50 +

Here are a couple more pictures I took myself the end of Jan. I've lost another 5 lbs or so since then.

I started the South Beach Diet in Mid June last year. 9 months later I am down 53 lbs!! The first week was torture, but since then it really hasn't been that hard. I've had results I couldn't even imagine. I still hope to lose another 20-25 lbs! But this is a MAJOR milestone on my journey!! This is a picture taken last month, just for fun!

Ry and I joined the gym a year ago this month. This is a picture of me just after my BIG haircut 1 year ago.

It's time

For some fun new pictures! Ryan has some free online games that he is ADDICTED to right now so I don't get much computer time anymore! Only if I have a day off and he is working and I don't have a million and one other things I have to do! :) So here we go!

Sammy had to do a book report for her 3rd grade class. She got a list of like 200 different ideas of fun ways to present a book report. We decided to make a collage/poster that went with her book. It turned out pretty cute.

I was going to use hot rollers for my hair for church one Sunday and Sammy wanted to try them. She kinda looks like a little old lady. Her hair is so straight though, within an hour you couldn't even tell she'd used them!

Ryan's big 30th birthday was on Feb. 21st. It is also his mom's birthday so we had a big party at Pirate Island pizza with 25 or so people. It was lots of fun. We had a big cake and put enough candles on for both of them (I forgot my camera and I'm still trying to get my niece to send me a picture). We also had lots of black balloons. He got lots of cards but not really any exciting presents. This is him playing with one of his little dollar nerf disc guns! I figured he could have some fun with it and he did! With the card I got him he had to take the "Old Guy Oath" it's funny! I have video of him reading it that I'll have to post someday, if I can ever figure out how to get video from my camera to here! :)

Two nights a week we tend a neighbors two little kids for an hour or two. Andrew and Charity are the same age and have so much fun playing together. They love to sit in our oversized rockers and they both fit so nicely. I love this one! She kept trying to lean back on him and he kept pushing her away and trying to get away from her.

She loves to attack him. She's got him just where she wants him!! haha :)

How to Make a Pan EXPLODE!!!

Items needed:

• 1 8x8 glass baking dish


• an electric stovetop range


• a COLD granite countertop


• 1 spoon full of hot spaghetti sauce with meat


• Cooking spray

Directions:

Spray glass baking dish with pam. Set on front burner of stovetop range while you finish cooking the meat and add the spaghetti sauce. Notice that when you sprayed the pan with Pam you got it on the back burner. Decide to turn the back burner on to "burn off" the Pam. Forget you turned it on and leave it on for a few minutes. Turn off the burner. You will now be ready to add the meat sauce to the baking dish. Notice the Pam in the dish is turning brown and the dish is HOT. Think that it is just because you have the oven turned on and the dish got "warm". Move the HOT baking dish to the COLD granite countertop and then immediately add a heaping spoon full of the HOT spaghetti sauce with meat! Then WHAMO!!! Watch your dish immediately EXPLODE into a hundred tiny shards! Give thanks that you were wearing a thick long sleeved sweatshirt that caught the flying pieces of glass and prevented them from being embedded into the skin. Watch as your kind husband cleans up the mess while your knees are shaking and your kids are laughing! Think over what just happened and finally realize that you turned on the FRONT burner that the glass baking dish was sitting on instead of the BACK one that you THOUGHT you turned on!! Just more proof that I should NOT be cooking!!

Eyes

As we were eating dinner the other night I was noticing how both of our kids have their dad's eyes. I think Sammy's and Andrew's are a little bit more blue than Ryan's but they all sure look a lot a like! :) This was Ryan's TWO month growth of a goatee. He actually had that long between drills so he didn't HAVE to shave. He was pretty proud! You can see a lot more red in his facial hair than the hair on his head.

Out with the Old, In with the New

I know I already talked about the new tv. Just thought I'd put a couple of pictures of what we went from to what we went to. :)

Nerds

SO I was thinking about the funny discussion we had at our girls lunch, a bunch of girls from my high school class got together for lunch a couple of weeks ago, we were talking about Diana's post http://johnclarkfamily.blogspot.com/2008/12/never-dull-moment.html about her kids thinking she isn't a nerd.

I decided to ask my kids their opinion on the subject of whether or not I am a nerd. First Sammy says "No, you're not a nerd" then after thinking for a couple of minutes she says "Well, maybe you are a half nerd" I was thinking ok that is interesting so I asked "what do you mean?" she said "you are only a half nerd because nerds are smart and ugly" I thought hmmm...not sure I WANT her to elaborate on that one but alas she says "you are smart but not ugly". Ahhh! Sometimes kids can be nice to their parents.

I thought it was interesting that kids had the same interpretation of "Nerds are smart" I didn't tell her anything about nerds, I just asked if she thought I was one.

Some $800 Later!

We don't have any more power problems, although we are still on a temporary fix right now. It turns out our main breaker was bad, which apparently "almost never happens" and will be $280 to replace. Unfortunately, because this is so rare, no one in town actually had the breaker that we need so it will be 10 days before they can get it in. They replaced it with a different one to get us by for the 10 days and then will come again and install the correct one once they get it.

So you say, $280 isn't close to $800 what is she thinking?! Well the power problems managed to ruin our TV so OF COURSE we had to replace the cheap $200 27" RCA with a $500 32" Vizio LCD HDTV! It is interesting, with a dark brown frame as opposed to the regular black or grey we normally see. The brown is so dark that if no one told you you'd probably just look at it and think it is black. The picture actually makes it look much more brown than it does in person.