8 weeks

So Its been 8 weeks since I decided to try to lose weight. At first all I did was walk 2 miles a day. I did that for 2 - 3 weeks. I wasn't losing anything really. I realized that in order to lose the weight I wanted to I NEEDED to step up my game. So that's what Ive done! I joined Golds Gym. I actually really like working out! NEVER thought I would say that! ha ha :) But I do! I try to go to the gym 6 days a week. I usually stay for no more than 1 hr. That's how long Maddie can stay in the childcare. Which by the way she HATES! :( oh well.... She'll learn to love it the way I do. My good girlfriend Rachel got me interested in the gym and working out. Thank God for her! :) So I love the elliptical machine. That's my FAV!  I also enjoy doing weight training. I'm thinking about maybe taking a class?! Maybe one day. For now I love what I got going on. It feels sooo good to feel beautiful again. For the record Ive lost 16 pounds and lost 3-4 inches in my belly. I'm soo happy. I have a lot more weight to lose but I'm happy already. I cant wait to see how it feels when I can say I lost another 15! :)

Big Girl

Love that lil face! Wow.... my baby has turned into such a BIG GIRL! Time flies Almost 14 months

Im proud

Well its been 2 weeks since I have decided to change my life forever. I'm proud to say I'm sticking to my words. I have been eating much better. I also have been walking 2 times a day. Also following a 1 year old around all day! ha.... That's a workout in itself!! Anyways....down 7 pounds! Yay for me! Ive got a long way to go! But I'm doing it!! I'm feeling so much better.... :) Hopefully next time I will say lots and lots of weight just fell off! Im so PrOuD of myself!

my thoughts....

                       Let me just start out by saying.... I'm ready to change! I'm have been battling my weight issues for well like forever! Especially this last year. After I had Madelyn. I didn't go on a diet or exercise like most pregnant women do. I KNOW what happened was this: I had gestational diabetes when I was pregnant. I wasn't allowed to have sugar at all. I wasn't allowed to eat anything I wanted. I had to monitor my sugar intake 4 times a day. That was hard as hell. I did it of course with no questions asked! But after I had the baby I was able to eat anything I wanted. So I did. I'm not beating around the bush on this. ha ha. I did eat anything. I wanted too! I mean I didn't like eat an entire carton of ice cream in one sitting... haha! I just didn't diet. I am the kind of person I can talk about doing something till the cows come home. But actually doing it that can be a long process. I have talked about how much I hate the way I look for the last year all the time. However I NEVER did anything about it. Unfortunately, I wasn't born with the skinny gene. :( If I wanna look good I need to eat right and exercise. It is not a easy thing for me. I know I have to do this. I'm soooooo ready to start to feel good again. I wanna be proud of the way I look. If I feel like I look good then I will feel better. I wanna feel sexy ;)

                               I had have a hard time excepting my "mama body" Having a c-section really changes your body. Having to have my muscles cut through was not easy. My belly will never be the same. I'm learning in time that just by being a mother it makes me more beautiful than I ever was. This blog is not supposed to be a pity blog at all. Its just me expressing my biggest battle in life right now. In the beginning of this week. I have had a life changening moment. I have realized that I deserve to feel good about myself. Instead of just talking about it. But actually do something about it. I am the only person who can truly change me. I am ready. I am not doing anything severe. I don't do good at SUPER strict diets. So I'm not calling this a diet.. I'm just calling this a challenge to be healthy everyday. I need it. I want it. I never wanna be that mom. I don't wanna be able to not keep up with my daughter one day. I dont wanna get full blown diabetes as a older adult. I'm at greater risk. I wanna be healthy and feel good.  This past week I'm eating way better and exercising as often as possible. I'm ALREADY feeling better. It crazy how one day I just realized that I can do anything! I can lose the weight I want to. I'm the strongest person I know. I don't have a time line or a weight limit to reach.  But what I do have this time around is confidence in myself. I have confidence that I can do this and stick to it!

M & M

Yesterday Red came home with flowers for his girls! First time we ever both got them! Sooo pretty! xoxo

I survived!

                                So..... It's official I have survived my 1st hurricane! Hurricane Irene came to visit on friday night. I had been awaiting the arrival of "her" for about a week. Watching the news all the time. I became obsessed with checking the news. Always looking to see how fast it was or where its projected path was. I have lived here for the last 4 years and had never been in one before. I was overly strangely excited! Once I knew it was coming to NC I had to go to the madhouse.... WALMART! Maddie and I went on that wednesday before the storm. It seemed like everyone and their cousin was there. Damn... they were almost outta cases of water. They had no raviolis and almost outta bread. I thought OMG! I ended up stocking up. I bought steaks, chicken legs, Italian sausage, cheeseburgers. I figured I would wanna be eating good food on the grill if our power was gonna be out. Screw the raviolis! haha..... So friday daytime finally came. Red was sent home from work because of the storm. All kinds of businesses started preparing for the hurricane. Lots of cars headed outta town. Alot of places were closing early! Everyone trying to get home. Irene came into town early friday afternoon. I was excited to finally see some rain and clouds and WIND! What I realized is that a hurricane is a very long long long storm. Not everything happens all at once. We would get these wind bands....the trees would sway back and forth. It reminded my of pom-poms. I loved the sound. We would get rain on and off. Some hard rain some light rain. It was fun! Madelyn also had her first experience ;)

                                On friday night Red cooked us our steaks on the covered porch we have. We were set up! It felt like camping in the back yard. LOL. We put Mads to bed around 715ish. So for the rest of the evening we pretty much sat outside on the porch and just watched and listened to the storm. I defintly wanted to be outside for as long as I could. The worst part of the storm was gonna be between 2am-4am. Around 5am the power went out. Boooo! I woke up right away. Madelyn woke up right away. We were all up at 5am with candles lite and flash lights. It was kinda hard to play with Mads in the dark. With no cartoons!! We were stuck in the house for the next thousand hrs! We could only go on the porch. I was thankful for that! We even ended up eating steaks and eggs in the am on the grill. It was YUMMY! We played played played in the house all day! Trying to keep a baby entertained during a hurricane can become difficult! especially towards the end! NO TV or music. or even the option to play outside. We made lunch outside on the grill. I would say in the afternoon on Saturday Irene was finally slowing down some outside. People in my neighborhood started to go outside. We wanted to see if anything was broken. Or any trees where cracked in half.

                                       The neighborhood was a MESS! There were tree limbs everywhere! Pine cones
galore!!!! We went out on a bike ride! We wanted outta the house! We had to open the windows. It was starting to get hot in the house. So I know noticed.... All kinds of people have generators! I want a generator! If I'm gonna live in NC for the rest of my life I need a generator! haha. I was and still am jealous of anyone who has one! We had to go to my sister house for about 1 hr that day. So we could get the baby in the ac. She needed to cool off! So did I :)  I needed to charge my cell phone. The battery was dying right before my eyes. So went there! A few of us met up over there. It was nice! Auntie Jaymee never lost power!! LUCKY!!  Anyways it was time to head home. Mads needed dinner. We went back home to still NO POWER! I was very sad! We made dinner on the grill! As soon as we sat down to eat ..... The power came BACK ON!! So glad I can sleep with the ac on! Yay!! I was sooooo HaPpY! 14 hours of no power thats a plenty for me!! The hurricane was actually kinda fun in a way. Nothing was damaged! No one was hurt! We were all safe! Now I can write in Madelyn's baby book..... We went through our 1st hurricane together!!!  xoxo

Sweetest face!

update

So I wanted to write a update about Madelyn and all her accomplishments lately! I feel like there are so many. My lil baby seems more and more like a BIG GIRL now more than ever. She been walking since she was 11 months old. Now she's sometimes running. We like to play mommy chases baby. She laughs soooo hard when I chase her. We have FINALLY got rid of the bottles. It was easy for Maddie and hard for me. It was like the last lil baby thing she did. :( Oh well.... I'm glad she took it well. haha She is also a chatter box. Oh lets see she says soooo much.... where do I begin.... mama. gaga = dada  gogee = doggie  me me = up
bye bye mimi = minnie baby tink you = thank you meow meow Shes so smart. She can pick out certain books out of a pile of them and bring them to mommy. She can pretty much bring anything to me that I ask. She LOVES to dance. all day!! She's a outdoor girl that's for sure.... loves the birds. Too bad its been like 1000 degrees... ahhh! The girl has been teething since she was 3 1/2 months old. She now has 14 teeth! My goodness these molars are no fun for her. :( I know she will be glad too when its all over. She knows all kinds of animals and their sounds. I cant believe how quickly she learns. Must have gotten it from me! haha. Love my girl... glad we got a video camera to capture all these moments! They sure do fly by! Now if I can figure out how to download them I would post them! haha. until next time :)

We made it!

We made it our 1st year!! I knew we would :) It has been the FASTEST year of my life!!! I cant wait for the next 100 years! :) Madelyn Grace you are our world. You make the sunshine. I cant imagine life without you!

too much thinking!!!

So Ive been feeling overwhelmed with all these parental decisions! As we are approaching Madelyn being 1 years old I feel like there is way to much thinking needed! haha.... like whole milk vs toddler milk. rear facing car seat vs forward facing. what to make this child for dinner. how can I sneak in the veggies?! she HATES them! all of them! I cant even decide what to get her for her birthday present?! haha... I'm a MESS!!  I'm torn on the car seat. The reason is she seems to hate the car seat lately. crying all the time. its drives me nuts. It makes me think that if I just turn her around and set her in the middle seat looking out she would be happier. I think it would make a much more peaceful ride. But what if we do get rear-ended and she hurts her neck... I would DIE! I definitely couldn't take that guilt. Who the heck knows whats gonna happen?!? Also Madelyn is 100% a walker.... And that girl goes goes goes!! ALL DAY! She never stops. Maybe to read a quick book. She definitely gets that from Red. Hes the same exact way. Not me I can sit no problem! haha.. ;) So anyways a lil birdie told me to update my blog.... he he... that's all I got! :) always gotta have a pic~

1 more month to go.....

I cant believe my lil girl is 11 months old. It feels like just yesterday that we brought her home from the hospital. I know that the next month is going to fly by. I better getting hopping on birthday stuff. :)

Jean diaper

Unlucky

So I feel like our house is unlucky! Red is sick with a soar throat and running nose. Madelyn is teething. When I say teething I mean its BAD! the poor girl has been teething on and off since she was 3 1/2 months old. Now a couple of her molars are coming in and one front side tooth is coming in all at the same time. Booooooo!!!! So Red has been quarantined into our guess room at night. Which means NO HELP from him. Madelyn's been extra cranky! I'm the only one holding it together! I'm just praying that this house will go back to normal soon. Well, as normal as we are! haha :) Plus Red's gotta be getting better ASAP cause he has a week paid vacation starting on Sunday. So this unlucky vibe has got to it the road!

My Story

              This is my story of life. My name is Jessica. I'm originally from Southern California. I lived there for the first 25 years of life. I met my husband Red in Costa Mesa, California. He is originally from Wilmington NC. We dated for 11 months before we packed up our lives in moved to Wilmington NC. It was the BEST decision I've ever made. Although, leaving my family and friends behind was hard I was sooo excited to start a new chapter in my life. Red promised me that all my dreams would come true!

                 In the last 5 years we have accomplished so many things. We have bought a house. We have bought cars. We got married on October 11, 2008 in beautiful Las Vegas NV with our family and friends. Life consisted of working, hanging out with friends, playing in the yard etc. For the 1st year of our marriage we started trying to have a baby right off the bat. I couldn't WAIT to be a mother. Its all I ever dreamed of. Being a stay at home mom. Luckily Red wanted the same thing in life. He was excited to take care of his family. He's a GREAT MAN! Little did we know that it was gonna be a LONG year!

                  To make a long story short. We tried and tried and tried again every single month to get pregnant. We counted the days I should have been ovulating we tried to do "every thing right". Nothing worked. It become depressing at times. So I said after 1 year of healthy trying that if it didn't happen I would go to a specialist. HOWEVER..... who would have thought?! On the 13 month of trying to have a baby I was PREGNANT!! Yay for me! I would have never guessed that once we stopped trying so hard and just had a healthy marriage I would have gotten pregnant. Sooo HaPpY!! Being pregnant was the best gift a women can cherish. It was amazing!

                    Pregnancy was at times bittersweet. Your sooo happy to be caring a child. But then comes the news that I was a high risk pregnancy. I had Gestational Diabetes. In the grand skeem of things it was a easy fix. NO SWEETS! :(  I couldn't believe that they were telling me I couldn't eat them. I had to prick my fingers 4 times and day and log all my blood sugar levels. Even though it was a pain at time I knew it what was best for my baby girl. So it was kinda easy for me. I'm lucky enough to have no other complications except for the diabetes and the specialist always telling me I have a huge baby growin in me. A 10 pounder! AHHH! They said no vaginal birth. Must be a c-section. Which I was completely fine with actually. So we picked a date to have our girl. July 23, 2010 was the day that I realized life would NEVER be the same! But it was the life I wanted so bad! I was ready!! very very READY! :)

                     Madelyn Grace Broadhurst arrived at 2:16pm on July 23rd. She was BEAUTIFUL! Weigh in in at 9.2 pounds. 21 inches long with the longest blackest hair you ever saw. She looked exactly like me when I was fresh. The next 3 days in the hospital were great. We couldn't believe our angel was here. The feeling of parenthood is something I hope everyone can enjoy. Its indescribable at times. We were ready to take her home and ride the roller coaster of parenthood. As I write this blog now Madelyn is almost 11 months old. I seriously can't believe how fast its gone by. :( Watching this lil person evolve right in front of my eyes was...is...and will be AmAzInG! I love love love her! soooo MUCH!


                      The last year has been wonderful. Not always easy by all means. Luckily we haven't had to experience a cold or sick baby yet. THANK GOD! Guess it helps we stay home alot?! The most recent thing I'm having to overcome as a mommy is that my lil baby is turning into a BIG GIRL. Its crazy how much a child has to learn in the first year. It was easy peasy when all they need is formula, diaper changing and sleep. Of course, now shes on the go! GO GO GO is all she does. She's walking all over the place (with assistance of the furniture) and eating adult food (in lil pieces of course). She loves loves food. That girl takes after her momma! hahaha! But I'm so scared of her choking that I think I hold back alot of yummy stuff. oh well... I guess I will learn to trust her in the chewing dept. Another thing I cant believe is I'm planning her 1st bday party. Its actually being kinda stressful. I want it to be perfect. look perfect. and of course I'm hoping all of our friends and family will be there to share the moment with us. Soooo I need some "good luck" :) Next time I check in hopefully I will tell you the bday party planning is done! Here's a quick look at how the last year of Madelyn life has progressed.... hope yall think she as cute as we do?!! :)