I was going through photos to create a photo wall in our hallway and I came across this one of my daughter from two years ago. She was getting ready to go to a friend’s birthday party. It’s still one of my favorites. So, I blew it up to 8×10 to feature on the wall:

I am submitting this photo into the www.iheartfaces.com Blurb Book photo contest. I am granting I ♥ Faces permission to use my photo in a printed version of a book for commercial use and possibly advertising of a photo book on both the Blurb and I ♥ Faces web sites.

We were at a party over the weekend celebrating the 6th birthday of one of our friend’s sons. Our friend’s mom, the boy’s grandma, was there and took a liking to Charlie. He is at that age and really social so he’ll cuddle up and smile at everyone. Anyway, there was a cute moment where he was next to the grandma and she gently said, while cupping his chin: “I like your face.” He sweetly replied, “I like your face, too.” It was so cute.

Granted, this is the same kid who at Target the day before overheard an older boy looking at Monster trucks and whine: “I want Bigfoot!” (Sadly, it was not the only toy he demanded from poor dad, and he did get it.) and promptly repeated, “I want BigFoot, too!” without even really having a clue what he was talking about (well, except that there were cars all around so I’m sure he knew it’d be good stuff).

Suffice to say, he’s learning from anyone and everyone around how to communicate. Let’s hope he picks up more good habits than bad!

Ok, I admit it. I gave my mom the best Mother’s Day present ever. I’ll try not to break my arm patting myself on the back … but, really. I have been wanting to make a scrapbook of me and my other three sisters for several years. I finally got motivated this winter. I had each of them send me some photos of us together and write some of their favorite stories and memories. I wanted to keep it simple so most of the stories are short. And each page has just one to three pictures on it (8×8 size book). I kept it simple, though it was still a lot of work. But definitely worth it. I highly recommend putting together something like this … if you want to make your mom cry, and laugh and cry again. I just wish I could have been there to see her face when she opened it.

So, it’s Wordless Wednesday on a Thursday, oh well. Gotta post these pics anyway. Aunt Tracy sent the family t-shirts from their trip to Holland & London and the kids looked super-cute in their matching orange “soccer shirt” as Avery said.

Forget the chocolate and flowers, technology is at the top of the list for today’s moms! Check out 5 Minutes for Mom’s giveaways!

The first week of running like a madwoman and “not eating” (okay, not really but that’s what it felt like, I was constantly hungry!) was quite discouraging. I weighed myself after one week and had barely lost one pound. Not only that, but I went bowling with friends and … tore … my jeans. Thankfully nobody had a clue, until now that is, but I was mortified. I had to go home to change and I missed two frames! Anyway, that’s something only happens to fat people, right?!?! Well, apparently women with thunder thighs shouldn’t wear tight jeans bowling. It’s takes more exertion than you think sometimes. It was a few hours after that incident that I stepped on the scale … so, not encouraging. And there I was bragging about my food control and how much I was running! D’oh. To top it off, I was getting really upset with the CalorieCount Web site. Every day I logged in, my target weight goals advanced one day. I was never going to make my goal! Even CalorieCount thought I sucked!

Thankfully, I realized the following day that the problem is it’s not “smart.” Even though it’s keeping track of my caloric ins and outs, the target timeline was based on weights that I enter … and I hadn’t entered any than my starting weight.

So, I kept on … and it paid off. I weighed myself on Day 10 and I was 162! FOUR pounds in TEN days. What a difference three more days made. I am ecstatic! But, it was only a few months ago that I was feeling down about being 160, so … I still have a long ways to go.