City Winterfest

Our little town puts on the neatest carnival for Winter.  But as you can see by our short sleeves it didn't really feel like it.  We had a great time and I was so thankful that the weather held out. 

The house of mirrors or it might be better called the house of germs.  yuck.

They had a lot more rides and vendors than I thought would be there.  Roo's friend went with her on all of the rides. 

Waiting in line to sled on the ice and snow they "pumped" in for the day.

Roo wasn't too sure but she did it!

Great friends

And a race between the two competitive ones to end the day.

We had a great time and can't wait to do it again next year.

After this, J man went to his first sleepover.  When I picked him up this morning, the party Mom said that they were up until 2 am!  He was exhausted so he stayed with me during church.  He put his head in my lap through most of the sermon to rest.  What a special time for me because he is getting so big! 

Roo and I enjoyed a nice quiet evening eating soup and I let her take a bath in my big tub with bubbles.  I was hoping to work on her floating skills but it didn't happen.  I had more planned but she and I were both exhausted so we called it an early night! 

For your listening pleasure

I don't know what I would do without music.  Especially right now.   I've found most of my favorites off of Pandora recently.  My hubby got us a Squeezebox radio for the kitchen for Christmas.  It's like magic because it pulls off all of our music from our home computer and can play Pandora and LastFm. While I'm listening, if I like the artist, they get a bookmark and then I can look into them more.    So please enjoy:
{I'm seeing a trend of cute boy bands but whatever.}

Ingram Hill

Pat McGee Band

and my favorite right now

Matt Wertz

&

(don't know what is up with that goofy picture)

Don't worry I'm listening to so many other types of music too! From Christian, to Dave Matthews to Country. 

This is my home gym

I have had a really hard time with my front room since we moved in.  We didn't have any furniture to put in it so it is pretty bare.  That was three years ago! About a year ago we took one of the gigantic built in desks in our home office from the previous owners and painted it white.  That was pre blogging so no pics here.  This room is the first thing you see when you come into our house.  Nice, right?  Right after I was going to turn this beautiful white desk into a "me zone" complete with a skirted chair and a new laptop, we decided to work out at home.  Since then, it has become even more cluttered with our gear and unbearable. 

I got to work and used Command hooks in the inside to hang up our bands. 

Then it was just a matter of sorting through and organizing.  We also play all of our board games in here since it is close to the kitchen and we don't have an official play room.

I added a cheap and easy skirt made out of a tension rod and a scrap of a left over drop cloth from a previous project.  I didn't sew, I hot-glued and it was glorious.

  I love working out at home.  All you need is a little space devoted to it.  My mother in law moved the coffee table in their family room every morning before the kids got up to exercise with her "tapes". (-:   I'm researching bloggers that can give me advice on how to use this space for working out and family time.  I would also like a picture or mock up of what the room will look like.  Anyone have any referrals for someone who could do that for me? More to come on this room that drives me crazy but is the most used room in the house!

Master bath remodel

A year ago we did our first remodel project on the house.  It was supposed to be an "update".  You know, to save money and do it ourselves.  Well that all went out the window when our contractor said we could knock down a wall and create a walk-in shower.  I'm so glad that we went for it.  The bathroom needed some serious work.  Case in point:

{Before}

We called it the Miami Vice room.  I tried desperately to keep the granite and save some money but there was no getting around the fact that its pink. 

I tried this idea from Emily but it made it more pink. 

But when I covered up the gold genie lamp faucets and hung up the black poster board, my heart skipped a beat and I thought of Melissa's master bath. Her bathroom was just the look I wanted.  But Melissa didn't have pink granite so we added that to the list.  See, full blown remodel and not an upgrade anymore. 

The picture of her bathroom was shown to all the workers so they could have an idea of what I wanted.  It really helped with the process.  Guys tend to look at you crazy when you talk about black cabinets.  But show them a picture and they somehow get it. 

I had to put a picture of these guys!  They were awesome.  All day long for three straight days, he would measure and she would cut.  They were like a machine.

{during}

{finished!}

So a very long story to say that it still looks like this a year later.  No knobs, no new towels, no artwork....nada.  It's so bad that my hubby is pleading me to do something with it. 

Any ideas?!

Why the name?

Fit2feelbetter

At only 5’1 I have always been the small girl. I was small but definitely not toned and healthy. Two years ago, we moved to a big city and I was out of shape and miserable. I did a little walking in our previous town with my two young kids but not much else.  The big city was overwhelming and I didn’t know anyone or have a support system. I was sad, sluggish, moody and napped all of the time. My husband decided to sign us up at a local gym connected to the golf course. It was small, had great childcare, and many times I was the only one in there. I got set up with a trainer and was learning so much and feeling better until they suddenly closed down my gym. I was crushed! We tried other small local gyms but they kept closing down. One would close down and another would take us in for a trial period. But I didn’t want to go to the “big” gyms because my daughter was freaked out enough.

We were ready to give more money to another gym until my husband saw a high school friend on Facebook. He looked incredible and told us all about his transformation from P90X. That was it! Why give money to a huge gym (that might close down) when we can invest it in a home gym? We put the money into a small tv, some weights and a few other things and set up shop in our unused front room. A few weeks later we were on our way to pushing play with P90X everyday. I loved it when I opened the box and it said “this is your gym for the next 90 days” on the inside cover. We decided, committed and are succeeding.

I love working out at home! Sometimes I get interrupted but it is so much better than seeing my daughter’s sad face in a huge crazy childcare setting. So here I am. I am now done with my twi rounds of P90X and one round of TurboFire and can really see results. But what I am most excited about is how much better I feel. I could kick myself for not starting this sooner! (-:  Moms out there, you are worth it! Take some time for yourself and you will feel the difference!

So I just bought this:

to go with this (that I already have)

Yes.  I'm a huge Chalene Johnson fan and I have a blast working out with her.

The story of our house....

I believe that this house found us.  It has found a way into our hearts too.  You see, three years ago we were moving to the "big city" six hours away from our little town.  We needed to buy our first house after renting for ten years.  We only had a weekend to travel to find a house and after much Internet research we found this one....

I have to say that the yard was a huge selling point. 

(the water fall isn't on in this pic)

We asked our realtor to go and look at it and her exact words were, "If you want this house, you need to come this weekend.  We made the plans for the trip and set out to look at this one first.  We were so excited, but the minute we walked in we were torn.  It was so outdated.  The previous owners had taken really good care of it but it still needed a lot of work.  A little disappointed, we set out to look at the other 15 or so houses we had chosen in the area. But the more we looked at other houses, our seemed  to get prettier and brighter and OURS.  At five o'clock that evening we went back to our house (while the original owners took a walk) and just stayed and hung out in it for a while.  It felt strange and wonderful and we decided it was worth the work. 

I write this post as an introduction for my goal this year....

to make our house our home. 

For the first 10 years of our marriage, because of my husbands job, we have moved every three or so years.  He now has a new position and we can stop moving and enjoy being in our "big city" town.  Problem is, I don't really know how.  We are used to moving.  That's what we know.  But three years is up and we really aren't moving and it's sinking in.  Now is the time to make it our own and not just good.  But great and lovely and ours. 

  I want to this blog to hold me accountable to my goal for this house and my family.  There is still allot of work to be done.  Thanks for sharing in our journey.

Kristen

And just when I was thinking of this blog entry, I read {this} from Emily.  Such inspiration!

I'm trying this for dinner....

Coffee braised brisket with potatoes and carrots from Real Simple mag.

I'll let you know how it goes! (-: