Last week.....and randoms from now.

I didn't exercise at all.

I drank a few cokes. (oopsie)

I went out to dinner with my triplet mom fearsome foursome. (That's what I call us because I am a dork.)

I somehow got talked into and committed myself to running a half marathon in July.

I know. #$*&!

What the heck was I thinking?

At least it's a girls weekend away in the city, and I get to eat pasta the night before.

I wonder if I can really do this.

I've done several 5K races and can currently run a comfortable 3 miles.

My friend D took a really bad picture of me today at her house.

I was dancing to a Big Bird song for our combined SIX toddlers.

If I don't lose 2 pounds this week, she says she will post that picture on Facebook.

I'm quite possibly screwed.

Oh well. I guess I better not eat any chocolate this week. Or cokes.

I'm still trying to make small changes, but I totally blew it last week.

I had no plan.

We had the girls' second birthday party this past Saturday.

I ate pizza. And chips with salsa. And coke. And cake. And ice cream.

I was afraid to step on the scale today, so I didn't.

My excuse is that our kitchen is in shambles because we're having the tile put in this week.

I keep my scale in the kitchen. I don't know why.

I better get my fat butt on track this week.

Otherwise, you'll see a picture of a fat girl dancing to a Big Bird song all over Facebook next week.

I have no doubt that she'll really post it.

I think she might hate me.

I'm never dancing to Big Bird at her house again!

Stitches and biopsy results

Rachel had her stitches removed last Thursday. It was certainly an adventure as usual. Poor Rach seems to know where she is as soon as we walk into any doctor's office building. She starts to kick and cry in the stroller as soon as we enter. I feel bad for her. She hasn't exactly had it easy with the biopsies and surgery and appointments lately.

Dr. D didn't make us wait long at all. He came in, Rachel cried..... and then screamed while he took the stitches out. He was really fast though so at least the screaming didn't last too long. It wasn't because it was hurting her. Rach has just had it with doctors and isn't happy when she seems them. I can't blame her. When he was done, he left the room so I could calm Rachel down and we could talk about the biopsy results. That was my first clue that I wasn't going to just hear the happy word, "benign," and be sent on our way. He said, "Let's get her calmed down so we can talk about the pathology report." Ugh! Don't worry though, we didn't get bad news.

I guess you could say the results were um, unsettling...... but good news overall. The tumor was a Spitz Nevus tumor as originally thought. According to the pathology report, the biopsy was neither benign nor malignant. Apparently, the Spitz Nevus tumors usually fall into a gray area. Almost all the time, everything is just fine and there is nothing to worry about. Dr. D thinks that is how it is in our case. If these tumors are not completely removed, they will always come back. He said he is as sure as he can be that he got every last bit of it. We still have to watch her though. She is going to be seeing him every 3 months for the next year so that he can keep a close eye on the area. Then we'll be having her examined at her regular well child check ups annualy. Having had the tumor, it can put her at a higher risk for certain skin cancers, but it's also not that likely. Gray area again.

It was hard for me to comprehend all of this. I fully expected to go in and hear the word benign and then say thank you and good bye! When Dr. D started talking about the gray area and all the statistics and follow up, I have to admit, my head started to spin a little bit. It's like I still don't have the answer I was looking for. Waiting and watching isn't fun for any parent. However, I'm not going to dwell on the gray area. I'm going to focus on the positive news in all this. The tumor has been removed. We have an excellent doctor who is following up to make sure my little girl stays healthy. And... we didn't hear the word malignant. So this is all good news!

I just feel bad for Rachel. She has her 2 year well child check up coming up in the next month. All I can say is that I'm glad they are current with their vaccines and none are scheduled at this next appointment!

And WOW, I can't believe my babies are going to be 2 next week.

Weren't they just born like a week ago?

Oh and if it weren't so late at night, I'd tell you about the two crazy ladies who almost got into a fight in the hospital parking lot over my parking space as I was backing out. One of them practically hit my van trying to beat the other person to the spot. It was a bit crazy!

Goals for this year

It seems like every year I start some sort of diet. Then a couple of weeks into it, I fail miserably. For example, last year I did weight watchers for the....oh I don't know...20th time. Colossal fail!

I ended up starting this year 12 or 13 pounds heavier than I was last year. UGH!

So I decided that I'm not going on a diet. Diets suck, and I suck at diets! But I still need (and want) to lose weight. I've decided to just make small changes. I've formed some seriously bad habits over the last two years. Life with the girls has been super busy and of course stressful. I obviously wouldn't trade it for anything, but I have been eating and drinking (cokes) myself into the biggest pants EVER! 

A couple of weeks ago (okay and still right now) I'm popping out of my fat pants. These aren't the same fat pants I talked about last year. These are new fat pants that I bought a couple of months ago when I busted out of the previous pair. Never buy bigger pants! I refuse to buy bigger pants this time!!!!

So back to my point. I'm making small changes. I'm in week 3 of these changes and I've lost 5 pounds so far. The first week, I gave up cokes. I used to drink 1-2 cokes a day. I'm not talking about diet cokes either. I was drinking 150-300 calories a day in sugar! BAD! I've only had one coke so far this year and that was over the weekend because I REALLY wanted a rum and coke. The second week, I didn't go to Starbucks every day. Yes, there were times when I would go to Starbucks every single day. Now I'm allowing myself three tall non-fat chai tea lattes per week. I'm going to eventually narrow that down to just one or two. 

Here I am in week three, and the goal is to exercise at least five times and eat healthy. I've been doing pretty well for a few days now. I've been jogging on my treadmill when the girls go to bed. Tonight I jogged 2 miles straight without stopping. Go me! 

I haven't decided what my goal for week four will be yet. I originally planned to stop going to the fast food drive-thrus as one of my goals, but with my new mindset, that has just naturally happened. I don't want to eat that crap when I'm working out so hard. 

So I'm hoping that because I'm trying to make small changes and allow myself a treat when I really want it, that I'll be successful. The weight will take a bit longer to come off, but I need to change my lifestyle and not just do a crash type diet. 

I'm going to check in here on my blog each week so that I can be held accountable. I'm already weighing in with a group of friends on Mondays so that's keeping me motivated right now. 

Weight loss isn't the only goal. I want to get this house organized!...... And painted, and actually hang pictures on my walls. We've lived here for over 4 years and I barely have any pictures up. It's pathetic. We're about to have tile put in the downstairs bathroom and kitchen within the next month or so, so I need to paint the bathroom asap. Then when the weather gets a little better, I'm going to finish painting the rest of this house! I'm also in the process of turning the retreat area of our bedroom into a home office so I have a place that is all my own. 

So there ya have it! There's a lot to update about the girls and their therapies, but I'll save that one for the next couple of days. Rachel gets her stitches out on Thursday and I'm hoping Dr. D has the biopsy results for us. I'm going to feel like a huge weight has been lifted when I hear the word, "benign."

This mama is signing off. 

Sad News...

 Our family has been dealing with an incredible loss. Bob's father passed away a few days after Christmas. It's really difficult to write about so I'll just make this short. We're sad the girls will not be able to know their Grandpa. He loved them with his whole heart and lit up every time the girls were around him. He will be greatly missed. 

Rachel is a superstar!

Rachel had her surgery last week. I'm so relieved that it's over and that the tumor is off of my baby. Her pediatric surgeon really is in the right profession. He is so amazing with her. We had to check in at the hospital at 8:40am. The surgery wasn't until a couple of hours later so we had to entertain our hungry almost two year old while we waited. She actually did pretty good for not being aloud to have anything to eat or drink that morning. One of the nurses brought us a tv that had a built in vcr. The only tape they had that I thought she'd actually watch was the Teletubbies. Much to my horror, she LOVED them. Since they are no longer on tv here and I'm not going to be buying any Teletubby dvds, you can bet that she won't be watching that show again. hehehe....

When it was time to get her ready for surgery, a nurse and Bob had to hold my poor baby down to get her to drink some tylenol with a sedative in it. It was really hard to watch. We all know Rachel has issues with eating and drinking almost everything so she had to be given this medication a special way so that she couldn't spit it out. It was awful. However, it kicked in pretty quick and she was almost immediately loopy. It was then time for kisses and hugs and they took her away to the operating room. Oh how I wished I could go with her. I think by that point, she was under the medication pretty good and didn't really know she was being taken away from Mommy anyway. You know I cried though!

She was supposed to be back there for 45 minutes. So when 45 minutes turned into 60 minutes, I was trying not to freak out. Bob and I sat in the waiting room just kind of staring at the walls and tapping our feet with impatience. Dr. D finally came out and brought us back to see our sweet Rachel. She was sound asleep with an oxygen mask over her face. I know it was all normal but I started to shed some tears seeing her like that.

The drama started within seconds of her waking up. She woke up about 20 minutes before they expected her to. We were told that some people metabolize the anesthesia faster than others and will wake up while they are still under the drugs. She started screaming and was completely inconsolable for about 20 minutes. The nurse had to hold her foot to protect her from hurting it because she was thrashing her arms and legs. They even had to tape her IV up because she was trying to rip it out.  I was holding her and she didn't even recognize me. It was heart breaking. They ended up having to put her back to sleep. It freaked me out though because once the nurse gave her the sleepy drugs, her body went limp in my arms and I could feel that her chest wasn't moving. She was only taking a breath about every 10 seconds. The nurse assured me that it was normal and her breathing improved once they put the oxygen back on her.

She slept for maybe 5-10 more minutes. When she woke up the second time, she was as happy as could be and just snuggled with me while she drank some juice. She was so precious. I was so proud of her. After about an hour, she was being released and we were on our way home.

When we got home, Rachel and I snuggled in our bed and watched a little Barney. Then we both fell asleep. That evening, you wouldn't even have known that she had surgery that day. She was walking around just fine and was in a happy mood. She's been doing great ever since!

We do have to go back next Thursday to have her stitches removed. She has a cute little pink and purple bandage protecting the incision. We've been keeping her in zipper/footie pjs all week to keep her from playing with the bandage.

I snapped a cute picture of her after changing her diaper and before getting her dressed again. You can see her sporting the cute bandage. I'm so proud of how well she has done. I was so worried this surgery would set her back, but she's done just fine!

Our next step is to wait about another week for the biopsy results. Dr. D is still 99.9999% sure that it will be benign just like last time. I'll feel a lot better once I know for sure!!!!

This is why I am fat (and Happy New Year!)

I love the "happiness."

Happy New Year Coke. I can't drink you anymore in 2011! 

Where do I begin?

Wow. I don't even know where to begin.  I've wanted to post an update almost every night for two weeks. It's just that by the time I think of it or sit down in front of my computer, I'm too tired to think straight.

We spent an entire week where our whole family was sick. That pretty much sucked. I was most disappointed that we had to cancel the girls' therapy for an entire week. So by the time we start back up in January, the girls will have gone three weeks without therapy. I've still been working with them every day. They are really blossoming. Morgan and Sophia are repeating (or trying to repeat) everything we say. Even Rachel is saying a new word almost every day. It's really fun listening to them talk all day long.

We had a nice and busy Christmas. It was next to impossible to get any pictures of the girls all together. We put them in the cutest little Christmas dresses too. I'll post a few pictures once I get them uploaded off of my camera.

We've had some home ownership excitement/drama. Our oven/microwave unit broke last night. At least it stopped working after Christmas dinner. haha... It has been giving us issues for over a month now so I knew this was coming. The lights in the microwave have been flickering and the oven has been taking twice as long to cook food. Anyway, boring story short.... we had to buy a new one. I was beyond to shocked to see that these oven/microwave insert units are super expensive. We ended up paying $2,400 for the unit and installation. We bought a GE since the current one we had was a GE and it worked for 20 years! It's always something though.  At least we are still able to get the kitchen floor replaced next month as planned. This has been one expensive year! Yikes!

Oh and the new unit won't be installed until January 3rd or 4th. I've got to get by with no oven or microwave until then, which isn't going to be easy since I use both just about every single day. I might have to get a toaster oven since my kids like things in the "stick" variety. You know... fish sticks, french toast sticks......Oh how I wish I could get them to eat real people food!

Not much else going on. The days are busy and my house is almost always a mess, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.  I'll post some Christmas pics in the next couple of days!