, yes, that is my oh-so-graceful daughter :)

I can't even count how many times I've found Lilah sitting in her crib like this. Just waiting to get out after her nap. Usually, I am greeted with a "Hi, Mom. Whatcha doin'?"


Graham has become the king of sucking his thumb. He is such a self-soother. If he wants something to suck on, he pops his thumb in his mouth. He has started teething, so now he just chews his own lip. If the kid didn't need to eat, I'm not sure he'd have much of a use for me!

First time in the big high chair! We also sampled some rice cereal, but that went nowhere. Exercise in frustration.


And for my final kid story of the day:
Lilah loves to wear sunglasses. She has several pairs and loves to accessorize with them. (I just hope that she doesn't end up with the raccoon eyes that her Mommy gets every summer.) Anyways, whenever she really is looking at something, she always has to lift the glasses. Like, if she wants to look at me while I'm talking to her. Very hard to discipline a little girl when she's doing that.

Milk and cookies.

I find humor in this and relate to it in a couple of ways:

1. As a lover of chocolate. Especially my Oreos. With milk of course (+ one ice cube). What a way to end a day. Oreos and milk are for me at the end of the day what a cold, frosty beer is for my husband. The perfect mini-celebration of getting the kids to bed.

2. As the mother of a milk-addicted 4-month-old baby boy.

Need I say more?

And the winner is...

Baby Graham!


I entered Graham (and the quilt that I made him) into a cutest kid contest that was being held by Jackie Clark Designs. AND WE WON!! I am super excited (because of the prize) and super proud (because of all the work that went into the baby AND the quilt)!!

I've never really won much of anything before. My dad won a truck once. Seriously, a no-strings-attached brand new Dodge truck. All he did was buy a $10 raffle ticket from some kid! That was a few years ago and he still drives it to this day! The most that I can claim winning was a t-shirt from Hank's Brewery in Cheney. All I had to do was walk in the door and drink a beer (or seven). Then they drew my ticket number out of the bowl - and I was pretty excited, let me tell ya!


Oh, and last month at Bunco, I won a prize - a cool pair of socks and a nifty note pad, which still makes me proud to write on. (And believe, winning Bunco is nothing to be proud of. There is ZERO amount of skill involved.)

Why is it that winning prizes is so fun??

Passionate.

My husband, Brady, loves to fish. So much so that I've caught him sneaking to the pond in our back yard at sunrise on his day off just to throw a line in. So much so that he hauled the boat out to Cheney lake three times this weekend. So much so that when he fishes, he holds multiple poles at once to increase his chances of success.

Now that's passion. And I love him for it. Do I love it when he comes home smelling of lake and beer and slimy fish? No, but I love that he's truly exciting about this. Life is too short to not have that feeling.

I tagged along to Cheney lake once on Friday afternoon. It was the kind of weather that you only dream of. The kind that you wish you could bottle up and pour out during the cold winter months. Or during the steamy summer months. Or anytime really. Weather like that is NEVER inappropriate. We went minus kids and plus a cooler full of Lynchberg Lemonades. A big bag of sunflower seeds and a good book is what I brought along to keep me entertained while he was "passionate". It was a great day, despite the lack of fish we brought home.

Wishin.

A weekend of fishing. Not my favorite hobby, but combined with beautiful weather and an awesome lake, I can tolerate it. My dad always refers to it as "wishing" - and I'm guessing that's symbolic of his fishing skills. We did some wishing AND a little fishing at Milford Lake this weekend with Brady's family. Most of them are pretty hardcore fisherman (especially compared to me), so I mostly hung with the kids, soaked in a little Vitamin D and took some pictures.


This is Brady and his dad, Chuck tormenting our nephew Jonas with slimy fish. He takes it pretty well.


Our neice, Corinne, was also more interested in other activities like me (i.e. eating graham crackers)


Graham did decent on the boat, considering how bad it must suck to wear a life jacket when your body is proportioned as his is. All that foam up in your grill cannot be comfortable. And, to add salt to the wound, we forgot the poor kid's pacifier back at shore, so in a moment of desperation, we let him suck on the nipple from his bottle. He didn't seem to mind, but from then on we got to listen to a high-pitched squeaking/sucking sound. Cute and irritating at the same time.

Towards the second half of the day, the kids started dropping like flies:

Silas slept on the floor.


Jonas in a chair.



And Graham and Lilah got the two best napping spots on the boat.

My favorite part of this trip is a bowl of fresh fish in my fridge right now just waiting to be cooked and eaten. Not that I had any hand in that. But I guess my wishin' paid off.

Now for a couple recent shots of my cuties. Pretty crazy that the picture of Lilah in a stocking hat and sweatshirt was only taken a week ago, and this weekend she had her swimming suit on. Gotta love Kansas weather.

A Mousey Birthday.

Yesterday was my Lilah's second birthday and we have spent the weekend celebrating. We started her day with pancakes at iHop, a gigantic Minnie Mouse balloon at Party City, and many hours of playing on her new swingset/playgym that Brady built for her. He just finished it yesterday, so the timing was perfect. She happily went up the ladder and down the slide a million times, each time saying "one more time!" Today we had some family over to celebrate the occasion. In honor of her favorite person in the entire world, Mickey Mouse, I attempted a Mickey-themed cake.

I am by no means an experience cake-decorator, so be warned. I'm sure could have been improved in the technique category, but I had fun making it! (Kinda sounds like an American Idol contestant after Ryan Secrest asks how they think they did.)

Anyways, here are some pictures from the party.



The below three photos show three separate times that Lilah was caught attempting to get into the cake/candy.







Graham was a trooper throughout the party. Such a good baby these days. (And how cute are his little plaid shorts? Not many people can pull of stripes and plaids, but he does!)


Brady's labor of love: