Long Day.

I'm sure we've all had them- the days where we're running around to get everything done or taken care of. For me, today was that day. I went to the dentist while friends watched Penny for our "Park days" inside today and then got in to see a doctor today about my knee. Penny took naps before going to "Park days" and after going to the doctors. I am so grateful for her naps and for friends to watch her while I get my mouth poked and cleaned. The dentist said everything is looking better and I set up my next appointment. The doctor got to hear my knee's life story. It was kind of intense to keep track of everything in a proper timeline. The good thing is that he heard me and I'm having an MRI done to see if there's any cartilage problem and then take it from there. I wasn't nervous to go on the doctor's scale (which is a BIG deal for me). I have lost almost 10 lbs!
We went to San Francisco last Saturday (which is partly what prompted me to go to the doctor this week) and got to have a grand time. We walked over 6 miles. It was a good start and made us realize how much we need to work on getting ready for our 5K. We're doing our nightly walk every other night at this point.  I thought Penny would love Pier 39 but by the time we got there, she had fallen asleep. We really enjoyed taking the CalTrain. It was so much better than trying to find a parking spot and then dealing with traffic. Penny slept well that night :) And as an added bonus, Penny didn't burn and I only got a little burn on my cheeks. We walked through Chinatown and stopped at Gharridelli chocolate. I think I know the route I want to take next time we go up.
Sunday was my cousin's husband's birthday so we went down for that. Unfortunately, Penelope got sick towards the end of dinner. We have our suspicions as to what caused this event. Plus, she bonked her head on the floor a couple of times. I have been smart and packing 2-3 outfits in the bag for her. I never want to take my chances with that and diapers when we know we're going to be out all day.
Tomorrow, I'm getting my pass for the Apple gym and then working out a schedule to make it happen. I may have found a friend to swap babysitting with. I hope this will help my progress to loose more weight. I'm slowly creeping back to the weight I was when Chris and I were dating.
Here's a fun question: to get bangs or not to get bangs? I had them when I was much younger but I have been tossing the idea around again in my head. If I do it and they don't turn out right, I have to wait for them to grow back as I would keep them pulled back. If I do and they look good, then I may be able to maintain them by myself. Oh the dilemmas of the evening. Plus, Chris doesn't really care.
Well, I need to get my computer to upload pics from San Fran to show you how much we enjoyed ourselves.

Cheerful video!

I hope this video makes you smile!

I had to lower the quality to get it to upload. Enjoy!

You've got to take the good with the bad...

Penelope has learned to climb up on the couches and our bed (when the door is open). It's so funny watching her struggle for a second to get a good grip before she tosses one leg over on top and then pulls up. But now I have to constantly watch her while she is on the couch because she likes walking on it. She's such a cutie. Also, she's learned to climb up on Daddy when he's on the floor:

Another taking good with bad is I have started mall walking to get some exercise in until I have the gym membership and someone to watch Penny for when I'd go. The great thing is I have lost two pounds in the last four days! I guess the bad is that I'm going with Penny but have no one else who wants to go with me. I've been feeling isolated lately which is why I'm getting out and walking. I sometimes feel like I don't have much of anyone, if anyone at all, to really turn to for support out here. I've been calling my mom to tell her how I'm progressing. I don't know if I'll be able to find anyone to watch Penny for an hour a couple times a week, even if I paid them. It's got me really down. I feel that I don't have anyone to talk to about this besides Chris so I need to vent it somewhere. I have a great game face when people talk to me though.
So, I got some Jessica Andrews from the library today! It's the one thing Chris and I will never agree on- country music. Listening to these CDs brought back so many memories of high school. Crazy, huh? I put the CDs in my purse before I went for my mall walk. SO the store alarms would go off when I would walk in or out of a store. It was funny at first but then a little annoying.

Well, I need to go do something to cheer up before I work on dinner.

Achieving goals!

For those who don't know, I have hit a very important goal of mine as of this morning. I have officially hit my pre-pregnancy weight. Now, that's not to say that my body is back to normal because I still have that baby pooch. It was an important goal to me because I fluctuate a lot with my weight, especially after having Penny. I haven't been this weight for a year. My next/new goal is the weight I was when Chris and I were dating (a little over 4 years ago we got married). I am watching more how much I eat, especially when there are days that I don't really get out. Also, I've noticed that if I'm just in the house most of the day I can do some mindless eating.

Today was looking like it was going to be one of those days of being in the house if I didn't make a choice. I decided that it was a bit chilly for Penny and I to go for a walk outside but there's a mall that's about 2 miles away that we could walk in for a while. Well, a while turned into an hour and a half! Thankfully, Penny fell asleep during that time and had no problems being moved from the stroller to the car seat to the crib when we got home. She was tired. I weighed myself this morning and I weighed xxx.8 and for fun I thought I'd weigh myself when I got home after this nice long walk in the mall. Well, I weighed in at xxx.4! Amazing! I'm anxious to see how it'll turn out tomorrow. I'm excited to be reaching these small goals that I'm setting for myself. It was so hard at first not to sabotage myself during the day by snacking too much. So the first few pounds were a little harder to drop.

Chris and I have decided that we'll be joining a gym. Not just any gym but an Apple gym for employees and their families. The upside is that it's dirt cheap with some pretty good equipment from what I hear (and you can plug your iPod or iPhone in and it'll upload your calorie burn with the Nike + app). We need to have their "assessment" done which is basically your blood pressure and heart rate I think. The downside to this is they don't have any childcare. I'm going to be asking around tomorrow if there are some moms at Church who want to do some babysitting swaps with me. All I'd really need is 30 mins to an hour a few times a week. I hope it all works out. Plus a friend of mine who is already using the Apple gym said if I find someone to watch Penny that we could do a cycling class together! How fun would that be?!

Penelope is no longer afraid of the grass! It was so funny to watch her run all the way to the edge of the cement patio and stop at the edge where the grass would start. I'm working on getting the video small enough to upload here. 

Well, I'll be back soon enough!

A Picture Says 1,000 Words.

I think this picture says it all. I decided today that I was going to get some tiny rubber bands for Penny's hair because I know it's long enough for a pigtail. I was struggling to figure out how to get her to sit still so I could pull her hair back and get it in the rubber band. Well, Elmo is the answer. I got this fun little app recommended by my sister of Elmo "calling" on the iPod. It was enough of a distraction for me to do her hair! I was SO happy. I knew I needed to take a picture so I didn't know how to get her to look up from the iPod. The answer: ducky. She LOVES her rubber ducky so all I had to do was say "Where's the ducky" and she looked up. No smile but she hasn't taken her hair down at least. I think if I show her the picture she might re-think what just happened to her.

Today, Penelope turns 14 months. So much has happened in those 14 months- going from a "failure to thrive" within weeks of being born to eating and drinking everything in sight is delightful. We just got her a swing for the backyard (the home we're renting already had a jungle gym type thing up with extra hooks for things to add on if desired). She loves her swing. The draw back is she doesn't want to cross the threshold between the patio and the grass. It's kind of funny to watch. She'll go to the edge and then hold her hands out and go "uh-uh". Penny can almost take our hands and walk from one to the other but it's taken a while to convince her it's safe.

Well, it's getting late. I'll try to post a video of her going from in the house to the yard next time :)

Good times!

Penelope is doing some pretty funny things lately. An example of that is this photo:

She has been plopping herself on pillows and getting comfortable. But not enough to actually take a nap. Penny is changing up her schedule as well. She is taking a later nap in the morning. She would usually wake up around 6 or 7am and by 9ish she would be ready for her first nap. Now, it's later (11/1130am). This is then resulting in later afternoon naps as well. She would typically go down for her afternoon nap around 2 or 3pm. Now, she's going down around 4pm. I think she's trying to cut out her third nap for good that would happen around 5pm before I go to get Chris from work. I'm hoping I can readjust to her napping so I can get back to my workout routine during the day.

As a preparation for the 5K this July, Chris and I have started taking walks in the evening. It's only .6 miles but we walk fast I guess. We can do it in about 11 minutes. Of course that includes talking and pushing a stroller with Penny in it. I did the math on it and it averages out to 3.2 mph that we're walking this in. I figure that's a great pace and a great starting point. If anyone knows of a GPS type app that calculates how far we walk and our speed for the overall walk that would be useful. We've heard of the Nike + GPS but I've also read some discouraging reviews on it as well (lower battery life and not recording over all speed).

I've started planning our meals this week to make life a little easier. Tonight is going to be taco/burrito night. Ground beef was on a MAJOR sale yesterday and I picked up some taco seasonings. Then, I got some home grown lettuce from a friend for lending her a movie. We have spinach tortillas for the burritos. I think it should be great fun tonight. I'm still working on the math to see if it'd be worth it to get a Costco membership. There were some things that looked like it could be a better deal but I'm still crunching the numbers.

We finally rearranged our living room furniture!! That also means we've pulled out our projector so we can watch movies on the wall again! We need to find some kind of shelving to go on the table so that it's away from Penny more (she's SO like her dad: into electronic things) and so we'd have a place for the blue ray player. I think an IKEA trip is on the horizon (or at least their website).

Another exciting thing is that I am starting to fit into pre-pregnancy jeans that have been mocking me in the closet. I still need to work on the muffin top (but I'm sure everyone feels that way one time or another). I feel like things are getting back on track (except for the naps).

I am finishing another book for our book club called "A Girl Named Zippy". Again, like the last book, I am listening to it instead of actually reading it. So far, it's a pretty good book. The same kind of feel as "Saving CeeCee Honeycutt" as far as it's telling the story of a child growing up. I'm enjoying it. I will let you know how it goes once I'm finished with it.

I'm enjoying my new maxi dress so much that I think I'm going to get one from Target.com (they have more colors).  I'm going to buy 2 different sizes as a just in case so I know what size to get after that.

So many good things happening!

New accomplishments!

Penny has been doing so many things this weekend. I think part of it is due to the fact that we moved the furniture around. Penny had learned to climb on the fireplace so we moved one of the couches to go in front of it. We feel like there's more room in the living room even though it's pretty much the same. We stopped by a friend's house to lend them a movie. They got a trampoline for Christmas and they said Penny could go on with them. Here's a cute picture of what her sitting with her hair all static:

She's so funny! Her hair was sticking up so bad :)  Tonight was one of the big accomplishments that I wanted for her so bad: She took my water bottle with a  straw and figured out how to suck the water threw. I think that's partly because earlier in the week, I bought sippy cups that make her suck instead of the ones that you apply pressure to like a bottle top. I am so excited for her! She is walking all over the place now! During the third hour of Church, she was walking around the room and all the women were watching and then later telling how big she's become. She has grown up so fast. This morning, she woke up at 330am. She didn't want any milk or juice. Finally, I put her back in her crib and decided she wanted her light on and she then she proceeded to open one of her books in her crib and read to herself. About 30 minutes later, she made her little cry that she was ready to be tucked in and go to sleep.

So, Chris and I think that Penny would be ready for a big girl bed. The concern is that she would know how to climb in and out which could be bad. That means she could climb out and wander around the house. It's a hard thing to know when to transition. My mom says she didn't really have an age where she moved kids from crib to bed because it was a matter of another baby had come and so the child needed to not be in the crib anymore.

This week, I am going to be trying to plan meals ahead better than I have since Penelope has come along. Before Penny was here, Chris and I would plan out what we wanted for dinner for the week and I would make a list of what I needed to get from the store. I don't know why he doesn't care anymore. But anyways, we put a list together of eighteen meals that we like and some we'd have more than once a week and then we go out about once a week for dinner. I'm going to go to Costco with a  friend to see if shopping there will help the grocery buying and budget. I love spreadsheets so doing this is fun to me. I guess it appeals to the part of me that worked for a while. The meals go from being simple like pasta with spaghetti sauce and hamburger helper to things that take a little more effort like enchiladas, lasagna, or beef stew. I am open to any dinner suggestions for three, even though Penny doesn't eat a lot. I want to make sure dinner include veggies more often. Sometimes we just forget.

Well, I've got to plan dinners for this week by myself (including dinner with missionaries over). Wish me luck!