MySpace blog: 10/30/07

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

My favorite thing to do with my kiddos...
Current mood: excited
Category: Life

So I think one of the best parts about being a parent is getting to dress up your kids as cute little things. And of course I always love showing off how creative I can get with costumes and such. So I LOVE Halloween and I was so excited to dress the boys up as something cute that matched/went together. I had all these great ideas and I was so excited about them. But as they get older they get a little mind of their own and they won't let you dress them like you want to or get them little Halloween costumes with themes. So the moral of my story is dress them like you want when they are little and take lots of pictures to embarass them when they get into high school. One of the perks of having to go through labor.

This is the reason why poor Jack had to be a bat for his first Halloween...because Mr. Big Stuff just HAD to be a Vampire!

BTW, Logan has a Paper Bag Costume Parade at his school Wednesday for Halloween so I made him a costume using ONLY paper! I had to bribe him to get him to wear what I wanted to make...lol. Be on the lookout for the pics!! It's going to be the best costume in the school!!!!! And yes, I am WAY more excited about it than he is...

Here's his paper bag costume...

back from the MySpace graveyard...

The next few days I'll be reposting a few blogs from my MySpace page.  Yea, I said it...that's really the first place I started blogging at all and there are only a few.  I'm doing this before I delete the entire page.  I tried to delete it tonight and it asks you about 152 times if you are sure.  That last time I thought, wait, I need to save those blogs and keep them for posterity.  So here goes...reposted along with dates so we can all see what I was thinking oh so long ago...

Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Children are amazing...
Category: Life

We went to Parent Orientation at Logan's school last night. He's in first grade. Last year, at the end of Kindergarten, I was just amazed by the amount of stuff he learned and how much he had progressed. I mean he can read! It is so amazing to me how much their little minds absorb and how they can remember stuff and learn new things. It just reminds me that he's not a baby anymore, he's a little person. He's so imaginative and he just says things all the time that are so off the wall. So grown up and you think, "where in the world does he learn that stuff?" So last night when his teacher was going over their curriculum and what the kids are expected to know by mid year and at the end of the year. I was just blown away by the fact that my kid will be that much smarter in 9 months. I can't believe he's grown up so fast. Now with Jack doing so much too I just think that it feels like just yesterday Logan was learning to walk and talk. Now he's learning to read and add and tell time and count money. Oh man. Kids are truly a gift from God to show us the simpler things in life.

I really think now that Teachers have the best job in the world (besides Moms) and I just want to thank all the teachers out there for using their skills and talents to shape our little one's minds.

P.S.  My son Logan, the subject of this entry, will be celebrating his 9th birthday next week and will be going into the 4th grade next Fall.  That time, she sure does fly.

My first t-shirt refashion

So I’m volunteering at the Pasadena Strawberry Festival this weekend. I was one of the last bunch to get our volunteer shirts so this is what I got.



That’s a really really big XL if you are wondering.

So I felt the need to do a little alterations. You should know that sewing has never been my favorite “crafty” thing to do. I feel the same way about sewing as I do about manual transmission cars. I know enough to keep myself out of a ditch…but it’s not my preferred mode of crafting/driving.

So I checked out some refashioning blogs yesterday to kind of get some ideas and here is what I did.

First, I found a shirt that fits me well. I used this as my pattern.


Sorry for the bad pictures, I started this at about 10:30 last night, I know, crazy...and they were taken by my husband.
Then I just started cutting…(BTW, I did this on a practice shirt first...learned A LOT of what NOT to do  that way)


I cut the sleeves off just on the inside of the seam…and I cut about an inch outside the yellow shirt to leave a little room for the seams.

And I cut the sleeves like this…


I also had to cut the sleeves along the seam and resew them smaller.

Onto the sewing…



All I had was black and white and other various color threads, none that were red so I just used black. I used a zig zag stitch so it would still stretch a little (learned that from a blog).

Once I got the sides and arms sewn back on the shirt was still long enough to be a dress (although a really skanky one)…I didn’t want to cut the bottom and mess with the hem…I was trying to K.I.S.S. (remember that from school?!). So I used a basting stitch on the sides and then pulled them some so they would gather and then sewed back over the gathered section to hold it. It’s a little wonky on one side still but really, I’m probably never gonna wear this shirt again.

It was fun trying something new though, I’ve always wanted to refashion a shirt into something cooler. Here’s the finished product.

Kale Chips

I've been trying to eat better.  More veggies (which I use to hate) and different new  (to me) foods.  I've been reading a lot of healthy eating blogs and I keep reading about Kale Chips.  What is Kale you ask? It's a type of cabbage.  But it's a dark leafy green...major goodness for you.  So I decided to pick some up at the store and try it myself.  Here's the video where I got the directions.



Here's my Kale.


Here it is cooking


It shrinks down a lot when it's cooked



I had high hopes for this I have to say.  I could really take it or leave it.  I can't see myself chowing down and mindlessly eating these like potato chips.  There were mixed reactions all around. 

Mike said it was alright.

Jackson said they were goood.


Logan...

well, he gagged and spit it out in the trash.  He made the most awesome face that I couldn't catch on camera.  He said it was horrible.  lol

So I don't think this will be going in the family cookbook.  Now I've got to find something else to cook and use all this leftover fresh kale.

Reunion part II

Alright, on to the actual reunion.  The boys were SO PUMPED to go fishing.  They had seriously been talking about it all week. If you weren't around the blog this time last year take a peek at this post from last years reunion and Logan fishing.  My cousin Nicole and her new husband Jimbo came to the reunion this year too.  I think they enjoyed hanging out and meeting everyone.  Here's some pics from the weekend.


The boys walking from the Old House to Grandpa's trailer...



Aunt Susan helping Jack cast his line

Nicole and her big catch...

Jimbo and Jack in a serious conversation

cupcake decorating contest

my boys on the hayride

Jack and D.O.G.

playing football

Uncle Paul squirting the boys with cold water, they were having a blast.

Grandpa and Jack eating donuts


They boys love it out there...the next week Jack asked if we were going back to the country.

Johnson Family Reunion

The first weekend in May, every year, we have a family reunion.  My Mom's side of the family.  My grandfather was born in this old house in Deadwood, TX.  The biggest city close to it is Carthage, TX if you are looking on a map.  This year my Mom and I drove up Friday morning just us girls so we could stop at all the junk shops and antique stores on the way.  When we ride with the boys they won't let us stop.We got lots of "good" stuff.

This was at the first place we stopped...

Okay!  Thanks Dear!!

Here's some stuff we got...

Mom's bird...this is made from an old tire!

An old timecard holder, Mom's gonna use it to display some of the cards she makes...that's my Mom. :)

more stuff...


Here's some awesome stuff I saw, but didn't buy...I'm not made of money y'all!
This glass was a beautiful turquoise crystal color

Vaseline glass...it glows in black light.  Groovy huh?


This is going to be a two part post...cause we did a lot of stuff that weekend!  This was just on the way up there.

Mother's Day

I woke up yesterday morning with a little voice in my head.  I hear Logan whispering, "Dad, Dad, wake up.  It's Mother's day and we have to sign Mom's cards."  I just kind of smiled and pretending to be asleep.  I got up a few minutes later and Logan heard me and brought me the card they bought me.  It was one of those talking cards with the little pink and green guys on it.  They were singing a song that goes, You are so awesome and wonderful, even though we do bad things sometimes we know you still love us.  Then they say they are gonna bake me a cake, and you hear a big boom...then they say, maybe we'll just go out for ice cream.  Logan was cracking up laughing when I read it, and he said, "that's my favorite part, when they blow up the cake."  And he signed his name, Jack's name and Dad.(cause you know he wouldn't wake up)

Then he tried to bring me a card from Mike and I told him to wait and let Dad give me that one.  Turns out he went ahead and signed "Mike" on the inside and sealed it up.  lol

Then we went to church, my brother came and surprised my Mom. (He never goes to church with us) Then mexican food and ice cream. 

We came home and watched The Blind Side (even Logan sat and watched it, Jack fell asleep on the couch)

And then played baseball and played in the sprinkler.





I'm so glad these boys belong to me.

Show us Your Life: Kids names

Hey, there's a party going on...a linky party.  Over at Kelly's Korner.

It's called Show us Your Life: Kids names.  I found it on my friend Hattie's blog.  She's pretty cool, go check her out...she's got a houseful of boys too.  4 boys!

My boys have pretty special names.  Here are their stories.

When I was pregnant with my firstborn, I wanted a girl.  I seriously wanted a girl so bad that all I thought about were girl names.  I had it all planned out, this baby's name was gonna be Grace Elizabeth.  And then, I had an ultrasound and my little girl had a pecker.  Soo...I had to come up with something.  I love names that come from family.  Names that mean something and are special to the family. 

I have a cousin named Chase.  In 1994, he was 5 years old and loved his father *Uncle Ed* and anything his father loved.  My Uncle was a pilot but his license had expired so he was taking lessons to get certified to fly again.  Chase always wanted to go with him and my Aunt never let him.  He finally begged enough and she relented.  It was January 2, 1994.  The first time he got to fly with his dad.  They were both killed in a mid air collision with another small private plane.  Everyone on both planes was killed.

I asked my Aunt if I could use Chase's name and then Logan Chase was born...




We TTC for almost 3 years before I got pregnant with my youngest son...and again, I thought for SURE I was gonna have a girl.  I wanted a little girl so bad.  Again, I had a girl name all picked out.  This baby's name was going to be Lillian Mari.  Mari was a variation of Mary (my grandmother's middle name) and pronounce like Marie.  I was also worried because Mike had already made me promise that if it was a boy we were using his Grandpa's name as the middle name.  And then I saw another pecker...it's hard to describe but as soon as I walked into that ultrasound room I had a feeling it was a boy, and then when I saw his little face I didn't care whether that baby was a boy or a girl.  I was just glad he was gonna be mine.  This started a long hard search for a name that would "go with" his predetermined middle name.  It was rough.  Mike's grandpa died before we ever met but he was very special to Mike so there was no doubt he was gonna have his name.  I gave him a hard time about the name but I made sure he had a first name that was cool enough to counteract it...

A few months later, Jackson Earl was born...(now you know why it was so hard)



We tell the boys all the time about why their names are "special". 

P.S.  I was going to post a pic of Chase but I don't have any digital ones, just hard copies.  He was a gorgeous, blonde haired, blue eyes little pistol...just like my two boys.

This is it...the last time I will be unhealthy.

I've gone and done something serious to push my motivation to get slim and healthy.

I’ve signed up to be a Beachbody Coach.

I know you’ve seen the Beachbody infomercials. Slim in 6. Turbo Jam. P90X!

I’m now selling all of the Beachbody brand of products.

I put it out there on Twitter a few weeks ago that I was looking for some kind of direct sales company to earn a little extra money. Melissa (@FITnFABinCT) tweeted back to me about checking out Beachbody. I looked at everything she sent me and thought wow, I can sell all these products that get huge publicity on TV and in the process get myself in better shape and lose weight. So let me tell you what I will be using.
I’m starting with the Shakeology Challenge. Here is an outline of the 3 day cleanse.


B: cup of green tea
    Shakeology (add one piece of fruit)
S: one piece of fruit
L: Shakeology
    Cup of green tea
S: Shakelogy
D: green salad(3 servings of veggies)
    4 oz. grilled white protein
    2 Tbsp FF dressing (use olive oil and vinegar to add healthy fats)

Drink 2-4L of water per day
No dairy

What IS Shakeology you ask? Here’s a short video that can explain that better than I can.

http://teambeachbody.com/showcase/-/bcp/29768318001

I’m really looking forward to reporting back with my results of the cleanse.

I’m also going to start a workout program using the Slim in 6 workouts.
http://teambeachbody.com/showcase/-/bcp/45346531001

My website is still a work in progress, I’m going to get my starting measurements up there soon. (that’s not nervewracking or anything).


www.beachbodycoach.com/naomisnest


If you have seen the products and want to try anything or have questions please let me help you!

If you want to do the cleanse too, then get on my website and order the Shakeology.  If you want to try it out without a 30 day supply of commitment then get a couple friends to go in with you.  A 30day supply order will be enough for three people to try out the cleanse (9 shakes per person).

Don't wait any longer to take control of your life and fitness...I'm not waiting any longer either!!