Lila Kate

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Eating Lemons....

Lila is so funny.  Here is a little video I took of her eating lemons a few weeks ago.  She keeps trying them...wonder when she will figure it out =).

Eating Lemons from Stacey George on Vimeo.

School starts tomorrow.  I'm ready for it, except for the fact that someone in some high up place decided that it would be a good idea for 6th graders to start school at 7:35 in the morning.  Seriously?  So for the next 4 years until Bella gets her drivers license, I will be rising super early to get her to school.  Yuck, yuck, yuck.  I don't do mornings.  I missed out on all the ability to get up super early in the morning genes.  All this summer I have been getting to work by 8 in attempts to prepare myself and it has been painful pulling myself out of bed...now I will be up even earlier.  I need to win the lottery so I can hire myself a kid carter arounder.  Soccer also starts tomorrow.  I have never started soccer season as tired and worn out as I am now...kind of a scary thought how I might feel in 8 weeks.  I hope to survive mentally intact...we shall see.  Well I better run.  I need to get junk ready for tomorrow so that maybe I can sleep that extra 15 minutes =).  Night.

Good Daughter

My mama said that I should blog.  Apparently my sister has started a blog and she is blowing me away with her posting skills.  So, being that I try to be a good child, I will blog tonight so that my mom will be happy.

So....what to blog about. My baby turned 1 a few weeks ago. Time certainly does fly. She is so much fun. Cuddly. Happy. Sweet. Saying a bunch of words. She is big...almost 23lbs and 30 inches tall. Someone just sent me this picture today. Was taken almost exactly a year ago. Ms. Lila hanging out unhappily in her daddy's firefighter helmut. She still looks the same to this very day when she cries.

And here are a few pictures of her a week ago.  Looking at the prized walleye her daddy caught.

Being her smiley happy self....

On a mission....

She loves balls

So anyway, we went to Minnesota on vacation a week or so ago.  Had fun.

Caught fish.  Relaxed.

Staring the fish down....

The big girls caught a lot of fish....

Well that is about all I can muster for tonight.  Will try to be better about the ol' blog in the future.  Until then, good night.

still here.....

I am still here...haven't blogged for awhile. Been busy, been lazy. Trying to enjoy my summer without any pressure to do much of anything. Enjoying a few more weeks soccer free =).

We had a large party at our house again this 4th of July. Lots of people. Tents in the yard. Fireworks...just a few that the state of Iowa might just consider unacceptable. Firefighters, it seems, are a bit obsessed with fire....who would have known? Here is one of those that exploded in our yard that evening. I think our show was better than the city of Des Moines' show....seriously. That one was pretty weak...must of been budget cuts or something.

Have been perusing the internet this evening since my baby girl has gone to bed. Looking for inspiration for the wedding. It is EVERYWHERE...almost overwhelming the ideas that are out there. One of my favorite blogs I have found is Brooklyn Bride ...cause you know getting married in the middle of a cornfield in Iowa is very similar to getting married in Brooklyn, NY =)....perhaps deep down inside this Iowa girl's heart is in NY...who knows? And when I say middle of a cornfield, I seriously mean middle of a cornfield. My house is surrounded by a cornfield. Perhaps I should take a picture. In fact, to add to the charm of my future in the middle of nowhere wedding setting, here are my across the street next door neighbors...they are kind of cute

Anyway, I shall leave you with a picture of my baby and her daddy. They are both awesome, like them a lot. More later, have a good night.

It has been awhile....

And yes I am still here. I contemplated blogging at least 10 times since my last post, but just never got around to it. So I will do an update...

My beautiful baby girl is 11 months old now. It is hard to believe!! She started walking a month ago, she is almost running now. About 2 weeks after she started walking, she started crawling and then last week I saw her roll from her back to tummy for the first time. She is a bit backwards :). She says hi, bye, and ball. She is super fun right now.

We got passes to adventureland this year. Here is Lila and Emma riding the firetruck. Lila wasn't too sure about the whole thing.

And here is Bella and Emma riding one of the roller coasters. They love going here. I could do without it...oh well, I guess that is what mommies do.

I have been wedding planning a bit. We have a date (next year). We have a location (our home). We have a photographer and entertainment. I am lucky to have talented individuals in my family (my SIL is the photographer and my brother is in the band). Now I just need to figure out what we are wearing, the decor and what we will be eating.
I am 6 weeks into my body transformation challenge and so far I am not transformed. The reason would be is that I am having a heck of time eating like a body builder...I eat healthy but not in that manner. Egg whites and chunks of meat, peanut butter, protein shakes...just not my thing. Anyway, the workouts are good, I don't have any issues following them and actually I notice a substantial difference in my upper body strength ( i tend to be a bit puny in the arm/shoulder etc area) so I am pleased. I would also say that my clothes are a touch looser so perhaps I am doing better than I thought. Will have to get my body fat done to confirm. Anyway, that is all for now. Will try to be a better blogger in the future.

R.I.P.

I can't believe it is 11:41 p.m. and I have wasted all of this time. I went looking for a photo of Betty the Crazy Idaho Cat . For some reason I couldn't find one, but I found all sorts of interesting photos from years past and had to look at them. Low and behold a few hours have passed. Anyway, the reason I was looking for pictures of Betty is she disappeared a few weeks ago. I found myself almost sad even though I had tried to give her away about 1000 times. Unfortunately she must have succombed to living out in the middle of nowhere. We had 6+ lovely years together. Anyway...we have new kitties here compliments of my sister and her cat Lucinda.

Here is Daphne....

And Fred.....

Lila seems to like them both....

It has been busy here.  We are down to the last week of soccer.  Which is good, cause I am teetering on the edge of insanity with all of the practices and games. 
I have completed week 2 of my body transformation challenge.  The workouts are fine.  I am struggling with the protein.  I basically suck at getting that much protein.  6 weeks left...need to figure it out.  I ran yesterday when the gym was closed out in the middle of nowhere (which I quite like...one of the things I like about the middle of nowhere).  I saw this pretty little weed flower and came back to take some pictures of it.  Here is one of them.  Ran 3.6 miles, it is getting easier. Still don't want to do a marathon dear sister.

The garden is busy growing.  Here is my first harvest.  A pretty little radish.  I accidently left it out on the counter and he was all shriveled into nothing by morning.  I pulled a buddy of his the next day and he was quite tasty.

And one last photo...some strawberries from my patch.  They are quite tasty as well.  As it is late, I am going to close.  I have more pictures, but I will share those later.  Good night =).

A little bit of Everything

Hello from the great state of Iowa. Unlike most days, I have lots to say. First of all, thank you to my new readers who complimented my blog. It is nice to know that other people besides my mother appreciate my efforts.
As of this evening, I have my ring on my finger and I am enjoying it. Who would have known it would take a week to size it? It was so large that I couldn't even put it on my thumb, now it fits perfectly. I keep looking at it and thinking Holy crap, it wasn't a dream. This will also give me something more interesting to blog about....wedding plans =).
Anyway, before I show you some pictures of my baby (I am feeling a bit guilty that I haven't been taking very many pictures of my big girls...perhaps I should try better) I was going give a quick update on my fitness adventures. So I am proud to say that I have pretty much lost all 50+ lbs (i stopped counting after it got too depressing) of the baby chub that I so adeptly put on (minus the 7 lbs or so of lean body mass I gained during the pregnancy). So I have been thinking about what I wanted to accomplish next. A few weeks ago, my lovely sister so kindly asked me to participate in the Des Moines marathon with her in Oct...as much as I really really wanted to do that (ha!) I politely declined as I had already made other plans. For the next 8 weeks I am doing a body transformation challenge. I figured I could be pretty disciplined for the next 8 weeks as it is only 8 weeks out of my life and see what I could accomplish. The workouts are a bit more disciplined than I am currently doing, but not that different so that won't be a problem. The food thing is of course going to be the issue. I actually eat quite healthy, so much so that I get made fun of at work for it. That being said, I am not rigid about it, if I feel like having a treat, I will, etc. So eating "clean" for 8 weeks and getting the right proportion of nutrients is going to be my challenge. Getting protein is a bit of a chore for me and as of day 1 I have already fallen short of the recommended amount of protein...131 g today. But I will try again tomorrow. Need a better plan...or perhaps any plan (unlike today). It will be interesting to see if following this diet will burn some fat while adding muscle...have never been overly successful at doing that all at the same time. Anyway, I will shut up and move onto more interesting things...but will keep you updated.

So yes, some pictures of my baby. We were outside the other night and she was picking through the grass again.

I think she was a bit disappointed with the taste of the dandelion seeds...do you think?

Sitting on my new rocking chairs on the front porch (part of my revamping of the outside porches).

And that is all for now. Have a lovely evening.

Yahoo!

It was 3 years ago that we had that first awkward meeting at the gym, I told several people I didn't think anything would come of it, but I would just go for the dinner...I was very wrong....now I have one of these and I couldn't be happier.  That is all for now.  Have a lovely evening. 

Happy Happy May

Hello all....
Happy May to you.
It is a good day here. I am happy....which is lovely. The weather sucks today, nasty cold. Have been working outside a lot before it got cold. Gardening. Shoveling Rock. Planting. Staining. I like outdoor stuff. Here are my planters that were custom made by mr. handy. Pretty aren't they?

The girls semi cooperating....about as good as it gets

Lila lookimg all proud of herself....why you might ask?

She has figured out how to empty things and it makes her happy.  freshly folded clothes out!

I have also been taking pictures. Here are some lovely irises in my yard.  Working on taking pics in full fledged manual mode which I usually don't.  Also trying out a few new Lightroom presets....think I am liking them.

     Lila looking at her daddy's new deer target....

And finally my back porch.  I stained the old wood furniture, bought an outdoor rug, some plants and bought that cute little outdoor light (with candles) that I had been eyeballing at Lowe's for the last month or so.  I like it =).  The whole setup makes me happy.  Well that is all for now.  Have a lovely day.

More of my baby...

I wanted to post these pics of my baby. They were taken about 2 months ago. Danielle Fox took them. She was the one who took those cute ones of Lila as a newborn.

All pooped out after a long shoot.

That is about all for now. I am making a list of about 5000 things I need to accomplish on my half "day off" tomorrow. Later.

Thank you spammers

I would like to take the time to thank all the spammers that have left comments on my blog...very informative and it really makes me want to buy your products. Thanks again.
Alrighty then. Since I have been neglecting the older two a few pictures of them to start things off. We are fully into the soccer season now. 5/7 days we are doing soccer. I haven't liked it in the past and I don't like it now. Soccer mom, I am not. I am sort of a home body and to have activities that many nights per week is bothersome to me. Oh well, such is life. Here is Emma in her first game of the season. She did awesome. Scored at least 4 goals (had to step away for a moment to feed Lila and she thinks I missed one or so) and was quite aggressive and super fast. Someone made them tuck their shirts into their shorts and Emma had hers pulled up to her neck. I wanted to stop the game to relieve her neck from the shorts...but they don't allow that sort of thing =).

Next, the almost woman-child, Isabella. She also did awesome. Scored 3 out of her teams 4 goals and assisted the other. Was a good soccer weekend for my girlies.

And of course, I couldn't post with a pic of my baby. This first one cracks me up.  She was watching the dog who was about to pounce on my back as I was lying on the ground.  She was almost shaking with worry.

This last one was cute too, just being joyful.

I have been super busy organizing things in my house. I don't know why I feel the great urge to do such things. Outside I am staining the planters Jeremy made me. Instead of the giant garden that went a bit out of control last year (was very pregnant I do have somewhat of an excuse) going to take it down a notch and control it within the confines of these beauties. Will take a pic soon. That is all for now. Have a lovely evening.

testing 1,2,3....

Post #2 for the evening. Here is an 8 second experiment....Sorry about the very poor quality. Was shot in the dark. Just wanted to test this out to see if it works or not. Lila dancing at one of her sister's school concerts....

Untitled from Stacey George on Vimeo.

Took me awhile....

But I am finally posting again. Also made a quick new banner. I suppose it looks okay. I realized that on my computer at work(which has the smallest screen ever made in the whole entire world) that it looks like I made my blog gray and that is it. So if you have a small screen at home and are wondering why I did that...I didn't. There is actually contrast between the posts and the semi transparent gray background that is covering a graphic gray print.
So what have I been up to? Work (shocking), my 9 weeks of soccer hell have started (5 out of 7 days we have soccer)...first games this weekend, have been trying to REALLY learn my camera and some technical aspects of photography. Right now it is screwing all my pictures up...but I suppose you have to do that to learn, huh? I have been organizing my paper mess. I actually do not have a stack of 6 inches of paper on my desk. Next project is my junk in the basement. Workout wise I have hit a bad streak. I am going to the gym, but struggling a lot. I need to organize myself there too and make a plan. My post baby chub removal has stalled and I want to get rid of a bit more. Speaking of baby chub, I will leave you with a few pictures I took on Easter of my cute little one. Enjoy and have a lovely day.

You might notice the large bonk on her head (I photoshopped it out on 2 of them, forgot to do this one). She and Bella had a little accident. All is well except Jeremy took to calling her Mikhail Gorbachev this week. Such a funny man.