Yes, I'm still alive.

It's been so long sense I've blogged. I guess I've been on facebook too much. Where to start?

We took a trip to Disneyland the end of July. It was great. The girls had a great time.

Ashlynn graduated high school. Oh, I mean Ashlynn started Kindergarten. Where does the time go? Yes, I cried on the first day, but she didn't see me crying. I've been volunteering in her classroom each Wednesday. That's been wonderful! I was 'elected' to be the classroom parent. I requested to NOT be, however no one else would do it. So now I've been working on the Ice Cream Social the Kindergarten classrooms sponsor the end of this month.

My office if closing it doors. The writing has been on the wall for awhile now, so it doesn't come as a complete shock. As of now my last day worked will be Oct 2nd. I have very torn feeling about this. I haven't not worked sense I was 16 years old. I've always had a job, if not 2 jobs. On the other hand, I firmly believe that everything happens for a reason. I might not like it, I might even be scared, however I will look back at this as a blessing (it just might be a long time until I do!). I'm going to spend some time with my girls. I'm very nervous about Brianna being home with me all day. I think child interaction is a wonderful thing. I've already been on the Internet reading about which library we can go to for toddler reading time and I've been making play dates. Still, the unknown is very scary to me. I will still be keeping my feelers out for job opportunities, so keep Cassie and I in mind if you hear of anything.

Well, that's the Hightower's in a nut shell. I will poster pictures later, right now I'm shutting the computer down and heading to the cabin.

Chris

Cabin fun for the 4th!

We went to the cabin over the long weekend. It was great. David’s parents came up too. It was a little of a tight fit, but we all had a good time.

Cooking s'mores at the campfire



Ashlynn was determined to catch her first fish. Well, she was determined for the first 20 minutes.


Brianna gave it a shot.


I think I could of stayed at the lake all day, so peaceful! We started on a quad/jeep ride, but the weather had other plans. It started to rain and hail on us... so we headed back. We went to the Park Parade for the 4th year. I love small town parades.

So our weekend was a lot of beer drinking, BBQing, s'mores, quad rides, jeep rides, rack-o... yep, it was a great weekend!!!

Finally a moment to breath!

Oh, the whirl wind of dance is finally over. Friday was Ashlynn’s dance recital, and she did great! I must admit that I’m happy all the extra practices and all the rushing around is over. No more dance until August.

Ashlynn as Cinderella's mouse


Boogie Shoes. The crowd went nuts! They really did. One of the biggest hits of the 2nd act.

We also had a garage sale this past weekend. Wahoo, made $120.00. Now, that’s the question. Is it worth it to wake up at 5:00 am to sit in the heat until 11:00? Who knows, I got rid of a bunch of junk and I have a little fun money in my wallet. Actually we all went to Valley Luna where the lunch and bar tab was $50.00, so I guess I'm now down to only making $70.00.

I helped volunteer at UMOM with Cindy. It was a blast! We had a great time, even laughed so hard one time I had tears. You should check out all the great things you can volunteer at. http://www.phoenixvolunteers.org/ Cambridge House here I come. Is it just me, or is Cindy pretty freaking amazing? Honestly, I am a better person for just KNOWING her!

Well, that pretty much is me. Next week is the 4th of July at the cabin. The following week in Disneyland and a week after that is VEGAS with the moms. Good times.

Just a lot of pictures

Sorry it's been so long. We're just crazy busy lately. Here's A LOT of pictures of the girls

Brianna - her 1st official play date.


The girls pictures take 5.31.09

Ashlynn's Preschool Graduation

Ashlynn Jazz group - Boogie Shoes

This is a pretty bad picture. I snuck a picture of the proof with my cell phone.... but you get the idea. And yes, it is all Ashlynn own hair. Amazing what happens when I spend an hour blow drying it and flat ironing it!

That is the Hightower's in a nut shell. Ashlynn dance recital is June 19, so life should return to normal, whatever that is. I will post pictures from her recital.

Locks of Love, Easter & a broken arm

Well... I did it. I chopped my hair off and donated my ponytail to Locks of Love. It's a wonderful organization that you should check out.
http://www.locksoflove.org/
I had no idea it takes 6-10 ponytails to make one hair piece or that each piece has a retail value of $3500.00 - $6,000.00 (although the children's families do not pay for it.)


After my hair cut we went to Disney on Ice... we had an awesome time. I didn't get any pictures of the girls... but here is one of David....


Easter was a blast. It was just one of those wonderful days. After the egg hunt the boys watched baseball and the girls played Yahtzee and cards.


Last Sat. night we took Brianna to Urgent Care. She was favoring her left arm for a few days. It seemed to get slightly worse instead of better. Well, she had a broken arm. The x-rays came back that it was 2-3 weeks old. Tough little bugger!

Well, that's the Hightower's in a nut shell.

A 5 year old answers to some fun questions

Thanks Leah for the idea. Here are a few quesitons I asked Ashlynn last night. Keep in mind she is only 5.... These are her answers word for word.


1. What is something mommy always says to you?
A. I love you.
2. What makes mommy happy?
A. When I listen.
3. What makes mommy sad?
A.When I don’t listen.
4. How does your mommy make you laugh?
A. You make funny faces.
5. What was your mommy like as a child?
A.I don’t know
6. How old is your mommy?
A. 1? 2? 3? 4? 5? 6? 7? Are you seven?
7. How tall is your mommy?
A. That’s a tricky one.
8 What is her favorite thing to do?
A. Play with me.
9. What does your mommy do when you’re not around?
A. Go to work
10. If your mommy becomes famous, what will it be for? (I had to explain what famous is)
A. Because your fun
11. What is your mommy really good at? (she had to think really long and really hard to come up with anything…..)
A. Writing (I’m pretty sure she only came up with this because I was currently writing her answers on a sheet of paper.
12. What is your mommy not very good at?
A. I don’t know, you’re good at everything (oh sure!)
13. What does your mommy do for her job?
A. Work
14. What is your mommy favorite food?
A. I don’t know
15. What makes you proud of your mommy?
A. When you made cards for our b-day (she’s seen me working on Brianna’s just moments before)
16. If your mommy were a cartoon character, who would she be?
A. I-Carly (not a cartoon character….)
17. What do you and your mommy do together?
A. Play
18. How are you and your mommy the same?
A. We have the same hair
19. How are you and your mommy different
A. We don’t have the same clothes
20. How do you know your mommy loves you?
A. Because she helps me do things
21. Where is your mommy’s favorite place to go?
A. The mall
22. Where do you play?
A. At home
23. What will you be when you grow up?
A. A gymnastic person

Going, going.... GONE!

Well, he did it. David shaved his head today to help raise money for St. Baldrick's Children's cancer research. David raised $1000.00 and his team raised $6000.00!!! GO ON SEMI!!! I'm so very proud of him. It was a very emotional day!

The before

The during....

The finished product.... (yes even the 5 & 3 year old boys did it!!!!)

.

The support staff..... we were all very proud of them!

This Thursday was another successful weight watchers weigh in for me. I was down another 2 pounds for a total of 25.2! Wahoo.... I'm feeling pretty good!

Belgium

Ok, so this is a few weeks late. Instead of tackling our whole Europe trip in one posting I thought I would split it between Belgium & Paris. David was already in Gent, Belgium when I flew out to meet him. He had to work so I had 2 days to explore Gent on my own. It was amazing. The architecture of the buildings is mind blowing (pictures below). Here are a few things I found interesting in Gent. Beer is important. Beer is very important, almost as important as their chocolate. When you order a beer it is severed in its own labeled glass. Example, if David ordered a Leffe Braun it would be in a glass labeled Leffe Braun. Each glass is different in shape, size, and style. Also, all bars advertise what beer they serve more than their name. So looking at a bar you would not notice the name of the bar but you sure knew what kind of beer they had. The other thing that I found interesting is that they served French fries with every meal, and I mean every meal. Gent is one of the few cities that Hitler declared as a “free’ city, so it was unharmed in the war path to Paris.


Here is the castle I toured. It surprised me that castles are no way pretty or romantic, but very fascinating. There are numerous torture rooms with a lot of torture equipment (freaky stuff). It's very dark and very spooky.





A view from the river walk

These statues covered the front of the building.


One of the several cathedrales


Aren't these just the cleverest little statues?

Another river walk view




World's best waffles.... EVER

Weight Watchers - Week 8

I had another successful weigh in, down another 2.2 pounds for a total of 23.2! Yea me! Sorry for the short post... I will try to do more later in the weekend.

Thursdays weigh in

Just a fast note. I weighed in thursday and I was down 1.4 pounds for a total of 21 pounds! Yippee! Going to the cabin this weekend. I will post about our vacation & cabin trip when I get back on Sunday.

My husband is shaving his head?!?!

He is doing this to raise money for the St. Baldrick’s Foundation. It’s a wonderful organization that helps raise money for childhood cancer research. I am so proud of him. There are 5 guys from his work that is doing this. If you want to read more about it here is the link to his donation website. However, if you would like to come to point and laugh at him, please come!
http://www.stbaldricks.org/participants/shavee_info.php?ParticipantKey=2009-349769#

Europe was beyond wonderful. Better than our honeymoon. I will post more the trip this weekend.

Should I be concerned?

Tonight we celebrated David’s birthday (a little early) with my family. We went to The Vine. Brianna ordered the ‘small’ beer…. Should I be concerned?


David's birthday isn't until March 4, however he will be in another country, so we decided to celebrate before. It just doesn't feel the same when you celebrate after your birthday. Look what my parents got him for his birthday.

For those who don't know, G'N'R still lives on in David's mind. He's already talking about seat covers to match.... HELP ME! Thank goodness this jeep stays at the cabin 9 month of the year! Speaking about David's jeep. When he got home yesterday there was a note on the front door, "if you want to sale your jeep please call me." Pretty much made Davids day!

I weighed in tonight. I was down another 3.4 pounds for a total loss of 19.6 pounds in 5 weeks. I’m very happy about this. Now to maintain it while on vacation…. I'm sure I will only get to Paris once in my lifetime, so I will not stress about eating only healthy food. I plan on being smart about my choices, yet still enjoy myself. I also hit the gym 4 times again... just couldn't bring myself to get there on Sunday too, even if I could get a 25% off a smoothie.

We discovered damage on our roof from a storm. Good news is that we'll be getting a new roof on the house. Oh the stress of they style and color. I swear you would of thought I was about to perform brain surgery the way I was concentrating on the shingle samples.

Take care. I will post after our vacation. Wish us luck.

A loss but not by much….

I weighed in last night. I’m down another 0.2 pounds. That brings me to 16.2 pounds in 4 weeks. I feel great about this. I really do. I was expecting to be down more than 0.2 pounds, but I need to look at it as it was at least a loss and not a gain. I also stuck to the gym thing, 4 times again! Wahoo! They are now offering 25% off fruit smoothies (only 4 WW points!!!) on Sundays… so maybe I’ll hit it 5 times this week and reward myself with a fruit smoothie.
David just got back into town last night. It’s so wonderful having him home!! He just makes my life so much easier. It’s amazing. Last night while I was giving the girls their baths somehow the kitchen got clean and the dishwasher got loaded. Oh, then while I was reading to Ashlynn, both the girls lunches got packed for the next day…. It’s almost like magic… but it’s David. I swear he is the best husband and father I could even wish for.
Now, I’m starting to prepare myself for my first international (if you don’t count Rocky Pointe) vacation. David has business in Belgium again… so I’m tagging along. He flies out Feb. 27. I will leave March 3 to meet him. I’ll explore Gent, Belgium while he works for a few days then we’re off to Paris, France. We’ll take a train from Belgium to Paris and spend 2 ½ days in Paris. I cannot even begin to find words to explain how excited I am about this vacation. Paris with my husband! This is a trip of a lifetime for us. I’m actually looking forward to the long flight out there by myself. For the flights I have checked out Stephenie Meyers’ Twillight and New Moon books from the library. I will get to read grown up books! Well, actually they are young adult, but still there will be no rhyming or pictures! Oh, I will also be splurging on a new Sudoku book to have for the flight. Any other suggestions for 20+ hours of traveling by myself?
Equal to my excitement is my guilt for leaving my girls for 6 days. I have never been away from Ashlynn or Brianna that long. They will be staying at my parent’s house, which always seem like a party at their house. Ashlynn is already excited about going and thinks it will be cool to spend 6 nights at grandma’s house. I just know I will miss them terribly.

Thank you!

I would like to thank Ben for his comment on my previous blog. He is absolutely correct. I read his comment and had a light bulb moment. I need to remember that my main goal is to get healthy and to feel good. The weight will come off if I focus on my overall health. It will be hard a times to remember this, but I will try to step back and remind myself of the larger goal, to be healthy for my girls and husband.
Although, I didn’t have my light bulb moment until after I weighed in last week. Good and bad news. Good news first. I was down another 3.4 pounds for a total weight loss of 16 pounds in 3 weeks. The bad news is that I ate light, (very light) the day of weigh in. I ate so light that I only ate carrots for lunch. Not good. I don’t believe in not eating to lose weight, but I was so desperate to be down on the scale I did a silly thing. So, this week I promise myself that I will eat a regular lunch the day of weigh in.

Frustration

Tomorrow is weigh in day. The scale is showing a 0 weight loss. I have been so very good, eating within my points, working out 4 times a week, totally following the rules. However I think this week I’m going to weigh in the same as last week. How is it possible to eat correctly and workout but not lose any weight in 7 days? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not mad. I’m not throwing the towel in. I’m not even close to giving up. But I just don’t understand. I know I dropped a lot of weight the first 2 weeks. I totally expected that. I also know that my body will have to ‘catch up’. Again, totally expect that too. But what I didn’t expect is to not lose ANY weight for a whole week. I honestly thought I’d start to see the 1 or 2 pound weeks, but not a 0 week. I’m the type of person that needs to see results. Again, no worries, I’m totally committed to it… BUT JUST GIVE ME SOME RESULTS DARN IT! So, we will see how tomorrow goes at weight in. Keep all fingers crossed for me.
I spoke to Amy (you remember, that trainer I might have previously referred to as the devil a couple of blogs back) at the gym today. She said it would do me good to do another assessment 30 days into my new lifestyle. So in a few weeks I will go through the weighing, measuring, and flexibility (oh the fun) tests to see those results. I need to see results.
David has been out of town sense Friday last week. I miss him big time. He’s in Gent, Belgium working. His project seems to be going well and he seems to be having fun. He toured a castle, which was really cool he said. He also said he got some good pictures I will post when he gets home.
Keep those fingers crossed for me right at 4:00 pm tomorrow.

Superbowl

The Superbowl was great! Even though our team didn’t win, it was a great game. A fun time was had by all. And as usual, there was a lot of great food! Here are a few pictures of the kids playing football in the backyard.




Weighed in today, I am down another 4.2 pounds. That puts me at a total of 12.6 pounds lost. Wahoo! I also stuck to the gym thing this week. Been there 3 times already this week and plan on going tomorrow night too.

Tomorrow David leaves first thing in the morning for Belgium again. He will return home the 14th. I am so happy he gets to do all this wonderful traveling with his job… but it can make for a pretty long week for me when he isn’t here. He is such a wonderful ‘hands on’ father always helping me. So… if any of you get a phone call from me saying, ‘whatcha doing…” just humor me, I’ll be bored after my girls go to sleep.

My Uncle Ralph is visiting from Illinois. It's been awesome having him around. I miss my family from Illinois, so it's always fun getting a visit from someone. He plays so well with my girls.

Workout

It’s been a good week. I started back at Weight Watchers and had my first weigh in yesterday. I’ve decided that I need the meetings once a week. It’s the only way I will stick to this again. I’ve tried to do it on my own and it just doesn’t work for me. I lost 8.4 pounds my first week at weight watchers.

I’ve also hit the gym 4 times this week. I hurt. I hurt badly, but no pain for glory, right? When I joined the gym I got a free 1 hour with a personal trainer. So I decided, why not? I got this very cute, very sweet looking girl named Amy. Let me assure you that Amy is not cute nor is she sweet. Come to think about it, I am pretty sure Amy is the devil. Oh, but Amy is good at her job, very good. During our ‘free’ workout (I like to refer to as the hour from hell) she was very supportive coaching me along, never getting in my face or yelling. Just quietly saying, “Ok, 5 more”. Let me tell you, 5 more is way over-rated! At one point I wanted to throw up. Honestly, I really wanted to throw up. Now 2 days after the ‘free’ work out I cannot sit down to pee without my thighs shaking and bringing tears to my eyes. Come to think of it, they should really give a free bottle of Advil with the hour from hell … um I mean free workout. Oh and the topper was I saw Amy this morning at the gym during my OWN workout. She had the nerve to smile at me. S M I L E!!!! Can you believe her? She even went as far as to ask, “How are you feeling?” So, I had to answer her honestly. “Sore, but good.” So, ever though it was an awful hour, I do honestly feel better after it than before it. But I really am sore!

No we’ve been getting ready for our Superbowl party. We love this party! It’s about the only time (other than kid’s birthday parties) that we have everyone over. I think I might change that this year. Maybe in May I will have a party just to have a party! Maybe we’ll make it a Rock Band party…. Now that would be fun!!!!
That’s pretty much it for us, as usual, nothing exciting.

Take care!!!

Much Love

My girls LOVE each other.... just look at this! I'm not sure when the fists (hair pulling, name calling...) start to come out... but I'm loving this phase of life!!

Just some pictures

Hi all,

I really don't have much to update you on. Brianna has been sick with a nasty cold, she was even on breathing treatments, but she seems to be doing better.

Today we went and had the girls pictures taken. This was suppose to be for Ashlynn's 5 year.... but we're about a month behind!

We joined a new gym today, Lifetime fitness. It seems pretty awesome. The best part is both my girls WANTED to stay in the children’s area while on tour, so they did! David and I finished the tour childless. The kid zone is beyond anything I could have hoped for with 12 computers, an art & craft area, a toddler zone, an outdoor play area, and much more. I was thinking about signing Ashlynn up for some swim lessons soon. Now I can do it at Lifetime, so Brianna can play, I get to work out while Ashlynn is doing a swim lesson... talk about multitasking! Right now when we're at an activity for Ashlynn all I do is chase Brianna around telling her, "don't touch that, don't go there, Brianna come here." We’re pretty excited. It's very difficult as a working mother to turn around and 'drop' your child off at another location. But if it's somewhere they want to go, well, lets just say it's easier on my emotional state!

Well, that’s about it for us. Here are a few of the 76 pictures (no joke) they took of the girls today! So hard to narrow them down.

Christmas

Christmas was wonderful! Christmas Eve with the Hightowers. Christmas morning just our little family then over for breakfast at my parents. Then everyone (Hunter & Hightowers) to our house for lunch.

Getting ready to leave for Christmas Eve church service.

Look what Ashlynn got for Christmas

Brianna did great opening presents!!!