6 months old!

I can hardly believe that Brody is 6 months old already! I got to babysit him last night for a while - he was a little fussy butt for most of the night - but you wouldn't know it from these pics (and we had fun anyway... I even got him to laugh!). How can you resist this little guy?

Superbowl XLIII

What a game! It was so exciting -- from Harrison's mad dash to a touchdown, to Fitzgerald's touchdown that we thought would be the end, to the football swooshing through Santonio's hands, and finally his game winning catch. We were on the edge of our seats for much of the game and had a blast watching the action at Wes and Danielle's house. Everyone had black & gold fever and was sporting their Steelers gear (although I was the only one without a jersey on because I had worn my Steelers hoodie for the AFC championship when they won - so of course I had to wear it again!). Even Zoe had on her little number 86 jersey.



We broke out the 3D glasses, checked out all of the new commercials, feasted on pepperoni rolls, chicken wings, and buffalo chicken dip... and had a great time overall. The girls even found some time to get in a few rounds of Pounce before kickoff.


At the end of the night, Paul and I watched some of the coverage on the news after the game and it was crazy to see how many people were out crowding the streets of Oakland! What a night. I know that Holmes had the game winning catch - but my vote for MVP went to Big Ben.

Ski trip

Last Saturday a bunch of us headed up to Seven Springs for a day of skiing. It was actually a beautiful day for it - and I was so layered with clothing that I honestly didn't even feel the cold. I had been skiing once before in my life, although that attempt really doesn't count seeing as how I pretty much tumbled down the mountain once and then gave up. So I was pretty much a total beginner and so was Paul.

Well, Paul took to skiing like he usually takes to new things like this - quickly and easily. By the end of the day he was zipping around like it was nothing - easily keeping up with Nick, Joe, and Kim who all had more experience. It took me a little longer to catch on. Kim was awesome and stayed with me the whole time as I snow plowed down the mountain at snail speed for the first couple of trips. I think this was a mistake overall because my muscles got really tired from the constant strain. I had a couple of falls (one of which involved a pretty decent split) but didn't really get hurt too badly.

I took a break halfway through and hung out with Ryan for a while in the lodge (he insisted that he would ski under no circumstances, LOL). When I tackled the slopes with everyone again later, I did much better. Paul convinced me that going faster was actually going to make it easier - and it did. We had also met up with Beth and Jason who were staying at the resort for the weekend, and they were really encouraging to me too, which helped. I was exhausted by the end of the day (and came away with only sore muscles and a strained Achilles tendon) but I thought it was well worth it. I'd love to go again.

A little bit at a time

I'm the kind of person who doesn't really like resolutions... if you tell me that I absolutely cannot do something, of course I immediately feel the need to do it.

So, this year I'm hoping to set little goals for myself instead... things that I want to improve about myself. I'm going to have a positive outlook and try to see the benefits from the combined effect of all of these little things instead of feeling guilty that I'm not making a bigger effort to reach some monolithic goal. And if I mess up with one of them... hey, it's not so bad, because it's just a little thing. And it can easily be replaced by other little things. So enough of my new philosophy - here are some of the things I've been doing differently:

> I'm making a serious effort to get to bed by 10:30pm (which will get me about 8 hours of sleep). I'm a night owl and I've functioned on approximately 6 hours of sleep for most of my lifetime, but recently I'd started to feel tired all the time. So, it was time for a change! So far I've been doing this for about 2 weeks, and with the exception of most weekends, it's been working. I feel SO much better in the mornings.

> No more diet pop. OK, well I'm not banning it forever (see the first paragraph of this post), but I'm making a serious effort to stop my regular intake of so many chemicals. I've been drinking unsweetened tea, coffee, and water. So far, so good.

> I'm taking multivitamins and moisturizing every day. This may seem ridiculously easy, but this has always been a struggle for me to remember for some reason, so I'm starting a new habit where I go through a nightly ritual and remind myself to do these things to take care of ME.

> I'm attacking laundry in smaller batches - maybe doing 1 load a night for 2 weeknights in a row to keep up... instead of waiting for the Big Laundry Mountain to appear.

> I've also been hitting up the lunch stand at work and having soup for lunch lately - it's saving on calories AND giving me that super-warm happy feeling that you get when you eat something warm on a really cold day.

So that's my plan. We'll see how things progress...

Looking forward to a ski trip this weekend and then, of course, the Superbowl! Let's go Steelers!

Look at the turkeys in our yard!