Introducing Everleigh

One week ago today, Everleigh Kate Van Sciver made her grand entrance into this world!

 

Born at 4:13 PM on October 22, 2013, she weighed in at 9lbs, 10oz and was 21.5" long.

She had a full head of hair and a strong set of lungs. Ten fingers, ten toes, two eyes, two ears, a mouth and a nose! Perfect in every way! Josiah and I immediately realized how blessed we were to be chosen as her earthly parents.

 

Here she is today at 1 week old...

 

 

Cute as can be!

 

 

 

Over Due!

Here I sit, 1 week over my due date, as expected. Although I need to back up just a bit...

The original due date that my doctor gave me was October 24th. So in reality, I'm still 3 days away from that. However, it was determined at my appointment 2 weeks ago that all along my doctor had the wrong LMP listed in my charts, which shifted my due date by 10 days. Which means my actual due date was October 14th.

When I first found out I was pregnant from an HPT, I immediately went to babycenter.com to calculate what my due date would be, assuming that I didn't miscarry as I had the last 5 previous pregnancies. The date that I was given there was Oct. 14th. Before my initial doctor appointment, I was sent to have an ultrasound (I was about 12 weeks along..) to check for viability. I gave her the date of my last LMP and with the results of the ultrasound, she confirmed the Oct 14th due date. I was so happy!

Twelve weeks was the farthest I had made it since I was pregnant with Trenton! We were still nervous of course and we still waited to tell anyone.

During this time we had a lot going on. We had started looking for a new house in March, because the one we were currently renting had suddenly become too small, if we were to add another addition to our family. (We had been looking at buying a house a year earlier, and after several had fallen through that we had put offers on, we decided timing just wasn't right and at the time the house we were in was meeting our needs.)

We looked at several houses and in the end, we went with the 2nd one that we looked at, which happened to be in the same ward we were in, just a nicer side of the neighborhood. It needed some painting and there were a couple things we had to figure out as far as set up, but what really sold me on it was how much storage space it had. This house had been vacant for 7 months before we bought it. I'm pretty sure it went on the market just a few days/weeks after we had stopped looking the year earlier and it was waiting for us to be ready. It all went through so smoothly and quickly and we felt so good about it.

We also had baseball going on. Between Camden and Trenton we had 4 nights a week of practices then games. There were other things as well like mutual, concerts, packing to move, end of school year stuff, moving, plus I had Abigale 5 days a week. The summer was nice because the kids helped out with Abigale a lot, and then just after school was back in, I started watching Abigale's 2 month old brother. All of these things combined helped the time go by faster, however when I look back, it seems like forever ago that I first found out I was pregnant.

We first started telling people the news when I was about 15 weeks pregnant. Of course it was shortly after that that the due date was pushed back 10 days, but it was not that big of a deal.

At 19.5 weeks we had the ultrasound to determine the gender..

It's a girl!

 

 

We still did not have a name picked out. We had some possibilities for if it was a boy, but nothing that we had come up with for girls sounded right. That went on for quite a while.

 

 Early on in my pregnancy I worried a lot. I worried that there would be problems for the baby. I worried that there would be complications. I worried that something would happen to me and Josiah would be left to raise this sweet little girl all by himself. Eventually I got over all my fears, although because I was still pregnant, concerns crept up from time to time.

 

I always had in the back of my head the knowledge that babycenter had given me as well as my ultrasound, of a due date of Oct 14th. It made me wonder when I would actually deliver my baby. My babies all came late (with the exception of Alyssa who I was induced 2 weeks early with because of an insurance issue.) but I didn't know if I should be looking at early November as "late" or if October 24th would actually be late. At some point I finally decided that She would probably come on her own right around October 24th, w/out being induced.

 

So 2 weeks ago when it was determined that my doctor had the wrong date for my LMP and that the notes in the ultrasound confirmed what I told him, he was able to adjust my due date, which brought me some peace of mind. Still I knew that Oct 14th would come and go, but I had a better idea of when to expect her. Per usual, my 40 week appointment came and an induction date was set. Which brings us to today. I am scheduled to be induced tonight at 9pm. With my past inductions, I was always given a day but then was told to call the hospital that morning to see how their schedule was going, and I was always told they were running behind and that they'd call me later. Then the waiting game began. As much as I would rather be going in earlier in the day, I prefer knowing for sure what time I'm scheduled. We'll see what happens this evening when I get there though!

 

I have tried several different "self inducing" techniques over the last week, but nothing has worked, obviously.. Last night I even took some castor oil, which many people swear by. I did have some contractions through the first 1/2 of the night, but they went away by 1am. I wonder if they would have continued to progress if I had been up walking around. I am hopeful that they at least helped my cervix to dilate, which will in turn, help the induction process go more quickly. I am dreading being induced, because it takes soooo long! I am happy the day is here though, although I'm guessing she will have an Oct 22nd birthday.

 

This has been, by far, my easiest pregnancy. Josiah and I continued going to the gym, and in the last 4 months we have been going 4-6 days a week. We started out going 6, then backed down to 5 when we decided we liked have 2 days off. Then we tried to adjust the days we were going and ended up just going 4 days, but I think that was probably best at that point in my pregnancy. It has only been in the last month or so that we started that. I was just doing weights all along, because we only had 40-45 minutes each time, because we were going in the morning before kids had to get up, then we had to be home in time to make sure Rylie was out the door for her ride. In the last couple weeks though, I started walking on the treadmill, in hopes that I would go into labor on my own, eventually, but again, that didn't happen.

 

In all, at my last appointment at 40 weeks and 2 days, I had put on right around 33 lbs with this pregnancy. With each of the others I put on well over 40 lbs. The working out helped a lot, I am sure. It also helped w/typical pregnancy symptoms. I haven't experienced nearly as much pain as I remember from previous pregnancies. I also had very little (almost non-existent) morning sickness.

 

We finally decided on her name a couple weeks ago. It will be Everleigh Kate. Everleigh was a name that I came up with but Josiah did not like at all. Especially the spelling. I let it go for a while, but then I saw it written down in some pretty writing that Alyssa had done and I knew that had to be her name. Still Josiah wasn't going for it. We went back and forth with a bunch of other names and most of the time I just stopped thinking about it. I figured she would be born w/a name tag. But then there was a name that came up that we were considering, and now I can't even think of what that name was, but I was writing it down, trying to imagine her w/this name and again, Everleigh came back to me and I just could not get it out of my head. At some point Josiah finally wrote it in his own hand writing and it was then that he decided it would work. I was so happy to finally have a name picked out for our baby girl. I absolutely can not wait to meet our little Everleigh!

 

 

 

22 weeks

23 weeks

24 weeks

27 weeks

 

30 weeks

36 weeks

40 weeks

 

Until Everleigh is here...

 



Van Sciver Baby #5

I am 19 weeks and 3 days pregnant with our baby #5. We had put off telling anyone for a while because of my history of miscarrying in the last 5 years.

 I go in tomorrow for the big ultrasound, which should determine whether we will be having a girl or boy. Josiah is almost certain it will be a girl, although I believe it will be a boy. I don't have a preference and I don't believe Josiah does either. The girls both want a girl and the boys want a boy, of course. I think everyone will be happy to have a baby around though, no matter what it is.

Back in November I started watching a, now 16 month old, little girl and we have all loved having her here everyday during the week.  She is such a little sweetie.

I'm a little anxious...I am worried that we will be told that our baby has some sort of life threatening issues. I'm completely paranoid, I know, but it stems from a comment that was made several years ago when I first brought up wanting to have another one. It has haunted me ever since. I will undoubtedly love this baby no matter what, but truthfully, I just want it to be healthy.

We haven't decided on any names, other than ones that we will NOT be using. Josiah made a rule that we can't use any names that start with the letter of any of our names, which sadly removes a bunch of good names right off the top.

So anyway, that's just a brief update on where we are. :)

Stuff

Today was a busy day! We are in the process of buying a house, after renting (2 different houses) for the past 7.5 years. It is fairly stressful. All the waiting! Just tell us all ready if it's ours and when we can have it! We are 98% sure we will get it, but the banks are always crazy and I've heard people having to wait forever to actually be allowed to move. The offer was accepted, the appraisal has been done, we've signed lots of papers, we currently have a closing date of April 29th, but who knows!

Our realtor said she would mention something to the mortgage guy about possibly moving up the closing date, but we haven't heard back on that.

In the meantime, we have decided to start packing boxes. If we are allowed to move, we don't want to wait til the last minute to get stuff packed and if everything falls through, maybe we will just keep stuff packed that's been packed already, and live lightly for a while. We are anxious.

Josiah and I got up super early this morning (5:30...that's super early for a Saturday, right?) and headed out to the back yard to start de-weeding it. It was practically a jungle back there. One by one the kids slowly joined in and by 8:30 we had both the back and front yards done. It's always so nice and refreshing to look at the yard after it has been cleared of weeds. I highly enjoy seeing the difference. (Which secretly may be why I let them go so long in between pullings..) (That may or may not be the case with house work as well... 8-/ )

After weeds were pulled, we headed out to pick up some breakfast. We actually went through 3 drive thrus to satisfy everyone's taste buds this morning...not a typical thing, although we've been known to go through 2 for one meal on a few occasions. We ate our food as we took my car through a car wash, which it desperately needed after the storm that we had last weekend. (Of course I had just gotten it washed a couple days before that storm hit. Figures!)

I got several boxes packed up today. The problem we're facing is that we don't really have a lot of space to store the boxes in the meantime, so a couple of rooms in the house are like mazes of boxes.

My sister also came over so I could assist her with a project that she was working on. A necklace board. Since I had made one before, she figured I would be able to help her out, step by step. I really didn't mind, I just had lots that I needed to do. I was happy to help her though and can't wait to see her finished work.

The end of the school year is approaching rapidly again, which means lots of things are going on. Of course we have the boys in baseball again this year, which adds tremendously to the chaos! We have baseball 5 days a week! I'm just glad we don't have it on Saturdays this year like we did last year.

I think that's enough rambling for now...

Long Overdue

Back in June our oldest daughter Rylie, was diagnosed with Type 1 Diabetes. Early on, and several times since then, people have asked me "How did you know to take her in?" "What was happening that made you realize something was wrong?". I decided I should record it. Who knows, maybe it will be helpful for someone else.

First off, there were several things that in hindsight were actually symptoms but of course we did not learn this until later.

In late May she started complaining about her mouth being dry in the morning after waking up and she was positive she hadn't slept with her mouth open. I didn't know what to say other than, "I'm sorry, go get a drink of water, that should help." (A little more on the dry mouth in a bit)

She began drinking water like it was about to run out, which actually went back several weeks, but I didn't think anything of it. We live in Arizona and it starts getting pretty hot near the end of April/beginning of May so I figured that was the reason. I personally drink lots of water.

She was getting up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom which I only knew about because the kids' bathroom is right next to my bedroom and her closing the bathroom door always woke me up. Again, didn't think too much about this; I have to get up to use the restroom in the middle of the night from time to time. I wasn't keeping track of when she went to the bathroom any other time, so nothing seemed out of the ordinary to me.

She was slimming down (Rylie isn't fat but as a mom, you do notice these things...) which I just figured hormones were changing etc, she was 13 afterall...it was bound to happen, right?

Around the 1st of June, my younger daughter Alyssa had come down with some cold like symptoms. To avoid it getting too bad, I started applying some essential oils to her throat and the bottoms of her feet in the morning and at night. The symptoms subsided pretty quickly. A couple days later Rylie started showing the same symptoms but refused to let me apply the oils because of the smell. She won't take any medicine orally either, so all that was left for her to do was suffer through it.

As that week progressed the cold symptoms became worse. It mad me sad to see her suffering, but I knew there was nothing I could do without her being less stubborn.

That Wednesday evening Rylie and I were out at a youth activity for our church. We were practicing a skit for girls camp that was just a few weeks away. As I was watching Rylie perform, I really noticed just how slim she was getting. It also occurred to me that she had dark circles around her eyes and they appeared to be sunken in a bit. This concerned me a little bit more than just the typical cold symptoms, but I still assumed it was related. Thursday she slept almost the entire day. Friday I took the kids to a public pool with water slides which they had been dying to go to. Rylie stayed with me most of the time, except for when she decided she just wanted to go lay down on one of the chairs to rest.

Back to the dry mouth. At one point during these few days, I decided to google dry mouth to see if I could find any answers for her. Such a silly thing to look up, but it was actually very insightful. One of the links that it brought up was about type 1 Diabetes. I read through the list of symptoms and every single one was Rylie. I didn't want to believe it though, so I just told myself it was a coincidence and closed the page.

The next day I was out at lunch with my sister who happens to be a pediatric nurse. The concern about Diabetes was still lingering in my head and I was curious what my sister thought. I was very vague however. I mentioned her constant drinking of water and waking up with a dry mouth. My sister agreed those things were fairly normal for the time of year and when I asked if I should be concerned that it might be Diabetes she gave the answer I was hoping for. "Nah." (Keep in mind I didn't mention her weight loss or anything else, and she hadn't seen Rylie in several weeks so she had no clue... Terrible, I know, but I was in denial.)

The next day was Friday and again, Rylie slept most of the day. That evening I really started worrying and I told her that we should probably take her into the doctor so see what was going on. She begged for me to not take her.

Saturday morning my girls were supposed to play their violins in a small musical group for our stake baptisms. Rylie had no energy to go. I had her step on the scale that morning and I could not believe the #. I did not know her weight previously, but I knew about where it was and that she had obviously lost about 15-20 lbs in the past few weeks. This suddenly had me very concerned. Even though I could tell she had slimmed down, until she stood on the scale and that # appeared, it didn't hit me just how much she had. I decided right then that we would take her into Urgent Care that day.

I took Alyssa so she could be a part of the musical #. While I was there I sat next to my sister-in-law and started expressing my concerns about Rylie. After hearing some of the symptoms she suggested maybe it was Diabetes. (She has a cousin with type 1 Diabetes) She suggested having her mom come by our house after the musical # to check Rylie's blood sugar.

As soon as we got home I started googling to try and determine which would be better to take her to, Urgent Care or the ER. I knew Urgent Care wouldn't give us the kind of answers we were looking for. While I was sitting at my computer there was a knock on the door. It was my sil's mom. She checked Rylie's blood sugar. It was over 500. Normal is between 80 & 120. She told us we needed to take her to the Children's hospital immediately. 

We had a quick family prayer and then we called a friend from our ward and asked if we could stop by so he could help Josiah give Rylie a Priesthood Blessing.

When we arrived at the hospital, we told them about her blood sugar and they got her into a room right away. After getting some insulin into her system they admitted her and eventually sent her up to a room in the picu where she stayed over night. The next afternoon they moved her into a room in regular pediatrics where she stayed one more night. Over those couple of days we learned sooo much. Mostly that Rylie would have to be on insulin for the rest of her life.

That weekend was very mentally and emotionally draining. We were blessed to have discovered so early on that there was something wrong.

At first, every. single. meal. was a whole process. We literally weighed everything so we would know exactly how many carbs she was eating so that she could know how much insulin to take. A lot of stuff we had to look up in a book (The Calorie King, Calorie, Fat & Carb counter book...life saver!) that the hospital sent us home with.

Rylie felt very overwhelmed. She didn't think she could eat anything. I think mostly for the fear of having to give herself a shot. (In the beginning it was really Josiah and I giving the shots...she has since gotten used to doing them herself.)

Eventually, as with most everything, it just all became part of the normal. We pretty much just eyeball everything now.

Her bloodsugar levels have been pretty well controlled. The endocronologist used words like "nirvana" and "stellar" to describe her. She is still in what is called the "Honeymoon" phase and we understand that it could end at anytime. It makes me a little nervous, not knowing when it will happen, but for now we are happy that the Dr. is happy.

Disneyland Countdown

The kids (as well as Josiah and I) are super excited and can hardly wait for our trip to Disneyland next month!! This will be our 3rd year in a row going in February and we will probably continue going each year for the rest of our lives, so I decided that it calls for a countdown!

I am not a very creative person. Show me something and I can copy it, no problem. So, to google I went, in search of someone else's creative idea to borrow. I was surprised to find that there aren't many Disneyland countdowns out there, other than something you might throw away after one time use. That was not going to work for me! I did find one idea that I liked but I didn't know how to make it work, because I don't have a cricut. I liked the basic idea of it though, and knew I could use that and hopefully figure out the rest.

After spending several hours at a few different craft stores, and a lot of back and forth with ideas, here's what we finally came up with...



We spray painted a cookie sheet yellow and mod podged Disney themed/colored paper to the front for the background. The #'s we printed using Waltograph font which you can download for free from the internet. I had a bunch of bottle caps left over from a previous project so we spray painted them red and black to go along w/our color scheme. We then found a bunch of pictures either from Disneyland or that remind us of our past trips to California and pasted them into Word. We decreased the size of the pictures so they were small enough to cut w/a 1" circle punch. We put clear epoxy stickers over the tops of them and then glued them into the bottle caps. We then glued magnets to the backs of the bottle caps and those will be used to place on the #'s as we countdown our days to the trip.

Now, if there could be less arguing over who gets to start the countdown!

Midway through November...

I found the courage (or whatever it was that I needed to find) to call and make the appointment to have my wisdom teeth removed. I called on a Thursday and scheduled it for the following Monday (which happened to be the day before my anniversary and 2 days before my birthday...not the best time to schedule it, if you still hope to enjoy those two days!) so I had the entire weekend to freak out over it!

Josiah had a presentation he was preparing for, so he wasn't able to go with me. My mom was able to take the day off from work though, so she was my designated driver.

The appointment was scheduled for 9am which was good, because I had to fast the 8 hours prior to. I informed them of my concerns (being put under and my jaw possibly locking during the procedure) but they took good care of me! The anesthesia they gave me wasn't as strong of a sedative...they referred to it as a "twilight" sedation. I figured I'd still be conscious, just very relaxed. I remember them starting on the first tooth and the next thing I remember was the assistant telling me she was setting up my chair and that I should sit for a moment before walking to the wheelchair that she had ready for me. Crazy! But in hindsight, I'm glad that I wasn't alert during the whole procedure. I honestly don't even know how long it took.

They only removed three. My dentist wanted to keep my bottom left. I guess it's extra pretty, or something. In talking to several people who have had theirs removed, I feel like I got pretty lucky. I only had a tiny amount of swelling and had no problems talking/opening my mouth. I do still have a weird spasm-y type pain on the right side of my head from time to time, near my temple and/or behind my ear, which I've read it's normal? I'm hoping... Anyway, I'm glad it's behind me and the healing process seems to be going well.

Now to move on to planning for Thanksgiving!

Life is passing by...

October is almost over! AaaahhH! I'm not sure where the time has gone! And since I've become so bad about blogging it all, one might think that we've done absolutely nothing during that time! Which is 1/2 true. We've done dentist appointments and concerts and church callings and the gym and rearranged some rooms and cleaned out some junk from said rooms and plenty of other stuff I'm sure!

I am currently in need of having my wisdom teeth pulled. I've been putting it off for a couple reasons: reason #1) I am having some anxiety about it. (them putting me under, the possibility of my jaw locking while in the middle of the procedure and never being able to close my mouth again! and what if I never wake up from them putting me under? I guess then I wouldn't have to worry about if my mouth will close or not...) reason #2) Money. I wish it could be free! The problem I'm facing now though, is there is some pain involved. Never fun! Fortunately I have some Tylenol w/codeine left over from a previous visit to the dentist...

Wednesday night is the Young Women's Evening of Excellence. Rylie and I are trying to work on a project together for it. It's hard to put 10 hours into something that I haven't made a priority, when I've got a million other things that I'm trying to do. Even though most of those million other things aren't priorities either...I think it's harder to do something when there's a deadline. I'm better working under pressure but this project is going to require more time than what I've got. Ugh! I feel like I'm failing sometimes!

August 10, 2011

Rylie started jr high today. She is attending Desert Ridge Jr High and I can't believe she is growing up so fast!! In 2 years she will be in HS! AaaaaahhhhhhH!!

Last night was "Back to school" night for Desert Ridge. She got to find where all of her classes are and meet all of her teachers. Hopefully that helps to ease some of the nerves for today.

I felt totally unprepared for today. I picked up a few basic BTS supplies over the last couple of weeks but never really go all out. It's toooooo expensive!! I typically wait til Meet the Teacher night and ask if there is anything specifically that they need and make sure the kids have those things. This year I think each of the 3 younger kids' teachers said..."Do you have a copy of the supplies list?" I hate that they make those lists! I have bought a majority of that stuff in the past and 1/4 to 1/2 of it gets sent back home unused at the end of the school year. Last year Camden brought a few things back home just a couple days in that he wasn't going to need. I didn't even get a list for Rylie until last night and of course the things she needed were basically sold out. Next year I'm going to go in early and buy up a ton of stuff. Then I will put together kits of what each grade "needs" and sell them for a small profit...It will save some parents' time and headache. (Not really going to do that, but wouldn't that be ideal??)

Alyssa left for school this morning feeling fairly sad, knowing that her big sister is not going to be at the same school. Alyssa has always been very independant but she definitely looks up to and loves Rylie. There is such a sweet bond between sisters!

I'm curious to see how much Camden grows this year. I bought him a pair of new school shoes a couple weeks ago which seemed to fit fine when we got them. He went to put them on for meet the teacher night and they were too tight. He's got big clodhopper feet! He somehow ended up with the worst part of each of mine and Josiah's feet traits. He got big feet from me which alone is bad enough, but then the bone on the outside of each of his feet sticks out quite a bit which he gets from Josiah. Anyway, he is just about taller than Alyssa. He's going to be expensive to dress over the next few years!

Trenton started 2nd grade today. My baby! How can he already be in 2nd grade?! He was complaining a little bit this morning about his stomache hurting. I'm not sure if it was just nerves or if he really wasn't feeling good. I have found in the past when he complains about his stomache...it usually ends with him leaning over the toilet. He went to school. Hopefully I don't get a call from the nurse!

Now I get to readjust to being alone at home everyday again. Probably won't be too hard. I just wish I would spend more of that time being productive. I got all caught up on laundry in the last couple weeks. My goal is to stay caught up on it. Really caught up is not the right word. I got all the clean laundry hung/folded and put away. That is quite an accomplishment for me. So really my goal is to keep laundry off my bedroom floor. There are also many areas in the house that I want to get organized. That is another goal. And blogging. I want to be a better blogger. Mostly for the sake of having my family's history kept. If I get readers in the process, so be it.

My Weightloss Journey..

This morning I went running (mixed with walking) as I do about 4 days a week. Only today I went the furthest I've ever gone. When I came home, I was so proud of myself and wanted the world to know and I considered posting about it on Facebook. The problem? I don't really want to post it on there because when I post on FB I feel like it's not for me, but for others. I want to post about it for ME! It didn't even cross my mind to put it on my blog where only a few people come and look. Until I was just on my sil's blog reading a guest post about a weightloss journey. It is very inspiring. Then it hit me, why not post my "journey" here on my blog??

So for starters, Josiah and I decided about 1/2 way through January that we wanted to shed a few pounds before taking our trip to Disneyland. He had just finished off the last of our supply of Dr. Pepper the day before and we committed to not buy anymore. Another thing we had committed to do (or NOT do in this case) was to stop eating fast food several nights a week, especially french fries...something that I love!

I was going to start fixing grilled chicken every night for dinner and for lunch we were going to eat turkey sandwiches on 100% whole wheat bread. We didn't cut out mayo completely, but instead of making sure the entire piece of bread was nice and lathered up with it, I would put just enough to moisten it and it didn't even reach the edges. For breakfast we would eat either low fat yogurt or healthy cereal or something of the like.

Aside from just eating better, Josiah and I started walking between 1.5 and 2 mi in the evenings, and I was running about 4 mornings a week. We also used the Kinect as a form of working out and would do that a couple days a week for about an hour. We were surprised to find how much of a workout you actually get from that!

We both had a realistic goal in mind for how much weight we wanted to lose by the day we were scheduled to leave on our trip. For me it was 9 pounds. I will admit the first 6 pounds came off pretty quickly and I knew it was most likely water weight. (I retain so much water when I consume Dr. Pepper! Which is why I've tried so many times to quit drinking it! It has been so much easier since Josiah has been staying away from it too!)

I've always read that you should only weigh yourself once a week, typically because it can be frustrating to see when you're up a pound from the day before. We decided we were going to go ahead and weigh ourselves daily anyway but only really look at the weekly weight for how well we did that week. But I've found that seeing my weight each day gives me more motivation to keep going. Even if my weight is down from the day before, I know that if I go running, it will be even less! But if my weight is up a pound or 2, I know I need to do better today than I did yesterday. It's all about control.

We did really well with how we ate right up to the minute we left for California. We rewarded ourselves a couple times with some Chipotle or something similar, but ate smaller portions and didn't get the Dr. Pepper! (From the fountain is my favorite form so it is especially hard, if we're out, to not get one.)

On the morning we left we weighed ourselves one last time. My total weightloss at that point was 12 pounds! 12! That's 3 lbs more than my goal!

We knew that while we were in California (especially while at Disneyland) that we weren't going to be eating as well as we had been the previous 4 weeks. I personally was a little nervous about that. We had plans to eat ice cream and chocolate covered strawberries, as well as fattening food at the restaurants around Disneyland and fast food for dinner, including french fries! Disneyland serves coke products but for whatever reason they don't have Dr. Pepper, so there was no temptation there, and we were awesome about just drinking water the rest of the time.

Josiah was really hopeful that all the walking that we were doing in the park each day would help to balance out all the crap we were eating. It was honestly weird to not weigh ourselves each morning and we felt like we should have brought the scale!

Needless to say, when we returned home, we had each put a few lbs back on. The worst part was we had brought home quite a bit of junk food from Disneyland, not to mention the Girl Scout cookies that we'd bought from our neighbor had come in the day before we left to California which didn't get eaten on the trip but were then still here waiting to be eaten. We had come home on Saturday and Monday was a holiday. We attempted to eat better but it was not happening right away with all that junk food sitting around! We decided we were still on vacation since Josiah had taken Monday off and the kids didn't have school so we would focus on jumping back on board Tuesday.

That was this past Tuesday and we've done really well. (Excluding Tuesday night when I tried to grill chicken but the grill decided it was too full of greasy drippings and tried to start a fire so we went out to Texas Roadhouse for dinner that night but only got 6 oz steaks and did NOT ask for more bread when they asked if we needed more and we drank water! /end run-on sentence...) I am happy to report that I have been able to take off every single pound that I brought back with me from California!

My walk/run this morning was 5.5 miles! The furthest I've ever pushed myself. It felt good knowing that I did it. I use RunKeeper to track my routes. It's an awesome website!

I am excited to continue on with losing weight. My next goal is to be down another 13 lbs by the summer. I think it's totally doable and I can't wait to get there!