Weekly Winners

Love that smile.

And this serious face.

A fun time with Daddy.

I love the watercolor look of this sky shot.

These feet are always moving.

Don't forget to enter my Pay It Forward Contest by Tuesday, September 2. Click here.

Also go to Sarcastic Mom's weekly winners to check out some great shots.

Rookie Mom Challenge

Temporarily Me has issued a challenge. Rookie Moms have a great website and book that shares activities that are great to do as a rookie mom for you and your baby. Temporarily Me thought it is still a challenge to do some of these activities even if you are not a rookie mom anymore and actually have one than one kid. I agree the first time I took both kids to the children's museum was a major triumph. So the challenge is to do one of the three challenges from
The Rookie Mom's Handbook that are posted for the week. There are prizes too. Check over to join the fun. The challenge that I am taking this week is to get your calcium the fun way. I got the kids ice cream cups. Do I get extra points for letting Davey fed himself?

Davey was very happy to fed himself his ice cream cup.

He ended up wearing as much ice cream as he ate. He went straight into the bath when he finished.
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Don't forget to enter my pay it forward contest by Tuesday, September 2. Click here.

See what I won and a contest for YOU!

This is the contents of the package I won in the Pay It Forward contest hosted by Whimsy. Everything is so cute and hand made. The Pay It Forward contests were started by Swistle. The rules are if you win a contest that you have another contest and post about what you won including a photo. If you don't have a blog I am willing to host a contest here for you. Swistle explains it far better than me. So click that link to read. And check out both of the blogs of these wonderful women to read something entertaining.So as a contest winner I am going to have a contest here. I'm not sure what you are getting yet but I promise it will be fun stuff. You have till Tuesday, September 2 to enter. To enter simply leave a comment about something fun you did this summer. Any comment will do but hopefully you can think of at least one fun thing you have done this summer. I will pick a winner with a random number generator.

One fun thing thing I did was the sunflower maze with my kids.

Weekly Winners

I didn't take many photos this week. Here are two of the kids I like. Don't they look sweet? Caitlin's shirt says it all.



Also go to Sarcastic Mom's weekly winners to check out some great shots.

Flipping Thoughts...

She skips, turns, and does forward rolls. Caitlin sings, "I do gymnastics. Watch me flip." When we watch the Olympic gymnastics on the TV, Caitlin feel compelled to participate.

I'm not sure if I want Caitlin to take gymnastics lessons. I took lessons and competed from the age of 5 till I was 15. I coached for 4 more years after that. I loved being upside down. I loved flipping. I loved working hard to get a new skill. So why do I feel conflicted about Caitlin wanting to do gymnastics. I think gymnastics is one of the reasons I had such a bad body image. I am not a petite person (not even as a kid). I was always the biggest girl on the team. Even though I wasn't fat I thought I was because I had a bigger frame. At 5 feet 6 inches I am a giant in the gymnastics world. Would I have had body image issues even if I wasn't a gymnast? It is hard to say but walking around in a leotard 4 days a week and comparing figures didn't help. I never developed an eating disorder but I had some unhealthy habits. I even brought diet pills once but thankfully chickened out before I took them.

Gymnastics definitely had some positive effects on me too. Physically it helped to make me really strong. I was in the best shape of my life. It also taught me that hard work pays off. You have to practice a lot and do conditioning in order to gain new skills. There are no ways to cheat in order do that layout with the full twist.

So if Caitlin asks to take gymnastics lessons will I let her take them? Probably. Right now she is only 3 years old, I am going to expose her to lots of sports and activities. When she gets older I will let her decide what she wants to do. I hope that she choses soccer or basketball, sports I think she has a good chance of excelling at. Sports I wish I tried sooner.

Weekly Winners

Beautiful summer sunset.

Future Olympic runner?

Resting.

I'll catch you.

Checking it out.

View from the sunflower maze.

Also go to Sarcastic Mom's weekly winners to check out some great shots.

The Best Stuff is Free.

The Parent Bloggers Network is having a blog blast this weekend sponsored by Couponers.com. Couponers.com offers over a 100 new coupons a day. The theme of the blast is the best bargain hunting success you have had.

When my daughter was only a couple of months old, I went to a yard sale. This neighbor had a ton of baby stuff they were selling. I already had most items but I didn't have an exersaucer. I got it for $10. That was way cheaper than what I would have paid in the store.

Even better was that over the years, this neighbors' kids outgrow toys at the right time for my kids to be interested in them. We have gotten a toy kitchen and a ride in police car for free. It is great to make friends and get hand me downs.

Track Fun

Davey is a runner. We nick named him Forest after Forest Gump. I wanted to do something Davey would love. I thought what would he like more than anything...running in the wide open space of the high school track. We went today and both Davey and Caitlin had a blast running and even tumbling on the track and turf. I let Caitlin bring her baby doll and stroller to the track. The baby doll and stroller make any outing more fun for her.

Weekly Winners

We went to Boston. Here are some of my favorite shots.

Baby ducks anxiously await some bread.

The view on the Charles River

Crooked stones.

Contrast between old and new.

Sunset warrior.

Sunset on the river.

Also go to Sarcastic Mom's weekly winners to check out some great shots.

Eating out: Worth the public humiliation?

A couple months back I convinced David that we could take out the kids and it wouldn't be that bad. Boy was I wrong. We went to a sit down restaurant with waiters. It was a kid friendly place but fancy for us. Davey got very agitated in his high chair almost immediately. I kept him occupied by feeding him Cheerios while we waited for our waiter to come. Caitlin was people watching in the booth. It was a struggle to get her to face the right way. People seemed nice about the 3 year old staring at them while they ate. The waiter finally arrived as I was running out of bribes ie Cheerios. We placed our order and told the waiter to bring the kids' food right away and not worry about waiting for the adult orders.

We tried distracting the kids by coloring on the place mats but Caitlin started getting angry because we used the wrong color crayon. You know how 3 year olds are like little dictators and think they rule the world. Davey was getting really squirmy in the high chair. He wanted to get out and run around. The kid hates to be confined at all. Caitlin started singing "If you are Happy and You Know it" when I smelled the unmistakable scent of a very dirty diaper. I took Davey to change in the restroom and discover that it is a blow out diaper. I brought diapers but no extra clothes. We haven't needed them for months. I took him out of the restroom in just his diaper. When Caitlin saw he was naked or "nakey" as she likes to say, she tried taking off her clothes too. They still hadn't brought any of our food. We grabbed the waiter as he walked by and told him to wrap everything to go. I took the naked Davey to the car. Dave dragged Caitlin to the car as screamed "I want my food. I'm hunnnngrrrry."

We get in the car and are thankful to be on the way home. Dave turned to me and said, "I'm never taking the kids out again."

This post was written for Parent Bloggers Network as part of a sweepstakes sponsored by Burger King Corp. They are giving away 2 $250 Visa gift cards so families can afford to go out and enjoy themselves. Click the links and write your own post.

Unusual signs

Unintentional Porn?

Are they serious or what?

Weekly Winners

We went to a Frisbee contest for dogs this week. I got a couple of shots I liked. Here they are:

This dog did not catch Frisbees but he is just too cute to not take a photo.

Flying.

This dog looks like my dog but about 25 lbs. lighter and with way more energy.

This is what Davey liked doing the most, running in open space.

Sunset means it way time to go home.

Also go to Sarcastic Mom's weekly winners to check out some great shots.

Making progress with losing

Dave made himself this 4 point meal and was so proud that he took a photo.

I haven't written about my weight loss battle lately but it is going in the right direction. Finally! I started Weight Watchers again about 3 weeks ago. Dave said he would do it with me. He wants to lose a little weight before we go on our beach vacation. The first week I was super strict. No cheating at all. Also no weight loss. Not one lb. Talk about discouraging. The only thing that kept me going was thinking that I was retaining water weight because of where I was in my cycle. I said I'm going to stick with it another week and if I don't lose anything I'm going to the doctors' for help.

Well I didn't need to make an appointment because I lost 2 lb. week 2 and another 2 lb. week 3. Having Dave do the program makes things much easier. He has cut down on his late night snacking significantly and is eating better food as well. That means less temptation for me. I still have a long way to go but I'm feeling like I can actually do it this time.