Halloween - a year ago

Just for fun:

Illinois and Washington DC

We are home now from our 12 day trip to Illinois and Washington DC. We had a wonderful time but are also glad to be home. Our first stop was Illinois to visit the Fifhause family, including meeting our nieces, Addison and Chloe, for the first time. Unfortunately Chloe had to have more surgery right before we visited so our time with her, Mike, and Lyndzie was short but we were able to watch Addison for them and spent great quality time with her. On the day we were to leave Illinois Chloe was released from the hospital, we got to see and hold her at home for a few minutes before we took off for the second adventure of our trip.


The second adventure of our trip was to Washington DC area, both to sight see and to attend Jacob's cousins (Kelly) ceremony to renew her wedding vows with her husband Jason. Leanna, Al, and Anna also joined us for this part of the trip, Jaden thoroughly enjoyed seeing his grandparents and Aunt Anna. I had never been to Washington DC so had a wonderful time taking in all of the monuments, significant buildings, National Zoo, and museums, lots of history surrounds the area. I know these pictures are pretty small and only a few, if you wish to see more head over to Jacob's photo gallery (link is on my blog list, click on his name not the Washington DC part, this will take you to the home page) pictures are located under the Fall 2009 heading and the Washington DC heading.

Body after Baby - week 4

I made it through the week of not weighing myself and at the end all was good. Lost a little bit of weight even. I am currently on vacation and do not have my scale with me so can not report on how much I have lost so far. I will definitely weigh myself next Friday and give a report. I feel my diet so far while on vacation is doing pretty well, eating salads and fruits when I can, also letting myself splurge a little bit because lets face it everyone deserves a little down time.

I kept pretty good tack of my healthy meals from last week and ended with a total of 15 points, that is an ok amount. I am up to 59 points total for that portion of the challenge. This week we are counting the number of sit-ups we can do (hopefully reaching 50 per day for 50 points).

Diet goal: eat healthy while on vacation, keeping portion size in mind

Exercise goal: 50 sit-ups per day.

Here is to another week!

Body after Baby - week 3

Week 3 is underway. I have not weighed myself recently but am snacking healthier which has been my main goal for the past couple of weeks. I use to obsess over my weight and weigh myself daily, I hear this is not healthy for me. Is that true? I have even gone so far as say I might have had a slight weight disorder with how obsessed I was (am still fighting against). Not that I ever was super thin, my sister and I always referred to ourselves as "healthy," now how ever I am above healthy. To help me battle my obsession I have asked my husband to hide the scale except for on Fridays, so this Friday I will weigh myself after not doing so for a week. I will let you all know how it goes.

I walked/ran for a total of 14 points last week. I am also happy to report my asthma seems to be better which should allow me to run more frequently. I volunteered for a run event this past weekend and it sort of inspired me to run more so I again can race (at least participate in fun runs).

Week 3 diet goal: still working on eating fewer sweets.
Week 3 exercise goal: RUN!!!!!

Mama notes is encouraging us to eat healthier this week, for each meal that contains at least two different types of food groups I earn 1 point. I am off to a great start (and am not too worried about accumulating points, we typically eat healthy meals) as we had chicken, salad, and fruit for dinner. Point 1 earned :)

Weekend happenings

It was a busy weekend for the Fifhause's. Saturday brought ballet class, house painting, OSU football against Standford (OSU won!!!!!!!!!!!!), and a visit from our dear friends Christine and Kevin. Christine celebrated her birthday a few weeks ago and as her gift we took both out to dinner. Jacob and I left the OSU game early so we could go out to eat before the game crowd. Jaden does not always enjoy restaurants and usually lets us know by yelling, but this time he was a perfect gentleman!!! We got SOOOOO lucky, it was wonderful, thanks little J.

Sunday all 3 of us volunteered for the Great Pumpkin Run hosted by Home Life, Inc., the non-profit organization I work for. This was my 3rd year volunteering for the event and we had more runners than previous years!! I work on the committee by creating the registration form and setting up the online registration, besides our day of volunteering. Maybe next year I will run in the 10 k event, we shall see.

I had to leave in the middle of the run to go teach Sunday School, I am teaching a 3rd-5th grade Sunday School class at the First United Methodist Church. I have volunteered for older grades in the past at my church growing up so this is different for me but I am enjoying the kids. Unfortunately none showed up this week :( We are learning about God creating the world, this past Sunday we were going to talk about the Sabbath (day of rest) so I guess everyone took the day of rest :) When finding out that no one was going to show up I headed back to the run to help clean up.

After our early morning we headed to Albany to celebrate Uncle Paul's birthday, Happy Birthday Paul. We met up with Ashley, Paul (of course he is the birthday boy), Mom, and then Christine and Kevin joined us as well for a nice lunch.

We have now started our week anticipating our trip to Illinois and Washington DC towards the end of this week. Can't wait to see all of our family in those parts of the country!!!

Ms. Newell

Jaden wanted to send a little shout out to his friend Christine. He is VERY excited to see you this coming weekend!!

Body after Baby - week 2

My goals from last week were to snack healthier and to run twice, I am happy to report I was able to accomplish eating mostly health snacks (apple with peanut butter is my new favorite food item). However I had a set back with running, I have sports induced asthma and unfortunately it is getting worse as I age rather than better. Last Wednesday I attempted to run 2 miles on my lunch break, made it less than 1 mile and had an attack. Luckily I was able to get into my doctor promptly and am on a new regimen of medication. I have not attempted to run sense the last incident (I am a little fearful) but think I will make the attempt tomorrow!!

Diet goal: cut out sweets (ice cream, cake, candy, pop, etc.) unless for a special occasion (birthday parties, etc.). I don't eat a ton of sweets but definitely could eat less.

Exercise goal: run 2 days, plus biking to work and ballet class. I am repeating week 1's exercise goal due to my set back.

I am also tracking how many minutes I run/walk during this week, this is the Body after Baby weekly challenge. For every 15 minutes I walk or run I earn 1 point!

Blog question

I am new to this blog thing and have a question for those who are more experienced. If you become a follower of a blog do you receive email updates when a new post is written? Do I have to change a setting so those that follow get an email? If that is not possible what is the specific point of following a blog, other than to let the author know who is reading it?

Thanks much for your help!

Over the Bridge