Quick Update

Well, I got my butt kicked by Denise Austin this morning. I did the entire workout, except for the power abs section. My abs couldn't handle more. I haven't done an ab workout since before I got pregnant with Ainsley, so almost two years. I REALLY enjoyed the workout. It was my first time doing Pilates and I felt like it was totally doable and easy enough to follow. I really enjoy Denise Austin workouts. This is one I am going to have to invest in. I need to find out if she does a complimentary upper body workout. I'm sure there is something. I was trying to do the workout this morning. Hannah decided that she wanted to do Pilates, too. So she worked out next to me. And Ainsley didn't want to feel left out. So, she climbed all over me while I was doing the ab section. I had to take a break to put her to sleep, then start the program again. I am going to have to start doing my workouts at night after the girls go to sleep.

Ainsley is getting so big. She is 11 months old now and I am starting to plan her birthday party already! She can walk all the way across the family room now. She is getting pretty fast, too. She has seven teeth all the way in and I think she is getting several more. She is chewing on everything right now! She has a runny nose again, so between that and the teething, I think we are in for a pretty miserable couple of weeks. I finally have her drinking a formula bottle almost every day, right in time to break her from bottles! And she ate a sandwich today! I made her a little soy butter & strawberry jam sandwich today. She loved it! It's a great way to add protein to her diet since she can't really eat eggs or much meat yet. And since it's soynut butter, I don't have to worry about a peanut allergy.

Hannah is so smart! Today we had "school" time. She spelled her name all by herself today. We also spent some time writing her name. She is getting better at tracing her name. She can write a capital H and she just realized today that an "a" is a "circle with a line". So, hopefully she'll just catch on pretty soon. We have checked out several phonics DVDs from the library, but so far she doesn't show much interest. I really wish I still had the phonics book that I learned to read from. I can't remember what it was called, but it was really good. I turned out pretty smart. We are going to try to get her registered for preschool next year. I have to order her birth certificate first, though. She is such a funny little kid. She comes into the family room almost every night and BEGS to go to her ballet class because "all the kids are waiting for me." Yeah, she doesn't take dance classes. She cries and cries when we tell her that she can't go to dance class. So, we are thinking that we might need to find a community ballet class. If anyone knows of anything down here, let me know.

I have rediscovered organization in my life. Now that my house is finally put together (for the most part) it is so much easier to stay motivated and get every aspect of my life organized. I have gotten into a routine that works for us. Routine feels so nice! And I don't think I am going to have any problems falling asleep tonight. I am exhausted already. But since Hannah napped today we'll probably be up half the night. But part of being organized has forced me to plan meals ahead of time. Yesterday we had grilled Hillshire Farms sausage and fried potatoes, not healthy, but good Sunday comfort food. Then today for dinner we had grilled chicken breasts, salad & Rice-a-Roni for Thomas & sauteed zucchini for me. It was so good. And yes, THOMAS ATE A SALAD! He's still alive, so that's good, right? We are trying to use less salt in our cooking, so we switched from seasoning everything with seasoned salt to using a combination of Old Bay seasoning & Grill Time steak seasoning. Both have sodium in them, but much less than season salt per serving. And we use less seasoning overall. I highly recommend trying the Grill Time steak seasoning. We use it on our potatoes, chicken, steak, roast, and I even used it on my zucchini today! It's just a combination of salt, garlic and different peppers. It's only $1.97 at Wal-Mart for the brand name. The generic Kroger brand is pretty good, too.

Well, I am going to go clean up a bit and get some work done while Ainsley is napping. She just fell asleep on the family room floor while she was playing. She is so cute! She was reaching under the couch to get one of her balls that rolled under there, and she just gave up and fell asleep with one arm under the couch! :) I don't dare move her in case she wakes up!

Have a good day, all!