The Longest Post Ever ;)

I seem to have gone from blogging all the time to rarely blogging these days. My heart hasn't been in it lately because apparently my life is so entertaining people want to stoop to "stalking" ways. It's really sad to me to think that some people think you can control other people...you can't. It's not cool to be obsessive or possessive either, so you may as well give it up. After this post my blog will be kept as private. If you are interested in keeping up with me and Maddy...in a healthy way lol...then you will need to "follow" us on here.  Blogging is a great tool to record memories and I have already not been able to write all of our memories on here due to this one person, but that all changes. Anyways, I am done with my stalker rant now and will continue on to better things :)

I never posted Easter on here. I do not have many pictures from Easter due to a couple of reasons. I got to bed Saturday (Sunday) night around 12:30 a.m. I woke up Sunday morning at 2:43 a.m. feeling horrible. I could tell I was running a fever and really just felt horrible. I stayed up the rest of the morning wondering what in the world I was going to do. My entire family was coming to my church because my youngest niece wanted to get baptized on Easter. I couldn't miss that. I couldn't go to church but not play in the orchestra without my family wondering what was wrong with me. I couldn't not go to church for reasons I cannot say on here. I had no idea how I would make it through church because I had no strength and had no idea how I would even play my flute. I decided I would take some Tylenol and that would get me through until after church. Before I go on, let me say that I honestly thought all that was wrong with me was I had a cold or even just allergies. I figured out later that was not the case. I woke Maddy up around 5:45 a.m. so she could see her Easter basket and have a little candy before we had to get ready. We had to be at church by 7:15 a.m. (we normally have to be there by 8:15) to practice before the first service started. The orchestra played in both services, which is not something we typically do, so Easter was just very busy. Maddy has not been up that early since she was a baby. Trying to get her out of bed was worse than pulling teeth lol. I felt so bad having to wake her up so early. At first she wasn't interested in her Easter basket...she just stared at it. I sat down by it and she finally asked what it was. Funny story...a few days before Easter we were laying in my bed and she was looking around my room. I thought everything Easter was put up, but she pointed at a bag and said, "Look! my surprise!" I look at what she sees and there is her Easter basket that you can see through the bag. My heart sank. I jumped up and said, "Hurry!!! Close your eyes and lets go!" I know I totally did the wrong thing but I panicked. I almost bought her a new basket, but I decided throwing away money was not a smart idea. When she kept staring at her basket I couldn't help but wonder if she had remembered seeing it in my room. Oh well!  I was not thinking straight due to feeling so bad and only having 2 hours sleep and it didn't register to me to grab my actual camera to take pictures. I tried taking pictures on my phone, but right as I pulled the camera up my battery died. We made it to church which surprised me to be honest lol. Maddy looked so adorable! I was not impressed with the dress selections this year. I'm actually not impressed with any of the new fashion this year for Maddy. I found two dresses that were ok, but nothing gave me that "aha!" moment. I went with a peach colored dress and got her a little white cardigan to go over it. Maddy made the dress look so beautiful. I am now in love with her dress. Maddy was not cooperative in taking pictures this year. I snapped a couple. I'm hoping her spring pictures from school will showcase her dress better than what I was able to get. We spent the day at my mom's with my family and then had an Easter egg hunt.

Maddy was starting to shut down during both of these pictures. She was starting to pitch fits. After she ate her oranges she got mad and came running to me, crawled into my lap and next thing I know she is fast asleep. I treasure the moments she falls asleep in my arms because one day she is going to be all grown up and won't want to cuddle with mommy.

She kept rolling around on me and ended up all sprawled out lol. I could sit and watch her sleep for hours.

She woke up right as the easter egg hunt was about to begin. I was so thankful she got a good nap in! As the week went on I began to wonder what kind of cold I had. I mean I know there is only one cold, but this cold was knocking me dead on my feet. I was beyond exhausted. I felt like I had been given drowsy medicine around the clock. I had no appetite, but thought maybe my sinuses were draining into my stomach because I also felt a little nauseous. What scared me is my hands tingled something awful and I would feel like I was going to pass out and if I had not laid down I probably would have. I thought my blood pressure was elevated and I was about to stroke out because my lips went numb as well. Mind you this entire time I am working plus working my OT. The problem is I am on production so I was not meeting because I couldn't keep up and if you call in you get a mark against you and it affects your year end performance rating. I decided to call in on Thursday because there was no doing anything. I literally slept all day with the exception of taking Maddy to and from school and my mom dropping some soup off.I ended up calling her Friday night for help. She got hold of a blood pressure machine and my blood pressure was fine. Another symptom I had was the sweaty/clammy feeling all over. I told myself it felt like I had the flu or something, but I didn't think it was the flu. I didn't feel better until the following Sunday. I decided I probably did have the flu and was very thankful when it was all said and done.

My mom and step-dad got chickens so they could have all natural eggs and know they did not come from any kind of growth hormones. My mom took us down to see their new baby chickens and to let Maddy feed them.

I'm excited to say I am well on my way to getting back into shape. I fell off the weight watcher bandwagon with my back to back illnesses and realized I hadn't noticed any real change from the first week I started. I may have lost weight, but I don't keep a scale in my house and my stomach was not slimming down. I was still drinking at least two mello yello's a day and I felt like all the processed foods were not good for my body. I have definitely noticed how much my body has changed since I've had Maddy. It holds on to everything and weight doesn't fall off as easily as it used to. I am still an advocate of weight watchers, but I can't afford to buy all their foods ( not that you have to, it was just more convenient for me) and I felt like what I did eat, my body was just holding on to. I've read so many people that have cut out a lot of processed foods and everybody states it works. This last week I decided to do my own version of dieting and it has really helped. I am so happy to say I am down to only ONE mello yello a day and I've noticed that I could probably go all day without one. I don't drink enough water and I'm sure once I increase my water intake I will notice another difference as well. I do drink a lot of sweet tea, which I know is not all healthy but it is better than soft drinks and juices. I do drink some water. My diet consists of mostly salad. I know my body needs other nutrients as well so I usually have just a salad for lunch and then I make sure to eat some kind of protein for dinner. Most of the time I add protein to my salad because I just love salad. I don't put cheese on my salad, but do eat regular ranch salad dressing and put as much as I want on there. My stomach is loosing inches and I notice I am feeling better about myself. I got an unexpected mini vacation starting Friday of last week. I woke up Friday morning to my work computer not working. Windows just went kaput on it so they had to build me a new one. It is supposed to be here tomorrow. Yesterday I was able to do TWO Jillian Michaels DVD's. I did the six week six pack (I actually only did about 20 minutes) and then did Ripped in 30. I have several of her DVD's and honestly the Ripped in 30 is one of the best ones. It does work most of your muscles altogether. I am feeling the burn today in my stomach and other places lol. Once I get back into working nonstop I'm sure I won't be working out as often, but if I could keep up this routine then I would definitely be beach ready by July.

This is a really good white chicken chili recipe if you need one. I only put in a quarter of a teaspoon of red pepper so Maddy could eat it and it wasn't too hot.

Two weeks ago our pastor started church with these two bible verses. I was fighting back tears because it was as if God came down right in front of me and spoke to me. The music we sang that Sunday was everything I needed and I soaked in the words. That church service I felt as if it was just me and the Lord and I was so thankful that God cared enough about me and how I was feeling that day to give me just what I needed. God is good all the time! I think these verses are very fitting for the tragedy that happened in Boston. My heart breaks for the people that were injured and killed. One thing I know for sure is that God did not cause that to happen.

We had another severe thunderstorm risk last Thursday, and are expected to have another one this Thursday but I am not sure it will happen this Thursday...we will see. I snapped a picture of the storms rolling in. It wasn't too bad where I was, but my mom said it was pretty strong where she was at the time. I did end up losing power sometime after 12:30 a.m. last Friday morning so the winds must have gotten strong once I went to bed.

I snapped this picture yesterday of Manny. He loves to climb on Maddy's trampoline. He just stands on it most of the time. I'm glad I could entertain both of my children with just one toy lol.

One of the things I've been able to do while waiting for my computer to be shipped is clean up like normal people do. Maddy plays in her closet a lot. She pulls everything out to make room for her and her toys. I decided to make room for her play area in her closet. It was also a great place to store some of her toys because she is running out of room in her room. She has yet to play in there since I've set it up and didn't seem to thrilled to have her own space in there. Oh well...at least I tried lol.

 We went shopping Saturday. Our first stop was Old Navy. Maddy did so good for that trip. She let me put her in her stroller and we took her computer...she was entertained the entire time. The people in the store, however, were rude and every time I tried looking at something someone would plow me over to try to look at the same thing. I finally got tired of trying and decided to call it a day. We had two other stores to go to, but we got a late start and I wanted to give her time to play outside so I thought we would break it up. I decided to go to one of the stores to get our fruit bowl and then we could go home. Maddy stayed awake all the way until maybe a minute before we got to the store. We spent an hour and a half just sitting in the parking lot before we got our fruit :)

We did make it outside. I've enjoyed being able to spend more time with her while I've been off. I say this every time I have any time off, but I am very envious of all you stay at home moms. I know being a stay at home mom is hard...I really do understand that. Life is hard no matter what kind of walk you are in. I would rather my stress level be from staying home with my child, than to have it be from work. Again, I am very thankful to have my job...God has truly blessed us and proves time and time again He will take care of us. I do wish I was in a position to stay home with Maddy though.

I do believe this is a wrap for this post. I will be switching my blog to "private" so I can continue to record our special memories. I hope you all are having a great week so far and remember...only two more days until the weekend...if you read this on Wednesday :)