Steven's Birthday Party

This year, Steven's birthday fell on a Wednesday, so I could have had his birthday party either the weekend before or after. We decided to do it the weekend before because his cousin's birthday was the following weekend and they wanted to do her party the weekend after Steven's birthday.
This year, because Steven was turning 5, I decided to have Steven's first "friend" party. Because most of his friends are his cousins (love it!), and also because I do not really have the room to have both sides of the family over for parties, I just combined everything into one party. I also thought it would be easiest to just have the party at a park to accommodate all of the people who were going to be there. When I started to research renting a pavilion at a park, I found out that if you rent a Salt Lake County park, it's $75 for the whole day. Whaaattt? Too expensive for my taste. However, you can rent a Sandy City Park for only $25 for a half-day. Much better. Because my mother-in-law is a resident of Sandy, and because she's awesome, I was able to rent a Sandy City pavilion and we had the park there. It worked out pretty well in the end, because a lot of the guests live in Sandy.
I decided not to do a theme because with everything else that was going during the summer (having a baby in July, my brother's wedding in August), I didn't plan ahead very well and kind of threw things together fairly last-minute. I did, however, do 5 activities in honor of Steven turning 5, and we had goodie bags with some of Steven's favorite things in them.
I didn't get pictures of everything because I was pretty busy with the actual party stuff and trying to be a nice host. Oh, and then, my camera ran out of memory so I couldn't get any pictures at the end. *Note to self: have someone else be in charge of pictures, and make sure there's enough memory for pictures!*
*Side note: I took some inspiration for the party from my friend, Arika, and the party she threw for her daughter when she turned 5. It was a great party, and really well thought-out and put together.*
First I had the kids decorate goodie bags with their names and stickers and stuff. At Sofia's 3rd birthday party, we had a pinata, but we forgot to put names on them, so it got a little confusing. Then I had them start with the games.
The first game was "Duck, Duck, Zombie". My kids came home from the gym daycare and said that they had played it at the gym that day and they loved it. It's basically just "Duck, Duck, Goose", but I guess you're supposed to act like a zombie while you're chasing people. Everyone thought it was funny to call it that, but they had a good time.

My niece, Anna, being chased by Sofia. Pretty good action shot :)

Darren

Sofia is "it"

I think Arianna just caught Sofia

Anna running

Steven's "it"

Zamara just got picked by Lothair. Love this picture

Mandy

Mandy catching Darren

Steven running

After "Duck, duck, Zombie", we played "Pin the tail on the Red Bird". Angry Birds is also a favorite of Steven's. Notice the shirt he was wearing that day ;)

Anna

Lothair

Sofia

After that, I sent them on a little treasure hunt. (Sorry, no pictures.) At the end of the treasure hunt, they found a pinata. 

Adam

 Aiden

 Arianna

 Darren

 Janie

Sofia

 I love how intense Sofia gets while hitting a pinata...

All-in-all, I think the party was a success. I think the kids had fun, Steven did for sure, and he was excited by all the great gifts he got. The timing worked out great, too, because It started to rain (and not just drizzle, but rain hard) right as we were wrapping up. 

Steven as we're getting ready to leave. He got that birthday crown at pre-school, and wore it a lot during that week.

Playing with the awesome Iron Patriot (from Iron Man 3) toy that Grandma got him

Playing with the Mario figurines also from grandma

Well...

Well...
It's been a month. At times, a very frustrating month. In my previous post, I had set a weight-loss goal. My ultimate goal, by November 1st, is to have lost 15 lbs. My goal for October 1st was to be able to fit into my favorite pair of jeans again.
Well...
I did not reach my first goal. Technically, I can put those jeans on, but they certainly do not fit. They are still too tight, so I will save you from seeing that ;) As of October 1st, I have lost a grand total of ONE pound. That's right, only ONE pound in almost a month. As you may guess, I'm not too excited about that. And it's not for lack of trying. Ever since I wrote that "Goals" post, I have been working out for at least an hour, 3-5 times a week. I have been trying to watch what I eat, and have been following the same Weight Watchers plan as I have in the past, the same plan that I've had success with. I will be the first to admit, I haven't been perfect, but for the most part, I have been really trying to stay within my points most days of the week. The last 10 days - 2 weeks, I've been really good at staying within my points every day except for one or two "cheat" days. Still, nothing. I don't know what the deal is. I know I just had my 4th pregnancy, and I guess people say that it's harder to lose the weight after each pregnancy. Maybe that's true, maybe that's an excuse, I don't know. Maybe I'm deluding myself into thinking I'm doing better than I am. The only thing I can think of, besides the fact that maybe I'm not doing as well as I think I am, is maybe it has something to do with my birth control. I've never had a weight gaining problem with any birth control that I've been on before, at least not one that I've noticed. I went on a new birth control in the middle of August, and around that time is when I started gaining weight. At that same time, I also stopped pumping, and at first, I was not watching what I was eating.  However, I've changed my eating habits significantly since then, and still haven't been able to lose the weight, so I don't think it's the pumping thing. I am going to switch birth controls next week and we'll see if that makes a difference. I really hope it does, because part of me is even more discouraged than I was last month. It's been hard on me when I feel like I'm making all these changes, but I don't see any results. That same part is even less motivated because I want to start trying to get pregnant soon, so I think, "What's the point?" The other part of me is more determined to lose the weight, and I really do want to lose some weight before I get pregnant. I guess all I can do is keep plugging along.
The TEENY silver lining in all this, is that even though I have only lost ONE pound, I have lost a little bit in my measurements. Since September 15th, I've lost almost 1/4 inch in my waist, 1/2 inch around my "stomach" (where my biggest pooch is), almost 1/2 inch around my hips, and almost 1/2 inch around my thighs. It does help to see that there has been a little change.
                   

September 9th

October 1st