Yo-no

When dieting its important to get the right balance of everything, fruits, proteins, veggies, some non fat dairy, yada yada...give me some chocolate! Sigh, really I need some chocolate right now, I hate dieting. So for now let's call it a lifestyle change. I am currently making a lifestyle change and consciously trying to change my horrible eating habits. I've gotten into a slump of eating things from a box and not things from the ground. It's cheaper that way, plain and simple. So while I'm still feeding my kids half box and half natural things I'm doing better myself by not eating more than 20% or so in processes foods. It's working, I did great last week but binged on my "free day" and have to start all over. Seriously, don't so this, it's discouraging and really sucks.
Ok back to my main point. I bought some Yoplait Greek the other day (I had a coupon so it was of course a good plan) thinking I like Yoplait so I'd probably like their Greek too. No, nope, nay, I say. It wasn't terrible per se but was far from good. Its like the added false sweeteners or something to it making it unbearable to eat. I may have eaten half before giving it to E because he'll eat anything. I think I'm gonna have to stick with Chobani, the more expensive option. Chobani has an ok texture (im a big texture freak) and definitely not artificially sweetened. Pineapple is my favorite :)

Freebie Friday!!

Really I only titled it that because it just so happens its Friday, otherwise I'd totally have named it something less cheesy/mainstream/what everyone else would call it ;)
Anyhow, Ms. Kelsey at http://kelseyhomolka-keepingupwithkelsey.blogspot.com told me I was slacking in blogging, in a totally friendly way I'm sure. So to prove I'm not a slacker and instead of making hats like I should be for customers I'm gonna blog about my last 45 minutes. Which of course weren't that exciting other than knowing I will be getting free stuff in the mail in the next month or so. This free sample splurge started a month ago, somehow I came across www.bsavings.com, they're pretty awesome, they have lots of links for samples. Some are slightly annoying because they want you to fill out this and that, and this again. But for the most part its "please fill this out" and then "thank you, you should receive this product in .....weeks". I'm thankful for those ones. Also thankful for autofill to simplify things (thanks Google). Anyhow occasionally you run across links to other freebies sites such as www.freeflys.com which are organized according to product type making it easy for me to get what I'd actually use. Tonight I signed up for a lot of hair and body products, some laundry items, and I think some vitamins as well. I could probably do it all night long if I wanted but I have things I should be doing...oops. Oh another way to get freebies/samples, go to product fb pages, a lot of times they have links to their giveaways or even when you "like" the page you can apply for samples. Other pages have giveaways when you leave a short review. Pretty sweet deal for free stuff I think.
But, just so you know, so far I've received a free cookbook from Jiffy which was relatively thick and had quite a few recipes in it. Jiffy is super cheap so I use it frequently and will definitely find use in my little cookbook. And yesterday I received free samples of airborne as well as $1.50 off coupon. When I get more freebies/samples/coupons I'll try to update, as well as update when I find more sites to go to.

Big boy!!

I can't believe it's been almost 6 years since my oldest boy was born. By far the roughest pregnancy and the roughest first year I had to go through, but it was all worth it. During my pregnancy with him I worked like a dog as a manager in a maternity store (you'd think they'd give me a break considering the business...no), on top of that I had this horrendous rash. After months of trying to figure it out my ob sent me to a dermatologist who said it was a pregnancy rash that would get worse with subsequent babies. I almost cried. This rash covered my arms and my entire torso, I'd wake up scratching myself and was often bleeding at that point. I was miserable!! However, thankfully the steroids my ob had given me decided to kick in before I purchased the expensive creams the pharmacy was ordering for me! And even more fortunate, I never got that rash again with the last to pregnancies, YAY!!! As for M's first year, the poor kid...he was so tiny. He was born 7lb 13oz and 2 weeks early for induction scheduled prior to my rash dissolving because we were all kind of worried this wouldn't go away until the rash was gone. Anyhow, healthy baby, completely healthy, great hair, perfect. Then we get home...within a week he was throwing up every drop of breast milk he took in. The pediatrician of course said it was normal and to just watch his weight. We watched it for a year and because he never dropped of the charts nothing was ever done. He was 3% for his weight most of that first year. Right around 11 months he finally quit throwing his food up, finally! and he got pretty dang chubby. Now he sits around 45-50% for his weight but he's rather short, which I blame for the lack of care he was given during that first year, I should've been more proactive, I blame myself for not seeking out another doctor....Anyhow, his birthday is next week on the 7th, I'm super excited for it, we're doing a Lego theme. He wanted the Hulk but Lego is something I can create myself for a little less I think :) Yesterday we went out while the weather was semi decent and took some pics. They turned out amazing of course, all thanks to my dslr and my awesome editing skills, seriously I'm getting pretty damned good at making my pictures go from nice to amazing if I do say so myself :). Here's a little collage I put together of the best ones.

Time out?

Clearly as my kids get older the punishments for their indiscretions have to get a little stronger/harsher. And maybe I'm a strict mom, I don't know, all I know is I want my kids to grow up well adjusted and not become thieves or drug dealers. Not too much to ask is it? Time-out definitely doesn't hold the same torture at the age of 7 as it did at the age of 2. Grounding them from video games seems logical usually but I think it's more for my need to take something away from them, they on the other hand will just find something else they enjoy. After weeks of M lying and years of T taking things that aren't hers I feel like throwing in the towel sometimes, I'm at a loss. C throws fits over having to do minuscule tasks or not getting his way so I put him in bed and he's done. Break time for us both. E gets into things and sits in time out for 30seconds and pulls the "look how cute I am" maneuver and alls well...turd. But the older two need more for whatever reason. Hot sauce for lying, works for M because he hates hot sauce, T won't eat a taco without it, but she doesn't lie too often. However she does take things without asking which drives me crazy!!! She no longer takes things from the stores (candy) or from friends at school (usually keychains off backpacks) but she can't leave my stuff alone, even if I get her something similar. So tonight her punishment for taking a brand new book to school is dishes. She's 7, she has a dishwasher. I was 7 when I had to start hand washing for accidentally breaking a window. And I had to do it for a month. I think one night for this is ok right? And it's one chore she can't really mess up unless she breaks something. I honestly wouldn't have even cared about the book if she had asked. Which she did and then was told know by my husband, but she took it anyhow. Hopefully she won't be come an adult petty thief. Nah, it's just a phase...right?!
This parenting gig is getting harder every day...sigh...I'm not ready for my own time out I think.

Photo-blog post

Im sooooo sooo soo excited to finally have a new camera, an actual dslr and not a freakin Coolpix with no sort of manual settings. I ended up with a Nikon D3100, just because its ridiculous to spend $100 more just to have more megapixels that I don't currently really need. It probably makes it better that I've done the research and learned a ton of things before buying one otherwise I would be completely intimidated and only use the auto settings which work for some things sure but really knowing your manual settings will produce much better photos. For instance, when I do close ups of products for Navillus Creations (www.facebook.com/navilluscreations) I try to set it to A so that I can control the f-stop which will give me that blurred back groud/clear foreground look. However when I wanted to take pictures of the snow falling today I set it to S to control the shutter speed and actually catch some of the snow flakes falling in the photo (it took me a while to figure this out, if it says its to bright, it's too bright, it will NOT take a picture). On another note, I love taking pics of my kids. I use Microsoft Digital Image Suite 2006 (super old I know) because my uber awesome inlaws let me use their copy which they use in their own PRO-photography pictures. Id like to get Elements soon just because it has features the outdated program I have doesn't and some of the features work way better and take a lot less time. Anyhow, here's some recent pics I've taken and edited in the last couple days, yes they're of my kids, and I'm obsessed with them all :) Got Some of Teagan reading today which turned out super cute but have to edit it a little before posting. With luck I'll have a part time gig with photography by this summer. Have a family shoot in the works as soon as it gets a little warmer out for one of my oldest and best friends. And another next month for Navillus Creations because I desperately need images of photo props since no one ever returns images after I send them $40 in retail worth of items...GRRR!! But yea, we'll see, itd be nice just to start making a someone steady income in the near future.

He has underwear on his head and over his pants, thanks daddy.

you'd think he was stressed over coloring lol

no mommy, no I did not just steal more licorice.
Actually Teagan was twirling around in the background of this one, cant tell can ya?!

What Maddox does best...eat

this was a super dark photo so when I took the shadowing out it looked funny
I think the lower saturation made it turn out pretty well though :)

my love bug, he's so cute

this is the "I ate it, now what?!" look

2013 book list

Yes I'm already starting a book list for the year ;) I'm on my second book and already 70% done with it (its really good). I have a bunch to get through this year so here it goes. Dates denote when I finished them and I'll update as I go along.

Game of Thrones (book4)-1/17
A Lucky Child by Thomas Buergenthal-1/18 (yes I read this 200+page book in one day!! I love history and this was a very compelling story)
The Post Card Killers-James Patterson 1/22 (I usually don't care for his writing but it was pretty good, if that's wasn't obvious by how quickly I read it)
The Rain Maker by John Grisham 2/7(good read, the end seemed rushed and I didn't like it, but a good read)
Against Medical Advice-James Patterson 2/10 (an autobiography of sorts. Great story about a boy living with Tourette's. loved it!)
Pillars of the Earth-Ken Follett
Game of Thrones book -end of July
World Without End

I should be a librarian

Seriously...I have so many books. They're all arranged by genre, author, size sometimes, but rarely in alphabetical order. I just brought home my dads books and his very nice book shelf that looks fantastic in my dining room and will look even better when we get our new table and chairs. Anyhow I remembered that last year I was going to make a list of everything I read, I didn't do that but since I keep all my books anyhow I have the reference. So here's my book list of 2013, the *denotes my favorites, and these are in no particular order, except for the most part I read any series together if all the books are out...
The Hunger Games series*
The Constant Princess
The Boleyn Inheritance
The Other Queen
The Autobiography of King Henry VII*
Little Women
The 2nd and 3rd books of the Immortal Series*
Game of Thrones 1-3*
The Testament
Queen by Right*(any of Anne Easter Smiths books are wonderfully written)
The Summer Garden*(3rd in a trilogy by Paullina Simmons, love them all)

That's only 16 books and I think there may be a couple others on my nook that I read too but it's dead so I'll have to charge it up to see. But still, 16 books, at least 4 of those are around 1,000 pages so I think I read an impressive amount for owning a business, being a mom of 4, moving, having my dad pass away, and only reading for an hour a night.
I'm starting the year off by reading the fourth Game of Thrones books, it's kind of slow going compared to the last but I'm more than half through it. After that I'll start on my dads massive collection which is mostly James Patterson and John Grisham.

These pictures are the bigger bookshelves I have and don contain the medical and parenting books I have as well as any that I have up on my nightstand.