Avery Coy is 3 months old!

AMAZING is the word I use to describe my beautiful baby girl !  It is also the word I use to describe how fast 3 months have gone by... and at the same time, I couldn't imagine life without her!

She is so happy and such a snuggly buggly.  She is so content with life, and loves giving (and receiving) kisses! We are so thankful for you, Miss Avery Toots! And soaking up every second of your sweet sweet life!

Bleh

I just feel crappy today- I have been really since KK got home from his trip to California. I feel blah and I also I feel like at any moment I could blow my top.
Here is a bulleted list of why:

• I am constantly cleaning up clutter in this house. Why does NO ONE know how to put away shoes, toys, books, empty pop cans, newspapers, etc???
• My in-laws are so annoying, and so is the way my husband deals with them. I am so sick of my mother-in-law and that fact that things will never change or get better with her infringing on our boundaries as a household AND my father-in-law has decided to visit us the week of Ali's birthday, but has yet to tell us exactly when and my damn husband will not nail him down on the date.
• My husband sucks. Well, not really, but he just is kinda selfish and really thinks it is OK for me to handle all the daily responsibilities with the girls and not try to help out. He never offers to get up and feed Avery, and he acts put out when I ask him to do stupid small things like give someone a bath or rock someone or make someone a snack
• Ali is at daycare today, and KK is gone. He said he would be gone an hour at the most, and we are now going on two. Why lie? I wish I could go lolly-gag around town and do whatever I want, but I constantly have one or more children  that need my constant care and attention. I don't even really care that he isn't here- I'm just mad that he leaves me here with the baby and thinks that it is my life's dream sit at home all day long by myself
• I just cannot seem to get a hold of myself as the person that I used to be. I am so tired and busy all the time and always have a list of things that I want to get done but can never muster up the energy or desire to do them. I wonder when my head will clear up so I can think straight again? I wonder if I will ever feel truly ahead of the game?
• I wish I could tell my husband how I feel and have him understand. I wish he had a little bit of woman juice running in his veins so he could get it for once and not look at me like I am speaking Chinese

Fat Tuesday

I am participating in a little weight loss accountability with one of my online / real-life friends named Taylor. She even has a cool button for it, which I seem to be too stupid to figure out, so you will have to visit her blog to see it for yourself ...but anyways..here is the low down on  how Operation Loose Baby Fat is going:

• I have lost 2 lbs this week!
• I have done my 30 Day Shred DVD 6 out of 7 days
• I am eating well (thanks to my husband's low carb diet)
• I feel pretty darn good about my progress
• My stomach is still saggie and covered in stretch marks (damn it)

But I must admit; diet and exercise is super hard to concentrate on when you have 2 children under the age of 2 at home (as is concentrating on anything in general). The eating part has been pretty easy, mostly because I don't have time to eat  and because KK is back on his low-carb diet and I tend to be a follower when it comes to what we eat around here as I am not the main chef.  I admit, however, to sharing 2 fudgesicles with Ali and eating some of her Pirate's Bootie- which if you don't know what that is - is white cheddar puffies from Costco- her "chippies" so yummy!
And today I am not planning on doing my DVD as Ali was up from midnight to 4 AM wide awake and ready to play (?). So I am choosing to nap instead.
But I will leave you with the super easy and pretty good for you Chicken Teriyaki Lettuce Wraps we had for dinner last night:
1. Slice thin and marinate 2 chicken breasts in Yoshida's for 4 hrs, then grill um and cube um
2. Toast some water chestnuts and cashews in olive oil on the stove
3. Peel off lettuce leaves from a big ole head of lettuce
4. Throw in some snap peas, and eat um up!
(as you can see from that recipe, I am NOT, I repeat NOT a cook)

Operation Get Rid of the baby fat

I am on Day 3 of "loose the baby fat so I can fit into my clothes again challenge"! I am keeping myself accountable by participation in Taylor's Torturous Tuesday (soon to be renamed).
So here are my goals:

1. Use my 30 Day Shred DVD at least 5 days a week (I am going to do 7 days for the first week and then try to incorporate more cardio when my hubs gets back from California)
2. Try to stay away from junk food: i.e. ice cream and crackers and all that jazz. I am not much of a dieter, but I do think it is important to stay away from meaningless calories, so that is my goal.
3.  I weighed myself this morning, and oddly enough I am 3lbs lighter then I was before getting pregnant. My conclusion is that everything has shifted, and my biggest concern is to get rid of the belly flap that is left over from having a ginormous 9lb baby in my stomach
4. I would like to be comfortably wearing my regular clothing by the time we head back to work in September.

So there ya have it. And now an update on the 30 Day Shred:  My legs feel like jelly, and I can hardly walk down the stairs and sit on the toilet.  Which makes me realize how pathetic I am because, even though the dvd is a challenge, it should not have this huge of an effect on me. I am still on level one (there are three levels) and I kinda feel like a wuss. But nevertheless, I am sticking with it and pushing through the pain. Jillian says that on days 5,6,7 you should begin to feel your endurance going up, and I am so looking forward to that point. Cause I'm one sore mother!  And I think I am about to get more sore, because I bought myself some 3 lb weights at Wal Mart yesterday and used those in place of the 1lb soup cans I had used the past 2 days. So tomorrow my shoulders and arms should be burning just as badly as my legs (this is awesome when you are carting around 2 kids!) 

Alrighty, I am off to shower away the slime of sweat that comes from being out of shape... but I will leave you with an exciting highlight of my potty training saga.... Miss Ali pooped on the potty yesterday!!! And she alerted me to the fact that she needed to go! Woot Woot Ali!!!  (this morning, however, she poop-ploded into her pull-up at daycare and had to have a change of clothes)- 1 step forward, 2 steps back...

Jelli's World super exciting updates- not really

Here's a little update on what has been happenin' in Little Jelli's World:

• Potty Training Update:  My stairs smell like urine and Ali is still peeing in the potty- but only when I ask her if she needs to go.  The good news is that, even though she never initiates her bathroom trips, she must be holding it because we have not had many accidents... other than the mysterious urine smell on the stairs...
• besides yesterday.... Ali woke up Saturday night around 2 AM with a high fever and was very restless. I took her to Urgent Care around 10 when her temp got up to 101.9 - turns out she has Tonsillitis... she ran a fever all day yesterday- refused to eat and use the potty. So therefore, she spent the day in a diaper

• Today I am happy to report that today she is feeling much better- no more fever- and is eating again.. oh and is back to using the potty!  We are still trying to encourage pooping in the toilet; which for some reason she does not find necessary to do. She has pooped in her panties 3 times, and outside so many times I can't count. This baffles me.
• KK is out of town for the week: he is in Irvine, CA at Concordia University taking a week-long class for the Master's Degree in Athletic Administration that he is working on.  While I am so proud of him for getting another Master's Degree, the back of my mind worries that we will end up with all this student loan debt (we both are still paying on our previous Master's Degrees in Educational Administration) and there will be no job to compensate.  You see, we live in a relatively small community - and in our immediate area they are only 6 or so high schools- leaving the job pool in a pretty political area of Idaho quite small. KK has lived here his entire life, and has some mixed politics surrounding him because of all his experience in the coaching world. Without going on and on about this random point that I am writing about- I will leave it at : small town politics are ridiculously idiotic and immature. I'm just hoping enough people do like him, since he is a phenomenal coach, awesome teacher and just a great guy, that he would be in the running for a job if said job did open up. I, for one, would not be opposed to moving somewhere for a job, but I think for KK that is out of the question (even though he claims it is not- he's a small town boy at heart).
• Avery Coy is the sweetest baby in the whole world. She is a talker! She loves to smile and coo and hang out- she is pretty content all the time. She's also starting to use those neck muscles a ton to hold her head up- and she tries to pick up her head when I talk to her to get juuust a little closer! She prefers to sleep on her side and her tummy- and will somehow get herself over even if I lay her on her back- so funny! She's only getting up to eat once a night at 3:00 AM- and has been for the past month or so- which is awesome for me cause I gotta have my sleep! I just love her so very much and I think I squeeze her too much cause I can't get enough of my sweet Baby #2!

• I just completed the 1st day of Jillian Micheals' 30 Day Shred DVD and I am proud to say that, even though I am a lard and totally out of shape, I did not die or give up or even cheat. I am going to try super duper hard to keep it up for the full 30 days- I need to get the baby fat belly flab gone before my 10 yr reunion in 3 weeks! Plus, I don't want the red pant line on my tummy anymore from my shorts being too dang tight !  ...But this DVD is a great workout- and it only takes 20 minutes to do, which is totally realistic for me and makes it that much easier to stick to.  I admit, I wanted to punch Jillian in the face throughout the workout, cause she just bugs me anyway, but I am really excited and ready to get into a workout routine that works for a busy momma's life.  Hopefully this will encourage me to eat a little better...cause I do love my food!

So yeah and stuff... we're keeping pretty busy here and enjoying the 90 plus degree weather. Gonna head to my Mom and Dad's house to swim (they live on a river) once Ali Bananas wakes from her slumber!

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Poop on the Ground

 Day 2 of Potty Training ended better then it started.  By the time nap time rolled around, we had not made it to the toilet once to tinkle- had slipped twice (Ali, not me) in our own pee puddle and had pooped on the driveway and front porch, smeared it all over our cute pink sandals, and had to be hosed off by a mean mommie who didn't care if the water was cold or not.
I was about ready to quit at that point, but I buckled down, hosed off my almost-2-year-old, put her in a pull-up and sent her to nap time.  The afternoon was muuuuuch better, with NO accidents and only 1 poop in the backyard before bed time.  I think she is catching on as far as peeing in the potty goes- poop is a whole other issue.  I find it so sad that I don't really care as long as she poops outside. I just want to get pee down at this point- small steps people.

So far today- she has had no accidents! We went to the park to play and she wore a pull-up. She did pee while at the park, both in the potty and the pull-up... so I'm not sure if she is really getting it as this point but I feel like I am committed enough to continue the routine at home (i.e. naked bootie and potty every 15 minutes)and use pull-ups when we are away from the safety of home. I figure that I am home on summer vacation- so why not? If she pees in the pull-up, I'm not going to be a quitter.  She is young, and I really do think she will catch on eventually... and I really hope she catches on! I'm too stubborn to stop now!