A goal for the new year

Ok, here is my plan, thanks for your advice. Instead of running for 365 days, I am going to exercise for 365 days minus 52 days (one day off a week). So, I'll be exercising for at least 30 minutes for 313 days in 2010.

I'll be doing a lot of running to get ready for another marathon in October, but by using the term "exercise" I can do stretching or yoga if I am sick or injured (good idea Lauren).

Do you have any fitness plans for the new year, or fitness plans that work for you now? I'd love some ideas and advice to keep myself motivated. There is a 6 week plan in the Women's Health magazine that I think I'll incorporate at one point, and I'll do the Couch to 5k plan too. I'm thinking that if I keep changing it up, I won't get bored. Also, short term goals are good.

So this is where I am starting... I can always amp it up... but this is my overall goal.

I'm prepping right now by cutting out all of the sweet treats and refined sugar in my diet for a few weeks. December had me addicted to cookies! Seriously, they are THAT good! ;) By the way no sugar for me means real withdrawals, like headaches, grumpiness, and ravishing hunger. Yikes!

Christmas in Review - and at length

We had a wonderful Christmas and were totally spoiled... but hopefully we're not too rotten... yet!

Fischer and Maddison had their Christmas pictures taken right after Thanksgiving.

They also got to see Santa! Although he was super excited to meet Santa, Fischer was pretty shy. He didn't ask Santa for anything, in fact he didn't speak at all... and it was a struggle to get him very close to Santa's lap. The rest of the month, anytime someone asked him what he asked Santa for he'd reply "I'm just going to see what he brings me!" Not too helpful for Santa...

We celebrated Hanukkah earlier in the month with GrandmaBetsy. Fischer loved opening presents for both he and Maddison. His favorite gifts were a Geotrax Cars racetrack and a headlamp. Maddie loved a noisy butterfly toy and I loved her new cozy jammies. Andy and I were drooling over our new Dyson vacuum! Ok, maybe I was the only one drooling! Fischer loved lighting all of the menorahs and listening to Grandma sing the prayers. We had a yummy dinner complete with latkes and applesauce... and of course enough chocolate gelt to go around.

Fischer and BFF had a sleepover the week before Christmas. We took them with my parents to see Christmas lights at a Festival of Lights. They loved it! They ooohed and ahhhed at all of the displays. Then they got to go to McDonalds playland late at night, I thought for sure they'd be the only kids there! It turns out, they were the only ones in their pajamas but the place was packed! Needless to say when they got home they were totally hyped up and silly! I don't think they fell asleep till 10:45! The next morning they popped up bright and early ready to go to their friends' joint birthday. They celebrated two birthdays at a gymnastics gym - so fun!

My Uncle Dick came into town from St. Louis as a Christmas surprise to us all. He is my dad's twin brother, and came to spend the holidays. We were all so excited to see him!

A few days before Christmas, Fischer got sick. He was running a fever (which he never does) it fluctuated with Tylenol between 99.9 and 102.6. It came on Monday night, stayed through Tuesday... where he laid on the couch all day complaining of a tummy ache and a head ache. That night both of our thermometers stopped working, and Andy was at hockey. Maddie was crying, Fischer was crying... they both felt hot and I was getting nervous. I called my dad to bring over a thermometer and he, my mom, and my uncle all showed up with brand new thermometers! We spent the next hour taking each others temps with all three new-fangled expensive thermometers... and let me tell you that none of them work! Not one consistent reading in the bunch. One was a temple thermometer, one was a forehead thermometer, and one was a regular oral/armpit/rectal digital thermometer ... no we didn't test out the rectal feature ... geez you are gross!

Anyway, by morning nobody had a fever (I think), but Fischer was complaining of abdominal pain in the middle and on the right side. Our pediatrician sent us to the ER, for fear of a appendicitis. The ER doc, was suspicious of the same diagnosis. He wanted to give Fisch a CT scan to find out for sure, but told me that a CT scan is enough radiation in a pre-schooler that he had a chance of developing cancer later in life as a result. Ummm? Really? I'm being asked to make a decision about giving my son cancer when he is a grown man?.... Nobody tells you this kind of stuff before you have kids. Well, I decided to have them treat him for constipation, just in case, and wait a little while to see if his pain gets worse. Thankfully, that seemed to do the trick... Praise God. Nobody wants their baby having surgery over Christmas.

We laid low Christmas eve and skipped out on church and Aunt Beth's annual party, Fischer needed to be home to rest and get well for the next day. We watched movies, made cookies and prepped for Santa.

Christmas morning, Fischer woke up to find that Santa had brought him all kinds of goodies. He actually allowed him to come down our chimney this year. Fisch opened both his and Maddison's presents from Santa, Granddad and Grandmom, BFF and X-man, us, the dogs, etc. Definitely spoiled! Maddie just laid on her Daddy and watched all the action. They both received fun toys, clothes, games and ornaments.

Then we stayed in our pjs and headed over to my parents' house to open presents with Grandpa, Grandma Barb and Uncle Dick. We ate cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate as per tradition as we opened and opened and opened! Fischer was in present heaven and quickly turning into the Christmas Monster! After all the gifts were finally opened he was able to open the GIANT present that Uncle Matt and Aunt Jana had sent.... the anticipation had been killing him! It was a kitchen set, he was delighted! "Cuz why I love kitchen sets!" We ate a lovely breakfast together and then headed over to Andy's Grandma's house.

More hoopla at Grandma Pearl's with food, presents and fun. Finally we headed home where we all took a nap. Then gussied up to head back over to grandma and Grandpa's for Christmas dinner with Uncle Dick. We were able to see Uncle Matt and Aunt Jana on Skype. It looked like they'd had a great Christmas too!

Now to chill and enjoy the rest of the holiday break. So great! We are so thankful to God for our friends, family and many many blessings. We hope you all are enjoying the holidays too!

Deep thoughts

• It is impossible to bake cookies and not eat any of them... or most of them.
• "Your hands feel like feet. " That's what my mom always told me whenever she touched my hands when they needed lotion. Right now they are so dry from washing them millions of times a day. The skin under my wedding ring is cracking!
• One time I was holding the choir book in middle school and the girl next to me told me that my thumb looked like a big toe. Try holding a book open to share with someone else while hiding your thumbs from view... it is very hard... especially if the book is heavy.
• Also, one time in middle school, it was the first day of school and I went to sit down at a desk in my math class, and a girl whipped around from the desk in front of me, pointed to the other side of the room and said "You and your little friends can sit over there!" I was totally shocked at her tone. It could only mean one thing... I went home and announced to my mother that I had just discovered that "I'M a NERD!" Then my mother responded very matter-of-factly with, "You can't be a nerd. I'm not a nerd. Your father is not a nerd. Therefor, you cannot be a nerd." So there you have it - it is genetically impossible for me to be a nerd - take that you middle school girl!
• Sophie has a little tumor or something on her lower eyelid that is poking her in the eye... apparently the vet wants $550 dollars to remove it... and clean her teeth of course. What the? I said, I'll wait till Sophie starts winking at me because it is bugging her. Is that wrong? After all remember the million dollar procedure (and teeth cleaning, of course) that Kaia had to have a few months ago?
• My family is asleep, my to-do list is a mile long... and yet, I've picked right now to finally write another blog post.
• I like my own sugar cookies and chocolate chip cookies better than yours. Don't worry, everything else you make is better than mine... but not these cookies.
• I'm contemplating setting an impossible goal... running 365 days in 2010. This is big, since I've only run three times since April. BUT I really want to run the Nike Women's Marathon in San Francisco next October, and I don't want to be as crappy as my last marathon... so it'd be nice if I shed some pounds and got my groove on instead of just talking about it. I think I'll start with a Couch to 5K plan and go from there. Also... I was thinking that for everyday I run this December, I'd allow those to be my buffer days next year. Like, if I run 5 days now, then I'll forgive myself for missing up to 5 days next year... I'm still thinking about it. I think my stipulation would be that I have to be run/walking for at least 30 minutes. Then, as soon as I can run for 30 minutes without walking... the stipulation would change to running for at least 30 minutes. Do you think 365 days is too big of a goal for this all-or-nothing chick?

I'm back from temporary indecisiveness

I started thinking that I should make the blog private.... then I thought about quitting altogether... then I got over it. I hadn't invited anyone to read it... I just sort of turned it off... for a few days.
I was thinking that if I went "private" then I could be a little more specific on certain things. I'm stinking at keeping up on the baby books... so I thought I could at least make sure I document things here, so I'll have the info went I want it... when I have time to scrapbook again someday.

Anyway, sorry about that. I hope you find me again.

Oh... and I guess blogging everyday in November just wasn't in the cards for me this year! Oops!