Meeting Baby Brooklyn

Back in the day, when we knew that Brooklyn was due on Christmas day, I had no intentions of flying out to Indiana til mid January on the regular three day weekend. Flights would be expensive, and Christmas just wouldn't be Christmas not going home to California.
But once that little baby was born, mid January just seemed too far away! Why wait for a three day weekend, when I still had a whole week off of work?? So I booked a flight for the day after Christmas and Indiana bound I was!

I was in Indiana til Thursday. We basically did a whole lot of nothing. Which was great. Best kind of vacation in my book! Just as the pictures show, Brooklyn is absolutely adorable. She got her first "professional" shots while I was there and she did so well! Can't wait to see how they all turned out! We also took lots of pictures of Brooklyn in her new Christmas outfit that I bought her. It was so stinkin cute!

Molly, Bryan, and Baby are all doing great. Brooklyn was definitely the best Christmas present they got this year.






All of the Kellys are excited to meet the newest addition to our family (though she is officially a Kunz). With Molly not working for a while, we are bound to see much more of both her and baby (and maybe a bit of Bryan too!) Just counting down the days til little biddy Brooklyn is airplane ready!

Christmas 2010

Merry Christmas (A little late)

Like always, we had a great Christmas. We had our traditional Christmas eve night, and good ole Santy found the kiddos at Grandma and Grandpa's house Christmas morning like always.

I love coming downstairs Christmas morning. The tree is all lit up, and dad has hot cocoa made and ready for us.

This year, we all found a special surprise little present in each of our stockings, They were from Cayd. A list of things he will do for us. . . each were different and special in their own way. They were super cute.


And just a few little present pictures.




I did horrible on the picture taking this year. Sometimes too much is going on, and the moment is just too good to stop and deal with taking pictures. We did have a great day though. Santa Claus and mom and dad were great to us as always.

It was a fun, lazy, enjoyable Christmas Day. Scott's family joined us later in the day. Molly and Bryan and Brooklyn couldn't join us this year. . . we are looking forward to having them next year though!!

Counting down til TAX RETURN DAY!

My car has been making loud noises lately. No surprise there. We are always having little issues. When mom finally heard it though, she decided it needed to see the mechanic pronto. She called him up and told him what was going on, and we took it in that day. A different guy heard us drive in though and met us at my car. He asked me to open the hood. Then we all stood around it. . . listening to the loud grumbling sound. He nodded his head a bit then said. . . "ok- you can turn it off now."

Holding my jingling keys up to him. . . "Well you see. . . that's what the problem is pal. It already is off!"

Yup. . . he definitely took another looksy under the hood after that.

X, Y, and Z! That's all folks!

Near the beginning of our diet, we discovered that Z day was going to be Christmas Day. Nice timing huh? I told Bonnie that I was NOT going to be sitting around eating yams on Christmas Eve and if I was going to lose at the end, I would never even make it that far to begin with. So Bon came up with XYZ Day.

We came across some yumm-o treats the other day. .

But actual food. . . like satisfying food- we didn't have any of.

We randomly drove by, and ended up eating at the Yoshinara chicken bowl place. That's not really how you spell it, just how I say it. A yummy place that I remember from a long time ago. . . that wasn't as delicious as I remember. Oh well.

And what did we have for dinner? The final night of this so called diet??

Zouplantation!!!

Ok. . . we both knew that we were honestly cheating for the very last night. . . so call it a draw if you like. . . but we are just going to call it DONE!!!

ABC diet never again?? Well . . . that's what I said at the end of our first (and only so far) marathon. . . yet I feel myself drawn to putting on those running shoes again. Never say never I guess! Til then. . . thanks for following!!!

Diet- end Eve!

Yet another rainy day here in California. As of this morning, it had seriously not stopped raining since I got here. Craziness. It was just going to be a lazy stay at home day with the kids, so I decided to whip out the good ole waffle maker for some breakfast! I have never actually made waffles before. . . but how hard could it be??


After three attempts. . . my last one turned out perfectly but a tad small (all the batter I had left)


So my breakfast waffles that I started making around 10:30- became my 12:00 lunch waffles instead.
Now do we wonder why I eat out so much?


W day continued with many werthers chewy candies for snacks, and don't forget the wedikings cookie Bonnie brought for me out of guilt from yesterday. THANKS BON!!


Then tonight we talked mom and dad into our crazy diet once again and they treated the family to the Wagon Wheel for dinner! What a great family I have!

After dinner, me, Bon, and the kiddos hit the mall for some more Christmas shopping! It was then that we went to the two places I have been WAITING for W day for. . . Wetzels Pretzels, and Starbucks for some White hot chocolate. We also hit the candy store where we got some wax soda candies and some sour warheads.
All these special treats were not just for anything of course but for our "traditional" Christmas light viewing night where we drive around and find some different fun neighborhoods to look at. Of course, the cocoa was drank practically before we got to the car, and the candy was hidden away in an unreachable purse. . . but it was still some good times.


The first picture was of course taken in honor of new baby Brooklyn Noel born just today!







And tomorrow is the big day. . . XYZ . . .

Happy V Day!

I am not too sure that I actually read Bonnie's post right. If you remember correctly. . . yesterday I cook, then took a steaming container full of Uncle Ben's rice to her work. And today- I show up at lunchtime with a yummy veggie bowl from Panda for her (both days I might add with her two little children in tow). And then what does she decide to do on her first few Shawna free minutes? "Rushes out" to get milkshakes without me. I must say. . . I was a tad hurt when I read that.

Vanilla frosted donut for breakfast.

Vanilla wafers and vanilla cookies for snacks.

Veggie bowl for lunch.

Then a delicious "Vegetarian" burrito for dinner.

Not too shabby of a day. That is. . . until ma and I made an emergency trip to Mc D's for a vanilla ice cream cone. Who needs your stinkin milkshakes!!

Still love ya sister (and competitor)!!!

T was terrific. . . but U was ULTIMATE!

We had a very nice Sunday. Had some morning toast before heading to church. Had some tacos and toffee for an afternoon snacks. Then mom made a very T friendly meal of tator treats, teryaki chicken, and texas toast! Very random. . . but terrific! We then dug up some trail crunch cookie dough so mom whipped up a batch for dessert! Living with mom can be the greatest!

U day started with a phone call from Bonnie saying that the Uncle Ben's rice pudding she had made the night before, was not the most fabulous breakfast. She asked me to swing by her work with some regular Uncle Ben's rice for lunch since she had to eat her upside down cake for breakfast instead. So I grabbed the kids, and a slice of breakfast (upside down cake too) and headed out with a tub of some Uncle Ben's rice. The kids and I met mom for a lovely day of Christmas shopping when I decided that a fatty bowl of rice was not exactly what I was in the mood for. So. . . I talked Bonnie into disguarding Uncle Ben and instead, we headed over to our favorite little mexican place Diego's where we kindly asked them to make us some "Ultimate" nachos. The lady kind of laughed at us, but did what was asked of her and for our amusement, referred to our super nachos as "ultimate nachos" for the rest of our visit.

Aubrey went to a birthday party tonight, so Bonnie, Cayden and I, went and got some Ultimate cheeseburger (minus the cheese) meals from Jack in the Box and stuffed em into Bon's purse to enjoy during our Yogi Bear movie that we were headed to.


Even with our ultimate jack meals in tow, the beautiful movie theatre popcorn smell just kept calling my name! Finally Bon quit listening to my pathetic whining about needing popcorn, and she hopped into line where we ordered an Ultimate popcorn bucket. She even let me get butter on it! I must say, Yogi Bear was probably 10X better with that glorious popcorn!

After the movie, I was pretty much stuffed to the max, but when Bonnie began snacking on the leftover "ultimate" Kelly Green Santa Shamrock Mudpie . . . I did indeed snag a few bites as well!

Can we say. . . cheaters??

R and K. . .

Wow. . . I survived two somewhat tough days . . . so ready for this to be over.

Yesterday (Friday) was R day. I had some raisin bread toast for breakfast, and a romaine lettuce with ranch dressing salad for lunch with a roll my roommate brought home for me. It's been funny having people randomly text me ideas or bring food for me that starts with the letter of the day. Guess its been making lots of people think about food differently these days. Anywho I snacked on ritz crackers basically all day as well. We had our class Christmas party. . . there was so. much. food. I think almost every parent sent in some kind of cookie, or chip, or candy, or cupcake. It was crazy! And I didn't eat ANY of it. One parent at one point asked me if this is not really my "type of food," . . . if only she knew. . . she must have missed our Halloween party when I seriously sat in the back munching on cookies the whole party while the parents took over. So I guess it was good to have something to keep me from doing the same thing all over again. On my drive home from work I stopped by to grab some Rubios before picking up the pups and heading South for the winter!

I made it to California. I ate a few mini recess cups- but that's about it.

Today would have been S day. But if you recall, last week on K day it was my work Christmas party so Bonnie gave me a pardon and let me switch to S for the day, knowing that on my real S day I would eat K instead. Sounded great at the time, until I recently discovered that I switched K day from work party day, to family party day. Drats. Especially since Bonnie was going to be there, eating S foods, which is basically one of the easiest letters out there! She packed up some sugar cookies and strawberry mud pie, and knew that some kind of salad would be there too, so she was basically set.

This morning, I grabbed a Kellogs poptart on the way out the door with my mom. We headed to Costco where I was able to sample a kirkland meatball then get a kirkland kosher ketchup dog from the food court. That was pretty awesome. We went to vons where I picked up some special "K" crackers and a kiwi to accompany me to the party.

At the party, I enjoyed (or rather "ate" because enjoy would definitely not be the word to use) some K crackers. Bonnie walked around practically boasting as she ate her spuds and salad for dinner, while I ate nothing. Bleh. So then dessert comes around, which is what I was waiting for. I had a nice Kelly green sugar cookie and a piece of kelly mud pie. I know. . . stretching it a bit. . . but a Kelly did make it. . . so what the heck- I was hungry! I told Bonnie about my Kelly mud pie idea which she was not too fond of. I believe "nice try" was her actual quote to the idea. . . but I ate it anyway. Bonnie's strawberry mudpie looked a little interesting, but several people had it and said it was good. She said that she refused to try it though and the mint mudpie was so much better. It was then that I noticed an empty bowl in her hands that had obviously had some of the green mudpie. "What did you just eat?" I asked her. She gave me a duh kind of look and replied "KELLY'S mudpie!" "You aren't eating K today geek. . . you are on S!" That is when she screamed. . . she really did. . . I mean the party actually got quiet as everyone turned to look at her. She was pretty much in shock. I made fun of her a ton. . . and the ride home that evening she decided that SHE made the cake so SHE got to name it and it was now shamrock mudpie and I was the one that cheated. I think NOT! So anywho. . . I think we eventually agreed that the mint mudpie dessert would from now on be officially known as the Kelly Green Santa (she thinks shamrock) mudpie. So we both win I guess.

We hit the mall that night to do some last minute shopping. I was kind of complaining about my K day and Bonnie was saying how she had been waiting for S day so she could get some sweet fire chicken from Panda. So we hit the food court for some kung pao chicken and some sweet fire chicken to finish off our nights. Upon arriving though. . . we realized that TONS of Panda's food is S. So not only did Bonnie get her sweet fire chicken, she also got steamed rice, and stringbean chicken. She decided to pass on the springrolls. . . I once again. . . felt a little jipped. :(


Good bye letter K!

Q is for quesadillas!

Breakfast- quesadilla

Lunch- quesadilla

Dinner- quesadilla

I started my day by hitting the local Del Taco for a breakfast quesadilla. Then I ran to the store to get lunch and found . . . well. . . a frozen quesadilla and some quaker quacks for my all day snack. I had a few different things planned for dinner actually tonight. Quiznos, or Qdobas. I haven't actually been to either place, but every time I have passed them lately I think- perfect for Q day! Well. . . being that tomorrow is my last day before Christmas break (yay!) there was MUCH to do tonight. I was running from store to store picking up stickers for parents' presents, goodies for our ice cream cone Christmas tree project, and I couldn't forget the grocery store for something to eat for tomorrow's R day! I still had the dollar store to hit, and I was getting somewhat hungry and though I have passed both places to eat at least a dozen times since this "diet" has started, I couldn't remember where either of them are actually located. I had some ideas. . . but I didn't want to be driving around all night when I had plenty of other stuff to do. Besides- I had a convo with Bonnie this morning who mentioned that Quiznos is overpriced and not very good. And I honestly don't even know what they serve at Qdobas! So I pulled into Del Taco for their dinner quesadilla instead since it was right on the way to where I was going. * On a side note- the drive thru lady at 6:30 at night was the SAME drive thru woman as 7 am this morning. "Weren't you here this morning?" she asked. Yes. . . now I am the crazy girl that eats at Del Taco for every meal of her day! Better avoid that place for a while! * And better yet. . . Bonnie chose to go to Quiznos anyway where it turns out they are not that overpriced, and it was quite delicious! Go figure!

After all my errands were done, I went to this Christmas "magical forest" with my friend Ammon.

There were different Christmas things to look at and to get your picture with.

Then we walked through a pathway of trees. People and businesses could donate money to decorate one of the trees. Ammon's sister and brother in law own a website business so they decorated a tree. Their business is called Orange Geeks (or something like that) so they decorated with oranges. And we found it. . . which was kind of fun. I liked the one made by the Station Casinos too. I think Ammon thought it was weird that I liked it. . . but I thought the big dice in the tree looked cool! :)

On my drive home, what should I pass? Qdobas. . . less then a mile from my house! Just my luck!

p. . . was a plus!

On my list of edible letters, I am going to rank P up there somewhere near the top.

I started the day off with some little mini pancakes, but upon arriving to work, discovered breakfast being served. . . pastries! It was parent-teacher conference day today. No school for kids, conferences for the teachers. I held most of my conferences before and after school all last week so I only had two today. . . so I got to just do some much needed grading, and organizing and copying. But because it was conference day, and a few days before break, the principal brought in lunch for us. . . PANDA! Score. . . 2 for 2! I munched on some pringles and pretzels throughout the day, had some peanut butter cup ice cream for my dinner appetizer, then had a pizza pocket and a pear. I was going to celebrate my pops birthday on my own tonight with some pie, but thought better of it. . . afterall. . . this is supposed to be a diet right?

Happy Happy Birthday Dad!!!

N and O :)

I got several things from the store this week that can kind of "transfer" over to the next day. . . getting a little creative here. . . watch for it!

On Monday my milk from my M day became Nesquik milk for my N day. Yum! I LOVE Nesquik. So I had some Nesquik milk for breakfast with a nutrigrain bar. I bought some Naval oranges for lunch (you'll be seeing those again shortly!) with some nachos and yet another nutrigrain bar. For dinner I had some noodles. And all day long I snacked on a LOT of Nilla wafers.

Sadly I think of too many things after the fact. I did buy a few "Naked" drinks. . . strawberry banana. . . but completely forgot about them in my fridge! So sad! I also realize I could have had nuggets rather than a large bowl of noodles. . . maybe next time. :)

O day was today. O day was going to be all about the oats and oranges! Not because I necessarily like oats and oranges. . . but because everything I could think of was either oats or oranges!
The Plan:
oatmeal- breakfast
oatmeal/orange/oatmeal raisin granola bar- lunch
orange chicken/orange for dinner.

The reality:
I did stick to oatmeal for breakfast. But upon arriving to school some friends said they were ordering Dominos for lunch and wanted me to join. They get some sandwiches from there all the time. I kindly declined stating "only if you can find something on the menu that starts with O!" Sure enough, somebody pulled out the menu. . .

That got me!

On my way home from work, I swung by and picked up an orange julius, then continued on to Panda for my orange chicken! Since I already broke the orange/oat rule with my oven baked sandwich, I went all out and got some oriental noodles and oriental egg rolls to go with the orange chicken.
I would feel a tad guilty about stretching this a bit too far. . . but after Bonnie's pizza K incident. . . and facebook snooping to see what's going on Friday with R night for her. . . it looks like anything goes!

Now it's Biggest Loser night. Not just any Biggest Loser-- but SEASON FINALE!! Meaning no more eating tonight. . . :(

ps. . . I know a girl that's going to be on next seasons biggest loser! Crazy!! Her name is Sarah. . . we should all tune in Jan 4 and see her!!!

Mmmmm

Muffins
Milk
Mac n Cheese

That's what I lived off of all day. . . and am surprisingly quite satisfied!

Oh yes. . . and one M&M cookie :)

The apple does not fall far from the tree. . .

Last week and this upcoming week, I get the pleasure of holding parent-teacher conferences. Like the students themselves, parents come in quite the variety. Some think there is too much homework, some think there isn't enough. Some want the teacher to me more stern, while others want her to lighten up. Some are ecstatic with B's, while others are disappointed. It really is quite hard to please everyone.

Usually they go pretty well though. After all, they are the ones who know these kids better than I do. Parents are pretty good at predicting what I am going to tell them. They see the grades coming home, they have had three previous year's of conferences, they know their own kids.

So instead of having a fun student story, I got a few chuckles out of parents this week. . . this one in particular. . .

I have a little girl in my class who is quite bright. She gets pulled a half hour for GATE each day (gifted and talented) where they are supposed to challenge her a little bit and keep her doing new things. She is not perfect in class however. . . she is a little slower on her work at times, meaning she doesn't get everything finished, and her reading score just barely made an A. . . so there is still stuff she can definitely be working on to improve.

But Mom comes in asking for extra homework. "[My daughter] gets her homework done so quickly. . . Neighbor kids bring home so many extra projects. . . are we going to start getting more projects for her to work on at home?. . . bleh bleh bleh."

"Well," I reminded her, "We do have our monthly book report projects that are done at home. One at home project a month is plenty for these kids."

"Oh yes I know about those ones. . . when's this months due again?"

"Today as a matter of fact," (smiling) teacher says.

"Oh my gosh. . . we didn't do it! She read the book. . . we just haven't made the puppet yet! We will do it this weekend and have it in by Monday!"

Yeah. . . you turn that in late on Monday. . . then I will be sure to assign your over achieving daughter two next month.

A little Late. . . here's L

My cupboards are seriously filled with so much random stuff right now. . . I almost just made "L" day Leftover Day! But I didn't. . . just added to the clutter actually. :)

Lucky Charms- breakfast
Lean Pocket- Lunch
Lifesavors and lunchable for snack (yes- I love lunchables!)
Lasagna with Lemonade- dinner
Licorice- dessert

Today was a really busy day. I was out shopping for several hours and the last place I really wanted to stop on the way home was the grocery store for dinner. Then L&L Hawaiian Bbq caught my eye and I thought. . . why not?
Upon walking in however, It did not look appetizing in the leastl and I ended up walking out without ordering. To the grocery store it was.

S. . . urprise!!

The other night there was a Christmas dinner that I skipped going to in fear of there being nothing served that started with the letter G. I faced a rather similar problem knowing my work Christmas dinner party was coming up this Friday night and nothing was going to be on the menu that started with the letter k. . . cuz seriously. . . what even starts with k?? I was feeling a bit bummed out because there seems to be so many once -a- year holiday festivities going on, and it felt dumb to skip them all because of something random like this.
I realize that there is a reason we have been calling this a "challenge," but I also was thinking maybe we were just plain unwise to choose to do this in the month of December. A lot of things can be worked around. . . friends we are going out with can be very accommodating, but a meal at a restaurant with a prearranged dinner selection is far from being accommodating. . .

So Bon made a deal with me. Basically I was allowed to switch my entire Friday to a different letter that we have yet to "eat," and do letter "K," on that letter's day instead. Seemed like a fair trade. I looked over the menu and chose to do "P" instead. There were two selections that started with P. So I went to the store and bought all my "P" foods. I was talking to Molly the night before however and realized that choosing a letter might still be hard because who knew what would really be served with each of these meals. So instead, she came up with the idea to do "S," because the location of the party was at a fancy schmancy placed called Sedonas. This way, I can just say that I had "Sedonas" for dinner.

This worked for me, but unfortunately I didn't have many "S" foods in the house. So I made a quick trip to the store in the morning (I know- shocker) and this is how my day went.

Sandwich for breakfast
Sandwich for lunch (different kinds of course!)
Sugar Snap Peas, Skittles and snickerdoodles for snacks
and Sedonas salad, skewed chicken and steak, and spaghetti (a much fancier version) for dinner

I must say I am rather glad I went with the letter S. It was a buffet style meal, and one of the "P" foods ended up not being served, so I would just have been eating a whole lot of Pasta!

This upcoming week is the last week of work before Christmas break (yay!) and there are 3 different days (that I know of so far), that someone is feeding our staff. Throw in class Christmas party next Friday and all sorts of wonderful presents and treats coming to me from the little kiddos. . . let's just say this is probably going to be a pretty rough week. . . wish me luck!

J. . . was not my day!

J is definitely not a day to rave about. I wandered around the grocery store (a very frequent past time of mine lately) and came across nothing that started with J. I was preparing myself to have a tasty jam sandwich for breakfast when I remembered that Jamba Juice started with J. Yum. . . that is definitely something I could do. Unfortunately, Jamba Juices aren't super big in these here parts and unless I wanted to leave for work like an hour early, it just wasn't going to happen. Fortunately, we do have several Tropical Smoothie Cafes, one being quite close to work. . .so I googled it to see if there were any fun smoothie names that started with a J. Jetty Punch. . . Nice! Even nicer. . . Jetty Punch is nothing but a Strawberry Banana smoothie. . . my favorite! So breakfast ended up being the highlight of my day.



I had my jam sandwich for lunch with 2 cups of jello and a Jose Ole burrito for dinner with some jerky. Not too appealing. . . plus I had to share the jerky with the dog.

Bleh. . . see ya J day!

I'm not stupid. . .

Last week, a girl in my class told me that her and her family were going to California this week to go to Disneyland. She was pretty excited. . . but what kid wouldn't be, it's Disneyland! She reminded me of her trip the next day, and the next day, and the next day. I learned all about how much money they were taking, who gave them the money for the trip, which hotel they would be staying at, etc. etc. etc. Well, she wasn't at school on Tuesday, or Wednesday, and sure enough she was back today.
They went on all the rides. . . she had so much fun!

Then I opened up her homework folder and found a note from her mom.

"Dear Miss Kelly, Please excuse [my daughter] from school on Tuesday and Wednesday, we had a family emergency."

Uh yeah. . . an emergency trip to Disneyland. Serious people. . . your kids are nine. . . they tell me everything.

I. . . HATE eating the ABC's!

Let's see. . .

I started my day out with some instant oatmeal (with a LOT of brown sugar on top!) I scowered (is that a word?) the grocery store this morning and came across an Italian pizza melt (or something to that extent. . . honestly can't remember the exact name but it DID start with the word Italian). I also grabbed a little thing of ice cream to go with it. That seems like a decent lunch. . .

Hours later, I had finished my scrumptious lunch and was enjoying my last few peaceful moments of my break when a lady I work with walked in with this huge bag of kettlecorn for all! I guess it was promoted on the show "Apprentice" so she wanted to try it out. As everyone passed around the bag raving about how good it was, I kindly declined and passed it on. So there the bag was, sitting right in front of me. . . as I zoned off for a minute my eyes landed on the bag. . . no way! . . . somebody failed to mention it was INDIANA Kettlecorn!! So then I definitely stole a piece or two. . .

So after work. . . it's back to the store I go to find something for dinner and something for tomorrow and possibly Friday so that I can stop making Smiths my second home for a few days. There was nothing at the store. . . but there I got a fabulous idea. . .


Unfortunately. . . it seemed to be everyone's "I" day today.

Had some more ice cream for dessert and called it a day!!

H. . .

I'm so sleepy right now so this will probably be quick.

I started my day today with some holiday bagel poppers and hot chocolate from einstein's bagels. I had a ham sandwich and some honey nut cheerios for lunch. . . I know. . . a little random. And a hamburger and homestyle fries for dinner. Pretty decent meals. . . but h was a harder letter to find snacks for. So I really didn't have any snacks.

I'll be honest. . . the diet is kind of starting to ware on me. These weeks at work are way busy. . . I'm leaving for work at 7 in the morning and getting home after 6 with a pile of work with me for homework. The last thing I want to do is go to the grocery store and have to wander around searching for foods that begin with a certain letter. I don't even want to think about what I am going to be eating tomorrow. . . or Thursday. . . or Friday. It's only Tuesday and I am already in need of the weekend!

Good night!

G is. . . great!

So I started my day out with some Golden Grahams. I always eat breakfast in the car. . . cuz mornings are usually quite the hustle and bustle around here! Instead of having a bowl of cereal, I eat dry cereal and wash it down with milk. Same thing right? Since my camera was in the car already . . that's where I got my photo!

At lunch I pulled out my grape jelly sandwich, granola bar, golden oreos, and grapes. A lady I work with showed up to lunch with this fatty bag of candies to share. I was a little bummed out knowing I would probably have to pass on all the yummy extra treaties for the day but then seriously the first two things she pulled out were Godiva and Ghiradelli chocolates-- score!!
I had some gummy lifesavers hanging around as well to accomodate my long work schedule these days (report cards and parent conferences-- bleh!) After work. . . I met up with a friend at Chilis where I had the most delicious Grilled chicken bbq salad. It was soo good. . . I would probably even get it when I don't have to eat things that only start with G! And what was next door to Chilis? Golden Spoon! Yum!!!

G was definitely Great... But the ideas I have flowing for tomorrow's H day is already making my mouth water! Til then. . . !

F. . . ood!

That's what I ate today. . . a bunch of food! I thought Bonnie might not approve of that, so I did indeed make sure that each of my foods did actually start with the letter F. The next few weeks are going to be crazy busy for me though. I have report cards due this week (which I am still trying to get done) and parent conferences starting tomorrow. So frankly, I don't have time to post about my food let alone cook something edible like Bonnie's french toast! So basically I lived off a bunch of F snacks, and that will probably be my new habit over the next few days. So what did I have today...?

fudge dipped cookies
fudge centered cookies
fruit
fruit roll up
french fries
french bread

That's it- Weird little snackies that I just threw in my mouth all day long. I am starting to not like this "diet."

I wish I had french toast. . .

E. . . eek!

Many good E options for breakfast. . . probably because egg starts with E. Egg burrito, eggo waffles, egg mcmuffin, einstein bagel. . . though the einstein bagel (is not an egg product- I know) was the top of my list. . . I had a busy busy day and Del Taco happened to be on the correct side of the road for what I was doing. . . so egg burrito it was!

The rest of the day stayed pretty busy (see post below), so I didn't do any munching. I did however, have plans with two different people to go to the movies. The first movie I sat through with no snack. . . not a wise choice. . . movies with no snacks stink. I complained about this to my friend Ammon (who I was going to the second movie with), so he took it upon himself to find me a "movie worthy" snack and came upon everlasting gobstoppers. Not bad!

(I will note though that I don't intend to go back to the movies until P day. . . I LOVE movie theatre popcorn!)

I packed up some E.L. fudge cookies to go to the movies as well, and downed some enchiladas right before leaving.

Definitely not one of my favorite of days. . . but not too bad.

Ho Ho Ho

As I purchased Christmas lights for my house last week, I had visions of the masterpiece I would create.

Then. . . I actually had to hang them up.

It started out ok. . . however the velcro/sticky hooks that promised to be the easiest light hanging tools around proved to be misleading.

I got the white poles decorated and the red around the front door, then ran out of the red before making it around the garage. I decided to take a quick trip to Home Depot for some more red lights and to replace the candy cane lights that wouldn't work. No more red lights there, so I went to a different store where I found the same situation. I opted to do more of the tree in red, then just buy white lights to go around the garage instead. I exchanged the candy cane lights and got some cute snowmen to add to the decor as well, afterall, they went well with my cute red and white themed house.

I got home, and found that the snowmen lights (which were their last box) didn't come with the stakes. . . so after digging through rocks and dirt, I opted to rather stick them in a bush. Then I got my white lights up around the garage, and finished decorating the red tree in front. Success!!

Then the sun goes down. . .

Well. . . the snowmen aren't white afterall. The candy canes are only red, and have no white either. Who would've guessed that they sold different colors of white lights?? And to top it off. . . my tree was just too tall. . .

Walah!! My MASTERPIECE!!


sigh. . . not exactly what I had envisioned. . .

D is for Diet. . . right?

Apparently I viewed this whole "diet" very differently than Bonnie did.

A definition of the word diet, according to dictionary.com is "the foods eaten, as by a particular person or group." So Shawna's diet right now is consisting of foods starting with the abcs. . . nothing written about losing weight there.

I don't think I had even the smallest of hopes that I would actually lose weight this way. yeah. . . there are some not so exciting food days like X, Y, and Z. . . but when you find something that is good on a particular day and basically get to eat unlimited amounts of that food. . . well that's just asking for trouble!

Today my day consisted of donuts in the morning, some dried apricots, dipped cookies, doritos and a deli sandwich for lunch, dug up some dinosaur fruit snacks for snack time, and got Del Taco for dinner. I got the Del classic chicken burrito. The only way I was able to get around this "D" issue and order my french fries without cheating was by making them the deluxe fries instead. And to top it off, the man who could not speak english at the drive thru window thought I wanted 2 burritos with my deluxe fries instead of just one, so now I have two hours of my "D" day left to down a second Del chicken burrito. We'll see if that happens. And for dessert? Dibs! Yum! (Which I actually snuck for breakfast as well).

I figure my "real" diet can start next month with Molly and our Subway Jerry diet. Afterall, I have to find some way to shed some weight after this whole abc fiasco is over!

happy dieting!

Ps. I took this picture on self timer. I am impressed with Doogle's choosing to be in the photo on his own free will. One of the best pictures I've gotten of the pup and he wasn't supposed to even be in the picture!

Cookies and Candies and Chocolates. . . oh my!

If I had to live off one letter of foods for the rest of my life (though I can't think of a situation that would really require such a thing), it would definitely be the letter C. Though I haven't lived through all the letters of the alphabet quite yet. . . I just can't imagine beating today's options. Just look at the title of the post!

I was looking forward to Day 3 for nothing else but my beloved Chocolate milk. Breakfast is just not the same without that stuff! Somehow in the joy of holding that chocolate milk. . . the cocoa puff cereal got lost in transit from my kitchen to my car. It has still yet to be recovered. . .

I am doing a 12 days of Christmas activity with my class where everyday for 12 days I leave them a goody. Day one (yesterday), they each got one candy cane. Day 2 (today), two cookies. Lucky for me, both of those started with C. . . with leftovers of both . . . upon arrival at work. . . today's breakfast was complete!

A few days ago a friend of mine asked me to dinner Thursday night. . . I was worried at first. . . I was so not going to lose this challenge because of him! And lose the challenge I did not!


As a side note. . . I think my puppy Doogle is quite smart. He must know that it's C day . . . all night long he keeps trying to eat my Carpet!!