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Today, June 29th, marks the estimated delivery date that my doctor originally gave me, had I been pregnant with a singleton. At just 6 weeks pregnant, we discovered we were having quads, so this date was quickly replaced with our goal delivery date of May 18th (34 weeks). Just thinking about my babies today (everyday, actually) and wishing they were here...

fondant night

I went to a cake decorating party tonight and made this brithday cake!

week 5

Time for another Jog Blog update! This time, I have good news! Thanks to that iPhone app, I've really cracked down and started carefully tracking my calorie intake and calories burned, and it's working! I'm down 4 pounds! In order to get to my "ideal weight" I want to lose another 3 or so pounds, so in about 3 more weeks I will reach my goal! Once I get there, I will adjust my intake to then maintain my weight.

The great thing is that I haven't had to sacrifice anything. I've pretty much eaten what I want, but I've just been making smarter choices; cutting portions and excess cals where I can. It's that easy! I still budget for meals out (because they are always more cals that I eat at home) and deserts for special occasions. One thing that this has helped me to do is just incorporate something active into my day, everyday. Because let's just face it, I don't have time to go to the gym every day or go to Pilates, SO at a minimum, I'll go walk the dogs for 15 minutes, or something! It all helps!

The real calorie test is when you're traveling and you're forced to eat out! What I did is try to research what's fairly good for me at the restaurant that I'm going to, so that afterwards I don't get any surprises. Like finding out that a Blooming Onion is 1,100 cals! Not that I'd eat the entire thing, but still, those facts are good to know before you head out to eat.

I recently heard of an upcoming 13k/5k run at Universal Studios. It's a night run through the park. I plan to sign up for it. It's in October, so I'll have plenty of time to train for it. Any locals want to do this with me??

Seven and Romie don't look to excited, but I am! :)

site for grieving dads

Nan had the great idea to start a forum for grieving Dad's, so if you know of any please pass this information along...

Grab This Button

say hello to my little friend

I mentioned a few weeks ago in a post that I went to the Dermatologist to get a mole check. Well, it turns out the 2 out of the 4 moles I had removed were "questionable". The doctor described them as dysplasia - irregular cell formation. Ugh! Basically areas with dysplasia can develop into melanoma, so I am glad I got it checked when I did. It's all about early detection! Now I have to go back to the Derm and get the some additional skin around those sites removed, just to make sure they got it all. I am dreading having this done, so my mommy has agreed to come along to my appointment for moral support.

I typically use sunblock when I am spending time out in the sun, but not on a day-to-day basis, so now I'll be changing that. The Florida sun exposure seems more intense than in other areas, so I need to be extra careful. If you don't already use sunblock daily, I hope you'll learn from my mistakes, and start!

~Lauren

mini meatloaf!

On my long drive home this afternoon, I thought up a delicious dinner idea that's healthy and nutritious! Mini Meatloaf!

Ever since I tried making Stuffed Turkey Burgers, and they came out raw in the middle... Josh has been very anti-ground turkey. So tonight I thought I'd add in some ground turkey breast to try and get him comfortable with it again.

(I forgot to take a pic of the final product, so the picture below is one I snagged from the internet. What a bad blogger of me!)

Mix 3/4 lb. lean ground beef and 1/4 lb. ground turkey breast

Add a chopped green pepper and half of a white onion

Mix in bread crumbs, 1 egg, worcheshire sauce, a squirt of ketchup, salt & pepper

Form into large patties and place on a baking sheet

Bake at 350 for about 35 minuets

Mmm-mmm! It was tasty! I'd recommend serving it with baked red potatoes and/or a side of veggies. I think some French Fried Onions would be delicious if piled on top of the patty's too. Just a side thought. Enjoy! :)

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week 3 - 4

Can you believe it's been 2 whole weeks since I last posted about my attempts at my Jog Blog? Now that we are settled into our new house, I am able to get onto a more regular workout schedule. I've been going to pilates twice a week, and going to the gym here and there. No real significant weight lost as of yet, but I am feeling a little better.

My friend LaurenB introduced me to a great iPhone app for tracking your calorie intake. I've tried many other ways to do this, but this is by far the easiest and most accurate! And, did I mention the app is FREE? Yep! I've never paid for an iPhone app before. I always download the free ones, but I would actually pay for this one! It's called Lose It. When you first download it, you enter in your weight, goal weight, and how aggressively you want to lose the weight. I have mine set at 1 pound per week, so it tells me that I'm allowed to eat about 1500 cals per day. Then, you enter in all the foods you eat at each meal, and record your exercise. The great thing is, when you exercise, you get the calories back that you burned and can eat if you need to without going over your daily allotment! It really has helped me realize what areas of my normal diet cost me the most calories and where I can make some cuts.

This is what I've entered in for the day. It records breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. I still need to enter the glass of wine I have in front of me. It's not fair that wine counts towards your calories!

One nice thing about this app, is that it's really easy to search for foods that you've eaten. You can enter in custom foods, like a Lean Cuisine where you know all the nutrition facts, or you can just search for the item.

Overall, I eat healthy, I am just trying to trim down and lose those last stubborn 7 pounds. This view helps me to see what I've eaten, and how much I have to go for my daily budget. Since I worked out today, I am still under 534 cals! Successful day!

Download it and try it out. I'd like to hear what you think of it! Like I said - It's free, so if you have an iPhone or iTouch, you can get this!

One diet style that I will never conform too is a low-carb or no carb diet. To me, that is just crazy! I love my bread and pastas, plus I need that energy that it gives me. The other day at the grocery store, I found these new sandwich rolls that are called "thins". They are super thin, but still give you enough bread to make a sandwich. I first tried them with some homemade hamburgers one night. It was just enough bread, that I didn't feel like I was missing anything. They also make great sandwiches! They come in whole grain, so you get plenty of fiber, while it being only 100 cals per roll! Yay!

I don't mean to sound like a big commercial here, but these are just some cool things that I've come across lately that I wanted to share with you all! Enjoy! :)

cable & closets

Thursday was another busy day at Casa Verde! So busy that I didn't even have time to post about it until now! Besides me doing demos and making phone calls while working from home, the cable guy and the custom closet guys were here installing! I normally wouldn't be all that excited about cable being installed, but we tried living without it (for the past week) here at the new house, and it sucked! Without cable we had about 5 clear stations. Plus, with the TV lineup changing for the summer season, I had no idea what was coming on without the trusty cable guide! I don't think of myself as a big TV watcher, but I do enjoy watching a few shows while relaxing in the evening. And I definitely enjoy my reality shows on E!, MTV, TLC, Discovery, etc.

Getting cable hooked up really isn't exciting at all when it's followed by CUSTOM CLOSETS!! Our new house has a huge master bedroom closet, but all it had in it was one wire rack for hanging clothes. What a huge waste of space! Josh spoiled me before at our last house with an awesome closet, so in the new house, we had to do it too!

Before, with the single-hung racks, we had about 14 feet of hanging space, no drawers, and no shoe storage. Now, our closet has double-hung rods that give us 27 feet of hanging space, 12 drawers, and room for 40+ pairs of shoes! There is also a tie rack, a belt rack for our belts and my scarfs, and a valet rod! We don't have to have any dressers in our bedroom; the closet holds it all!

Isn't it beautiful!?!

Today, we got the pleasure of babysitting Cameron, while his parents went to see a movie! He was such a good boy! He played, drank a bottle, and even did a poopie! Cameron, you are welcome back any time!!

pool bath

I've wanted to participate in Kelly's Korner - Home Tours, but since we've been in the middle of moving for the past few weeks, I haven't had any rooms available to be photographed. This week, she's doing bathroom tours. It's fun to look at other people's rooms, to see different tastes and get decorating ideas.

This is my new "Pool Bath". We don't have a pool (maybe, one day), but that's what the builder calls this room. It's the one bathroom located on the first floor.

Please excuse the poor quality pictures. I took these with my iPhone because Josh keeps leaving our camera in his car! This door goes from the bathroom out to the the lanai. I've been meaning to frost the glass, or put up blinds or something for privacy. I will get to that soon!

In this corner of the pool bath, is the shower. Adding this shower to the bathroom was an option, but we thought it'd be useful for guests.

The vanity... very exciting! I had to take this at a weird angle, so I wouldn't be in the mirror reflection.

And lastly, a picture of the beautiful tile. This is the flooring for the entire downstairs living area. I love it! I used the colors in it as inspiration for the paint colors in the whole house.

I will show off the Master Bath another time. We are still working on putting up vanity lights, so when it's complete I will post pics.

shadow boxes

My friend, Allison, and I worked our butts off on Friday night hanging pictures and placing accessories around the new house. It's a lot of work decorating a new house, but I love it. It's so rewarding seeing everything put together. My main focus was to get the first floor all set up and looking complete, but in addition to that we also hung the shadow boxes that I made for The Green Beans in the hallway upstairs. I've been looking forward to finally getting my shadow boxes hung since I put them together weeks ago.

I used some random items that I got for each baby from their TGH memory boxes, and some other items that I collected for them. All of the shadow boxes contain the baby's little outfit and hat that they wore the night they were born. But other than that, they are all a little different and unique.

Heidi Michelle ~

For Heidi's box, I included a note that Josh's cousin sent us. It reads, " I know Gram's is smiling down on us with her hands full..." I just loved that idea of his grandma in heaven holding little Heidi, and it gave me peace when we lost her. I also included an Angel pin that was given to me, and since Heidi was our first angel, I put that pin in her shadow box.

Lily Nicole ~

Lily's box is unique because she was the only one that had the card made of her hand and feet prints. I also included a little handmade card that was sent to us with lilys on it.

Paige Elise ~

Paige's box includes a saying that was part of her TGH memory box that reads, " When someone comes into our lives... and they are too quietly and quickly gone, they leave footprints on our hearts... and their memory stays with us forever". I love that little saying.

Rylan Otto ~

Rylan's box contains a card with his birth weight and length on it that reads, " The memory of your smallness fills my heart with the blessing and the reality of you".

I love that saying too :)

And finally, here is all four of them together on the wall. I picked this particular place in our new house because this is the hallway that you walk down to go to the kid's rooms. I hope one day we will be walking down that hallway to our babies in their rooms, while passing the shadow boxes and remembering our Green Beans.

happy birthday!

I'd like to give a shot out to my wonderful husband on his birthday...

Happy Birthday, Babe!  

I love you lots!

spic and span

As most of you know, Josh and I moved this past week in to our new house! We are still living in a sea of boxes, so once I get though more of them, I will post some pics. Anyway, moving into the new house means renting out the "little house". We've lined up a family to start renting our home next week, so on top of all the work we're doing on the new house, we had to have the little house spic and span too. Throughout the past week, my parents, Josh, and I have been cleaning where we can, but yesterday I went there for a final time to vacuum and mop the floors. I did my usual sweep, vacuum, and mop regiment on the wood floors and tile areas. That usually works fine for me. It gets the wood looking nice and shiny and gets the dirt off the tile... So I thought! This time, I decided to get down on my hands and knees and scrub each and every tile to give it a deep cleaning. I want to leave the house in excellent condition, so that our renters will want to do the same (I hope!). When I started scrubbing, I discovered what filth we were living with this whole time! It's amazing what a scrubber brush, 409, and some elbow grease will do!

Check out my nasty, dirty tile before...

During...

and after...

Wow! I was so happy that all that scrubbing made such a difference, but at the same time, I was disgusted that we were living on that dirty floor all this time! Gross!

picture perfect

Look at what my lovely blogger friend, Sarah, sent me today. A
picture of rose pedals with our baby's names on them! I will always
treasure anything that reminds me of my "Beans", so thank you very
much!!