Fab Friday

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Linking up with Laura at the Everyday Joys for a fab friday link up!

So let me fill you in on all the fabulousness going on around these parts:

• First and foremost- TGIF!!! Yeppers I have never been so excited for a friday in a long time! I need a break from work and kids and weekends mean I get at least an hour of peace in the daylight while the girls nap. You have no idea how precious that hour is!!
• I have already got the themes for both the twins' and Peyton's birthday party. Finally planning things ahead of time and I'm super excited about it! I even ordered the twins' dresses already and I can't wait for May and June so I can bring all my pins into reality! (I'll probably share some details before then though but here's a hint little sailor dresses are involved!)
• The scale no longer reads 1-6! Why hello there 157- it's so good to see you! Sdly I have not seen you since I was 18 weeks pregnant with twins but hey we are working our way down and hopefully I'll be back to my old clothes in a month or two! 
• I am back on the fitness train and uber committed. Yeppers- my fitness pal now logs EVERYthing I put in my mouth and Jillian Michaels is on my screen every night. 
• I bit into peer pressure and am jumping aboard the advocate cleanse along with almost everyblogger I know. I am starting Monday so look forward that post. Now I need to start meal planning.
• Also, I am seriously contemplating a hair color change. I am thinking highlights are in the works soon! I've been dark long enough! I use to always have highlights then I was pregnant for 1000 years and quit dying my hair and never went back. But I think I'm ready to become a little more high maintenance!

Well ladies, that's it for me! Hope everyone has a fabulous weekend! I'll be spending mine with these three cutie pies!!! Saturday morning gymnastics and then a whole lotta nothingness!

XOXO, Ally

Making it easy...

Okay. So I am now on day 3 of flying solo on the parenting train. I am learning things everyday that I need to change to able to make people think we don't live in a pigsty I'm superwoman.

First lesson I learned was laundry. yeah, three kids plus the man-child husband equals a sh!t ton of laundry to be washed and folded and on a good day actually put away. The worst thing my husband ever did was put a folding table in our laundry room. Before that table I would fold and stack clothes on the dryer and put them away when I got tired of playing jenga with the pile now I have even more space to stack clothes because I have a whole table! Hehe, he totally thought that would mean things would get folded and put away. Hey- at least they are folded. Anyways, now every morning I start a load, when I get home I move it to the dryer. Then once the girls are in bed, I fold it up and put it on the table away :) Then I sort the next load and put it in the washer to be started the next morning. This saves me from doing 8 piles of laundry on the weekend.

I usually have food prepared for my lunches but its not packed up so I usually have to gather it all up which of course takes time plus even longer when there are three little ones running around dumping their breakfast all over the floor and trying to stuff their banana in the baby's mouth. So, lesson of the day have my lunch packed so I only have to put my bag in the car!

And the unfortunate lesson of the day carry febreeze and anything I can think of to make cleaning up a child that just vomitted all over herself, her carseat and the car when you have an hour drive to drop her off at my dad's which is right by my work. yep, for those of you keeping score I drive an hour every day to get to work with usually 1 or 2 kids in tow. Sad 2 hours of my life wasted in the car but hopefully by the end of the year I will be working closer to home *fingers crossed*

And that folks are the lessons I've learned on my current journey into doing things for myself and because no post is complete without some cuteness here are my babies at bath time last night. If you all three of you follow me on IG then you already saw this pic (if you don't follow me there you should- @ali4mmia).

Single Parent Mode!!!

Holy sh!tballs people! Okay, I know not many of you know too much about my life YET but know this. I am sure if you read back you'll wonder how my husband sucks balls most of the time when it comes to parenting and he's still alive gets away with it. Well, the answer to that question is I have this LADY!!!

That would be my MIL!!! She lives with us. People ask me all the time isn't it weird living with your MIL? Without hesitation I can honestly say- Umm, Heck no!!! If you haven't noticed I've got my hands full with little ones. Yep, at one point I had three kids under 1!!! Now I just have three kids under 2- piece of cake really! Anyways, well she's leaving me for three weeks. My sister-in-law's husband is in the army and she's going out there to help her out while he is away at training. Which of course means no help at home- BOOO!!!

I am going to look at this as a challenge to see if I can reach super mom status but mainly my goal is to avoid having a nervous breakdown. Wish my luck ladies! Oh yeah, plus I'll try to manage some type of exercise plan seeing as though I am STILL at 160!!! Some body tell that effin scale to move already!!!!

Mother's Day Out

I will say today I am feeling more grateful than yesterday. I should say the hubs may suck at all holidays and indeed believes it is my job to do his laundry and my sole responsibility to care for our kids BUT some days thats not a bad thing. Like when it comes to major decisions- I don't have to argue or compromise I get to make the choices I feel are best for our children and well let's face it- most of us like doing things our way. (oh plus I can often guilt talk him into doing what I want such as the toughmudder this April)

One of the things I thought would be good for the girls is to start socializing more with other kids. Some moms get to do play dates, but this momma works 5 days a week which apparently are the only times all the mom groups here do playdates. I swear if I knew more people I would start a playdate for working moms (of course none of us would probably have the time to attend because let's face it getting off work, picking up the kids and then getting home to let them play, have dinner, baths, cuddle time and bed time leaves little time for showing up somewhere and fighting with them when I tell them it's time to go). Anyways, enter Mother's Day Out.

If you're new here and are wondering how I manage to take care of three kids when the hubs doesn't help me. Well, it's because I have the most AMAZEballs family in the whole entire world. Seriously, I would probably be in some mental institution if it wasn't for them. between my MIL (who lives with us), my dad and grandma who live by my job, and my mother who lives 20 minutes from my house I am fortunate enough to always have my kids with family who loves them! So the way I separate the girls is because I may take care of three kids under 19 months on my own but I would never expect others to so usually whoever has the twins- is just watching the twins and whoever has Peyton- only watches her. I however started to notice that the twins were getting sick of each other- i.e. fighting over things more often and even started to bite each other. My interpretation of this was they are sick of each other since they are always so kind to Peyton. I mean really- they have spent their whole lives together. they sleep in the same room and well every where they go there the other one is. So I have friends who take their kids to mother's day out and say it helps so much with socialization so even though I have free childcare, I decided that this was worth a shot. 

The girls attend mother's day out 2 days a week for four hours a day. I had high hopes that they would be learning so many new things and come back talking in full sentences. Well not so much but they do seem to get along better now. They seem to be more patient with one another and the biting has for the most part stopped. They share a lot more and even hug each other for no reason. It could be that they are just getting older and we all definitely work with them and stress for them to share and be gentle and sweet. They seem to love going and get so excited to carry their little book bags and lunch boxes. So my overall experience after starting in January is that this has been worth the money to me and that I will be enrolling them again for the coming school year. And I leave you with a few shots of my girls at school.

Waiting to go In!

 Playing on the Playground!

Sitting down, waiting for the Valentine's party!

-Ally

Just another day...

Okay, If you don't want to hear me whine about my life. Please feel free to skip this post. I promise you're not missing much. I just needed a place to get it all out.

I know many of you gals are either- Oooohh yeah Valentine's or its just another commercial holiday. I am going to be honest with you. I don't care about Valentine's day or any other holiday for that matter. Not because of me or any feelings I have about hallmark but because I don't do well with disappointment. You see my husband doesn't do anything for any holiday- not mother's day, not christmas, and not even my birthday.  I have really tried to accept these things and to be honest I was doing well for the most part until I got onto social media such as blogging and instagram because it's just a constant reminder of things I will never have. I will never have the husband who tells me he loves me or that he is proud of me. I will never have the husband who says thank you for anything I do. I will always be the wife that does it all by herself because I have no choice. I will be the wife who just tries to keep everything going. I am the only who does laundry or cooks, the only one who watches the kids I arrange their babysitting when needed, their school, and all their activities.

Sometimes, when you see I have taken a break from blogging its because seeing so many of you happy "normal" girls starts to take its toll on me. I sit around and wonder what it would be like to have a family outing. I am not talking vacation or anything like that. I mean I used to dream of taking my kids to the park as a family or going for walks as a family. Well,there is no family time. It's just me. Just a mom struggling to do the best she can to give my kids the kind of life and memories they can look back on. And yes my husband works (just FYi- I also have a full time job) that I get but the fact that he doesn't want to be there. He doesn't get excited when I tell him the girls said a new word or even when they started to walk. He won't even hold our youngest because he says she "drools too much".

On Valentine's, all I do is review my life and think how did this happen to me. I go back to our first mother's day 7 months pregnant with twins. I spent the majority of that pregnancy miserably sick and vomiting and peeing my pants with every heave (how come no one warns you about that).  And well I was really looking forward to Mother's day. I thought now that I am having his kids surely things will change. Well, you know what I got for Mother's day. I got told "You're not even really a mother". That haunts me to this day. And well every holiday after that was completely down hill.

Anyways, on that completely depressing note for those of you that somehow found it worth reading to the end- Happy Valentine's day. I hope your day is filled with the love you should experience all year round.

Tomorrow, I promise to be happier and less of a Debbie downer. I'll tell you about the twin's time in Morther's day out and their first Valentine's party.

-Ally

Weigh-In Wednesday

Okay, so technically its Thursday. And although I did not post last wednesday I did weigh in and I was done to 160.0. The 160's are haunting my like big time and yesterday at 160.2. UGH!!!!!! I can't stand to look at that 1-6 number combination any more. That's the weight I got down to after the twins. You know before I got pregnant 8 weeks after their birth and stopped losing weight altogether. I think my body thinks its supposed to be here and well I know I need to add major exercise if I want to break through this plateau but I just don't have the want. I start out with the best of intentions, I eat well but my exercise is scheduled for after the girls are in bed which is around 8ish (the twins go down everyday at 730) but the little one likes to stay up and play since her grandma lets her nap a lot during the day. So by the time I get her down I don't feel like doing anything. I just don't. I don't know what to do to get my butt in gear but I guess I better start figuring things out. If I ever plan to get into the 150's.

Oh, speaking of exercise. Guess what I did on Saturday. I ran a 5k. Yep, my first race and when I say I ran. I may not have ran fast but I ran the whole thing not walking once. I was scared I would totally suck @ss as I have never run outside only on the treadmill in the garage so everybody warned me that outdoor running and treadmill running are no where near the same. So I set my standards low of finishing in 45 minutes but nope I did it in 36:53 which I was proud of. I know there is so much room to improve but I am just proud of not walking and hope to find a love for running.

-Ally

Weigh-In Wednesday

Funny, I thought of doing weight watchers the meeting ones because then I would have people see me weigh in and I could shame myself motivate myself into staying on track. So why not just bring that motivation to my little old blog. Anyways, eating clean is going incredibly well- like I was offered McDonalds for lunch and didn't even hesitate saying no. I have come to really LOVE instagram- I follow a lot of really motivating people and it has really kept me going. I do however need to really up the exercise because I only ran twice this week so I intend to up my cardio to 4 times a week and 3 days of weights. Anyways on to the numbers:

Last week: 162.2
Today: 160.4
Down 1.8lbs!

So I know that doesn't seem like a lot but I know I am losing real weight and I am determined to do this the healthy way and not the crazy three day diet I did last time that got my to lose almost 8lbs in a week for my brother's wedding. I am totally creating a lifestyle here and I am really excited about. So one lb at a time I will get myself where I want to be.

Plus little eyes are watching. It's so cute I taught the girls to squat. When we are playing and I can't get a good workout in I'll just do squats or ab work while they play and well they must have thought the squats were some kind of game because now they do it whenever they see me do it. I showed the hubs and he couldn't stop laughing. he said "Mommy taught you guys to drop it like its hot" lol. Yep- no further motivation needed to get my fitness on point than six little eyes looking up thinking I wanna be like Momma.