Shapin' Up and Slimmin' Down!

I lost a full pound this week! Even more importantly, I can tell I've lost some inches! Part of this amazing loss could be due to a stomach bug I had all of Tuesday, most of Wednesday, and it finally was gone for good on Thursday. Maybe all my hard work is just finally paying off! Who cares, though? Either way, I'm seeing the results that I want! This puts me SIX pounds over my pre-pregnancy weight, and ELEVENpounds away from my goal! Even better, I can fit into pretty much all of my pre-pregnancy pants!!! Ahhhh....this is such a big deal for me! When I say "fit in," I mean they can fasten. This doesn't mean I'm ready to wear them out in public yet because some are still pretty tight. It's going in the right direction, though!! I'm pretty happy about this :)

Shapin' Up and Slimmin' Down

I've been so lax on my blogging! I haven't posted a Shapin' Up and Slimmin' Down in a couple weeks, I know I didn't post this months body stats and pictures. I've hit a plateau in my weight loss and I think that's making me not want to post about it.

From the recommendation of a friend, I ordered a set of DVDs from Moms Into Fitness that's their weight loss series - geared towards moms who are at least 6 months postpartum, and trying to lose 10 pounds or more. I've done it all week, and REALLY like it! I'm normally pretty sore the next day which is a feeling that I love. I really like that these are geared towards postpartum moms, so they target all the normal places that you would have gained weight while pregnant. Hopefully they help get me off my plateau!

Look Whooo Is 7 Months Old!!

This is my favorite picture I took today! She loves smiling with her tongue between her lips!

Time is flying by with this sweet little one! Today marks her being 7 months old!! She is such a big girl, and everyday I'm seeing her learn new skills, or perfecting skills she already has. Her daddy and I just love her so much. She is happy, smiley, and mostly easy-going. She is 7 months old, so we have had temper tantrums, small meltdowns when she's too tired, and she's definitely been exerting her independence in tasks that she wants to do herself (brushing her teeth, feeding herself with a spoon, etc). I actually like that she will brush her own teeth. I give her a toothbrush with toothpaste first, she moves it around her mouth for awhile, and then I actually "brush" her teeth. If I just stick the toothbrush to her mouth, she'll close her mouth and turn her head away from it. It's just funny to see that, at 7 months old, she's already got that "I can do it myself" mentality. The funny thing is, in some things she is very independent, but then other times, she's very clingy, and wants to be held. I'm getting good at doing some things one-handed :) I have no problem toting her around with me, and I'm probably spoiling her, but I love when babies are at the age that they show that they want to be held. It's so cute! OK, on to the important stuff! :)

Weight: About 17ish lbs

Head circ/length: I don't know

Sleep: Audrey takes 3 naps a day, but we're trying to transition to 2 because her evening nap ends up being (what we think) is quiet time. Most of the time when I go in to get her up from her evening nap, she's awake and just lying in bed sucking her thumb....so we're not sure if she sleeps at that time. Anyways, her morning nap is about an hour long, and her afternoon nap is still her best nap of the day - anywhere from an hour and a half to 3 hours long, depending on how much sleep she's had that day, and how tired she is! Long afternoon naps haven't affected her nighttime sleep, so I generally let her sleep until she wakes up (unless we have plans and I need her up at a specific time).

Eating: She has a bottle 4 times a day, and usually eats 24-27oz of formula in a day. She's finally eating solids, too! Usually she eats solids twice a day as a mid-morning snack, and mid-afternoon snack, and usually eats 1-2 TB per feeding. So far, it looks like she absolutely LOVES prunes, peas, and sweet potatoes. She likes carrots, and she HATES bananas...but I'm not giving up on them!

Clothes: We are mainly in 6m clothes. Some 3-6m things can fit, but are getting too small. Some of her 6-9m clothes fit, but some are still too big for her.

New achievements of the month:
1. She lifts her hands when she wants to be picked up. Whether she's on the floor (tummy or back), in her exersaucer, bouncy seat, wherever, she'll call to get your attention and once you look at her she raises her hands up. She's pretty smart!
2. Increased the sounds she makes while babbling to include ka, ga, da, ba. I still don't hear a lot of ma, but she'll make a continuous mmmmmm sound.
3. Has developed a fake cough and a fake laugh - both are hilarious! I think she uses them when she wants attention
4. If I'm holding her and she wants her daddy to hold her she'll reach her arms out and lean out to him.
5. She can sit up!!! I wouldn't call her an "independent sitter" quite yet because I wouldn't leave her unattended while sitting, but she's made drastic improvement in the length of time that she can sit without falling over
6. Whenever we shake her bottle to mix the formula and water together, she immediately stops any activity she was doing to look in the direction of the bottle being shaken.
7. When we pray at night, we always tell her "Put your praying hands together" and about 8 times this month she did it all on her own! They didn't stay together for more than a second or two, but she's getting the idea!

Things she likes:
1. Playdates with friends
2. Her toy monkey, and now her stuffed lamb
3. Brushing her teeth herself
4. Still is a daddy's girl!
5. Sucking her thumb
6. Random songs that Mommy and Daddy make up
7. Ninja
8. Swimming! (just discovered this yesterday)
9. Being tossed in the air
10. Chewing on her washrag during bath time
11. Pulling Mommy's hair (we are working to make sure she does NOT like this)

Things she doesn't like:
1.  Mommy helping in her room at church - I sub in the baby wing, and I was in her room last Sunday. The ladies always tell me that she never fusses, but I saw a different side. She was so fussy, and full-out crying part of the time I was in there. The only way she would stop fussing, or crying is if I held her...which was, in no way, helpful to the other 2 workers and 7 babies that were in the nursery. I asked the lady in charge not to put me in Audrey's room anymore. I think she got jealous when she saw me holding other babies and she was swinging, or in an exersaucer.
2. Not having that bottle in her mouth quickly enough
3. Mommy taking a shower. I try to only shower while she's sleeping. Sometimes that doesn't happen (today, for instance). I always bring her in the bathroom with toys or her bouncy seat while I shower, and it never fails, she will fuss/whine/cry until I'm out of the shower. Who knows??

I have to end with this cute picture of her dressed for church one day. I bought this outfit when I was actually shopping for a baby shower present for a friend of mine (it never fails...when shopping for baby shower gifts, I always end up buying my own baby gifts!), but anyways, it was on sale, and she seriously is TUTU cute!!

She has been 7 months of pure joy, and a complete stinker! But we love her to pieces, and wouldn't trade her for the world! :)

Shapin' Up and Slimmin' Down!

Woo-hoo! I lost 1.8 pounds this week!! I don't really know what I did differently to have such a good loss, but I'll take it! On a side note....I'm having a REALLY hard time losing belly fat from being pregnant. That's still frustrating to me. I'm still about 8 pounds above pre-pregnancy weight, but 13 pounds away from my goal weight. I keep hoping my belly will just shrink, but so far it hasn't. I'm going to try and really target my core when working out this week because I just simply refuse to go out and buy a whole new wardrobe. I'm excited about wearing my summer clothes because I didn't wear them at all last year, so it will be like having a new wardrobe this year! Anyways, if you know of any good core-targeting workouts let me know!

Fur, Feathers, and Firetrucks

So, if you saw my Facebook status yesterday, you know that yesterday was a bit crazy in the Zoutendam household! I think it was my punishment for not getting up and working out :)

My alarm went off at 5:30, and I got up and went into the bathroom to start putting in my contacts, and Michel was already in there getting ready for work, and he said he was surprised I was getting up so early since we didn't have anything going on until that afternoon. I got to thinking about it, and I thought, "Why am I getting up so early when I have nowhere to be until this afternoon?" so I went back to bed, and set my alarm for 7! Well...that was mistake #1. I should have stayed up and gotten my workout on :)

Anyways, I set my alarm back for 7, but never fell asleep, so I got up at 6:30 and thought I could make myself a nice cup of coffee, look at coupon deals (I've gotten back into that), and relax for awhile before Audrey got up. She's been consistently waking up around 7:45 for the last week which is nice because it gives me a lot of time to do stuff. Well, today, she woke up at 6:45! I have a rule, though, that I won't get her out of bed before 7 because I don't want her one day getting up at 6:45, then the next day maybe it's 6:30, and so on. 7:00 or later is good with me - especially considering I don't put her to bed before 8. So, no coffee for me, no lazy Internet time. I get her up, feed her, play, etc.

Around 9:00, she starts getting ready to go down for a nap. I had her in the swing, and she was already falling asleep. Her thumb was in her mouth, her eyes were droopy, it was time for a nap. We walk to her room, and I put her in bed, and all of the sudden Ninja comes TEARING into her room! He's leaving tufts of fur behind, so I know something has him all worked up. I was afraid he had something stuck to him - a lizard maybe. Michel was at work, so whatever the problem was, I was going to have to take care of it. :( Ninja is chasing something up and over the rocking chair in Audrey's room, and my daughter goes from being almost asleep to fully awake. Ninja races out of the room, and I follow him. Audrey's squealing/fussing - not out of fear, more like she was almost asleep and now doesn't know why she's awake, but she's safest in her bed, so I leave her there while I figure out what is in my house. I come into the hall to find this:

A big lump of bird. All the dark spots you see around the bird and Ninja are fur and feathers. The bird is still alive, and able to fly. Ninja starts pawing at him, and again the chase is on! Then the bird got stuck in our blinds that hang on the back door. I open the door, and with a lot of work, manage to get him outside. Unfortunately, the bird was either weak, or a little dumb, and flew into our yard and landed on the grass....and Ninja carried him right back inside. The excitement ends there, as Ninja literally played the bird to death. Then I had to put the bird in a Wal-Mart sack, and take it out to the trash.

During all of this commotion, Audrey had fallen back asleep, and I still had a workout to do. I got on the treadmill and ran...and Audrey woke up 7 minutes into it (her morning naps are only like 45 min.). I got off the treadmill, vacuumed the house because there was no floor space where I could put her that there weren't fur and feathers, and got her out of bed. I was determined to finish my run, so I brought her in our bedroom, gave her some toys, and she went to town playing with toys and watching me run. By 10:00 that morning, we had had a pretty eventful day!

Fast forward to the afternoon. We had already planned on going to see Michel at work, so after a nice, long afternoon nap we headed to Allen. Audrey was in awe of the fire truck. I managed to snap this cute picture! Sorry it's a little blurry :)

So, that sums up our crazy Tuesday of fur, feathers, and firetrucks! Hoping for a more relaxed Wednesday :)