All Saints Carnival

The kids' school, All Saints, has started having "Family Fun Nights". In October, they have a Halloween Spooktakular, They have a Chili Cook-Off in January, and in April they have a Carnival. The kids were super excited to go to this.
The first game Riley & Lily played was Plinko!

They both won a big prize! This is what Riley got:

Zach had run off playing different games and winning prizes. When I found him he was throwing a football into these tires. He got one in too!

Riley thought the throwing toilet paper into the toilet was a funny game!

The cupcake walk was pretty popular! I liked that you got a cupcake instead of an entire cake if you won!

The reptile toss was pretty fun too!

The kids played lots more games, then we headed downstairs with our food for the night.

They also had face painting, tattoos down there.

Lily had gone back up to try to get a cupcake & came back down with one! So, all three kids got one!

I have no idea why, but the fake injury booth was super popular. Kids walked away with fake black eyes, bloody bandages, etc....so there were a lot of kids walking around with "injuries".....Weird....

Overall, the kids had a lot of fun!!

Zach & Sister Julita

 

In 5th grade at All Saints, you get to have a "Grand-pal". Each of the 5th graders gets to go and visit the retired nuns once a month at the convent by All Saints. Zach's Grand-pal is Sister Julita. He really loves her. He talks about her all of the time. When he found out when her birthday was, we HAD to put it on the calendar so we could bring her a present. Even though Zach was going to go to Grand-pals the very next day, he really wanted to go see Sister Julita on her actual birthday. So, on Wednesday, he made a card for her, and then before I picked the kids up from school on Thursday, I got some flowers for her. They had to be very colorful, per Zach's request. He was SO excited to take them to her. Here is Zach with Sister Julita:

 

She was surprised by the visit! She was excited to see Zach and loved the flowers and card. :0)

I am so proud of Zach. What a loving and caring thing to do. I love that he has such a big heart. :0) I am glad that I could witness this love between him and his Grand-pal. He has already asked if we can visit her through out the summer. :0) He is so thoughtful and I am proud that he is my son. :0)

50

I have now lost 50 pounds!! I started this new way if life on January 2, 2014 when my doctor called me with blood results. Diagnosis: diabetes. Not the way I thought I was going to start this new year. To say I was devastated is an understatement. But, then I learned (and am still learning) what I needed to do to get myself healthy, and got myself going in the right direction. 
Now 4 1/2 months later, I am very happy to say I have lost 50 pounds! I have a ways to go, but I am proud of myself for getting this far. :0) I also had a check up yesterday. My doctor was very happy with my weight loss and with my day to day blood sugars. Today I got a call with my blood results. When I was diagnosed my hemoglobin levels were 8.1. Normal is 5.6. Today I was told they are 5.9!!! That's a crazy amount for them to drop in less than 5 months. :0) I was told to keep doing what I'm doing. 
So, what am I doing? I do exercise, but probably not as much or with enough variation as I should, but I am doing it, and will work at making that change better. 
My main change has been my eating habits. I now eat breakfast. I used to hardly ever eat it, and that really isn't good for you. I will eat an egg or a piece of 45 calorie toast (from Sara Lee) with butter, Dannon light and fit yogurt ( it has the lowest carbs), or almonds. I switched from flavored creamers in my coffee to flavored coffee (no added carbs or calories) and fat free creamer. I don't snack at all usually and if I do, I make good choices and have small portions. I drink a LOT of water. Seriously. I don't drink as much diet pop as I used to, and I don't drink juice at all. If I want something sweet to drink, I drink Crystal Light drinks. They have no carbs and only five calories! 
As for carbs, I have cut down on them, but not out. If I know dinner is going to be carby, I have no or very little carbs for lunch. When I do have carbs, I try to make good choices on the kind of carbs I eat. I always try to choose foods with natural sugars over processed sugars. Of course, portion size is also a biggie now. I am much more careful about the amount I out on my plate. And lastly, I not only look at carbs, I look at calories. I could eat sausage and cheese everyday (no carbs) but that's not exactly healthy. I have to take calories into account as well.
This hasn't been an easy road. It took awhile to go grocery shopping the first several times. I checked the labels of everything, comparing brands, flavors, etc. I still have to look at some stuff, but for the most part I know what I want when I go to the store. I also have poured over Pinterest, cookbooks, and websites for tasty, healthy meals my whole family will eat, which is not always easy. I have found some I love and some I will never make again. ;0)
Overall I think I have had a pretty good attitude about all of these changes, but there have been days when I just don't want to do this anymore. When I don't think this is fair. When I'm tired of watching every little thing I put in my mouth. Then I have days like today, when I get a call giving me actual results of my hard work, and an affirmation that what I'm doing is the right thing. For me, for Jeff, and for our kids. I know I'm going to keep having days where I just plain hate this card I've been dealt, but I know that I'm healthier now than I have been in a long time. And that makes it worth it. :0)

Easter

We started our Easter fun on Saturday with dying eggs. Since we knew that Madison (My brother Joe & Sister-in-law Udrika's daughter) would like to dye eggs too and they were in town, we invited them over.

Even Tanner got to hold an egg!

These are Madison's eggs:

Lily's eggs:

Zach put a smiley face on one of his eggs. :0)

These are Riley & Zach's eggs:

Lily & Madi played dress-up afterwards.

Then later on, Jeff (who had been up since 5:00 am smoking hams with the Knights of Columbus) took a nap with Tanner. Lily decided to cuddle with them too. ;0)

The Easter Bunny came later that night and left the kids candy, presents, and hid eggs for them to find!

They read the note from the Easter Bunny that told them what color of eggs and how many eggs they could find, and also that they got a Despicable Me 2 DVD to share.

Then they were off looking for eggs!

After they found all of their eggs and ate some candy, we all got ready for church. 

After Easter Mass, we got ready for my family to come over to eat lunch and have an egg hunt!
After lunch, we hurried to do the hunt before the rain came. we still got sprinkled on, but it wasn't too bad.

We let the littlest kids go first so the big ones wouldn't run them over!
Brigid was out first and ready to get her eggs!

Brigid's twin, Ceri was next. She was excited too!

Madi got her cowboy boots on and headed out to gather her eggs!

Tanner got to find eggs too!

Then we let the big kids out.

Some of them were so fast I didn't even get any pictures of them!

The twins were chilling out with Granddad eating their candy afterwards:

It was a fun afternoon of family, food, and laughter!