Category: Uncategorized (Page 58 of 201)

I’ve always loved painting.  But recently I’ve taken to painting signs.  You all remember my first memorable one right?  Oh, you don’t?  Well, let me refresh your memory…

And then last Christmas I made another one for Tim.  He had requested this saying.

So, this year Tim suggested that we give our friends a hand painted picture for Christmas and I started my very first attempt at doing a sign on wood.  I wasn’t sold on the idea yet.  I really like using canvas… but alas, I was wrong.  Crafting a wood sign is so much fun!  The trick to it is that at the end I use a poly to seal the sign and that is what makes all the difference to me.  The sign is officially complete.  I can’t go back and tweak it any more.  It’s done.  Totally.  Done.  And for me (the queen of constantly tweaking) this is very therapeutic.

So here are the signs that I ended up painting for some of our friends… (again, Tim found the quote that he liked and cut the wood and used a router on the edges and I just painted it.  It was a team effort.)

  Then we have another friends that asked if I could make her this sign… so I made it for her over Christmas break:

And finally, I wanted to make a special sign for Shannon since she’s been going through so much yucky life stuff these days and I found the PERFECT saying for her, so I made her this:

And just to give you proof that I actually painted these by hand, here is a picture of Shannon’s sign in process when I had only traced the letters and was still working on filling everything in…

I’m already working on my next one and I’ll be sure to post a picture of it when I’m done.  The past couple weeks have been busy with getting the football snack stadium done, so after this weekend I should have some more free time again.  😉

Piano Contest Preliminaries were this past weekend.  I had less students involved this year because of the shortened start to my school year (because of my maternity leave).  By the time I started teaching this Fall it was already mid-October so I just didn’t have time to get the older students started and the younger ones weren’t ready to tackle a contest piece after just starting back into their method books… but I did have 9 participate.  Most of them were students who had played in the past and asked me about being able to do it again.  🙂  And I’m happy to report that 7 or the 9 get to move on to finals!  Yippie!  I’m so proud of all their hard work!

Tune back next week for in-process pictures and more info!  I don’t want to spoil the fun of seeing it filled with food, so the best pictures will come on Sunday!

Tim has been having fun posting pictures of the kids doing different things smiling.  I thought I would quick grab those photos and put them here so I can remember them someday.  🙂  You’ve probably seen most of these on Facebook already.

Today’s smile brought to you by MUSIC!

Today’s smile brought to you by PLAID!

Today’s smile brought to you by EXERCISE!

When I was a kid (I honestly don’t remember how old I was, but I’m guessing around the 3rd grade age) my siblings and I all got these AMAZING teddy bears.  They were soft and snuggly and perfect.  My sister and I got pink and my brothers got brown.  I remember playing with those bears.  A. LOT.  I also remember taking those bears to play with when my Mom would play WallyBall.  There were high ceilings and we would toss those bears as high as we could until they would touch the ceiling and come tumbling down.  Over, and over again.  Up and down.  I tossed mine too many times because it started to scrape on the marble eyes and the yarn nose started to fray away.

I remember after playing with my bear for a long time that I was disappointed that mine was not as soft as my older sister and older brother’s bears.  I couldn’t understand at the time how mine was getting less soft.  Of course, it was because they were older and didn’t carry it around EVERYWHERE like I did to mine.  Less wear and tear.

Well, fast forward a few years and I somehow accumulated one of the brown bears along with my pink bear.  (My guess is that Nathan didn’t want his so I snatched it up–even though it was pink, it was so incredibly soft still.  Sorry, Nathan, if I stole it from you–haha!) So the other day Chloe and Josiah were playing and re-discovered these bears.  And wouldn’t you know, there was a pink one for Chloe and a brown one for Josiah.  It was like it was meant to be.  😉

And now the love continues.  They have started to carry them around and are playing together with them.  They even begged for clothes for the bears so they could change them for morning and night.  Which, coincidentally worked out perfectly because I was in the process of cleaning out old clothes to get rid of from the two little kids, so they had quite a selection of clothes to choose from!

Ah, the joys of imagination and toys from the past.

Levi has officially started eating solids.

Well, the process of eating solids.  At first it’s more of me just scooping the mushy mess back into his mouth over and over, but eventually it will be eating.  We took a video of him trying rice cereal for the first time and we all watched.  It was pretty funny because he kept smiling and buzzing his lips (making a mess!).  It must have felt funny in his mouth or something.  None of the other kids did that on their first attempt!

Today we tried again and he really started to get the hang of getting his tongue to bring the food back instead of forward.  I don’t remember any of the other kids getting the hang of it so quickly.  By the end of the bowl, he was keeping most of the food in!  I guess since he’s so big he’s very interested in getting that food into his belly!  🙂

So often we (ok, mostly I’m talking to myself here) get super focused on the scale.  The scale is our source of weight-loss happiness.  If it goes up, we feel discouraged.  But if it’s going down we feel validated.  However, there is so much more than just what the scale reads as we start to get healthy.  We all know this.  But we forget.  (Again, I’m talking mostly to myself here.)  😉

Enter, Non Scale Victories.

This is not my original idea–I can’t even remember where I read it first.  So, I claim no credit to this.  But it’s still great.  It’s the little things that we notice as progress in our getting healthy endeavor.  Sometimes it’s VERY little things.  Other times it’s big.  But these are things that have nothing to do with what the scale says.

I actually have a calendar in my bathroom where I log my exercise and weight and N.S.V. as well as my hopeful N.S.V.  It’s been really helpful to look at those achievement and see that, even when I don’t feel like I’m making any progress, I actually am.  And sometimes those N.S.V. are more wonderful to me than a number.  For example, I can’t wait until I fit into my non-maternity jeans again.  And while that has a bit to do with the weight I am, it also has to do with muscles growing and hips shrinking, etc.

Here are some of my current Non Scale Victories:

• Standing through most of my lessons again.  When I started back after having Levi I had to sit b/c I was so out of shape.
• Being able to go all the way up the stairs without being winded.
• Not being sore after workouts.
• Noticing my maternity pants are getting loose.
• Being able to speed walk through stores again.
• Not having ice cream the other night when Tim did. 😉

It’s nice to be able to look at these things when I want to give up and remember that my weight loss adventure is more than just my weight–it’s about living a more full and happy life in the body I have.

I know, it’s a pretty grand sounding post.  Believe me, it’s a work in progress and some days I still give up even though I can see those N.S.V. right there on the paper in front of me.  But it’s a process.  And I need to give myself grace and remember that tomorrow is a new day full of new possibilities.  And maybe today I just really need that fudge brownie.

Sorry, I know this is Wordless Wednesday, but this one needs a little more explanation:  Here is Chloe’s very first hand painted (actually it’s marker b/c that was easier to use) sign.  She picked the words and font and picture and even did the transfer onto the wood and then colored it all in.  Pretty good for her first try, don’t you think? 🙂

It’s that time again.  Time for me to talk about weight loss.  I know, it’s not an exciting topic for everyone, but it’s on my mind–as it always seems to be after I have (yet another!) baby.

So, I’ve give you a second to leave if you want.

Ok.

Go ahead.

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Still here?

Ok, here we go!

I’ll admit right off the bat that I’m pretty bummed about having to lose this baby weight again.  It’s not that I’m at all unhappy about having Levi–he’s great–it’s just that the last time I lost all my baby weight I *thought* I was losing it for the last time.  It’s just a mental battle.  So, here I am, all over again… losing that same 50 pounds.  Again.

But alas, no good can come of dwelling on the negative, so onward I go.

My (Fritz) family has started up another friendly weight loss competition again this year.  We started on January 2nd and it will last for 12 weeks.  The winner will mostly get bragging rights and a little prize money.  🙂  I’ve decided if I win that I’m going to put that money towards new running shoes.  Hopefully looking at my running shoes every day as I exercise will motivate me to stick with it!  😉

We did a similar weight loss challenge last Fall.  I won.  🙂  Not to brag.  Well, actually, YES to brag.  Ha!  I think that’s why I’m having a hard time getting super motivated to do this one… I mean, I JUST did this weight loss thing last year.  And I won!  It’s just not quite as fun to do it all over again…

I will say, however, that since we started the weight loss challenge 3 weeks ago, I finally am starting to feel like myself again.  I haven’t really lost a tremendous amount of weight yet, but I can already see a difference.  Slow and steady.  I remember that’s what made my weight loss last Fall so effective.  I wasn’t focused on the total amount I wanted to lose or adding up my total weight lost–it was more about checking to see if I was going down every week, even if just a tiny bit.  0.2 of a pound is still downward progress.  And enough downward progress will eventually get me to my goal.

The kids are enjoying me working out again.  It’s pretty funny.  In fact the other day they decided that they wanted to exercise with me…

(Yes, those are stuffed animals they are using as weights!)

Plus we are all eating a bit more healthy now that I’m back on the bandwagon.  We actually have a variety of fruits and veggies stocked now and we’re ending up with more leftovers since my stomach has shrunk a little since doing this.  I think that’s what I noticed first.  I used to be able to eat and eat and eat before feeling full, and now I get full so much faster.  Last night we had tacos and I was stuffed after 2 tacos and I remember at Christmas we had tacos and I think I had 5.  Yikes!

I think that’s where I’ll stop for today, otherwise this post is going to go on and on.  But tune back in on Thursday for my thoughts on N.S.V.’s  🙂  Wanna know what those are?  I guess you’ll just have to come back soon!

Kids clothes I mean.

Yes, I think it will say on my tombstone:  Buried alive under a mountain of her own kids’ clothes.

That’s how I feel right now.  I have upstairs at this very moment:  5 boxes of clothes that need to get stored/given away, 5 boxes of clothes that need to be transitioned into the kids closet, and 3 bedrooms full of current clothes that need to be put away!

This is all heightened right now because Levi is growing So. Incredibly. Fast.  I mean, the other kids grew fast too, so I was prepared for that.  They generally would be wearing double their age.  So when Josiah was 6 months old he was wearing 12 month clothes.  Only, it’s not working for Levi–he’s only 4 months old and in 12 month old clothes!  So, I feel like he wears an outfit ONCE and then outgrows it.  It’s a little shocking. 🙂

But, in spite of my complaining.  I’m very, VERY thankful that we have generous friends and family that give us clothes.  I could be in a completely different state of mind if I was trying to buy clothes for 4 kids.  And my frustration would just be heightened if I had to be going through Levi’s clothes so fast if I was needing to purchase all of them.

See?  Silver lining, right there.

😉

(I feel I should edit this to also add that my kids LOVE getting clothes as gifts.  So, just because I’m complaining about having too much clothes, don’t let that deter you from buying them clothes. 🙂  Seriously.)