by M on September 2, 2010
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I know I told you I would get more pics up of our new concrete…so here it is.
I really love the colors. It was exactly what I wanted and then some! It matches our stone perfectly!
And I totally love how they made the driveway look like big tiles!
Yes, that is Bents sitting in the driveway…playing with some type of yard tool. Hey. It kept him entertained while I took some pictures. I actually did a photo shoot of him in the driveway (in his jammies) as I was taking the concrete pics. I will try and post them tomorrow.
Back in 2004/2005, my husband introduced me to a workout program called Crossfit. He started doing it when he was deployed overseas in Iraq and fell in love with it! He came home from Baghdad in the best shape of his life.
Because Crossfit gyms were not very common a few years ago…we ended up doing the WOD (workout of the day) at our local Rec Center. It wasn’t ideal, but it worked.
After P Man came in to the world, I stopped caring about working out so much. I was more focused on spending time with my new baby. And even until after Bents arrived…I wasn’t interested in getting my muscle tone back.
However, I recently have found a new love for Crossfit again. There is a new Crossfit gym here in town and it is absolutely WONDERFUL! The trainers are the nicest people you will ever meet and the workouts are killer (in a good way).
Meet Emma. 
The head trainer at our Crossfit gym. Trust me…you don’t want to mess with her!
I have never had my a** hurt so bad in my life. But you know what that means….a tight booty! Just like college. Haha!
A lot of people ask me “What is Crossfit?” Here is a little exert from the Crossfit SO ILL website:
“CrossFit is an integrated approach to fitness that builds strength and increases endurance with high intensity workouts that are adaptable to any level of conditioning. Rather than working muscles in isolation, CrossFit exercises involve the entire body, a method that gets balanced results much more quickly than traditional programs which separate the weight room from the aerobics studio. CrossFit workouts have been designed for marines and middle school kids, ultra-marathoners and ultra-couch-potatoes, grandmothers and grand masters.”
It also says this, “The CrossFit program is designed to give you maximum results in a shorter time duration.”
Do you know what that means to a busy working mom of two? Maximum results in a SHORTER time period? SIGN ME UP!
Seriously, some of the workouts are less than 5 minutes. Go ahead….shrug your shoulders and say that there is no possible way you could get a successful workout in 5 minutes. I dare you to try it. Some of the 5 minutes workouts have been some of the HARDEST workouts of my life! I leave there…shirt soaked in sweat. No lie!
Not to mention that Crossfit members are so encouraging and supportive! All workouts can be scaled to your individual level. I can honestly say that EVERY class I have attended, people are pushing you to do your best!
Plus, they are kid friendly. My hubby and I do the Saturday morning class and bring our kids with us. 
Head trainer Emma and little Mr. Bents learning how to use a medicine ball.
We start em young!
P Man telling daddy that “he did a good job”! That must be where the smile came from.
If you are like me and really searching for something that is fun and effective, I highly encourage you to give it a try.
Crossfit gyms are everywhere now!! They are so popular! Search for a location near you…and sign yourself up! Or if you live in this area, shoot me an email mandyjrose@gmail.com and I can give you the details about Crossfit SO ILL!
Seriously. When I logged in to my blog this morning it said…”No posts available”.
There was nothing. notta. zilch.
ZERO blog posts. ZERO content. ZERO EVERYTHING!
I am almost panicked.
No. I did panic.
Thank goodness my hubby put a call in to our hosting company and voila…1 hour later…all my blog posts reappeared.
Phew!
Close call.
I didn’t have my blog backed up. Stupid stupid stupid, I know. It was one of those things I kept meaning to do…but never did.
Thankfully it has now been backed up.
It’s a good thing, because a certain someone needed his daily appearance on the blog.
He wanted to show you that he’s a crawling machine…
And he is constantly being chased by his big brother.
They are so cute together.
Now go back up your blog before your site crash’s and you lose everything! Trust me. It’s worth it.
I received this email from our Mission and Values team at work:
Determine your attitude first thing in the morning. Do you say, “Good Morning, Lord” or “Good Lord, Morning”?
I think I may need an attitude adjustment.
But it looks like I’m not the only one.
I’m pretty sure his face is saying one thing. And his shirt another.
I hate when life is so conflicting.
I can not even begin to express to you how excited I am to say that…WE FOUND BELLA!
Kristin printed flyers. We gathered up a few girls from work. And we headed out in to the neighborhood.
First we searched the wooded areas where she normally likes to venture to. No luck.
Then we decided to hit up house after house to pass out flyers and to ask neighbors if they had seen Bella.
Every house was the same. No sign of Bella.
Until we came to one of the last houses. We were told that he had seen Bella not too far from his house underneath a small bridge walkway.
It had been 2 days since he had seen her there so we tried not to get our hopes up. But, not gonna lie, the four of us sprinted to the bridge that he was talking about.
As we got closer, we thought we saw a log under the bridge, but once we yelled out her name….we saw movement and we knew it was her!!!!!
She was a little banged up and bruised…but VERY happy to see her mommy! 
Isn’t this the sweetest moment ever?
Kristin immediately took her to the doggy ER to get her checked out. We thought she may have had two broken legs, but once the vet checked her over he didn’t think she had any broken bones!
She is going to be just fine!! Praise God for such a happy ending!
And let’s hope Bella realizes that roaming the streets for 3 days is not as cool as it seems. 
If you live in the Marion area…my friend Kristin needs your help!!
Her dog Bella has been missing since Sunday evening. Bella is her baby. 
She is approximately 35 lbs, greyish-black, shaved, and sassy! She did not have tags on, but she does have a microchip.
She went missing near the Spring Garden Estates.
PLEASE HELP US FIND HER! THANK YOU!
Like any good THREE year old, P Man LOVES to help mommy around the house.
One of his favorite things to do…carry our laundry from the master bedroom to the laundry room. 
It doesn’t matter what the size of the pile is…he wants to carry it ALL it one trip. 
Even if it requires TEN stops along the way to pick up things he dropped.
And even if the pile is so heavy it makes him fall over.
He is determined to get it all there in ONE trip. Gotta love his determination.
Now if he could only fold it all once it was clean.
I have been wanting to do a picture wall FOREVER!
But trying to come up with which frames to buy…black, white, brown, gold, or a mix….and trying to figure out how to display the different size frames so it looked right….HEADACHE!
I think I stressed about it for a good six months before I decided to do anything.
Then I went to Target. And guess what? Target was having a frame sale. You know I am a sucker for a sale.
That was my turning point. Right there in aisle 12 at Target I decided that I wasn’t leaving without ALL of the frames for my picture wall.
You should have seen me. I pretended that the floor was my wall. And I started placing frames next to each other…on the floor…in aisle 12.
I had the entire aisle blocked for at least 15 minutes.
But the good news…I knew EXACTLY how I wanted my picture wall to look. I decided to go with a mix of black and brown frames. I also threw in the big R for our last name (gotta give credit to the hubby for suggesting that). 
And to think I stressed about something that took me 15 minutes to figure out. Stupid.
I even went home and decided that I was going to hang each one of them on my own! 
No help. My dad taught me how to use a tape measure, level, stud finder, hammer, and nails…very well. Very proud moment for this chick.
I filled them with random pictures I had laying around the house. I will most likely change them out once I figure out what I want to put in them.
But that may take me another 6 months. 
I like this one…where you can see the picture wall in the background…and the fat baby in the front.
Moral of the story:
1. Picture walls are not as stressful as they appear.
2. Fat baby’s are cute.
This past weekend we attended our hair stylist’s wedding.
For the purpose of my post…I will call that apple juice in her cup. ahem.
Laynn has been doing my hair since college! She also does my hubby’s hair and of course, she cuts the P-Man’s hair.
We kinda love her. She is quite fabulous.
So, as you can imagine, we were very excited to celebrate with her on her special day.
P-Man was a little SHY at the reception. He tends to get that way in big crowds.
But, give him an hour or so…some chocolate…
…hugs from mommy…
and a little coaxing by daddy..
And he was ready to bust out his dance moves. 
Or should I say he was performing his best rendition of his “So You Think You Can Dance” impersonations.
That is not a picture of him falling down.
Seriously. He was on the floor for 90% of his dance moves.
Laynn even posed for a picture with CG.
And yes.
CG was at the wedding with us. I am sure you didn’t doubt that.
But, how nice of her to take time out for CG on her wedding day.
These last few pictures really show you were P Man gets his facial expressions with his eyes. 
Daddy snapped this one. I guess he gets his “big eye look” from mommy. Clearly.
And check out these next two. 
Look at P’s eyes in the one above and J’s eyes in the one below. Notice a resemblance?
Guess his “drunk” look comes from daddy.
Since Bentley goes to bed by 6pm he stayed back at gigi’s house. This is the only family shot we got…and, of course, no cooperation from P diddy. 
The wedding was beautiful and such a great time!
Congratulations to Laynn and Rob!
I have SUCH a hard time getting P to eat anything healthy.
He has a diet of three foods.
1. Chicken Nuggets
2. Fettucini
3. French Fries
I think I only have myself to blame for this. I wish I would have never introduced him to McDonald’s or Fazzoli’s.
Does McDonald’s put crack in their kids meals? I am fully convinced they do.
I just want him to eat some broccoli. Or green beans. Or peas.
SOMETHING WITH SOME NUTRITIONAL VALUE!
But no such luck on that. Every time I offer him foods that are healthy he throws a fit and a hour later I end up giving in (to avoid the disturbance).
I have heard mothers say…”Just give him healthy food and if he doesn’t eat it, don’t give him anything else. Eventually he will eat it because you know he won’t go hungry.”
Not P. I’m pretty sure he’d go hungry before he put his mouth on any vegetable.
Literally.
I’d probably have a better chance of getting him to eat dog food.
So someone help me! 
How do you get your kids to eat healthy AND keep a smile on their face?
Because if you haven’t noticed…he kinda likes his fettucini.
A LOT!
And I kinda like it when he’s a happy boy.
I need an intervention! STAT!
The MIL was in town for a visit for the last 3 weeks! 
It was nice to have a break from “mommyhood”, but I’m not gonna lie…I kind of miss my kids when she is here. She lives in Las Vegas and only usually visits once or twice a year so she tends to hog the boys when she comes. To be expected.
And like I can blame her. The boys are easy to hog.
Luckily, she knows that she can’t let them break ALL the rules while she’s here. It’s taken her quite awhile to catch on to this theory (because like any good grandma she wants to spoil them rotten). But, she has finally realized that 3 weeks of spoiling and rule breaking equals an additional 4 weeks after she leaves of retraining and breaking bad habits.
I am so glad she is now on the same page with me! Thank you “gwma weelwee” for following mommy’s rules!
We tried for a mini photo shoot on her last day. Of course, this is when P was giving me all his kisses. Passionate kisses. Such a sweet boy he is.
I love that he actually took his picture with me. THIS NEVER HAPPENS!
Well, I should say…it never happens willingly.
And it definitely NEVER happens where he is actually smiling in the pictures (so of course I have to post every single one with him smiling). 
I almost captured both of the boys smiling in the same picture. But only almost. 
As you can see…when Bents was smiling…P was not.
And vice versa. O-well. Still cute in my opinion. 
This captures P’s personality so well…giving daddy the eyes.
I have the happiest baby on the planet. Literally. He is so happy. 
It’s only sometimes that he looks possessed. Only sometimes.
Both grandmas’s and their baby boy!
Thanks for the visit Grandma Lilly! I enjoyed the fried rice for breakfast the day after you left.
