Tuck Everlasting: Silly Kids and playing with Dolls

Hey all! Life's been going on as usual here! Just wanted to share some fun the kids have been having lately.

January 7th

Here's a fun pictures of Sydney with one of her Christmas presents, her glowing-hair Rapunzel doll. She was excited to put on her Rapunzel dress on and match with her doll :) She came up to me, "Look, Mom! We Match!"

January 10

The kids have been trained and therefore think anytime I pull out the camera, it means I'm taking pictures of THEM. I pulled out my camera on this day to get a before shot of me as I start a diet/exercise routine to lose weight this year and the kids jumped in and were ready for some candid shots!

And I won't torture you with my before shots, only if I lose some major weight and have a great after shot to show you as well! :) My plan is to just limit my calorie intake to 1500 calories a day (1800 if I do a 45-minute workout, which for the past 2 weeks, I have been doing M-F, kickboxing or Zumba) and to make that work, I have a food diary on MyFitnessPal.com (free site!) that allows me to do searches for the foods I eat and logs my calories throughout the day. I found that by snacking every 2 hours and then having smaller portions at meal times, I can stick to these fewer calories without feeling like I am starving! I also am seriously drinking 64oz + each day. That also helps me feel full. I snack on fruits, peanut butter, cheese, wheat thins and other low-calorie snacks and then I am still eating with the rest of the family at dinner, just watching my portion sizes. I feel like this is something I can do. I've lost 2-3 pounds already in the two weeks I've been doing it, and that's fine. As long as I don't get tired of this, I think it will just be a gradual thing and that will help me stick to it! Wish me luck!

January 15- Arrrr Mateys!!

Brian was telling me one day how Jonas put on this pirate patch and said "Arr, I'm a pirate!" and so I was trying to recreate that here. Cute little pirates!

Love Sydney's little fist.

And here's a little video of Jonas talking.

Then, Sydney has really loved playing with all of her dolls and putting them into family groups.

And a video of her playing with them:

Then, she pulled out this leotard and said, "I need to practice my rolling". And then proceeded to dance and roll around the rug for about 10 minutes. This video is about 1 minute long.

January 18th

We went up to the Walter B Jacobs Wildlife Reserve in North Shreveport with some friends. The kids had the most fun walking the trails (which shocked me!). Sydney walked over a mile of trails with her friends. Jonas was pushed on half the trails, walked half of the last one and was carried the rest of the way. But it was a really nice day to be outside and enjoying nature! Plus check out some of the displays:

Jonas trying to feed the deer.

And this bald eagle was pretty chatty when we came up! interesting to hear what an eagle sounds like :)

January 20

And then today, I was so excited that Sydney let me put her hair up in some bows. Matching bows that came with her new dress from her cousin Bryce for Christmas! She looked too darling for me not to do a photo shoot :)