Yes, I do

..believe that everything happens for a reason.

I believe that the not so pleasant things that have happened in my life have allowed good things to happen that otherwise might not have.

I don't really know where I am wanting to go with this thought.

Sometimes people have to make mistakes and do stupid things in order for them to remember what is really important.

Life is too short to throw it away on insignificance. Love the ones you love. Enjoy being in the moment. Don't let the moment enjoy you.

Day 2 : 06.26.2011

I didn't sleep well at all--Had a bad case of insomnia. So this morning when i went back to bed at 7:30 I didn't wake until 11:40 (luckily my sister and her boyfriend were here to help with the kids)

Breakfast: none

Lunch: none

Snack: 1 strawberry

Dinner: jr. bacon cheeseburger (plain) from Wendy's
small fry
2 can of coke

I don't usually skip meals. And I do not think this is a proper way to lose weight. But when I am stressed and sad, then I can not eat. I need to stop drinking coke, and buy me some water!

Day 1 : 06.25.2011

Breakfast: 1 (Kashi 7 grain) waffle
1 tbsp syrup
1 cup fat free milk

(I normally eat 2 waffles--blueberry--if I eat waffles that morning. And the grain really filled me up. One was plenty. I actually had to make myself eat the last few bites.)

Lunch: 3/4 of a (hamburger Tostino's) pizza
2 tbsp ranch dressing
1 can of coke

(wow! lunch was bad!! I forgot I was trying to watch what I eat. ugh!)

Snack: none

Dinner: none--only because time got away from me

About 10 pm: 1 chocolate chip cookie
1/2 can of coke

**No exercise.

A New Beginning

Ok! I had a difficult time documenting my personal project 52. Especially when school started. So, I decided if I feel like posting I will. ha.

I am on a mission now. I have made up my mind. I am going to lose this weight. I am going to get myself healthy. I am going to have more energy. I am going to be able to dress the way I want again. Let's face it, plus size clothing is a huge slap in the face. That is unless you have a lot of money to spend. Anyways. Moving on. I will be able to seduce my husband without feeling self-conscious. I will feel comfortable in a bathing suit when we take the kids to the beach. I will not have to worry about what I look like dancing. I will reduce my risk for diabetes.

There are many many reasons i want to lose weight. But the reason that sticks out the most is that I want to enjoy my life and not have to worry about stupid things. And I want to be healthy and be a good role-model for my kids. I want them to see that exercise is important, and so is eating a healthy and balanced diet. I do not want my kids seeing me shove chocolate ice-cream in my face everyday. I want to make good choices, so they will make good choices. But it can't be about the weight. The key word is HEALTHY.

I DO NOT.. and I repeat DO NOT want my children to be weight obsessed. Too many young kids are these days--and it makes me sick. I want my kids to enjoy life. Not worry about being the thinnest 3rd grader.

So...I know how I am. I know that I will give into my temptations. I will eat that ice-cream and then feel guilty. I will not succeed without someone to back me. And sure, I could ask Justin to be my wingman on this. But lets face it. The minute he steps up and says "Jennifer, you shouldn't be eating that." I am going to flip out inside and immediately resent him. My brain will tell me he thinks I am disgusting. And that's no good for anyone. So, internet friends, you will be my shoulders.

I am not asking anyone to tell me that I did bad, or even good. I just know that if I will be held accountable (somewhat) then I am more likely to follow through.

So...I will be journaling what I eat daily. I will also be journaling my activities. And yes, I will also be documenting my weight. Either weekly or biweekly.

I know this is going to be hard. I am even going to take a picture of myself. Which I regret to inform you will probably not go up on this blog until later. But hey--maybe I will get brave and post it. ha.

Enough of this. I better go to bed. We are taking the kids swimming tomorrow. I am hoping to get some sun. And some pool exercise. :)

Home Schooling

Ok, I must admit I never really understood the whole homeschooling thing. But a few years ago I thought about it a little more. It has since always been int he back of my head. Usually along this scenario:

We sell all of our belongings. We move far away and live off the land. We make our owns clothes, and so on... and of course we would home school.

But just recently has the thought of homeschooling our children come to the front of my mind. And I have been researching and talking to other moms that home school their children. Now I can't seem to push the thought to the back anymore.

I have no idea whether or not this would be the right thing for our family. But I want to atleast try it out. I have been talking to Brenna about it, and she is on board, which surprises me because she loves going to school.

I would feel bad to start this next school year though. That is when Trent starts pre-k, and he has been waiting on that day forever. He wants to go to school so bad. And I would definitely want his big sister there with him. So maybe in another year or two I will get to take our family on the homeschooling journey. I can't wait!

Plus, I don't know how I would juggle running a business, being a full-time nursing student, and homeschooling, along with everything else I must take care of in our life. So...we will see. Maybe we will do a little practice run this summer just for fun :)

5 People 12 Times : February

This technically was taken the beginning of March. It was taken in out backyard using the self-timer.

Week 11/52

I took the kids out for a little photoshoot while my sister was visiting. She said she wanted to see how the kids responded. And like usual they acted as though the camera was a natural part of my arm, and if asked to do something they would. I just love this image of Brenna and Emily. (You wouldn't even know that Brenna was whiny and hated it bc she said the grass was too itchy-haha). A perfect sisterly moment.

Week 10/52

Wow! I am trying to get these caught up. This is an image of Brenna and Trent playing on the gate in our backyard. Brenna was sick.

I Know I'm Behind....

I know I am behind on my Project 52. I know I have images to share for the past couple of weeks, I will work on getting those up.

I have just been super busy with school, the business, life, kids, stress, trying not to become depressed, blah, blah, blah!

I always say that we make our own happiness. We make our dreams come true. Nothing comes of moping around.
Recently money has been more than tight, it's been pretty much non-existent. We need money to live, to pay our rent, to put gas in our vehicles, to eat. I mean how can you do anything without a little money? You can't.

Justin's job ran out of work for him, that's one of the downfalls of construction. So here we sat with no money coming in. And we just recently ran out completely. He luckily got a part-time job locally that is willing to work around my school schedule. But unfortunately it will not pay our bills.

So the stress begins!!!

Yes! We still have the photography business--that we just started. We haven't even passed out our business cards-because our website is not finished yet. We are still making money from it, otherwise we would have been living with one of our mothers by now. ha. But it still isn't enough. And running a business costs money!!

I am looking for houses or offices to clean to supplement our income. While I am in school there isn't much I can do as far as working goes. So that seemed like a good option--If I could just find some places to clean!
I find out next week whether or not I made it into the LPN program. Oh! The torture of having to wait for this. I am so nervous because our entire future is banking on this. On me finishing school in a couple of years as an RN, and then Justin will be a stay-at-home dad and I will be the bread-winner. We will both continue with our photography business. But we want to have job security. And maybe one day our business will be so successful that it will be our main source of income.

When Emily is quiet you better be scared!

Yes! This is a true statement. If she is not within sight and you can not hear her--then you best go running to find out why.

As if she had not caused enough damage today with her makeover, she decided to put on my mascara again tonight and play in the water (her new obsession). I assumed she was playing in her room (I definitely should have known better). But she came walking in here to me dragging a wet towel. And I looked at her face--she had mascara covering her forehead.
And handed me my makeup remover.

I jumped up and dragged her to go clean it off. And then I heard the running water. The same sound I heard a few days ago. She had left the sink on and there was water all over the bathroom floor. (Yes! She did this earlier in the week)

I put her in her room and stressed that she better not come out. I grabbed several towels and threw them on the floor. Turned off the water. and then went to clean off the mascara. She was quiet and didn't make a fuss. She knew I was upset.

I told her that she would lay down and better not get up. She hasn't so far.

She is clearly the adventurous one. And I love her to death. She is certainly testing my patience. And it's not like she does these things out of meanness. She is just curious.

Week 9/52

Wow!! Never a dull moment when you have little ones!
My oldest came into the living room today and told us that Emily was in the bathroom cutting her hair and putting on my makeup. We all ran in there to see the mess. It was so worse that I had expected.

At first glance i thought to myself, "Ok. This is fine. I can handle whatever she has done."
But then Brenna holds out a huge chunk of hair. And I go into panic mode. Of course I hold most of it inside. And then I saw it. A HUGE chunk out of her head. And a bald spot to top it all off.



I felt soo helpless. What in the world would I do with this?



I ran out of the bathroom about to cry and immediately called Anna (my hairdresser).
Luckily she was there at the salon (she never works on Saturdays).

I got dressed and cleaned all the mascara off Emily's face adn we rushed to the salon. We ended up leaving it. There wasn't much to do with a baldspot. So now we must wait it out. And try to cover it with hair accessories.

Week 8/52

Sorry. I have been pretty busy lately and didn't get around to getting my blogpost up for last week. So here it is now. :)

Justin loves to grill. I guess it's a guy thing.
He had Trent help him last week and of course Trent loved it.
I on the other hand was not so sure about the whole fire thing.
But everything turned out ok. And safety measures were taken.

Week 7/52

The weather has been so nice this week, so we have spent a lot of time outdoors. It's been nice.

One day this week the kids and I took blankets and pillows outside on the front lawn and just layed out in the sun. We then ate our lunch out there. It was so nice, and different (which made the kids like it even more). Justin thought we were crazy. haha.

Also this week Justin put up a tire swing. The kids are in love with this thing. And it's so cute to watch them swing on it and take turns.

I am loving it out here in the country.





Emily has chocolate all over her face. ha.

Week 6/52

My kids hardly ever sleep in their beds these days. With Justin working out of town we will all just pile up in the living room. On the weekends when Justin is home I have them go to their beds (except for Trent-he wants to sleep with Brenna-or us). I feel bad for him because his room is at the very back of the house. So I let him sleep wherever as long as he isn't playing.

I decided to show them all on the couch. This is how they start out usually, but I often have to split them up and move 2 of them to the recliners. I love how much they love eachother. It's so sweet.


Brenna thought they should act as though they were sleeping, so I went with it. She closed her eyes and Emily rolled over and stared at her and started rubbing her arm. It was soo sweet. To be so mean, she is such a lover.


(He is not really sleeping)But this is EXACTLY what he looks like when he is. Thumb in mouth and blanket in hand.


These were their favorites for the night. Brenna is really the only one that switches hers up. Emily loves her Jesse doll and Trent loves his Woody doll.

Family Vacations

I know lot of people that are able to just drop about $1000 or more on a weekend trip somewhere several times a year, but we are not one of them.
Never have been. EVER. But this year we filed taxes early and when we got our return we decided we should go somewhere. Take a family vacation. Enjoy life.

We went to Savannah, GA. And it was soo great!! The only things we will do differently next time is: bring a babysitter-so Justin and I can go out on our own; and stay longer-2 days and 2 nights was NOT long enough at all.

We got there around 7pm-I think. And we hadn't booked a room anywhere so we had to find a vacancy. We found one at the second hotel we stopped at-so that was pretty easy. That night we ordered pizza from a local place and had it delivered to our room. I must say that it was amazing pizza-BUT I do not advice ordering pizza like that when you are in a hotel room with 3 little children. It was kinda difficult to eat-and messy. The kids ate on the bed. And Emily got some pizza on the bedspread. Ugh!!


The next morning we got up and got ready to go explore. The kids were up way early! We walked over to River Street--and it was so cool. We took the camera-or course. But bc our other lens broke we only had a telephoto lens-which made it difficult to capture the images we wanted. So I said we had to find a camera place and go ahead and buy a new body and lens. We did! :)
We also went to Target and spent way too much money on a lot of clothes (and Emily a Jesse doll). haha.
The plan had been to go back to River Street. But honestly we were all soo tired from the shopping we went back to the hotel room. For dinner we got ready adn walked down to Five Guys.
We fell in love with Five Guys while living in FL. It is the bext burger place we have ever encountered! I definitely suggest trying them out if you are near one. Homemade fries!!









Savannah is soo beautiful--and at night it takes on a whole new feel. But I don't really think that downtown Savannah is a place for small children at night. Especially not River Street (we were there in the morning before the shops opened-but there are a good bit of bars and even puke on the sidewalk fromt he night before). We would have loved to hang out more downtown and go to River Street during the evening, but not with the kids. So after we ate to the hotel room we went.

Sunday was our last day there. I took the kids to eat breakfast, while Justin checked us out.


Then we all headed to Tybee Island. Our last day was probably the most productive. haha. We had so much fun! We can't wait to go back!