The Non Diet.

Part of my journey is to get the body, the energy, and the endurance that I want, without going on a diet.

Surprisingly, this will be the easiest part of my journey. I typically eat pretty well...however, I am human and I like to eat pizza and birthday cake at a birthday party and occasionally have dessert or go out to eat and get a burger. But, fortunately (or unfortunately...not sure) our budget doesn't really allow for any fast food and rarely allows for a sit down meal at a restaurant- although we are going to make a better effort at getting in real date nights, so we'll have to get creative :) However, I do eat a lot of carbs.

My pre fitness diet looked something like this:

Coffee. Diet Coke. Pasta. Chicken. Diet Coke. Coffee. Greens. Pasta. Coffee. Diet Coke. Diet Coke. Diet Coke. Repeat.

You get the idea. I eat the same foods over and over and over, and I'm totally fine with it. I have kind of a repetitive personality, I think it must be a Gibson thing because my brother and I both do it. We will listen to songs on repeat until you can't take it anymore. But it will not phase us in the least. Anyway- the two things I'm trying to kick are the Diet Coke and the Coffee. For more reasons than one. The Diet Coke is going well. Have only had a couple drinks at special occasions but haven't purchased any for the home in over a month. I'm working on the coffee...

I'm adding more protein: Dairy, Eggs, Turkey, Granola, etc.
and controlling my portions. That is the key for me. I sometimes eat like a horse :)

I'm not DIETing, I'm adjusting my Diet.

The point of this is to be able to enjoy my food, not be stressed about it. I don't want to eat like a mouse, I want to eat like a 24 year old woman.

I've done the dieting, and it isn't for me anymore. Diets drain me, they make me feel fatigued, stressed, and OCD. Don't get me wrong, if you're looking for a quick (and temporary) fix then dieting is the way to go. But I'm not; I'm looking for long term life changes, and most importantly I want to feel good. I want to be able to keep up with my boys and be active so that they are active and healthy.

So here's to my Non Diet!

10lbs down today! It took awhile to get started but I think I've finally reached what I hope is going to be the stage where the pounds starts to actually come off. 12 more pounds of baby weight left, and then I'll enter my next phase of reaching my goal BMI.

Excited to be making progress, feeling motivated and accomplished today :)

S.E.E -- a weekend of Sign Language!

I spent this entire weekend at a workshop put on at Children's Hospital called S.E.E SkillShop.

S.E.E = Signing Exact English

Our ILY pens :) 

I took 2 years of ASL in High School, so it was very interesting to learn the differences between the two. Since ASL was my first signing language, I was a little skeptical at first, but S.E.E definitely won me over. It is such an amazing language for Hearing Impaired and Deaf kids to learn.

Our nephew, Nate (Tristan's BFF) has hearing loss and just got hearing aids this last summer so he is in a program that helps him get adjusted to the hearing aids and get started with the sign language, and they check his progress and all that on a weekly basis.

S.E.E is so awesome, I really can't tell you how amazing it is. The difference between ASL and S.E.E is that S.E.E is compatible with the hearing world, public schools, communities, etc. while ASL is an amazing language as well, it is an entirely different language. It is not English. When signing in ASL, the sentence structure is completely different; for example: " I went to the store" would be signed " Store I go to -- with a sign for in the past" (It's been awhile since I took ASL so don't judge too harshly if my structure is off--but you get the idea,right?) whereas, in S.E.E you literally sign " I went to the store". This type of signing allows kids to excel in public schools, be able to write an English paper, graduate high school, go to college, move out of their parents home and hold a job, ETC. The list go on. It opens up an entirely new world.

The ASL culture is right for some people and not for others. Since Nate is not deaf, he has hearing loss and wears hearing aids I think that S.E.E is such a great thing for him. He can have the best of both worlds, and I am so excited to be a part of this. I've been signing the ABC's to Tristan every day and I hope that both my boys will embrace this language as well. I think it will be great for them since Nate is such a big part of our lives to communicate with him on a level that he will feel comfortable and be exposed to signing at an early age. It really is a win win for all of us.

The SkillShop consisted of 3 days- Fri evening, Saturday, and Sunday. We missed Fri evening (hard to find someone to watch 6 kids) which turned out okay since we already knew the basics of signing (Alphabet, colors, the 5 W's,etc).  Saturday, Eric watch ALL SIX kids (Ages 6mo- 10 years). Did I mention my husband is amazing? He even made them pancakes for breakfast (Even though we specifically bought Lucky Charms for St. Patrick's Day to make it easy on him...hmm, oh well), all the kids were showered and dressed...oh, and alive. That's important.

It was just like being back in school...made me miss LEARNING. Never thought I'd say that....anyway, we learned so much this weekend-- probably a total of 200 words. We played lots of learning games (I get a little competitive when candy is the prize) and both JayC and I won a book out of the drawing! We ended the weekend with some songs signed to us by a group of kids that attend the Northwest School. Unfortunately, I was too busy trying not to cry that I didn't get a picture of those adorable kids but I got a picture of the instructors signing us another emotional song. Seriously, we mothers just become suckers. I never used to cry but these days, I'm turning into my mother ;)

Our new Budget friendly "Ride"

I'm finally getting around to updating about our new vehicle! If you remember, one of my goals for 2012 was to get rid of the Jeep. CHECK!

Eric loved the Jeep, he had a hard time letting it go...but it needed to happen. Unfortunately for our debt, the better solution was to keep the Jeep and pay it off and THEN get a new car but for our monthly budget we had to get rid of the Jeep ASAP and I must say, we did it just in time! Just in the last month with gas prices spiking out of nowhere, we've gone from $38 to fill up our new car to $54. A full tank of gas lasts on average 1 week 5 days, whereas in the Jeep we were at $70 back when gas prices were 3.50's and this was lasting about 5 days. YIKES! So glad I'm not paying $100 a week just to sit at home!

So here's our new vehicle. It's not the sexiest thing in the world, it doesn't have a lot of cool options, and you can definitely tell it's a cheapy kinda car (I notice this especially in opening and closing the doors-- much much lighter) and it definitely could use some more trunk space ( I can get a single stroller in there but thats about it), but it does the trick and for now it is exactly what our family needs.

We plan on tinting the windows because the boys both scream when the sun comes out, and quite frankly I dislike that you can see straight into the car to see everything we have. Oh yeah, and you can stare straight at my kids at stoplights...so creepy. This is my first non tinted windowed car. Oh and it's my first NON SUV/Truck...ever.

What it isn't though, is it's not my first manual. Did I mention it's a MANUAL? Yes, yes it is. Not exactly my favorite thing about the car but I'm okay with it. Haven't driven a manual on a daily basis since high school! (My first car was a 97 manual truck).

The other great thing is that Eric's sister got a new car and gave us her old car, so Eric is using that as his commuter car and I get the Kia all day every day. Finally, some freedom. It is really nice to not feel trapped or stuck at home all the time.

Progress!!

The Plague

It came on rather suddenly and while it was intense, it was short lived and for this... we are grateful.

We were headed out to Lynnwood (This is about an hour away from our new home) to pick up some things from the dealership we bought our car at when it started.

First, it was a simple puke which is unfortunately not out the ordinary for us. Tristan gets carsick quite often, so at first we thought it was just that. We were a bit disappointed because we had gone so long without him throwing up that we thought maybe he had outgrown it. Oh yeah, and he had just splattered vomit all over our new car.

We weren't really feeling too terrible for him since he's pretty used to this and all.

It wasn't until 10 minutes had passed and he threw up again. and again. and again. I think we counted a total of 10 or so by the time we got to the dealership. By this time, we had concluded that he had gotten The Plague.

The Plague is a stomach bug that his cousins had gotten just last weekend. We played with them on Friday and their illness started on Saturday. We thought for sure we'd get it, but by Wednesday we had written ourselves off of ever getting it. The worst part about The Plague is that it comes out of nowhere. One minute everything is fine and then BAM! You're outta commission for the next 24-72 hours.

 

^ This was them having a blast in the tunnel last Friday before Nate and Alaina (middle and right) got hit with The Plague.

So we finally pull off the freeway and get to the car dealership. Eric runs in while I clean Tristan off and wait outside with the babies. Once I finished, I realized that we had no change of clothes and his sweatshirt was covered in vomit and (of course) so was his tshirt. I wiped his tshirt down with baby wipes as best as I could do but then of course, his shirt was wet and it was pretty cold out. I had let him sit in the car for only a few minutes before he continued to throw up. I thought it'd be safest for my vehicle for us to wait outside.

Sporting my pink sweatshirt in an attempt to stay warm.

Lucky for us, it was a quick trip and we were on our way back. We came home, vomit-proofed our house with blankets and towels everywhere and set up camp in the living room with movies and puke buckets. Yay for Saturday Nights!

We thought it was bad that Tristan had thrown up over 15 times before we even went to bed, but we were woken up by Ryan at 3AM (who rarely wakes before 530) who was  now vomitting as well. This made us really nervous because Ryan chokes easily. So we lined our bedroom with blankets and towels and one pack n play on each side of the bed. The boys were exhausted from throwing up so once changed into dry clothes they fell back asleep immediately. (By the way, we were already at 2 loads of laundry- just of vomit clothes/towels) When I had gotten up to tend to Tristan, I had felt a bit queasy but I suppose everyone does when dealing with this amount of throw up. Well, I was wrong. I was the next victim of The Plague.

The story ends here, because what I did for the next 24 hours will not be posted on the internet. I did at least attempt to help Eric with holding a baby or two while he made bottles or changed the other one, but I was down for the count.

 Eric was great! Super Dad, in fact. He did laundry, he fed kids, he cleaned vomit, he changed kids soaked in their own diarrhea, he rocked our sad 6 month old (Happy 1/2 Birthday RyRy!) and most of all, he fed me and let me sleep, and didn't even complain. I think he was happy to be put to work so long as he didn't have what we did. 

Our day of Expression!

 

 

A little snippet of our Valentine's Day!

I know I'm a bit behind.

I also know I failed my photo challenge and I'm okay with that...

in my defense, I had a lot going on! 

Since, we missed the Stake Valentines Day Dance due to being stuck at the car dealership... (We ended up buying a car that night..separate post!) we kept our Day of Expression simple. I finally recieved my flowers. First EVER from Eric! Mr. Thompson got a Husky tie (Nice and class so he can wear it to church-- I will have to post pics of him wearing it soon) and both the boys got one book and one toy. We hung out at home and Mr. Thompson shared his cholates with me while the kids played with their new toys and then we went to Starbucks for some delicious Berry Coffee Cake (our fave) and Hot Chocolates. All in all, a good day spent with my loves.

More house pics...

This is kind of a sneak peak. I ordered new bedding and the Duvet Cover was on backorder, but the pillows came already. Now that they are here... I'm not sure I like them!!! They looked so great on the website...oy.Plus I prefer West Elm b/c they have those little strings inside the Duvet Cover to tie the comforter in...ours is always slipping around!

My baby. And a close up of the monogramming. 

Master Bathroom

This is our toilet....

His & Hers... FINALLY!!!!

I'm a little excited...

Ok, this is a continuation of my previous post.

I am really pumped about my new goals and lifestyle changes! I started feeling really down about myself and the way I looked and I wasn't happy with it, so I started making some changes and although I haven't seen immediate results, I can FEEL the results. I feel amazing! Not only do I love feeling like I did something good for myself and for my family, I LOVE getting to have some one on one time with myself, and also with my husband. Oh how I miss theeee! It's crazy how different it feels to go places in public with him without our kids. It makes me feel young again! Oh wait, I am. I must keep telling myself this. (Another reason I wanted to get active again--feeling old and frumpy makes it hard for me to look at a good day and see it as just that).

The past two years have been all about the kids. We have focused our energy on providing for, playing with, teaching, learning, etc etc. It finally hit us (us being the Mr. & I) that we spent far too much effort and energy on the kids and far too little on us. The key to life is balance. Oy. This will forever be a goal that we will have to work at but I'm okay with that. Just like all things, balance takes work :)

Like I said in my previous post, one of my main motivations was to be able to utilize the Kids Klub that they offer. I was feeling stuck and bored and it was starting to get to me. Having only one car was driving me nuts!But that was where we were at, and in order to achieve other goals I had to suck it up and make the best of it. Well, after spending 5 months trying to plan activities that we could do with the kids, both Eric and I were drained. This required us to get up and moving (MUCH harder for Eric than for me--Seriously, a huge sacrifice) by 9 am, sometimes earlier...oh yes, and out the door. For those that know us, we hope that you've accepted us for who we are and understand that yes, we will probably be late to everything for the next 20 years until we get this parenting thing down, but we want you to know-- we do try! Anyway...getting sidetracked. So we jam packed our schedule full of story time, kidz bounce, open swim, play dates, wtvr we could find literally to amuse our toddler and get him out of the house for at least an hour a day before we had to return to our cave and hide out for the remainder of the day. All of this had to be accomplished by about 1230. Our mornings were rushed and evenings were long and bare.

So now that we belong, and by belong I mean to a gym ;) it feels as though we are both being able to reach goals we want for ourselves and for our children at the same time. While we still have to squeeze in a workout in the morning at least we can do it at our pace and it's okay if we're late :) We get to spend roughly an hour and a half together each day without the children, and that is enough motivation for me right there. It is like date night every morning! Seriously, I hate to say this but I almost forgot that we used to have normal conversations, that didn't include who pooped or who's hungry or what bill needs to get paid..or worse... what Redbox should we get tonight...

We were so excited that Tristan adjusted well. He isn't exactly what one might call a social butterfly and it was starting to worry us so this is just great that he loves being there and has even made some friends. Whenever we pick them up, Tristan is playing with other kids or off climbing on the slide but as soon as he sees us he runs over to us. It's the best feeling ever! I feel rejuvenated and ready to take on whatever tantrum lies ahead when that little boy runs into my arms after some adult time. I can't get enough of it! Oh yeah, and the girls just love to flirt with my baby. He's a ham, of course and just eats it up. Best baby ever, never have to worry about him giving anyone any trouble...yet.  Anyway it's a win win for all of us.

Eric and I have made a compromise; we are each going to try a little bit of what the other one wants/likes to do to keep our exercises fresh. I really like to try new classes and Eric likes to play racquetball but doesn't have any friends that like to play out here. So naturally he recruited me :/ . He has been teaching me this week after our workout though and I'm starting to get the hang of it...the more I learn, the more fun it gets...and tomorrow, we are testing out a class called Boot Camp Conditioning. I'm excited for what's in store. I've been taking the Zumba classes all week in the evening, and so far I love them so it'll be nice to change up the pace.

Welp, there you have it.
Now that I have all this written out, I'm hoping that it will force me to keep accountability :)

My Journey to Fitness post IUD.

Despite my mothers best efforts to stuff me full of wheat bread, tofu, dried fruits, nuts, soy milk, etc etc... I have never been one for health and fitness.

As a teen, I was completely oblivious to nutrition and fitness and while I had wanted to lose weight, I really had no idea how to do it. I finally figured it out by lots of research and some serious motivation that came out of nowhere. I was able to lose some weight which I then gained back slowly over 2 years of err...college fun.

Anyway, I'm turning over a new leaf.

For the first time in my life, I belong to a gym. I have a gym membership.

Still trying to wrap my mind around it. I really can't believe I didn't do this sooner. I must say, it is FUN. I enjoy going there every day, and most of all I LOVE dropping my kids off at their Kids Klub. This was my motivating factor for joining LA Fitness. Eric had wanted to join awhile back and I told him 'Maybe'. I said, If you start jogging 5-6 times a week for a month, we can join. Well...he didn't. But neither did I. Here we were in February and not only had I not lost any more baby weight since Ryan was 6 weeks old... I had GAINED 10lbs and I hadn't even attempted to go for a simple walk.

First things first, I started assessing all these crazy things I had been going through. I felt that I had been eating well and while I hadn't done and cardio workouts or anything like that, I had been far more active and trying to make an effort to do so. I couldn't believe that I had gained weight. On top of that, I had been having terrible migraines (which I stupidly attributed to lack of caffeine) and I felt irritable and snappy all the time. I could barely get up and stay up. I found myself extremely tired all the time, even though I had two babies that were sleeping through the night. Every time we got in the car, I felt nauseas to the point where I would need to close my eyes and lean the seat back. There were a lot of other really not fun side effects that let me to look up the IUD and other womens experiences. While it seems that some women do completely fine with it, others do not. Unfortunately my body was not responding well to this IUD I had gotten after Ryan was born...6 weeks postpartum. The very week that I started gaining weight. So I got it out, there was about a week where I pretty much slept the whole week and now I feel so much better.

Shortly after, I decided I needed to get my butt in gear. I had a friend from HS that kept posting things on FB about specials they were having, so I contacted him, got a great deal, and went in the very day I signed up. I dropped my kids off at the Kids Klub and off I went. Here's the great thing about Kids Klub and LA Fitness and why this gym worked best for me...first, it's just $10/mo to drop your kids off for up to 4 hours, as many times a day as you want. Their hours are a little odd during the week (8am-noon and then again from 4pm-8pm) but it works great with our naptime! This means that I can come in the morning, workout for an hour or so...go home, put my kids down for a nap, feed them lunch, let them play at home and get whatever we need to get done, take them to story time, wtvr! and then, I can go back for an evening cardio class. And I can do this every day for $10/mo. I also can take as many classes per day as I want, workout all day every day, use the pool and sauna, take a shower, etc at no extra cost.

This post is turning very long and well, I need to get ready to head to the gym- Mr. Thompson and I are having date mornings there :) It's very nice! More to come.

Leaving you all with lots to look forward to-- more house pics, updates on my fitness plan, and I suppose you can expect some pics of my cuties somewhere in there!

A work in progress

Finally...some house pics! But do keep in mind that as always, my home is a work in progress...

We settled in much faster here than we did in the old house. I felt like we had JUST got the house the way we wanted it, of course...just in time to take it all down and move. But I suppose it helped us get more settled here.

The living room, the kitchen, and the bathrooms are really the only rooms that are complete... so here they are:

The living room. Via camera phone. View from Hallway. Tried to capture the general view..

Add caption

This still needs a little somethin somethin... trying to put my finger on the right thing. Will update if I figure it out!

Something went wrong with the upload but I am far too impatient to redo it. Sorry!

Oy. The bathroom pics are going to have to be a separate post! :)

Plus, I gotta keep the anticipation going, right?