Happy Earth Day!

April 22 is Earth Day, so Happy Earth Day everyone!!  I think it's fun to have a day to say "Happy Earth Day" and great that we have a day dedicated to our Earth and taking care of it, but we truly need to make every day Earth day.  I saw this before and thought, "How true!"  "We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children."  Seriously, how true is that?  It's our job to take care of our planet today so that our children and our children's children, etc., so on can enjoy it.  And guess what?  That doesn't mean you have to make huge changes.  It's all about reducing your carbon footprint.  Find the things that you can fit into your life and do those.  For us, it started with recycling.  It was something we could easily do each day.  (And, I have to be honest, we really only started that because our Haley Bug made us!  She is all about going green and has been for several years now!  I love that about her.)  Now that she has turned us on to being green, we like it.  I'm not perfect by any means.  One thing I am never going to do is use cloth diapers!!  I love my Earth and I know all these crazy amounts of diapers we are using are clogging up landfills, but I just cannot bring myself to switch to cloth diapers.  YUCK!  But if we ALL do something, lots of small changes = a BIG change in the impact on our Earth.  To that end, here are the things we do - again, not a lot, nor Earth shattering (interesting choice of words for today!  LOL) but we are doing something!

• We recycle.  All glass, plastic, newspaper, magazines and cardboard go in our recycling bin.  The city of Chesapeake got real about recycling about a year or so ago and gave us these nice big recycling cans instead of the one little blue bin we had before.  Now, if they would just start recycling every week instead of every other!  We definitely fill this sucker up in 2 weeks!  I'm pretty sure we could fill it every week by adding paper to our recycling list.
  
  
  
  
• We switched from incandescent light bulbs to CFL light bulbs. CFL (compact fluorescent light) bulbs use at least 2/3 less energy than a standard incandescent light bulb. According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, if every U.S. household replaced just one regular incandescent light bulb with a compact fluorescent light bulb, it would prevent 90 billion pounds of greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, the equivalent of taking 7.5 million cars off the road.  The drawback?  They do contain mercury, so will need to be recycled properly and never thrown in the trash.  The good news?  They don't need to be changed all that often, so it's not that big of a deal!  :-)
  
  
• We use reusable grocery bags.  Ok, I'm not going to lie.  Sometimes I forget my bags - I'm not perfect!  But I do my best to remember to grab them and use them when I do my big grocery trip every 2 weeks.  What I need to try to do is use reusable bags for all my shopping trips.  This is something I plan to try to work on.  Why is it so important to use reusable bags?  Check out this website to find out!
  
  
• We are growing a garden.  This one is a work in progress!  We just started our garden this year.  Our seedlings are growing and Mike has already prepared the area for our garden.  Hopefully it all works out, but again, it's all about doing your best!  How does growing a garden reduce your carbon footprint?  You use your energy to maintain and harvest your garden versus the use of machines in large agribusinesses.  There is also no need to transport them.  A small change, which doesn't sound like much, but again, lots of small changes = a big impact!
  

There are a lot more things we could be doing, and I am constantly working toward being more mindful - always with the help of my Haley Bug!  ♥  Want more ideas for "going green?"  Do a Google search!  There's lots of great information out there.

So, after 2 weeks of not being able to go to the gym, I was finally able to make it this afternoon because Mike got off early from work!  So, I did my first Fitquest workout and then ... ZUMBA!  My favorite instructor was teaching tonight, Jessica Webster.  She is just so cute and full of energy - she really makes you want to keep going.  I loved reading about how she has lost 125 pounds!!  Holy cow - there's some motivation for ya!  (In case you didn't notice, her name is a link to her Zumba instructor page.)  So far, Zumba has been fun no matter who the instructor is, but I really love her.  I got a cute a super cute "I Love Zumba" bracelet from her after class tonight.  I hope the girls are all better next week so I can start going on the regular again!  I will definitely be going tomorrow morning though, since Daddy will be here to watch the sickies!  ;-)

Speaking of the sickies, Carly and Callie are doing a lot better.  Carly only needed one breathing treatment today and I only wiped a few snotty noses.  Hopefully that means they are on their way to kicking these nasty sickies.  I did notice Callie coughing a few times today - REALLY hoping that doesn't turn into wheezing like Carly.  I honestly cannot even fathom having to hold her down for a treatment!  LOL  Callie is still commando crawling away, but has gotten up on her knees a few times.  Carly is crawling like a champ all over the living room.  It is the cutest darn thing ever!  I just can't get over how big they are getting SO FAST!

I had planned on making dirt cake cups for Earth Day, but the day got away from me.  Mickey would have thought that was cool I think.  Or, being OCD, she might have thought it was disgusting!  LOL  It's the thought that counts, right?  :-)

April 12 ...

It's a rough day.  There are a couple of reasons for that.  I'll start with the least painful one.  It's my nephew's birthday.  He just turned 13.  None of our family, including his father, my older brother, Joey, has seen him for almost 10 years.  His mom took him and moved away leaving no contact information and refusing to answer her cell phone.  After less than a year had gone by, I tried calling her from my home phone.  Guess what?  She answered, because she didn't recognize the number.  When she realized it was me, I could tell she would not have answered had she known it was me.  I informed her that Joey had been trying to get in touch with her and talk to his son, but he had just stepped out to the store.  (He was living with us at the time.)  I told her I would have him call back just as soon as he got home, and less than 10 minutes later when he called, she didn't answer.  She no longer answered to my phone calls either.  How sad.  I sure miss him and would love to get the chance to get to know him.  I cannot even imagine how hard it is for my brother.

What makes April 12 a terrible day more so is ... it's the day my mom died.  April 12, 2001 I got the worst call of my life from my mom's father in law.  He told me that he found my mom in the side yard and she had been shot in the chest and they were doing an autopsy.  I'm not even going into the story more than that - I can't go there right now.  It's ugly and painful and worst of all, mysterious.  9 days ago marked 10 years since that day.  Funny, I think about it all the time - I think of my mom almost every day still.  But I didn't even one time realize on that day what day it was.  The next day, I remembered.  I guess I am blessed that I was in Washington DC having a great time with my kids and my best friend and her family.  It didn't even cross my mind.  Part of me feels guilty for not remembering, but a bigger part of me is thankful for the distraction.  It's too painful.  I like to remember my mom for the loving, cheerful, funny woman she was.  When I think of April 12, 2001, I think of her laying in the yard shot in the chest, lung collapsed struggling to breathe and bleeding.  I wonder what she was thinking and I hope she wasn't suffering.  The only comfort I find is knowing from the autopsy report that it was a matter of minutes before she passed.  I wasn't going to blog about it.  It all sounds so morbid and who really wants to read something so depressing?  But while perusing Facebook this morning, I saw something on a friend's page.  Pictures of a beautiful rainbow.  The date of the rainbow?  April 12, 2011.  The pictures were taken here where I live, so I missed it being in DC.  I can't help but feel like that rainbow was a hello from Heaven.  I wish I had been here to see it.  I'm thankful for stumbling across the pictures anyway.  Here is one of them ...

Isn't it beautiful?  Rainbows have a special place in my heart.  Back in 2002 shortly after Haley had been diagnosed with Leukemia and started her chemo, she was extremely ill.  She was in the PICU (Pediatric Intensive Care Unit) and I honestly wasn't sure if she would live or die at that point.  The life was gone from her eyes and she was just so sick.  I took a rare break and left the hospital to go to Walmart to buy her a blanket for the hospital.  I was driving back to the hospital and I was just so distraught.  I prayed to God.  I prayed for His will to be done (hoping His will was for my baby who had already been through so much in her short life to LIVE!) and to be with her and comfort her.  I prayed to please give me a sign, is my baby going to live?  I don't even know how I continued to drive.  Tears were streaming down my face.  Then I saw in the sky the most beautiful, perfect rainbow I had ever seen.  It was a completely sunny day - not a cloud in the sky.  I knew then that it was an answer to my prayer.  God was giving me a sign that everything would be OK.  From that day forward, rainbows have always had a special meaning for me.  So, when I saw those pictures I knew they were a hello from Heaven and that I was meant to see them.  :-)

Slobbery, Snotty, Standing, Crawling, Pulling Up Babies!

How's that for a blog post title??  LOL

Carly is working SO hard to get her first teeth.  Her slobbering is on overdrive.  It's pretty gross, I have to admit!  Both girls apparently picked up some new illness, because they are both back to being a complete snotty mess.  Yuck doesn't even cover this.  Snot bubbles?  Yeah, we got 'em!  Thick yellowish, greenish snot that has to be suctioned several times a day?  Check.  I'll take the slobber over that stuff any day of the week (and twice on Sunday!)  I had them both back to the doctor yesterday because they have low grade fevers.  They both still have fluid on their ears, but it's not infected.  Callie's was completely clear and Carly's was cloudy, but not quite in need of doing another antibiotic just yet.  It could go either way though.  We are doing Zyrtec and Benadryl to try to dry up the fluid.  Fingers crossed it works, especially for Callie because boy does that kid now hate to take medicine!  She did not like the Amoxicillin at all - it takes 2 people to give it to her!  She's a strong little baby!!!  She is now ruined from taking any and all medicine.  Sigh.  Carly is also on breathing treatments every 4-6 hours because she is wheezing.  Let me tell you, a 9 month old baby is not down with sitting still with a face mask on for 10 minutes!  LOL  I really do not enjoy torturing my children, but anyone walking by my open windows today might have begged to differ between the suctioning of noses and breathing treatments!  HA!

So, now they can each stand while holding on to the couch now.  Oh boy.  It won't be long before they are cruising and then WALKING!  God help me when they are both that mobile!

LOL  For now, they are both CRAWLING!!!  Well, they each have their own version of crawling anyway.  Callie does the commando crawl, but she can do it really fast!  Carly, as of yesterday, is doing the full on crawl!  It's really slow and there are some oopsies, but she is doing it!

Pictures don't really do it though, do they?  How about some videos from my handy dandy Droid instead?  :-)

And finally, Carly is trying her darndest to pull up.  Right now that consists of her just pulling up on her knees rather than her feet.  I really don't like this stage.  I see lots of boo boos in our future until they figure it all out. But, these are also fun times!  Watching them constantly discovering new things and getting great joy from seeing them do their "firsts."  I've said it before and I'll say it again ... Life is a MIRACLE!

I hate Goodbye For Nows

Well, the Young family is back in Florida, safe and sound after some rough weather on the drive home.  Thank God they made it without running into any of those tornadoes.  So sad - they saw a lot of destruction and even a washing machine on I-95!  It could have been bad with the wrong timing.  They are already missed terribly.  *sniff*  I always have to remind myself of this little quote I found once right before one of their visits - it was on a little hanging plaque and I bought one for Haley and one for Kylie and we gave it to them the day they were leaving.  It said, "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened."  I'm doing my best to smile over here, but it doesn't seem to be working out.  I am cranky.  I miss my best friend and her awesome family!  :-(  We sure had some fun while they were here though.  We didn't do anything special (aside from travelling to DC), but we didn't need to.  We are all just so happy to spend time together and laugh and let the kids play.  I love that about us.  :-)

Our trip to DC was fun, simply because we were together!  (Notice a theme here?)  It was cold and rainy and, yeah, those Cherry Blossoms I talked about?  We were about a week too late it turns out!  DARN!  See all the pretty petals on the ground and not on the tree?  It sure smelled good though!!

We did find one lone, gorgeous tree that still had a blossoms on it!  PHOTO OP!  Rain and all, Uncle Sam yelling at us that we were crazy and it was too cold for the babies!  haha  Kelly and I, we are picture taking fools - we knew it would be OK for 10 small minutes or less!  ;-)

 This picture is a funny story - CLASSIC!  So, Kylie is holding Carly (on the far right of the frame) and Kylie is a little, shall we say, OCD about things so baby slobber and spit up really gross her out!  She was happily holding Carly and going on about how sweet she was, and had no clue that Carly had spit up on her!  LOL  This picture is the moment when the other 3 big girls realized what had happened.  Haley is just looking, Kami  just has a priceless look of disgust on her face and Mickey's face says, "OH DEAR!!!"  SO FUNNY!!!!  This picture makes me laugh so hard!

But, we went to the Jefferson Memorial and also consequently saw the Washington Monument!  The kids had fun; Kelly and I had a blast; and the babies were real troopers even though they were sick and on antibiotics! :-)

They are the best of friends ♥

And here are the pictures from the rest of the trip, just our families enjoying being together after nearly 2 years!

I love looking at the pictures and remembering all the good times.  I love that about photos!  What a don't love is the goodbye for now part!  It's the worst.  It's hard enough just saying goodbye and not knowing when we will see them again, but the heart shattering part is watching Kylie and Haley, the best friends there ever was, saying goodbye.  It's absolute torture.  They hold on to one another for dear life.  Sit and refuse to let go of one another and have even been known to barricade themselves in rooms before!  The tears are many and it is just complete and utter sadness.  It breaks my heart to even think of it now.  I hope we can find a way to have more frequent visits.  *sniff*

DC, Here We Come!

Yesterday was wonderful!  We were all well rested once again.  ;-)  It was a gorgeous day, so the kids spent most of the day playing outside.  The trampoline never ceases to provide hours and hours of fun for all the kids!  We got them to stop jumping long enough for a picture of all 6 of our beautiful girls though!  :-)

Kylie and Haley decided to try riding double on our tree swing, which ended up being super fun!

So then, of course, Kami and Mickey had to give it a try!

We were going to go to the park, but everyone was having so much fun in the backyard, we didn't end up going!  Kelly and I had plans to go to dinner, just us 2 at my FAVORITE place ... YEP!  Plaza Azteca!  It was so much fun to be able to just sit and talk without interruption.  And the food was fabulous of course!  ;-)  While we ate dinner at Plaza, Haley and Kylie got dropped off at the movies to see "Soul Surfer!"  They said it was amazing and inspirational!  It sure looks like a good movie, and so glad they enjoyed themselves.

Today we are off to Washington DC for a few days.  This is what brought them to Virginia - Sam (the dad and husband we never talk about!  LOL) is being processed for a new government job and the processing takes place in DC.  So, Haley is getting a 3 day vacation from school and we are all going up to DC with them!  Looking forward to it - it should be the perfect time to see all the beautiful cherry blossoms!  So, I'll be back in a few days with lots of pictures, I'm sure!

Lost Without My BFF

Let me preface this by saying I am beyond exhausted!  I didn't go to bed until about 5am because we were all just too excited to sleep once our guests got here from their long drive from Florida!  What a great reunion.  We really are not just friends, we are family.  Haley and Kylie are the best of friends and even after not seeing each other for nearly 2 years, it's as if not a second has passed!  Love them in their shirts today that say, "Lost without my BFF."  ♥

Once we all finally got a few hours of sleep, we mostly hung around the house today and just enjoyed spending some time together.  Kelly, Haley, Kylie and I did make a trip to the mall and Old Navy today, which was fun!  Kami and Mickey were the best of friends and played really well together all day.  Haley and Kylie were just in their own world enjoying being together once again.  It is a dream having them here - we miss them living here so much.  Haley is so lucky to have such a great friendship, one I know will last a lifetime, that has started from the time she and Kylie were babies.  I am so very lucky to have Kelly in my life as well.  She is not only my best friend, she is like my sister.  ♥

I am so tired I am about to drop, so I will stop here with one last thing.  I want to ask for prayers for my other dear friend, Carrie.  She is going through a very rough time right now and could use all the lifting up in prayer she can get.  She is an amazing single mom to 4 kids and is doing an amazing job keeping their world stable throughout a terrible situation.  She amazes me, but she really needs prayers right now.  I am lucky to have 2 amazing friends in my life who are like sisters - how blessed am I?  Too bad neither live close by anymore!  I know she would appreciate it.

Callie didn't want to be left out ...

So, just as I suspected, Callie woke up with a fever this morning.  After a 2:15 doctor appointment, turns out she has an ear infection as well.  So now both Carly and Callie are on antibiotics and hopefully on the mend.  Mickey and I are still working on getting rid of the yucky sickies ourselves, but it just doesn't seem to want to go away.  It doesn't have us down, but we are still full of mucous.  I hate how that symptom likes to hold on forever!!!  Mike has been working late pretty much every night (as usual) so with the sick kiddos, I haven't been able to go to the gym for days.  I am really missing Zumba!!!!  Can't wait for everyone to be healthy again so we can get back to it.  :-)

Our little seeds are really taking off!  Check out the growth ...

This is where I start feeling like I have no idea where to go from here!  haha  We will figure it out though.  Mike has a spot picked out for the garden, just needs to find the time to put it together.  :-)

I am breathing a HUGE sigh of relief over the House coming to an agreement and narrowly avoiding a government shutdown!  That was very scary.  Thank goodness we don't have to worry about our pay being short, or even worse, nonexistent.  So, now I am just sitting here patiently waiting dying for Kelly and family to get here!  Shouldn't be but a few more hours.  Really looking forward to this week!!!

Sickies

No post yesterday.  I spent all day taking care of my poor sick babies!  Carly was up ALL NIGHT LONG Tuesday night.  She was just not going to sleep and refusing her bottle too.  I finally got her to sleep between 4:30 and 5am.  Poor little baby!  She woke up with a fever of 101.9, so off to the doctor we went yesterday.  Sure enough, poor baby has her first ear infection!  I suspected that's what it was when she didn't want to sleep or eat.  So, she is on Amoxicillin for 10 days.  Poor baby was just pitiful yesterday.  All she wanted was to be held - she would just scream if I tried to put her down.  Needless to say, it was a very rough day.  Hence the no blog post!  Callie was such a good little baby, but she was starting to sneeze and snot all over the place too.

Today is much better! Just 24 hours of antibiotic and Carly is like a new baby!  She feels so much better.  Callie is starting to look a little more pitiful.  I won't be surprised if she doesn't start with a fever tomorrow and get an ear infection as well.  Fingers crossed she can avoid it though!

Today was an absolutely GORGEOUS day.  I opened all the windows to air out all the germies from the house and get some fresh air.  I turned up the music, which never ceases to motivate me, and did some cleaning.  It's amazing how 2 days of being completely consumed with taking care of sick babies can make a house fall apart!  The Izzie hair has been about to drive me INSANE lately as it's everywhere even when I vacuum twice a day in the living room in an attempt to keep it clean for the babies.  Her shedding just gets outrageous when the seasons change!  So, I finally just put everything aside and brushed her today.  I took about 20 minutes and this is what I got ...

Sadly, I could have kept going for a long time and continued to remove hair from her body, but the babies were getting upset!  I hope this will help with the dog hair, because I cannot handle dog hair on my babies!!!

Then I took the babies outside in the stroller to get some fresh air while I cleaned out my car.  It was in desperate need!  It really needs a bath too, but there's only so much I can do in one day!  ;-)  I got all the trash and toys out and vacuumed it.  Looks a lot better!  It was nice to enjoy the beautiful weather and do something productive.  :-)

You can see Carly still looks pitiful even though she is MUCH better!

So, now all the kids are tucked in bed and it's just about time for Mommy and Daddy to relax!  If only I could stop my brain from thinking about the possible government shutdown and possible loss of pay for our family.  Mike has been worrying about it, but I just kept thinking that they would come to an agreement at the last minute or that, even in the even of a government shutdown, Military would still get paid as has happened in the past.  However, it appears that will not be the case this time around.  If there is a shutdown, we will get half our pay on the 15th and if it isn't worked out after that, then we will not get paid at all.  PLEASE pray that none of this happens.  As a family currently living on one income, we cannot afford to have ANY pay withheld!

However, in good news, I am SO EXCITED for tomorrow!!!!!!!!!  My best friend Kelly and her family will be on their way from Florida!!!!!  Haley's best friend Kylie is their daughter as well, and it has been FAR too long since our last visit.  :-)  I am so excited for them to meet Carly and Callie, and for Mickey to have some playmates!

Cranky Carly Joins the Mix!

This picture pretty much sums up our day:

Carly was super cranky all day long!  She just wanted to be held, which pretty much isn't possible.  Callie was pretty cranky too, but Carly was definitely worse.  It would appear they have the cold that is going around this house on top of teething.  Sigh.  Needless to say, I didn't make it to the Zumba class I had planned on.  There was NO WAY Carly was going to be able to go to child watch because of her crankiness, and to top it off, like I said, I think they have colds too.  Luckily, Mike made it home just in time for me to make it to the last Zumba class tonight!  I really needed it after today.  I hope tomorrow is a better day for Carly and Callie!

Teething for Callie = NO sleep for Mommy!

You would never guess from looking at the sweet little happy face that follows in the pictures frpm today that she was up ALL night long screaming last night!  This poor baby is teething so bad.  She already has 2 bottom teeth, but her gums are just so incredibly swollen - she's going to have a mouthful very soon!  She was literally up screaming every hour last night.  I finally just brought her in bed with me so I could rub her little head to get her to go back to sleep every time she woke up.  And this was with Tylenol AND Motrin piggybacked in her!  Needless to say, I didn't get much sleep at all last night.  But look at that sweet, happy face from today, showing off her cute little 2 bottom teeth.  ♥

Carly was a good girl at least and only got up once at 4am for a bottle.  Carly is teething too, but not like Callie.  We are still waiting for Carly to cut some teeth!  However, Carly did something SUPER cool today!  She said her first real word - BALL!  Every time she was playing with a ball, she was saying ball!  I couldn't believe it at first, but she kept doing it over and over again.  Awwww - so sweet!  ♥

So, even though I got no sleep last night, I still got myself and the kids up and ready to go to the Y this morning for the 10:30 Zumba class.  Mike had to take my car to get inspected this morning since we just realized yesterday that my state inspection sticker has expired.  He didn't get home until about 10:15 which put me in a major time crunch to try to get to the Y and get all the kids checked into child watch in time for the 10:30 class.  I barely made it in time and since we were in such a rush, my friend Juliane was trying to help bring Carly and Callie to get signed into child watch.  Well, once her 17 month old saw her again, he was done and wouldn't stop crying!  So, we ended up not making it to the Zumba class.  Guess it just wasn't meant to be this morning.  So we decided to go to her house to let the kids play.  Once I finally got all three littles into the car, I was backing up and felt myself run something over.  Once I got out far enough, I realized it was my water bottle!  For heaven's sake, this morning just wasn't going to great!  I'll tell ya what though, those Nalgene water bottles are darn tough!  While it has some scrapes on it, it is still a working water bottle! Amazing!  :-)  So anyway, we spent the afternoon at Juliane's house and the kids played and had lunch.  It was gorgeous outside, so there was lots of outside playing.

Later on in the evening, we went to a different class, the Y Bootcamp.  It was really good!  50 minutes of getting my butt kicked, but it felt good afterward!  Funny how that works.  I burned 600+ calories!!!  Oh yeah, speaking of, today is Monday, which = weigh day!  176.6, so I'm down 1.4 pounds this week.  I would prefer at least 2, but a loss is a loss!  I am hopeful that the scale will continue to only go down and not back up from here on out.  :-)  I am now exhausted and ready to hopefully get some sleep tonight!

"Mickey"

I got up early this morning to go to the grocery store (kidless) so, Mickey wasn't awake before I left.  I was pleasantly surprised to come home and find that, not only was Mickey dressed, but she was dressed cutely!  Let me tell ya, when I was on hospitalized bedrest, there were a few times when I could have just died at what Mickey came to the hospital to visit me wearing!  Let's just say Daddy doesn't have too much experience dressing our little girls!  LOL  She looked so cute with her new haircut and her pretty blue "Mickey" t-shirt!  Good job, Mike!

I dropped off the groceries and ran to the Y to make my appointment to get signed up for the Fitquest, which is awesome!  After that I did another Zumba class!!!!  I LOVE IT!!!  I have several more Zumba classes lined up this week - can't wait!  The hour flies by and it is just so much fun.

It was a beautiful day today, so after I got home from the Y, Mike went out to work on the yard and Mickey went with to play outside.  They took our sprouting seeds outside for some sunshine too, and Mickey is always so happy to admire them!  ♥

She got her little watering can, filled it up and watered the "flowers" (aka weeds) in the backyard.  She is so DARN CUTE!

Bonus, the little girls from next door got to come over and play outside with her all afternoon!  She was super happy!!!

Later in the evening, we went to Aunt Tiffany's house for dinner.  It was SO good and always such a treat to not have to cook and clean up dinner.  We had steaks on the grill (charcoal grill at that - yummy flavor!) with sauteed mushrooms, sweet potatoes and corn on the cob.  By the time we got home at about 9:30, Mickey was begging to go to bed and she was snoring within 10 minutes of getting tucked in!  All that playing outside really wore her out.  :-)  The weather is looking good for the next 10 days and I am so glad!  I am over all this cold, rainy crud we have been having!

I LOVE Zumba!

So I got up this morning to meet my friend at the Y to try a couple of classes.  The first class was Abs and More at 8:30am.  It was a half hour class and really, REALLY worked my abs!  I was grunting and groaning towards the end!  haha  I'm gonna whip these abs into shape though, by golly!  Then at 10:30 it was an hour Zumba class!!!  I LOVED IT!  I was terrified actually - I have a hard time getting coordinated following people for workouts, but it didn't go nearly as bad as I thought it was going to.  LOL  I had a blast, worked my BUTT off and the hour flew by.  The teacher was so cute and peppy, it really made you want to keep going.  Looking forward to doing lots more Zumba now!   I am hoping that adding in all these classes at the Y will make this weight loss and getting healthy kick into high gear!  I need that to stay motivated.  ;-)

Then, something I have been trying to do for MONTHS happened this evening!!!  MICKEY GOT HER 1st HAIRCUT!!!!!!  She has been scared to go and kept saying, "But it's going to hurt."  No one could talk her into it - not even her Aunt Kayla when she was here.  Mickey had kept saying everyday, "I'll go tomorrow."  Well, my friend Juliane was getting her boys hair cuts today, so I asked Mickey if she wanted to go and watch and then get her hair cut and she was excited to go and meet them there, so she said yes.  Lo and behold she watched Caio getting his hair cut for about 15 seconds and she said she would do it when the woman called her name!  It looks SO CUTE!  We got it cut much shorter for summer and so as not to have so many knots that drive Mickey (and MOMMY!) crazy every morning.  I think she looks adorable, and she is SUPER happy!

Then Mickey was playing with Callie when we got home and they were being so cute!

Garden Progress Update!
The garden is making progress!  I am so shocked how fast these seeds are sprouting!!  We now have Mesclun still growing, like CRAZY, Oregano starting to sprout and Roma Tomatoes starting to sprout.  I can't wait to see what else starts sprouting.  Mike bought some more seeds today to add to what came with the kit; jalapenos, watermelon, canteloupe, red onion and zucchini.  I hope this all works out since we really don't know what the heck we are doing - it's already fun though!  Mike is getting some advice from our friend, Nick, who is pretty good at this gardening stuff though, so that should help.  :-)

Today was another good day.  :-)