Happy birthday, Grandpa Nosek!

On Saturday we celebrated my husband's dad's birthday. It's always so much fun when we get together!
We also stopped by a local park to see some snow sculptures...they were beautiful!

This was the kids' favorite...Tiki Santa!
We were also able to watch my niece, Anabel, play basketball. Her team is undefeated! :)
Evan cheered Anabel on...he's a big fan of his cousins!

Racing Clips

Yay! My husband came to my rescue by helping me figure out why I wasn't able to post videos to my blog for the past month! Thanks, Dave!

So, today I can share with you a couple of videos that I took at the pinewood derby. They are nothing spectacular, but in the first one you can see how fast Henry's car was, along with a couple of his times. I'm sad that I missed videoing Seth's race. :(

Untitled from Sarah Nosek on Vimeo.

Here's Caroline and Evan's race...

Untitled from Sarah Nosek on Vimeo.

Congrats again to the kids and Dave on their hard work and speedy, good-looking cars!

Pinewood Derby 2011

Our kids raced their cars in the Pinewood Derby tonight. They lined all the cars up in their levels before the races.

Can you spot Seth's Wedge of Cheese car amongst the Bear Scouts' cars?

And do you see Henry's Hershey's Car amongst Webelos' cars?

And then there's Caroline and Evan's Double Rider Car amongst all the siblings' cars...
Here's Seth waiting for his car to race at the end of the track.
And here's Seth right after his car raced.
Here he is watching the races with his buddies Will and Patrick.
Here's Henry with his buddies Dylan and Grant.

This is Henry and some boys from his den right before their race.

And now the results...




Wait for it...




HENRY AND SETH BOTH WON FIRST PLACE IN THEIR LEVELS!!!!
They were thrilled! When their names were announced on the loudspeaker, you should have seen their faces. :)

Here's Seth with his trophy!

And here's Henry with his! They were pretty proud!
Then it was Caroline and Evan's turn to race. Can you tell they were a little excited?!
They were so proud of their car too! It raced really well. :)
And this picture shows the entire Nosek Championship team. :) I love how Evan is holding his car up so high in the air with such a look of triumph on his face. Way to go, kiddos (and Dave)!
What a night for these two! Congratulations, Henry and Seth!

What a way to start a weekend!!

Yay, Henry! So proud of you! :)))

A few random pictures to share

My sister, Lisa, was working on her blog today, and I am so excited! It's so much fun to share this way because we live so far away from each other. If you'd like to visit her blog, click on The Talking Frog Blog on my sidebar, or just click here. YAY, LISA!

They're done! Dave and the kids finished their pinewood derby cars and checked them in tonight. They are all ready to race tomorrow. We're all crossing our fingers that they do well. :)

One of my friends recently sent me a picture of the birthday sleepover party that she had for her daughter, who is Caroline's good friend, Elyse. Remember when we had 9 first graders sleepover for Caroline's birthday party? Yeah. That's small potatoes. :) She had 15. As in FIFTEEN. Wow. These girls had a fabulous time!

My blog books just came today! It was like Christmas...that's how excited I was. :) I still can't get over the fact that I can share our life with friends and family through the blog, and then with the push of a button, publish a scrapbook that captures it all. I'm going to curl up in bed with my new books tonight, and I can't wait!

Yes, she did.

Our family was just about ready to eat dinner tonight. As I was getting ready to take my first bite, Caroline said, "WAIT!!! You didn't take a picture of it yet!"

Yes, she did. Apparently, that's standard procedure around here...arrange a pretty meal on your plate and then take a picture of your masterpiece. I know. It's not right.

Anyways...she asked...I obliged...
My dinner tonight was button mushrooms, green peppers, and zucchini sauteed in olive oil and served on a bed of brown rice. It was yummy. :)

The diet's going great. I'm still having fun trying new foods and recipes. I'm still feeling great. I'm still exercising every day. And to top it off, I'm wearing jeans that are a size smaller, and am down about 15 pounds. I'm kind of stuck there, but considering that I've only been at this about 3 and 1/2 weeks, I'll take it.

My back is still doing well, and I'm very thankful for that. However, my right knee has been pretty sore for a few days. I'm a little mad at myself about it because I probably went too hard too fast. Grrr. Hopefully, scaling back my running on the treadmill in favor of faster walking will help. Maybe a little ibuprofen will help too. :)

Happy birthday...

to one of Evan's best buddies, Connor!!!
These kids celebrated Connor's birthday in style (at Chuck E. Cheese)!
Here's Connor's crew with the big Cheese!
Evan and Connor rode this "roller coaster ride" together about a zillion times...
...and then Evan discovered Guitar Hero.
This boy has some moves...
as you can see. ;)

Please pray for my sweet Caroline...She's been feeling pretty crummy for the past few days with a fever and stomach ache. Moxie's been doing her part to take care of her. :)

Seth's plans...

...to make the world a better place.
Seth, what good ideas, especially that last one! :) (Click on the picture if you'd like it to be bigger, as that would probably make his essay easier to read.)
Maybe I could borrow it to clean the rest of the house as well?

Mr. Funny Guy

The other night, Henry and I were working on a school project on my laptop while Dave was doing flashcards with Seth. Every night they time Seth to see how fast he can answer all of the cards. This particular night Seth did really well and beat his previous time by quite a margin. Seth yelled to me his new, very excellent time. I said, "Hello Mr. Math Whiz Boy Who Smashed His Previous Flash Card Record!"

Without blinking an eye, he smiled and responded, "Hello Mrs. Working On A Project With Henry On The Computer!"

Good one, Seth! :) Hee hee!

What did this boy do?!!!

I am so ashamed.
My son went to jail tonight.
Cops even fingerprinted him.
What was his crime, you ask? Nothing. Apparently this is standard treatment of cub scouts (and their sisters) who visit our town's police station. Seth and Caroline got to tour a police station tonight with his den, where one of the highlights was going in to an actual jail cell and being fingerprinted. Hopefully that will be the only time he actually does that. :)

When Dave, Seth and Caroline got home, the kids went down to their dad's workshop to paint their scout pinewood derby cars for this year. Evan and Caroline are sharing a car, so they each got to paint half. (Doesn't Evan look happy to be in this picture?!)
Seth's car is a wedge of cheese, piloted by a mouse.
Henry's is a Hershey bar. He's posing with all of the cars he's made for pinewood derby races. This young man is about to become a full-fledged boy scout! He is getting his Arrow of Light award this year!
We're proud of you, Henry!

Our poor, poor boy

Thanks for snuggling with Evan, Woody. :)

Evan's Day:
8:00 AM--Caroline wakes up and opens her door to leave her room. Evan wakes up at the same time, stays in his room, and lectures (tantrums) Caroline that it was still night time and she should get back in bed. That simple act let us know that Evan was not feeling like himself, especially because he is usually the one to convince all of us that night time is OVER.
8:30 AM--We get Evan calmed down enough to lay on the couch and watch a show. He's feverish, and falls asleep again within a couple of minutes of being on the couch.
9:00 AM--The kids are off at school, and I am in the basement getting ready to work out. I'm trying to pick out a tv show to watch when Evan wakes up, and comes down to the basement to find me. My sweet boy looks at me with a pale, sleepy face and asks me to, "Please hold you (me)." Of course, I pick him up and cuddle with him in our recliner. He promptly falls asleep for two hours. I don't have the heart to put him down.
11:00 AM--He wakes up. We go upstairs. He wants to watch a show. I take his tempurature, and it reads 101. He falls asleep again.
12:00-6:00 PM--He asks for Cheerios and then watches shows and dozes on and off.
After that busy :( day, Evan still managed to fall asleep for the night at 8:30. Poor kid. His fever is consistently around 101. He's congested, but other than the extreme tiredness and fever, does not have any other symptoms.

I hope he feels better tomorrow! :((

Awwww...

These two sweet boys (Evan and his good buddy, Connor) reached for each other's hands and held them from their preschool class until they had to go their separate ways in their cars. It just warmed my heart. :)
Everything is going well around here...except that my house is a DISASTER! For some reason, laundry doesn't stop piling and clutter doesn't stop building and dishes don't stop dirtying even when I'm doing something productive like working out and organizing paperwork. The nerve.

So today I'm buckling down, putting my nose to the grindstone, and getting stuff DONE! (No more computer, Sarah.) Hope you all are doing well!

Random diet thoughts

A couple of my neighborhood friends and a blog reader have asked me if my diet was expensive. Buying more fresh foods has been more expensive than what I usually do, and I have bought some oils (avocado and olive oil) and complex carbs (Ezekial bread, ground flax seed and Quinoa) that are more expensive than the vegetable oil and wheat bread from Aldi that I usually buy.

Lunch today: Spinach with grape tomatoes, avacado, black beans and chicken topped with a dash of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. Melba whole wheat toasts.

However, to a certain extent, those additional costs have been counteracted by the fact that I am not drinking Chai Tea Lattes (my vice) like I was. I am not drinking any pop, so that saves money as well. We have not been to McDonald's in these two weeks either, and you can imagine that saves money with 4 kids to feed. We've been stocking less junk snacks in our pantry as well.

I am also trying to counteract the additional expenses by watching the grocery store flyers for sales and stocking up on pantry items when they are on sale. I am learning that Aldi does not always have the cheapest prices. I am going to try to buy more produce that's in-season as well.

I am really enjoying my food and trying out new recipes and foods I haven't had before. My parents tell me that when I was a child, my favorite food was broccoli. I've always liked fruits and vegetables, but in my adult life, I haven't eaten as much of them as I should. This diet has made me more conscious of eating properly from each of the food groups and less processed foods. And because I am enjoying my food, I am encouraged to keep eating this way.

Yesterday morning before school I had to take Henry to get his allergy shots. Fortunately, Dave was working from home, so he was available to help the other kids get ready for school. Because it was such a busy morning, I forgot to eat half of my breakfast. Usually I have a bowl of oatmeal with ground flaxseed and blueberries, as well as a 4 egg white omelet. It is a big breakfast, but I do think that what satiates my hunger until my snack is the combination of the complex carbs and lean protein. Usually I am not hungry at all on this diet, and that is a good thing because when I'm not hungry I'm less tempted to eat other things. Not having those egg whites threw me off all day. I was HUNGRY all day, and wanted to eat items not on my diet. To stop myself, I drank more water (because sometimes that helps to satiate too) and had an additional snack of carrots and hummus. I'm glad that I didn't cheat because I came close :), but that experience also illustrated to me how important it is to not set myself up for failure by not eating enough of the right foods.

I am continuing to exercise, and am feeling plenty of energy for my workouts (because I eat every three hours). I am doing my back exercises too, and thankfully have been experiencing little if any sciatic pain. I've begun lifting weights (just two exercises for my arms). While I am exercising, I'm watching my tivoed (sp?) shows, including The Biggest Loser. I've never watched that show before. It's been so motivating to see how hard the people on the show work, how they resist temptation, and their amazing results.

My kids have been snacking better, and as my sister-in-law, Tanya, pointed out, that has been motivating too. :) I love seeing them grab for more fresh fruit, nuts, yogurt and even kefir. At the recommendation of one of my friends, today I reorganized the refrigerator, getting the healthier foods, fruits and vegetables out of the crisper drawers and at eye level for the kids. I've washed some veggies and cut them up, ready to be grabbed. My friend's theory is that they'll eat more of what they see and can grab fast. We'll see how that goes this week.

Before I started this diet, I was exhausted in the morning and had a HUGE early afternoon slump. I combatted that tiredness with caffeine, and lots of it. I was addicted, so much so that if I went without it, I would get a big headache. I am amazed that with the help of this diet, I don't feel that exhaustion even without caffeine.

All in all, I'm continuing to feel great and definitely motivated. To top it off, after these two weeks, I've lost 11 pounds too!

Thank you for all of your encouragement! :)

Family Fun and Flu

Yup. You read that right.

Last night we were celebrating a successful week and a clean and fixed fireplace with a family fun night. My family had yummy lasagna, and I had something yummy too (a grilled portabella mushroom on toasted Ezekial bread and spinach topped with grilled peppers, balsamic vinegar and avocado)...

We made a fire in our fireplace, and the kids humored me by taking this picture. (Please note how healthy Evan looks in this picture.) Then we curled up on the couches to watch Despicable Me. (Fabulous movie. We all highly recommend it.) Halfway into the movie, Evan started holding his forehead, saying that it hurt. I gave him some Children's Tylenol and held him, hoping that he would feel better soon. Unfortunately, he started feeling worse. By the end of the movie, he was vomiting. Poor kid!

The good news is that it was short-lived, which is definitely what you want in a stomach flu. ;) We all had a full night of sleep, and he's feeling great this morning. Yay!

What some people do when it snows...

My mother-in-law just emailed these pictures to me. Aren't they great?

You know you've had enough of winter when..........

You know you've had enough of winter when..........