Great Wolf Lodge "Oliver" look a like contest

I rarely ever do any of the online contests, since the odds are so low of winning. But I had to enter this one from the Great Wolf Lodge. Great Wolf is looking for pictures of kids who look like their newest character Oliver the raccoon.

photo from greatwolf.com


And I just so happen to have this picture of cute little Zaccheaus in his explorer outfit...

I can enter up to 10 times with different pictures, but I think this one is pretty good. What do you think? They even both have glasses!

We've been wanting to go to GWL for years, this would be a great chance to go check them out!

My Journey To Better Health, Pt. 2

"Check yourself before you wreck yourself"

My first step on my new weight loss journey was to learn what condition I was really in. As I was saying in my last post as the fall turned into winter I was becoming more and more tired and lacked the energy to just do normal day to day things. I was like Eeyore from the Winnie the Pooh stories, LOL. Of course my over active imagination went into high gear thinking of all the things that could be wrong with me. Did I have Diabetes? Or maybe my iron levels were just low? So as soon as my medical insurance became active I scheduled an appointment with my Dr.
He ordered a whole panel of lab work to check for diabetes, my cholesterol levels, my kidney function, my thyroid function and all my vitamin levels. Everything came back perfectly normal, with one exception. My vitamin D levels were really low. "Vitamin D, really?" I thought "I take a vitamin D supplement almost every day". The Dr, suggested that I up my supplements to 2,000 IU's a day and make sure I take it every day. I did and after the first week I was feeling really good, but would still start feeling tired mid day. So, I decided to up my supplement to 3,000 IUs, plus the 800 in my daily vitamins. This made the hugest difference! Right away I started being more active. Seriously, the second day of taking the 3,800 IUs I was running around the backyard playing soccer with the boys. Something I hadn't done in over a year. I'm sure it didn't hurt that by this time the sun had finally started coming out and the weather was perfect for playing outdoors.
I learned online that vitamin d deficiency is a very serious problem that can lead to the bone disease Rickets, because without vitamin d your body can not absorb all the calcium it needs. Because we live in an area with low sun exposure (Did you know Alaska gets more sun than Western Washington?), I don't drink milk and was spending most of my time indoors through the fall and winter I wasn't getting all the natural vitamin d that my body needed. Thankfully it didn't effect me in a way that would have lasting consequences, like bone damage.
Hearing that I was perfectly healthy was such a relief! Now I just needed to make positive changes to my diet and lifestyle to keep everything that way!

My Journey To Better Health, Pt. 1

"Failure to Plan is Planning to Fail"

I hope you don't mind or get bored by these posts, but I have decided to chronicle my weight loss/ health improvement journey here.

I have always had the idea that as long as I felt healthy, could keep up with the kids and still fit into my clothes; it didn't matter what my weight was. That was until after going up a size with each pregnancy and then I discovered I had put on 20 lbs after having one my last child and never changed a clothing size. Slowly I wasn't able to keep up with the kids as much as I used to and began to feel sick more often than not. I knew I needed to change something... to eat healthier and exercise more, but felt trapped because of our past limitations, when we were without a regular income. Eating healthier usually means spending more on fresh healthy food and how does one exercise regularly in the rainiest state of the US without some sort of indoor equipment or membership at a gym? I was bound and determined to make a change as soon as I was able to.

I thought that opportunity had come when I friend put together a weight loss accountability group back in the fall. Josh was working again and I had the support of a small group of friends, I was going to succeed this time, right? Wrong! As fall turned into winter and the holidays came around I found it harder and harder to put forth the effort needed (more on this in a later post) to succeed at my goal I had set of losing 30lbs by spring. I would lose 5lbs, gain it back, lose 3 and just yo-yo back and forth. Very discouraging. Looking back I realized my problem was that I had no plan of attack and made no drastic changes to my daily habits that would produce lasting results.

Which brings us to now. I have made some changes and am seeing some results (mostly health wise, not so much weight wise yet) and would love the support of my friends and family who read this blog to cheer me on. I have a lofty goal of losing 50 lbs by the end of the summer, which would bring down to my pre-3rd pregnancy weight. The next installment of this series should be up in the next couple of days. Then there will probably be weekly or bi-weekly follow ups. If you'd like to join me in this journey, we can talk more about the changes I'm making one on one sometime.

Pray for me friends this is going to take some major strength and determination.

He Finally Lost It

Zaccheaus has this tooth that's been growing in behind all his others. He calls it his shark tooth. Even though this adult tooth had been coming through for almost a month, his baby teeth were not coming loose. We think it might be because he grinds his teeth so bad at night all his teeth are tightly pushed into his gums. He's almost 7 and hasn't lost a single tooth! Josh and I have been working at loosening his baby tooth all week long and finally last night Josh was able to pull it out. 

He's happy to have it out, as it was starting to cause some pain.
Now to start this whole process over again, since the next adult tooth is starting to break through. ;-)