What a week!

PHEW! Sorry I was MIA for the last couple of weeks, it was kind of a crazy! I volunteered at our church's vacation bible school all week for the morning session. I was designated as the 'photographer' which I thought meant I was going to be wandering around taking candid shots of the activities. WRONG. I was there to take a pictures of each of the kids and the crew they were in so they could cut them out and use them for a craft on the last day. Now, you wouldn't think this was that big of a deal... HA! (p.s. I did also get to go take pictures of the events and activities and some turned out fantastic and every still photo they used in the slide show at the end of the week was one of mine!). It took me the entire 3 hours Monday morning, Tuesday morning, and running around a bit Wednesday to get ALL of the 200 kids photographed. I spent my afternoons editing all of the pictures and getting them organized for easy sorting once the prints were done. I would like to point out here that I am awesome (and OCD apparently) because they just kept commenting on how much I streamlined the process of doing these pictures and getting the prints organized. In years past they got the crew pictures and just laid all of the pictured out and matched the kids to the crew. I wrote down the photo number and it's corresponding crew on a sheet so when that was printed on the back of the photo all I had to do was reference my sheet and pile them up. They actually even put me in charge of a crew of kids on the last day since they had some no show volunteers. It was pretty cool and I have a renewed appreciation for teachers or anyone that works with kids all day. Anyway, it was a lot of fun. Lilly got to have some time away from me for the mornings which I figure it a good introduction to preschool. Plus, she got a boyfriend. Seriously.. this little boy was equally taken with her as she was with him. It was funny to hear about her daily updates on that. Edison got to hang out in the nursery and just had a blast there. He hardly looked back when I dropped him off. The people in charge took the kids out to run around a bit and found out very quickly that Edison is pretty speedy. Hilarious. I realized he was fast, but attributed it to him being a near 2 year old boy. Maybe he's a little faster than your average 2 year old boy. yay, lots more chasing in my future.

On top of VBS I had to get Edison to Occupational Therapy on Monday. I cant decide if he is making much progress or not. We don't seem to need to go fish mouthfuls of food out as often as we were, but he still isn't really getting very good tongue movement or noticeable chewing. If anyone knows of some good 'hard munchables' suggestions we can try let me know. These are hard rod shaped foods that he can move around in his mouth to touch the salty receptors on the sides of his tongue (yes... I know that is just about the worst sentence in the history of easily turned inappropriate sentences, but it is what it is. Get your minds out of the gutter ;) One thing that IS noticeable with Edison is his vocabulary. His speech has really picked up. Up until 2 weeks ago he wasn't saying milk. Now he will point to a cup or the fridge and say milk to indicate that he would like a drink. He also does this when he wants his blankie, or something turned on, etc. Pretty much, he is communicating! Hooray for communication! He still does the whole alphabet, numbers, shapes, and animals/respective noises. I may just start moving on to the phonics. He already does some, but honestly the kid will be reading by 3 at this rate.

Let's see... Lilly missed dance class this week because it overlapped with VBS and I figured since she goes to dance every week and VBS is only one week we would go to that. I did get her signed up for fall dance so she will be on Wednesdays later in the day now since preschool takes up her morning. I cannot believe that in a month I will be back down to one child in the mornings. I have gotten so used to having my little side kick mini me around that I think the first week will be hard for me. It will be nice to have some good mommy/Edison time though. What will I do with myself?!

Yesterday was my best friends family baby shower. I have officially known Teresa for 18 years. This is really hard for me to comprehend. I mean, 18 years? Holy cow! I figured she would get quite a few good gifts and I wanted to give her something more special so I made her gifts. I gave her a book and some bottles that were the kids' and a formula divider since I saw she registered for one. I figured, hey, even if someone else buys her these things it just never hurts to have two. I made her a few things from her registry too thinking she can either return one from the store to get something else or, like I said, have one in a couple different places just in case! I made a nursing cover, two bibs, a crinkly tag blankie, a pacifier pouch, and a whale. The whale is just adorable and you just want to squish it all day. I cannot wait to perfect it and make more for the craft fair. I really hope they sell well. The shower was fun and low key. Her sister hosted it and had a nice lunch and cake. I love that I have been around the family long enough that I can be comfortable with such an intimate little family shower. 

whale tail

Whale! I LOVE these whales!

pacifier pouch opened

paci pouch closed

bibs!

crinkle tag blankie! I did a whale theme

nursing cover strap with d-rings

whole nursing cover

Teresa and I... seriously. 18 years. Where has the time gone? Love my bestie!

Sheesh, at least you got a little interruption from the marathon post with some pictures there. One last thing then I will try to actually post again once a week at the very least. I had hoped this week would be good in the weight loss/fitness department since I was running around at VBS and just didn't have time to snack. This is not to say I sit around just eating food all day, but sometimes when I am just at home and don't have a lot of food options, I eat whatever I can come up with which is sometimes not an awesomely planned out balanced meal. Sigh. Anyway, I was happy to step off the scale this morning and see that I DID lose 2.2 pounds for the week. I am at 174.8 and down 47 pounds since my heaviest. Let me repeat, I am officially under 175, not by much, but under. I have been annoyed the past couple of weeks with the bouncing around and just not able to get under that number. I still have another 10-15 to go before I am content and might work on the whole maintenance phase for a while but right now I am just happy I made it to 175. I only have .98 before I am technically overweight and not obese for a BMI. These are big deals to me. I think I am officially at the weight I was in college. I know that when I was in my walking class and right before I got married in 2005 I had gotten down to 167 and starting my junior year I had gotten down to 155. This obviously means these weights are attainable and I should reach for them (and will) but I am going to start worrying less about reaching a certain weight by a certain time and just hope for a loss each week. I think it will take some of the pressure off and I will be more likely to succeed and happier when I weigh in.

Well, goodness... I know my life is NOT that exciting, so congrats to those that stuck around and actually bothered to read all of that. This week will be devoted to exercising at home and sewing my re-usable snack/sandwich bags for the craft fair. My goal is to finish all of those off before the week is over. Then I will probably move onto the crinkle tag blankies. I am itching to make more of those whales though.... grrr need more time to do crafts!