Disneyworld Planning

With less than 60 days to go until Disneyworld it was time to book our fastpasses and really plan out our days at Disneyworld.  This is honestly one of my least favorite things about Disneyworld.  I feel like you have to plan out almost every second of you day.  Plus it seemed harder to book around our dinner reservations this time.  

 As you know the kiddo has ADHD and anxiety and the last two trips he hasn't really wanted to ride as many rides as he used to, however, the last few times we have gone he has LOVED the waterslides at the hotels so we decided that we are going to focus a bit more of our time at the hotel pool, the waterparks, DisneyQuest (one last time 😭) Disney Springs, hitting up EVERY photpass stop, and doing the things he really likes. So we decided that we wanted to adjust some of the meal reservations we had already booked.   We are going to be down there for 11 days and we have a sitter for three of those days so we are going to get to do the things we want to just the two of us.  We canceled our Be Our Guest breakfast reservation so that we can hit up Hollywood Studios for all the new Star Wars things.  We are also going to cancel one of our reservations at Le Cellier so that we can spend the day at Animal Kingdom to watch Rivers of Light with Fastpasses.  I am kind of sad but they are doing the Flower & Garden festival and they have a ton of food kiosks that look amazing so that will be really fun.  

I really want to do this trip different from the last few we have done.  This will be our last time going to Disneyworld for at least a year so I want to make some awesome memories and do some things we haven't done in the past.

The fastpasses that we booked are:

Magic Kingdom                             Epcot                                   Hollywood Studios

Meet Mickey                                  Living with the Lands         Rock N Roller Coaster

Tomorrowland Speedway              Meet the Characters            Star Tours

Tales with Belle                             Pixar Short Films                Indiana Jones

Splash Mountain                                                                        Disney Jr Live on Stage 

Seven Dwarfs                                Animal Kingdom                 Fantasmic

Pirates                                           Meet the Characters

Peter pan                                       Kilimanjaro Safari                          

Big Thunder                                  Rivers of Light

Haunted Mansion

I am really excited for our trip.  I need to find some new outfits (especially Disneybouding ones) since I have lost so much weight none of my old stuff really fits and I need to get the hubby a carry on, and all the little misc. stuff for the trip.  

We also started our Friday night Disney Movie nights.  Let week we watched A New Hope and last night we watched Finding Dory for the first time.  

Purging stuff and not buying as much

While I was on vacation I watched a bit of Netflix and I found this documentary called Minimalism - A Documentary about the Important Things.  A lot of it resonated with me.  I love to shop and I have a hard time getting rid of stuff.  I will buy something just because I think it's cute, or I think I just can't live without it, or sometimes for a social status.  When I was cleaning up the house I found a ton of things that I never even took out of the box.  I realized that I don't want to do that anymore.  I only want to have things around me that make me happy, that I will use and are of good quality.

I ended up donating 10+ bags of stuff to the Goodwill and it felt really good.  My house was starting to stress me out because there was just so much stuff and I was running out of places to put things.  It was hard for me to get rid of some of the stuff but I really needed to let go of things.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not saying that I will never go shopping again, or I will only buy used items, I just need to stop buying so much!!! I think this will help the hubby and I get a bit more financially secure as well.  I want my house to be a place of comfort and refuge.

Month in Review

Man oh man do I ever have to stay on top of my blogging.  I can't believe how long it has been since my last blog post!!!!  I didn't even get up my review of the Star Wars half.  I think I may still do it just 3 weeks to late lol.

January was a crazy busy month.  I feel like I haven't had a chance to settle into the new year yet.  To be honest we still have our Christmas tree up, shhh don't tell anyone.

We had Grandma's birthday weekend, then our trip at the start of the month, then I ended up getting really sick right after we came back from vacation so I was laid up in bed for like 5 days, then we had to do some stuff for the kiddo's school, and now it's February.

I don't know about you guys but I am not liking 2017 so far.  For some reason I am in a major funk.  I just did my first run since we came back from vacation and I have only lost 1 lb of the 8 I had gained since November, my mom & sister are not getting along at all, our vehicles need more work, the kiddo is having a rough time with his ADHD, etc etc.  I feel like I am stuck in a terrible depressed rut.  I am hoping that I can get out of it in February.

I am also really mad at myself for neglecting my blog.   I am going to sit down and plan out some posts and make myself do them.  I keep having these ideas for what I am going to post and what I will say but when I go to sit down the things I am trying to say don't come out right, or I need to do housework, or the kiddo needs something.  So I talked with the hubby about it and we are going to block off 10 minutes a day for me each day to focus on my blog.  I really do love my hubby.

So to not end this blog on a bad note I figured I would point out a few positive things that have happened this month:

It snowed.  We didn't get much but when it's dark and gloomy and cold I love getting some snow.

I got to enjoy some wonderful Lush products.

I got to go to Disneyland again and I did my first Rebel Challege, it was amazing!!!

My hubby and I went out to the Melting Pot to celebrate 18 years of being a couple.

See life isn't to bad, I just need to focus on the positives and just keep swimming.

Here is to an awesome February

2017 Resolutions

We have a fun filled day planned today.  I spent the morning relaxing in the bath while catching up on YouTube videos, then we ran the first mile of the year.  We were going to do the Polar Bear Plunge but the kiddo really didn't want to and they are not doing it the normal way so it's going to be insane with way to many people.  The rest of the day will be watching the Seahawks game while I get caught up on laundry.

As usual I have a few resolutions.  You may see a few on here from last years on here but I figured a good way to stay on track might be to do a blog post at the end of each month giving a status on how well I am doing on them.  It might hold me a bit more accountable.

*Do long runs each weekend with family - Since Thanksgiving we haven't been doing real well on the long runs.  Our weekends filled up pretty quickly, it's rainy, cold, and get's dark earlier, but no more excuses.  I love running as a family so I want to keep up with that.

*Work on the House - This is one from last year.  We did some slight updating of the bathroom, but we really have big plans for the house as a whole.  We need a new couch, we really need to gut the bathroom, and the yard needs some work.  We will re-do the kitchen but that will probably be in 2018.  We only have two trips planned this year, the Light Side run in January and the Dark Side run in April so we will hopefully have some money to really do substantial work to the house.

*Keep staying healthy - I feel so good since the hernia surgery and it really helped me to learn to listen to my body and to eat right, however Christmas has been a bit tough on me.  I have eaten way more than I should have and most of it hasn't been to good.  I gained 7 lbs since Disneyland in November oops.  I think I am going to do weekly weigh-ins here on the blog as well as weekly work outs.  So to start I am at 168 lbs as of this morning.  My goal is to be 150 by our trip to Disneyworld and 144 by the end of th year, I hope I can do it.

*Date my hubby again - This sounds weird, but with all of life stresses the hubby and I have kind of put our relationship on the back burner.  I really want to make time to spend with the hubby just the two of us.  I love him so much and I want to nurture that relationship.

*Stay on top of chores - I spent a lot of the last week organizing, rearranging, purging,  and deep cleaning the house.  I love the way the house looks and feels right now.  My goal is to create a chore calendar and keep up on it.

*Blog more - Of course another one from last year.  I did a bit more on the blog this year but not as much or as quality as I would have liked to.  I really struggled a lot last year with being kind of lazy and uninspired.  So this year I hope to do more and come up with a schedule of interesting things to blog about.

*Start vlogging - This is something I have wanted to do for a while, but I am really scared to put my face out there.  I have been practicing and I think I have a way to start them without putting my face in the vlogs.  Maybe I will put a few out there and see what everyone thinks.

*Play games as a family - One thing we really like to do is play games but as the kiddo has gotten older it's tough because of homework.  He struggles with his ADHD when it comes to sitting still & focusing on homework so it's a fight to get him to do his work, and then we eat dinner and it's bedtime.  We should plan every other Friday or something to just sit down and play games.

*Read more - I love to read but over the last two years I have not been reading as much.  I get overwhelmed with the choices of books and I am worried that I will spend money and hate the book.  My goal is to buy a new book each month and read it.  Some will be on my tablet and others will be real books.

*Get more organized - I love making lists, it actually calms me down, but when it comes to keeping a calendar I struggle.  I forget to look at it.  I think I am going to take 5 minutes each day to keep it up to date and figure out what I have going on for the week and stay on top of it.

*Take better care of my skin - I have always done a pretty good job of taking care of my skin but lately not so much.  I need to start doing masks, putting lotion on, using my lush bombs, put night cream on, etc.  In the summer my skin is really nice but in the winter it's so dry and it hurts.  Any ideas for good products is accepted.

*Purge - I did a pretty good job or purging this year but I still want to do more.  I also want to stop shopping as much.  I want to buy quality over quantity.  I will do a blog post about this soon.

Do any of you have any resolutions for the new year?  I hope everyone is having a fantastic start to 2017.

Happy New Years Eve

I hope everyone is having an amazing New Years Eve.  We just finished up some fondue and are watching Zootopia.  Then we will watch some of the specials on TV and head to bed so we can get up early to do a run then the polar bear plunge.

2016 had some up's and down for us but all in all it wasn't to terrible.  I got a few of my resolutions done which you can see here.  I am hoping to do a lot better next year.  I got healthy, ran a lot more, got a PR, purged and got a bit more organized.  There are still a lot of other things I need to do though.

I am going to head back with the family and finish up our movie.  I hope you all have a safe and awesome New Year.

Excited yet stressed

I am so excited for our trip in 13 days!!!!  However I am a bit stressed about it as well.

One of the downsides of having older vehicles is when both of them decided that they need work at the same time 😢 So that is going to cut into our trip money.  We might have to cancel one of our dinner reservations which on one hand sucks but on the other hand doesn't.  With the reaction that the kiddo had in November we are planning on bringing some good things that the kiddo can eat to help keep his ADHD in check.  I will let you know how that goes.

I haven't really trained as well as I should have.  It is really hard to work out when it's dark, cold, and rainy outside.  I had planned to take the kiddo running each day of vacation this week but I wanted to clean and play with the kiddo so that hasn't happened.  I also haven't been eating as well as I should.  The hubby got me a HUGE bag of kisses which is probably my favorite chocolate candy and I have pretty much been eating those and homemade spritz cookies from Christmas.  Not a good thing.  I really want to finish the challenge and I am scared I won't.  I have never done a challenge before.  The hubby says I should be fine but you never know.

I hope everyone had a great Christmas I know that we did.  Here is to a fantastic New Year!!!!

ADHD is the Devil

I said I was going to be a bit more truthful and open in the blog so here goes.

The kiddo has ADHD.  We started taking him to see a counselor a little over a year ago because his anxiety had gotten way out of control.  He wouldn't go to movie theaters, he wasn't riding any of his favorite rides at Disney, he was afraid of the dark, etc.  The final straw came when one morning he was to scared to get into the car and go to school.  So we did some research and found a counselor not to far from our house.  After some interactions with him she asked if he had been diagnosed with ADHD.  To be honest I was shocked.  He had some problems concentrating in school, his handwriting was atrocious but he was a smart kid with a big heart and as much as I hate to admit it, I had a preconceived notion of what ADHD/ADD kids behaved liked.

So around March of this year we took him to his doctor to see about what our next steps were and to see if he could be tested for ADHD.  After talking to the Dr for a while and getting some information on it I was starting to see that he very clearly has it. Not only that but we also found out that he has a condition known as amblyopia which means he never learned to see out of one eye.  So not only were we dealing with the ADHD diagnosis but now he had to wear an eye patch and glasses every day.  I have never felt like such a failure as a parent as I did those first few months after the diagnosis.  What could I have done to prevent this, how was I contributing to this?  Did that soda I have when I was 6 months pregnant cause it?

Luckily the kiddo is extremely bright and he gets it.  We have sat down and explained to him what ADHD is and different ways to help him manage it.  I remember when we met with his pediatrician and he asked us what was up the kiddo said "I am here to find out if I have ADHD"  We chose to not medicate him when we first found out.  We did this program called PCIT with his counselor which he just recently graduated from.  However, the biggest thing we changed was his diet.  We have taken processed foods and foods with dyes in them completely out of his diet.  He has been so understanding about it and he even reads the labels to see if he can eat certain foods.  It's kind of sad in a way because I feel like I am depriving him of a lighthearted childhood, but I feel like it's what's best for him.  We have found a ton of really good recipes and there are a lot of things out there now that  use natural ingredients to color things (ex: beets, carrots, etc) He had improved by leaps and bounds and when we met with the teachers earlier this year they said that other than a few minor issues in math he was doing amazing.

Flash forward to our trip in November.  We tried really hard to keep him on his diet, we bought him the few all natural snacks they sold in Disneyland (all 3 of them) but we still had regular meals that he had to eat.  We stayed clear of most everything that we knew had dye in it, the cupcakes, anything colorful etc but it didn't work :(  It was really eye opening to see him act the way he had less than a year ago.  We almost kind of forgot how bad it really was.  He was all over the place, he couldn't sit still, he couldn't finish a full sentence, he was high anxiety, he was emotional and getting him to sleep was a fight. Then we got back and we got the emails from the teachers.  He isn't sitting down, he's refusing to do his classwork, etc etc.  It was heartbreaking.  He had worked so hard and now it felt like we were back at square one.

The hubby and I started talking about the possibility of putting him on medication and we are torn.  I have heard some statistics where if you don't put the kids on it by the time they are 10 or 11 they are more likely to become addicts, then other reports of the kid just turning into a zombie.  I honestly don't know what to do.  We want to do what is best for him but we honestly don't know what is best.  So after some discussion we decided that we would put more of a focus back on his diet.  The hubby and I have the next two weeks off so we are going to focus on really purging his system and go 100% back on the diet and stay on top of his vitamins (he takes Omega-3 and a pro biotic which we have also found helps him a lot)  We will then schedule a follow up with his pediatrician and evaluate if we should do medication or not.

If anyone has any stories or advice I would love to hear about it.  If there is one thing I have learned it's so helpful to talk about it and find other people who have been through this or are going through it.  It makes you feel less alone.