Tumor, New lens, and Sleepovers

We finally took Raynen to the vet week and a half ago to have his tumor removed. Everything went fine with the surgery and he has recovered amazingly well. He went in on Monday to have his staples removed, and other than some fluid build up which will be absorbed over the next few weeks, everything looks perfect. They weighed the tumor after it had been removed and it was 5lbs! We can already tell Raynen feels so much better and is much more playful and happier for it :)

Hollie started playing soccer a few weeks ago. So far she is loving it. Dennis takes her so they can have some time together doing something fun, but I think Mav and I will tag along tonight so I can take some pictures. Will post some later on.

Oooooh, I finally got to order my new lens and I'm super excited about it!! It's a 70-200 zoom lens. Great for indoors and low light, not to mention my fastest lens. I can't wait to try it out at Hollie's soccer games and at future Rodeo events :) And I'll be taking it on our trip to San Fransisco in a few weeks too.

On Sunday my dad will fly in for two weeks vacation from Qatar. We are all really looking forward to seeing him and spending some time with him while he's here. And he'll be home for good in June, finally! Hollie will be so happy to see her PaPa more often and she's already told us that she wants to have lots of sleepovers this summer at Grandma and PaPa's house :)

Speaking of sleepovers...the kids will be sleeping over with Mom this saturday as a trial run. She will be keeping the kids for the 4 days Dennis and I are in San Fransisco so I thought it might be a good idea to see how they do before we leave. Maybe then I won't worry as much while we're gone. I'm sure they'll be fine, and I know Mom will be great, but this will be the first time leaving them for any period of time and their first time sleeping anywhere without us. So we'll see. Hopefully they take it all in stride.

Ok, I've rambled on long enough. A quick update though on my workout goals. I've been getting up 3-4 days a week at 530/6ish to work out on the elipitcal before the kids wake up. I'm actually starting to enjoy getting up early and getting it over with. On the days I don't get in an early morning workout, I do the 30 minute shred DVD while Mavrick naps. Sometimes Hollie does it with me. This is usually too funny and makes it hard for me to keep my balance while laughing hysterically LOL! She uses cans for weights and actually does a pretty good job doing the exercises. Once she's tired though she just flops down on the floor huffing and puffing and says "Whew I'm TIRED!" She also tends to say exactly what I'm thinking most of the time. Like, "when are we done??!!" or "MORE of these? but my legs hurt!" HA ha. Love her! Anyway, down 4lbs and lots toner than I started. 6 more lbs to go...

Workouts and Birthdays

Well I haven't been able to keep up with posting as often the past couple weeks because we've just been super busy. We finally have some decent, warmer weather so we've been able to go to the park a few times and play in the yard. The kids are really enjoying it, and I'm enjoying the fact that they are getting so much energy out. It's also been a good motivator for me to stick with my workouts and eating well since i know it won't be long before it's time to break out the shorts :/

I started out trying to fit workouts in during the kids' naptime. But Mavrick has recently started transitioning from two naps a day to one. So now the kids are no longer napping at the same time during the day, therefore I haven't been able to workout in the afternoons. My only options are wake up super early and workout before the kids wake up, or work out at 9:00 at night. Although I'm not a morning person, I opted for the morning workouts. I figured that as long as I can convice myself to get my butt out of the bed, I'd enjoy working out more knowing that I can take a shower immediately afterwards, and I eat better throughout the day because I don't want to sabotage all my hard work! So I've started waking up at 5:15 and heading down to the basement for 30 minutes on the eliptical and 15 minutes of abs.

Today during Mavricks' naptime I decided to try out the 30 minute shred video as well. It was pretty good. I figured it would kick my butt since I'm so out of shape, but it was tolerable. I was definitely sweating and had to modify my push ups, but otherwise it was great. I think I'll incorporate this 3-4 times a week :)

On another note, Saturday was Dennis' birthday. Mom came over and watched the kids for us so we could go out. We inteded to be back before dinner, but ended up not getting home til 9pm. Oops... We had fun though and the kids always enjoy their time with Grandma :) We really didn't do much, just enjoyed being able to go and do whatever we felt like doing without the kiddos. We ended up in Overland Park and went shopping most of the day for new clothes for Dennis. I had planned to take him to Red Lobster for dinner, but the only one nearby ended up being in the ghetto so we drove back to Independence and ate at Buffalo Wild Wings instead. (I swear our navigation system is always directing us to the worst parts of town. They need a 'Avoid Ghetto' button!)

Then on Sunday we had Hollie's birthday party here at home. We invited all of our family members with little kids, but almost every single one of them cancelled at the last minute because they were sick. I'm glad they didn't bring the germs around, but Hollie was pretty bummed that there were no kids here. It ended up only being my grandparent's and my mom. Then later on Jessie and her kids came by. Luckily it was a gorgeous day out and Hollie got a new bike so she had a blast riding out on the driveway and playing with Austin and Bailey when they got here. I was afraid her birthday party was going to be a big dissapointment to her since she was so excited for weeks about it, but even though there were only a couple kids she really had fun!


Guess that's all for now. Raining today, but it's 50 degrees so I'm not too bummed :) The irises have started to sprout so spring is on it's way!!