September 28, 2009

Well, I didn't win... but I did!

Today was the final weigh-in for the Slimdown Challenge at work. It's been going on since May and I've been working hard! This last week I've been working out at the Y mornings and after work and have been really strict about not eating dinners, or just not eat a lot of dinner.
I wanted to win the money, which wasn't even $200 but still, I wanted to win the money because I was going to donate it to Rachael's "Simple Wishes" charity for the kids that live in orphanages in Russia. Unfortunately, I didn't win. The money that is.
But I did win, in the end, because I lost weight! I weighed in as the third place winner with 15.25%!!! The two men that beat me were at 19%!
It was a pretty good competition too! A lot of "talk" throughout the entire summer. And it was fun too because we all kinda kept each other in check throughout all the events our department had!
Either way, I had a lot of fun losing weight and this Slimdown Challenge was fun and went along with my weight watchers plan too!
Anyone else losing weight out there? Tell me what you're doing!

September 24, 2009

One-on-one with Bella

Bella and I had a lot of fun last night. Just chillin' out...I love this sideways look, I think she was trying to see what Brewster (the dog) was doing.

She was trying to take off her socks, and they were on pretty good, so she really had to tug!
Here she's already utilizing her eyebrow look! So cute!

September 18, 2009

Bell's and Ton(e)-Ton(e)

I've been spending a lot of mine time over at Lori's house lately. Whether or not she invites me and Jason over for dinner, I still end up at her house, almost every other day of the week, if not more. I'm not sure what it is, exactly, but I do know this much (and in no particular order:
1. She's a good cook.
2. When I cook, it's more fun for me to cook at her house than mine because her kitchen is bigger (and she has a dishwasher!).
3. She also has a grill and making baked potatoes and then putting them on the grill after rolling them in olive oil and coarse salt, they are AWESOME!
4. They literally have fresh-from-the-garden veggies readily available!
5. They have the back porch almost done and a fire pit, just perfect for s'mores!
6. And... I love, love, love her kids!

Bella, is just a cute little baby! I call her "Bells" most of the time. And she loves it when I sing to her! In fact, if someone can give me some cute baby songs to sing, that would be most helpful, seeing as I can only get two stuck in my head, "With Bella in the family... happy, happy, home!" and "The Itsy-bitsy-spider" which she just loves! Most of the time, if she's crying, and I start singing, she stops! And sometimes it helps her go to sleep too! I love it! And I've also been able to join Lori and Bella and Tony for Sabbath School and I take Bella to her little class and she really likes it! She likes the songs and the toys. But it's a real work out! I have to pick her up to take her to the felt board and then go back to my seat and put her into her little baby seat, and then 2 minutes later, they want us to go up to pet the stuffed animals, and then back to our seats and back and forth, and back and forth! If it weren't for the cute looks on her face, I just don't know if it'd be worth it! But you can really tell she loves it! Oh, and they also sing songs the whole time and one song they sing and come around and put a little crown on their head and let them see themselves in the mirror, and she loves that part!
And tell me, how can anyone resist those cute little cheeks???!!!???


And Tony, who I affectionately call "Tone-Tone" is so adorable. He calls me either Francie, or Auntie, when he sees me and it's all jumbled up, but I know who he's talking about and I love it!
The other day I pulled up and Lori had Tony in his favorite red wagon and he didn't want to go inside, which is the case ALL THE TIME so I told her I'd hang out with him, so she could go inside and make dinner. I pulled him all through the eggplant field and he has the cutest little laugh that makes me laugh!By the way, don't look at his shirt, because I know it wasn't super clean, but I didn't want to change him and then get another shirt dirty, since we were out playing in the yard! But isn't he just so adorable? And he's in that stage right now, that he says whatever you want him to say. It's so cute! Oh, and the other day, Lori put on an episode of Barney (yes, I know, but if you saw the way he reacted to it, you would want him to watch it too!) His eyes lit up and he just sat there in a trance watching the opening song of Barney! And it's actually quite educational too!

That's all for now! I just wanted to write down what's been going on!

Okay, so Notre Dame lost last week...

A co-worker of mine, Jimmy, and I made a bet on the Notre Dame vs. Michigan game last weekend. If Notre Dame won, he'd have to wear a ND Jersey for an entire day at work. If they lost, then I'd have to get him his favorite long-john donuts.
But I wasn't going down that easy!
Luckily, for me, the local bakery hooked me up with green "ND"s on all the donuts! BOO-YAH!

September 10, 2009

Some of what I got at Fields!

Natalie has been asking about what fabric I got at Fields Fabrics this last Monday, so I decided to take a picture of them and blog about it! I only got 1/2 yards of each of these and I also got a few remnants and one of the cute pink wools that Rachael got!
I love the brown, orange and deep red in this print!
Nat, I think you made something out of this before, but I just love that color blue with the brown!
I think this one will look cute with grey or black accents or a bright flower maybe???
The pink above and the one below go together and will be a really cute purse! One on the outside and one on the inside. I think Nat's MIL Julie made a purse with the blue tone of the print below, and it turned out super cute!

I like this print (below). It reminds me of those candy corn that comes out in the fall and Grandpa Chuck, because no matter what the season was, he always had that candy in his candy dish!And here's a wool/polyester fabric, I think will look cute as a Hobo bag of some kind. Can't wait to get sewing!
So... when is our next sew-marathon? Rachael and Natalie???

September 4, 2009

The local county fair (July)

I joined Rachael and the kids this year at the county fair and had such a fun time! It was pretty easy this year, because all the kids are tall enough to ride most of what they want to, except for Ben, but he still had a great time riding what he could! I got to hang out with Ben most of the day, so I got a lot of pictures of him!
Another thing that was nice, was that I didn't have to ride any rides! And I still had fun!

Ben and Katya
Rachael and Ben
Kristen and Jack

The kids really seemed to like this fun house!Katya's showing all her arm strength as the circle goes around.
Ben and Jack's cousin Bethany (Bethany's brother Adam also joined us!)

My cousin, Andrew called me while I was there and told me he was over by the horses, so we took a break from all the rides and went over there to check out the horses.Uncle DeMonte was there, too!
Here we are with "Tuppins".

Really cute pumpkin ideas on my other blog!

I just posted some really cute pictures of pumpkins for my wedding! Check it out, here! I also just did another post about guest books, here!

***this is for all those that aren't quite used to checking out my other blog! (Thanks, Nat!)***

September 3, 2009

Tony and hide and seek


I was in the car with Lori the other day and Tony was so cute in the back seat, I just had to take a couple of pictures! Trying to hide behind his hat! A lot cuter than me trying to hide behind the seat, I'm sure!