Another update on Getting Healthy in 2012!

It's been a couple weeks since I updated about Getting Healthy in 2012! I have had a great, super, awesome first month! I am down 13.2 lbs! Woo Hoo.

I am feeling really great. So much more energy and less stomach issues since I started eating lots of veggies, fruits, lean meats and whole grains!

It has also been a month today since I have had a Diet Coke or any soda for that matter! I am finally past that craving a Diet Coke in the morning.

I am walking 2 to 3 miles about 5 days a week and really loving it. It feels so good during and after.

I recently went through my closet and I can wear lots of clothes that were super tight. In fact, some clothes are already to big! I can't wait to buy some fun new summer clothes and a bathing suit.

Loving my new lifestyle..... :)

Update on Getting Healthy in 2012!

Well, I weighed in on Monday evening and lost 4lbs! I am pretty happy with that! I have not found myself feeling like I am starving since changing my eating habits and actually feel a ton better, more energy, etc!

On top of all that I also quit drinking diet coke or any soda for that matter last Tuesday! Yeah! I did have the headache issue for a few days but I am on day 7 and feel great.

My goal this week is to get more activity in by walking as many evenings as I can. This has not been too hard since we are having unseasonably warm weather for Michigan right now! I am loving the walks. Totally takes away any stress I am having.

I am so excited about this new lifestyle that I am embarking on. Healthy here I come!

Working on a new healthier Me!

I have been toying with the idea of joining Weight Watchers again over the past few months. I lost 60 pounds on Weight Watchers about 10 years ago and loved the program.

So I officially joined Weight Watchers again on Monday evening. I luckily have not gained back all the weight over the past 1o years. I was actually pretty happy when I stepped on the scale for my first weight in and was about 25 pounds less than I thought I was! I have not stepped on a scale in at least a year and a half! I mean I know that I am overweight, but I felt a little better about the fact that I really have not gained much the past couple years.

I am already loving the new Weight Watchers Points Plus program. It is different from the last time I did the program. I think it is actually way better now! I have started walking every day and plan on throwing in some other activities daily too. I am taking baby steps, one day at a time so I don't get overwhelmed!

When I think about my reasons for doing this, I am not only wanting to be "skinnier" (who doesen't) and look better in my old and growing tighter clothes, but I really want to be healthy! I have a family history of diabetes and the thought of that scares me! A lot! My mom has been diabetic since I was a child and uses daily shots of insulin. Yikes, no thanks!

So, right now I am working on 10% for my goal and just really trying to add more activity into my lifestyle.

I am very excited about this new adventure and lifestyle change. I will keep everyone updated on my progress. :)

Get out of my house flu!!!

Have you ever had one of those weekends when you have tons of things to do and the weather is gorgeous out, but you end up coming down with the flu on Friday afternoon? That was my past weekend! Emily came down with the flu on Wednesday night. I was the 2nd victim on Friday and Kyle was lucky number 3 on late Saturday night. Our weekend was pretty much shot.

We all seem to be feeling better today. Let's hope all the sickness is leaving our house. We have some awesome weather on the way this week and I want to be outdoors!

Seriously, I'm back.....

Wow, can't believe how long it has been since I posted here! I am not happy with myself about it. Life got kind of busy and when that happens I tend to not be online as much. I am back and plan on posting a lot more often, which won't be hard since I have not posted in like 10 months! ;)

Look what I caught!!!!

I did not grow up fishing, but my awesome hubby has gotten me "hooked" on it! He has always been great on introducing me to new adventures like fishing and hunting, snowmobiling, camping and kayaking! I love that we both enjoy doing these things together and with the kids! We are definitely an outdoor family. I love that man!!

Anyways, last week we grabbed the boat and headed to a local lake one evening. We were not having too much luck, but then I caught an 8 inch bass and then a few minutes later I snagged this big fellow! It is a 28 inch Northern Pike and it weighed almost 6 pounds! This is the biggest fish I have ever caught. I was so excited! It was a lot of work getting him to the side of the boat so Kyle could scoop him up with the net.





This is a really bad photo of me, but I had to have a picture with my fish, who was extremely slippery and slimy! I grabbed a towel to hold onto him because I am not a huge fan of slimy things! lol

I'm back!

I'm back. Had a busy week last week. Then my hubby and I, headed to the UP of Michigan for fun weekend of snowmobiling! I will posts some photos tomorrow and get back to blogging daily. Hoping for a quieter week.

Heading to bed..... Sweet dreams!

Rough Day

Today was a rough day. Emily, my 2 year old was diagnosed with Bronchitis on Sunday and instead of getting better this week, she has gotten worse. Her fever kept spiking and she has been miserable. So this morning I took her back to the ER. I am glad I did, when we got there her fever was over 104 degrees and she was grunting when she breathed. The doctors and nurses at the ER were awesome. They got her fever down and after a breathing treatment and some chest x-rays they sent us home. She has a bronchial infection with slight pneumonia. They decided that she did not need to be admitted to the hospital since her fever came down and she was drinking liquids and used the potty a couple times while we were there. After a couple of hours of being there she started to act more like herself.

So she is on a new antibiotic and will be getting breathing treatments every 4 hours for the next week. She definitely acted better this afternoon and even wanted to go sleep in her own bed tonight! Although I think I am going to grab her and put her in bed with us. Just for peace of mind....

When you say your prayers tonight, say one for Emily please. I want my baby girl back to bouncing off the walls very soon!

Thanks :)

Now I need to go get some sleep...

Just back from the Emergency Room....

I was not sure I was actually going to get a post done before midnight tonight (I have been blogging every day since I took the Blog Dare through the Community of Moms). I have been blogging late at night lately.

I just got home from the ER. I decided to go in tonight because I have been having pain in my left leg (knee area) since the 15th. It started out more as an ache but just in the past couple days has really been bothering me. It does not really hurt when I walk or stand, just hurts when I bend it or stretch it. I figured I had pulled a muscle or something and was giving it a few days to heal.

Today it was worse and tonight after searching online about leg/knee pain I came across blood clots in the leg. YIKES! One symptom of a blood clot is a pulled muscle like pain. After talking to my hubby we decided that I should head to the ER just to make sure everything was ok.

I am fine, it turns out to just be a strained/pulled muscle in my leg just under my knee cap. I can feel the balled up muscle. It is very tender when touched. The doctor said to just lay low and not stress it over the next few days (yeah right, we just started demo on our kitchen and I have an active 2 year old) and it should get better. He said since it does not really bother me to walk that I don't need crutches. If it is not better in a week then I will go see my family doctor. I am relieved. I felt kind of silly going in tonight but they did say it was good to get it checked out and that I was right about the symptoms of a blood clot. It's always good to be cautious. Well, off to bed soon.

One thing I LIKE about having the stomach flu...

You lose a few pounds! =)

I have been MIA!

I have not been online to much the past couple days due to the lovely stomach flu! Just wanted to let everyone know I am still among the living and will hopefully have a post up later about my weekend away with Kyle. My energy level is pretty low but am starting to feel better. Luckily, Kyle has not had any work this week and has been home to take care of me and the kids. He even did the dishes 2 days in a row!! WOW! =) He is a good man.

Stay tuned...

I'm back...

We got back home this evening. Had a great weekend. I will post pictures tomorrow!

Time for bed. Can't wait to sleep in my own bed. It is always fun to go away but always so nice to be back home.

Add one more candle to the cake!

So another year has flown by and I am now a year older! I am really ok with that. I am enjoying my 30's. For every candle I add to my cake, just means that I lived another year (and that's a great thing)!

I am really excited because my Hubby asked me what I wanted for my birthday this year and I told him a weekend away! (with him, not by myself, although that might be nice too) So, this morning I am finishing packing for our little trip to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. We are headed to the the Kewadin Casino/hotel in St. Ignace for 3 nights! We are planning on doing some snowmobiling while we are up north. This is something we love to do as a couple. I am also planning on sleeping in and napping! (and winning a million dollars! Hey a girl can dream)

Look for pictures next week of our little getaway! Have a great weekend everyone! I have a post scheduled for every day I am gone since I am participating in the Community of Mom's Blog Dare!

Let Potty Training begin....

Now that the busyness of the Holidays is over, I have decided that it is time to begin potty training Emily! (lucky me)

She just turned 26 months old and I know that she is and has been ready now for a couple months. I just needed to commit to doing it and stick to it! I will admit it is probably one of my most hated stages in child rearing (so far). The potty training part at home is not that bad, but leaving the house with only underwear on those first few times is not fun! It seems like just as you get them in their car seats and your driving down the road they inform you they need to go potty!

You would think I would not dread this process so much. I have lots of experience in potty training. I have 2 older children and I ran a daycare out of my home for about 5 years. My older 2 kids were both close to 2 1/2 when they were potty trained and it was fairly easy. I would guess that I have helped potty train at least 10 kids!

Emily did really well today. I put her in big girl Dora panties around noon today and she only had one accident! I would say that one accident in about 9 hours is great! She even went potty right before bed tonight.

The funniest thing about her using the big girl potty is when she is trying so hard to go potty and makes herself toot! She will laugh so hard and say "I tooted"! She is very amused with herself and I of course can't help but laugh along with her. She is so cute!

My plan for tomorrow is to put her in panties or a pull up after we get up and only use a diaper when we leave the house or she is sleeping. I think she will figure this (dreaded)potty training thing out fairly quick.

Anyone have any great potty training tips that have worked for them?

Wish me luck!! :)

Community of Moms Blog Dare!

I joined the Community of Moms site back in December. It is a great place to meet other moms who also blog. I have enjoyed reading some new blogs and getting to know some great moms from across the United States and Canada! They have several groups you can join within the community.

I decided to take part in the Community of Moms Blog Dare that started January 1, 2010. The dare is to blog every day this year! I am up for the challenge and enjoying it so far.

I decided to use this blog for the dare, since I blog almost daily on my other blog, Money Saving Mama in Michigan! A Day in our Life is my personal blog.

Kyle and I are headed up North this weekend for my birthday and I am already in the process of scheduling some posts for the days I will be gone! I am very committed to having a post up on my blog every day!

CLICK HERE to check out Community of Moms! Why not join in, it's not to late!

I won a free night's stay at the Bavarian Inn Lodge!

Today I got a message on Facebook that I won a free night's stay at the Bavarian Inn Lodge in Frankenmuth, Michigan! I am shocked I won, since I rarely win contests. CLICK HERE to see where we get to stay.

This one was very easy and I encourage you all to enter as well! All you have to do is become a fan of the Bavarian Inn Lodge or Bavarian Inn Restaurant on Facebook or follow them on Twitter!

CLICK HERE for all the details. They are picking one winner a week during the months of January and February!

CLICK HERE to become a fan of the Inn on Facebook.

CLICK HERE to become a fan of the Restaurant on Facebook.

CLICK HERE to become a follower on Twitter.

Obviously doing all three will up your chances of winning.

Can't wait to head back to Frankenmuth. It has been a long time since I have visited. For all of you that are not familiar with Frankenmuth, it is a quaint Bavarian town in Michigan. CLICK HERE to learn more about this great city.

Our Weekend

Had a nice weekend. James and Hannah did not have school on Friday so I got to spend some extra time with them. :) The weather was beautiful and we spent a lot of time outside playing in the leaves, woods and the kids rode their go karts! Friday night we stayed home and watched a movie with the kids. Saturday Kyle had to work and we were pretty lazy in the morning, just hanging out in our pj's. Made some yummy cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Finally watched the Hannah Montana Movie and was pleasantly surprised! I really enjoyed the movie and would recommend that you watch it. I took some pics of the kids playing in our big leaf pile and I got a couple good ones that I think will work good for our Christmas card this year.








Sunday was opening day for firearms for deer here in Michigan. Kyle and I got up at 5 am and headed to the woods. Was a beautiful day out and I enjoyed being in my tree stand even though I did not get a deer today. I will be heading back out tomorrow. Kyle did not get one either. We still have a lot of standing corn around where we hunt and I think the deer like to hide in it! :) It is now 10pm and everyone is sleeping (Kyle is snoring on the couch!). I am heading to bed in a few. I am exhausted, apparently sitting for 7 hours in a tree stand makes you tired! lol Actually I think it is the getting up at 5am that makes me tired. I am not much of a morning person!

I entered a photo contest!

So about a month ago my mom called me and told me about a local amateur photo contest being sponsored by our County Conservation District! She knows how much I enjoy taking pictures and she really likes looking at my pictures! Although since she is my mom I doubt she would tell me that she did not like my photos! :) Anyways she has been encouraging me to enter and I finally got around and printed out 4 photos and dropped them off today!

The contest is an Annual thing and this year they have 4 categories that you can enter a photo in. I chose 4 that I really liked that fit in each category. The categories are Trees and Plants, Wildlife, Landscapes and People enjoying Nature! They will be picking 3 winners from each category. You will only be able to win in one category as well.


So here are the 4 photos I choose!I printed them out as an 8x10 and they looked better on photo paper than on my computer!

Which one is your favorite?

This I entered in People enjoying Nature! This is a picture of my youngest Emily running down the trail in the woods behind our house! During fall we are surrounded by a sea of yellow trees and leaves!


I entered this one in Trees and Plants. I took this in our woods behind our house. I love the contrast of the yellow and red!


I entered this one in the Wildlife category. I took this photo of a robin's nest this past Spring in a bush in our front yard. I played with the settings on my camera and love how the picture turned out.


I entered this in the Landscape category. This was taken in our side yard. We are surrounded by tons of trees!

Cougar sighting in Michigan!

So this is crazy! I am always joking about their being cougars out in the woods here in Mid Michigan!There is not suppose to be cougars in Michigan. There has always been stories going around the area suggesting that there is a cougar living in Mid Michigan. My husband will ask me what I am so scared about when I say I am scared of the dark and don't want to go into the woods by myself! I always say well the cougar might get me! So I am sitting in my tree stand yesterday, kind of bored because I had been sitting for 2 hours and not seen a deer and I take a peek at my Twitter activity via my cell phone! (gotta love having a cell phone to play with when your hunting!) and see that the DNR has posted a link about a confirmed Cougar Sighting in Michigan!! They have the above photo that caught the cougar with a trail camera. YIKES! Well luckily it was way up in the Upper Peninsula, but I won't lie and tell you that I did not think that maybe, just maybe, there are cougars living in the woods I am hunting in! :) I also read that they have two sets of confirmed tracks in the UP as well! Then the article goes on to tell me how to defend myself if I encounter a cougar. Says not to run! lol, yeah right! Anyways just thought I would share with everyone.

What I have discovered hunting!

This is a self portrait of me in my tree stand with my phone! lol, you get bored some days. :)

Okay, I know I talk about hunting a lot but I really do enjoy deer hunting and if your a woman you probably don't get it! lol :) But hunting is really not just about shooting an animal. There is so much more to it, so much to learn about Gods Creatures and to learn about yourself (think overcoming fears). Here is what I have discovered out in the woods this fall while bow hunting.

Leaves make more noise falling to the ground than a deer does walking thru the woods! Crazy but true! Deer are very quiet when the walk thru the woods. They just appear sometimes. It startles you when they do!

Squirrels are very feisty creatures and are very entertaining to watch when you are sitting in your tree stand. I had one climbing up my tree a couple weeks ago and about half way up I was moving around trying to scare it and it just sat there and chattered at me. He was not happy I was in his way.

Turkeys really do fly! I never ever believed that Turkeys flew until I was hunting and saw one run and fly into the top of a tree! They roost in the tops of trees in the evening to keep away from predators. It is pretty entertaining to watch.

When you hear a noise and it sounds like the sky is falling it is just those crazy flying turkeys getting into the tree! It is loud, leaves are flying and they appear very uncoordinated.

Birds will land in your tree and sometimes almost hit you in the head while flying around. I am still waiting for one to land on my head! :)

Sitting in your tree stand while it is windy out can be a little scary! lol I was so glad that my hubby let me know that my tree might move a little if it is windy. The first time this happened to me I freaked a little. It is a really weird feeling having the tree moving one direction while your sitting in a ladder stand hooked to the tree. It does not really bother me now, but like I said if I had not known about this I probably would have gotten down that night and missed seeing that doe I shot on the 2nd day of bow season this year! :)

Now not many of you probably know this but I am scared of the dark! lol I really am and I am not ashamed to admit it. I always have been and probably always will be. Anyways, hunting normally involves going into the woods in the dark or coming out at dusk! This spooks me out so much. Once I am in my tree stand I am fine if it is dark but I guess I don't really like the unknown. I know that nothing is going to get me and I do have a weapon but I hate, hate, hate being startled by deer, raccoons, squirrels, etc. in the dark! So I am really working on overcoming this fear and I am doing better with coming out of the woods by myself in the dark. Still need my hubby to walk me to my stand in the morning! Gotta love a hubby who will get up and go with his wife even if he is not hunting. He is the best! I pray about it daily. :) Now I am for sure not going to disclose where I hunt at for fear that one of you might try to sneak in and jump out at me in the dark! lol

I know I can overcome my fear of darkness (well maybe) someday. I was able to get in a tree stand for the first time this year! I always told my husband that I would never hunt out of a tree. I have a serious fear of heights as well. ( I am a wimp) Well since he went and bought me a bow for Christmas he thought I should try to get in a ladder stand since it is better than the ground blind. So this past summer he put up the stand in our yard so I could practice getting in it! It must have been so funny to watch me climb up it the first few times. Scared out of my mind to climb just the 10 feet, I would not let him put the last 5 feet of ladder on it! It got easier every time and eventually I was able to stop holding on to the side rails long enough to actually shoot my bow. Well the first time I got in it in the woods this fall I laughed to myself because the 10 feet did not seem tall enough in the woods. I felt like the deer would walk in and look me in the eyes. So I had Kyle put the last 5 feet of ladder on and have been hunting from 15 feet ever since. Does not even bother me to climb it now! I am so proud of myself. Baby steps Wendy, baby steps! :)

One of the best things I like about hunting (besides actually shooting the deer) is the quiet time I have to myself! 2 to 3 hours of just sitting in your stand in the woods gives you a lot of time to reflect on life and to talk to God! He is an awesome God and I am in awe of everything he has created!

So even if your not a hunter you should all consider spending some time out in the woods! It is a beautiful place, so different from the hustle and bustle of every day life. I keep telling my self to grab my camera because there is so much to photograph. Maybe next time. Thanks for letting me ramble on about my hobby. :)