Challenge

My cute friend from High School posted this on her blog and I am so sad that I didn't look at it in time, so I am sort of borrowing the idea.
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Over the last 5 months I have managed to gain back 10 of those 30 pounds I worked so hard to get off earlier in the year. The last few weeks have been crazy for us as most of you know and I have seriously lagged in some essential things.
SO I NEED motivation and I need accountability. I have talked to a few of you about doing some sort of motivational challenge to better ourselves and I just found this one and wished I could have gotten on when they started a week ago. Since we can't join now we could do it on our own .
Check the site out 8 weeks to a better you
There are 10 things you can do every day to earn a point. At the end you tally your points and the highest points is the winner (there might be several).
I don't know about you but this sounds good because it is not based on weight loss but becoming better all around. What do you think??? Anyone want to start this with me? (I would love input or any changes you might want to make to it)
I am including a lot of people in this email because it's not necessarily a weight loss thing but a WELLNESS thing... plus the more people we have doing this with us the more money we have in the pot in the end. (I am proposing a $15 buy in)
I would like to get this going by the 10th of October so we are finished on the 5th of December. Let me know your input and tell your friends about it so we can all get "healthier" together.
Thanks
Ashley

Updates

I am just amazed at how fast this last year has gone. A year ago today I was HUGE and pregnant and living away from my husband. I am so glad that we are not in that place anymore, but also a little sad that my little girl is going to be ONE next week. Crazy!!!
The kids have been so sweet lately and I am feeling bad that I have not documented the SWEETNESS.
Kevin is downstairs right now giving life to his trucks by talking for them. One of them is apparently sick and the other one is tired. He is loving stickers lately and we had some fun yesterday spelling our names on our shirts with them. I unfortunately forgot they were all over me when we walked to the store last night... the cashier thought it was quite an interesting fashion statement and wondered where she could get some. Ha Ha... the joys of being a Mom.
Kevin has been learning his letters and doing so well with it. Although he insists that his name starts with an A just like Mom and Dads do. Yes he knows our first names and calls us by them sometimes (thanks Curtis).
We have been doing a co-op preschool with 6 kids and this week was my week to teach. They are all such good kids and they learn really fast. I am NOT a natural teacher so sometimes I struggle but they are forgiving and don't mind playing with toys while I get myself together.
Katie is such a doll I find myself just wanting to be around her all day long. She sleeps awesome and is so happy to see me when she wakes up. She bobs her little head to music and bites Kevin's bunnies. She teases her brother by pulling on his hair or ears. My favorite is that she blows kisses. When we were saying night night to Daddy he blew her kisses and then she tried to do it back. She put her hand to her forehead and then extended her hand while making a clicking sound with her mouth. So CUTE!!!
I can't get enough of them.

We make cute kids... if you don't mind me saying so

My friend Lauren Goodrich is just getting started in photograghy and she took these pictures of the kiddos. I really love them and every time I look at them I fall in love with my kids all over again.
Thank you Lauryn, they really capture their little personalities. Too bad it was so dang hot... they probably would have been more photogenic if it were more pleasant out.

Adam and the Hospital

Most of you already know what has been going on in our lives lately, but I will inform the rest of you now that I have a second to myself.
Last week Adam was feeling yucky and then finally on Wednesday he went to the Dr. They thought it was either Gastritis or the Flu minus the fever. Thursday he woke up and had major pain in his abdomon so he didn't go to work. Friday was the same thing but worse pain. By the time 4:00 hit on Friday he had tried so many different things to see if he could get the pain to go away and we had exhausted our options for what "normal" sickness could have him so dibilitated so we went to the ER. As soon as they saw how much pain he was in they gave him morphine which BARELY took the edge off. They gave him something called Diladed and took him for a Cat scan.
Right away they came back with the diagnosis that he had Pancreatitis which they said is something usually caused by excessive drinking (obviously not the case) or Gallstones. Long story short he does NOT have gallstones, a blockage or any other reason why his pancreas got so mad at him. The GI doc said that 75% of all cases the cause is never known. So he must fit into that category. He was admitted and told that Pancreatitis is extremely painful and the only way to fix the problem is to let the pancreas rest by not eating anything. He was put on a strict water diet for 2 days then they let him have some other clears which he is still on now.
The hardest part about this whole thing is the pain of it all. He seriously would go from extreme pain to extreme drowsiness (from the pain stuff) to extreme nausea. For 5 days it was like this. The Diladed finally wasn't even working on him so we decided to switch to pills by mouth rather than the IV drugs in order to switch it up and get him better. (Apparently the more you take narcautics the more you stop your insides from working properly and the harder it is for the pancreas and its swelling to go down.) The nights that followed I stayed with him at the hospital and it was HORRIBLE. He was literally in so much pain it was all he could do not to scream. They would give him his pain meds he would sleep for an hour and then we would walk the halls for half hour or so to get his mind off it and get his stomach working again. It was traumatizing. He could not find a comfortable spot and everything ached. It was so hard to watch him go through it and know that there was NOTHING I could do about it.
To make a Long story a little shorter I will let you know that I started giving him herbs and he started to feel better. They released him yesterday afternoon and he is doing better here even though he is still in a lot of pain. We still have a good stretch of road ahead of us but we must say we feel stronger and closer to our Heavenly Father and Savior now more than ever. That journey is for another post, but it will be coming.
I love all of you who stepped up and helped with the kids and our house and made the effort to be there for us. Even for those of you who fasted and prayed because you couldn't be here to physically do something. It would have been a complete nightmare had we not had all of your support. Instead it was a very trying time with a lot of comfort and love.
Thank you... please continue to pray for Adam to heal.
Love Ashley