20/72/3

These are my goal numbers.

20 minutes of cardio a day.
72 oz. of water during the work-day.
3 lbs. lost a week.

I have 5 more weigh-ins for the competition at school. I'm pretty sure I'm out of the running as one lady is way out in front of the pack. However, I'm not giving up on my personal goal. This week I'm allowing a bit of leniency with the 3 lbs lost b/c I actually have 3 less days than normal since I just weighed in today instead of Friday. The last week we weigh in on Wednesday instead of Friday, so I'll shoot for 2 lbs that week. My goal is 13 lbs. by Nov. 26. I'm currently down 7.6 lbs. Twenty even would be fabulous! I had a spell where I was consistently losing 1.5lbs a week. The last couple of weeks have been weird. But I'm hoping with the addition of exercise, I can see faster results. I'm a bit nervous that working out will cause me to want to eat a bit more in the evenings. I need to get to the store to get veggies to munch on!

I'm also planning on increasing my work-out time by 5-10 minutes every week or two. I'd like to be at 40 minutes consistently by Thanksgiving. It might be hard to get that in every night because of Layla's and Jeremy's schedules, but I'm going to try.

Too much to title

Layla is learning so much every day! She likes to play with her tongue now. It's so cute! She knows that crying gets our attention (which will become annoying very quickly I'm sure!). I am 99% sure she "claps." I say 99% because I still have to administer a few more "tests" to determine I haven't been witnessing just a few coincidences. She puts herself into a sitting position from a crawling one. She pulled herself up to a standing position using Jeremy as help when he was sitting on the floor with her.

Might I add these developments have all been witnessed by Jeremy and/or I for the first time since yesterday! Well, all except for the crying thing, which I can't pinpoint down to a certain day.

****

We went to the ISU Homecoming Parade today and had a good time. It was rather chilly, though! I have some absolutely adorable pictures of Layla all bundled up that I'll post on here when I get around to it. She had a good time, but couldn't have cared less on watching the actual parade. She was far more interested in watching the kids running around.

I hadn't been to that parade since I was in college...and even then, I never got to enjoy it as I was always in it with Campus Crusade. It was nice to view all the floats as they passed by. I don't know which float won the contest, but the Humane Society's was SCARY!!! They did an excellent job...and I can't do it justice by describing it, but I can't help trying. There was a giant, evil-looking rabbit with monstrous claws and teeth standing on top of a hearse...and the workers were very dead-looking as well. Even though Layla would have no idea what she was looking at, I made sure she didn't turn her head to see the monstrosity!

****

I've begun to slack with the Biggest Loser competition. :-( I didn't weigh in yesterday because I took the day off...but I'm not sure I would have faired too well. I know once I actually get my butt in gear and go for a jog I would realize just how good I feel when I workout. I just can't seem to motivate myself to get there. I need help! Haha.

****

My current goal with the house is to maintain the 3 rooms that are in decent condition and have one more room welcome to the public by the end of next week. Within this goal, or maybe in addition, I would like Jeremy & I to spend 45 minutes to an hour a day working on the house (be it getting things where they belong or finishing up one of our many works-in-progress). I'm desperately hoping that our house is market ready by January 1st!

****

Layla does so much better in the evenings when she has friends over. Both last night and tonight we had guests over each with a girl either 4 months older or 1.5 months younger. I was so surprised to see Layla perfectly content playing on the floor so late at night with no sounds of fussiness. I can't really say that she was busy watching the other kid in the room, but it seemed that having someone else on the floor with her gave her the freedom to simply explore. Or maybe it's the fact that she was never alone in the room. But even when we're in the room with her she will get fussy after a while and want to be picked up. I'm not exactly sure what the difference is. I can see now why she's so tired when she comes home from daycare. She seems to forget the fact that she's tired and plays contently when other kids are around.

Loss of different kinds

Hair Loss - I looked at the back of Layla's head last night and most of her hair was gone! I don't know if this has been a slow process, but it sure seemed like it happened overnight! Her little "tail" she was born with and had forever is no longer there. And she used to have a little bald spot surrounded by lots of dark hair...that's not so much the case anymore :-( It's so thin! She still has long dark/turning light hair on the top of her head...giving her a reverse mullet look! Haha. She does have hair on the sides and back...it's just short, light and seemingly thin compared to what I'm used to. It's very sad to see her beautiful baby hair go. I'm regretting not getting more pictures when she was 1-3 months old that really show-cased her crazy hair! I'm curious to see what her hair will look like in her 9-month pictures, though. Below are a few pictures that show her hair changes over time...

March 5                                              April 5

April 23                              June 8

Sep. 6


Weight Loss - Unfortunately this is not about myself (or Jeremy)...my precious Layla lost 5 oz. from her last doctor's appointment 3 weeks ago :-( I've tried to justify it in various ways - she fed right before she was weighed last time and hadn't eaten for several hours this time. But still! She has been PIGGING OUT the past week or two. I was truly hoping for 16lbs. She has felt a lot thicker to me lately. So I was very sad (I actually shed some tears) when I walked into the appointment and Jeremy said she weighed 14lbs. 11 oz. It was not the direction I was expecting at all. Last appointment, the doctor said she would look into blood tests if her weight gain wasn't improving. However, she's now going to wait and see how Layla's weight looks in a month and a half (9 month appt.). She's waiting because Layla is obviously happy and healthy looking. She's not having any issues with fevers, throwing up or diarrhea. The doctor kept reassuring us that everything is okay. She said it's not unusual for breastfed babies (I'm not sure if this is true of she was just easing our minds...all the breastfed babies I've known have gained weight with no problems). But the doctor has a great point in that Layla is a VERY happy baby and doesn't seem to be suffering from anything. Despite that, I'm really praying for excellent weight gain over the next several weeks...the last thing I want is to have blood tests run on my little sugar pie.

Stress Loss - We were able to enjoy our Fall Break visiting our dear friends Becky & James in Atlanta and we had a wonderful time! If only we had a few more days to enjoy their company! You can read all about our trip and view a few pictures on their blog. We also drove over to Talladega, AL to visit some friends from church who moved down there in July. They're currently living in their RV while they wait for their house to be built. The quarters were rather small for 4 adults, a baby, and two dogs (one of which is 134lbs!). We enjoyed the visit, though. We ended the trip by staying in a hotel in Nashville to break up the return trip. It was nice to lay in a bed all evening and do nothing only to wake up in the morning to a delicious hot breakfast made by someone else. :-) I took a bag full of papers to grade during all the driving and I'm so glad I didn't! I think most will just have to end up in the trash...unless I can find some time to have the students grade it in class together :-)

House woes

I'm so sick of having a house that is in constant disarray. It's completely overwhelming...so much that I just sit in despair feeling as if I can't do a thing about it. It has been awful for over a year now. It puts me in a bad mood...and I can't relax, but I can't seem to find motivation to work because I feel it never does a bit of good. So this runs over into my relationship with Jeremy because I'm just in an all-around icky mood when I'm home. I get frustrated that we haven't found a way to work together to keep the house in a decent condition. And now I'm even more frustrated with it all because Layla is more mobile and I can never put her down to play because there's no room (and, I feel, unsafe). In turn, I feel like I'm impairing her ability to crawl.

We can never have people over...and I would be utterly embarrassed if someone were to stop by unexpectedly. This has happened at least once in the recent past.

I don't want to live this way!!!

I want to be able to relax in my house. I want to have people over. I want to give my daugther the best environment for her development.

On a lighter note, I lost another 1.5 pounds this week. That puts me at 4.5 and counting!

3, puffs, red knees

I forgot to mention that I lost another 1.5 pounds last week. So I'm officially down 3 pounds. I'm hoping for another pound and a half tomorrow.

Layla ate baby puffs as a snack for the first time on Sunday. We introduced puffs to her a month ago but she wasn't too interested in them and made quite the face when I would put one in her mouth. But with the emergence of her teeth on Saturday, I thought I'd give them another try...and she loved them! I thouroughly enjoyed watching her try and feed herself. I added a few pictures of her attempts below. I might add that the next day, instead of her picking them up out of my hand she learned that bending her body forward to suck them out of my hand with her mouth was qutie a bit easier and more efficient. She's one smart cookie!

As for the red knees...Layla has had them lately. She must move around on the floor a lot while at daycare. I know she doesn't too much here because we hold her quite a bit. I'm sure that's stalled her as far as crawling is concerned, but after being away from her all day all I want to do is cuddle and have close contact with her. However, tonight I put her down and she moved forward just a bit on her hands and knees! WOOHOO!!! She crawled with her belly off the floor (she has been army crawling all over the place for about a month now)! It was just baby steps...or should I say baby crawls...but I feel she'll be all over the place in the very near future!

I'll end with a few pictures of her gnawing on a breadstick. This was in the middle of September. She enjoyed gnawing on a carrot last night but I have no pictures of that adventure.