Winning

I never realized when I married Jeff that I was signing myself up for a lifetime of losing.

That sounds bad.  Let me explain.

Jeff is competitive.  REALLY competitive.  And if you think for one second that he's going to allow his wife or anyone for that matter to out-do him or show him up in something... you are wrong.

That's not to say that he doesn't lose on occasion, but he LOVES to win and he's not afraid to let you know it.  That's why when I actually do win, the victory is oh so sweet.

One day when I was giving him a hard time for not ever wanting to play games with me anymore (we used to play games a lot)... his response was something like this,  "Well it's not that fun when I always win."  I was so mad by that comment I don't think I asked him to play another game for a LONG time.

And that brings me to the Wegener Weight Loss Competition.
Jeff started a weight loss competition with his family for any of his brothers and sisters who wanted to participate.  10 of us signed up, including his mom and dad.
We each put 40 bucks into the pot and whoever lost the most percentage of weight at the end of the 8 weeks, gets the cash.  Second place gets their money back.

Unfortunately in this particular competition, I didn't win. (sigh)  My husband did...but I have to say, despite my crushed hopes of purchasing a new wardrobe, I am proud of him for winning.  He definitely earned it. 

We both started out doing the Insanity workout.  And I'm here to tell you the name rings true.  It is IN--SANE. (props to all of you who get through the full 6 week program)  We stuck with it for maybe a couple of weeks and then got a little lazy.  We kept saying we needed to start up again but it never happened.  I stuck to my Jillian Michaels dvd and Jeff played basketball a couple of nights a week.  That about summed up our workouts.

There is no way I could have gone to the extremes Jeff did to win.  He is nuts.  I should have known from the beginning that I was crazy to even compete against Jeff.  Especially with me nursing and all, I certainly couldn't limit my calories to an absurd amount like he did.  As badly as I wanted that money, apparently he wanted it more.

Jeff's sister Angie came in a very close second.  She is equally as competitive as Jeff.  Playing games with them can get very heated!  I get nervous when I play on the same team as Jeff... (Shane I know you feel my pain!)  Angie and Jeff were tied at 10% with one week to go... the rest of us were a ways behind. :(  I think some of us gave up after we realized we didn't have much of a shot!

I don't think Jeff ate more than 700 calories a day during that last week.  I could hardly stand watching him eat!  And the day before the final weigh in he didn't eat/drink hardly a thing, and THEN he drank a laxative!  I'm tellin you, he's nuts.

I told him he was going to make himself sick and I would have no part in it.
He responded with, "yeah, but I'll get better."

Some would say drinking a laxative was considered cheating, but Jeff was CERTAIN Ang would be doing the same thing... apparently she has a conscience. :)  Luckily for Jeff he was a good 6 pounds ahead at the final weigh in that even if he hadn't of drank the laxative I'm sure he would have won. 

In the end Jeff ended up losing a whopping 27 pounds with a total percentage of weight loss of 13.12%.  Wowzers!  That's 4 pounds shy of Trey!

And you wanna know what he bought with his money??

Yeah, I wasn't too happy, but I guess he earned it.
I would have at least spent it on something useful....like clothes.  Ha!

I would have loved to post a before and after picture of Jeff but he refused to let me take one, probably because he knew I'd post it on the blog.  So.... I guess you'll just have to take my word for it.  He looks gooood. :)

(He may have gained back 5 of it already... but hey, at least he won... right!?)

Red Lodge, Montana

Jeff had the day off on Thursday, so we decided to take a drive to Red Lodge, Montana.

I'm so glad we did.  It is beautiful there.  I can't wait to go back.

We went on a short hike up to this lake that a friend told us about.  There was only one other person there while we were there.  It really was breathtaking.

We brought some crackers and bread to feed the fish.  There was one lone little duck swimming around.  We fed it too. :)
It is still quite hazy there from all of the fires, which means it can only get prettier.

We then decided to check out the local candy store.  Trey was in heaven.  (I may have been too)

And to end our evening we ate dinner at this little pizza joint.

Kate was her usual sweetheart self.

It was a perfect day.

Minus the drive home... that was awful.

I won't name any names, but a certain 2 year old thought it would be fun to whine the whole way home.  Not kidding. (he didn't get a nap in hopes that he would sleep in the car)

Well that didn't happen... until literally 2 minutes from home.

 

Why is it when you want them to sleep they don't... and when you don't want them to, they do!

I swear it happens EVERY time!

8 months for the babe!

Somehow we lucked out with this one...

She is just the sweetest little thing.  We can't get enough of her.

Kate absolutely loves bathtime.  She gets so excited when she knows I'm about to put her in the tub.  Recently she has started throwing a fit if I put Trey in the tub and not her.  At first I thought it was just coincidence, but nope.  She wants to get in that tub too and she's gonna let everyone know it!!

Kate is in no hurry to crawl.  She's content for now to just sit and watch everything that goes on around her... who needs to crawl when you have a brother who brings you everything you need!

She sure is a picky little eater.  I remember at this point with Trey I was giving him a lot of finger foods and other table foods besides just the pureed fruit and veggies out of a jar.   Kate is really not a fan of finger foods.  She just doesn't seem to care for it, it mostly ends up on the floor rather than in her mouth.  And if I ever give her something new to try she makes the most disgusted face and gags.  It's too bad because I often used things like puffs and mum-mums as a distraction for Trey at things like church or in his exersaucer....that trick doesn't work for Kate.

I'm really hoping Kate is going through a short phase right now with her night time sleep.  She has been waking up way too much this past week (I'm talking anywhere from 4-5 times a night)... and she was doing so good for about a month sleeping almost 10 hours straight!  I keep thinking she's probably teething but I've yet to see anything pop through.  Poor girl just isn't quite herself lately.  I'm hoping to see some teeth soon so I can have something to blame it on.  5 times a night is just too much!!

Kate gets so excited whenever I go in her room to get her out of bed.  Her arms start going a million miles a minute.  It's the cutest thing.  She is for the most part always happy when she wakes up and will often talk in her crib for quite a while after a nap or in the mornings.

Some of her recent tricks include clapping (she doesn't do it very often, but she has done it!), high pitched scream, she says: ma-ma, da-da, ga-ga, and lots of other little noises.  Her most recent discovery is something that resembles that of someone who is just about to halk a loogy (sp?).  I don't know where she learned it, but it's funny.

Sure do love my sweet baby girl.  She makes me happy that's for darn sure!

I am certainly no photographer and don't intend to be... but I did my best trying to get a few shots of her at 8 months.

Good thing I had my little sidekick to help me out.
(my old camera is a lifesaver!)

 These next three are a sequence of events...
Lately, as soon as she discovers that bow on her head that is the end of it.  In this particular instance, she snapped the bow back on her head and that concluded pictures for the day.

Look at those tears!  :(
(You can obviously tell I was feeling really bad if I continued taking pictures... haha)

Take 2

He sure is a cheeseball lately!

And then I tried to take some pictures similar to the ones I took of Trey at 8 months...

Crazy the difference in their size!

Trey was a CHUN-KER!!

And then I took about a billion more because I couldn't help myself...

Happy 8 months baby girl!

This and That

Jeff and I have been trying to soak up what's left of these beautiful summer evenings and have taken the kids on a lot of walks.  The weather has been so perfect these past couple of weeks, I'm really not excited that winter is just around the corner.

On this particular evening, we took the kiddos to a walking trail not far from our house.  The sunset was beautiful.

We just recently bought a double stroller (it took us forever to decide what we wanted) and when we finally did, Trey refuses to ride in it.  All he wants to do is walk... or he begs for us to hold him.  Awesome.

At least Kate seems to like it...

Lookout point just off the trail.
Trey has really got his cheesey grin down.  haha

Running off into the sunset!

Racing his cars on the path.

Last night we went to a local corn maze.  They had a bunch of fun activities for kids.  It was fun to get out and do something a little different.  I think Trey had a good time.

And Kate... well she's just a sweetheart and hardly made a peep the whole night.

 I had to laugh at this picture.  I didn't realize I got a picture of this until I got home.  haha

They took us on a little wagon ride around the corn field.

We were brave and took on the challenge of the corn maze with two kids.
Only we got about a quarter of the way through and decided to turn back.  Jeff pulled up the map on his phone and realized we had quite a long ways before the end and it was getting late, so we found our way back to the beginning.  But it was still fun... until all the teenage kids started making their way in and ran around like crazy people.  Jeff nearly got taken out from a girl who was running and texting at the same time.  Teenagers!  Ha.

It was a fun night.  Next time I think we'll go before all the high school kids show up.
Plus we need to pick ourselves out a pumpkin and try the freshly made kettle corn!