Happy Thanksgiving everyone!! I love the opportunity that today brings to share time with family and reflect on all the things I am thankful for. I hope all of you have a WONDERFUL day filled with lots of family and lots and lots and LOTS of love!!!!
Wow - I can't believe it's been 2 months since I started my Wellness Journey! But tomorrow is day 60, already. I feel like a completely different person. I've lost 27 pounds (I'm hoping tomorrow it will be 30) and 23 inches from my frame. That's including 11 inches from my waist and 10 inches from hips!! That is just absolutely amazing to me. I've gone from a size 18 to a size 12. My energy is so amazing. Not because I'm running around the house like a crazy person but because it's sufficient energy that lasts ALL day long. My body is different somehow on the inside, I think. I crave different things now. I actually made a special trip out to Berlin Heights yesterday just to buy some apples from Burnham Orchards. That might not seem very significant to some of you, but trust me, that's huge in my world. Before I never would have driven out of my way (especially to Berlin Heights) for anything, except maybe some chocolate or gravy-n-biscuits. I eat peas now!!! That's MAJOR for me! I have never in my life enjoyed any sort of pea prepared in any fashion. Now I really enjoy them.
I just feel really amazing! I feel like I have my life back. I'm putting up a few before and after pics for your viewing pleasure! :)
August 2008: 
November 2008:
I know that I've been a total slacker lately at updating the blog. It's not that I haven't made any posts, because I have, but I have not published them. Sometimes blogging is incredibly therapeutic for me. I start a post about something and it ends up going in a completely different direction. However, those posts usually end up very personal and raw. And even though I feel good about whatever realization I have made I am usually not ready to share those thoughts. Anyway~ let's move on.
My house has been overrun by the flu for the last WEEK. Everyone (including myself) got the stomach flu. YUCK. But Sienna was hit much worse than anyone else. She missed all of last week from school. She started with the stomach flu but it then moved on to a terribly high spiking fever ~ we're talking 103 degrees. That's scary. But it get's weirder - when her fever would go away, vomiting would replace it. Once the vomiting went away, the fever came back. It was a very long week. She's still trying to get back to her usual self. She did go to school today so that's a HUGE improvement! Just before the very unwelcome visitor (flu) came to my house, Sienna and I had a little photo session. She loves to direct the photo shoots. We took a few fun pictures and I looked at those pictures all last week just to get me through. So I thought I would share a few.
Pouty Face~ Please notice Sienna's lip. I swear you could set a bottle of nail polish on it and walk away. My pouty face was a little lacking~ needed more bottom lip. 
Crazy Wild Tongue Face~ Sienna looks awesome! Her eye is so intense. While I ended up with no top lip, a rubber chin, 2 lazy eyes, and a freakishly short tongue. 
Sleeping Face~ Sienna looks like an angel in this picture. Don't cha think~ like a sweet little cherub?
????? Face~ I have no idea what this one was supposed to be. It looks like something might have gone wrong, tho.
Happy Halloween! The kids had so much fun trick or treating. Levi enjoyed it much more this year than he did last year. He was pretty scary actually. Of course he refused to ride in the stroller. He RAN every step of the way. I was so thankful that Dave was home and able to go with us. I made him deal with Levi and they had to walk behind me and the girls. Only because I just could not watch Levi running on the sidewalk~ I caught myself constantly holding my breath waiting for the big wipe out. Luckily, it never happened. He did fall several times but somehow it was always on the grass. He really liked all the people giving him candy but he liked it better when he got to get his own piece of candy out of the big bowl. Sienna tuckered out early and decided to ride in the stroller. And as for Sierra, she decided half way through that she must be getting too old for trick or treating because it was actually boring.
We went trick or treating with Shell and Brandon on Thursday too. I'll leave that story for Shell to post on her blog. All I will say about that (for now) is that I was very proud of everyone!
The girls had their mini cheer clinic a couple of weeks ago. As always, it was a ton of fun. The only thing I wish was different is the placing of the girls. They're always on complete opposite ends. It makes it difficult getting pictures. Have fun trying to figure where the girls are in the pictures. Next year I'm going to figure a way to 'mark' them.
Sorry it's been so long since I've blogged! I've been busy, busy, busy. And I'm shrinking!! I've already lost 14 pounds and 19 inches of fat from my frame~ that's including 7 inches from my waist already!! Can you believe that?! And I feel absolutely amazing~ like a million bucks, to be honest! I never knew it was possible to have so much good energy. I can almost keep up with Levi now! If any of you are interested in hearing about the life changing program I'm using please contact me or leave a comment saying so on this post and I will contact you.
I've got some pictures and video of the girls doing their mini cheer clinic last week and I will try to get them up later! They were sooo cute (as always)!
As many of you know already, I'm making some changes. I've embarked on, what I'm calling, a 'wellness journey'. It started with answering, yet another, ad in the paper for a home based business. It turned into something else completely. Something about this company and the words they said awakened something in me. The company I am working with is in the wellness industry and we sell wellness products (weight loss or gain, more energy, and so much more). I have started with the weight loss program and lost 5 pounds and several inches after only 2 days! But it's more than just the weight. I feel sooo good! Before, I would wake up everyday feeling exhausted, as though I'd been run over by a truck. Now, I wake up and feel good! If I don't loose another pound it's worth it for me to just good waking up feeling good in the morning (and without the back pain I've endured for years). I'm on a mission now ~ to get my body and life healthy. To set a good example for my kids and to be able to keep up with them too. I've even started keeping a video journal so that I can blog about my wellness journey. I'm not quite ready to share that blog yet as I'm having some trouble getting some of the videos to upload. Hopefully, in a couple of days I'll have that up and running to share with you. 
That one phone call changed my life. I've made that same phone call a million times before. This one was different. I really feel that God delivered a solution to a situation and a message ~ GET IT TOGETHER. Everyone knows I always use the 'get it together' speech on my kids, my sister, my mom, my dad, myself ~ virtually anyone. If I feel you need to get it together, I'll let you know. Well, I think God was tired of my spoiled brat ways (complete with temper tantrums and pouting spells). For a while now my soul has felt very uneasy, almost restless. Sometimes it will actually be very intense and overwhelming. I'm amazing when it comes to ignoring something and running from it. Which is pretty much what I've been doing. To try to settle my soul would mean change. Well, I'm done running and ready to deal with myself. When God tells you to Get It Together, that's serious. So now I feel like my soul is on a battlefield, which I suppose it is. I'm determined to walk through this and comeout on the other side with soul healed and stronger than ever. I was at church yesterday and asking God why my soul had to feel so troubled and stirred and wounded and almost terrorized. I swear He said to me so clearly, "Wendy, when you burn all your bridges you have to walk through the fire to get back." Well, I'm willing to walk through the fire to get back Home. It will only make me stronger when I get there. So, please keep me in mind and say a prayer for me on my journey. It's gonna be a good one!
My mamaw makes all of the grandkids a quilt. She made one for me and my sister and all of our kids too. This is the one she just made for Levi.
Isn't it just too cute? I love the quilt and so does Levi. He always make it me lay it down on the floor and then he gets his cars and drives them all over it. Mamaw even made him a matching valence for his bedroom window. Thank you so Mamaw!!
Before the wind became too intense last Sunday, we attempted kite flying. We have a wind advisory in effect so my family grabs the kites and heads outside~ that's normal, right? My only intent was to be the camera person but I ended up being the kite retriever. Since the wind was so intense it was super easy to get them going again. Basically all I had to do was pick it up and let it go. The kites flew with no trouble in the strong winds but they also took some serious dives straight down (point first). Since I had become the kite retriever I spent most of time directly in the path of the death kites (that's exactly what they looked like from my view). Strawberry Shortcake and Barbie were really cute until they were bearing down on me faster than the speed of light with a vengeance. 
The girls enjoyed the kites. Sienna's ended up in a tree, sadly. But Sierra grew tired of hers and Sienna was more than happy to take over. Eventually Sienna grew tired of the kite as well and Dave was the only one left flying the kites (always a kid at heart). It was alot of fun. A few hours later our power went out (right in the middle of making dinner) and did not come back on for 20 hours!
This is all about Levi's favorite things right now. Alot like 'Oprah's Favorite Things' except it has nothing to do with Oprah and I'm NOT giving ANYTHING away for free. Levi is at such a fun (and challenging) age. His absolute favorite thing right now is his cars. By cars I mean his trucks, tractors, cars - anything with wheels. He plays with them ALL day long. He's even started refusing to leave the house without a hand full of them. As soon as I say "It's time to go bye bye" he takes off running to get his cars. I finally just gave him a small little canvas bag that he can carry his cars in for bye bye time.
The Disney Cars movie~ have you seen it? Levi LOVES this movie. He is slightly obsessed with it right now. He's never been too into tv until we watched Cars one day. Thank goodness I recorded it on the DVR because Levi won't stop asking to watch it. As 
soon as he gets up in the mornings he says, "vroom vroom" and points to the tv. So I ask him if he wants to watch cars to which he responds with "yeah,yeah,yeah" accompanied by extreme head nods and hand clapping. As soon as the movie goes off he makes me start it up again. Luckily, I don't watch any tv during the day so it doesn't bother me to let him watch it over and over again but the girls are getting a little tired of it. It really is a cute movie though. I'd rather have him be obsessed with Cars rather than Barney or, dare I say it~ the Doodlebops! (It makes me shudder just thinking about the Doodlebops!)
Horses~ Levi loves horses right now. It started this summer with Mom's firgurine horses at her house. Everytime we would go over Levi would point to them and cry for them. He could never play with them though. So, I finally bought Levi some small horse firgurines of his own. He loves these things. They always get to come out and play with all the John Deer tractors. He found one the other day that had been missing (the toy box has that affect) and he was soooo excited when he (Sienna) found it. He started yelling "Ma, Ma, Ma, Ma, ooooooh, oooooh, Ma, giggle, giggle, Ma" and he took off running through the house looking for me. I was in the pantry but came flying out to find him when I heard him calling for me by name. He usually just calls me DaDa (just like everyone else in the entire world ~ his dada obsession is nauseating.) So what a delight for me to hear him actually call for ME. I just about broke my ankle tripping over the broom trying to get out of the pantry to see what all the excitement was about. He loves the real horses just as much. He loves to see them out the van window. I'm slightly ashamed to admit that when he gets super fussy in the van I tell him to look out the window for horses even though I know there aren't any out there. Is that totally terrible?
We went to the Melon Festival this weekend. The kids had a blast! I was really surprised by Levi. He wanted to ride EVERYTHING. I figured we'd be lucky to get him on the carousel, let alone anything else. But no - he jumped right out of the stroller and walked right up to all the rides. And he didn't get scared when the ride started up. He got a little impatient a couple of times waiting for the ride to start, but other than that, the rides were awesome for Levi. Do I even need to mention that Sierra and Sienna rode everything (and still wanted more)?
Levi wanted more rides too. This is a picture of Levi refusing to move away from one of the rides. I think all of the excitement was alot for Levi to deal with. He threw several fits during our trip to the festival. When David is home, Levi would prefer to be with him. This used to hurt my feelings because I had to be the one to deal with all of his fits, behavior issues, diaper changes (wrestling match) and then Dave would come home and get 'happy' Levi. But David got to see a different side of Levi at the festival. I think it was alot for Dave to deal with. Levi would scream and kick and hit and scratch each time he had to get back in the stroller. (this picture shows what Levi did when we tried to let him walk) It took Dave and I working together to get him back in his stroller. When Levi saw the van he started screaming GO which was accompanied by 
whatever thrashing he could accomplish in his stroller. He did not want to get in the van. Dave was so aggravated (and a bit frazzled) with Levi. I couldn't help but giggle a little to myself because I saw me 6 months ago in Dave's approach to dealing with Levi. There is no 'stopping' a Levi fit. Once the fit is started it must run it's course. It's almost like an entity of it's own. The more you try to talk to Levi the worse the fit becomes (even if you're giving in to him). The only hope you have is to be silent and do what you need to do and hope for the best. I give the fit ZERO reaction and somehow that helps me stay calm. This was not Dave's approach. Dave was exhausted when we got home from the festival and I felt like a million bucks. I think he was so whooped because he's not used to dealing with Levi's extremes. I felt good because I finally had a little help dealing with Levi's extremes. It's kind of like only doing half your workout. But even with his fits I still had a ton of fun with him. He LOVED the carousel. He's really into horses (and john deer) right now. Levi's good out shines his bad by far.
The girls love everything about the festivals. And they do pretty much everything. They were really good with Levi too. Especially Sierra since she's the one who has to 'hang on' to him. The last couple of things they did I decided to leave Levi in the stroller. Dave agreed when I asked him if he wanted to deal with putting Levi back in the stroller again. 
The girls were very patient waiting and helping Levi all day so I thought they deserved a couple fun things without having to deal with Levi.
I've got great kids and a great guy. Dave loves taking the kids to the festivals and he spoils them there from start to finish. Especially this year since this is the only one we've done
(except the Basket Festival where they don't have rides so that kind of doesn't count). The girls wanted to make the sand art stuff and Dave couldn't say no. I was waiting hanging out with Levi and I looked over and had to get a picture of Dave. It was one of those moments where you know 'I love this man'. I won't mention that right after I took this picture everything got thrown to the ground to answer his phone. Still, I captured the moment.
We had a great time. Here's some more shots of the kids having a ton of fun!
The first day of school! Yeah!!! The girls were so excited this morning. They both surprised me by making some last minute wardrobe changes. I will admit that I was disappointed that Sienna decided not to wear the dress as planned. The dress is soooo cute (and casual). Oh well, when she does wear it I'm still posting a pic because it's just that cute. Levi insisted on being in the pictures this morning. This is unusual since normally he always turns away from the camera. But not this morning~ he came running in and jumped right in the picture and said cheese (a new word!).
Sienna walked into the preschool like an old pro. She found her new cubby and then found her name tag right away. She said hello and good morning to everyone she saw. We walked over and she found her book, gave me a hug and kiss and said goodbye. Almost all of the other kids around were SCREAMING and crying. They had ahold of their mothers around the neck with a death grip. One girl was screaming "Me don't like school!". The first boy we saw in the parking lot (as soon as we got there) was literally throwing himself down in the gravel and then thrashing while screaming. I couldn't believe it. It was like a mad house. I was afraid that Sienna would be a little scared of all this (since I was a little scared of it all) but she wasn't. It didn't phase her one bit. I just don't remember it being that extremely intense last year on the first day. When I left Sienna was sitting nicely on the carpet looking at her book with a returning friend from last year, one of the teachers (there's only 3) already had one screaming boy on her lap, another teacher was in the process of prying a screaming girl from her mother's neck, about 6 more parents were lined up with screaming girls and one parent was having a complete emotional meltdown in the parking lot. It was crazy!
Sierra had the nervous tummy this morning. She has a male teacher this year and is a little scared of that. We met him last night and he seemed to be a very nice man. Everyone we talked to at open house told us how nice and what a good teacher he is. She's still uncertain though. The first day is always a little scary. I reminded her that she felt this way last year too right up until she got into school. She said that she knew the feeling would go away after school started but that didn't help her much for right now. I reminded her how beautiful she looked and that was a slight comfort. :)
It'll be a great day for both of them. I can't wait to hear all about it. Here's a little video of Sienna doing something (I'm not
sure what) this morning before school when we made a quick stop at Aunt Shell's.
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