"60 Day Challenge"

So back in March or so, I got the Brazil Butt Lift DVD's and started working out and eating a little better. I did really well for about a month, then my friend wanted to try out the DVD's. while they weren't in my posession, I lost all motiviation :( I still kept off the few pounds I had lost, but I didn't lose anymore. I tried doing my Turbo Jam DVD's, but it just wasn't the same. I was doing everything on my own and my motivation had vanished.
Well, a few weeks ago, we had 61 days til we leave for California. So I asked Jay if he would try to eat healthier, eat less, and work out a little with me so I could have someone to keep me motivated. I was so happy that he agreed! So that night we went out and bought some groceries - ALL healthy food - no candy or bad snacks. If you know Jay, you know that's pretty crazy :) That first week we did eat our healthy things, but also we didn't take it too seriously - we did start going on family walks, which I've always wanted to do, but we never made the time for it. We didn't do that well that week though, I ate a lot of stuff that afterward I was bummed about. Our Sunday weigh in came around, and Jay had lost 5 pounds, but I had gained 2 oz's. I was bummed! It seriously kicked my butt into gear! That next week, I did really well on eating fewer calories, little snacks/meals every 2 or 3 hours. I worked out a lot more than I had that first week (Brazil Butt Lift, elliptical, walking) and it paid off - I was down 4 pounds! It may sound silly, but even those 4 pounds, I felt like my clothes fit a little looser, I was extatic! It kept up my motivation, and even though Jay isn't doing this as much as I am, it feels good that he's by my side :) I'm not cutting out all goodies or anything like that. Just like Aug 7 was Suzannes birthday, so we went to Leatherby's for dinner! I ate a chicken finger basket, then Jay and I shared ice cream, but between breakfast and lunch that day, I had only had about 400 calories, so I didn't mind going crazy for a night! Last week I lost another 4.5 pounds! So, in the last 2 weeks I have lost 8.5 pounds and it makes me so excited! My goal for our 60 days was to lose 10 pounds, I'm almost there and we're not even half way done with our 60 days. I'm going to keep going and see how much I can lose by the time we go! I feel so good, have more energy and I love going on walks with my family!

Update!

So I was thinking it had only been a few months since my last update on my girls, but it turns out it was clear back in October. My how time flies!!

Brikayla just celebrated her half birthday - can't believe she's 5 1/2! She will be starting school the end of this month which she is soo excited about! We've been going on family walks a lot lately and everytime we say it's time for a walk, she asks if we can walk to HER school. She's proud to call it that. She's going to be in all day kindergarten which I am excited about :) It will be great! She of course knows all her alphabet, and knows a lot of the sounds each letter makes as well. She can count to 100, has been doing small math equations and things like that, she is a little smarty!
She LOVED being in dance class! She was one of the best ones in her dance class when they had their summer recital. Not gonna lie, I cried when she was up there dancing. It was so awesome to see, I was so proud of her! During the month of July she also did princess dance camp which she loved as well!
Brikayla still loves to sing - she catches on really quickly to the words in a song. After a few times hearing it, she knows all the words. She is shy though, if you pay attention to her singing, so when you're listening, you can't look at her or she stops ;)
She and Rylee love to play house, sometimes one of them is a dog, and the other is the owner, most the time though, one is the mom and the other is the daughter. They even have names they use when they play - Brikayla is 'Sara' and Rylee is 'Nyla' and they really stick to it each time they play, it is quite hilarious!
Jay built the girls a playhouse in our back yard which they have just loved to have. They play house out there, bring out their pillow pets, they have pots/pans/food out there to cook meals etc. It is so much fun to have! My hubby is pretty talented!
Brikayla is still really outgoing, she makes friends everywhere and that is one thing I am excited for her to go to school for. I'm excited to see all the friends she makes, all the fun things she learns and the excitement she has for new things.
One thing she can't stop talking about is California! She is soo excited to go to Disneyland mostly, but she's excited for it all. Everyday she takes one piece of our Minnie countdown, she really can't wait! She's a little apprehensive though too, telling us she doesn't want to go on Tower of Terror or the Haunted Mansion, like she did last time, but I keep explaining to her that she's older now and it won't be so scary. We'll see how it goes when she goes on them again :)
I was watching a show the other day about this cute little girl Kenadi, who has Primordial Dwarfism (sp?). She is 7 years old, but is obviously much smaller than the average 7 year old. Well, Brikayla is 5.5 and taller than the average 7 year old! She is 46 inches tall! It's crazy. She wears size 13 or 1 shoes already. She's just like Jay!

Rylee is getting way too big too! She will be 3 next month! Crazy!! She asked for a Minnie Mouse birthday party this year, she is pretty much obsessed lately! We've started planning her party and I know it will be lots of fun!
She had tumbling class this summer and she had so much fun! She listened pretty well to the teacher, could do most everything that was asked of her and was so proud when her teacher told her she had big muscles. lol. She came right home and told Jay. :)
Rylee talks really well. She's pretty easy to understand for her age for the most part. There are a few things she doesn't pronounce quite right and it is just my most favorite thing! The best is "noo nacks" (fruit snacks). She also says "peep" instead of keep. Just like today. She was sitting at the table eating cereal and out of nowhere says "Mom, I want to peep my hair like this. I don't want a haircut, I just want to peep it long." I love it! Instead of picture, she says "shichure" which I love. She also uses a "sh" sound instead of her J's and a few other letters just like in "schichure" She calls our friends Josh and Erica "Shosh and America or Ayka".
Rylee's favorite thing to eat hands down are noo nacks.
Rylee loves to color, play outside, workout with me and play learning games on my kindle. She knows her alphabet, can count to 20 or more depending on the day and loves learning new things. It is so funny when Suzanne tries to say something is a different color and she corrects her. For example, awhile back Suzanne was saying that a pink balloon was blue, and Rylee would say, "no, it's pink!" and they went back and forth a few times with blue or pink, blue or pink and finally Rylee said "No, Grandma, it is pink, you need to learn your colors!" She is a feisty one! Definately little miss Sassy!
Rylee can't wait to go to Disneyland either, she is so excited about seeing Minnie! I'm a little nervous though, because when we were at Chick Fil A a month or so ago, the person in the cow costume was there and she FREAKED out hysterically - hopefully Minnie is a different story! ;) I'm hoping Rylee will grow four inches in the next month (ok, I know it's never going to happen) But I can hope right? haha. She definately takes after me in the height department! She's only 36 inches, and a lot of the bigger rides you have to be 40 inches to ride, maybe tall shoes and big hair will work?! :)
Rylee is much less outgoing, especially at first. She's really shy just like I am. Jay and I were talking about it the other day, and Brikayla really is just like him, and Rylee just like me. It's crazy how much they are total opposite but so much the same at the same time.
I love these girls so much. It is so fun watching them grow and develop. They are amazing little girls and they bring us so much happiness!!!
A few pictures from the last few months:

Mothers Day 2012

For Mothers Day Dinner, *which Jay and I celbrated the Sunday before Mothers Day* Jay said I could pick anywhere I wanted to eat, and I picked Dickeys BBQ Pit :) Lol a little out of the box, but it is soo good! So Jays parents watched the girls so Jay and I could ride the motorcycle over there and the food was of course delicious, especially since for some reason the girl only charged us for our sandwhiches and not everything else we ordered - anyway, it was a great night out :) I got home Saturday night to beautiful flowers and a card from Jay. I also got a great massage which was very nice! The plan for the next day was to visit Jays Mom, (my mom was in Vegas) and then head to my aunts house for our monthly family party at 5. Sunday morning the girls gave me the cute cards that they had made me. Those are my favorite! Rylee had woke up with a cough and fever so I felt very bad for her. Jays parents called and said they wanted to take us out for lunch, so we decided on Apollo Burger - another one of my favorites! When we got to Apollo Burger, Rylee started coughing really bad and ended up throwing up all over herself, and me. My arm, pants and sandals got hit. It wasn't pretty. I cared more that she wasn't feeling so good. Once she threw up though, she seemed to feel much better. :) Lunch was still delicious despite the mishap. After lunch, we headed back to Jays parents to hang out. When I went inside, Brikayla was climbing in the tree in their front yard like she always does, and a few minutes later I hear Brikayla start crying and saying owie. I hear Jay telling her that that's why she shouldn't be climbing in the tree. When I asked him what happened he said "knowing her, she broke her arm"...she had jumped up and grabbed a branch, then was walking her feet up the trunk of the tree almost so she was in a laying position, when she lost her grip and all her weight fell on her elbow. She didn't scream or anything, but she didn't stop crying/whining either. After five minutes or so of her not stopping, I took a closer look at it and noticed it was swelling. We decided we'd better take her in because she wouldn't move it either. We left Rylee with Jay's parents and took Kayla to instacare. After waiting forever, we were called back and after the doctor had her try to move her arm, with no success, they took her back for xrays. She sat on Jay's lap while they did and she was in a lot of pain. We went back to the room and a few minutes later, the doctor had us look at the xrays. She broke her actual elbow - the part where it gets bigger at the end of the bone. The nurse put a splint on it and gave her a sling and gave us instructions to call Primary Childrens the next day to set up a time to get her cast. (The next morning I called and they said we would wait until the following Wednesday - which was ten days later - so we're still waiting!)

We still ended up heading to my Aunt's house even though we were almost two hours late. I'm glad we did - it's always good to see my family. We also got to pick up Brikayla's flower girl dress she'll be wearing for my cousins wedding. All in all I got a few reminders of how much my girls need me ;) and how much I love being a mom through the good and the bad. I love making memories!

Random

A few months ago my mom got the girls a powerwheel moped type thing, they just love it!

We also got the trampoline set up that they got for Christmas. It has been a big hit and is a great motivator for them to keep their room clean! They aren't aloud to jump on the tramp unless their room is clean :)

Rylee fell and cut her lip open when she was running at my parents house. It was really bad and she has a little scar there now. She was a trooper though. She only cried for a second and then was up and trying to run around within minutes of it happening.

At the beginning of April, I found a great deal on the Pass Of All Passes - they were only 9.99 each - Ry was free and so was Ron. The POAP is a card that gets you into a lot of different places such as Trafalga, Seven Peaks water park, some of the Bees games, Some Rocky Mountain Raceways events, a lot of other sporting events throughout the valley etc. Well we decided to go to Trafalga and get our first use out of it! It really was a great deal because just that trip alone would have cost us over 80.00 probably, and we did it for 40.00 and it's still good until next April! The girls loved mini golf, Brikayla climed the rock wall twice - she did so good and go so high, unfortunately she had sandals on, so next time we go we are going to have her wear tennis shoes :) We all had dippn dots and of course they loved the carousel and the airplanes. I'm really looking forward to getting a lot of use out of those passes!

Diaper Free!

So proud of my little Roo! It hasn't even been a week since she I decided to try to get rid of the diapers, and she only had accidents for the first two days, other than that she has done just perfect! The only thing I can say is that now that she goes in the potty, she feels the need to go ALL the time - we had to run some errands today and every store we went to she had to go potty - some of the stores didn't have potty's so I had to have her hold it, which she did :) Same with car rides - she has done so well! If she says she has to go, I tell her to hold it and she's done great! She doesn't even ask for a treat from her potty treat jar all the time, only about half the time :) It makes me happy that she's potty trained, I was hoping to have it done before we go to California in September and she is definately ready!

Rylee vs Potty

So about a week or so ago, we were at Walmart and Brikayla had to go potty. We went into the bathroom and while Brikayla was going, Rylee said she needed to go. I decided I’d put her on there just to see. She went! A few days later, again at Walmart, she did the same thing. Saturday we were at Chick Fil A and she just said “I need to go potty” and she did. Sunday we were at Red Robin and she did the same thing, 15 minutes later she told me she was poopy so I took her into the bathroom, but she wasn’t. I asked her if she needed to go and she said yes, so I put her up there and she pooped in the potty. I was really proud of her J All the while though, any time we were at home she would just pee in her diaper. I would ask if she wanted to wear underwear and she would say no, that she liked her diapers. She said big girls wear diapers. Well, yesterday she did the same thing when we were at Walmart. I asked for some advice on Facebook last night and mostly everyone said to just get rid of the diapers and put her in underwear. Today we started at 9:00. I changed her (hopefully) last diaper. Then I put her in 1 of 3 pairs of training underwear we have. I asked her every so often if she needed to go. Every time she told me no. Then, accident number 1. I explained to her there were only 2 pair of training underwear left. I put the second pair on her and continued with what I was doing. Accident number 2. I put the last pair of training underwear on her and explained to her there were no more. Continued what I was doing. She came running into me and said “I’m peeing Mom.” She had gone a little in the underwear, I put her on the toilet and she finished on the toilet. I gave her one of her treats and told her good job, told her to try to tell me a little sooner so she wouldn’t pee in the underwear at all. At this point the other 2 pair were still in the washer. So, I got out her My Little Pony underwear that Grandma had bought her and told her she couldn’t pee or poop on the ponies because they would be sad. She was asking if she could have one of her potty treats, but I told her they were only for when she went on the toilet. A little while later she came running and said she had to pee. I put her up there and she went! About an hour and a half later, same thing happened! An hour later she went again! I hear running and “I need to go potty, I need to go potty!” She made it! She ended up going 3 more times! 1 time she dribbled a little in her underwear, but made it to the toilet. So proud of her. I'd say day one of Rylee vs Potty, Rylee is the winner :) Tomorrow morning Grandpa Sphar will be watching the girls, so I hope she does as good for him as she did for me!

Getting Healthy!

So over the years I have tried to start an exercise plan/diet plan etc. I would try to make it to the gym, I would try to completely cut every candy/cookie/fast food anything bad out of my diet. After two days I would feel the need to sneak some candy or a cookie and it would turn into more than just one. Or I would make an excuse to not make it to the gym, or not be able to find a babysitter. It just doesn't work for me to completely get rid of everything! Well last Sunday, March 25 while at my parents, I weighed myself (which I do every other Sunday when we go there for dinner because we don't have a scale at home, and I wasn't doing anything productive, I just wanted to make sure I was within my 1 to 2 pounds that I usually fluctuate.) Well, anyway - I was 3 pounds heavier than my highest "normal" weight. I had been really snacky the last two weeks so it made sense. That made me really uncomfortable, and gave me the willpower I needed to start being healthier - in general. I decided I wasn't going to do a "diet", I was just going to eat healthier. I would eat smaller portions more times a day - I would actually eat breakfast since I never really do. Also, I wasn't going to go to the gym - with two kids and a job, it's hard to find time to go to the gym when I actually could get a babysitter. So, I decided I was finally going to use my Turbo Jam DVDs, Jay bought an elliptical with extra money he had received and also bought me the Brazil Butt Lift DVDs which I had been wanting for awhile.
This time was different. Something inside me just really wanted to do this for me. I wasn't going to give up after 2 days like usual. I found something I could do - working out at home and just eating better was going to work for me :)
**I'm not claiming to be super healthy or know everything about working out and eating right ;) I'm doing what works for me.
I talked to a few friends who are pretty healthy people to get some ideas. I have started out my days with drinking 1 cup of "green juice" Naked makes one and also Bolthouse Farms makes one. It's really good for you and full of vitamins and stuff to boost you each morning. It's kind of expensive, but you're only drinking one cup a day, so it lasts awhile. Then for breakfast I usually have a bowl of fruit with either cottage cheese or yogurt on it and 1 or 2 pieces of wheat toast with peanut butter on it. Snacks I've been having yogurt or unsalted almonds, string cheese, fruit or veggies. Lunches have consisted mostly of lettuce wraps (which are surprisingly really good!) or salad. Dinner I just try to eat a homecooked meal, which aren't always the most healthy ever, but I just eat less than I normally would. If I'm not home, I'll just have a weight loss shake.
So I started with Turbo Jam on Monday March 26, when we got the elliptical I worked that in as well. I traded off on the workouts I did, and I worked out every day, some days it was a half hour, some days an hour. Sunday was my free day where I could eat whatever I wanted (in moderation) and I didn't work out, although I'm thinking I still want to work out on Sundays, just something low key. This Tuesday I got my Brazil Butt Lift DVD's in the mail, and although I had done the 40 minute cardio Turbo Jam, I figured I'd get started on the BBL too, and the next morning I felt it for sure ;) Yesterday was the ab and cardio workouts, and today I am feeling it! Today Tiff came over and did the Bum Bum and ab workouts with me and I was already so sore, it was hard to do, but we got through it!
I've lost 5 pounds in 11 days which makes me happy, and more determined to keep it going! I'm excited to look back at this post in 57 days and see where I'm at after finishing the 60 day BBL Challenge.
Again, I know I'm not eating as healthy as I could or anything, I'm just doing better and what works for me! :) This post is mostly just for me to look back at!