Finally Home

Hey everyone! Sorry I have been MIA for the past week. We have been traveling all over the country for Thanksgiving and we have finally made it back home TONIGHT! I will have 2 weeks worth of recaps up on Wednesday. I just need a day to get everything written up and all!

I am back on eating well starting tomorrow. No more excuses with being on vacation and yummy holiday treats. I am part of a diet bet group this month and I AM GOING TO WIN! (be one of the winners!) So here we go. Hope you are ready for the wild ride that is going to be taking place over the next month!

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

QOTD: Have you ever been part of a competition to lose weight that involved money??? and What ware you doing this month to stay motivated to lose weight and not have I WANT TO LOSE WEIGHT as your first item on your New Year's resolution list? 

Friday's Five

What a week it has been! I love Thanksgiving! I have had limited internet connection/time at the hotel that has the internet so I haven't been writing as much as I have wanted. We have been out enjoying a TON of family time. Leaving early and staying out super late! And let me say that the kiddos have been such great sports and AMAZING!

~How Mason slept on the plane!~

Today I wanted to let you know what my favorite 5 things are from this week! Why not, it is Thanksgiving!

1. FAMILY- How can this not be first?!? We have had so much family time. It has been amazing! I am so thankful that my kids have this chance, especially Mason now since he is old enough to really have fun and start remembering. I love seeing my kids with their Grandparents. How Mason loves his Guppy! And loves to talk to his Gummy! Going to the Zoo, seeing Dinosaurs and so on! It has just been so much fun playing and spending time with everyone we saw!

~Mason went to the Walking with Dinosaurs show with Guppy and Matt the day we got in and found this AWESOME poster with his FAV super hero, Captain America!~

2. Mexican Food- I miss real Mexican Food! Charlottesville is great and has amazing different food choices to pick from but Mexican food is not one of them. Enjoyed going to our favorite Mexican restaurant while in town. (and my fav cafe too! but it isn't Mexican food at all!)

3. Mountains- I forgot how beautiful real mountains are! They are seriously majestic. Love them!

4. Thanksgiving- I love Turkey Day! The food, feast, would actually be more correct. Had quite the gathering yesterday with Matt's family for a potluck Thanksgiving. And the food was great! Tried super hard to eat right, filled half my plate with salad but man the sweet potato casserole (no marshmallows) was AMAZING!

5. Arizona and Utah- I finally admitted to Matt how I do actually miss living in the valley of the sun. It is beautiful. The different types of flowers and some that are the same as in VA. I had fun on my run last Saturday naming the plants that I know. And of course the weather was AMAZING! Utah- I forgot how beautiful this place is. The mountains are all snow capped and it is quite beautiful. And the roads are so WIDE! It's the little things people!

The Road Not Taken

You guys! YOU HAVE TO READ this blog post by my friend and fellow Blogger Jen! She is amazing and I kid you not I was balling my eyes out reading her amazing race recap! She is an elite runner and someone I look up to and admire so much because of her hard work and dedication. She ran the New York City Marathon at 6 months postpartum and it didn't go quite as planned and 2 week later she decided THE NIGHT BEFORE to run a local marathon and KICKED IT'S BUTT!

Such an amazing story about not giving up and listening to your body. Please read this! Don't forget to give her a shout out in the comments too!

http://www.runnerstrials.com/2014/11/16/charlotte-thunder-road-marathon-2014-race-recap/

Collin is 6 MONTHS

I can't get over how fast the past 6 months have gone. They literally just flew by. And I keep thinking that Collin really isn't as old as he is. Maybe it is because with Mason, he was only 4 months old at Thanksgiving and such and I am not on the timeline quite yet of Collin, but intact he is 6 months old at Thanksgiving.

I have so much to be thankful for with him. He is such a good baby. Even when he is crying at night, I still love him. He is such an efficient nurser. He gets the job done fast and is over and done with. When he is happy, he is really happy and he often doesn't get mad. Except for 2 am sometimes. He will be transition to his room for good I think this month because we are at the point where we are just keeping each other up at night and that just isn't cool!

He is mobile! He is crawling. And it is the weirdest thing to watch. He isn't old enough I keep thinking about it. All the sudden I see his little head bob back and forth and off he goes. He can't really sit up on his own yet, doesn't like to roll over and mostly it is not of his own free will and he can't get into a sitting position on his own. He is just crawling to get to the toys his brother has or to keep up with brother.

This past month we saw how much he and Mason really do love each other and understand each other. Mason makes it a point every night to give Collin a hug and muah, as he calls it. Mason has also started saying, Hi Brother. Or he will inform me that Collin is his brother. And also tells him that he loves him while patting his head like a dog. It really is so cute and melts my heart. Collin celebrated his first Halloween and passed out in the middle of it. The life of a baby!

We are so thankful that this little guy is part of our family! Everyone comments how much he and Mason look alike and it really is unreal how much they are corbon copies of each other, except for the hair. Mason was quite dark and had a lot more hair and Collin is quite blond.

Life Happenings

I am at that point in my life where I totally relate with other mothers. My house is no longer spotless as it once was. Yes maybe the main living room is very clean 3 days a week, but that is because I teach and it has to be clean! But the rest of my house, nope. It was a disaster. Piles of clean laundry waiting to be put away. Piles of dirty laundry, the never ending laundry as I am calling it now, waiting to be cleaned. Toys, toys and more toys all over the floor. Kitchen gets cleaned regularly only because of health reasons, but somedays the dishes pile high waiting for me to get busy.

This past weekend, Matt and I tackled the house and did a nice "fall cleaning." Thanks in part to having so many guests over for various activities. That's good motivation to get the house clean. People coming over! When the hubs helps out, and helps out A LOT then you know you are due for a good cleaning! I am now sitting in a pretty darn clean house now and it just feels SO GOOD! i have been making my bed, and trying to put things back where they are supposed to go and such. Finally sorted through all the clothing that was given to us for Collin and Mason too, so now we can see the floor in the nursery again and it is ready for Collin to move in there full time!

Few tricks I have learned this past weekend. Laundry is overwhelming to me. I hate doing it. I was just letting it pile up, which would mean laundry day turns into days and that is why we had clean clothing waiting to be put away. I finally realized that we no longer have just 1 laundry day a week. And that's ok. And I have to do smaller loads otherwise it just is too much for me to do with a 3 year old climbing all over the clothes as I am folding and a 6 month old screaming at me. Smaller is better.

Goals now are to keep the house more tip top shape. Doing more small things to help with the big picture. But you know what? Cleaning shouldn't take forever to do because that is just time I am missing being with my kids. So doing a little everyday is the key for me right now.

Any other mother's out there have any advice for me?