back on the bandwagon

Last Saturday, I joined a running club. They help us train for a 5K in April. Yes, I am starting off small as it has been well over a year since I've done any sort of running. I don't know if it's age or just being overweight now, but I am really feeling it in my body. I like to think it's the weight. I just need to work on my food and nutritional intake now.

Things have been so wonderful lately. Even amongst all of the repairs we've had to make to our cars and home and the hassle of it. I have been working 10 hour days, in order to get Thursdays off so that I can not feel guilty about taking time out for Roan's speech therapy in the mornings and then I can do housework and errands so that we can have weekends more free to do family things together.

I was already doing long hours at work so when the alternative schedules were offered. I took it up. Choua has been great with Roan in the evenings and although we spend less time in the evenings together, Roan and I get to spend more quality time together and we always have our slightly leisurely mornings together. In fact, Roan is now eating more of our food. Choua has been working with him to eat chicken and rice soup and he's starting to eat more of it.

However, through his therapy, I am learning that he is a stimulation seeker. He needs to exhaust some of his energy before he can focus well on a topic. I think we were forcing him before and now we are working with him.

I've also had to ask for help with potty training this kid. He shows no interest. He cries and says "Ewww,"when we try to put him up on the toilet, even with the kiddie seat on it! I guess we were too effective in trying to get him not to touch it. He is pretty excited about his Spiderman underwear though...even though he wears it over his diaper. **PHOTO DELETED**

We also finally bought a sofa! We were looking around, but didn't want to spend too much on a sofa, knowing that Roan loves to jump on it and will probably get it dirty so we decided to go to the Crate and Barrel Outlet and we found this very plain sofa. It was under $400 so we snatched it up. It's more modern than we wanted, but it does the trick and adds color to our living room. Later, I found out that it's part of CB's Organic line that just came out. What a nice bonus?

first shots!

I went and did it! These are amongst some of the first shots from my D300!

I accidentally changed the settings to JPEG on the following two so I couldn't do as much to my WB, which was set to Auto. They both look a bit cool on here, but I promise they are not.

I realized I was not being very nice to my child in the middle of a frozen field as I told him to look up at me so I could get catchlights. Very NOT cool! Seriously, no wonder he doesn't think having his picture taken is fun. Look at this face:

flying

Just one for now.

threes

They say bad luck comes in threes. Well, this is the third time Choua's Jeep has been in the shop. So does this mean that we are in the clear now, or does it mean that we should cut our losses and get a new car?

We are trying desparately to not have to buy another car as the thought of car payments makes us cringe, but I think it may be time to bite the bullet. Of course, we've spent a chunk of our new car fund fixing his current car so now our downpayment is a bit smaller than we had anticipated. I'm sure we'll only get a couple grand if they accept trade-ins.

I haven't been on much because our home computer, the one that houses all of my photos and Photoshop software caught a major virus. Choua is about through with me. I guess I gotta stop downloading those templates and actions off of ILP. I think that's where I got it from. After several days of running virus killers, I think it's still not great. Choua really doesn' want to re-image the computer, nor do I want him to since I'll lose my favorites, but a girl's gotta Photoshop.

So, if I haven't been visiting your sites as much, it's because I'm down for the count and I try not to use my work computer as much, since it also had a major virus on it and I had to have it re-imaged as well, which is a huge no no at work. Oops.

I hardly watch TV, however, I happened to catch SuperNanny yesterday and it was so good! She went Dr. Phil on a mom that gave up on her six kids. It really hit home with me that we are the greatest influences on our children.

i'm it!

I've been tagged! Kristine of http://sweetpeagraycen.blogspot.com/ tagged me! Here are the rules I have been given:

1) Link to the person that tagged you. Done.
2) Post the rules on your blog. Done.
3) Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself. See below.
4) Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs. See below.
5) Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website#. Done.

Six things/habits/quirks about myself:
1. I love to sleep in a very well tucked bed. I hate the feel of wrinkly sheets on my skin since I almost always sleep in the nude...just kidding!
2. However, ever since I was pregnant with Roan, I have never been able to sleep in anything more than boxers and a t-shirt...I get really hot at night now.
3. I cannot throw out any mail unless, I am 100% sure that I will never ever need it again. This drives Choua crazy because we have stacks of mail/junk just tucked away in any all of our credenza drawers that we might have.
4. I love skim milk hot chocolates, but only with the whip cream (and Nordy's "Not So Hot" is my favorite).
5. I cannot fall asleep as long as the television is on...no matter how horrible the show is.
6. I only shave my legs like three times a year (and all of it during the warmer months). I just don't have that much hair.

Those I am tagging:
Kaohly, Stephanie, Michelle, Christine, Julie, Dawn.

more playing

Original (above)

With Action (above)

These days, playing for me consists of spending some time in CS2 playing with old pictures, since the weather sucks. Here is an action that I ran to give the picture a different look. It's pretty cool...I think.

so in love!

Late on January 20th, my sister-in-law, gave birth to the most beautiful baby boy. We had the privilege of spending time with my newest nephew this past weekend. He is such a good and sweet little baby. He was named Kaus Kal-el (as in Superman) Vang.

I attempted to take his pictures, but my photography did not do him any justice. I could not seem to get the lighting right. Even with the blow out, I love this picture because he is looking right at my me. Did I mention that I am so in love?

The reason we were visiting home...Mom. Roan surprised my mom and me by giving my mom a big smile and getting up to run over to give her a hug when we got home. Will it ever be possible to catch these kids looking into the camera at one time...ever?