Whew, let's get caught up :)

YAY! We have our internet back thanks to a new modem!!!  I have a lot of catching up to do, so here goes a little bit for now :)

The other night, Josh and I had his work Christmas party and the kids got to hang out with Grandma and Grandpa (thanks again!).  That day I had decided to chop my hair back off and here’s a few quick snippets from my quick photo session--- it’s not every day that I get to get a little spiffed up, so we thought we’d photo document it.

Let’s see, Monday night (12-20-10), I attended a huge a Challenge Party in Grand Rapids.  I was bummed that some people who said they’d go didn’t, but I was happy that my friend Stephanie came with me.  We had a good time, learned some more, and met a few more people.

Since there will be so many people starting the Challenge now through the start of the new year, we will be doing a SPECIAL EDITION Transformation Vacation for the next round of Body by Vi Champions. In addition to the Hollywood trip, photo shoot, spa, cruise etc, can you say VEGAS BABY in a PRIVATE JET! I'm serious...... :) So, take the Challenge and be a Champion! And it’s all FREE!!  Now through Wednesday night at midnight, you can get your Challenge products with FREE shipping as well!!  So really what are you waiting for?  Don’t have a clue what I’m talking about?  Call this number:  507-726-3700 or watch the videos on my website: www.imlovinlife.bodybyvi.com  (just click on my website address) and let’s get you signed up and ready to go! 

The Wednesday before Christmas we went to GR to watch the Griffins hockey game.  It was Mason’s first time too!  We had a good time and were happy that the Griffins won- free tickets for Syd’s birthday on January 5^th!!!  Gotta love free!  (Probably will have more pictures coming soon from this game :)

Christmas was absolutely wonderful this year.  I’m so relaxed and content and just plain happy.  I have to say that my favorite part of this Christmas was getting to see family and to just relax.  I also really loved spending time with just Josh and the kids on Christmas day—we opened gifts bright and early, then spent the day together.  We played board games, sang, and just hung out.  It was really wonderful!

I am pretty sure the kids got everything they wanted (I think) and Josh and the kids had schemed and got me a really pretty necklace.  I cried.  I’m truly blessed to have such a wonderful and thoughtful husband—not to mention some pretty cool kids too!

Mason slept a lot of Christmas morning :)

Birthday and pictures!!!

Blake was allowed to have 5 friends over to celebrate his 8th birthday.  So with his 5, plus him, plus Syd's one friend allowed, and her, we had 8 kids over here- plus Mason and Gunner :)  Needless to say, it was quite the busy night, but they all went sledding (Mason and I stayed home), then they came home for hot chocolate, sloppy joes, then later, cake and ice cream.  Blake requested their own photo session too, so we did that as well.  Here are a few pictures:

yep, Blakes halpipe skateboard cake I tried to make for him.... it was yummy atleast

Then of course, the girls had to have a quick photo session too--- this is Olivia, Sydney’s friend.  It was nice to have Olivia (and her brother William) over as they’re really good kids and they’re moving at the end of this month.  Sydney is very bummed out about it, so at least the girls will have pictures of each other.

Then, Mason had to have his own photo session too!  Actually, this is a photo session I’ve been wanting to do, but needed extra hands—Josh’s hands.  Josh helped me get Mason into position so I could snap quick—these are the many hats of Mason:

PS:

Mason was up a lot of the afternoon and evening and he's fighting sleep so badly, but here are a few quick pictures-- I cannot believe Syd is going to be 10, Blake is 8 today and Mason is almost 6 weeks!!!!!!!

yep, he's done with the photo session- haha

It's 2:15AM... still fighting to get him to sleep...


Oh, and the other night when I couldn't sleep?  When I finally did fall asleep, Mason woke up less than a half hour later...go figure......

Whoa, a novel!

Today is officially December 16^th—8 years ago today, I was blessed with my second child- my first son.  Blake Joseph is an amazing and kinda quirky little man and I count myself lucky to be his mom.  I can’t believe he’s already 8 years old.  Looking at Mason, I realize just how fast time is flying by for me.  Blake’s 8 now, and in a little over 2 ½ weeks, Sydney is going to be double digits (10) and I’m going to be OLD!  Well, 29 isn’t too bad, but I’m getting up there for sure.  Family- we’re doing a bit of sledding for Blake’s party, since we have some snow, at 2:30PM this Saturday.  Then we’re going to do dinner and cake at about 5PM.  We hope to see ya!

Let’s see… we’ve had kind of a busy week otherwise.  Let’s try to recap for you- Monday night I had a regular School Board meeting, Tuesday night we had our Challenge Party, and tonight I had another School Board meeting (negotiations) and then a Girl Scout meeting.  Let’s back up—a Challenge Party?

Yep, Josh and I, as well as my mom and brother, are joining the Visalus team and are going to take the 90 Day Challenge—it’s a challenge to use the Visalus products and lose weight.  With the help of these products, we’re expected to lose double digits WITHOUT exercising and I hope to put a bit of exercise with it to tone things up as well.  I have to just say too, so far, a few of my really close friends are signing up to do the challenge with us and I’m SOOO excited about that.  I keep telling them that by summer, we’re going to look smokin’ hot!  Woot!  Woot!I’ll have my website up hopefully by the end of the week, but for now, if you want more information, you can visit one of my team member’s sites: www.gotmysexyback.bodybyvi.com (just don’t sign up through there).  Also, if you want more information, just call me!

Anyway- Tuesday before the party, Mason and I had a lot of running to do.  We had to run to Blake’s school to drop off some clothes donations, then Sydney’s school to drop off more clothes donations and her $$ for her little recorder thingy for music class.  Then we ran to the grocery store quick.  I realized midway through Leppinks that this was mine and Mason’s first trip to the store without Josh.  Usually Josh pushes the cart as I’m a little vertically challenged.  Needless to say, I was careful to not run into any displays!!!  We made it though.

So we got home and were getting things around for the party, and I was majorly hustling, and majorly multitasking.  I was making dinner, eating my own dinner (Chinese YUMMM), talking to Josh, and cutting vegetables.  I was cutting the carrots and talking when I slipped and cut my finger pretty bad.  *Warning… look away if you have a weak belly*** Picture at the end of this post*** Anyway, I was quickly relieved of my culinary duties!  I hope it heals quickly and am thankful it wasn’t worse…from the amount of blood, we thought it was worse.

Anyway, back to the challenge party- for motivation, I made a display board and asked my guests and team to write on my most favorite pair of jeans (size 11) so that I will look at them and get motivated to completely skip over size 11 and keep that number going down.  Here’s a few pictures—Josh’s made me cry—love him!



I'm so lucky and blessed to have such a wonderful husband, friend, and teammate. 



Never again will I be that size....if I can help it!

Not sure if you can see it, but Syd wrote- "Kiss your body bye bye"!  Awww!

a look to the future

Stay tuned to hear about our team's progress :)

Before------>

<--- part of our Body By Vi team!!!!!! 

Other than that, I cleaned out some closets and had a bunch of stuff to donate and get rid of!

Until next time!

Oh, my finger...

before... yep, that's part of my finger (and carrot)

OUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hmmm, I'm the 3rd shifter tonight...

So, who cleaned the bathroom, sent a few emails, picked up the kitchen (again), did laundry (more of it), and wrote some thoughts out on paper?  That's right- this girl!  Soooooooooooo, now I'm going to try to go back to sleep again until Mason wakes up which should be anytime.  Go figure, he sleeps 5+ hours in a row when I'm wide awake. 

Our weekend---

Not a very eventful weekend, yet it was just perfect.  We spent a lot of time together as a family, the kids got to play outside a lot today in the snow, and we got to relax.  For whatever reason, I can’t remember right now if we did anything Friday night…I don’t think so, but possibly.  Oh well. 

Saturday morning I was up bright and early to head to Crosswinds Manor, a local senior citizen community for Christmas caroling with a few of my Girl Scouts…actually, as it ended up, it was just Syd, Autumn, her sister Lana, Grandma Mary, and myself.  We were going to reschedule, but decided to give it a whirl with just us.  It was really a good time.  They enjoy watching us sing and just having visitors.  I hope we’ll have a chance to get out there to hang out with them more often.  Sydney really looked forward to singing for them- she did a great job!

Right from caroling, I dropped Sydney off and headed to Grand Rapids to participate in the Visalus success training.  I have to tell ya, I was really nervous to go to this, but everyone is super nice and so welcoming.  It was great to get out of the house for a change and it was great to talk with people.  Family and friends, I'm signing up to be a promoter for Visalus, so I'm sure you'll hear me talk about it from time to time... ok, probably all of the time.  It's majorly on my mind the past few weeks since I first heard about it.

This is a new endeavor for me and I’m hoping that the results will be trifold- 1. I’ll really lose this 40 pounds in 90 days and get healthy.  2. I’ll make some money while doing it.  And 3. I’ll make so much money that I won’t have to worry about going back to work for some jerk who doesn’t care about their employees.  That’s the plan anyway.  This Tuesday is our challenge party (at 6:30PM) at our house and I’m so excited about it!  I can’t wait to spread the word and to get started on my own journey.

Speaking of Visalus, I’m also really excited that Josh is going to do it with me.  He and I are a wonderful team both as husband and wife, and as friends.  He’s always my support and my encouragement and I hope I’ll be that for him.  We’ll keep you posted on our getting healthy journey!

Today as I mentioned, the kids got to go outside and play in the snow with the neighbor kids.  That’s because as you all know, most of Michigan got dumped on today and it will continue throughout the week.  It’s somewhat ok because I don’t have to go out in it, but I still don’t like that Josh has to drive so far to go to work in the icky weather.  I worry about him.  Tomorrow he has to go to work super early as we didn’t make it to Muskegon today like we had intended to.  The weather was just too yucky out.  It was funny though- Josh offered to drop the kids and I off at the mall to do a little shopping while he worked for a bit.  So that was going to be the gameplan.

Tomorrow, we recently learned that Sydney and Blake don’t have school.  I see tomorrow having a lot of video games and more relaxing.  Hopefully tomorrow will also include some house cleaning haha.  Let’s see, we also have to decorate the tree…. Yeah, yeah, I haven’t done that yet.  I might have to pull out some of my bigger snowmen too.  Also, since I’ll have some extra hands tomorrow, I might try to take some more pictures of Mr. Mason- afterall, he’s 5 weeks old already!  Time really is flying by and he’s getting so big.

Life is good…

    … and is going to get better!

This week...

Tonight was a night Syd has been waiting for for quite some time.  Tonight was our Girl Scout event- the ‘He & Me’ Cakeoff!  We had 7 of our 8 girls and their dads and one uncle in attendance and everyone seemed to have a really great time.  Syd and Josh built castle with a drawbridge, moat with fish in it, and even an outhouse.  They both worked really hard on it and seemed to have fun.  I was happy to be a part of this event.



Yes, Josh wore my apron for just a second to humor me... thought it'd be a cute picture :)



Hmm, what else has happened this week?  Well, Mason is officially one month old and getting bigger every day.  We guestimate his weight to be about 10 pounds and he’s about 22.5 inches.  Here are a few pictures.

Grandma Sue & Grandpa came over last weekend.  Sue and the kids made ornaments and this is Mason's ornament that she made.  Too cute!

Officially announcing....

Sleepy time....

Last night I got pretty lucky-- somehow Josh was able to get Mason to go to sleep at 10PM.  Of course though, I couldn't fall asleep till about 11:30.  Mason woke up about 4:30AM, just in time to see daddy off to work, then fell back asleep at about 6AM.  Then, Mason was up for a little bit at about 9:30AM and woke up again before I could fall asleep with him.

Tonight though, I couldn't get lucky twice.  Mason was starting to fall asleep a bit too early, so Josh and I gave him a bath quick.  Now, it's a bit past midnight and other than filling up his freshly changed diaper, he's wide awake.  Oh well, I had some fun taking some more pictures of him tonight.  He's getting so big, so fast!  Maybe bedtime will come in the next hour or so- that'd be super!

Other than a still goffy schedule, breastfeeding is going well and Mason's looking like he's starting to put on the pounds which is good.  He doesn't need to go to the doctor until sometime in January (unless he gets sick this month -- hoping not).  Blake and Syd are really loving taking turns holding him and just tonight Blake got to feed Mason for the first time while Syd and I were at Girl Scouts.  They're such wonderful kids- Josh and I are soooo lucky and thankful!



Oh yes, flipping me off-- could it be that he was already tired of taking pictures?  Haha.



so handsome!