Fitbit

As hinted at in a previous blog, I became the proud owner of a Fitbit yesterday for my birthday.  You may recall that I briefly mentioned how neat of a little gadget this thing is.  Some may call it a glorified pedometer, which it is more or less, but it's completely high tech.  You wear it like a pedometer but it keeps track of your steps, mileage, and flights of stairs.  It also tracks how much sleep your getting.  You wear it on your non-dominant wrist and hit a little button when you're going to sleep and then hit the same button when you wake up.  It can tell if you are awake or asleep based on your movements.  The best thing about all of this is that it tracks all of the data on the web so you can go to your dashboard and view your stats at any time.  Not only that, but you can "friend" other people that have one and make it a competition of sorts to see who can walk the farthest, etc.  This is a great motivator for me!  They (whoever "they" is) say it's good to do at least 10,000 steps a day and I've done 10,132 today and that's without really trying to do a bunch.  I also found it interesting that I've gone up my stairs 20 times today.  Now all those trips up and down can at least count for something!  Anyway, I think at $95 this is a great investment and I encourage anyone to go out and get one so we can compete.  You can view it on Amazon by clicking here.  And no, I'm not getting paid to say all this :)

Okay, back to regularly scheduled programming...last Sabbath was an uneventful day at church.  Saturday night, however, was out of the ordinary in that Duncan and I had a date night out while Grandma and Grandpa came over to babysit.  Since I didn't want to deal with the whole pumping/bottle thing, we didn't go out until about 8:00 so that I could feed Brady for the night right before we left which worked out perfectly.  We wanted to go so a movie but because it was so late, we didn't have have enough time to eat out and do a movie so our dining experience consisted of eating in the food court of the Fashion Square Mall.  I was very happy with that though.  I haven't eaten there in ages so I was surprised to see a new restaurant they have there called "The Green Day Cafe" which has a lot of healthy vegetarian options like salads, wraps, soups, and a personal favorite, hummus.  This is the kind of place that I'm always wishing there were more of like when you're driving from here to Boston and your options are McDonald's, Burger King, Taco Bell, etc. exit after exit.  They only have two locations so it isn't exactly a chain but here's hoping it becomes one.  Anyway, after that delicious meal, we went and saw "Mission Impossible" which I thought was excellent which was a good thing since this was one of my two movies I basically see a year and you would hate for it to stink.  We returned home at about 11:30 to the report that everything had gone perfectly at home.

First time with braids (albeit, very tiny ones)

Back view

After we got home, it was to the kitchen to prepare for our outing the next day.  Sea World and Busch Gardens are having a special this year in that kids five and younger can go to their parks for free (usually it's two and under) so we decided to get passes again.  Our old passes had expired in May and we hadn't pulled the trigger on new ones yet.  Since many friends also have the passes, it was a no brainer.  We hit up First Watch as usual in the morning, where the Bergherms joined us, and then it was off to Sea World for a few hours with the aforementioned Bergherms and Isidros.  The weather was fantastic and there are barely any crowds in mid-January so it was a really perfect day.  We didn't have to wait in any lines for any of the kid rides which made up most of what we did.  I keep vowing that I'm going to go on the "new" roller coaster, Manta, but it still hasn't happened.  Along about 1:30 we started wearing down so we decided to call it a day and took off to the van where our lunch awaited us for the ride home.  Unfortunately Brady couldn't eat while we drove so it was impossible to keep him awake.

Daddy pulling double duty.

The first time that the polar bear has ever been awake while we've been there.

No hands!

Love those little feet!

We were only planning to be at the park for a few hours anyway but we also had the motivation to get home to watch the Patriots vs. Ravens football game which started at 3:00.  This was the first game this year that we actually watched in real time and boy, do I HATE commercials.  I kept forgetting and reaching for the remote to fast forward.  David, Yully, Megan, and eventually Ron and Elaine joined us for the game and boy, it was sure intense.  We were up and down, screaming, yelling, you name it.  I think the kids were completely confused at what was going on.  But at least we all were happy when the kicker missed the field goal at the end to send the Pats to another SuperBowl.  Happy times!  

Monday morning we were off, once again, to the Orlando Repertory Theater, to see "Pinkalicious."  It's a musical based on the book of the same name.  It's about a girl who loves pink and she eats so many pink cupcakes that she turns pink with the solution being to eat more green veggies.  We've read the book so the girls were especially excited to go see it.  We were joined by our usual crew of Jennifer and the boys, Heather Hilliard, who organized it, and then most exciting of all, Ashley Whitaker with Macey and Marley, and the triplets!  They have been at church the last two Sabbath and then Jennifer was able to convince them to come to the show.  The triplets, Will, Price, and Molley, are fourteen weeks old and they were perfectly well behaved.  She did bring her mother-in-law to assist as I can't imagine going out by yourself with infant triplets and two other kids. Calleigh, who by her own admission, does love to play with the boys, was suitably thrilled to have Marley there and the two of them sat in the same seat for the whole show.  Afterwards, we all went to a playground in Winter Park where we had lunch and pink cupcakes that Jennifer made.  Fortunately, I did not turn pink despite downing more than my share of them (they were mini ones, in my defense).  

Look at Aubree posing!  Seriously.

The girls and Marley

The triplets just hanging out at the playground.

Tuesday was a quiet day with a trip to Walmart and the green playground.  Wednesday we added some excitement by going to the Maitland Park with Jennifer and the boys.  The kids all had great fun, as usual, although there was a small incident involving some sticks and poking of a little girl.  It appears that Calleigh may have been the culprit behind it but neither Jennifer nor I saw what happened so who knows.  Regardless, all the kids apologized to the girl and a little later, the girl and Calleigh were playing together so apparently all was well.  We brought a picnic with us so that capped off the good time.  

You can't really see it because it's so small but the girls ran way across the grass to the other end.  When they were coming back, Calleigh was way ahead of Aubree and Aubree started to cry that she was left behind so Calleigh went back and held her hand all the way back.  I wish I had a sister!

They finally let go at the very end.

Yesterday was my 36th (yikes!) birthday so to make it special, the kids and I met Duncan at First Watch for lunch.  Yes, I know some may wonder how we aren't sick of that place but we always go for breakfast, not lunch, and plus, it's perfectly situated between Duncan's work and our house so it worked out well.  First Watch actually had an amazing, if not the best, grilled cheese I've ever had so I was pleased to have the opportunity to order it. On our way, we stopped at the Minnehaha playground for a bit to get in at least a little playtime. 

It's been months since we went to Minnhaha and Aubree was excited that she could do more things since last time.

We've come to the realization that Aubree is much slower than Calleigh when it comes to food going in and out.  Duncan took Calleigh and Brady out while I had to sit at the table and wait for Aubree to finish her meal.  She does not get this trait from me.

In the evening, Ron and Elaine came over and brought supper, a cake, and some gifts.  I got the Fitbit from Duncan and they gave me a really great backpack for a laptop where you don't have to take the laptop out when you go through airport security.  I had completely forgotten I had wanted one so it was a pleasant surprise to get it.  

The girls were funny about my birthday.  When I mentioned it to them the morning of and asked Calleigh if she wanted to wish me a happy birthday, she refused and said she couldn't do it because it wasn't the party yet.  O-kay.  Then, for the rest of the day, they kept asking to do things they don't normally get to do because it was my birthday such as "Mommy, since it's your birthday and it's a special day, can we watch a show on TV?"  or "Mommy, since you're getting presents, I think you should be giving us presents too."  Clearly they don't understand how this birthday thing works exactly.

This morning was a bit of a crummy day outside so the only yard sale we went to was a giant rummage sale they were having at a church in Winter Springs.  Sometimes rummage sales can be junky but this one is always good every year.  I told the girls that they could each get a little something and that ended up being a real problem.  They couldn't figure out what to get.  Then, Aubree grabs this green rubber ballish type thing that she saw lying under a table.  Well, that set Calleigh off.  She insisted that she had seen it first and she was just about to grab it.  She wanted that to be her thing to get but Aubree had already declared it was what she wanted to get.  That $0.25 ball became a thorn in my side for the next 30 minutes.  Calleigh starts crying and she literally cried for the rest of the time at the sale, which became instantly shorter than what I had planned.  The only way I got her to stop was when we were walking to the van and a bunch of people came out of the church part carrying a casket and crying.  I said "See, someone died.  Those people have a real reason to cry."  That shut her up really fast.  As you can probably guess, within a few minutes of being in the van, the toy became completely forgotten and it's barely gotten looked at since then.  

This afternoon, Aunt Lori arrived from Cape Cod.  She's here for the next 10 days attending some sort of health summit being put on by the church in Lake Mary.  She's staying with David and Yully for at least part of the time.  The girls were very excited to see here.  She's going to be pretty busy with the summit but we'll at least see her here and there and most definitely for the SuperBowl.  

I've made some progress on the Brady sleeping front.   I say "I've" but I don't know that I've really done anything per se.  Several mornings this week he slept in until after 7:00 although this morning it was back to 6:20.  Fortunately, the afternoon nap is back in session and he's been sleeping at least two hours.  We did have a "cry it out" for about 40 minutes one of the days before he gave in.  As far as his weight, things are looking up.  I weighed him Tuesday and he was up to 14 lbs, 15 ounces which is in comparison to 14 lbs, 4 ounces two weeks prior.  I'm feeding him solids two to three times a day so it appears to be helping.

Aubree has had a change in her sleeping regimen this week.  Pretty much every day either Calleigh or Aubree will ask me if Aubree can stay out of her crib for either naptime or at night.  Usually I always saw 'no' but after Calleigh threw a "Please, please, please, pretty please, please" at me, I gave in on Wednesday night. We set up both of there sleeping bags on the floor and although there was no fighting (never a given), they probably didn't get to sleep until at least 10:00, probably later.  Calleigh had actually napped on Wednesday (after the park with the boys) so that didn't help.  Unfortunately Aubree woke up around 2:00, probably because she had rolled all over the floor and I had to put her in her crib.  Same problem last night.  So tonight, I'm going to just put her into her crib when I go to bed.  I don't know how long we'll continue this or if we'll just convert Aubree's crib to the toddler bed or what.  I don't think I'm quite ready for that step (we didn't do it for Calleigh until she was three and a few months).  

This week I found myself in awkward situations with Calleigh.  We were watching House Hunters and the episode was about these two guys looking for a place.  My first thought was "How fun. Roommates." and then it quickly transitioned into them hugging and talking about getting married.  CLICK.  Faster than you can say jack rabbitt!  I'll chalk that one up to "Things I'm Not Yet Ready to Explain."  When is the right time?  I don't know.  But it seems like four is a little too soon.  Then, tonight, I was reading the story of Joseph and it talked about how he was put in jail for doing "something he didn't do."  Of course, Calleigh asks "What did he not do?"  And I'm like "Uhh, ummm, uhh. Well, umm, (thinking quickly), they said he did some things that weren't nice to the man's wife."  That seemed to satisfy her.  

On that note, I will call it a night.  I need to go check-in with my Fitbit and climb my 21st set of stairs.  Happy Sabbath!

A few other pictures...

Calleigh's snack "set."  She set this all up but wouldn't eat any of it until Aubree woke up from her nap.  

A little boy and his dog.  He loves Dewey!

Duncan has been playing around with different iPhone picture apps.