Woohoo!

Great news! For our anniversary, Kevin and I decided to drop the kids off at Nonna's house. Pawpaw was tired, so Nonna had Aunt Shari come over to help. It really is a lot of work watching all three, especially in a place that has so many things that aren't meant to be touched or played with.

We headed a little ways down the road to the mall and decided to eat at The Cheesecake Factory. I still stuck to a paleo dinner; had steak and some fresh steamed broccoli...which I had to sub out for, it came with mashed potatoes. Not so paleo friendly ;) I was a good girl and didn't order any cheesecake either, but I did order a Blue Moon wheat beer, which according to my trainer IS a paleo beer. I'm not entirely sure on how true that is, though.

Before Kevin got home from work that night, I was trying to find something nice to wear. Well, it's quite evident that I hang out in pajamas and work out clothes 99% of the time, because when I was trying stuff on everything; quite literally EVERYTHING was too big.

I also wanted to mention that Kevin left work early and went to pick up some flowers for me. Evan helped pick them out, which was pretty obvious; some of them were neon orange :) Orange is Ev's most favorite color. He also picked out a balloon for me - it was a Dora ballon that said "feliz cumpleanos" LOL! And, it later became apparent that I was not the balloon's true owner, Evan was.

Anyway, back to the story. I had no clothes, but put together something that fit decent enough with a belt to keep my pants up. After dinner we went into the mall and Kevin said it was okay for me to start looking for some new jeans. I knew the Gap always has awesome jeans and knew they would be worth the splurge.

I found a few pairs I liked in the size I thought I was fitting into. I took them to the dressing room, put a pair on, came out to where Kevin was sitting in a chair and one of the cashiers, Ryan took one look at me and said in a totally fantastic, sassy tone "Oh honey, no, no, no, no, no. Those are too big on you! You're going to have to go down a size...what size are those?" I responded with, "Really? They're eights...they're too big?"

So then Ryan filled me in on how jeans should fit. I think I must have been wearing them in the wrong size my whole life ;) He went back to grab a bunch of different styles in a size 6. A SIZE SIX!! I seriously almost cried in the dressing room. I was a size 14 just 6 months ago. Ryan was so incredibly helpful, and if I could have taken him home with me for future shopping trips, I totally would've. We walked out with a couple hundred dollars in jeans, but I'm not anticipating getting too much smaller than what I am now. There's just too much stretched out skin to go down another size, I think. But can you imagine if I were to get a tummy tuck (which by the way is the plan in about 2 years)? I'd probably in all reality be a size four right now.

My trainer is super proud. The highlight of my weekend was when Kevin admitted to checking out a girl from behind that was a little distance away and then realized that it was ME! I'm finally feeling good about myself again!

Five Years

Five years ago today I married my best friend. We've definitely had our moments of frustration, anger, sadness, and joy - as with any marriage. Time has really flown by. Looking back on our wedding day, that version of me would never in a million years have guessed what our future would hold. I definitely would not have thought we would be blessed with three of the world's most wonderful boys...or that we'd have all three with less than two years between them. There are many curve balls in our lives, but that one was the biggest we've survived together so far.

There are many sources out there that say the divorce rate among parents of multiples is sky high. After making it through nearly a year with our boys - I can say from experience that I understand why. Having two small beings that depend on you for their very survival; to feed them when they're hungry, change them when they're soiled, kiss the boo boos when they fall, and hold them tight when they simply just need you...for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, and for a lifetime, is extremely challenging, difficult, and tiresome. It leaves you in a state of panic, exhaustion, and frustration...which can all be detrimental to a relationship. That's not even taking into consideration the financial and emotional situations that come along with multiples, or the (social) life that you are supposed to carry on outside of your family.

This year has definitely been the height of stress in my life, but it has also been the height of happiness - even those times of Kevin and I wanting to strangle each other are far outnumbered by the good times this year has brought with it. Let's face it, there aren't a lot of mothers and fathers out there who were blessed enough to be given the opportunity to raise two or more kids of the same age together. It takes something special that not everyone has. Obviously, Kevin and I were deemed worthy enough by the powers that be, and we couldn't be more thankful. And I cannot imagine riding this crazy roller coaster that is our life with anyone else.

Happy Anniversary, Kevin!

Coming Out of the Closet

We are slowly trying to get everything ready for the boys' first birthday party - we're having it at our house. At first I figured a lot of people wouldn't show up; we are an almost two hour drive for a lot of my family and it's on a holiday weekend. I guess I figured wrong - almost everyone, to my knowledge so far, plans on coming. So now I have to figure out where to put 30-40 people in my house.

Need your house de-cluttered, deep cleaned, and detailed? Schedule some major event to take place at your place and invite a shit load of people. You'll be panicking weeks in advance and tearing your house apart so that you can put it back together in an eye appealing manner. Problem solved. ;)

Our house is in that state of massive filthiness right now. You know, the kind where you are cleaning out one room and shit ends up piled in another? Oddly enough though, that stage is the madness before the place really starts to shape up. Once all of that crap has found it's rightful new home (whether it be the trashcan, basement, etc.) you instantaneously have a clean and organized home.

Today I decided to tackle our bedroom walk in closet. A lot of my family have never been here before, and that means everyone will want to see what lies behind every.single.door. Our closet is juuust big enough to contain our clothes and then a massive amount of junk that didn't seem to have a proper place. Making it a not-so-walk-in walk in closet. First I pulled out all of the blankets, (our linen closet is insanely small and they don't all fit) and decided they probably need to be washed again since I hadn't really inspected the inner depths of the closet's remaining contents. So, into the laundry pile they went.

After removing that bulkiness, I found: a few old diapers (newborn size!), old magazines, shoes I haven't worn in 5+ years, wires and cords to unknown electronic gadgets, safety pins, a screw, a small desk fan, a lamp, a breast pump and all of it's accessories, a large box of miscellaneous stuff, parts from the boys' pack 'n plays, nursing pillows, a pregnancy pillow, a grilling cook book, all amongst other obscure items.

It's all in one of two places: the trash, or a pile at the stairs waiting to be taken to the basement. The closet looks great now though! Next is tackling the rest of our bedroom and bathroom, which shouldn't take long at all. From there it's all in the details...dusting, vacuuming, cleaning baseboards, power washing the deck, scrubbing toilets, etc. And a little over 3 weeks to go. Not so easy when you have 3 kiddos nipping at your heals the entire time, but I have faith we (okay...I) will get it done in time.

Three things

So, there are three things, okay..three exercises that I HATE. Just three, the rest I simply tolerate; there is no love going on there. Burpees, running, and wall balls. Today's workout involved TWO of them. That must be what hell is like, only there I'm sure the devil would have thrown in all three with a few others that I don't like as much. I'm starting to think my trainer is a sadist - he's pure evil. ;) We started out with ten body weight squats, ten push ups, ten body weight squats, and ten more push ups. We also threw in a set of ten weight assisted pull ups in there. Then we worked on my dead lift some more. I got up to 120 lbs this time! Then the exercise portion with: 21 sumo dead lift high pulls (pull the bar up to your collar bones), 21 wall balls, and 21 burpees. Then the same exercises, but in sets of 15 and then in sets of 9. Afterward, we finished up with a few planks. I was beat; totally exhausted and drenched in sweat. Thank God someone took and/or broke his stop watch a few days ago, otherwise I would have been hearing "x minutes and x seconds! Come on, you gotta hit this hard. Let's see some intensity!" Barf!

Two of our big televisions aren't working, but honestly I find it kind of nice. It's making me get more stuff done around the house and I feel like less of a lazy bum - even though I usually just have it on to make it feel like someone else is home with me. Which is why I guess they both gave out on us - endless hours of being on all of the time.

I'm catching up on laundry (didn't ever think that was going to happen). Yesterday, I think I did a total of 9 loads. And that's with two babies up my ass every waking second of the day. They are having some MAJOR separation anxiety problems. I leave the room to go put something away and it sounds like one (or both) of them got their arm ripped off and then smacked with it.

Brennan's also figured out how to break through our barrier to keep them out of the kitchen. This has totally left me scratching my head and thinking "what next?" *sigh* I guess we'll finally have to put some locks on the cabinets - which we didn't even have to do when Evan was little.

Despite getting so much done these past two days, the house looks totally destroyed again. It's mostly dirty dishes and clean laundry (Kevin's - he can put his own shit away!) The mess combined with no tv and 24-hour tears and screams makes me want to leave the house for the day, but I don't want to mess with their schedules. Plus, like stated above, I'm exhausted. I'm a prisoner to my own home today.

What a day!

So as if my day wasn't wonderful enough (see last post)...it actually gets a little better, with a small wrench thrown in there. Bad news first: we are in the middle of a hair pulling crisis. Carter has a problem; he loves to pull Brennan's hair...and bounce while he's pulling it. Brennan cries every.single.time, poor little guy. So a lot of my day is spent pulling two babies apart and as soon as I separate them they are right there back together again and going at it.

I'm really at a loss with what to do. You can't discipline him at this age, they aren't even a year old yet. There's no way he knows that what he's doing is wrong. I redirect and redirect but no matter what the behavior still continues. I firmly tell him no and shake my head. So what does he do? He gets a huge smile on his face and shakes his head back at me. The thing is, that when you redirect him and pull his hands away, they literally go right back up to Brennan's head as soon as you let go of his hands. Over and over and over. I'm so tired of it all.

And now the good news: Evan has been doing pretty well at potty training on those rare occurrences that we try with him. He stayed home with me one day last week, so I decided to put him in some big boy underwear. He only had two accidents the whole day. One was a poop, which he has never done successfully on the potty, so no surprise there. And the second time was Dad's fault - he wasn't paying attention and I was in the kitchen fixing dinner.

Tonight after Evan got home from school I put him in some big boy underwear again. Even though he was protesting against them and practically begging for a diaper. So onward with the underwear we went and soon after he was telling us he needed to use the potty. I took him into the bathroom and sat him down. He peed on the potty, so we did a round of high-fives and hugs, washed up, and went into the kitchen to get his "special treat".

A few minutes later he had that look on his face, so Daddy rushed him into the bathroom again. After a little coaxing, he actually pooped on the potty for the first time. We are so proud of him, our little boy is growing up! :)

Haus

As my husband would say, I'm "a Haus"...remember the big dude from the tv show Bananza? Yeah, probably not. Anyway, I've always been good at moving furniture around and the likes. Today at the gym we started with the typical reps of body weight squats, then reps of cleans with a 20 lb ball, etc. Then we headed over into the world of weights. We worked on my dead lift and got the motions pretty perfected. I slowly worked my way up to dead lifting 115 lbs! Holy crap! I'm a Haus! ;) He never tells me how much weight I've got on the bar, I always have to ask. And I usually do so AFTER finishing the set so that I don't psych myself out and get all worked up into a panic of "you can't do this!" From there we went into the workout portion and I did 10 inverted rows (chest HAD to touch the bar every time and my legs HAD to be straight or he wouldn't count it) and then 20 body weight squats, which also had to be perfect to count; in a series of 5 cycles. We finished off the session with 100 25 lb kettle bell swings and a good arm stretch since they were killing me by the end.

I also weighed myself this morning. I'm 7 lbs from goal! Just SEVEN pounds! This is huge, because just a week ago I was really struggling to stay on my game and eat right. I had even gained 1.5 lbs back. And now within a week of tweaking and getting back on the ball I've lost that 1.5 plus another 2.

This morning was wonderful - the babies slept in until 8 o'clock! This let me get my morning together before they woke up. I was able to shave, get into my workout clothes, and eat a good breakfast all while being uninterrupted! It was fan-freaking-tastic! Hooray for a good day!

Zoo-rific

PawPaw Gammaw are using vacation days for the rest of this week. Yesterday they went with me and all three boys to the zoo. Somehow all 6 of us and the monstrous stroller squeezed into the van. We left the house about 10:30 and I figured we'd better stop to get Evan something to eat, since he didn't have much for breakfast. I got him a chicken nugget Happy Meal with apples and a milk and decided I'd get myself a cheeseburger Happy Meal. I ate a few fries, and they actually messed up and gave us two...but we used them to keep babies quiet and occupied during the drive. Evan ate his entire meal, and then almost my whole cheeseburger. It was all for the best, since I really shouldn't have even ordered it.

We got the brood unpacked and all the crap on board the stroller and headed into the zoo. First we stopped to see the bears and Evan wasn't super impressed. As we were walking to the penguin exhibit the train went by and he got really excited - he wanted to ride Thomas. He seemed to enjoy watching the penguins swim underwater through the glass and liked that one was showing off for him and trying to splash him with water. Carter liked them as well. Brennan...well, he was a really good boy the whole time, but wasn't into anything besides people watching.

After exiting the penguin exhibit the train went by again and that sealed the deal. Evan had to ride NOW! So we waited in line with our tickets and we just missed fitting on the first train to pull in. Then the second train came and didn't even let anyone on, but just then they brought out another train from the garage - and it was blue. Perfect! Evan really did think it was Thomas! You'd think that as excited as he was that he'd enjoy the ride, right? Not really, he kept his eyes closed or his hands over his eyes the majority of the time.

We made our way around to see the apes, and the snakes and lizards, and then the monkeys. Then we headed over to Big Cat Country. Mom and I were worried about my dad and his diabetes, so we decided to stop and get him and Evan some ice cream. Evan wanted a popsicle and it was H U G E! And of course he got angry when it started melting and we had to take it away.

After that we checked out all the antelope type animals and the giraffes and eventually made our way over to the Children's Zoo. He played around a little inside and was a little hesitant to pet the guinea pigs and bunnies, but he managed to do so for a few seconds. We headed back out to the water fountain play area and tried to get him to play in the water, but he refused. Carter definitely seemed into it though, so we took his clothes off and let him splash around in his diaper. He had a blast.

It was getting late and we were all tired, so we decided to call it a day. All three kiddos were snoozing in their car seats before we even left the parking lot it seemed. It was a great trip and the babies' first time at the zoo. I was so impressed with all of the kids and how well they handled being out in the hot sun for so long.