Total World Domination

Recently Brian picked up the game of Risk for BJ. Have you ever played Risk? I hadn't, and it was SO much fun. I highly recommend you give it a whirl.

The instructions were daunting, and had to be read over and over, and as we played, the instruction booklet was always nearby and well thumbed. In the end, we had an amazing time playing, and I achieved TOTAL WORLD DOMINATION. Not bad for my first time out!

Apparently the other inhabitants of Mommy World were not too happy.



Please ignore the messy refrigerator and the fact that we're all still in our pajamas. In MOMMY world, that would totally be acceptable every single day. We'd always be able to ice cream without even thinking of gaining one measly pound, and there would totally be little fairies who came along and cleaned up messes without having to be reminded 12, 487 times.

The end.

Team in Training Kickoff

Today I kicked of my training for the San Diego Rock 'n Roll 1/2 Marathon with a 3-miler. I am a member of Team Shrinking Jeans, a team we formed at the Sisterhood of the Shrinking jeans and we are training with Team In Training while we raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

Follow me on the Daily Mile to see all of my run data!

For the next 18 weeks, I will run, run, and run some more. By week 18, I'll be running more than 21 miles per week, and on June 6th, I will run 13.1 miles, all at once. As in, non-stop.

I couldn't be more excited!

For the next 18 weeks, I will also be fundraising, fundraising, and raising some more funds for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Won't you help me reach my fundraising goal of $2,900 dollars?

Why donate (besides helping me get to San Diego for the race!):

The need is critical: An estimated 912,938 people in the United States are living with,
or are in remission from, leukemia, Hodgkin lymphoma, non-Hodgkin lymphoma or
myeloma. Every four minutes, someone new is diagnosed with blood cancer. Every
10 minutes, someone dies.

Leukemia causes more deaths than any other cancer among children under the age of
20. Lymphomas are the most common blood cancers and incidence increases with age.
The survival rate for myeloma is only 37.1 percent.

Another reason I really, really want to raise money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society is last year my PawPaw was diagnosed with Chronic Myelogeneous Leukemia. Without the funds raised by LLS, he would not have gotten the treatment he needed, because it wouldn't exist. He would not be in remission right now. He might not be alive. So you see, this is personal, too.

Your donation is 100% tax-deductible.

You can donate securely online with a credit card here. Or, if you aren't comfortable donating online, you can mail a check made out to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society directly to me. Email me at christy@shrinkingjeans.net for my mailing address!

And to add a little prizey incentive, for every 10 donations of $25 or more (online or via check), I will have a drawing for a $25 giftcard to Amazon, Target, or the Healthy Pantry, winner's choice!

Let's get this party started!

D'Alien

On our way back from our ski trip, we passed through Roswell, New Mexico. None of us had ever been there, so we stopped for lunch and a little sightseeing.

Apparently we had a stow-away, and I'm now a mommy to a 5 foot tall Alien. Or D'Alien as Mia likes to call him. He's pretty good with the kids, knows how to clean toilets, and doesn't say much. I told him he could stay.

The sounds of home

It's raining. Really, really hard. We have a metal roof, so the rain reverberates through the entire house and it's so deafening I can't even hear the t.v. No lie.

And I love it.

As far back as I can remember, I wanted to live in a house with a metal roof. Don't ask me how I even knew what it was, maybe I heard about it in an old country song, but it was a dream. And I'm living it. Right out in the middle of nowhere.

I love my house, even if it is a little small and there's no pantry. It's perfect for us (but don't tell my husband, because I really want a pantry), perched on a hill above the Frio river. When it's not raining, you can see every single star in the sky. I'm sure of it. When the moon is full, it's so bright you can go night hiking. I've done it, and it's amazing.

When you sit on our front porch, you can hear the river flowing across the rocky waterfalls, and see deer running through the yard. So peaceful.

Summer nights are the best. Sitting on the front porch with a cold beer watching falling stars and listening to the river. A gentle breeze blowing through the canyon.

I'm ready for summer. And more rain.

I am happy

Oh so, happy because Melissa and Jen (one of my awesome new Twitter friends and fellow Sister in Shrinkage) presented me with this lovely award! Thank you, hookers!!!! MWAH!

As always, there are instructions:

1. Copy the image and display it on your blog.
2. List 10 things that make you happy.
3. Try to do at least one of them today.
4. Pass on the award to 10 bloggers who brighten your day.

So here are the 10 things that make me happy!

1. My children. Each and everyday I marvel at their existence. They both have amazing personalities and are truly a miracle.
2. My husband. He spends his weeks in Houston working hard so we can have an amazing life. I don't think I tell him enough how much I appreciate him.
3. My brand new iPhone. It's amazing. I pretty much make out with it all the time.
4. The Sisterhood of the Shrinking Jeans. I cannot begin to describe the fulfillment I get from that site. Not only am I improving myself on a daily basis, but I'm watching so many other women do the same. It's a haven for support and love.
5. Food. Yes, food makes me happy. Not necessarily the consumption, but the discovery of new recipes and healthier options. I love sharing my knowledge with others, especially my children.
6. Seeing my children make good choices. With food, with friends, with life. It validates me. It makes me feel like my husband and I are doing something really right. Really important.
7. Running. I love to run. I love to workout. It makes me happy because 1 year ago, I didn't have this love, and I certainly wasn't this happy.
8. My friends. I have some of the best friends in the whole wide world and web.
9. My new end tables. We just got them, and they make me SO happy.
10. Cuckoo clocks. I love them. They are complicated, and beautiful, and they have a little bird who jumps out and tweets at you. How could you not be happy with one of those hanging around? If I could only teach that little bird how to wash the dishes, we'd be golden.

And here are 10 bloggers I'd like to present with the Happy Award, because they make me happy:

1. Lisa
2. Amanda
3. April
4. Brooke
5. Nancy
6. Ann
7. Kirsten
8. Tiffany
9. Audrey
10. Karena

You totally need to visit all of them right now, because they will make you happy, too!

Testing, testing, 1,2,3.....

Tap, tap, tap....Is this thing on?

So you know how it goes. You haven't talked to a friend in awhile, and then that while gets longer and feels a little awkward, so you just keep putting off talking to them, until one day you wake up and realize, OMG this is so STUPID.

That's kinda how I feel about this here blog right now. I've been busy, so I put blogging here on the back burner. And that back burner kept getting further and further back (is that grammatically correct, or should it be farther?) until I almost couldn't see it anymore. So today I pulled out my binoculars, and searched the burners until I found it. And here I am.

Does anyone even still come here to see if I've blogged?

I promise that I will blog ever single day for the next 30 days, okay? You're really going to get sick of me!

Okay, so what's been going on?

1. We're having an awesome challenge over at the Sisterhood. That's pretty much where I've been spending all of my time, so stop by and check it out. We're doing some wonderful things!
2. I finished up my 6-week Challenge for EA SPORTS Active More Workouts. The first week of January, we took an amazing trip to Los Angeles for a retreat. I got to hang with all the other challengers AND some celebrities. Check out my Flickr photostream for all the details via photos. You know I took a lot!
3. The kids are great! Mia's talking up a storm, and so is BJ. Unfortunately, he's talking up a storm at school. And getting in trouble. A lot. Brian and I both had THE SAME issues as children, so we're trying to find creative ways to deal with it. Do you have any suggestions? I've run out of duct tape.....
4. I just registered for Fitbloggin! I'm so excited to get to meet up with some of my Sisters from Shrinking Jeans, and some new fellow-shrinkers I've met on Twitter! WOOT! The conference is in March in Baltimore.
5. I am officially registered for the San Diego Rock 'n Roll half marathon on June 6, 2010. That's right, I'm running 13.1 miles in 5 months, and raising money for a cause that's so close to my heart. More on this exciting endeavor soon!

Well, I don't want to use up all my material in one post, so I'll stop here. Do check back and harass me if you don't see a post from me everyday, okay? I miss all of you, and I promise to start making the rounds to your blogs this week.

Also, just so you know, I'm going to be obsessively refreshing to see if I have any comments, so leave me one, okay!

Happy New Year!!

It's been a wonderful holiday season. We're packing up to head home from our awesome family ski vacation in the New Mexican mountains. Dreamy, I tell you.

I don't have much time, so I'll leave you with a little picture of a new friend we made this week!

For more pictures, you can visit my Flickr account! I uploaded a bunch last night!