Finally Putting My Birthday Gift To Use!

Remember my birthday gift last year in July?  Yes, my tennis racket!  Well, I've used it a couple of times since then, but nothing serious at all.  Anyway, today four of us had our first official Tennis lesson with the sweetest lady ever.  We love her, she is wonderful!  So who knows how far this "playing tennis" business will go, but for now, I'm enjoying it.  Dave and I might start fighting about whose turn is it to stay home with the kids and who is going out to the tennis courts.  ~Great!  Why don't we add another thing to argue about, right?  

My Little Bookworm!

Natalia loves to read and normally she can read the Junie B. Jones books in a day.  She has read several of these already, so one day, I decided to buy her her first American Girl book.  I just thought it would be a little more challenging.  

I went with Meet Kristen.  She loved it.  I started by reading it to her.  One day she got so tired of hearing me say to her "wait Natalia, I'll read it to you in just a second", that she just grabbed the book and read it until she finished it.  

She loved it!  So, I went ahead and bought her another American Girl book, but this time I got her Meet Felicity and, yea, I don't think she liked it as much.  I had to finished reading it to her.  The last two pages, she made me laugh.  She kept jumping up and down saying "please stop reading, oh I just don't want to know what's going to happened, please stop!"  

Anyway, needless to say, I guess we are buying another Kristen book.

 

March Desktop Calendar

Honestly, I think this is a waste of time, but oh well it gives me something different each month for my desktop.  Plus, I love scrapbooking and sadly currently this is all I have time for.  

Get yours for free here!

Week Recap

This is what we've been up to this week:

Potty training Luke.  Now I know why it took this long to potty train Luke.  I always hear, "ah, don't worry about it, he'll do it when he is ready."  Well, that might work with some kids but it hasn't worked that way for any of mine.  I wish it did, but I guess, I was never that lucky.  You see, for me, it has been... when is mama ready to potty train; because as you know, that means, cleaning up accidents all the time, washing a lot of underwear and towels and staying at home ALL the time.  But, thank goodness, I think we are there!  Yay!  No more diapers at the Stovall's residence!  (Okay, so maybe it's a little bit sad.  This stage of our life is over.  No more diapers = no more babies :0(  )

My baby Luke! 

Luke:  "No me no baby, me big boy!"

Carson now walks around saying that he wants to "Bring it!" Here is Carson doing P90X.  In this particular exercise, you need a stool to swing your legs from one side to the other.  So, Carson went to his room and found this little stool:

Keep pushing play Carson!

  

The last several mornings, the boys have been waking up at around 5:00 a.m. and going to our bed to sleep for about 2 to 3 more hours.  So, this is what Dave has to put up with...( you know, I'm already up doing P90X - which is probably why they're waking up this early too.)  Except, this morning we had no visitors in our bed.  Last night I told the boys that they needed to stay in their beds and Luke responded, "me know that Mama."  

I almost passed out when I heard Natalia say to me one morning:  "Mama, I want a salad for lunch"  and then, last night while we were out to eat, she asked for a salad for dinner.  I mean, you don't understand, she is such a picky eater!  I worry about her eating habits all the time.

Well, I guess I'll just enjoy this little phase she is going through and like Natalia tells Daddy every morning as Daddy drops her off at school, "carpe deim, Daddy"  (little tradition between Daddy and Natalia).  

Or as she would rather have it, "freeze the day"! 

 As part of Dave's P90X diet plan, he took the kids to get ice cream (apparently chocolate peanut butter ice cream counts as one protein?).  As soon as Natalia walked into Baskin Robbins, she noticed the "Freeze the Day" sign on the wall.

And Our Third Book Selection Is?

Friday, we had our 2nd book club meeting.  Once again, we met at Tic Tac for a pedicure.  Later, we went to eat Vietnamese food at Pho's.  I love those Charbroiled Pork and Shrimp Spring Rolls with peanut sauce!

After discussing our last book selection, The Story of Edgar Sawtelle, Brittney introduced our next book assignment:

Savannah Breeze by Mary Kay Andrews

Weekend Fun!

We had a busy, but fun, weekend.  Our weekend started on Friday night.  We invited two families to eat Chicken Carbonara.  We had a great time visiting and the kids had a tremendous time playing with every single toy!  You should have seen my house.  Now, I wished I would have taken pictures, but once again, I was a little preoccupied that night.  I didn't mind the mess at all though, all the children were having a great time and at the end of the night, we all cleaned the mess together.  Thank you moms!  

On Saturday, Dave left to Houston for a reunion with some of his high school guy-friends.  During their high school years, they used to play this game called Shogun, which takes hours to play so wives and kids were not invited :0(  ! 

Oh, no hard feelings, I know how to entertain myself and my children.  So, we headed out for a hike.  It was the perfect day for this kind of activity too!  We picked up some lunch at my all time favorite, Chick Fil A and took it to Village Creek State Park for a picnic.  After our yummy lunch, we went for a loooong hike.  It was so long that Carson even thought we were lost.  The kids had a great time looking out for tracks, rabbit and mice holes, bugs, nests and looking at the pine cones and leaves to determine what kind of animal had been eating it.

Later, we went to eat dinner at Matt and Elizabeth's house.  Oh my, they had so much fun.  Matt was building a walkway and they got right into the action... this is right up their alley.  Needless to say, they were a total mess from head to toe.

Matt and the kids built this domino train together.  How did Matt accomplish this, I don't know.

Getting ripped in 90 days!

  

Today Dave and I started P90X!  This work out program is something like I've never experienced before - pull ups, push ups, plyometrics, Kenpo Kickboxing, Yoga?, and AbRipper X.  We should see a tremendous change in 90 days.  We're guaranteed to look like this :)

Yea, we'll see, but it's fun starting a new journey.  Dave wanted me to label the picture above as his after photo, but then he remembered he doesn't own any shorts that color... The program involves taking before pictures (or "good-bye" pictures), then pictures every 30 days after that to document the change.  I promise to keep these pictures private; I would hate for you to have to go through such a horrible experience.

If you are looking for a work out program, I would definitely recommend P90X.  It is worth every penny.  So, needless to say, running has currently been put on hold.  I'm planning on getting back to running after 90 days, and hoping this workout will help increase my speed and endurance.  In the mean time, for any P90Xers out there, "keep pushing play" and "bring it!"