Friday Fun

Thank goodness for friends who invite me over with my children and make margaritas for us to enjoy!  Last night was heavenly!!  I seriously don't know what I'd do without all of my wonderful friends...and I hope I never have to find out.  I am one lucky gal to have so many wonderful people in my life.

Today kicked off bright and early.  I stuck to my "get up and take care of myself before the kids wake up" resolution for the entire week.  I must say I'm pretty proud of myself.  I was able to once again drink my coffee, do my devotion, and get in the beginning of my workout before the boys woke up.  They decided to get up early but did a fairly good job of entertaining themselves while I finished up my workouts.  They started off with some blocks...

Colton was very proud of his creations but Mason wanted NOTHING to do with a photo.   He quickly moved on to the piano...

Then Colton got curious about what he was missing out on...

...and decided he was VERY jealous!

I did finally convince Mason to give Colton a turn and was able to finish up my workout.

For this morning's workout, I decided to change up Tina's Best Body Bootcamp circuit a bit to take it up a notch since I was in the mood for some intensity and completed each of her exercises using a tabata format rather than following her circuit arrangement.  I LOVE tabata workouts---20 seconds of anything is doable, 8 rounds is managable, each exercise is done in 4 minutes.  Today I did 12 exercises and got a killer full-body workout in under an hour.  Looking back, I think I did at least 500 squats over the course of the workout--might be sore tomorrow. My favorite move today was the explosive sit to stand...basically jump squats from a chair.  So fun!

We celebrated with some protein pancakes...YUM!

With full bellies, it was time to head off to gymnastics with the Family Place.  We had a bit of a diaper explosion on the way there, but thankfully they allowed Mason to play in his diaper so I didn't have to go all the way back home.  Thank goodness he's still young and doesn't mind running around in his diaper.  You'd think I'd keep backup clothes in the car, but I'm more of a fly by the seat of my pants kind of mom.  Live and learn.  We had a great time anyways...

Colton couldn't get enough of bouncing on that bosu ball while Mason spent lots of time bouncing on the trampoline.  They weren't too interested in following the circuit that was set-up for them but chose rather to do their own thing...their future teachers may not enjoy that attitude very much.  

Miss Lisa is the BEST!

Afterwards, we swung by the house for some clean shorts before heading to the grocery store.  I was tickled to find La Croix was BOGO.  I forgot how much I love the coconut flavored one.  I wonder how it tastes with RUM?  I just might have to experiment this weekend.  I hardly ever even walk down the snack aisle, but cut through and found these cookies on sale and bought them for the boys on impulse...

They're surprisingly delicious and really not too bad nutrition-wise.  The boys LOVE them.  I may have enjoyed a couple myself.   I'm not endorsing them as health food, but as far as cookies go, they do have some redeeming qualities.  

Hopefully I won't steal too many of them from the boys...It will be a true test of self-control to have them in the house.  

Our plan for the rest of the day is to be outside as much as possible and hopefully manage an early bedtime.  My goals for the weekend are to...

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and...

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Wish me luck!

...So The Boys Got A Piano

Santa (a.k.a. Aunt Abigail) came early and brought an amazing gift to the boys...

I see rock stars in our future!!  They are in HEAVEN!  It's the perfect gift for our little music-lovers.  Even the box was a hit for the little boogers.  

You know you want to hear their first time stroking the keys...

They're gifted I tell ya!

Maybe next year they can lead the carols at Coffee Bar Blue Door's Annual Community Christmas party.  I'm thinking we could make it a family event.  I'll do my thing and read 'Twas The Night Before Christmas and we'll have Mickey dress up as Santa...That gives us a year to work on the beard and the belly.  Haha!  Other than some first time kinks and an overwhelming turnout, I'd say tonight's event was a success.  Thanks to Miss Rabe for helping with the carols and the bubble machine for doing its thing.  The candy canes were a nice perk too.  I love our little town and was so happy to see how many people showed up for our little event.

In workout news, I feel like I've hit a major roadblock.  I finished the 8 weeks of Best Body Fitness Boot Camp and LOVED the workouts but found myself even more frustrated with the state of my tummy post-bootcamp.  It seemed to have gotten worse....  So I consulted Bethany Learn of Fit2B Studios.  I am desperate to fix the sad state of my tummy.  It seems like I still have some work to do with my diastasis recti and all the burpees and running I was doing were actually aggravating it and making it even worse.  NOT GOOD AT ALL!  

Her advice--a 2 month break from running and boot camp workouts, while substituting some ab rehab and healing exercises.  She's got lots of tummy safe workouts on her site.  The ellipcial is safe too and you all know how much I love that thing.  I'm scared about the state of my running after a 2 month hiatus but feel like I've just got to give her advice a try...scary but if it means avoiding surgery in the future, I've got to give it a try.  If I can get back to running after a pregnancy of NO running, surely I can survive 2 months...RIGHT??  I'm hoping I can learn to love yoga and can get my fix from the allowed weightlifting and other workouts.  Who wants to be my new speed-walking buddy?  

My predicament reminded me of this fitness rebellion I stumbled across the other day.  It's time to "give my one, precious body the respect it deserves" which for me = time to heal and exercises to restore my core.  Here goes...