Goodbye January . . . Hello February

Hard to believe but it's true - we are officially in February!

January was a mix of craziness and laziness on my part, but definitely full of lasting memories.

The month began with several doctor appointments to figure out what was going on with my kidney stone. Long story short it has moved down quite nicely but still haven't passed it to my knowledge OR I just missed it. I also have 2 more on my right side that haven't started their trip down yet - lovely.

I also had a follow up with my Primar
y Care doc and he said that I was in excellent health and to keep doing what I'm doing - woohoo!!


On January 1st I began our lifestyle change, again, like what we had done last summer. It was easy getting back into the groove and I have really enjoyed my progress so far. 12 lbs down as of right now and I'm excited to get back to working out in February to continue to see that scale drop and drop. 18 lbs until my goal weight by the end of March.

February Goal: Drop 9 lbs total, so 2-3 per week. Can I do it? Of course! I know what I need to do differently this month to get there - just got to get off my butt and do it!

So now to the FUN stuff!

In the middle of the month Karl and I took a mini vacation to one of our favorite places - Great Wolf Lodge. We decided that a trip was in order since our next 4 months are going to be pretty crazy - more of that to come.

I always get SO excited when I see this sign!

One of the best times to go because NOBODY is there! PLUS You save quite a bit of money!

Heading down to the water park. We're those odd people who don't really enjoy water parks but since you're there you might as well go, right? We played in the basketball area for a while. We're still kids at heart!

Peace out!

We were also able to begin our monthly adventures with the nieces and nephew. This already has been a TON of fun and I look forward to our monthly outings!

So basically, this is how it works. For Christmas we gave each of the kids a coupon book with 12 special dates for them to cash in, one each month. Here are some of the things we'll do throughout the year:
-Date with Karl & Crystal - their choice
-Date with Crystal - their choice
-Date with Karl - their choice
-Trip to Movies
-Trip to Movies
-Ice Cream/Snow Cone
-Bowling
-Trip to Abilene [day trip - all three will do this one together eventually]
-Picnic
-Mr. Gatti's
-Girl Day/Guy Day
-I CAN'T REMEMBER THIS ONE!

The kids cashed in their first coupons for the year and here are some pics from the fun times we had.

Off we go! M is so excited! [We are too!]

You guessed it! We went to the movies and saw Paddington. Super, duper cute! One of my favorite memories was M's surprised face when I gave her a fruit snack to have while watching the movie. With us watching what we eat there have been familiar things that we don't eat anymore and I made sure to make this special for her since I know she loves fruit. With Mom's permission ;) we brought some preservative-free fruit leather and she loved it.

That face! What a silly! The tub could be moved back and forth in the display so she stood there for about a minute or two just swinging it back and forth. LOL!

I love seeing Karl interact with the kids. Not to get too emotional or anything but it makes my heart happy. It's like looking into the future and getting a glimpse of the kind of Dad he will be one day. I'm one lucky girl!

This kid! Talk about a ham! We absolutely loved watching him being crazy! This was him falling after throwing the ball down the lane. There were a few times where his ball went down the wrong lane - what a goof!

We got the "healthiest" snack we could find and S devoured it!! Oh that boy! On the way home afterwards he kept saying that he was still hungry - which was good since it was almost dinner time. We kept encouraging him that he'd be home soon to have dinner. He responds with, "I want a zipper on my belly so I can see inside it." Oh goodness.

And here's Karl. He's too legit!

Results from game 1. Can you tell who is who? And yes, the 4-year-old beat me. *Sigh*

And here is game 2. Once again, beaten by S.

While we were playing I noticed that the boys were both wearing size 12 shoes. So, here is a pic to celebrate that. ;) Super cute!

We had a BLAST bowling!

And we have to have a silly face picture . . . or two. We beat N&M home so we had a few minutes to waste so why not take crazy pics?

A boy and his uncle. Crazies!

Another hilarious memory from spending the day with Bub was on our way to the bowling alley. I told him that I'm pretty good at bowling. His response - priceless. He went from a straight face to a huge smirk and responded, "I'm better." HA!! And later he expressed that "bowling is SUPER fun!" in his super sweet voice. Love that boy!

Miss P chose ice cream for her date so we made our way to TJ's for some yummy frozen yogurt. She'd never been before so she was pretty excited. Karl helped her get her yogurt - chocolate - and helped her pick her toppings - baby M&Ms and a single cherry. "I got a cherry on top!" LOL!

Look at that face! She's precious!

I love interacting with P! She's so quiet at first, especially when she is without her bro and sis. She was watching all the people around us, taking it all in. We'd ask her a question and get a quick, direct answer.

Group pic at TJ's. This was the quickest of our dates - like 15 minutes - so we sent next door to check out Family Dollar.

This was Karl's first experiencing shopping with P and was he in for a treat. We told her she could get one item to bring home from our ice cream date. After 15 minutes of walking back and forth, selecting and reselecting items she finally picked out a fancy cell phone. She was so excited and immediately "called" Doc McStuffins. What a silly!

We also started working on our house this month, too!!! First project was updating the living room wall and we are so thankful for it to be done. It was tough for me as I stayed home during most of the job and cabin fever definitely set in! Definitely happy that it is done!

Here's the before. Goodbye windows and door!!!

This made me laugh SO HARD. So once the door had been filled in and Billy had left for the day, we let the dogs out of their prison - our bedroom. Kiana needed to go outside so this is where she went - where the old door was. Are dogs creatures of habit - most definitely!

And, the finished project. YAY!!! We have gained so much space from moving the door and removing the windows. There is less natural light which excited Karl, but I'm ok with it since we have great light from the dining and kitchen still. The house is coming together!

Our next big house project will be the installation of our new flooring during week 2 of February. I cannot wait!!!

doTERRA Update:
Another great thing we were able to do last month was meet with each of our builders and find out their desires for their families and help them create goals to keep in mind to get there. Once you know your why it helps you get through the most difficult times. Meeting with each of them also helped us to figure out how we can best help them meet their goals. From this information, Mom and I were able to sit down and create plans for traveling for the first couple of months and put together incentives to really make this process worthwhile.

We are so excited to see what these next 4 months will bring for our team and their friends and family. We are going to be changing lives: physically, emotionally, spiritually, and financially. We have been immensely blessed by essential oils and cannot wait to empower families with natural wellness.

Throughout these next four months we will be stretched in so many ways but I know that anything worth doing is not going to be easy. Let's get Diamond Club started!