Wordless Wednesday (My last day of 08)

Christmas celebrations have been completed!

Christmas of 2008 has come to an end for the Alberts family. Saturday December 27th my husband's sister, her husband, their boys, and Grandma and Grandpa Alberts came over our house to visit and exchange gifts. Unfortunately, Grandpa Alberts didn't feel well and had to leave shortly after arriving. On a more positive note, our little one loved having his cousins over. He just loves being around other kids and despite the teething, he made it through the day a happy little Christmas baby!!! And he's going to be really happy when he gets big enough to ride the little horse, that controls video's and music on the t.v., that his aunt and uncle got him.

Yesterday, my little Christmas baby and I went out to my parents house to visit and exchange gifts. We planned on spending the night but our little Christmas baby had other plans. His teething dilemma was in full affect yesterday afternoon and needless to say after exchanging gifts and eating dinner (a delicious prime rib dinner!!!), we came home. However, right before he fell asleep in the car he told me that he can't wait to use the wagon that grandma and grandpa Mueller got him at the zoo next summer!!!!

Tomorrow is New Year's Day and usually I would go to my grandma and grandpa Schilling's house for New Year's Day dinner but we will see how the little one is feeling tomorrow. If his teeth are hurting, we might just stay home and snuggle up on the couch together. It's no fun for anyone (especially my little one) when his teeth are hurting him. I hope the New Year starts with a pain free teething baby. Have you heard of or know of a baby that is pain free while teething? I guess we will see!

Happy New Year from the Alberts Family

Proximidade Award (My first award ever!!!!)

Proximidade Award




Clara at Coming Back to Life has given me an award! Thank you, Clara. I'm honored that you believe my blog meets the criteria. And thank you for my first award ever in blog land!!!!

Here are the rules for the Proximidade Award:

"This blog invests and believes in PROXIMITY--nearness in space, time, and relationships! These blogs are exceedingly charming. These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends. They are not interested in prizes or self-aggrandizement. Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers! Deliver this award to eight bloggers who will choose eight more and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award."

I'm passing this award on to these wonderful bloggers.

1. Christie O. of Baby Tea Leaves
2. Janeen of Out Story: The Good, The Bad, And The Food Allergies.
3. Julie of Live Laugh & Love.
4. Kat of Seeking Sanity.
5. Kerri of Emerson Harper Photography.
6. Maggie of Maggie's Mind.

FTF

Let me start by saying that I just got done telling my dad that if I saw or ate another cookie I could puke!!!! However, I think I actually lost one pound. How? I have not idea because I only worked out 3 days this week and the work outs were not even remotely close to what I usually do. As I have already said, I am on Christmas break which means I am at home for two whole weeks with no access to an elliptical. I had to get creative this week which is huge for me because I am not the most creative person.

Here is what I did this week:

Saturday: I did nothing, ate cookies.
Sunday: I did nothing, ate cookies and some really good cheese perogies.
Monday: 30 min. Pilates work out, 22 minute walk on treadmill.
Tuesday: 40 min. Pilates work out, 25 minute walk on treadmill with my son strapped to me in his little jeep carrier.
Wednesday: Ate some more cookies, had a big dinner at my in-laws, and then ate some more cookies.
Thursday: Guess what? More cookies!!! MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!
Friday: 30 min. walk on tread milk with son strapped in for the ride again!!!!

And I guess I can count all the running around I did to get ready for the holiday!!!

Christmas Pictures

Merry Christmas

Our little angels first Christmas has come and gone. It's so hard to believe!!!! We had a fantastic day opening all the presents that Grandma and Grandpa Alberts and Grandma and Grandpa Mueller brought over for the love our our lives! Just look at him!!! He loved all of his presents and literally tried to put every single one of them in his mouth. We played all morning, afternoon, and evening with his new toys. He even spent some quality time with daddy today while I was visiting my mom at the nursing home that she is stuck in until she can maneuver on her own. And while I stopped by to wish my Grandma and Grandpa Schilling a Merry Christmas. I was gone for about three hours which wasn't to bad considering and hour or so of it was drive time. When I got home we opened his last two presents and then kept on playing. All the play wore our little man out. He is now sleeping peacefully and is just as cute when he is sleeping as he is in this picture!!!!

Merry Christmas!!!!

Christmas Eve Celebration

My husband was able to get out of work early today so we headed over to his parents house for Christmas Eve dinner. We ate like little piggies and then exchanged gifts. We saved our little man's gifts for tomorrow so that we would all be able to pay 100% attention to him, as we should!!! We had a wonderful evening together!

Grandpa Alberts, Grandma Alberts, and our little man!

Grandpa, are you Santa?

And us!
And Grandma Alberts with the one snowmen we got her for Christmas. I think she might over dose on snowmen after tonight!!!

And just when I thought....

That just maybe my husband forgot about me on Christmas, he did this!!!!


I was so surprised when I opened the fridge to get the glass of champagne my husband poured me and saw a beautifully wrapped red box with the cutest white bow, I had to take this picture after I got down acting like a giddy little girl and obviously after I had already opened my gift!!! The hubby definitely gets a big check plus in the romantic column for this one!!! Thank you!!! I love you!!! And I love that my wedding ring is now complete with a wedding band behind and in front of my engagement ring!!!

FTF (Quest for Greatness)

I was able to work out four times this week. I did not lose any weight but I didn't gain either!!! I think my goal of being able to say on the elliptical for an hour three days a week is going to be more difficult than I thought. I say this because I am off of work for the next two weeks and I am not sure how much working out I will be able to do at home since I do not own an elliptical. I will, however, walk on the treadmill when I can.

Here is what I did this week:

Monday: 50 minute Pilates workout.
Tuesday: OFF
Wednesday: 33 minutes on the elliptical, 1 mile walk.
Thursday: 33 minutes on the elliptical, 1 mile walk.
Friday: 30 minutes on the elliptical, 1 mile walk.

Baby update: Our little one seemed to be getting over his ear infection earlier this week. However, the last two night he hasn't been drinking his night night bottle. We are off to the doctor's again tomorrow morning for a follow up and to possible get something other than Amoxicillin because I don't think that it is working. Ear infection and all, our little guy has been happy and chipper and can't wait until he gets to open his first Christmas presents on Christmas day. I am delighted to have two whole weeks of with him. I am not sure what we are going to do but what ever we decide to do, we will have fun!

Wordless Wednesday

Quest for Greatness

Once again my friend Christie is motivating me to stay in shape and set goals. She is advertising this challenge as the Quest for Greatness. The good thing about this challenge is that it doesn't just focus on weight loss. We are to set a goal and reach that goal by February of 2009. As an added bonus to reaching our goal, we should have shed a few pounds in the process. In summary: this is a challenge with a twist and we get to get working towards our initial goal of losing weight, tricky I know!!!

Here are the rules created by Christie. And of course she has been working on collecting prizes! How could you turn that down?

Rule #1: there are no rules. Or at least, you make your own. So the rest of the non-rules are as follows:

Rule #2: Pick an athletic event somewhere around the end of February, beginning of March to train for. It would be better if it were an actual organized event, something you have to sign up and pay for because that is how you will be the most accountable. (Most 5ks are about 15 bucks, the half-marathon I'm running is $50). But you can, if you want, pick an athletic goal that you have always wanted to achieve on your own. Like, walking for two hours straight or running a mile or 5, or doing 100 pushups, anything, and set a date for it. But it is a little more helpful to join an organized event because there is no backing out. Like I always say, "I can be the fat girl running the race or the fit girl running the race -- it's up to me."

Rule #3: So, if it's an event that you find, go online and pay for it. No turning back. There you go. Now, you're in. You're official. Do it right now. I'll wait. Seriously. I'm not joking. Go on...And this is where I may be losing you because you're thinking, umm, I'm not really a runner/biker/hiker-type-a-gal. And to that I say just do me this one little eensy favor. Go out to http://www.google.com/ right now. Just click that link real quick. Then google things like your town and the word "5k February 2009" or your town and "March 2009 events" or something like this, and just indulge me and see what comes up. For instance, I just googled "St. Louis 5k March 2009" and got a handful of results right off the bat. And since these events are usually fundraisers for good causes, you're doing some good too. But after you see what's going on in your town, don't think about it. Pretend you're drunk and you're about to get a tattoo. Just do it. Get your credit card and sign up for it. Then, come back here to this very post and comment with your EVENT DATE. And it will go up on the little calendar on my sidebar for all to see!And by the way, I'd also like to mention: YOU CAN PULL OFF ONE OF THESE EVENTS AT ANY FITNESS LEVEL!!!! I have seen women and men, kids, (even dogs!) of all shapes, sizes and ages (I was running alongside an 80-something-year-old man for a while during the 10k and yep! He beat me to the finish...) I saw women doing this in pairs with team-shirts on, I saw breast-cancer survivors, an overweight father and son team, literally, every single person had their own personal quest and/or cause. They walked, they ran, they walk-ran, I am not kidding, every single fitness level was running the 10k. I hope that inspires you to know that you can achieve any goal you set in your mind. You can make your own quest.

Rule #4: Once that is done, we will weigh in on Fridays. We talk about our workouts and our downfalls and victories. But we will focus on getting in our runs and workouts for our event, NOT because we want to lose weight, but because we want to be in shape for whatever our event is. It's like studying for a test. We want to be prepared. You study for a test, you pass the test, you pass the whole class. Here, you work at the event, you conquer the event, you conquer weight loss. TRUST ME ON THIS: THE WEIGHT WILL JUST COME OFF!

Rule #5: See that little calendar on my sidebar? Your event will go in there. So that we will all know and we will all root you on. Anytime someone adds themselves to the Quest for Greatness, I will add their event to the calendar. They will also be added to my sidebar. And I will post about your upcoming race as it gets close so that everyone can root you on! It takes a village, people! No, not the Village People! The village, comma, people.

Rule #6: You post about your event either the day of or the day after, with pictures. Yes, we need pictures!

My original plan was to run the half marathon in May with a few co-workers but as you know that is not longer an option for me. I thought about doing a google search like Christie recommended but instead I am going to just come up with my own goal and then work like mad to reach it! I have decided that since running is not an option at this point, I would like my goal to be: Getting my elliptical workouts up to an hour three days a week.

Currently, I can get on the elliptical three days a week for 30 minutes. So I thought this was a reasonable goal. Let the Quest for Greatness begin!!!

Pain is the word for the week

This past week was a little rough over here at the Alberts household. My son did not sleep well all week. He has been sleeping through the night since about 3-5 weeks old (can't remember exactly but for a long time now) and all of a sudden this week there wasn't much sleeping going on through the night. He kept waking up crying and me not knowing what was wrong just thought maybe he was hungry, so I fed him. Well, he wasn't hungry and turns out he had and still has an ear infection. Luckily, I was able to get him into see the doctor on Friday after work. And thank god he just so happened to be at my mother-in-laws house yesterday because she came with me to the doctors so that I could see my doctor, after we were done seeing his doctor, about my said knee problem.

My son is now taking Amoxicillin and getting a dose of baby Motrin before bedtime. He had his first dose of Amoxicillin last night along with the baby Motrin and it worked wonders. My son slept all the way through the night last night and woke up his chipper little self this morning. I was shocked that he was in such a good mood today considering the PAIN he was in yesterday. It pained me to see how much pain he was in. I just wanted to love him and hold him all night (I held him and loved on him all day today too!). And then there's my pain, which is nothing in comparison to what my son had to go through. The doctor confirmed that the meniscus in my right knee is indeed torn. My knee was actually starting to feel better until the doctored pulled and twisted and pulled and twisted on it again yesterday. He said that he wanted to see if my body was going to heal all on it's own and that he wanted me to come back for a follow up visit in a couple of weeks. He didn't want to put me through having an MRI and knee scope done if it wasn't absolutely necessary. He offered to prescribe me a pain medication but I told him that it was bearable and I probably would just stick to taking some Tylenol as needed. He also said that I could continue to use the elliptical as my form of exercise but absolutely no running until he clears me. I can live with that.

My mom had her knee reconstruction done and she too is in pain. The surgery went well but she had a couple of bumps along the way. On Thursday the doctors found a blood clot in her leg, which is going to prolong her recovery. She is now at a rehab facility learning how to walk again. I am going to visit her tomorrow. I am also going to visit my grandpa.

My grandpa has been sick and I haven't talked about it because I feel that it is just to personal to talk about for all who are involved. I just wanted to say that I love him, think about him often, and keep him in my prayers each night. And I wanted to thank him for treating me as one of his own (and only) grand daughter for all of these years. My father married his daughter (my step mom, but my mom) twenty years ago and he ( and my grandma) have done so much for me throughout the years. They have been supportive when I've needed support, they have been loving when I've needed loved, and they have given me advice when I have needed advice. They have given me a sense of what families are all about and since my fathers parents died before I was born, I have been blessed to be loved by them. I wouldn't have the family values I have without them.

Pilates

I tried Pilates today for the first time ever. I liked it, however I really didn't feel like I got a workout?? Is this how you are supposed to feel? And it was probably not the best time to try this type of exercise with my said knee problem. Anyway, for all you people out there that incorporate Pilates into your every day routine I (or should I say a co-worker found) a really cool website that will calculate the amount of calories you burned during your session. Give it whirl it's over there on my side bar!

Wordless Wednesday (Priceless)

Holiday Pictures and More

Did you miss me?

Where do I begin??? With my Internet connections problems? With my broken knee problems? Or should I just fill you in on what the Alberts family did for the holidays? I think I will start with the last one.

Our Thanksgiving holiday was very enjoyable. Wednesday (the day before Thanksgiving), I took our little man for his first visit with Santa. Grandma and Grandpa Mueller met us at the mall for pictures and took some video for us and thank god because he was so happy that day. I think he thought that Santa was a giant stuff animal because he was all smiles!!!

Thursday, we went grandma and grandpa Mueller's house for Thanksgiving dinner, where our little man was crowned the king of the Thanksgiving Day dinner table. We ate all sorts of delicious food and visited with family. I have many pictures to share from this day but unfortunately I will have to post them another time when we get all of our connections problems fixed. Yes, I am having computer problems again.... I'm getting to that!!! Thanksgiving evening we just hung out the three of us because daddy was leaving the next day to go hunting. Somehow while we were playing that night I twisted my knee the wrong way and could now possibly have a tear in the meniscus of my right knee!!!!

The day after Thanksgiving my husband left to go hunting up at his family's cabin in Pennsylvanian. The little man and I were up bright and early that morning to wish daddy good luck and to kiss him goodbye. Then we played!!! After an hour or so of playing I decided to pack everything up and go shopping on BLACK FRIDAY. Your probably thinking... I can't believe she went shopping by herself on black Friday with a baby in tow?? Well guess what? I did and we had a great time and caught some great deals!!! Of course shopping is not shopping unless you by a little something for yourself and that's when it started to get interesting. I strolled into Express thinking that I was going to be able to try on jeans the way that I used to... you know being picky, looking in the mirror a thousand times, trying on the same size jeans of the same brand because you know they all fit just a little different while my baby watches me model the new looks.... um right not so much! My little man wasn't into the modeling thing so I quickly picked the two pairs that I thought looked half way decent and got in line. I mean the extremely long line that we stood in for 30 minutes. And believe it or not it wasn't all that bad because my little man had an audience (did I ever tell you that he loves being the center of attention?)and enjoyed flirting with all the ladies!!! We made it home by 1:30, just in time to meet up with my mom who came to spend Thanksgiving weekend with us.

My mom is having her knee reconstructed on December 8th and will not be getting around much in the month of December, hence the reason for the long weekend visit. I had much on the agenda for my mom and I to get done while she was over and thanks to all her help we successfully checked everything off on the list!!! The first thing I wanted to do was to take out the shower glass doors. You know, the ones were the middle section of the doors never really gets clean unless you take everything apart. Yep. No more nasty doors here!!! And the new shower curtain and bath rug makes the bathroom look NEW and feminine and like it has a women's touch!!! The next project that was on my list was ( I just love using the word WAS) to organize the house. And guess what? That's done too!!! Now my baby has more room to play and we will have a place to put all the anticipated toys that grandma's and grandpa's will be bringing here for Christmas.

Saturday we went shopping again. And Sunday we just hung out and cooked!!! I was really glad that my mom spent the weekend with us and I am sure she enjoyed herself too! She was able to help me and get her baby fix because she probably won't being seeing our little man for a while or at least until she is up for a visit.

Daddy came home from hunting on Thursday. He surprised us and came home early. I think he missed us. We know we missed him! When we came home on Thursday we found daddy trying to clean up some of my mess. And then he stayed home with our little man on Friday to catch up on some lost time!

The mess my husband was trying to clean up is our connection problem. After my mom went home on Sunday and the baby was in bed I decided to tackle the Internet connection problem. Which is now more of a problem!!! I pretty much canceled our wireless connection and I don't even know how I did it. Oops... I am using our dinosaur desktop computer now to make this post and that is why I can not post pictures. I barely use the desktop and all of my pictures are stored on my laptop. And I have so many pictures that I want to post. My little man if now taking his bath in the big boy bathtub and he is starting to sit up on his own!!! Well.... I think that about sums up that last week and a half.