Biggest Loser Week 5

Let's just say that last week was rough.  We moved and that means it should have been a great weight loss week right.  Lifting heavy things from one house to the other and up stairs and then deep cleaning the rental house.  Ya so I was up half a pound from the week before when all was said and done.  It was rough.  I would start the mornings out great.  Lunch would throw huge calories into it.  We ate out a lot.  Our stuff was packed!

This week needs to be better.  Sunday started out with brownies so it didn't start out the greatest.  It isn't the greatest idea to gain weight at the beginning of the week because then you have that much more to lose to beat your previous weeks weight.

Well this weeks challenges are to drink at least 8 8oz glasses of water.  Water intake is vital to survival and that doesn't change when you are trying to lose weight.

The other challenge is Push ups.  We can do them however we want.  Wall push ups, "girl" push ups, "boy" push ups, push ups on medicine ball, off the couch or however.  I didn't set a number but asked everyone to set their own goals for the week.  My goal is to do 100 push ups this week.  I originally thought that I would only be able to do my normal 7 "guy" push ups but I did 20 last night and it was so awesome.  I have my sister in law doing 100 with me, her husband doing 200, my mother in law doing 10 a day, some cousins doing 60 each and my brother doing 165.

We will see how it goes by the end of the week.

This has been a lot of fun so far.

Good luck to all of you trying to lose or maintain your weight.  If anyone has challenge ideas please feel free to leave a comment and share.

It's ours....lets sleep in it!

It is official....we are moved.  We closed on the house Monday morning and then moved as much of the big stuff as we could the rest of the day.  We also moved over some clothes and enough food for the night.  I figure if it is ours then we need to sleep in it.

It was a very long day.  Very exciting.  A friend of mine watched our kids most of the day which was a blessing.  We were able to get so much done without having to worry about our kids.

Tuesday my husband went back to work and I continued to move things.  Another friend offered to watch my kids and that was so helpful.  I started moving things room by room.  I finished the girls room, the hall closet and the bathrooms as well as box up most of my sewing room.  After work we moved the rest of the heavy furniture including my sewing room.

Wednesday my friend watched the girls again and continued moving things and then I started cleaning.  Floor boards, windows, blinds, mirrors, sinks, cobwebs and floors.  I didn't get finished but I got a good start.  I had forgot the comet at the new house so I couldn't wash the tubs and toilets.

Thursday my friend again watched my girls.  It was so nice of her.  I finished cleaning.  I remembered the comet so the bathrooms were finished.  After my husband got off work he moved the fridge and oven and man was it dirty.  I'm pretty sure we are the only ones to ever clean behind there because there was a lot of stuff that was never ours to begin with.  So they have now been vacuumed, the fridge and cabinets cleaned.
We started moving the garage stuff and then I went to get the girls and some dinner.  When I got back we ate and the girls went to bed and at this point a friend helped my husband move the rest of the garage stuff.  I was very excited about that part.  The rest of the stuff was really heavy and I really didn't want to have to pick it up.  My arms are tired and my fingers are raw.  After the garage was empty then I went back over to finish cleaning the tile while my husband stayed with the girls.

Today the Internet was finally turned back on.  Sorry I didn't even get a post telling you that I was disappearing for a few days.  Everything happened so fast after the closing that we didn't even turn the computer on til this morning.

My sewing room is a mess but it is getting there.  The entire house is getting there.  The kitchen is amazing.  I have so much more cabinet space than before that only a few things remain on the counter (other than lose papers I'm not yet sure what to do with).  I have my vacuum now so I plan to vacuum our new house from top to bottom today since we have drug in so much dirt.

I hope you have a wonderful day.  I just noticed that I was a guest blogger the other day.  If you want to check it out here is the link.

Well I have lots of stuff to do still before my washer and dryer are delivered and installed.  Have a great day.

I made...

I made it to the sewing room today.  It was great.  I almost forgot how much fun and how stress relieving it is for me. 

We went to the library this morning and it was fun to watch both of the girls wander around with the other kids.  After that we went to the recycling center and then home again.  After lunch Yana took a good nap and I spent 3 hours in the sewing room.  I have one last applique to sew on 4 squares and then I can assemble, sandwich and finish them up.

I am trying to get this all done over the next couple of days so I don't end up putting it off during the move.  I'll hopefully share pictures with you tomorrow.

Moving continued

No time spent in the sewing room today.  I did get lots done around the house though.  I cleaned off the desk in my room and then took the desk out to the garage.  I boxed the rest of the books on the shelf in our room as well as the photo albums and games in the other cabinet in our room.  Then I cleaned the blinds and the windows. 

Before starting on our master bedroom I vacuumed the house and then vacuumed the ceiling fans.  After I was done in my room I started on the girls room and cleaned their blinds and window.  I'm going to wait until we have all the furniture out of the living room before I clean the blinds and windows in the living room out of convenience.  I cleaned most of the doors yesterday and I have been working on the laundry as well.

Our garage is slowly filling up.  I am finding other things already in boxes and totes that I can just stick in the garage.  It is weird how familiar this all is even though it has been a year and half since the last time we moved.

Well that was my day.  Yana seems to be feeling better tonight.  No more fever just cranky.  Hopefully a good nights rest will help with that.  Have a good night.

Moving

Well I need to let the cat out of the bag.  If it seems that I am slacking in my blogging this might help explain a little bit of it.

We are moving.  We just don't know when for sure.  We have to be out of our house by the 31st since that is when we told our landlords we would be out.  We are now waiting to be told when we can move into the place we will soon call home for the foreseeable future.  So we are packing.  Packing boxes, cleaning the house, making phone calls, and just trying to get as much done as we can.

It is looking like we will be able to start moving this Friday or next Monday but it isn't a for sure thing yet. 

Yana has had a fever for the last couple of days and I'm not sure if she is teething or sick.  A fever is the only symptom that she has.  No coughing, no runny nose, nothing.  Just feverish. Oh and moody.  When she is awake she wants held so I have been using her nap time as my get things done around the house time instead of my sewing time. 

The garage is full of boxes.  The nice thing is that the house that we are moving into now is right around the corner so we don't have to box up every little thing.  The house is bigger and that is why we are moving.  We need more space.  The garage is bigger, there are more rooms, there is a window in the kitchen, more windows period so there is more light and it is just plain bigger.  We are so excited.

I'll keep you all posted and try to keep blogging away.  Have a great day.

Biggest Loser Week 3

Last week went by so fast.  We were supposed to schedule our exercises at the beginning of the week and then do our best to do them.  We were also supposed to weight train at least 2 days.  I scheduled my biggest loser wii workouts for Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday and then my running for Monday, Thursday and Saturdays.  Biking was on Tuesday, Friday and possibly Saturday.  I planned on weight lifting on Wednesday and Friday.  I did pretty good.  I didn't do one biggest loser because I had absolutely no energy or desire and I didn't run or bike on Saturday but other than that I did everything else on my schedule.

This week, week 3, our two challenges are this.  We are to keep track of what we eat for any two days this coming week.  It should help us see how we are doing.  Even if we are exercising like crazy but we are eating way too much then we will still not see the results we want.  I track my calories almost every day on www.Sparkpeople.com in order to lose weight.

Our second challenge is to do 100 trunk rotations each day.  They are low impact but work several muscles. 

I also had several people tell me that they felt really good the first week while doing the jumping jacks and were still doing some this last week.  So anyone who still wants to please feel free to keep doing jumping jacks.  They are good for us after all.

I hope that everyone is having a good week so far.  Ours should be good.

This week

I'm sorry....it occurs to me that it is now Thursday and the last time I posted anything was Monday.  I have no excuses. 

It has been an interesting week.  Nothing too out of the ordinary really.  Monday we went grocery shopping and I ran my best miles yet.  I took off 30 seconds per mile making it 10:30 minute miles.  Down from 11 minute miles.  I was very excited.  Was a beautiful day.

Tuesday I crazily decided to ride my bike and the wind froze me out.  After my ride it took hours to get warm again so I cuddled with my girls under a blanket.  It was a very lazy day.

Wednesday was better.  It was my official rest day.  We didn't swap kids.  I hung out with my kids and then got some sewing done while Yana slept.  I love to sew.  I'm hoping to have the tops to the three Valentine's day table runners done and sandwiched by Saturday and two in the mail by Monday.  We will see.
I lifted weights while watching tv with my hubby.

Today I ran my best miles yet since having Yana.  10 minute miles.  I didn't mean to push that hard.  They say to only increase so much per week.  But it felt good.  It SNOWED last night.  Not that much but snow is snow.  Sarah played in it til she froze and then came in.  She loves the snow as much as I do.  I got some more sewing done.  I moved the table back out into the living room so I can work while the girls are playing.

We invited a few friends of my daughter's to come play for a little bit tomorrow since they don't have school.  It should be fun for them.  I hope to go for a bike ride and I'll probably freeze again.  I want to get the last of the applique sewing done tomorrow so I can get things sandwiched.

Saturday we will see.  I know at this point that we will be celebrating some birthdays with our friends at their house.

It has been a good and productive week for us.  I hope it has been for you as well.  I'll try to get back on track with my postings and pictures.

The Biggest Loser

My family has started another round of "The Biggest Loser".  We started January first and it will go for three months.  There are more people joining us this time.  My sister in law is keeping track of the weights and the percentage of weight lost and I am in charge of the weekly challenges.

This past week's challenge was actually fun.  I got the idea off of Pinterest.  The idea is that 1000 jumping jacks = 1 pound so that was the challenge.  We needed to each do 1000 jumping jacks this week.

I have Sunday as my rest day so I split it up by 6 days in the week.  I did 167 jumping jacks each day and finished today. 

I just sent out the challenges for this week. 
Challenge 1 - schedule this weeks workouts on the calendar and then do them...working around unexpected interruptions.

Challenge 2 - Incorporate weight training into at least 2 days this week.  Either into the workouts you already do or do specific ones by themselves.

If you have made resolutions this year to get healthy, lose weight, or just do better in your exercising feel free to join us on our challenges and let me know how you do.  It is always easier if you have others to do it with.

Yesterday's cake

Yesterday was a busy day.  I told you that I was working on a project and here it is.  This is the cake that I was making.  We had a young women finish her Personal Progress and we wanted to celebrate it.  So I made a yellow cake and used butter cream frosting.  It was vanilla flavored.  I used the basket weave around the edge and then used butter cream to make all the flowers.  At Young women's last night we planted flowers so I wanted it to look like a basket with flowers in it.

 It was fun making the cake but it took longer than I thought it would because my kids need attention too.  Go figure right. :)

 Here is another project that I finished at least a week ago.  I showed you pictures of Sarah's hat but I don't remember ever showing you pictures of Yana's hat.  I still haven't made the pom poms.  I'm still debating whether or not to put them on.  I'll let you know what I choose to do.  I also made Josh a hat in camouflage but without the ear flaps.  I'm working slowly on one for myself.  It just isn't cold enough right for them.

I am drained today.  I really didn't want to work out this morning but I did anyways.  I'm so tired.  I think I might lie down while Yana is sleeping.

Today's project

Well last night I made a cake.  I was asked to make this cake.  It is not just for myself.  It is for a celebration.  Today I'm sitting here trying to decide exactly how I want to decorate and with what flowers.  So I might not end up spending too much time in my sewing room.  As soon as I get this done then I'll wheel my table out and cut some more pieces.

I'll share pictures with you tomorrow.  Lets see what I can come up with.

I'm back!

I finally made it to the sewing room Monday.  However, don't get too excited.  It was only to finish cutting a blanket in half that my husband accidentally cut and make two blankets out of it.  It took all of 10 minutes.

But....it did get me back in the sewing mood.  So today although I didn't actually turn on the sewing machine I did get enough pieces to make three Valentine's Day runner's finished.  One is already sold so if you want one keep checking back.

I was looking around my sewing room at all the projects I have around and all the ones in my head that I would like to do.  I have a lot to do but I will get them done.  I love my rolling table.  I will be able to get so much more done, I think.

It should be a good week.

The other project for Christmas

I saw this project at a ward project day.  I loved it.  I came home and told my husband that we were going to make them for family for Christmas.  Sadly, he also had to make his own.  So he got creative.

 These are Priesthood line of Authorities for the men in our families.  Three generations on my husband's side including my husband and one on my side of the family.

 He cut and placed every one of the pieces on these frames.

He had a lot of fun building the frames and I had a lot of fun putting things together.  We got them to our families in time for Christmas and everyone seemed to really like them.