A Letter from the President!

I saw a blog post on this and thought I'd try. I sent a birth announcement and short note to President & Mrs. Obama. Here's the envelope before I sent it off:


Here's what we received:


And the letter:


Pretty neat letter to put in Graham's baby book, eh?

New Goals: Update

It's been exactly 1 month since my post about my weight loss goals for this year, so I figured I'd update you all on my progress so far. I've been working out 3-5 times a week and, with the exception of 1 pretty awesome cheat meal a week, I've been sticking closely to the myfitnesspal.com diet requirements (basically portion control), and drinking lots of water, and I am happy to announce that I have lost 9 lbs. as of my first post; yay!

I broke down and bought non-maternity jeans that were a larger size than I hope to wear when I'm done with this process. My maternity jeans were just falling off of me and looking really baggy so I thought I would feel better about myself if I wore clothes that fit me a little better (even if they were a larger size), especially if I'm still seeing progress on the scale. I call them my "transition jeans."

I still have 13 lbs. until I am at my pre-pregnancy weight and 20 lbs. until I'm at my goal weight, but I am so happy that I'm finally seeing the numbers on the scale change. Plus, I just feel better overall now that I'm being more active and eating better. I know that the weight loss will most likely slow down, but my goal remains to lose 1 lb. a week. I'll try to keep updating you all once a month; wish me luck for this month!

What the Webers Have Been Up To Lately

It's been a while since I've posted, so this will be an update on our January activities.

I've started back to work, so if you need any legal assistance or know someone who does, feel free to call Weber Law Firm.

We watched the Cotton Bowl. Graham loved watching the Hogs win!!


Graham has started sitting in his highchair during mealtime. He really seems to like sitting on the same level as us and getting to watch us as we eat. At first, we had the tray on there but we could only see his eyes, so we took that off. : )



He has also started to try to sit up on his own instead of laying back on his head. Strong boy!



Graham had his first trip to the library and we went to Baby Bookworms. He can't do the interactive parts of the songs, but he loves hearing everyone sing and watching all the parents and kids. He's very observant.


Oh, and it does seem to wear him out. He sleeps great on Baby Bookworm days!


We joined a couples' bible study in our new church. We're excited to get to know other couples in our church while we study the Word and grow spiritually. We also took advantage of Friday Night Out at our church and went on our first date without the baby. It was nice! We went to the movies and saw the new Mission Impossible.

We met with our Childbirth Class for a reunion. We got to see all the mommies that were no longer pregnant and their new babies! Graham was the smallest baby there by far, but the cutest (in my admittedly-biased opinion). ; ) Here's a picture of most of our class.


I took a picture to compare how big he's gotten. The one on the left is when he was 3 days old. The one on the right is when he's almost 3 months old.




















Finally, his 3 month pictures!

New Year, New Goals

I wonder why no one likes to call them resolutions when that's what they are. Maybe because we think that makes us less likely to be successful with them? I really think that's the main reason. Whether you call them goals, intentions, aspirations, or resolutions, they all mean the same thing. They mean you want to make some sort of change from how you were living in the previous year. Well, just like many of you, my friends, I have goals as well.

The main goal I'll be focusing on in this blog post is oh so stereotypical: weight loss/getting back in shape. Though it's somewhat embarrassing for me to have this problem (mainly because I'm not used to it), I'm going to be very honest in this post. I gained 36 lbs. during my pregnancy with Graham. The doctors recommend 25-35 lb. weight gain and my doctor told me I should gain on the higher side of that based on my pre-pregnancy weight, so not too shabby, huh? I certainly could've done worse.

However, my post-pregnancy weight loss has not been as expected. Many people told me (and I read on birth boards) that most of the weight would pretty much fall off, especially if I was breast feeding. Not so with me. I've lost only 14 of my 36 lbs. and Graham is over 2 months old! All the rest of this weight is clinging to me for dear life. Though I wasn't eating perfect and I couldn't work out for 6 weeks, I was eating less than when I was pregnant and breast feeding. I'm sure most new moms don't eat perfect and work out right away and the ones I know don't seem to be having this much of a struggle losing the weight!

I've been feeling pretty gross... I don't fit in any clothes. My pre-pregnancy clothes are still too small and my maternity clothes obviously fall off of me (or just look plain weird). I refuse to buy new clothes that are even fatter than my old "fat clothes."

So I knew I had to do something ... and what better time to start than the new year? I am on a mission to lose all my pregnancy weight by the time Graham is 9 months old. It took me 9 months to put it on (easily) and I hope to get it all off by 9 months (though I know it will be a lot harder).

What am I doing to achieve this goal? First, I know I need to make a diet change. The hardest thing for me to give up by far is sodas. I LOVE Coca-Cola and had been drinking far too much of it in the past 2 months, in addition to other high caloried drinks (such as Starbucks (*sigh* my precious...). I have no specific diet plan other than eat healthier and eat less. So far, so good. I'm eating more fruits and veggies and less of whatever the main dish is (and making healthier main dishes, at that). Also, though I'm not a breakfast person, I'm trying to make myself eat something at breakfast, in addition to lunch and snacks so I don't just pig out at dinner time.

I am using the E-Mealz website. I signed up for the Low-Fat Wal-Mart for 2 plan and it gives me a menu and shopping list every week for low-fat meals for 2 people.

I found and have started utilizing this awesome website called My Fitness Pal. On it, you can do many things. You enter your weight, your goal weight, how many times you want to exercise per week, and your goal date for the weight loss, along with other things, and the website gives you goals for the day in terms of eating (calories, fat, carbs). You track your food intake on the website (it has nutritional info for SO much food in it's database, so that's a lot more simple than you may think); you also track your exercise and how many calories that burns. If you enter your exercise, the website tells you how much more you can eat that day. I plan to exercise at least 3-4 times a week. You also track your water intake on the website; I'm working on drinking at least 8 glasses of water a day. By the way, that helps keep me from drinking those calorie drinks too.

Anyway, I started this on January 2 and will continue to keep you updated on my progress. Let's just hope the weight loss is somewhat faster than it has been so far! Any encouragement/well wishes are welcome!

Had Ourselves a Merry Little Christmas!

We had a Merry Little Christmas,... and hope you did too! Here's a run-down of our Christmas:

First, we went to Effingham and Neoga, Illinois to visit Dustin's mom's family. We hung out, ate great food, and caught up with great people. Plus, they all got to meet Graham! Here are some pictures from that fun time:






We did the Dirty Santa game. At first, I stole a 2-tier dessert tray. I thought it'd be nice to have for baby/bridal showers I help throw in the future. But that was stolen from me, so next I stole a cake pop/donut hole maker. Again, I think I'll use this for future shower/birthday treats. It comes with recipes, so that helps!

Graham got a Sesame Street Grover doll (apparently Dustin had a Sheriff Grover that he loved as a kid), a blanket and some outfits.

That night, right after the Dirty Santa game and saying our goodbyes, we drove to Springfield, Illinois to see Dustin's step-sisters and their families. Here are some pictures from that adventure:






The last picture is Grandpa/Great-grandpa Tony with the grandkids. Graham is the little one on the left. Isn't he cute?! (They all are!). Graham got lots of clothes and toys! He really hit the jackpot this Christmas!

After spending lots of fun time with family, we got home. Though I had a lot of fun, it was tiring and it's good to be home and get Graham back in the environment/schedule he's used to. We also got to finish up a craft we started before we left. Thanks to a great friend, Jessica, we got to make Christmas ornaments with Graham's footprint and hand print. Unfortunately, the hand print was pretty difficult to do, because Graham likes to keep his hand in a little fist and moving around a lot, but we did our best! Here are pictures of the ornaments we made:



I can't forget to show you Graham's cute Christmas outfits! Here they are:


This one (above) says "HO HO HO" and has Santa on the feet.


This outfit says "Santa's First Stocking Stuffer"


This outfit says "My First Christmas" under the "Mommy's Lil Elf" bib. : )

This final picture is not a Christmas one, but I love it, so I had to share it anyway...


Ha! Now I just need to get him a strong man outfit!

Family, Fun & Holidays

We've been pretty busy lately, so I have quite a bit to fill you in on!

We took Graham's newborn pictures; here are some of my faves:










We also sent out Graham's birth announcement. Here's what it looked like:


Graham finally met his cousins, Maggie, Marin and Emmy. They loved him and he loved them. I can't wait to see how their relationship develops as he grows and can play with them! Here are some pictures of them:



Then, we all went to a birthday party for Marin. There was yummy food and we got to see a lot of family. It was a blast! Some more of Graham's family got to meet him too. Here's a family picture we took at the party:


Graham has been smiling more and more everyday. In fact, one day I woke up and leaned over to look in the bassinet and there he was smiling the biggest smile at me. Wow, what a wonderful way to wake up! Here are some pictures of his beautiful smiles (haven't been able to catch the BIG smile yet, mostly just the tail end of them):





Graham also had his first picture taken with Santa! We're getting the professional one later this week; this is one we took with our personal camera:


Santa told us what a gift he was and wanted to hang onto him even though there was a line of other little ones. Of course, we knew he was special, but it's always nice hearing it from others. ; )