I Feel Bad

Isn't this the cutest smile. Look at those double dimples.

I feel so bad for not posting as much as I would like. We are getting ready to move next week and things are a bit crazy here at home. I have so much organizing and packing to do. Not to mention chasing after my super mover, baby Brantley who is just 5 1/2 months, but can be somewhere different in a blink of an eye.

We are blessed. So much has gone on with the house situation. I just have to say we are being looked after and for that I am grateful. I am reminded of a song with this sentence "We are his hands, his hands of heaven on earth." I have seen a ton of heavenly hands on earth lately and a lot of times they are helping our family.

My belly is pudging out a little. I am sure it is the stress we are under. So I have to say the getting fit is on the back burner until we are settled into our new home. I am eating much better and with all of the cleaning and packing I am sure I am burning a ton of calories.

I have gotten off track...

Healthy Update:

Between worrying and searching for ways to get the last bit of money we need to close on our house I haven’t done as well as I should on getting healthy.

I have added milled flaxseed to my breakfast and anything else I can think of. I add it to oatmeal, Great Grains by Post and my yogurt. I love the flavor and I can feel the benefits. Does that sound weird? Well it is true. I have also added a salad a day for one meal. I sprinkle it with almond slices, egg slices and chicken. Boy it is getting to be a staple. I have even added some weight watchers snacks. I love chocolate and this way I can have some and not feel too bad. Working out has gone out the window this week. I have missed my torture session both Tuesday and Thursday and I think my thighs are mad at me for missing it.

Life:

Last Saturday I checked the mail and guess what I found? I found a big envelope for me. Yea!!! I was so happy. My longest friend Jennifer from Alaska sent me an apron I won and another wonderful apron for crafting. I need to take pictures, but haven’t been worrying about my looks to much while I get the house ready to move. One day I will add pictures of these wonderful gifts. I never get mail and I am sure that is from never sending any and it is something I am working on.

I am getting very excited about moving. I need our own home. Our house (soon to be ours) is so cute, whenever I go look at it I feel like I have come home. Our family continues to pray that this will work out. We are scheduled to close November 7th. I have to say the ideas are flowing and I can’t wait to make that house a home.

For Family Home Evening this Monday we did a lesson on unity. For an activity we cleaned the garage. You know what I mean. We made sure the Christmas decorations were in the Christmas bins and that each boy put their stuff in their bins. It was so much fun. I loved the time we worked together to organize our home.

Have you ever heard the phrase “Don’t mess with Momma Bear”? My eight year old is behind in his reading. He has been diagnosed with a learning problem with letters. However that boy is brilliant in math. Well he is in a special class that frequently (too frequently in my book) combines with a regular class. Now they want a book report and project. Eric and I feel like he shouldn't do this in the regular class. I mean how cool would it be to do a report on “The Cat in the Hat” to kids that are doing theirs on the magic tree house or something? Boy I wrote his teacher a cute note and I am stressing to see what will become of this. Ugh I am so frustrated about this.

Now that I have caught you up on "What's going on here" I'd better go.

He can Roll!!!

At 5 months 1 day I missed it with the camera, then today at 5 months 2 days I caught it. Yea!!! Here I thought he would never roll because of his size. I am so proud.

You only need to watch the first few seconds. The rest was waiting to see if he would roll back to his back. He never did this time.

See video at the bottom of this page.

Stock pot and more

Today I decided to break in my WONDERFUL new stock pot that Bonnie gave me for my birthday. I had a craving for homemade Chicken and Dumplings. Being from the south I really wanted some southern comfort food. So I searched the internet for the perfect recipe since I have never made this from scratch. I found this Paula Dean recipe and knew it would be wonderful. (Kathy, sorry please don’t tell Mike)

My sons and I ran to Wal-Mart to get the ingredients that we didn’t have, including a whole chicken so I could get started. It was more fun then you could ever understand to fit a whole chicken in a pot with a bunch of other ingredients. It tasted so good. Here I am trying to loose weight and I run out after working out to make southern comfort food.

Speaking of getting fit. I am been doing fairly well in eating right. Adding more fruits and vegetables to my diet except for my weakness for ice cream. I ran out last night get to get a cheap Sunday and scarf it down. Boy did it hit the spot. Of course I pretty much jumped into bed so it went straight to my thighs again. My work out instructor lived up to her drill sergent reputation today. I was having a hard time keeping up in the warm up. Andrew came with me to watch and he came home and told his brothers how hard it all looked. I love it. I don’t have much coordination though so I don’t really try on some steps.

If I make this public, maybe I will work harder.

Did that catch your attention? I have mentioned it before and I will mention it again. I LOVE sparkpeople.com. Since I want to get back to my goal weight (I was almost there last May) I am working really hard to be healthy. I even joined a Biggest Looser challenge that starts today and this is the blog I posted. (It was a bad first day of a challange)

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Today I was to go work out with my friends. It isn't an easy work out. It is a lot like a boot camp and I love how many calories I burn. However, I may have busted a bone in my foot. It hurts so bad.

The two really stinky things are:
1. I have no insurance so I can't get it checked out.
2. My body is going to turn to mush.

I really need this work out twice a week. The exercise I did get today was lugging around my 22 lb baby, walking up and down the stairs and doing laundry. At least I wasn't sitting around.

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I will continue to post my progress here so I can have your encouragement. Thanks!

What we are doing to achieve our goal...

To start off we are doing much fasting and prayer. This is such a trial of faith for me.

Eric is looking to sell some of his territory of Southwesterncedaroil.com. It is his all natural pest control company. Can you believe he is the only one in our area selling all natural? I love the smell. He is also attending more marketing groups to gain a better business rapport and cliental. Boy is he stressed. He is also looking into business grants to help him out.

I am searching for any housing helps and calling other lenders to see what they have for the self employed. I am so glad I know as much as I do about mortgages and loans. I really appreciate the education my job has given me. We don’t qualify for the FHA MFA as Love is self employed and this is the most frustrating thing ever.

Now on to other news:

I may have busted up a bone in my foot, but I don’t have insurance right now (the state and I are working on this) to find out for sure. It starting hurting in the middle of the night and I honestly don’t remember what I could have done to hurt it so bad. Walking is a pain. Oh and I missed my torture work out session. I really was looking forward to it. I am getting a light bruise; mostly it just hurts to apply any pressure on it. Eric thinks I was so exhausted I didn’t think about it when I hurt myself. I was very tired. I have a little cold and felt like I was fighting the flu over the weekend. I can’t take any cold medicine since I feed Brantley. So now is the waiting game to see how my foot heals.

I forgot to tell you about Christian’s concert last Thursday, it was wonderful. He is so talented. He plays the sax and does such a good job at it. The conductor mentioned that his band was mostly 9th graders with only a few really talented 8th graders. The music was amazing. I love to attend concerts.

Random thoughts

Eric and I have felt for a while now that we need to move out of the house we are renting into a home that is ours. So for about a year now we have been looking for a home. We’ve looked at fixer uppers even though with Eric’s job and church calling he wouldn’t have much time to fix up a home. We have looked near and we have looked far. Well not really far just out of school and church boundaries. We have made offers on too many homes to count only to have them sold out from beneath us. We have thought and prayed and wondered what we should do next.

Now we have found a home. A nice small, beautiful and well maintained home and we won the bidding war. It could be ours. We just need a million bucks to get into it. OK not a million dollars, just more then we have since the loan economy keeps changing the loan we were approved for is no longer available. The FHA MFA won’t work for us since Eric has only been self employed for 1.5 years we don’t qualify. We have about 2.5 weeks to figure out what we are going to do.

What a trial we are facing. Our family is having a test of Faith. Even if nothing comes of this home we know we are doing what the Lord wants us to do. I wanted you all to know why we have sort of reverted into our shells. Please don’t tell everyone that the E family is moving. We have no idea what will come of this. We are just doing the best we can.

Now on to other news: Tomorrow I go in for my next torture session. OK, so it is just a work out that last week took 4 days to recover from. I have to admit, I enjoyed it. I love to be healthy.

Well I guess that is it for now. Bye.

No Pain. No Gain..

For months and months my family and friends have said “Elizabeth you have to come work out with us.” & “Join us at the stake center, you will love it.”

Yesterday being my birthday, realizing I am not getting any younger I went. Let me tell you our instructor is a wonderful drill sergeant. I attempted to keep up. With most of it I did fairly well. The walking lunges killed me adding in knee rises and/or kicks and I was feeling the burn. Ouch. I hurt so much. I couldn’t even coordinate myself to do too many of the lunges. So I was afraid that I wouldn't feel the effects of my hour long work out. Boy, I worried for nothing. I am in so much pain. Coming down the stairs is the worst. No maybe sitting is the worst. My whole body aches.

The sad thing is there is not another workout until next Tuesday. So I am sure my body will turn to mush before it receives its next shock treatment.

Speaking of yesterday it was wonderful. Before my boys left for school they all came to tell me happy birthday. Even if I was asleep they let me know they loved me. My Father called. We don’t speak too often, but when we have a nice conversation like yesterday morning I love it. I wish we were closer. My Mother called later in the day and my Brother JR too. I love hearing from my family. I miss them all so much. None of them have met baby B yet and that makes me sad.

Eric and I had to run an errand in the evening and I came home to fresh blueberry muffins made by C. I didn’t feel like having one last night, but it was a wonderful breakfast this morning.

I was very sore and even had a huge headache by the evening that Eric stayed home from his church duties to help me with the two youngest so I could get some rest. That was a nice gift in and of it’s self.

Thank you Everyone for the notes and calls. I appreciate you all.