Right now

What I’m laughing at: Harris learning how to stand on his head—he stands his legs up while the front half of him is still on the floor, and it’s really funny!

What’s making me sore: I just started Tony Horton’s 10-Minute Trainer, and heavens to betsy, it’s hard!  I haven’t truly worked-out since, um….well…  there was that brief stint when Evelyne was about a year old, but that was over quickly… It’s really been QUITE some time since I’ve consistently pushed myself on a regular basis to exercise and stay in shape (like as in when I was engaged to my husband of five years!).  And I just had a baby 7.5 months ago which has left quite a bit of lingering weight, so these work-outs are requiring a lot of effort on my part.  It’s just 10 minutes, but it’s an INTENSE 10 minutes and I’m sore.

What I’m watching: Just finished the 4th season of Top Chef (Oh my gosh, what WAS Lisa still doing there at the end?!) and just discovered The Rachel Zoe Project.  (reality show about a fashion stylist to the stars)  Still diggin’ the Food Network.  Right now–How I Met Your Mother, Clay’s and my favorite sitcom.  The funniest show ever.

What I’m listening to: Elmo’s World and Little Einsteins (Evelyne just finished singing Elmo’s World, complete with her arm up in the air as she ended her performance on a crescendo.)

Where I’ve been: Outside!  We helped our neighbors throw a garage sale this past weekend, so I’ve been outside a lot lately.  It was fun to spend more time with the neighbors, and we made a little cash, too.  (a very little, like $30!  The first day I just broke even because I bought so many clothes for Harris and some pants for me.  Evelyne had a BLAST playing with the neighbor kids all day long, and now she asks to go outside when she first wakes-up in the morning because I think she assumes that there’s always a party happening outside our door.  Two of the neighbor’s nieces were here this weekend, and they’re 10 and 12.  The 10 year-old really took to Evelyne, and Ev LOVED her.  She spent all day playing with Ev and carrying her around on her hip (she wasn’t a whole lot bigger than Ev herself!), and Evelyne kept calling the girls “my sisters.”  We also had a cook-out (well, I guess people here call them bar-b-que’s, but I still can’t get my head around that since to me bar-b-que is a very specific food you eat, not the act of eating hamburgers.) out in the middle of the cove (another local difference, they call them cul-de-sacs here and think we’re hilarious for saying “cove”) on Sunday night and that was really fun.

What I’ve been eating:  Last night was a curried lentil stew that turned-out awesome (first time I’ve ever cooked lentils) and tonight was my first couscous.  Nothing fancy, people, just a bit outside of my boring box.

What I’m annoyed about: I went to the grocery store tonight at 8:30 specifically to get chicken on the last night of the 99 cents/lb. sale.  A sale I’ve been waiting weeks for.  They were out and I planned to ask for a raincheck (always ask for a raincheck!!!), but I got so distracted by my cheap Kashi cereal deal that I totally forgot and didn’t remember until I got home.  Now the sale is over and I’m out of chicken….but I do have a TON of cereal!

What I’m excited about: This weekend Clay and I are going away to Victoria, B.C. to celebrate our 5 year anniversary (that was last month).  We’re staying here , and although I don’t really know anything about Victoria, everyone keeps saying how awesome it is, and I’m excited to get away.  (I kept thinking about that this afternoon when I was wishing that I didn’t hear “Mommy?  Mommy?” every 15 seconds!)  My parents are coming to stay with the kids while we’re gone, and I’m excited to see them and for them to get to spend time with my beautiful babies.

What made me smile today: Harris blowing raspberries and spraying pureed broccoli/zuccini everywhere!  His little bottom lip pooches out when he does it, and it’s just the cutest thing I’ve ever seen!  Oh, and Evelyne’s new favorite thing to do is exercise with me, and she says that her favorite is “the one with just the girl, not the one with the boy and the girl.”  (which means she likes the Pilates from On Demand and not the Tony Horton video)  She asked to watch the Pilates video, and I told her that I had to go cook dinner, but she wanted to watch it by herself, so I put it on and she got down on the floor and tried to do it!  She did get frustrated, poor thing, and said, “Mommy, I can’t do it!”  It was really sweet and hilarious to watch!

What I’m reading: Positive Discipline: The First Three Years and Unconditional Parenting.  They’re both great.  I’ll hopefully be writing more about what I’m learning from these books and the others that I’m hoping to start soon.  Unconditional Parenting is really rocking my world right now in a great way.  I would say that the author pretty much shares most of my discipline paradigm, but he lays the philosophical groundwork in a way that’s deepening my own convictions and pushing me to search my heart in how I was raised and how I hope to raise my kids.  I’m really loving it so far.

Aaaaaaand…..that’s all!