At Long Last

Every since I quit nursing Sawyer (by his decision) I have been trying to abolish a stubborn five pounds that he blessed me with.  I always figured that five pounds wasn't that much and should be somewhat simple if I stuck with exercising and eating mostly healthy.  But other than one or two pounds I just couldn't do it.

 

To say I was frustrated was an understatement.

Seriously - it was ONLY FIVE POUNDS!!! 

It became more about figuring out why it wasn't happening and achieving this one measly goal  than being unhappy with myself.  My body isn't perfect and I enjoy eating so not being model thin is okay with me.  Sure, I wasn't completely happy with the weight I was at but I wasn't overweight.

Well, two weeks ago I got on the scale and I finally saw the goal numbers!!!!

It actually was possible.

I achieved this through a combination of things that I won't bore you with. In short, my days included hard core exercise through the Insanity program (nasty curses were said every time I sweated through a workout), being more aware and conscientious about how many calories I was consuming, and drinking protein smoothies.  I still ate sweets and other junk food (of course! life wouldn't be worth living otherwise!) along with the healthy stuff but I tried to incorporated them into a daily calorie count that wasn't through the roof.  I was/am amazed and how quickly and easily I could/can gorge myself on an obscene number of calories.  Some days I just threw the numbers to the wind and ate what I wanted.  You know what? I thoroughly enjoyed ever bite and did not feel guilty about it!

It took me a good three months with this method but it is a real way to live for me and it worked!

A Handful!

(OK, so I'm almost a week late posting this.  Between time and trying to upload the pictures....yeah.)

6:44A.M. June 9, 2012.

Sierra was so excited,  7AM was "just taking too long" to appear on the clock. (the time she is permitted to wake us up!).

Well, okay.  It is her birthday. And the day began.

Five years ago today I became a mother thanks to her.  Trevor and I took a long time before we were ready for even the idea of having a baby but when we were ready - we were ready!

In the first few weeks after she was born we both commented how we had no idea that we would love being parents so much (and still do).

As all parents say, time has zoomed by.  Trevor said to me the other day that we've had Sierra about a quarter of the total time we get to have her living with us.  As much as my heart pangs a little at how quickly she is growing up I am also enjoying the gradual transitions from baby, to toddler, to little girl.  She is quirky, fun, independent but hates being alone, beautiful and 'girly' but not afraid to be dirty or rough-play with her daddy.  Wearing dirty clothes is only an issue to me, as is not brushing her hair or washing the marker off her face!  She certainly likes to push the boundaries and have her share of fits but being a people-pleaser helps balance that.

 I remember being amazed at how much personality she displayed as a newborn; well that hasn't changed! 

I had as much fun planning and anticipating her birthday as she did!  Her love to celebrate is certainly apparent.  (Yay!  I love to party too.) 

Happy 5th Birthday my Sierra Bear!


Her party with three friends Saturday morning.  They made candy necklaces, played "pin-the-crown-on-the-princess" and had a pinata.  Sierra loved it!

As a family (my parents, sister and brother-in-law, and us. Sawyer hung out with my Oma, him and golf would be a disaster!) we went mini-golfing that afternoon.  We all had a great time and the weather co-operated.

We gave her this dress as one of her gifts and it stayed on all day!

We then went to my parents' for Sierra's birthday supper.  She requested rice and a "Barbie" cake.  Granny was happy to comply stating that Sierra is her only granddaughter after all!

Presents! 
The best part.  She got her first "actual Barbie" (to quote Sierra) and absolutely loves it.

Was she spoiled?  Oh yes!  Did she deserve it?  Oh yes!

Cake Popping

I am not a cake decorator type of person.  If a cake or cupcake gets icing that looks half-way nice I'm happy!  Every once in awhile I try something a little more ambitious and I'm always disappointed with my efforts.  I feel like it looks like child's work!  So I don't do fancy cakes/cupcakes.  Since Sierra's second birthday my mom has purchased a beautiful artistic custom cake from a fancy bakery in town.

As I mentioned in my previous post, this year will be Sierra's first birthday party that includes friends.  There will be three little girls coming and I figured that two cakes would be a too much (since there will also be a "family" party) but you can't have a birthday party without cake....so cake pops "popped" into my mind. (hah I'm so funny!).  We had them for Sawyer's birthday and a friend of ours makes them so I figured they would be perfect for this occasion.  However, it didn't work out for my friend to make them for me this time around. 

I decided to try my hand at them.  At first I was just going to make coloured ones that resembled lolly pops because Sierra's party is somewhat candy themed.  I made the mistake of asking her about it and she staunchly refused that option and requested demanded princess cake pops.  Google is a wonderful thing and I came up with a plan, purchased the supplies and off I went.

First step:  Bake a cake from a mix.  Easy enough.  Cake has a funny smell though.  I think it's the PAM spray I used on the pan.

Second step:  Mix icing into crumbled cake.  I have Trevor scrape the entire tub into the bowl and I proceed to mix the cake into a sticky mess.  Funny smell still apparent.  The cake seems to taste okay.

Third step: Form cake balls.  Cake is too sticky.  The balls are not holding their shape.  I put the mixture in the fridge for thirty minutes and the consistency is a bit better.  I just can't get the 'off' smell out of my nose.  I make the balls anyway. They are not holding their shape very well.

Forth step: I finally can't get ignore the smell.  Since I thought it was my PAM spray I wonder if it was the oil used in the cake.  Sure enough.  My oil has gone rancid.  Gross.

Fifth step:  Dump the entire cake into the garbage.

Sixth step:  Go back to step one with a new cake mix!

Insert new step between one and two:  phone the cake pop making expert about the icing/cake ratio.

Repeat steps one through three minus the funny smell and with the balls successfully holding their shape.

I'll spare you the tedium of the next bunch of steps but they included melting chocolate, dipping the balls, rolling the in sprinkles, applying hats, lots of muttering, and finally ending with princess cake pops. 

I'm not sure I'll do this again.

Trevor assisted me.  He cut the sugar cone ice cream cones to make appropriate hat sizes.  He also painted on the faces.

This is probably the best one.

Below is the family.  Don't look too close please!

Goings On

*We had in incredible thunderstorm last night. It pounded the earth with rain for four hours, lit up the sky with lightening, shook the house with thunder (literally!) and tried to blow over some trees.  Oh, and it produced a couple of tornadoes a mere 20km from us.  I was watching the sky pretty intensely for about an hour and had the environment Canada website up and was refreshing it every ten minutes.  I hate tornado weather.  We don't get this close to their likelihood very often thank goodness!

*I am very groggy and feel rather drugged this morning.  More coffee perhaps.

*I am already sick of summer TV - or the lack of it!  

But.....we've been watching America's Got Talent which has been rather entertaining.  Howard Stern is hilarious!  Other than that it's been re-runs of Seinfeld which are quite funny.  I'm ready for hot summer weather where Trevor and I can sit on the deck in the evenings after the kids are in bed and sip wine and chat.  Then TV, or the lack of it won't matter.  I suppose we could always go the library and get books and, you know, read!

*My beautiful Sierra will have made me a mother five years ago this Saturday.  This is the first year I am having a birthday party for her with friends.  There will only be three girls over Saturday morning and I'm not doing anything extravagant.  At first I was a little put off by the whole idea but now I'm totally into it.  Hey - I only have one daughter!  I'm even going to attempt to make princess cake-pops.  Gulp!

  Than a family party will take place late afternoon/evening.

* I've decided that decorating projects in my house are destined to take four months or more from idea to completions.  Our bedroom has been in the works for at least that long and is not really near finished. I still haven't printed and framed family portraits from last fall.  It doesn't help that the nice weather is moving our motivation to work on project to the outdoors and weekends/days to actually accomplish anything are extremely sparse.

*I really need to get to our downstairs computer and start posting pictures for you.