Holiday season

Life continues to whirl by. We’ve had the kids in swimming lessons twice a week, plus Cub Scout meetings, plus our regular visits to my Mom, meeting with friends, MOPS, homeschooling, and all the various other things that come up have meant we are quite busy. I’m glad tonight is the last swimming class because it means two more nights we get to stay at home. Jason will be even more happy as he’s the one who has been taking them!

The kids have really shown massive improvement with their swimming in this last session. Its tempting to keep them in for another session, but its just too much running around at this time of year with all the other obligations we have. So we’ll skip this next session and see about the next or maybe the one after that. We value our evenings at home with the family and J and I are in agreement that being gone every night of the week is NOT what we want for our family. Swimming can wait :)

We had a blast on Halloween. The weather was perfect, and we went up our street to the church, did their Trunk or Treat (very well done with bouncy house, popcorn, drinks, and fun games for all ages) then came back. The kids got a lot of candy, but not as much as in years past. No complaints from me about that! Aunt Margaret came and watched Henry at the house so we didn’t have to worry about him and that was nice. The kids love dressing up and being their character for a night. Here’s our pics from the night.

Our pumpkins. The kids sketched what they wanted and I carved. Ethan did Henry’s, obviously!



  

Gwen’s reaction to getting a full size candy bar!
 
Elsa being chauffeured from house to house in her stroller.
 
Henry is now 2 months old! Whoa. When did that happen? He’s grown so much and I’m excited to take him in next week and find out his stats. We'd planned on having family pictures done last weekend, but I decided to cancel and wait until he’s smiling more on command. I really want his baby picture to be with a smile! A few nights ago the kids and I gave him a bath and he enjoyed being the center of attention of his siblings and smiled and looked from face to face as they poured warm water on him and tickled him gently. It was a such a sweet moment. The kids love him dearly.

I was supposed to start my healthier eating/living plan this week but yeah… .didn’t happen. For one, Halloween candy everywhere! Makes it hard. Also, I’m so hungry and tired. That combo is not a good one for eating less and working out more. But I’m determined that next week I will go to the gym at least two times and do weights at home at least once. History has shown that I do not lose weight easily (or at all) while breastfeeding, but at least I can build up my muscles again and be more toned. In the past I’ve lost my baby weight pretty much in the first 6 weeks. This time, not so much. I’m basically back at the weight I was last spring when I started working out. So I have to lose all that weight again, plus the extra 10 lbs to my goal weight. Sigh. I’m not going to even think about how hard I had to work out to get there and how I can’t do that now with a baby, but I will just take it one day, one week, one month at a time and eventually I will see some progress.

I’m excited that we’re now in the holiday season. I love Thanksgiving and Christmas… my favorite times of year. I want to really enjoy this year and not get bogged down with the commercial aspects. Every year I try to do that and some years it works and others no so much.
Oh, I wanted to share this darling video of Elsa singing. One night it was just her and me and the baby at home and she wanted to sing. So we did, and I caught it on video!

And here’s another of the girls dancing a few nights ago. They love the Mama Mia soundtrack and can’t help but dance when they hear it.