Weigh-in Wednesday

Actually ON a Wednesday. I know, I know, hold your applause.  :)

I lost 2.6 pounds tonight, and am about a half pound away from losing 40 lbs total! 

I don't have any great words of wisdom tonight, so I'll quote one of my dearest, best friends, Jeni, concerning weight loss.

"Shut 'yer pie hole!"

Silly, but great advice. Sometimes, we just need to choose not to eat. Now before I get comments from people thinking I've gone off the deep end, I'm not talking about your main three meals, or even healthy snacks.  But if everyone is going out for....coffee, icecream, pizza, soda, etc. doesn't mean you have to as well.  Go along, have fun - even carry the conversation, but shut 'yer pie hole, and don't eat!  The less non-essential snacking, the faster you'll lose.

Are any of the rest of you dieting? I'd love to hear from you!
Stacy

That kind of mom...

Yup, that's me.  I don't stress over hair.  Wait, no, I guess that isn't true.  I stress over the way the kids' hair looks only so much as I don't want it looking "ragamuffin" when they leave the house (at home, anything goes), but I don't stress over cut...or in this case color.

Bee and I have come to an agreement over her hair in the last few years.  She gets it cut only once (sometimes twice) a year, after her dance recital.  This is because I have to get it up in a bun for the recital, and that's hard to do if you've cut it short, you know?

When she gets it cut, she calls the shots - length, style, color.  This year, she wanted her hair like her best friend Emily, so off came about seven inches!  She also wanted pink streaks, so those went in too.  Yes, they are permenant.  But the ones we got last year were permenant too, and by fall they were barely noticeable.

She loves it, and gets to let out her inner "punk" once a year.  She nearly bounced out of the salon when we were done, and was literally singing a song about loving her new hair.   So forgive me, and be warned before you look at the photos - we'll be showing some shorter 'dos for a while as it grows out again.  Here are her first few.  The night we got home from getting it cut, it looked like this:

The next day, we just did some really simply tiny ponies and put flower clips in.

Yesterday we got a little more funky, and tried some messy buns with a zig zag part. She had just finished playing in the sprinkler, so her hair is soaking wet.  It looked even cuter when it was dry - but you get the idea.  Once it was dry, I should have curled the ends under, but we were off to a baseball game, and didn't have time. 

So there is my Bee's adorable new pink hair 'do!  More short styles to come in the very near future.
Enjoy the sunshine if you have it!
Stacy

Weigh-in (not so much on a) Wednesday

So the name "weigh-in Wednesday" sounded so cute to me, and I do weigh in on Wednesdays - so the name will stick - even if I can't get to blog about  it on a Wednesday.

Last week, I lost another 2.6 lbs.  I have officially lost a total of 36.4 lbs.  Woo hoo!

Remember my last weigh-in post about the apple cider vinegar?  Well....yuck.  I couldn't stomach it after the first try.  I felt sick, it tasted horrible, and I couldn't fathom doing it again.  I researched some more, and found that the entire purpose of the vingar was to clean your liver - and that somehow aides in the digestion of food, and thus you lose weight faster.

I also learned that ACV can be bought in tablet form.  I hurried to my local wegmas to look for ACV in tablet form, but they didn't have any.  Then I found another all natural pill called "milk thistle"  http://www.herbal-supplements-guide.com/milk-thistle-benefits.html   and after reading about it more, I was hooked.  It does exactly what the vinegar does for you body, with added benefits such as squelching "free radicals" from your body.  I don't know what that means, but doesn't it sound wonderful??  :)

So, if I have a tip for the week, it is to go buy some milk thistle suppliements.  They weren't too expensive, and the benefits are fantastic.  Even if you don't have weight to lose, don't you want a cleaner liver?  I had no idea how important it was to have a clean liver until I read more about it.

My other accomplishment this week is that I've started to jog.  I walk just shy of three miles each day, and now I do about a half mile of that jogging (I know, it isn't much, but it's a start!).  I think I had written about my new sneakers, the Reebok Easy tones?  Yeah, um. Don't buy them.  I should have heeded the warning bells that went off in my head when I was offered a one year warranty for $30 as I was buying them.  I turned them down, of course.  After one and a half months of walking three miles each day, and then wearing them around the house, etc. the souls of the shoes had worn down so much that the "balls" at the bottom cracked out and deflated.  :(   I loved them, and what they did for my workout, but I returned them today. Thankfully I was still in the 90 day store warranty, so I returned them and went back to my favorite running shoes, Nikes.   No warranties needed there!

I hope your day is fantastic.  Get out and enjoy the weather with your babies!
Stacy

Bee's Dance Recital

Her first number, I forgot to zoom my camera before I started to shoot, so it looks a little farther away - but Bee is the one all the way to the right.

In the next one, ballet, she is all the way to the left.

They did a really great job this year!  They are a sweet class, and it was fun to be "room mom" with several of the other moms back stage!

Oops, found one more and JAKE DOING GYMNASTICS (for Mindy)

Here's a two-fer post - I found one more long hair set of photos, and after, you can see Jacob (he's the littlest in our family) doing gymnastics.  I say it's for Mindy, because she's my gymnastics, flippy friend - who might be the only one to really appreaciate my little guy's potential.  :)

First, the 'do - I don't remember where I saw this one, but it's pretty easy to figure out by looking at the photos.

And...here's Jacob!!

Enjoy!

Stacy

Busy Few Weeks....Take Two!

Maybe this will just be how it is this spring/summer - with being so busy, running here there and everywhere, I just might not have the time I did in the fall and winter to write a blog every day or so.  I might just have to do them in one lump - or do several in one day when I find myself with time. As it is, the "baby" is still asleep and the self sufficient ones are getting themselves around for the day. That leaves me with time to blog.

We had a busy weekend!
We went on a field trip to a semi-local science museum, had grandmas and grandpas come over for Bridgette's recital and celebrated Alexander's birthday (a week early) with them.  At the end of the weekend, Bee got her long awaited hair cut (I make her wait each year until after her dance recital, so I can easily get it into a bun for recital day) and color...it looks adorable!

But...let's back up a minute. I have one final hair post (when I actually remembered to take photos!) for long hair - here it is!

Twists, which can be found here: http://shaunellshair.blogspot.com/2010/01/heres-my-angle-french-twist-braids-and.html

She looked so pretty that day!
More posts to follow, of our crazy life...
Stacy

Weight Loss Wednesday (a day late...)

I lost two pounds last week - I've lost about 34 at this point!   Diet is going well...I didn't really do much different this week on that front.  I did, however, change my workout a little.  Instead of walking one mile each morning, I am now walking three.  I like to listen to music or podcasts by Andy Stanley while I walk.   It makes the time go faster - and walking for an hour doesn't seem so daunting when I have something good to listen to.

Last night at our tops meeting, a kops (someone who has lost all their weight) suggested this (her idea, but I found this on a website):

Apple cider vinegar and weight loss

It helps to detoxify the liver which plays an important role in weight loss. There are historical facts that Egyptians took apple cider vinegar for weight loss. Some claim ACV speeds up the metabolism while some claim it burns the calories to reduce appetite. To lose weight just take 2 teaspoons of apple cider vinegar, mixed in water, before every meal.

ACV is also available in tablets and capsules. According to some nutritionists the combination of apple cider with kelp, vitamin B6 and lecithin is much more effective for weight loss than ACV alone.

Although I'm not into taking pills, etc. to lose weight (I'm trying to do this this old fashioned way with diet and working out), I think I might give this a go this week.  I mean, what could it hurt? It has been a little over two months since I've started this diet, and I'm in the mood to change things up a bit.  I'll let you know if it works. I would love to know if any of you have ever tried it with success.  In the mean time, I'm going to continue to do my 1,000 calorie a day diet, workout and drink water like I'm a fish.  :) 

Have a great day, everyone - think skinny!
Stacy

UPDATE - 8:37 a.m.  Just drank two teaspoons of ACV in 8 oz of water.  YUCK!  I had to hold my nose to get it down - and then I ate breakfast right afterwards (carbrite bar) to get the horrid taste out of my mouth. I'm committed to try this for a week, but I might puke in the mean time...it is so horrible!  Maybe next time I'll dilute it a little bit more...I'm fully open to suggestions on this one!