Family Pictures.

Last week, my friend took some pictures for me.  Now that I'm skinny (!) I wanted an updated family picture and she's working hard to make a go of her business.  

The kids were so well behaved.  I honestly think it helped that they didn't know my friend - so they were kind of apprehensive around her and less likely to be little snots!  Probably also helped that we only planned for a 30 minute session.  Get in.  Get out.  Get done before the meltdowns start.

The pictures turned out great.  I couldn't decide which ones to post so I just posted them all.  My main wish for this photo shoot was just a single photo of the four of us where no one is talking, crying or throwing a fit.  I considered it a bonus if we all were looking at the camera and a dang miracle if we were all smiling.  

There are some near miracles captured in these here photos!  Thank you Sarah Huff Photography!

Weight Watchers One Year Anniversary.

I can hardly believe it, but I've been doing Weight Watchers for a whole year.  

I.  Feel.  So.  Good.

What is that super annoying motivational saying?  Work the program and the program works?  Yeah well, annoying or not, it's true.  I have lost 79.6 pounds.  That's an average of ~1.5 pounds per week.  Slow, sustainable (hopefully!) progress.  

I'm not going to spend a whole lot of time on this topic but I did feel it necessary to mark the occasion.  And I want to give a shout out to all my Weight Watchers friends.  I know of at least 5 people who have started on Weight Watchers after seeing some of my progress and every single one of them have made some serious progress on their own weight loss goals.  And that fuels me to keep going.  

So those of you ladies who told me that I was an inspiration, just know that it works both ways.  You are keeping me going.  When I feel like I need a sausage biscuit or an extra slice of pizza, I think of you and how I can't let you down.  

Plus, like I told Jenny, in true big sister fashion, I am TOTALLY claiming some of her success as my own.  And feeling successful is a special kind of high in it's own right - not unlike the high of eating chocolate.  So, there's that.

Also, just a little update on the vacation blip.  It took me 10 days to gain 13.2 pounds (that's so crazy, I know!  Shameful even!) and 16 days to get it back off again.  Not too shabby!  That means it really is possible to purposefully get off the wagon, take a little break, recharge your batteries and then get your @$$ right.  Back. On!

Lastly, the kiddos had to get in on the picture taking action.

Swimming.

Lily's been asking me for weeks now, "Can we go swimming at Grams house?"  

So we finally did!

I took a half day off on Friday with the awesome plan that if I left right after lunch, the kiddos would be ready for nap and would sleep for most of the ride.  Yeah, well, best laid plans and all of that..... I get on the interstate only to go about 1 mile before getting backed up in construction traffic.  Lost about 15 minutes there.  Then get going again only to get about 30 more miles down the road and then basically parked my car on the interstate for 45 minutes due to a jack knifed semi.  

Of course, as expected, the kids fell asleep right away and slept through all the traffic standstills.  But woke up promptly as we started moving again and proceeded to fight, argue and whine the rest of the way.  They are not patient travelers and I'm pretty sure if you look up "MISERY" in the dictionary, you'll find a photo of me and my kiddos travelling in a car together.  

We finally get to Grams, 90 minutes later than expected (cause 1 hour of traffic delays yields an unplanned 30 minute potty stop), and make a beeline for the pool.  Which is where we spent the majority of the rest of our weekend.  I can't believe I got no pictures of the cousins. 

Mom had let the pool get to about the lowest water level it can be and still run properly.  This way, the three oldest kiddos could touch bottom with no problem.  For a lot of the time, Lily didn't have any flotation devices and she was fine.  The rest of the time she had on arm wings or just a ring and swam around fine.

Tyler did best in this Puddle Jumper thing.  He was fearless.  Swimming all over, going under the water and never batting an eye about it.  In fact, he grinned the whole time.  He jumped off the side of the pool.  He wasn't scared one single bit.  

Mom had the near impossible task of trying to feed 6 grandkids of varying picky-ness levels AND three daughters all on diets with varying picky-ness levels.  She did a bang up job.  Delicious, healthy food all weekend to keep us all on track.  My mom rocks.

Ponytails, Bee Buses and Rueda de Casino.

Selfie with my babies.

Lily can put her own hair in a ponytail now.  What?  She's not even 3.5 yet!  I'm pretty sure I remember the first time I fixed my own hair in a ponytail and I was at least in Kindergarten.  Maybe even first grade.  Perhaps I was a little behind the curve.  But still.  I couldn't believe it when I saw her fashion up a little ponytail like she'd been doing it for ages.  She is pretty picky now about how she wants her hair done.  Ponytail, bun, braid, two braids, Anna hair, Elsa hair, etc.

I mentioned to Joel that I wanted to learn how to do a fishtail braid after seeing one on a young lady during our vacation.  Well Joel, the involved awesome Daddy that he is, Youtube'd 'fishtail braid' and determined that it looked easy enough.

Daddy did a great job but he needs more practice with actually putting the ponytail holder in.  You have to get it pretty tight because Lily's hair is so slippery.  Immediately after the braiding session, Lily ran back to her room and the ponytail holder fell out before she got back there.  Bummer.

Since vacation, dropping Lily off at school has been a total nightmare.  She has cried and screamed and clung to me for dear life every single day.  It's horrible.  I've had to peel her off of me and sort of shove her at one of the teachers and then bolt to the sounds of her screaming "MOOOOOMMMMYYYYYYYY" at the top of her lungs.  Today was the first day were she only just pouted and cried a tiny smidge as I was leaving.  Hopefully we're turning a corner.  Tyler has been totally fine this whole time for school drop off.  He gives me a kiss and then takes off to play.

I took Lily with me to the dentist 2 weeks ago.  It was kind of a bust in that they didn't even look at her teeth at all.  They had told me to just bring her along and they'd let her sit in the chair and they'd count her teeth or do some other 'games' to get her familiar with the process.  Well after my cleaning, the dentist was running out and I said, "Oh, I brought Lily so she could learn the process and sit in the chair and get used to the idea."  The dentist said, "How old is she?"  "Three and half."  "Well usually we would have already scheduled her for her own cleaning by now so that's what you need to do."  And then she left.  I was really annoyed because that is NOT what they told me to do 6 months ago or I WOULD have scheduled her an appointment by now.  Uggh.  Oh well.  At least I got to spend some time with Lily and take her out to lunch, get ice cream and stop by Daddy's work to say hi.

Tyler's most used phrase these days is "see that" and a variety of versions of that: "lemme see that," "wanna see that," "I see that," "see that?"  I feel like I'm always describing Tyler's behavior as "so cute."  But it is!  I really don't know of any other way to say it!  Him running around with big eyes, raised eyebrows and pointing at stuff IS so cute!

Tyler is completely obsessed with school buses.  But he insists upon calling them "bee buses."  He used to say "boo bus" because he can't say "school."  But some how "boo" became "bee." It's really cute (see, there I go again).  Joel tries really hard to correct Tyler but I think it's too cute (!) to correct.  Sometimes in the morning, he can hear one going down the road and he runs to the window in our room to check it out.  Now that school is out, we don't see buses as often and he asks "where bee bus at?" if he doesn't see one.

In fact he loves to ask "where (fill-in-the-blank) at?"  "Where Daddy at?"  "Where Sissy at?"  "Where bal-loon at?"

We're starting to think about maybe considering the process of potty training Tyler.  We bought him a potty seat and I sit him on it every morning and before bath.  He hasn't actually gone yet, but he's pretty excited to sit on the toilet for about 4 seconds.

Popsicles in the bathtub!

Joel and I finished up our Rueda de Casino dance class last night.  Rueda is a Cuban version of salsa dancing where you dance in a circle and change partners.  There is a caller who yells out specific moves.  Think Latin Square Dancing.  We had so much fun and I'm kind of sad that it's over.  There is a continuation of the class over in Bloomington on Tuesday nights but I don't think we can swing that.  Cost of the class, plus cost of a babysitter for 3.5 hours, plus cost of gas, plus the extra 1.5 hours of commute time..... Sigh.  Sorry about the picture quality.  These are screen shots from a video which is posted on Facebook.  Notice how Joel and I are dressed alike.... This was the SECOND time we did that.  The instructor noticed and said, "Hey, you guys like to dress alike!"  Wow, so embarrassing....

Is it still Happy Father's Day?

We love Popsicles in our house.  See?

Whew, what a weekend!  I am sunburned and exhausted.  But it's a good kind of exhausted.

Friday night, we took a Bronco ride to a fish fry at the volunteer fire department down the road.  It was the first time I had been in the Bronco with the kids.  They were so stinkin' cute.  Laughing and giggling and yelling "BRONCO!" After the fish fry, we went to play at a playground near our house.  After about 20 minutes, Lily's goes, "I gotta pee!  I gotta pee!"  And she's grabbing herself.  There's not a potty nearby so we tell her we have to go home to pee.  She kept going back "one more time!" and I thought we were going to have an accident before convincing her we needed to go home.

Saturday morning started at the ridonkulously early hour of 4:30 when Lily came to our room.  "I don't want to sleep in my bed."  So she crawls in to ours and then proceeds to have a wicked episode of restless body syndrome and flops all over my head.  At 5:00 I give up and we go to the couch.  She watches Brave and I try to sleep some more.  What a silly idea.

I did the Girlfriend Ride that morning.  I really love this ride.  25k.  Lots of chocolate (including purple chocolate!).  Lots of laughs.  

While I was riding all around the outskirts of Columbus, Joel, Josh, Lily and Tyler were tearing down our yard barn.  By the time I got home, it was all torn apart and half hauled away!  

Saturday afternoon, Lily went to hang out with Ana and Tammy.  Tyler and I dropped her off and it took almost 30 minutes before I could get out of there.  Lily was terrified of me leaving her there by herself which is a pretty common theme ever since we got back from vacation.  Eventually Tyler and I snuck out when Lily was distracted.  Later that night, after she came back home, she said, "Mommy, I didn't even know you left!  But I didn't cry!"  She was pretty proud of herself for not crying.  

When we dropped Lily off, Ana had mentioned taking Lily for ice cream.  Well Tyler heard this and said "ice cream" no less than 47 times before we left their house.  I promised him I would take him to get some ice cream after we left.  First we ran a quick errand to Lowe's to get Daddy his final Father's Day gift.  

After that I said, Tyler are you ready for ice cream?  And he said, "COOKIE!"  I said, "You mean ice cream?  Do you want ice cream?"  "COOKIE!!"  "Tyler, do you want a cookie or ice cream?"  "COOKIE!!"

So we went to Target (needed a couple things from there anyway) and got Tyler his "COOKIE!!"  It was about as big as his face.  He ate the whole thing.  

Sunday morning, the kiddos let us sleep in.  Until 6:00.  How nice!  Joel went to get Tyler up and Lily came in to bed with me.  I told her to go tell her Daddy "Happy Father's Day!"  She did and it was sweet.  Several times throughout the day, she asked us if it was still "Happy Father's Day."

The children were not on their best behavior for the start of Father's Day.  No one wanted to listen or eat their food.  We had a bit of bickering and batting at each other.  A little yelling thrown in (by everyone).  A short reprieve when it was present opening time.  The babes are always a big help when it comes to opening presents.  

Joel's been wanting some of these Vibram FiveFinger running shoes for a long time and that's what he got!  These things are so weird.  They look kind of creepy on his feet!

When we first got up, Joel mentioned riding our bikes over the nice big playground to let the kids play.  But then when the kids were acting like total sh*ts, he wasn't so sure he felt like riding over there with them.  I said, "Look, they're going to be little sh*ts so we might as well just go cause we're going to hear it either way.  At least if we're outside, the noise isn't bouncing off the walls and making us insane."  

"He's touching me!  He's touching me!  EHHHHHH!!"

But once we got there, they had a ball.

On the way home from the playground, Tyler passed out in the trailer.  At one point, we pulled over just to check on him, cause his little helmeted head just kinda bobbed around back there and looked kinda scary.  

When we got home, Joel grilled himself his Father's Day lunch.  Lily asked if we could eat outside.  Beautiful day?  You bet we can eat outside!

After lunch and playing in the backyard, it was time for nap for the kids and time to mow the yard for the grown ups.  Got the yard done just in time for the kids to get back up again play in the water for a while.  Easily their favorite past time.  

We decided at the last minute to go out to the Mexican joint for supper so we scrambled to get baths and showers and get out the door.  We get the restaurant and it's not open.  This is the second time in recent history we've gone there on a Sunday to find it's closed.  Apparently we need to take a hint.  So we decided to drive all the way across town to the other Mexican joint and it's been closed for good.  Well crap.  So I remember a Chicago style pizza place that's been open a few months and we end up going there.  Holy crap, the pizza was amazing.  

Even better.... the KIDS were amazing.  I don't know what happened, but all we can figure is that they were giving us one final Father's Day gift.  The gift of a peaceful, even ENJOYABLE dinner.  They both gobbled down the pizza and didn't fight us or each other.  We were so happy with their behavior we pushed our luck and took them out for frozen yogurt too.  Absolutely sure one of them would melt down.  BUT THEY DIDN'T.  

It was most definitely STILL Happy Father's Day.