Lake Time!

This last weekend Tucker and I set out on a roadtrip with my mom to my Aunt & Uncle's lake house outside of Fort Worth! It was Tucker's 1st time to the lake, and needless to say, he had a blast! And of course, there was never a dull moment because my 3 cousins (all girls, 18, 17, and 11) and one of their friends, were all there, so of course my little attention-starved toddler had a big time!

Skinny(ish) here I come!

What do you get when you put this...

with this...

This...

And this????

Hopefully a much skinnier me!!!!

In case you don't know what all of those things are...

• the top picture is the group fitness place I work out at, Fusion Fitness -- I especially love Turbo Kick & Hip Hop classes, I don't go as often as I would like, but I 'm going to change that!


• the second picture is the shake mix I bought from a friend of mine, its supposed to boost your weight loss -- you can check it out at bodybyvi.com.


• the third picture is my fitbit! it tracks your daily activity, specifically how many calories you burn, steps you take and miles you walk. It also tracks your sleep patterns so you can see if you're getting "good" sleep.


• and the last picture... and don't laugh! It is called It Works! Seriously, that's what it's called. It's a body wrap that is supposed to help take inches off your waist, or thighs, or pretty much wherever you put it! And lets face it, whenever you are pregnant, your stomach is never the same, I don't care what you say! Especially if you were carrying a 9 1/2 pound baby around!

So today I'm OFFICIALLY starting my weight loss extravaganza!

I'm doing a 90 day Challenge, but my first goal is to lose 15 pounds in 6 weeks (in time for our 4 year anniversary!)

Here's the deal, before I got pregnant with Tucker, I had JUST LOST 15 pounds, doing a Special-K-ish type deal. Then, it probably goes without saying, I gained all of that back, plus some! More specifically I weighed (don't fall over in shock) 208 pounds when I went in the day I had him!!! (:-0) !!!! Yes, crazy, I know (but remember, he was 9 1/2 lbs. of that!)! So then I breastfed him for about 11 months and lost a lot of it, I think I got down to 155, then of course I gained a lot of it back, so today on the OFFICIAL start day of this venture, I weigh 170 pounds :-/ Trust me, I don't like to publicize it, because women aren't supposed to do that kind of thing, right? But I'm hoping that if I put it out there, I will be more accountable and want to change it! So that brings us to the NEW purpose of this blog - sharing my weight loss journey. Sorry if that doesn't interest you but I will try to work in some family happenings also to keep you interested! ;-)

So here we go! Day 1!

Here I am!

Okay! So maybe I'm not so good at blogging as I once was.

Oh well.

But here I am!

So, we decided to take a spontaneous trip to Fort Worth to take Tucker to the zoo yesterday! We just left Tuesday after I got off work and stayed at the Downtown Fort Worth Embassy Suites (for FREE! Thanks to my Hilton Honors card!) then we got up, went and got some Corner Bakery for breakfast (YUM!), and headed to the zoo. Did I mention it was 90 degrees by 11:00? Well, it was! But undeterred we toured around for about 3 and a half hours! We had fun, and I'm sure Tucker did too, it was funny to watch his face when he saw the animals, because if they were sleeping or far away, it didn't really register I guess, but once they started moving and up close he got excited! Here are some of the pics from my phone, I still need to upload all the pictures from our "big kid camera" but here are a couple:

So... Where to re-start?

Since I've decided to give blogging another shot, I've been thinking about where to start, or re-start. I could pick up where I left off, but that would be CRAZY! It would be crazy because there is almost too much to mention that has happened in the last year, but I'll attempt to summarize:

• May 2010 - Tucker went on his first long-distance roadtrip to Arizona to see Grandma & Grandpa Great


• June 2010 - Tucker went on his first (& second, & third, & fourth) plane ride, we all went to Mexico to celebrate Bob's (aka - Gramps) 50th birthday, Grandpa Great went to Heaven after a long and courageous battle with cancer


• August 2010 - Tucker went on his 2nd long-distance road trip - this time to Wyoming


• October 2010 - Our little man turned 1!


• February 2011 - Taylor & I's 4th niece was born! Harper Brooker Coulter made her debut, Tucker & I flew to Houston to go see my cousins


• March 2010 - Tucker & I flew to Seattle to go see my BFF Allison, took a ferry to Canada to visit Victoria

...I almost feel like I'm doing you all a great disservice by mentioning all of those things so superficically but this blog would go on and on for days if I detailed every event! If you want to see pictures of said happenings, I've posted pictures of most of them on our shutterfly: www.kendraandtaylor.shutterfly.com! So that's pretty much it up until now. Well, all the big stuff anyway, and I'm sure I'm still forgetting some of it.

Anyway! So I will be picking up here! Taylor & I (and even Tucker) have been working diligently on our house, and we have almost reached a "pause" point, meaning we aren't DONE done, but we are about to be done at least for a little while. Since last September we have re-done (meaning we have LITERALLY torn apart and put back together again) the entryway, kitchen, laundry room/pantry, living room, sunroom, front porch/yard, back porch, and are finishing up the hall bathroom. It has been QUITE an undertaking, but we are almost done! ::insert GINORMOUS sigh of relief here::

Other than that, our lives are continuously unfolding and great blessings are being given to us every day! I know God has great things planned for our family and I can't wait for those things to unfold, but in the mean time, I will attempt to keep you up here!

Okay!

I really am going to try and get back to blogging.

The last few weeks have been a little bit hectic, but there are so many exciting things going on, I might as well blog them!

A few of them include....

My little world traveling toddler

The progress of the house becoming OUR HOME (2 years later!)

My adventures in cake baking and all things sugary and fattening (as a business!)

...to name a few!

So stay tuned! I promise I will try and make a consistant *effort*!!!

Tucker's first Easter

Tucker's first Easter was pretty busy, but unfortunately for him, didn't involve any egg hunting or candy eating.

Instead, we spent Saturday eating lunch and watching the cousins hunt eggs at Green Tree

Then Easter sunday we went to sunrise service with Granny, Gramps, the other Langes and the Kruegers. Then we went to church with Grammy, Peepaw, Aunt Cristin & Hallee. THEN we went to brunch at Green Tree with Taylor's family

Then we came back to Lubbock, and recovered from all the festivities! Mommy, Daddy, & Tucker all slept VERY well when we got home!

Playing catch up!

Due to my lack of blog updates since the new year began, I figured I would throw in a little (hah!) synopsis of what has been going on in our lives the last few months!

January brought snow, the new year, and lots of new experiences! We rang in the new year and a new neice for Taylor & I (and cousin for Tucker)! Hallee Tatum Coulter was born January 1st weighing 5 pounds and 5 ounces! A full 4 pounds lighter than her big cousin! Which also broght Grammy & PeePaw to town!

With the new year also came a new experience for me as a working mom (even though I ended up working from home a lot and even going into the office a few times during my maternity leave), I went back to work at the hospital the monday after new years and although it has definitely been challenging for me to leave my little guy all day, we have been lucky that Taylor is able to stay at home with him until he goes back to school in July! Tucker turned 3 months old at the end of the month and was already busy trying out his vocal chords (he had to start practicing early to be able to get a word in edge-wise with all those big cousins around)!

February brought MORE snow and of course a couple of trips to Midland for Tucker to visit with family! He also started sitting up in his bumbo chair and actually rolled over for the first time, which I was fortunate enough to actually catch on video! What can I say, its my motherly intuition! :) Tucker turned 4 months old which also unfortunately meant a trip to the pediatrician's office for his 4-month check up and shots :( Luckily our little guy is a trooper and took all 3 shots like a champ! He was a little sad when he got them, but was fine once his mommy picked him up! He was 17 lbs. 4 oz. and 26 in. long and we were given the green light to start our big guy on solid foods!

March has brought EVEN MORE snow to Lubbock but also a few nice sunny days! It is nice to finally be able to take Tucker out and let him play in the sun and get to know his puppies! The nice weather has also inspired us to start tackling some of our home renovation projects! We have been eager to get started but since moving into the new house in September and then Tucker's arrival in October, we haven't really had time to start on them until now! Taylor started working on expanding & enhancing our back porch while Tucker and I have started working on the inside of the house! It has also brought LOTS of visitors our way! The Kruegers came in town one Sunday, Tucker had a big time watching his cousins Wyatt & Hannah do silly things to entertain him and then we all went to the Midland College Lady Chaps playoff game and to dinner! It was a fun day and we were so glad they got to come up and hang out!

Grammy also came up just to visit one Saturday so Hallee T & Aunt Cristin came over to play and visit with Grammy! A couple of weekends later she came up again, this time with my Aunt Stacy and 3 cousins! Tucker had a big time getting all the attention from all the girls!

We waited until the beginning of March to start Tucker on solid foods and he has LUH-VED ALL OF IT! We started him on rice cereal, then a week later started veggies with green beans, then onto sweet potatoes! And let me just tell you, he is a BIG fan of sweet potatoes (if he thinks he likes them now, just wait until he tries the sweet potatoes his grandmas make)! He has recently "found" his toes (which tend to distract us when we are trying to eat) and has perfected the grab-object-insert-into-mouth "reflex", he is even working on rolling over from his back to his tummy, which apparently takes a little more effort than rolling the opposite way. Surprisingly he has turned into quite the little chatterbox! I wonder where he gets that from! ;-)

Our little guy is TRULY a joy and we are SO VERY thankful for every minute with him! It seems that every day brings new discoveries for our little boy and we love just watching him grow and interact with the world around him!

Rolling over for the first time

Trying out some sweet potatoes!

Green Beans!

Weekend recap!

So it's Monday again, booo.... I hate when that happens!
Especially after a fast and furiously fun weekend like this weekend we spent with the Beelers!
Brian and Michelle came up on Friday to see Tucker (and maybe Tay & I too)!

After Brian & Michelle got to town, we had a delicious dinner that Taylor made (smoked brisket and homemade BBQ beans! ::MMmm:mm: And I made homemade Peach Cobbler, courtesy of my favorite grandma Paula Dean! ::I wish::)

Saturday morning it SNOWED (again!) and Taylor made breakfast burritos, then Michelle, Tucker & I went shopping while the BIG boys stayed home and watched basketball and monitored their respective brackets! Then saturday night we had delicious fajitas and Soapapilla cheesecake and hung out!
Sunday morning Michelle, Tucker and I set off shopping again while the BIG boys went golfing!

Tucker got some ADORABLE little spring/summer outfits from Children's Place

These shorts and a white polo onesie

This hat and shorts and an orange polo onesie

and I even managed to actually buy some stuff for myself:

a new pair of RED shoes for work,

 a couple of cardigans and some SUPER cute jewelry!

Overall it was a very eventful weekend! We had fun hanging out with the Beelers and showing them the new house (hopefully it will be slightly more IMPROVED when they come and visit next time!

This Friday our little man will be 5 MONTHS OLD!

(Seriously?! Did I just type that?!)

Then I'm leaving Sunday for California for work.

But hopefully while the little guy is napping on Friday, I'll be able to get some blog time in to update on all of the fun new things he is doing!

Eh, blogging...

Blogging is such a wonderful tool for keeping those close to you (and in some cases, not so close to you) updated on life's adventures, but I'm weighing whether or not to keep up with this thing anymore due to everyone and their dog (seriously, ever heard of dogbook?!) being on facebook nowadays.
So, I'm taking a straw poll (?) on whether or not I should keep blogging (not that I've been that good at it recently anyhow!), so if you think that I should continue with this thing LET ME KNOW! Leave a comment so I know that someone in the world actually READS this silly thing, and I will keep doing it, but if not -- bye bye blog! :)