My Husband

I realized that I haven't done a post about my husband before. On my other blog I did a post about us but not just about him...So...

Derek Neal is the love of my life. They say you just know when you have found the right one, and that is so true. I know I was only 18 when I met him, but I was no where near wanting to get married until that man cam into my life. He is amazing. He's hit rough patches along the way, but I've never stopped loving him...EVER! He is a wonderful father and our boys absolutely adore him.

I was in the car earlier, and a song came on the radio....I've heard this song so many times before, but this time, this song stood out to me. You see here recently, Derek has become even more amazing than he has ever been...we've had late night talks about everything under the sun...it's like we are falling in love all over again...and I LOVE IT! So back to this song...it completely follows one of the talks we have had recently...almost like the artist was spying on our convo;) so here's the song that I feel describes my husband to a T:

"Family Man"

I've been working as a temp
At the local factory
I hope they hire me on full time
I've got shoes to buy
and a mouth to feed.

I drive a buy here, pay here truck
It ain't new, but it is for me
It ain't much but it fires right up
and get me from A to B

What puts the dirt underneath my nails
What keeps the calluses on my hands
Family man

They're a world my world revolves around
My sacred piece of solid ground
The flesh and bone that gives me strength to stand
They are a fire in my drivin on
The drive behind my comin home
The livin, breathin, reason that I am
A family man

There's dirty shirts to wash
Dishes in the sink to do
And there's how many times
Does 17 go into 52
There's bedtime prayers to pray
Sleep tights and I love you's
And then there's a pair of eyes
I get to lose myself into

What keeps me keepin the faith
What makes me believe I can
Family man

They're a world my world revolves around
My sacred piece of solid ground
The flesh and bone that gives me strength to stand
They are a fire in my drivin on
The drive behind my comin home
The livin, breathin, reason that I am
A family man

There's a fire in my drivin on
The drive behind my comin home
The livin, breathin, reason that I am
A family man

A family man

There you have it! I am madly in love with my husband and our family. I hope I tell you that enough baby...you are the best!

Athletic? I think not!

So I stated back to the gym last week. It had been since I got sick the first week in April that I had even stepped foot in a gym...but it felt GREAT!! I no longer shutter at the thought of stepping on the scale to weigh in because I am eager to see how much I am losing! So far I have just stuck to cardio; doing the eliptical, stairmaster, bike, and treadmill, but I have to start somewhere.

You see, one of the keys to weight loss is getting your max heart rate up. My max heart rate has been in the 180's everytime...that's really high! The higher your heart rate, the more calories you burn...or something like that! It feels really great to work out, which may sound crazy, but it allows you to burn off stress and weight at the same time!

Random fact about ME: I found out at age 18 that I have Spina Bifida! Huh? Don't you usually know you have that when you are born? And doesn't it usually effect your ability to walk?? Well the kind I have is actually calles Occult (hidden) Spina Bifida. You see there is a small section at the bottom of my spine that didn't fully close in utero...luckily for me all I get is some back issues, but no serious complications...atleast I can walk and am healthy! Second part of the fact: I also at age 18 had already developed Degenerative Disc Disease in my spine...just a complication from my Spina Bifida I was told. So at age 18 a female disc should be at 17degrees and mine was at 7degrees...Great! Not really because I have terrible back pain like...all the time. So what does this all mean? Well the doctor had told me I am not allowed to run...not for sport, not for excerise because the constant compression of the spine from the impact would only make things worse for me. SO!...I found an alternative and that's why I LOVE the eliptical so much!! You can literally run on that thing all day (you might get tired though) and it doesn't have the impact like running on flat land because your feet never leave the platforms! Also something I LOVE about the eliptical and the stairmaster is that they are really toning up my thighs and BUTT!! And yesterday I noticed I am forming a 4pack at the top of my belly...oh yeah!

Taboo for you, but not for me: Most people don't like to talk about the horrible after math that having a baby can leave your body in, but me? Yeah I don't care! If you don't like my body, I'm sorry that's not gonna bother me:) So after Maddox I was lucky..all the nurses even made comments about have flat my belly was after my C-Section...yay me! I was left with only ONE stretch mark on my side from his pregnancy, but I was still left with some extra weight in other parts of my body "/ But yay for nearly no stretch marks!! So seven months postpartum I get pregnant again, and I guess my skin didn't want to stretch again so soon and Whala! Nice little stretch marks all over my tummy(well five vertical ones that I feel cover the whole thing!) The good news: they are white so they aren't that easy to see! So since working out again, my skin has regained elasticity and is toning up and what do you know? Those horrible, forsaken stretch marks are disappearing!! Yay!! See what awesome things exercising will do for you??

So now I have some ab muscles showing (my little four pack), and my tummy is becoming stretch mark free!!! Well I don't know if they will ever totally disappear because they are technically scars but they are definitely making themselves less noticable as well as the scars from my gallbladder surgery!!! I feel way more confident in a swim suit now and I just feel better all together!

I must go now..I have had a long day which is a must tell for my next blog post...but for now:

Brotherly Love:)

Just some things

Some days my boys will eat so good, while other days they won't eat a thing! Their doctor says it's perfectly normal, but it still worries me. I mean I want them to get all the nutrition they need. So!...I have discovered Motts medley. It is like V8 splash only I think it is tastier! It is carrot juice instead of tomato which is why I think I prefer it. It also have fruit in it so children will like it. We get the tropical flavor and the boys LOVE it! Mott's is 100% juice and you get plenty of fruits and veggies in each serving! Since the boys were old enough for juice I have always only bought 100% juice so that I don't have to worry about all of the artificial sweetners and extra sugar!

At our house we only keep on a regular basis milk, water, and juice. On the occasion, we will buy some sort of soda. I just don't do get soda real often because then the kids will only want to drink soda or POP! Yep, pop is what they call it! I have no idea where they go the term pop...I mean I know I am from up north but I don't even call it pop. I think it is just adorable that they call it that though;)

Well I had so much more to write but I have a terrible headache that I have had for three days straight and I think I am going to go lay down with Jakk. Next time I will share the tshirt I had made for Derek and about all the pregnancies around me!

Lessons Learned

As a parent, you have all of these things that you want your children to learn and ideas of how your discipline will go. Then your baby becomes a toddler, and it's time to instill those things into your child and put your discipline ideas to play. I have come to realize as a mother of two toddlers that all of what I thought disciplining was going to be like has gone out the window. Here are some ways my disciplining ideas have backfired lessons I have learned.

1. Be careful the words you use when scolding your child! The very first phrase Maddox decided to use against me was "you wanna go to bed!" Sounds really innocent, but when you are using that phrase as a way to get your child to stop misbehaving, it takes on a whole new meaning! Now every threat I use to redirect my children to be better behaved has been used against me atleast once!

2. If you think you will be teaching your son a lesson by letting him watch that scary movie you have already told him is too scary for him, you might sadly be mistaken. we had been at a friend's house where Maddox saw some other kids watching one of the Halloween movies. A couple of weeks later (it was around Halloween time) it came on TV and Maddox cried his eyes out wanting to watch it. I thought maybe if it scared his pants off he would learn his lesson that I know best...NOPE! He loved it! It took months to get over him wanting to watch Michael Myers on TV. Now he saw it on TV while flipping through it a couple of weeks ago and has become obsessed once again. Now even Jakk talks about Michael Myers. So by thinking that if I scared him to death that he wouldn't ask to watch any scary movies ever again, I actually turned my son into a serial killer wannabe! Good job, Kris! Actually, I have asked other mom's of boys and it's actually pretty normal at their age not to be scared of things like that. Sheww!

3. All children are different! Yes, even siblings. If you think you can use one type of discipline for all of your children you may be in for a rude awakening! I mean it may work, but typically it doesn't. Every child is an individual and responds to different things. With my boys, Maddox does not really respond to being spanked all of the time. I still use spanking but it just depends on the situation. He actually is more effected by a time out. Also he doesn't respond to a scolding at the time of the incident. If you try to go into depth about why what he did was wrong at the time you make him stop, he shuts down because he gets embarassed. It is more effective to wait until things cool down to try and explain things to him...he will be more apt to listen when he doesn't feel attached. Now Jakk just turned two so explanations really have no effect on him just yet. A spanking will do good for him...it breaks his little heart to get swatted for something, which in return makes him forget what it was he was doing!

There were some other examples that I had but I kinda forgot since I've been typing this while singing VBS songs with the kiddos! So I guess that's all for now!

Quick and Delicious Meals

As I was getting things laid out for tonights supper, I thought "these new recipes I've discovered would make a great blog post!" I've been babysitting this summer so I have had to come up with some easy, quick meals for the family.

1. Pace's Picante Chicken:

It is so good and sooo easy! Derek's granny told me about this recipes and we love it! All you do is bake the chicken breast covered for 1 hr, then remove from oven and pour one whole jar (I like to use the big one!) of Pace Picante Sauce (you pick the heat).Recover and put back in the oven for 30mins. Whala! It will be some of the most tender chicken you've ever eaten and it is sooo delicious!

2. Pioneer Woman's Meatballs:

These are the best meatballs I have ever eaten! These meatballs aren't like meatballs you put in spaghetti, they are BBQ meat balls....similiar to meatloaf. The recipe for these awesome balls of meat are right here.

You make our own sauce which is amazing. If I don't have the time to make the meaballs, sometimes I will use frozen meatballs from Walmart and just make the sauce! Not as god but still really good! Oh and those mashed potatoes are just as good...the recipe for those are also on her website!

3. Easy Chicken Enchilladas:

Really, any of the recipes you can make with the NEW Philly Creme Chese Cooking Creams are worth a try, but we love these! The recipe for those are here. If you like enchilladas, you'll appreciate these! But no joke I'd try all of the cooking cremes. I think I've tried three of them.

Well those are all I have time for now...hope you all enjoy these recipes!

New Blog

I had a blog before, but I quit blogging earlier this year. I was just gonna start back where I left off, but a lot has happened in that time. I just needed a fresh start because I am a changed person since then. I had what I consider to be a major crisis in my personal life, and I am starting over. This is one way of doing so.

I am about to enter my last semester of nursing school....that's SCARY! No, really! After that I am off to work in the real world. But don't think just because it's summer break that I have had any kind of break at all. I have been enjoying 2 summer classes! Yuck! We did, however, take 2 vacations this summer. One was for our 5th anniversary weekend...a-maz-ing! We totally needed it. It was nice to just get away as a couple and not have to 'worry' about being parents for a whole weekend. We went to Gatlinburg, and it was beautiful! Then the next week we went as a family to visit my parents in Kansas City.

I've been a little obsessed with fitness here lately as well. Remember my major crisis? Well some of it has to do with my health and I lost like 30lbs in 3mths or so! Now I have been obsessed with getting my body back to prepregnancy state!

Top: this was three months after Jakk was born.

Middle: Me 2mths ago.

Bottom: Now at 127lbs (give or take depending n the day)

Well, that's all for now. I need to go feed the herd;)