Happy New Year's Eve

Hope everyone has a safe and fun New Year's Eve. We will be going to Brian and Kristian's house, friends of ours who are having a little get-together. My mom is picking up the kids at 1 or 1:30 today and they will spend the day and night with her. This has become a tradition and I think it's one my mom really enjoys. I know the kids really look forward to it. So, the kids are showered, dressed, packed and ready to go. They couldn't be more excited. Plus, it gives Seth and I a nice night out. And an afternoon of getting ready to go out without kids under my feet. That will be nice!

I am also going to go to the gym after they get picked up. I went yesterday, too, and had a much better workout than I had the day before. I wound up running 2.5 miles, which is good.

See you in 2009!

More vacation activities

I mentioned that Adam had his first birthday party on Sunday. Below is a picture of him and his friend, Logan. Turns out that Logan talks about Adam as much as Adam talks about Logan. Logan is also very protective of Adam, which is really sweet. The party was at a Chuck E. Cheese type place so of course Adam had a blast.

While we were at the party, my mom took Abby to see Marley and Me, but they left before it was over - it wasn't a kid-friendly movie. They were disappointed because they had wanted to see that movie for a while since our dog's name is Marley.

Today, Seth, my mom and I took the kids to the new America's Incredible Pizza in St. Peters, which wasn't so incredible. The line to get in took forever, the food wasn't very good and I really wanted a baked potato and they were out of baked potatos for 45 minutes. The staff was rude and it was an overall bad experience. We were so excited to do mini-golf and go-karts and we didn't wind up doing any of that. We would have rather gone to Pizza Street and Monkey Joe's. Not to say the kids didn't still have fun, but it could have been a lot better.

Abby and Seth playing a race car game.

Skee-ball.

Skee-ball.

Adam on the carousel in the little kid area. Every ride Adam went on, he had the most serious look on his face. I think he was having fun, but you would never know it by looking at him.

Abby in the bounce house.

Adam on the airplane.

Abby on the airplane.

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I worked out today just as I was supposed to and I think I am working my muscles like they have never been worked before and I am so sore. It is making it hard for me to run because my muscles are so tired. Just have to keep pushing through!

My vacation is almost over (I have to go back to work Friday) and I feel like I need a vacation from my vacation. I've gotten nothing done that I wanted to other than hang out with the kids and be lazy - which is great and much-needed, but where do you find the time to actually be productive?

Here's to hoping tomorrow's workout doesn't make me feel like I'm going to die.

Push-ups are hard

Push-ups are really hard actually. And Jennifer's regimine was not easy this morning. But I made it through and got Adam to his party on time.

Tomorrow, I will run 2.5 miles and do sit-ups, bicep curls, butterflies, lunges, calf raises and the dead drop.

And after that Seth and I and my mom are taking the kids to Incredible Pizza for pizza, go-kart rides and mini-golf. Don't worry, they have a salad bar, too.

New Year's Resolutions

Many of you know that I like to set goals and I'm still working on my goals for 2009. One of my goals this year will be to continue to eat healthy, exercise and focus on my running with a goal of losing weight. I know many people have weight loss goals and it feels a little weird to be talking about it here, but I know a lot of people can relate. Also, I think it will help me if I know I have to be accountable to anyone who is reading my blog.

I have a particular number of pounds I would like to lose by June when we go to Disney and I work best with deadlines. I also hope to run another 5K (3.1 miles) in April and work toward running a 10K (6.2 miles) by the end of the year. My friend, Jennifer, the one who runs half marathons, is going back to school to be a personal trainer, and I am going to be her guinea pig. She's going to tell me what to do in my workouts all week and then work out with me on Saturday mornings. We'll see how it goes.

So today, she gave me my assignment for the week. I committed to working out five days a week and over the course of the week I will run 12 miles broken up over the five days in any way of my choosing and also do:

-50 tricep dips 2-3 days
-100 push-ups every other day (50 on the floor and 50 on an exercise ball)
-100 sit ups every day
-50 side-bends for the obliques 2-3 days
-30 bicep curls 2-3 days
-30 butterflies 2-3 days (to be done on the days I don't do push-ups)
-30 exercises on the hamstring machine at the gym 2-3 days
-30 quad exercises on the machine at the gym 2-3 days
-25 calf raises every day
-30 lunges on a step holding 6-pound weights 2-3 days
-30 "dead drops" holding a 15-pound bar 2-3 days

Most of these say 2-3 days because she said to break them up over the course of the week and I made myself a schedule and it works out to doing each thing two to three times a week.

Tomorrow will be the first day of the week (although I did go to the gym yesterday and today) and I mapped out that tomorrow I will run 2 miles and do the tricep dips, push-ups, sit-ups, obliques, hamstrings, quads and calf raises. My challenge tomorrow is that my gym doesn't open until 10 and I have to be in Wentzville by noon for a birthday party that Adam was invited to. So, my plan is to do the tricep dips, push-ups, sit-ups and calf raises at home before I go to the gym and then try to get everything else in at the gym and still get home in time to shower and take Adam to the party. Thank goodness for Seth getting the kids ready in the morning. And thank goodness for vacation so I have the time to get myself on track.

I'm not really following any diet - except I'm still doing protein shakes, lots of veggies, lean meats, and no white breads.

So that's it. We'll see how it goes. Wish me luck.

Merry Christmas to the Dorias

And just like that...Christmas is over. How sad! But we had a great time and couldn't be more blessed. Seth and I are off work until Jan. 2, which makes this even better.

Here are some pictures to show how we celebrated.

Every Christmas Eve we go to my Grandma's house. She is 90 now and still had the whole family over. Amazing! This is Brandon, Landon (my cousin Debbie's boyfriend's son), Abby and Adam.

Abby got Hannah Montana make-up, a purse and a wallet from my grandma. This is her with all of her make-up on.

This is me reading Adam one of the books he got from my grandma.

My mom reading Adam one of the Diego books he got.

Adam playing with the dinosaur he got.

Abby showing my mom and grandma her make-up.

My mom and grandma reading to Adam.

Abby and Sophia. Sophia got Hannah Montana make-up, too, so they were both dolled up.

We didn't get home from my grandma's house until 11. Our tradition is to put out the cookies and milk out for Santa (this year the kids and I made peanut butter chocolate chip cookies). Then we put "reindeer food" out on the lawn (Cheerios) and Seth read "The Night Before Christmas."

Abby and Adam on Christmas morning.

Adam grinning about his Diego Dinosaur Rescue Mountain.

Abby with her Tinkerbell doll.

Abby with her Hannah Montana guitar.

Adam with Diego.

Abby with her new Tom Brady jersey since she has outgrown her old jersey, which Adam has since inherited. Hmmm....wonder whose idea it was to give her a new jersey...Seth?

Seth showing off one of his new golf clubs. Seth and I don't do presents every year, but this year we did and we both were very lucky. Seth got a new set of golf clubs (which he had picked out), but he also got an iPhone, which he had no idea he was getting. Seth's old cell phone was so crappy that he couldn't see who was calling him in the day time. I figured if he was going to get a new phone, he should get the best. So, my mom and I went in on the iPhone together. He was so surprised and he has been playing with it ever since. It felt good to give him a complete surprise gift that I know he's going to love. He deserves it because he's so great. Of course, I think I've created a monster because he won't put it down.

Of course, I am also lucky because I got my favorite perfume, a leather business card holder, a Cardinals hat, a snuggly blanket for the couch since I'm always cold at night at our house, and an awesome digital camcorder. The last one was a huge surprise. Our digital camera takes video and it's decent video but I've been having trouble uploading the files to YouTube and you can't take regular photos and video at the same time since it's the same camera. The camera is awesome - for one it's the size of your fist (so tiny) and holds 10 hours of video - perfect for Disney. Seth did a great job researching and picking one out. Now I just have to figure out how to use it. :)

My mom opening her presents from us. She came over about 9:30 a.m. on Christmas.

Seth in shock over his iPhone.

Abby dressed in full Hannah Montana gear - Rock and Roll sparkly t-shirt, black skirt, Hannah Montana snow boots, microphone and guitar! What a rock star!

After we finished with presents at our house, we got ready and went to my Aunt Janet and Uncle Don's for Christmas Day. This is Seth showing my grandma his iPhone. I thought that was too cute.

The kids table: Brandon, Abby, Sophia and Jakob. I loved the kids table when I was kid and this is the first year we've had a separate table for the "big" kids.

Me with the digital camcorder.

Adam ready to open his present from Sophia and Jesse in the cousin gift exchange.

This is my cousin, Dave, being attacked my the kids. Brayden, Jakob, Brandon, Abby and Adam.

Jakob, Brandon and Abby.

All in all, we couldn't have asked for a better Christmas. We came home Christmas night and cleaned up our trashed living room. The kids still haven't had a chance to play with everything. It's nice that Seth and I are off for so long so the kids will have a chance to play with all of their toys.

I hope everyone else had as great a Christmas, too.

Christmas is fun and Seth is old

I am so excited for Christmas. I love this time of year. I have one more day of work left in 2009 and then relaxation. Looking forward to it!

An update on Adam: His fever came back on Wednesday night and Thursday so he didn't wind up going to school Thursday or Friday. He's better now - except for a drippy nose and a bit of a cough. He will go to school Tuesday for his Christmas party and then he'll be home with Seth and I until Jan. 2.


Anyway, Friday I took the day off work so I could go to Abby's Christmas party at school.


This is Abby enjoying her snack at the Christmas party.

This is Abby's teacher, Mrs. Keisker, opening her gift from the class. She is soooo sweet. A wonderful teacher.


Genevieve, Monesha, Abby and Vishwashri.

This is Abby's school principal, Mr. Cicotte or Mr. C, dressed like Santa. Her school seems to be really great so far and it's nice that they do these types of activities for the kids.

Friday night, Seth and I drove out to Euereka (about 35 mintues away) to take the kids to Santa's Magical Kingdom. It's a national park that they set up with Christmas lights for the holidays and you just drive through and look at the lights. We drove around and looked at Christmas lights every year when I was a kid and I thought we'd try this instead of just driving around in neighborhoods this year. For as long as it took us to get there, I wasn't that impressed. It was ok and the kids liked it, but I've seen better. It was kind of junky.

Adam in the car as we're touring Santa's Magical Kingdom.

Abby in the car.

Lights.

Lights.

And more lights.

_________

Saturday, I took my mom, Abby, Aunt Janet and cousin Debbie to the St. Louis Symphony to see the Symphony's annual Christmas concert. They held a private concert for employees of my company and their families. The music was really pretty and very relaxing. Seth stayed home with Adam and I'm sure you can imagine he was terribly disapointed he didn't get to go and had to stay home and watch college football all day instead.

The St. Louis Symphony at Powell Symphony Hall.

Me, Abby and my mom.

Debbie and Aunt Janet.

My mom and Abby.

Debbie, Aunt Janet, me, mom and Abby.

Abby looking lovely in her Christmas coat before we left for the Symphony.

Abby and I before the Symphony.

Right after the Symphony, Seth and I had plans to go out for his birthday. We dropped the kids off at my mom's and went to Amy's house. Amy's birthday is actually on Dec. 21, too, so we had double to celebrate. She is the same age as Seth and they were born only an hour apart. I actually have another friend, Jake, who also has the same birthday. Kind of unusual to know that many people with the same birthday.

This is Amy and her husband, Tom. For some reason, this is the only picture I took all night. Amy took a bunch of pictures, though, and hopefully I can get some from her. We had dinner on Main Street in St. Charles at a place called Millstream and just stayed there all night. It was us, Kevin and Abby, Amy and Tom, and Brian, and then Kristian, Mark and Bill showed up later. We went to Brian and Kristian's house after for a little bit. I think Seth had a good time.

This morning, we got up early and picked up the kids and then picked up IHOP to go. Seth's birthdays and Father's Day tend to revolve around food, and typically IHOP is want he wants for breakfast. After breakfast, we opened presents. Technically, Seth's present was our trip to Indianapolis for the Pats-Colts game so he didn't get anything extravagant - two new pillows (an underrated, but valuable gift) and a University of Arizona sweatshirt that turned out to be too small so I'll have to exchange that.

Seth and the kids this morning.

Seth opening up cards and gifts with the kids.

For lunch, I went to get St. Louis Bread Co. for all of us and Seth had the pleasure of laying around and watching football all day without being nagged. :) Tonight, I went to get cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory and sushi from Kitaro. We just brought it all back home rather than take the kids out since it's in the single digits here today. So, all in all, I think Seth had a fantastic birthday.

Tomorrow I will have a long day at work, but after that it will be vacation time! The kids will go to day care Tuesday and that will give me time to finish wrapping presents and get last-minute things taken care of. I'll post lots of good pictures after Christmas. Hope everyone has a Merry Christmas!