Thursday, February 26, 2009

Catch up!

So I have a couple videos I wanted to post for your enjoyment. The first is Jaydin doing a back handspring. I recorded when they were using the down slope... but he does do it on the flat surface as well....

The next one is just Dom and his love for Mama Mia! Seriously cracks me up!!

And just one more...

Otherwise.. life is life. Some days are good. Some days I struggle. I've been disappointed with my weight loss this month but can't really sweat it too much since I've lost 19 lbs in 6 and a half weeks! Darin is still working. (This is a big deal in this economy where so many guys in the trades are out of work.) My kids are healthy (finally) and happy. All in all, I have no real complaints. Tomorrow is a whole nother day so who knows what it will bring!

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Are you freakin' kidding me?

Hmm... I think I should change the title of my BLOG to the title of this post! It's how I feel lately about pretty much everything. Don't get me wrong, I think I'm a pretty positive person but.... I do have a severe intolerance to stupidity, mediocrity and ignorance and unfortunately... the world is full of all of these things! So lately... I've been having a severe allergic reaction to alot of things around me which results in me proclaiming... "ARE YOU FREAKIN' KIDDING ME? NO SERIOUSLY???"

Apparently, my dad (who is 54 years old) has been complaining of chest pain for over a week. My mom has been way busy and hasn't had time to really see how much he's hurting and my dad is frankly SICK OF THE EMERGENCY ROOM!! The first time he finally went to the hospital for chest pain he had a quin bypass, then 3 months later he has a HEART ATTACK and ends up with 3 stents. In the first instance he did not have an actual heart attack but in the second he did, which resulted in cardiac tissue damage. The heart attack was caused BY 3 of the bypasses FAILING so they went in and stented the ORIGINAL arteries. (MY translation??? HE DIDN'T NEED THE BYPASS!!! THEY SHOULD HAVE STENTED HIM IN THE FIRST PLACE!!) I mean SERIOUSLY, why go to EXTREME measures like... I don't know... open heart surgery... without at least attempting something much less invasive like angioplasty and stent placement? UGH!!! Okay so a little while later he had more chest pain which ended up with a diagnosis of reflux. After that he decided he is just suffering from paranoia so he doesn't want to go to the hospital.

He also COMPLETELY changed his eating habits. He eats almost NO saturated fat and exercises more than I do which is saying A LOT!! (I'm at the gym 6 days a week!)

So yesterday I'm at my mom's and my dad is talking like he thinks he is going to die soon. He's complaining of chest pain still and my mom, is asking him if he needs to go to the hospital. I'm like YES!!! Take him!!! So he takes a nitro pill and they take him to the hospital where the EKG and bloodwork come back normal. This time though, they are able to rule out reflux and his cardiologist is NOT comfortable with assuming everything is okay and insists on doing "more tests". HOORAY!!! GO DR. FRIESNICHT!! So he does ANOTHER angio and finds.... (drum roll....) a STENT HAS COLLAPSED!! Are you freakin' kidding me? What the H. E. double hockey sticks is up with that? So they re-stented his right coronary artery and now he is just hanging out in the hospital. Hopefully he will be home later today.

I finally googled stent info and found that stents are little mesh wire tube like things that are inserted via a small catheter that gains access into the heart from the femoral artery. (I already knew this but I didn't know what MATERIAL the stent was made of.) I can't for the life of me figure out how this tube could collapse. I can't find any information on the likelihood of that happening.

It's so hard to think that my dad's heart would fail him again EVEN when he is working so hard to be good to it. The likelihood of the bypass failing was VERY low and still 3 of the bypasses collapsed. I'm sure the likelihood of the stent collapsing was equally as small and STILL it happened. The likelihood of him dieing at a ripe old age from being old is VERY SMALL... but hey... my dad does everything else different from the norm... so here's to AT LEAST 30 more years of having my dad around. I LOVE MY DAD!!!

UPDATE: My dad just called and told me his Dr. said the collapse was caused by a build up of scar tissue around the stent.... go figure!

Wednesday, February 18, 2009

Loving sudafed

So I love sudafed... the real stuff! I will wait in line at the pharmacy to get it because #1 the new substitute OTC stuff is NOT good for nursing mommies and #2 it works like magic. I have this horrible head cold. I HATE not feeling well but whats worse is that all of the boys have a cough.. even little Colton who was up for a good hour last night crying and hurting. I hate colds because they seem to last forever. I've been drinking emergen-c every morning before I go to the gym and yesterday I purchased some kleenex with VICKS! It's fantastic... the only thing I've smelled all day long! ;o)

Life is treating us well and every day I feel blessed that Darin still has work. This economy totally sucks and for the trades, the unemployment line is getting pretty long. His company is SO good to him and they are managing to keep him busy! LOVE THIS!!!

Damon and Jaydin are doing okay. The other day we were headed out to my in-laws and we walked out to the truck only to find the two of them full on ripping eachothers hair out and kicking eachother. The thought occured to me that my boys have NO FEAR of hurting eachother but I guarantee they would never pick a fight with someone else. Why is that?

I'm still workin' hard on my weight loss journey! Since the first day I weighed myself back in December, I've lost 21 lbs! YAY!!! The sad thing is that I still am fitting into my old clothes. Well, really I was SQUEEZING into them before and now they are comfortable. I can't wait to have no choice but to donate them to some other unsuspecting fat girl. I also realized last night that D and the boys TOTALLY see how hard I'm working. They actually BELIEVE that I am going to lose the weight! It's a huge victory for me. D has never really shown interest in my losing weight before... probably because he was afraid I wouldn't lose it and then feel like he loved me less or something. He has always been supportive of me whatever size I am but I am loving little things that he hasn't done in years... like smack my bum when he walks past. :o) He also said something to me yesterday about how I'm going to be "smokin' hot!" LOVE IT!!!

I'm def. enjoying the changes going on around me. I also love that as I'm changing, I still feel like ME! For now my goal is to be small enough to play at Kangaroo zoo with my kids on their birthday! They just put a weight limit on the stupid things and right now I surpass the limit by 27 lbs! I have till May and I KNOW that I can do it!

Hope everyone is enjoying life... even with all the miserable sicknesses that seem to be everywhere. I also wanted to make a shout out to AMBER! Congrats on the birth of a HEALTHY BEAUTIFUL BABY! Love you!

Saturday, February 14, 2009

The Power of the Master

So have you ever met someone with so much power that you couldn't help but want to be like them? Well, Dominic has concluded that the power that his cousin has is SO WORTH IT! Seriously... one of my nieces is a very powerful 3 year old. She knows just what to say and do to get what she wants and she is not afraid to scream, kick, or turn on the water works to get it. So lately Dominic has been talking/walking like her. He even does the thing she does where she crosses her arms, tucks her chin to her chest, looks up at you and DEMANDS you do as she asks NOW!!!! Well, so far his new charade isn't working but I need to get pictures of them both. It's phenomenal how perfectly he duplicates her behavior. I understand why he would try it. It seems to work REALLY well when my niece does it, but alas, he is finding that not only does it NOT work for him, but he is spending more time in his bedroom for it.

Wowzer! 2 year olds are brilliant aren't they?

Friday, February 13, 2009

Too much fun!

Okay so the other day a "friend" called us up and told us that they have this scooter that doesn't start and if we want it we can HAVE it!! So of course we go to pick it up. Darin is great at tinkering with stuff so we figured why not try it and see if he can get it running. We brought it home on Tuesday night, kind of late so it wasn't until Wednesday that Darin had some time to see if he could get it moving. I had gone to the gym in the afternoon and when I got home... Darin had it running! Really, truly, it is so much fun! Here is a pic!


I took some video of me and Darin playing on it but blogger won't upload video right now so.. for now this is all you get!

Thursday, February 5, 2009

Pay it Forward

A few girls on my Biggest Loser group are doing this so lets try it!
Here’s how it works–the first 4 people to leave a comment on this post will receive, at some point during the year, a handmade gift from me. What it will be and when it will arrive is a total surprise!
The catch is that you must participate as well–before you leave your comment here, write up a pay it forward post on your blog to keep the fun going. Then come back, let me know you’re going to play, and sit back and anticipate the arrival of your gift! Remember that only the first 4 comments will recieve a gift from me, so be quick!

Monday, February 2, 2009

So... a lot has been going on these last few days! Colton got his first tooth on Thursday! We are excited it decided to finally come through! Only what? 19 more to go! YIKES! (If you click on this pic you can actually see his little toother on the bottom! ;o) )


Friday Darin was off work and we had a lot of fun running errands without the 2 older boys. It's amazing how much they bicker when we are out in public! Saturday Jaydin had his belt test in Tae Kwon Do! He did awesome... here is just some of the oh so exciting video!



I have found that my knees are hurting frequently. I assumed it was from running but they didn't hurt worse when I was running versus the rest of the day. I was talking to my sis-in-law who mentioned I needed new running shoes. I googled it just to prove it to my hubby and low and behold the #1 indicator that you need new running shoes is pain in the joints ESPECIALLY knees! Ugh! So yesterday when we were out running last minute super bowl errands, I made Darin stop at big 5 and we picked up some NEW running shoes!

The box said $84.99 but they were on "sale" for $39.99! I also try to buy pink stuff when I can because it seems to weird my boys out just a little bit. So I am excited to try my new shoes. Unfortunately, I've had some kind of stomach bug and didn't go to the gym this morning. I figured I would spend more time running back and forth to the bathroom then I would on the treadmill. I hope to be "up and running" by the morning! ;o)

Every year my family has a super bowl party but this year it ended up being at our house! It was a lot of fun to see my sis-in-law who spent a great deal of her childhood in Pennsylvania, rooting for HER TEAM!!! It was also fun to be antagonistic and cheer for the Cardinals. I was actually complaining in the 3rd quarter that the game was way too boring. So glad the fourth quarter was full of excitement. I also had an accident while preparing the food. I went to grab a ceramic plate from the cupboard and it started falling. There were several children at my feet so I tried to grab it! Basically, the plate broke on my hands against the countertop. I sliced my finger up pretty good!



It was bleeding for a really long time and I was fighting people who insisted I would need stitches. When we got it stopped bleeding enough I talked D into putting some liquid bandaid on it! This pic is from a few minutes ago... approximately 20 hours after the injury took place. I think It's going to heal nicely! ;o)

I also have my BIG weigh in this Thursday for my weight loss competition. I'm excited to do measurements and see how many inches I've lost but super disappointed that I have not lost the 15 lbs I had hoped for. Maybe being sick will help... who knows. I'm just getting annoyed with all the gals in the group who blog about how often they cheat or how they never exercise who are managing to lose 6 to 10 lbs this month! I guess I need to not be hard on myself... but it's really starting to bug me. Maybe I should wake up earlier and get to the the gym by 4 so I can do an extra hour of cardio! UGH!!