Don't mess with her!

So earlier this fall I decided to try some fun pictures with my two boys and my sisters soon-to-be step kids!  Getting fives kids, ages 10, 9, 7, 7, and 2.5 to cooperate is nearly impossible and the fact that it was about 95 degrees that morning didn't help at all but we still had a lot of fun!  These kids are great and there is never a dull moment when they are all together!!

Sneak Peek - Twins!

So I have been quite busy this fall with photo shoots and haven't really shared any of them so I figured this would be a good chance to do just that.  These two little guys are my cousins boys and they are quite possibly the cutest little guys ever!  They were born 6 weeks early and had to a little fighting at the beginning of their precious lives but now they are thriving healthy 9 month old's who are on the move and could care less about my camera in their face!  I don't think anyone would really know that they were preemies as they are doing awesome.  It is such a honor to help document each of their milestones and I am more than excited to do their 1st Birthday Shoot next month - double cake smash here I come!   

Here are my favorites of these little guys:

                

 We rried to grab a couple of the boys and their beautiful big sister but they just weren't haven't it (they prefer to be one on one with the camera I guess)!!

 We were able to sneak in a family picture and everyone is looking in the right direction and no one is crying... I say that is a win when you are dealing with a two and half year old and twin 9 month olds!

How did I let this happen?

Last year I worked very hard to lose some weight and in March I was 25 pounds under what I was when I got pregnant with Mason!  I was so happy to have shed the extra pounds and was well on my way to achieving my ultimate goal (which was another 20 pounds lost)!  Well here we are 6 months later and I have no idea what has happened.  I have gained back about 13 of the 25 pounds I lost.... how did I let this happen?   Well with my sisters wedding only 3 months away and knowing that I need to fit into a bridesmaid dress and the holidays are coming up I realized it is time to get serious!  It is time to get back to the gym which is very tough with Colton in sports 4 nights a week but soon we will be down to sports 3 nights a week so I plan to go to the gym on Tuesdays and Fridays and will try to squeeze in a visit on either Saturday or Sunday as well.   The boys love going to Kids Club at the gym while I work out so that really helps and then afterwards we all jump in the pool for an hour or so!  On other the nights I am hoping to fit in a 30 minute Jillian Michaels workout to keep me burning the extra calories.  Now I know that exercise won't do it alone... I need to get back to eating properly as things have really slipped in the last 6 months.   I don't expect to be at my ultimate goal by the wedding as that would be 33 pounds in 3 months but being 20 pounds closer to my goal would be amazing!  Maybe I will post a weekly update - Monday Night Check In to keep myself honest and hold myself accountable.  I know I need to do this and I figure there is no better time than right now.  Also I am hoping exercise as well as some added Vitamins (just started taking Vitamin D and B12) will help me with my anxiety which seems to flare up every winter and by January can be in full swing with anxiety attacks happening daily sometimes... I am really hoping to find a more natural way to avoid that nightmare this year and avoid the prescription drugs which I know can be so very addicting.   Here we go.... time to drop the weight and tone up this flab and get back to healthy!!

It's a Bridal Shower!

My little sister is getting married in early 2014 so today we hosted a Bridal Shower in her honor!  We held the party at the Fire Hall so that we had plenty of room to hold everyone that we wanted to invite to share in her big day.  The party went off perfectly!  We did have a small set back with the cake when we went to pick it up but that was fixed before the Bride-to-Be ever knew!  We played games, enjoyed delicious food and of course enjoyed some laughs.   I took more than enough pictures to document her special day and here are just a few of my favorites!

  Also like every good party should, ours ended with the Bride-to-Be and her bridesmaids taking a cruise around the city in a fire truck!  We were lucky enough to do this because a friend of mine (actually my assistant den leader for Colton's Cub Scout den) is a volunteer firefighter and he offered to take a few of us for a spin after the party!

Congratulations MaryBeth!  Hope you enjoyed your special day. 

The Master of Procrastination!

I am pretty sure that if Procrastination was an Olympic Sport I would take Gold every time!  I don't know why but I seem to work much better when I am working to meet a last minute deadline.   I did it to myself again this weekend with my sister's bridal shower.  We sent out invitations about a month ago and I knew that I needed to get working on planning the menu, games, prizes, decorations and  whatever else needed to be done!  Of course, I didn't get started on it until this week though.  Did a little shopping on Tuesday night and then went to Party City on my lunch break on Friday!  I spent the morning early afternoon on the day before the shower at the Gopher Game and then that night it was crunch time!  I picked the boys and ran to target to buy the rest of what I needed for the party and purchased her gift.  Then it was time to get home and get to work!  I started with making pickle rolls, then we made a table full of chocolate covered pretzels and lastly I cut up all the fresh fruit!  I then wrapper her present and got to my computer to figure out the games and get them printed.  So much of this could have been done ahead of time but like I said I work better under pressure!  No surprise to myself I got it all done and was in bed by 10pm.  Maybe someday I will be better about not procrastinating but at this point I am going to hold on to my Master of Procrastination title with pride!!

My Current Loves

So I did a post like this about a year ago and I thought it might be fun to do my Top 10 Current Loves again ! Here is my list from last year... http://number1vikingfan.blogspot.com/2012/11/current-loves.html.

1.  My boys are of course my biggest love.  They keep me busy (see earlier post if you don't believe me), they drive me nuts, they make me laugh, they make me scream and want to hide in my room and drink myself silly, they show me love, they need me and more than anything I need them!  I can't imagine my life without those two crazy little guys in my life, they are my everything!

2.  My husband.  He also drives me crazy and makes me want to scream some days (must be where the boys learned that quality) but he is my rock and I am pretty lost without him. He has traveled a lot more this year and when he is gone I realize just how much I need him, especially after a long day at work and then crabby sassy boys all night.   

3.  Photography!  I am sure it is no surprise that photography is huge to me.  I rarely do anything without my camera (or camera phone) in my hand! I love to document all the fun that I am having as well as some of the craziness that happens in my everyday life.  I have started to venture out more with my business, doing many photo shoots this year. I have done everything from newborns, 3 month, 6 months, 9 months, 1st birthday cake smash, family, seniors, engagement and even took on the challenge of twin babies (my cousins boys)!!  I have had so much fun with every shoot and hope to continue to do many more in the future.  I am also lucky enough to have a great friend who is just as photography obsessed as I am so we are able to take classes together, be personal photographers for our friends and we will be shooting our first wedding together next May, EEK!

4.  I of course love food, who doesn't?!  Some of my current food loves are Salsa and Chips, Potato Corn Shower Soup, Monkey Bread, White Chicken Cheese Enchilada's and anything and everything with Buffalo Hot Sauce on it!

5.  My Current love TV shows include Big Bang Theory and just about anything on HGTV!  Why have I never watched this channel before?  House Hunters, Love it or List it, Property Brothers... all amazing shows and ones that suck me almost every night when I crawl into bed!

6.  My Bed!  We bought an Adjustable Sleep Number with build in massage this summer and it is wonderful.  The price of the damn thing almost made me pass out and it cause me a lot of heartburn and shaking of my head every time I though I about the price but I have to admit it is so worth it!  Frankie and I both sleep so amazingly well and we never wake up sore anymore.   We have always  been ones to watch some TV in bed at night and now we crawl in, prop up our heads and elevate our feet and we are so comfortable that we rarely make it through an entire show anymore!  Luckily the bed has a sleep timer so it will lay itself flat all on its own while we are fast sleep (and I never wake up when it adjusts to flat which I find rather amazing)! 

7  Candy Crush!  How am I still playing this stupid game?  I swear there are some nights that I will get sucked in for an hour or more - are you kidding me?!  This stupid game is such a waste of time but yet I can't seem to stop playing it!  I spend many of my lunch breaks sitting at my desk eating my lunch and playing this damn game on my phone.  So I am sure you wondering why I don't just delete the game?! Because I can't - that is why - I fear it might actually kill me or will cause something somewhere to blow up... yup the game has that kind of power!! 

8.  Grandmas.  It has been over a month since I said goodbye to my Grandma and I still cry when I think about her, see pictures of her or tell stories about her to my boys. The hardest part is knowing that she won't be here for Christmas this year which was her favorite holiday.  It won't be easy at all.  But I will say that I love that my boys have amazing bonds with both their Grandmas.  Most days they would rather be with one of their Grandma's than me!  It makes me melt to see them snuggle up with their Grandma and create that unbreakable bond and love that I have for my Grandma.  I grew up seeing my Grandma all the time... daily during the summer and several times a week during the school year and I do my best to be sure my boys have that same opportunity with their Grandmas!  Now we don't live next door to any of them like I did with my Grandma but we do live within 10 miles of both my mom and Frankie's mom and we make the trips to their house as often as possible even if it is just for dinner on a week night!  Now we also have a Grandma out in Vegas so it is a little harder to see her all the time but we have made a tradition of taking a trip out there to spend some time with them every winter, just one on one with no other family getting in the way!  The boys really enjoying staying with their Great Grandparents and I know it is something I cherish just as much.  We hope to continue this tradition every year... although we are still holding out hope that they decide to move back to MN so we can see them a lot more often!

9.  House Hunting.... or House Dreaming as it might more appropriately called right now!  We keep talking about "upgrading" our home.... to something newer with an attached garage and an open layout with a real kitchen so my chef of a husband can prepare meals for us and our friends and family!  We spend many nights sitting on the couch with our laptops searching through current home listings for the Southeast Metro!  That's right, we won't be moving very far from our current location (see #8 if you can't figure out why we wouldn't look at other communities in the Twin Cities)!  

10.  Blogging!  I have always had a love of blogging and this year is no different.  I love to be able to document what is going on in our life and it is so much fun to go back and read posts from the past.  There have been nights where I plop on the couch, pick a year and just read through all the posts and relive all the wonderful memories.  I hope I can continue to update this blog for many years to come (even though some weeks I can't find a free moment to blog). I have to admit that right now I am sitting in a school gym writing this post while Colton is learning new Karate moves - which brings me to another love - the ability to use the Hotspot on my cell phone so I have internet where ever I go!  What did we do before all this amazing technologies!?

Okay I think that wraps up my current loves!  

Why can't I just say "No"?

I am a person to always say Yes and sometimes I wonder why!!  This goes for Colton and his sports/activities as well.  We want to him to try everything that he shows an interest in and a few things that I am interested in and I just hope he will like them too!  So for he has tried out Gymnastics, Swimming Lessons, Wrestling, Baseball, Basketball, Football, Cub Scouts, Karate and Sunday School!  And for the most part he has like them all (wrestling was kind of a bust which I was totally okay with)!  So tonight as I am feeling a little under the weather and just want to crawl on my couch and watch the football game I am asking myself... why do I do this to myself.   This year I have agreed to be the Den Leader for Cub Scouts as our den didn't have a leader and of course the boys needed one.  Now, I didn't have to say Yes to doing this but then we might not have had a den for his age group and he loves Scouts so here I am to the rescue.  So I spend my free time figuring out activities we can do during our den meeting and setting up outings to the local Police Station, Fire Department, Library, Local Parks and whatever else I can come up with!   Now, the Troop also needed help with other activities within our pack and of course I said "I can do it"!  So I am also the Wreath Coordinator for our Pack.  I spent my weekend collecting order forms and money and spend several hours on Tuesday night compiling our order and submitting it as well as figuring out how much commission each scout earned from selling wreaths!  Ugg, and it is over, wreaths will be delivered in two weeks... 187 of them and then we will need to sort orders so the scouts can pick them up and deliver them Thanksgiving weekend.  

So I bet you are shaking your head and thinking I am crazy right.  Well that is just one activity, one night a week.  But there is more.... Monday and Wednesday nights are Basketball practice for 1.5 hours  which I of course agreed to help coach.  Now I was strong enough to say that I couldn't be head coach because I have Mason with me some nights but I am assisting coaching as much as possible.   Friday nights we have Karate.  Sundays we have Sunday School and because I can't say no I am also on our Nursery Crew at our church so I am spend a Sunday every 6 weeks playing with the little kids (which is actually a lot of fun)! Sunday evenings we had Swimming Lessons but those just ended last week so at least that is one thing off the busy schedule (for now anyways)!

Yes I am crazy and yes I should probably learn to say "NO" but when I see Colton having so much fun and meeting so many new friends and enjoying all his new adventures I realize that it is all totally worth it!  I will bend over backwards to make sure he is able to do everything he wants (within reason, no I don't buy him everything he asks for and I do say "no" to play dates when he asks for them every single week night - mostly because we already have something planned)!

Maybe is seems so crazy because Frankie works nights so I am doing so many of these activities with Mason in tow but I know our situation when I continue to sign Colton up for all of these crazy sports/activities.  Oh well, I can rest when my boys are away at college right?  So I guess until then it is is no rest or free time for this mama!  Here's to my crazy, busy lifestyle - I do it all for my

beautiful boys!  

Wordless Wednesday