Growing so fast...

My little man keeps growing so fast. Here he is with his new bear. I noticed he was starting to grab and hug my arm/hand whenever I would try to comfort him or give him his pacifier. So I replaced my arm with this Pooh Bear and *magic* he grabbed onto it and spent the next hour content and quiet while snuggling his bear. Later in the evening (when I was taking these pictures) he decided he might like to taste his bear. He started wrestling it with his two little fists and putting the ears in his mouth. So cute! I love watching his little mind and personality grow. He's so amazing to me.

Day 1: The 30 Day Shred

As you all know, I just had a baby. And though I tried to be active and not let my eating and weight gain get out of control, it wasn't as easy as I thought it would be. Around the time I hit my last trimester, I lost all my energy. So even though I felt great, I didn't have the energy to keep up the walking, etc. I also let my cravings get the better of me and had a few too many desserts and french fries (my ridiculously stretch marked thighs and bum will testify to that).

So I was browsing some different movies and tv shows on my AppleTV the other day and came across the Jillian Michaels' 30 Day Shred. For those of you who don't know, Jillian Michaels is one of the trainers on the tv show, The Biggest Loser. I decided to read some of the reviews and saw that almost everyone who had commented had at least moderate success. So for $8.99 I purchased the 3 different workout levels.

My friend, Ashley, asked me to blog about my workout experiences; so here I am, humoring her. I agree, I think it will be good to be able to look back and track my success. Every week I'll weigh and measure myself to gauge my progress.

Here are my starting measurements:
Weight: 151 lbs. I gained 51 lbs. during my pregnancy. I went from 132 lbs. to 183 lbs. Two weeks after I had the baby, I weighed in at 155 lbs. Not bad for having a 9 lb. baby. Eleven weeks later I am still in the 150s so I know I'm going to have to do this with exercise, not just eating better.
Upper arms: 12 in.
Waist: 32.5 in.
Hips (or what I like to call, my big fat bum): 43 in.
Thighs: 25 in.
Calves: 16 in.

Let me tell you, for a 30 minute workout, this is hard. Especially for someone as out of shape as I am. The workout consists of a warm- up, three six-minute segments beginning with 3 minutes of strength training, 2 minutes of cardio, and finishing with 1 minute of abs, and ends with a cool-down stretch.

The Warm-Up: I was totally winded by the end up the warm-up. Who would have thought that jumping jacks could get you so tired.

Three 6-minute segments: I wanted to quit so many times but Jillian keeps reminding you through the whole thing that it's only a 30 minute exercise and you have to keep at it if you want results. And I want results.

The Cool-Down: This was great because after all that work, some of my muscles were starting to cramp from all that time not being used.

I have confidence that after 30 days I will feel like a new person. I'm putting it out there for everyone to see that I'm committing to do this at least 3 days a week for a month. Please ask me about this if/when you see me. I want to be accountable to everyone reading my blog so that I'll have the motivation to keep doing this. I wanted to quit a couple of times in the middle of the video but I know that if people are going to ask me about it, I'll keep going. Wish me luck!

My Little Man

So here's my new little sweetheart...Carter Owen Daniel...born December 10, 2009 at 4:28am after 14 hours of induced labor. I went into the doctor on my due date, December 8, and I was dilated to 4 cm without being in any kind of active labor. So we decided to induce because I didn't want to wait anymore for my little guy; we were scheduled to go in at 10 am the next morning to be induced. By 2pm we were finally getting started with the pitocin and things started moving along. The doctor broke my water, at which point the contractions became unbearable and we called for the epidural, right away! By the time I was dilated to 10 cm I was too numb to push at all so they slowed my epidural down and we got to pushing. The doctor was called and at 4:28am we had our new little man. He weighed in at 9 pounds 3 ounces and was 21.5 inches long.


I feel so lucky that I was able to have all the people I wanted in the room with me and they all did a great job of coaching and cheering me on. Leland (of course) was right by my side and he was a huge help and support for the hardest part of my pushing. Helping hold my legs for the pushing were both my moms, Lisa (mom) and Lawanna (Leland's mom) and they were so great rubbing my hands and feet between contractions and giving me ice. On the sidelines watching and cheering were my Aunt Linda (mom's sister), Ashley (Leland's sister), and Ashley (my best friend, she drove from CA to be here, what a pal!). Everyone was so awesome and I wouldn't change a bit of it, I loved having everyone there. Sorry to all of them for having to see me all naked, but I'm sure they don't remember much of it, it was probably knocked out of their minds once the baby arrived.


Mixed in with all the commotion of giving birth was closing on our house. We actually closed escrow on December 9 while I was being induced. While I was still in the hospital a bunch of friends and family went to our house and got stuff cleaned up and some painting done so that things were more ready for us to move from David and Lawanna's house. We're pretty settled now and we love our little house. It's so nice to have our own space and really be able to do what we want with it. We've been making lots of plans and we're excited to move forward with them.


So here are some of my thoughts on my little man and on being a mom:
1. I absolutely love snuggling him. His little head is so soft and I'm always rubbing my cheeks on him and kissing his head and cheeks.
2. I love to watch Leland with him. He's so sweet and he really loves his new little dude.
3. Sometimes I love his cries. About half the time his cry is this pitiful, whimpering cry that is so incredibly adorable.
4. Sometimes I just sit and stare at him sleep. I can't help it.
5. I feel really lucky that he almost always sleeps from midnight until 6am. He doesn't go that long between feedings during the day, but almost every night he lets me sleep for almost 6 uninterrupted hours.
6. It's weird being a mom. Because I'm a mom forever now, and every once in awhile I look at him and think, "Holy crap, that's my kid."
7. I love his smile and the noises he makes when he gets excited and happy. Leland and I have a lot of fun getting him to smile.