Say Cheese

Well my little munchkin is starting to talk. He says most of the basics. He'll say, Mama, Dada, thank you, bath time, and my favorite, cheese. It's my favorite because of how he says it. He'll hold the "E" sound out for a long time and slur the "S". I'm sure you mom's know what I'm talking about. Cheese was his first word. You know you take a lot of pictures of your kids when that is their first word.

LA here we come

Don't be too jealous. It's not this LA.
It's this LA.We will be going to Lake Charles, LA. to check out a dental practice. The owner will fly us to Houston over Thanksgiving weekend and wants us to drive to Lake Charles, which is only 2 hours away, on Monday and Tuesday. My family is in Houston, so it works out perfectly. Brody is looking at a few other job opportunities, but I personally am rooting for this one to work out. We still have questions and concerns and are not certain this is the place for us, but we hope this trip will help with that. Brody also hasn't been offered the job yet, so it might not work out at all, but if anything we got a free trip to Houston and get to spend time with my family around Thanksgiving. Good luck Brody! I love you and am so proud of you!

Mystery solved

Believe it or not this picture helped Brody and me figure out the mystery as to why Baylor is afraid of almost every cartoon or movie ever made. Actually, Brody figured it out, I'm just trying to take some of his credit.
I'll sometimes turn on PBS kids or Disney and let Baylor watch harmless cartoons, but he often ends up yelling, "I don't like it. It's scary". I'm sure many of you moms have watched the cartoons on these channels, and you are well aware that they do not broadcast anything even close to being scary.
So, we were doing some activities in a preschool book when I came to this page. Baylor immediately said, "No, I don't want this page, it's too scary". I showed Brody, so Brody ask Baylor what was scary about it and Baylor said, "The chicken is too scary and not nice". So apparently because one of the chicken's eyebrows is crooked, and he has his hands on hips, he is scary. I admit the chicken does look like he is scowling, but seriously is that really that scary?
I went on thinking about all the cartoons Baylor has been afraid of and that really is the reason why. For example, Baylor is terrified of Handy Manny and Handy Manny has a tool that is always scowling and complaining and doesn't smile. I guess in Baylor's mind everyone should be happy and smiling all the time, and if not than they are scary.

Jamaica

Welcome home Brody. Brody recently returned from Jamaica, where he was gone for 11 days. I know jealous, huh? He did a dental service mission with some other students from Ohio State. He had an awesome experience and help a lot of people who otherwise would not have been able to receive dental care. We missed him like crazy (as you can tell from the sign). We are so glad to have him back home. Here are some highlights from his trip.

Here is Brody's 1st patient he worked on. This is the before and after shot.


They stayed on a nice Sandals Resort while in Jamaica. Here are some pictures from there.


Although they did stay on a resort that was nice, Jamaica is a very impoverished country. Brody worked in what most of us would call a shack. They used a generator so they had power for their dental tools. Every morning they had people lined up out the door trying to get in for dental treatment. Here are some pictures of where he was working, the preschool they went to where they helped teach the children about dental hygiene, and other locations around the town.

Loss The Weight

I was very hesitant to do this post. I don't know why, I just feel dorky posting pictures of myself and don't want people to think that I think I'm "all that and a bag of chips" because I lost 20+ lbs, because I don't. Then I thought it might be good for me to have these pictures posted because next time I have a baby and gain extra weight it will be a good reminder that had lost the weight before, and I can do it again...hopefully. Plus, it might help motivate someone else.

I was lucky after I had Baylor, because the baby weight was easy to get off. I thought it would be the same after I had Chase, but it wasn't. With Baylor I kept on about 15-20 lbs for a while, but once I stopped nursing at 6 months I dropped those extra pounds quickly. Chase was a totally different story. After I stopped nursing I still had an extra 20+ pounds, and that weight was not going anywhere. I knew I had to work to get it off so this is what I did.

I mainly just started running. I also go to a few fitness classes at my gym and sometimes do weights. I used to be a good runner in high school, and it was easy for me, but for some reason 2 children and almost 10 years later it's not as easy. It took time and I had to build up my endurance, but now I love to run and it really helped me get into better shape.

The next thing I did was stopped snacking at night. Brody and I had a bad habit of pigging out during the evenings. I usually try not to eat much after dinner now, and speaking of dinner, that is something else I changed. I didn't change anything I made I just changed how I ate. First, I tried not to eat while cooking. While I prepared dinner I would be eating it the entire time. I would pretty much have had a full course meal before we even started dinner, and that didn't stop me from eating a full dinner too. Now, I try not to do that and when we do eat I try to eat less of my main dish and more veggies instead. I guess the only other thing I did was just be aware of what I was eating. I was more aware of the calories I was taking in and tried to lessen them.

So that's mainly what I did. I feel great right now. I'm to the weight I was when I got married, which I never thought would happen. I've maintained this weight for a while, so my drivers licence is finally telling the truth about my weight. Hopefully I can keep it off. I just need to resist eating about 10 lbs of candy I have left over from Halloween.

Before...

After...