Life Changing (I Hope)

I have been yo-yoing with my weight since Kaya was born, never coming close to losing all the baby weight.  I am tired all the time. I suck down coffee like it is water all day long. I eat processed junk.  So when I showed up at my last MOPS meeting and our Mentor mom was there looking 

FANTASTIC, I asked her how she made such a drastic change in the one month since I had last seen her.

The answer: The Whole30

(Google it if you haven't heard about it.) 

It wasn't just the weight she lost that tempted me, it was also the energy she gained. 

I start my first 30 days of clean eating (no gluten, no grains, no dairy, no sugar, no processed foods, no alcohol) on January 5th.  There are about ten of us I think, going at this together. My dear friend Ashley is doing it as well, being the dear friend she is.  There is zero cheating for this program to work. 

Here are a few of us the night before we started:

Goodbye truvia and creamer in my coffee. I will be forced to meal plan for the first time. I will be eating a lot of eggs.  I will do some posts about my experience, but I won't be documenting my whole journey.  

Excited to begin!

Christmas 2014, Part 1

Christmas started Sunday for us - my mom and her boyfriend hosted an early Christmas lunch at their place. We stuffed ourselves on fried chicken, then opened presents. My sister and her family were there as well and the cousins had fun.

Tommy wasn't feeling great on Christmas Eve, so Baba came over to stay with he and Kaya while Tom and I took Patrick to the 4:00 children's mass.  This was the first year P was old enough to participate in the mass as an angel or shepherd.  He was adorable.  

We had a quiet dinner at home, just the five of us (my dad, who normally spends the night with us, stayed clear until we knew what  germs Tommy had), and got the kids in bed around 8:00.  

Christmas morning, Tommy was the first one up just after 7:00.

Santa brought Blaze the horse for Kaya and he has been a big hit all around.  Tom and I both had one of these spring loaded horses growing up. 

Patrick decorated a ceramic plate at school for Tom and I, and also bought us each gifts at the holiday shop at his elementary school. What did he pick? Two jars of candy of course.  You can share them, he tells us :)

Patrick got a million Lego sets, as did Tommy.  Santa remembered two special requests - scotch tape for Patrick and a flashlight for Tommy.  Kaya found an Elsa dress and crown under the tree.

My mom and her boyfriend gave us this new star for our tree. 

Pap Pap with the kids.

Tom and I were contemplating whether we were much more exhausted this year, or if we just couldn't remember clearly a year back.  I only got half the decorations out, we didn't have tine to make cookies, and I was still wrapping presents on Christmas Day.  We stayed in our pajamas until 3:00.  The boys ate boxed sprinkle donuts for breakfast.  Tommy rejoiced at the return of his beloved security blanket (taken away when he was not being good), which he found wrapped under the tree. Patrick began a 48 hour Lego building binge. Truly, happiness and joy trumped the tiredness and we will remember this Christmas fondly. 

P.S. Tom and the boys got me a new camera lens, which I am still trying to figure out (this last photo was taken with the new lens)!

Our day continued with dinner at Baba and Grampy's house...

Downtown During the Holidays

If you aren't into Facebook, you may have been wondering where we have been hiding.  The week after Halloween, Kaya had her 15-month well check.  The doctor listened to her heart; perfect. Peeked inside her ears; good.  Checked out her mouth; uh oh. She was diagnosed with hand, foot, and mouth disease on the spot.  Over the course of the next week, Patrick and Tommy got sores In their mouths. I had a cold, which the doctor suspected was the same.  We had just recovered from that and our self-imposed isolation, when in enters the GI bug.  I started feeling bad, and about an hour later, Kaya threw up all over my mom.  Tom came home to me curled up in bed and as he was getting Tommy ready for bed, Tommy threw up. Poor guy was sick all night. I threw up while Tommy was throwing up. Patrick got it shortly afterwards.  We thought Tom had managed to avoid it, but two days later it hit him.  

We recovered from that, and Patrick came down with strep throat. Then Kaya has a sinus infection. Now we all have colds.  So two days before Christmas, I have nothing wrapped. Most of my decorations didn't make it up. We haven't made cookies. I just finished decorating the tree last night. 

We did make it downtown this past weekend with the kids to see some friends and check out the life size Nativity. 

Patrick and Kaya with Uncle Anthony

The Macy's windows didn't disappoint. They had beautiful, moving characters and lights.

My favorite- Pittsburgh in the background with fireworks going off.  

By chance, Tommy had to use the bathroom, so we ducked into Macy's and sought out the closest bathroom.  I was so excited to see the same scale that I used to hop on when my mom took my sister and I downtown when we were about Patrick's age. Tommy continues the tradition!

Halloween 2014

Before you start reading my post and think, "they have way too much time on their hands", you have to understand that Patrick had only one costume choice this year: Emmet Brickowski from the Lego Movie. It so happened that no company produced an Emmet costume for sale this year.  Things got a bit carried away, so I decided I might as well dress up with Patrick since Kaya turned out to be Tommy's sidekick.

It rained, AGAIN this year, but not as hard as the previous year. Kaya stayed home with Tom while I took the boys around the neighborhood (since his lawyer costume sucked and mine was pretty awesome).  Patrick paused at the bottom of every driveway and asked whether there was a dog. Every house. We also discovered that Patrick's Lego body came down just far enough that going up steps was nearly impossible. Oops. Tommy loved every aspect of trick-or-treating and surprisingly kept his Olaf head on the entire time.  

The second the boys and I left, Kaya went into meltdown mode. Apparently she was wise to the fact that she was being left behind while we raked in the candy. 

The bonus of having an older brother with a nut allergy: you get all his peanut laced candy.

Kaya chomping down on her first lollipop- Anna was her very first princess dress and she LOVED having it on. 

I loved my Wyldstyle costume (emmet's co-star in the Lego Movie) and it was super comfortable for trick-or-treat. Tom had a fire burning and hot chocolate ready for us when we arrived back home, slightly soggy. 

The Joy of Motherhood (It's Back)!

This summer, if you recall from my previous posts, was fairly bad on the coping with motherhood scale. The boys fought all day over the same toys, and Tommy seemed especially intent on doing the opposite of what I asked of him. 

This weekend though, watching them play in the leaves, I can hardly contain my enthusiasm at the difference in my kids that just a few months of school has brought about. At Tommy's parent/teacher conference Friday, his teachers had only the best things to say about him.  And, (are you sitting?) not a single tantrum. I am so, so proud of Tommy.  He is starting to look so grown-up these days, and I know my snuggle time with him will be over before I realize what happened.  He insists on holding my hand each morning we walk P to the bus, and I gladly let him. 

Patrick loves school. The girls love Patrick. At his school's open house last week, Tom and I were perplexed by the number of girls (and not just kindergarten) who ran up to hug him.  When we asked how he knows them all, he just shrugs his shoulders.  He comes home from school and sets himself up immediately at the kitchen table to do an hour or more of homework. That would be self-imposed homework.  He practices his letters, tries to spell out words (he got box all byhimself), and writes in his notebook.

This was a page he completed today, and below is one of his self portraits.

P started CCD this year too, so we haven't added many outside activities this fall.  Having her brothers around makes Kaya happy.  And me? My sanity has returned, and I feel like I can enjoy fall and all it has to bring.  

Halloween prep

The Pohl kids are getting excited for Halloween, and our costumes have been decided.  Tommy will be Olaf, Kaya will be Anna from Frozen, and Patrick- Emmet from the Lego Movie.  All great picks, but with one glitch.  You cannot buy an Emmet costume.  Despite the huge popularity of the movie, Lego has decided to not cash in on the windfall that they could collect if they would have manufactured an Emmet costume.  So begins another project.  I found great tutorials on the complicated process of making a Lego man head.  We opted to buy a large Lego Storage bin instead and cut out a large opening for the face so P will be comfortable wearing it for a whole night of trick-or-treat.

$31 on Amazon

We are going to try for some Emmet hair using foam insulation spray, but P also is set on having Emmet's red construction helmet.  After Tom and I had an in-depth discussion on what we could use to create the helmet., I found this on Amazon for $12. We decided it was worth the cost, so it is on the way to our house-

We didn't want to make Lego Man legs for P,  so I found these orange, fleece lined pants on sale at Gymboree:

Hoping they turn out to be the right color orange, but they have not arrived yet.

That leaves the cardboard body which we will make and then paint to look like Emmet's shirt, the Lego man hands, as well as the hair we will construct.  I want the hair/helmet to be removable from the Lego head like real Legos so that we can reuse the Lego head for future Halloweens. This costume is not going to be cheap, so the more we can reuse, the better.