When it rains it pours...

My dad passed away today. This is one of the times I hate the most being so far away. At least Sarah and Mom were there with him when it happened. We're going to drive up tomorrow.

Sad

We had some sad news this week. One of Jeff's friends passed away in a car accident on Sunday. Jeff has been really upset about it. Travis wasn't just someone he worked with. He was a friend. They were moving buddies, Jeff helped Travis and his wife move into their house, and Travis was here helping all day long the day we moved. Whenever Amelia and I would visit Jeff at work Travis would always see us pull up and have already called Jeff to come meet us. He and his wife were just over here not that long ago with their daughter to watch Ultimate Fighting. It's really surreal to me, when I went to Jeff's office this week I expected to see Travis when I walked in and he wasn't there. He was a good guy and will really be missed. I feel so bad for his wife, and his daughter.

Here is one story about him from his car club and also the newspaper article.

Amelia and the binkies...

Finally

I am finally back on track and losing again. Well I'm not sure if I was ever off track, I just didn't lose much for a month or so. I have been consistently working out though and I am definitely feeling better. I have more energy when I eat right. I just have to remember that!

The loss this week put me down another pound, and I finally hit 60 pounds gone, not bad since I was traveling all weekend.

Gross kid moment ahead

**This post may be most appreciated by moms, nannies, and other child care providers. It's a bit yucky.**

What is the fascination that small children have with their own poo really about? We have been working on potty training M, the 2.5 year old boy I nanny for. He does great peeing but will not poo in the potty. He will hold it until he gets off the potty then go in his pullup. He then gets angry when I try and change him. Well I think today we got over that hurdle.

He decided he wanted to be changed. The problem is, he decided he should start the changing by ripping off his pull up. Did I mention his poo has been bright green today? Did I mention the pull up was full of the bright green poo? Of course he managed to smear it all up and down his legs. So the next thing I know he is running around the house naked, with poo smeared from his bottom to his feet.

This is when I start freaking out. Poo freaks me out. Funny that I"m a nanny and change diapers all day. That is a controlled environment. Put baby on the changing table, change diaper, use lots of wipes, and all the poo and wipes go right into the diaper genie. I don't have to get gunky. However this was much less controlled.

M thought it was hilarious that there was poo all over. In fact, he decided to stick his fingers in it and smear it around some more. Oh my. So now I'm freaking out, trying to not vomit and also trying to keep him from spreading poo around the house. Did I mention he thought running around covered in poo would be fun?

I did manage to get him to hold still ( well still for a 2 year old, only mild wiggling and giggling) long enough to get in cleaned up. Then I vomited. I have decided we should wait until college to continue potty training.

We didn't make it to San Jose, I got sick. But Amelia and I are going up in two weeks. And it will be even better because I can drive up during the day Friday, instead in the middle of the night.

Amelia and I are going up to San Jose this weekend for Haley's birthday. Oh my goodness can she really be turning 7? I remember when I first met her, with her first nanny. I think she was only 2 then. I can't believe how quickly they all grow up.

There is always so much baby stuff to take everywhere! Thank goodness their house is pretty kid friendly, I won't have to drag as much krap with me.

I got a new phone.

It's a motorola Razr. Jeff is way more excited than I am, I am just happy to have a working phone again!

Gathering of the nannies

We spent Saturday at California Adventure and downtown Disney. A bunch of us nannies met up for dinner at rainforest cafe and to watch the fireworks. Amelia had a blast! Here is our group shot. Abbie had her fingers in her ears beause she doesn't like fireworks. :-)




Tatiana, Mic, Abbie, Paige, Me with Amelia and Rene.
(Isn't Amelias new sweater from Gymboree cute? It has giraffe horns! :-)

So much to blog about... so little time....

Valentine's day was great! Jeff got me roses,(lots of them!) a card from him, and a card from Amelia. He also found these sweet little prescious moments figures, one is a mom with a toddler the other is a couple standing together holding hands. That was one of the better gifts he's given me, I'd much rather have flowers and little stuff that involved some thought, than big random things. :-)

Vacation to San Diego was great! We had a great time, our hotel turned out wonderful and Amelia did so well. She was sick part of the time, but other than that it was all well. I'll post pics later I have to get the film developed.


(Yup I'm a loser! I lost our digital camera, and have had to resort to using the old 35 mm. I'm ready to just buy a new camera. )


We stayed at the Residence Inn by Marriot. I'm always afraid when I stay somewhere I've never been, but they had good ratings from AAA. I"m really glad we stayed there. With the AAA it was still 160 a night but oh so worth it. We had a full kitchen in our suite. We also had a seperate bedroom and living room, so we didn't have to have Amelia in with us. There was a dinner provided on weeknights and breakfast every morning. I have to say I was impressed with the breakfasts, Jeff has not stopped talking about the waffles. We got to make our own waffles, and he thought it was so neato. They had tons of kid friendly foods, and the food was actually good! THe hotel also had a gym, and I worked out in it twice! yay me. :-)

We spent some of our trip in Old Town San Diego and the rest at the San Diego zoo. The zoo was great the weather while we were there was perfect. Amelia loved getting out of the stroller and running around. In Old Town we found the best Italian restaurant, I'll put a link in for their website later. The food was amazing. We spent a lot, but hey, it was my birthday dinner so I didn't mind. :-) Oh and my wonderful husband is going to get me the plates I want as a birthday present.

We both really liked San Diego, I'm trying to convince Jeff he should commute up to the OC. He's just not agreeable yet. It's also cheaper to live in than the OC.

Around the house

For christmas Jeff got me a bunch of gift cards. One was to bed bath and beyond. I finally went to use it yesterday and found a set of plates I love. They were considerably more than my giftcard would allow, but I have a feeling Jeff is going to get them for me for my birthday. Yes I want dishes for my birthday. The ones we have now are from target and they are all chipped up. There isn't a lot of stuff we have room for more of or need, so I want dishes for my birthday! These ones are cool because they can go in the oven as well.







And here's the link, just in case anyone wants to buy them for me! ha ha ha

And here are my new glasses. They look much better in person. I love how they feel too. Yup I'm a weirdo.

Disneyland!

Frustrated

Edited...

I was really in a pissy mood earlier. I guess I don't mean everything I said. I still don't like the OC or SoCal.

She's one year old today.

I just can't believe she is 1. I'm not ready for this.

Here she is right after she was born.


Here she is holding her head and chest up off the blanket, at about 5 weeks old.



This is her at 5 months old.


And here she is on Christmas.



I just hope she knows how loved she is.

Amelia at the park today

My ticker

Up at the top of my blog are two tickers. One is for Amelia, saying how old she is. The other is my weight loss one. I had someone tell me the other day after looking at my blog, that they were so happy that I was so close to being at my goal weight. My starting weight was my highest weight after having Amelia. I had a lot of weight to lose when I got pregnant, and the 25 pounds I gained while pregnant didn't help. Unfortunately the ticker is for my first major goal, not my goal weight. I will still have quite a bit to lose when I reach that goal. :-)

WW information

So a couple of people recently have asked what I'm doing to lose weight. So, I thought I'd answer some of those questions on here. I am doing weight watchers. I don't have time, or interest at this point in going to meetings so I do it online.

Being an online member is cheaper( I think I pay about 15 a month instead of 12 a week ) and gets all sorts of good stuff, like access to recipes, point calculators etc.

The WW message board is also a great tool, it is free to use.

The way WW works is, you get a set number of points to eat per day, based on your weight. Everyone also gets 35 extra points per week, to be used whenever that week. If you don't use them you lose them. I find I have to eat all my points every week to lose. If you exercise, you can earn more points to eat.

At first it seemed hard to me to figure out the points and such. Now I know the points on most of the stuff I eat, and just have to look up what I don't know.

1 point is about 50 calories depending on the amount of fat and fiber. The more fiber something has the higher calories it can be and still be in the 1 pt range. More fat lowers the amount of calories per point. This site
has the formula. THere are other important parts to WW, such as drinking at least 6 glasses of water per day, 5 servings of fruit and veggies, and getting in dairy.

Any more questions? Let me know, or go to the weight watchers website

2 more pounds gone!

I am finally getting back in the groove of my weight loss. I have lost the last two weeks. 2 more pounds gone forever this week. Yay!

Now I just have to stick to it with everyone here and the birthday party this weekend. I can do it. I will do it. I still have a really long way to go but thats okay. 56 pounds in one year isn't bad.

I am SOOO excited for Mom and Sarah to come visit! Jeff is picking them up at the airport Wednesday night, he thinks hes out numbered now, once they are here it will be 6 girls in the house... and Jeff! Lucky for him they are only coming for 5 days. :-)

6:00 AM

That's what time Amelia decided we should all get up this morning. I heard her in there playing for a little while and finally went to check, she was standing up at the edge of her crib bouncing up and down squealing at me. As soon as I got within her reach, she grabbed on to me trying to hoist herself out of the crib. I should have known then, there was no hope for more sleep, but I decided I'd try and bring her to our bed. She has never really slept with us, and bringing her to our bed usually results in one of us (us being the adults not the baby) getting hurt. Today was no different. She laid down for about .2 seconds before standing up in between us. She wiggled and squirmed around, managing to elicit some yelps from Jeff. I think she poked him in the eye. I tried to convince Jeff that he should get up with her.

So at 6:15 we (we being Amelia and me, daddy was still sleeping) were up, and downstairs playing. Well Amelia was playing, and I was at the table scrapbooking... At least I got something accomplished since I got up so friggin early.