Taking the Scenic Route

Although I didn’t hit the goal I was wanting to (to be under 200lbs), I did hit a milestone today at a 50lb loss, but more importantly, I got a phone call from my Dr. My A1C levels came back at a 5.2! (“normal” is 6ish, and higher being pre-diabetes, then higher yet is diabetes.). That means I am doing a lot better at controlling it (I am not on insulin, and don’t have problems with hypoglycemia at this point, which can lower the number in a “bad” way). My blood pressure is good (not fabulous, but good), and although my cholesterol is within normal range, my HDL (the good one) is too low of a percentage, so I need to address that now too. However, it is likely that if I keep exercising and sticking to the new eating habits, it should shift into a more healthy balance. My cholesterol level isn’t severe enough to be medicated, just monitored at this point. (however, at this point I am staying on the metformin, which helps with the PCOS)

So, today I got the gift of empowerment. Feeling like my efforts are finally starting to pay off. It feels damn good.

For my birthday dinner we went to Il Vincini, our new favorite place.  Dad wasn’t able to make it because he is sick, so we missed him, but it was really great to finally meet Nora, Steve’s new friend.  She seems like such a neat person and I can’t wait to get to know her better.

So, for my birthday, the three ladies had a Menage a Trois.  lmao.  What a hilarious name for a wine.

Everybody had pizza, except me, who had an awesome salad.

It is so good to see my brother happy again.

It was a great dinner, although we all agreed that I can’t possibly be turning 40 in a week.

Mom and Dad came up (thank goodness the weather allowed) and had a surprise for Zane.  Chuck E Cheese!

We had fun, and even though the place was crowded (obviously not the only people with near-Christmas birthdays that decided to go out), he had a blast.  No meltdowns, and an actual smiling face.  (when he gets overwhelmed, even if he is happy, he has a fairly flat expression…you really have to know him to know that he is happy when he gets like that).  That, in itself, made it a fabulous birthday for us.

We had pizza and hung out there for over 3 hours.  Zach and Zane headed off together, and Mom and Zora headed towards the littler kid area.  Dad and I floated between the two groups.  It was SO much fun to see both the kids having such a blast.

There was a “sketch artist” booth that we sat down in, and he giggled as he watched the computer “draw” our picture.

And Zora got her picture taken with Chuck E Cheese too.

Then we went home, opened the gifts (“Tech Deck” stuff & wii Super Mario Bros. game from us, big Mario figures from Zora, a Sequence game from Grandma & Grandpa, and a colorful Ball of Whacks from Grammie) and it was time for the cake and ice cream.

Zane requested another Mario Bros. cake.

And the all important candle placement…

And time to blow out the candles!

I can’t believe I have been a Mom for eight years now.  I have now officially been a mom longer than I was dealing with trying to be one. (if you don’t count the surgeries and stuff since I was 12-13yo to preserve my ability to have kids).  Awesome!

Happy Birthday to my favorite son.  You make me proud every day.

Birthday party time!  Oma and Opa (my parents) came to the birthday party.  Originally Robert’s family was going to come at the same time, but since Robert had a bit of a cold he didn’t want to give to my dad, they offered to come after my parents left.  We had a lot of fun with them too, but my camera batteries died, so there aren’t any photos of that part of the celebration.

To start off, Zane wanted me to get all weepy with the utter cuteness of his present label:

I had a beautiful outfit laid out for her to wear, but she had other ideas and it was not a battle I had any intention of fighting on her day.  She topped it off with a “bow tie” to complete the look. 

While the pizza is in the oven, we decided that Zora had been tortured long enough and let her open her gifts.  She started with Zane’s gift.  (the dinosaurs she has wanted for a while).

She got a play pizza from Grammie, and a play birthday cake from us.

Oma and Opa got her an apron and “make” book (recipe book)

After the pizza (hence the pizza mustache), the CAKE!  She wanted a “Super Car Cake” with a pink car. (She kept eyeing the Dale Earnhart cake in the store, but you could not pay me enough money to look at a Dale Earnhart cake in my home.)  We were going to do more with it, but we have never worked with fondant before and it took longer than anticipated, so the finish line, flags and other details got left off. (and I forgot to get pink frosting for the name.  ah well)

And, the playing commences.

It was a great birthday.  Mom and Dad had to head out fairly quickly to dodge the blizzard on it’s way, but Robert’s family came and Zora and Eylish had a ball playing with her new play food, dress up, and watching a princess movie.  Awesome day, and wore our birthday girl out.

She was so excited to bake her cake, I couldn’t resist grabbing the camera to memorialize it.  She chose Strawberry flavored cake and, although we helped her with measuring ingredients, she is the one who did most of the mixing.

My proud little baker.

We sat around the table, laughing and telling stories for a few hours. It was magical.

And, on her last evening here, Zane snuggled up with her on the couch. Zane doesn’t do this with very many people, so it was a really special momment.

We had SO much fun. We smiled and laughed so hard our faces hurt. It was a dream come true for me.

#192: Happy Birthday Zach! (take two). This is the first time my whole family and Zandra got together. It was also the first time Steve and Zandra met each other. The kids seemed amazed and very excited to see everybody together, and the two Grandmas had a ball, laughing heartily and giving each other the giggles. These are the only grandchildren for both of them. They agreed that they were the best grandkids in the entire world. (they are ya know). lol. It was absolutely wonderful. A day I dreamed would happen, but didn’t ever think would actually come to pass.

There are a crazy number of photos of supper. The first one was taken by the waitress and is annoyingly blurry, but I think I got enough to make up for it.

Then, we went back to our place for birthday cake….to be continued.

#192: Happy Birthday Zach! Zach was excited to spend his birthday with his mom for the first time in years. It was a lot of fun. In the evening we went to Carrabbas.

Naturally, I couldn’t stop with one picture. lol.

His is about 4 months late, mine is a few days early. It was great. Mom and Dad took us to Olive Garden and we had a lot of fun talking and joking.

My handsome brother

Scrunching up her face in response to an offer to try a lemon wedge

Grandma sat in between her two favorite (only) grandkids, and they kept her busy during the meal.

And, when we got back home, in Zora’s attempt to get us to go back out again, put on every piece of jewelry she has. Silly girl.

Zane wanted a Mario theme for his birthday. I could not find any Mario themed birthday stuff anywhere, online or otherwise. When I was at the Party Store (where I get balloons and plates and stuff), there was another mom there with a boy who was turning 6 on the 27th also, who wanted a Mario theme for his birthday party and we lamented the lack of Mario stuff. In passing, she said something about how weird it is because it seems like kids always want the same themes at the same ages. I know it was just a passing comment to her, but to me it almost made me bawl. I remember another time standing in line with my Thomas themed stuff and another parent was commenting that her 2 year old liked Thomas too. It is so cool that he likes stuff that is age appropriate. I know that might not always be true in the future, but I enjoyed the comment anyway.

Anyway, I got “Mario” colors, plus orange (his current favorite color), and some stars (there are stars in the games) and hoped that he would see a theme in it. He did. When I asked him which hat he wanted at his place setting, he wanted “Mario Party Red”. Score!

Usually I do the cake decorating if we don’t order a cake (which we often do simply because the holidays are too busy for me to have the energy and patience to decorate cakes), but since Zach is better at drawing Mario, he wanted to do it. It was the first cake he has ever decorated. We ran into several problems along the way, the main one being that we didn’t get enough icing (and I really didn’t want to make icing), so we had to cobble together several of the leftover cookie decorating icing with the stuff we got for the cake. I was also reminded that our oven is not leveled, which resulted in one corner of the cake being about a centimeter thick, and the opposite corner being a good 1.5-2 inches. The thing that made it worse was that the second cake wasn’t quite as uneven, so even when we moved the layers the other way, it was still really uneven. (and I did not really want to go to the work of cutting off the top to make it more even because I don’t really have the appropriate tools to do it easily). It was a little goofy. By the way, Zane wanted Strawberry cake, so we were also dealing with an odd color to try and cover up with frosting.

The most important thing to know here is that Zane loved the cake. Even Zora loved the cake and was excited about it. Had we paid for it, it would be a candidate for Cake Wrecks, but since it was lovingly made by a Dad who had never decorated a cake in his life (and declared “frosting is a lot harder to work with than paint!”), I think it is a masterpiece and I love it.

The guest list was the same as Zora’s party, except that Robert’s wife stayed home.

Zane was a little overwhelmed after the week of festivities, and then the blow horns I chose happened to also be noisemakers (unbeknownst to me…I know, stupid, but I didn’t realize those things could make noise) and the other kids were blowing them like crazy. I finally had to put a stop to it and they were kind enough to stop it for him. He took refuge with Grandma, snuggling with her for quite a while when everybody else finished eating the pizza.

Time for the cake!

Grandma & Grandpa gave him a Caterpillar backhoe like Grandpa drives and Zane had fun driving out at the farm.

There was also a completely unplanned “Star Wars” theme to the gifts. We gave him a Star Wars lego game, Robert’s family gave him a comic book and action figure set, and Grandma & Grandpa gave him a few action figures.

He got two games; the First Star Wars Lego game for GameCube (he enjoyed the 2nd version a lot) and Wii Mario Party 8, the game he wanted so much.

From Grammie Z we got him a block set. It reminded us of a big version of the blocks we brought back from Germany that he adores, and he loves blocks. It is a gift that remains in our living room and both of the kids, but especially Zane, really love building with them. (FTR, we chose the gifts from Grammie Z for Birthdays and Christmas from a generous gift certificate from her. We tried to choose more heirloom type gifts from her, especially for the birthdays)

It was a good birthday party. Zane wasn’t feeling his best…a combination of the week off schedule and a tummy thing he has had going on all week that seemed to really get worse starting on his birthday. He did enjoy the day though, and when weather looked like it might delay the party, he insisted we still held it. ( a good decision…the weather cleared and he was much worse the next day).

I can not believe he is seven. It doesn’t seem real. Seven sure isn’t what I thought it would be when I held him in my arms that first time, but it is precious none the less.