Well, today was the 2nd day in a row and ever that Hannah hasn’t had an accident during the day in her big girl undies. I went cold turkey two Mondays ago and gave up diapers with Hannah. She’s known how to potty for a while now, it’s just training myself to stop what I’m doing to help her out. And this week she totally shocked me when we were out grocery shopping and Hannah said she needed to go, and I wasn’t in any position to figure out how to juggle our stuff and Zeke and take her, so I assumed she went in her pull-up…and she waited until we were home! Bless her heart, she is growing up so fast, only 21 months old!

And Mr. Zeke. Not much older than 7 months, has been crawling on all fours like a champ since we got home from Easter. And today I caught him pulling himself up to standing twice. Seriously kid? Slow down! I thought about pulling him down and making him sit, but figured that would just give him more practice to go and stand up again. At least, I’m hoping this means before we know it he’ll be strong enough to defend himself from Hannah.

Tim has been the best husband ever. I have grown to admire him even more over the past year with everything we’ve been through, good and bad. He’s chasing after a dream right now, and I’m glad he has the opportunity. So many men go through life never taking the risk to pursue what they are passionate about, and I don’t want Tim to look back and regret taking advantage of this time. It has taken me a little bit to finally get to this point of being supportive and not stressed about how we’re going to make it financially. But, God has been blessing us through providing for our needs. We don’t have much extra, but we’re getting by and growing.

And then there’s me…

Every day I am forcing myself to work out. I’m doing Jillian Michael’s 30 day shred. It’s only a 20 minute workout dvd, but she is tough! And Weight Watchers is going well. I still have things to figure out so I’ll be eating healthier. Hopefully in a couple more weeks I’ll have a better handle on it. And juggling the kids in with all of this. On top of getting healthy physically, I’m doing a women’s Bible study on forgiveness with our church. This is a very timely study for me, and I’ll have to write more about it later.

Last Wednesday I vlogged a little bit about what is going on in my life on a very personal level. I’m excited to see the outcome over the next 3 months. You can watch it here…

The only motivation I have right now to get healthy is that I want to feel better about myself. That motivation doesn’t get me excited to work out and eat healthy, but it’s enough to force myself to make better decisions.

Last Monday I started counting calories and on Wednesday I joined Weight Watchers. Last Monday I also started Jillian Michael’s 30 Day Shred. I did day 8 today, moving up to level 2 for the first time. Both have taken lots of self discipline to do, and so far it’s paying off.

So after living this new way for a week I’ve lost…*drum roll please…* 8 lbs!

With being a fan of The Biggest Loser, I’m expecting a low number next week, which is probably healthy. Although I do believe on the Weight Watcher’s site it said the average to loose “after the first 3 weeks” is 1-2lbs. I’d be pretty pumped if I can loose quite a bit more in the next 2 weeks. It didn’t seem too hard to loose these first 8lbs while my body is just in shock from doing something healthy for the first time in a LONG time. Most of my struggle is how long it takes me to figure out what I can eat, and what to cook for dinner. I was about to eat some cheesy noodles with the rest of the family and put myself 3 points over my daily allowance, but I opted out and got more salad which made me hit my daily allowance perfectly.

I’m signed up with Weight Watchers for 3 months, and I’m praying I can stick with it. We’ll see what happens. I’m not sure how much I’ll blog about it, but I’m planning on making weekly videos on my youtube channel.

I was talking to my sister-in-law last week about how my faith in God has really grown over the last 9 months. One of the biggest areas I have grown in is my trust that God will provide the needs of my family. Its one thing to know in your head that God keeps his promises and will take care of us, but when you live through a situation when all you can do is trust, a whole new aspect of your beliefs come in to play.

My nervousness about how our family will make it financially surprised me. God totally blessed Tim and I while getting out of debt. And over the last few years I would’ve said my security is not in money. But when Tim lost his job I quickly learned that I had a tight grip on our money, trying to find security in it. I immediately worried about how we would pay for bills and groceries. And God immediately started providing for us.

Luckily we had our finances set up to where the money Tim made in the current month would pay for the next, the denomination we were in helped us out some, and God worked through people in the church to send us anonymous gift cards to walmart and target. Every time we got a gift card in the mail I cried thankful tears and was amazed with how amazing God is to provide just when we need it. And he provided again this morning at church from someone I don’t know.

I am thankful for this time of trials, and know we aren’t near the end. God has humbled me many times in the last several months and is teaching me a lot about myself.