The one with a new friend

 Last week Taegen made a new friend in church, Ivy. She's only 1 but she was so interested in his Thor toy that the age difference didn't bother him at all. In fact, we ended up getting together with her and her mom, Marlee, later in the week for a play date and they had a lot of fun together.

Red Bull was doing some sort of something on base last week while we were at the park so we decided to walk over and take a look. Taegen thought the bike and Hummer were pretty cool. 

 This is what happens when you accidentally leave a cheesecake out on the counter and there's a 3 year old in the house. He demolished it!

 I think someone needs new jammies! 

 This is what I did last sunday. It was my first time making home made bread and it turned out pretty good. :) So proud. 

 And just one last one of Taegen. He's such a cute little weirdo sometimes. Yes his sword is tucked into his underwear!

The one where Ellie (finally) rolls over

She's finally done it! It only took her 6 1/2 months. Heres the evolution of the roll over in pictures

 Plus I just love her face in all of these. Some she's so happy, others she just relaxing.

And look how cute she is in this dress! Her rolls make it so much better. 

Did I mention she spits. A LOT!

The one with the Avengers

Taegen got these Avenger masks and Hulk fists for his birthday (Thanks papa and nana!) I don't know if I've mentioned it on here before but Ellie has us all assigned an Avenger. He is Iron Man, Ellie is Thor, Dad is Hulk, and I am Captain America. Daddy was busy studying so he couldn't join in on the fun.

 CAPTAIN AMERICA!!

The one with the Witte Museum

There is a museum here, The Witte, that has a dinosaur exhibit. Every Tuesday from 3-6 is free entrance into the museum and it's only $5 to get into the dinosaur exhibit. So you save $10pp. I'm all about doing whatever I can to say money :) 

We went one day for play group and Taegen loved it. The dinosaurs in the first 2 pictures moved when you pushed buttons on their "controllers". It was actually pretty cool. 

 Sorry the pics are poor quality, they are all taken with my phone. And those always seem to end up blurry.

Here he is digging for dinosaur fossils and footprints. It was small pieces of rubber instead of sand, so it wasn't near as messy. They had to use little brushes to dig, so it was kind of authentic :) He could have spent most of his time in there and been totally fine. 

 There was a science section that had lots of different experiments for kids to try. This one to try out the different types of pullys. There were 3 different chairs and they had to pull themselves up using just the rope. They ranged from easy, medium and hard to pull. It was a huge hit as well.

 Here's how T measures up to a dinosaur.

 And heres just a cool elephant thats out front. 

All in all Taegen really liked it. I got Ellie to sleep right when we got there so it was a fairly easy adventure. The dinosaur exhibit is only here until Oct or Sept I believe so we'll for sure have to go back before it leaves. Before the dinosaur one they had a mummy exhibit. It'll be interesting to see what comes next.

The one where Taegen turns 3

Taegen turned 3 on sat. He's such a crazy kid, but boy do we love him. We woke him up by singing happy birthday and giving him his presents. Jon had his Buzz present unwrapped and open so he started pushing buttons to help wake him up.

 Taegen requested a Lightening McQueen cake, so I did my best and this is what I came up with. I think it turned out pretty good. And in case you can't tell from the picture, it was a huge hit!

 For documentary purposes...

 Jon helped decorate too. He did the lightening bolts on the sides and the 3 on the top.

 We told Taegs that he could eat any part of McQueen that he wanted and he wanted the eyes. Jon cut it out for him and said he felt like a little wrong doing it.

 After his game we went to McDonalds so he could play in the play place, then we had cake and relaxed a little bit. For dinner we went to this place called Two Bros BBQ Market. It had a play ground and sand pit for kids so we thought it'd be fun for Taegs to run around on. He loved it. The food on the other hand was not good. Well, Jon liked it but he doesn't really count right :) He had some ribs, chicken, sausage and pork butt. Yes you read that correctly, Pork Butt! Gross!! He said it all tasted pretty good. The chicken was for originally for me, but I didn't like it. The atmosphere was awesome though. They had a band playing, while we all just hung out and ate outside. Here's Ellie and one of Taegs playing on the play set. You can't really see him, but this is the best pic I could get. He was in there dancing to the music.

All in all I think he had a really good day. He loved his toys and got to run around outside for a good portion of the day.
He's getting so big and says the funniest stuff. I've been posting the things he says shortly after they happen so I don't have a lot, but the latest ones are:
He told me he had to pee while we were in the car. We were almost home so I told him he needed to wait. But since he is still fairly new to the potty training thing, I tried to hurry as fast as I could. I knew he wouldn't make it all the way up the stairs so I pulled him out of the car and he peed right next to it. When he was done his immediate response was "Ahhh thats better"!
This is his first time peeing outside, it's happened a few times now. I'm just glad he's a boy and it's fairly easy. I don't know what I'm going to do when Ellie tells me she has to pee and theres no bathroom close.

-Taegen is such a loving older brother. He has his mean streaks, but all in all he's really good to her. He's constantly trying to make her laugh or feel better when she's crying.
-He's quite the manipulator. He learns really quick how to get the things he wants and thinks he's being really clever. Good thing mom and dad are smarter than him and can tell when he's trying to pull one on us.
-He loves nursery.
-Loves anything and everything Avengers related. He also likes Toy Story, Cars(still) and The newest one he's getting into is TMNT (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles)
He can be a major handful, but he gets more and more fun the older he gets. We love you Taegen! :)

The one where Taegen plays soccer

I signed Taegen up for soccer a while ago. He had the choice between T-ball and soccer and he chose soccer. I was hoping that soccer would help him get out his wiggles and let him get some exercise in. Its doing both of those, but its super frustrating for me and Jon. Being that he's never played the sport before, we've had to help teach him. Well since he has ADHD (or something to that affect. I haven't gotten him tested or anything, but I know there is some focus related thing going on there. Especially since Jon has the same thing) keeping him focused on the game has been a slight chore. He had his first practice last thursday and a game sat. Which also happened to be his 3rd birthday. (post coming on that later).

Here is at his first soccer practice

 All ready for pratice. I told him he didn't have to wear his jersey to practice but he didn't want to wear anything else. 

 lining up getting ready to kick the ball down the field.

 And here he is at his first game. Practicing before it started.

 E hanging out watching her big brother

 Jon had to go out on the field a couple times to help Taegs figure it out. Taegen ended up bonking heads with another kid and after that he didn't want to play. He went in a couple times and just stood there. Some of the times he'd even fold his arms and pout. To get him to get in on the game Jon told him "to go steal the ball". Once he said that T's eyes lit up and he ran off towards the ball. We think he's going to finally go get the ball again, but boy were we wrong. He ran up inbetween all the kids, and picked up the ball and started running off with it! hahaha I wish I would have gotten a pic of it. It was hilarious! He did end up playing some of the time. I'm hoping that he'll pick up on the concept a little more each practice and get more involved in the game.

Theres actually a few kids that totally know what their doing so quite a few goals were scored. I don't know the end score, but I don't think Taegen's team won. But with a whole bunch of 3-4 year olds running around out there, winning isn't really what its all about anyways.

Heres Taegen, Megan, and Kendall. They all got together on their own and put their hands together and yelled "Bobcats!" (They do this at the end of practice and games) So cute!

 At the end of the game all the parents got together and made a tunnel for the players to run under. They loved it. Taegen is in between the guy in the red shorts and the guy in the jean pants

Heres a video of him playing

The one where I've had enough

I have been in a little slum lately. Which in and of itself is a little weird. Theres nothing bad going on in my life right now. Things are actually really good. I don't feel that theres a good reason to justify the way I've been feeling. I have 2 beautiful kids, a wonderful husband who's working so hard so I can stay at home with the kids, we've just moved and we love it here in TX. All these things considered, why have I been feeling so down? It was affecting not only my mood, but also my parenting. I knew I should be doing more with/for my kids but I just couldn't get myself to do it. I know some of the issues I was having with my kids was in part because of me. (And when I say issues, I just mean a few behavioral things with Taegen and Ellie's sleeping habits. Nothing major).
Jon is always so busy and stressed out with school that I didn't really want to put this extra weight on him. So for a while I just kept it to myself. I had some emotional breaks downs and knew what I was doing (or not doing) wasn't going to cut it. I needed to figure out what was making me feel this way. I wouldn't say I was depressed, but I knew something wasn't right.

One day it just hit me... my self esteem! I've had 2 kids and you can see it in my body. I don't feel good about myself. After having my first child I lost the weight I gained, but didn't get down to my goal weight. I'm not one of those lucky women that nursing helps them lose weight. I lose about 1/2 the weight I gained fairly quickly after delivery, then I don't lose the rest until I stop nursing. And even then I have to work hard at it. It doesn't ever just "fall off". I am able to eat whatever I want without gaining any weight, but after losing half the weight, I plateau until I stop nursing. With my first pregnancy I was unable to diet or work out without losing my milk supply. I am a firm believer in breastfeeding. So for me to give up breastfeeding just so I could try to lose weight, wasn't an option. So I waited until I stopped nursing to diet/workout, which wasn't until he turned 1. Isn't that what being a mom is all about, sacrificing so your kids can have the best you can possibly give them? That is what I had to keep telling myself, "I'm doing this for him. I can put myself on the back burner to give him what I believe is the best thing possible". I think part of my problem this time around is I knew the weight wouldn't just fall off, like I was hoping it would last time. Since it was my first pregnancy I of course had no idea how my body would react. Knowing I was going to be carrying around my pregnancy weight for a year has been rather depressing. I also had the mind set that I wouldn't be able to diet or exercise again either. Those two things have been harder for me to deal with than I even realized.

Like I mentioned previously, when I got pregnant again I was not at my goal weight. I had lost the weight I had gained with my first pregnancy, but no more than that. Then I gained another 40 lbs in my 2nd pregnancy. Now here I am, 6 months after giving birth and I again have lost 20 lbs and thats all. For a while there I think I was in denial about what I actually looked like. If I didn't go anywhere I would stay in baggy clothes. This helped me "cover up" what I was feeling on the inside as well as shielding my eyes to reality. Reality is not that I have 100lbs to lose, but I do have 30 till I reach the high end of the healthy bmi for my height and age. So I would prefer to lose a little more than that. I actually had someone congratulate me on my my "pregnancy" just a few weeks ago. I told myself that if that ever happened to me that would be my motivation to kick my butt in gear.

So I've decided I'm at least going to give dieting a try. I'll hold off on the exercise (since that was a huge part in losing my milk supply last time) for now. I'm going to slowly try to work my way into that. The last time I did this my sister was doing weight watchers, so I got the stuff I needed from her and it worked really well for me. This that is what I'm doing again. They also adapt to mothers that are breastfeeding, so that was a huge plus.

I started my diet on April 1st, so 1 week ago today. I've lost 5lbs so far. (It probably would have been more, but we went out to the Cheesecake factory over the weekend and I used my extra allotted points, which I think prevented me from losing more. I didn't gain any that day, but I didn't lose any either). I'm feeling pretty good. I have had a few days where my milk was a little low, but I just started drinking more water and also the Mothers Milk tea and that put it right back up. Ellie hasn't had any problems so far. And obviously I'm hoping it stays that way.

My reasoning for posting this on here, since its a little more personal than I normally put on here, is because I need to be accountable to more than just me. I have Jon, but if you've seen him you know he obviously isn't much help. He could eat a whole horse and not gain a pound. So I figured if I posted my journey on here it might make me a little more motivated. Although I will not be posting pictures, for now anyway. I might post them at the end, so I can look back and see my improvement.

And just so you know, normally I'm not one that has pity parties or complain about myself. I know I'm not (normally) tooth pick skinny, and I never will be. I'm ok with that. I'm a bigger boned girl, always have been. So my "skinny" number on the scale is probably a lot higher than even your "fat" number is. But I'm ok with that too. Its not about a number to me. As long as I look good. If I don't get down to my goal number, but I look and feel healthy then I'm fine with that.

Wish me luck!

The one where Ellie is sleeping

Here is our latest family picture. Of course Ellis is sleeping. I swear I can't get one of all 4 of us awake at the same time. Dang it. Oh well, it'll happen eventually I'm sure. 

For now, enjoy this one. Taegens face is awesome isn't it?!