Thursday, January 21, 2010

The 30 Day Shred. Day 12....

This morning I finished day 12 of the 30 day shred! I am still waking up at 4:30 am and getting my shred on before work, which still amazes me cause I HATE getting out of bed. Hooray for me!

A Look Back at Days 2-10... Every morning during the first circuit I would think to myself 'self, why are you doing this? It's horrible, you should be sleeping', but every day I knew that if I got through the first circuit that I would be able to keep moving on. Days 1-3 were definitely the hardest, my whole body hurt and I could barely walk up or down stairs. But even with all the pain I pushed myself each day to do the workout again. By day 4 the pain started to go away, but I was still feeling the burn and knew I was getting an awesome workout! So the first 10 days were dedicated to level 1, and even from day 1 I was able to get through the whole workout, with the exception of a few of the push ups... I hate push ups! By day 10 I was doing great on Level 1, so I guess its time to move onto Level 2....

Days 11 and 12... Day 11 was my first day of Level 2, it is not even funny how much more difficult level 2 is! Have you ever done a plank-jack? Well.. have you? I have! Imagine you are in a push-up position, and then you move your legs like you were doing a jumping jack, sounds fun, right? I think there are around 5 exercises in level 2 that involve the plank position, and each one sucks worse than the one before!! If you want to know what the 30 day shred is like, just google it... every review will tell you how much that person wanted to punch Jillian in the face, or cursed her out the entire workout, but that you will notice results! I am definitely developing a love/hate relationship with Jillian! During one of the cardio circuits Jillian says she wants you to 'gargle your heart'... there is your proof that she is crazy!! You know how most workout videos encourage you to take a break if you need to, or grab some water, Jillian does the opposite! She tells you if you are going to do a 20 minute workout and expect results then there are no breaks, push through it, blah, blah, blah... She has a point, but I still hate her every time she says it!

Today.. Day 2 of Level 2.. I still didn't make it through the full workout without a few breaks(shhh.. don't tell Jillian), hopefully day 3 I will be able to do even more of the moves. My shoulders feel like they are ready to fall off, which makes doing 90% of the moves that much more difficult!

Results: After 12 days I have lost 4.5 - 5.5 pounds, which is sweet since I was stuck in a rut and not losing anything anymore. I still wish I had taken my before measurements though, cause I can definitely feel where the inches are coming off!

So yes, I will continue on my 30 Day Shred challenge, and I will be shredded in 18 more days... bikini, here I come!

And in case you were wondering.. My friend Carly finished day 12 last night, Lisa is on day 2 today and Amy is doing her first day today!! Woohoo!! Anyone else care to jump on the Shred bandwagon??

Sunday, January 17, 2010

Sesame Street Live January 14th, 2010




On January 14th my sister and I loaded up Jayden, Kara and Jayla into the backseat of the Mazda and headed for the Target Center. Fitting three kids in their car seats into the back of my car is not the easiest thing to do, but we managed, and we made it all the way without any fighting!! The next challenge was getting to the Target Center. Whenever we go anywhere downtown Joe always drives. This was one of my first times driving down their alone, and it just happened to be rush hour, which makes me even more nervous! We found the parking ramp and started walking... and kept walking.. and then some more walking! Once we got into the Target Center we had to race all around to find our tickets(they were will call), then we had to find our seats, then we had to figure out where the heck we were supposed to be for the meet and greet. Our cousin plays Abby Cadabby in this performance, so she hooked us up with some awesome tickets and a meet and greet(Thanks Becky!!) After asking 5 people about the meet and greet and racing around the Target Center 3 times we FINALLY found someone who knew what we were talking about and where we needed to be.






We got lead into the media room to wait for the meet and greet. There were probably only 10 other people there for the meet and greet, so that was really cool! After a couple of minutes of waiting we got to meet 5 characters, Kara was totally freaked out!! I think she was scared because they all came running into the room, and were all happy and excited and she didn't have a clue what was going on. She wouldn't even look at Abby Cadabby, who is her favorite! Jayden gave Abby a hug, and Jayla seemed to be cool with meeting the characters!









After the meet and greet we headed back to our seats(which means back up 3 escalators, down one flight of stairs all the way to the front row..we did lots of walking!!) We had front row seats, right off the front/side of the stage, which was awesome!! The show started and all the characters came running onto the stage and were singing and dancing, Kara was still a little frightened, I think she was worried they were all going to come say hi to her again. After the first song Kara really got into it. She was singing, dancing and saying hi to everyone around her! See video here http://http://www.facebook.com/kristinlien04?v=app_2392950137&ref=profile#/video/video.php?v=294558922221
Jayden and Jayla seemed to have a really good time as well. Jayla was danging on Michelle's lap most of the time. Jayden had a blue snow cone, and how can you NOT have a good time when you get a blue snow cone!?

Thanks again to our cousin Becky who hooked us up with the awesome seats and the meet and greet!

Monday, January 11, 2010

4:30 am

Why on Earth would anyone choose to be up at the ungodly hour of 4:30 in the am??  Normally my answer would be that Kara was crying, so I had to get up with her, or very, very rarely my answer would be that I was still awake from the night before.  But this time, it's something totally different!  I chose to wake up at 4:30 in the morning to work out.. that's right, I said it... TO WORK OUT!!

Yesterday (January 10th), I started the Jillian Michaels 30 day Shred.  I wasn't really planning on actually jumping right into the full 30 days, I more wanted to test out the waters and see what I was getting myself into.  But, I heard my friend Carly was on day 2 yesterday, so I knew I had to jump right in, cause I CAN'T let Carly beat me!!  And Carly tends to be all talk, and I knew that if I was a day behind her and kept it up that she would challenge herself to keep going... so, really I am just doing this for Carly(and for the simple fact that I want to be able to vacuum my house wearing a bikini.. duh)!  After my first day of Shred I proceeded to eat 4 slices of Dominos pizza and drank 3 beers... I think that kinda defeated the whole purpose, oops!

So after day one I decided I was going to wake up at 4:30 Monday morning so I would have time to Shred, take a shower and get ready for work.  Once my alarm started going off I was definitely not ready to pull my ass out of bed, but I did... ok so the pulling my ass outta bed may have actually happened at 4:45, but that's beside the point.  I pulled myself out of bed, headed downstairs and turned on the dvd player to see that skinny b*tch telling me that if I want to see results I need to work hard... not exactly what you want to wake up to at 4:45 on a Monday morning... but I did it!  The Shred dvd consists of 3 circuits and 3 different levels of workouts (I am still on level 1).  Each circuit contains 3 minutes of strength, 2 minutes of cardio and 1 minute of abs.  Half way through the first circuit of strength(about 2 minutes into the workout) I thought to myself... there is no way I am going to make it all the way through this today.... 1st because I was still half asleep, and 2nd because my body still hurt so badly from my workout the day before.  But I did make it ALL THE WAY THROUGH!! WOOHOO!!  I do think I need to find a space to workout upstairs though, cause walking up those stairs after the workout was not pleasant!

So, will I repeat this tomorrow and wake up at 4:30 to get a workout in before work?  I hope so!  If not, I do plan on getting a workout in at night.  All I know is the 30 day Shred Challenge is ON! 

Before this all started I was hoping to take all my measurements and see what kind of results I actually get from this.  Maybe I still will.. who knows.  I know this is something I wish I did before I lost all of the weight and inches last year, but I was slightly in denial and too afraid to look those numbers in the face... they are real once they are written down on paper!  The next step now is to keep the challenge alive and actually make it through the full 30 days, and to focus more on the foods I am shoving in my mouth... maybe I could get some carrot sticks to keep at my desk instead of peanut butter M&Ms... maybe...

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Communication.


Trying to communicate with a 17 month old is not a simple task. Kara knows what she wants, and she wants it NOW! The only problem is that we can't always understand what she is saying. I think as a parent you learn to understand your childs 'language' quicker than anyone else. For instance Kara calls her blanket 'manket', and she calls raisins 'fraisins' and instead of saying yes. she says 'ses'. Joe and I understand most of what she says, but of course not everything. She has turned into our little chatterbox! In the last couple of months she has really started to put words together. Here are some of her favorite phrases:

"baby cry" as she says this she will rock, pat and shhh her baby, its too cute!

"Ready, Go!" is what Kara yells before jumping off of the couch or ottoman.

"Sorry Kitty"after she accidentally, or not so accidentally, runs into the cats.

"baby go night-night" or "daddy go night-night", "mommy go night-night", "papa go night-night", "aunty chelle go night-night", "Elmo go night-night".... you get the picture, Kara loves everything to go night-night!

And of course we hear "What's this" 100 million times a day!


Other notable Kara cuteness that I need to share with you...
Kara has recently become fascinated with her toes, and toe lint. As soon as you take her socks off she is looking for any treasures between her toes! But not only does she take toe lint out of her toes... she finds carpet fibers, pieces of cheerios, paper.. whatever scraps are on the floor and puts them in between her toes! What a weird-o!!




Tuesday, January 5, 2010

Every Day Is A Gift

A simple post, with a simple meaning.


Remember that every day is a gift, we are not promised another tomorrow. Don't take anything in your life for granted, for it could all change in a heartbeat.


Tell your loved ones how much they mean to you, snuggle your baby a little bit longer, appreciate all of the little blessings in life that you might otherwise take for granted.

Friday, January 1, 2010

Happy 2010!

Happy New Year everyone!!  I hope everyone had a great time ringing in the new year last night, and hopefully you aren't paying for it too much this morning.  We had a great night with Michelle and Dre.  Michelle made an amazing dinner...bacon wrapped steak bites, iceberg salad and some smashed loaded potatoes, it was all delicious, but I don't even want to think of how many calories were consumed last night!  After we were done eating the dancing began!  We picked up 'Just Dance' for the Wii and it was so much fun!  Its definitely just a party game, there is not really much to it, but apparently I can't dance... who knew??  I thought maybe I could look into taking some rhythm classes to improve on my dancing skills, but Michelle and Joe informed me that rhythm is something you are born with, and apparently I wasn't born with any!  Oh well, it won't stop me from being a dancing fool!


Things I am proud of from 2009!
  • I lost 65 pounds from January through August, which is pretty amazing if you ask me!  Unfortunately I have gained back about 5 pounds over the last couple months... but I will deal with that later!
  • My baby girl learned to crawl, walk, talk and turned one this year!  Its amazing how many milestones children hit in one year.  Can you imagine if we continued to learn at the rate they do?  We would all be b'geniuses!
  • Joe and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary...and we even still kinda like each other!
  • My mom turned 50 this year!! Holy crap is she getting old! :) 
  • I read the whole Twilight saga... woohoo!! This is a huge accomplishment for me, as I cannot tell you the last book I read before these! 
Things I am looking forward to in 2010
  •  Hopefully losing another 15 -20 pounds.  Which means I need to stop eating all the horrible things I love, and I need to actually work out when I go to the gym and not just SWAG.  But I know I can do it!
  • Continue to watch Kara grow and learn new things everyday.
  • Improve on my dancing skills. 
  • Get a handle on some of our debt... I hate debt, and I want it to go away forever! 
  • Maybe, just maybe think about adding a second child to our family.  This is dependent on a couple other things...Kara's attitude, and debt.  Based on these things, baby #2 might need to come in 2011, or 2012.
  • Dedicating some time to get some crafts done....maybe I could actually work on some scrapbooking, sewing, crocheting and whatever else my little heart desires! 
  • Spending some good quality time with my husband... I think we need more than 2 date nights this year! 
  • Look at going back to school.... I am kinda worried about this since I haven't been in any kind of school for 9 years!  I would probably be told I need to go back to high school for a few years and re-learn some things before they will accept me into any college! 
  • Work on getting my hair cut more than once this year... I know its a simple thing, but I literally only got one haircut in 2009... how pathetic is that!?!?
 Words to embrace for 2010
"Life is too short to wake up with regrets. So love the people who treat you right. Forget about the ones who don't. Believe everything happens for a reason. If you get a second chance, grab hold of it with both hands. If it changes your life, let it. Nobody said ...life would be easy, they just said it would be worth it."

Happy New Year Everyone!!  Hope 2010 has lots to offer for all of us!