Here are some of my favorite photos from my birthday weekend (and first favorites with my new camera!). The rest of the pictures from this weekend will be posted in my gallery tomorrow.

Thank you to my crazy family who sure knows how to throw a party.. and make a girl feel incredibly loved on her 30th birthday! More pics coming soon…

When did my Thing 2 get so big?! Look at those legs… she’s definitely got longer legs than Halle. Hopefully this means she’ll fit into outfits!! (Halle has a long torso and short legs, so she always wears a size bigger in shirts than in pants and has since she was very little.. so there are many outfits that Halle never got to wear as they were intended because the two pieces didn’t fit at the same time. Looks like Elena won’t have that problem! Yay!).

Several of my friends have signed up for 43 things to set some life goals for themselves and try to achieve them. I never signed up for 43 things because there aren’t that many things that I really care if I do (is that sad?) but there are two things that I’ve always wanted. And those 2 things are:

1. Scuba dive off the coast of Australia (Jill, I hope you’re going to do this!)

2. Get in shape (the strength, the endurance and the body)

A friend of mine has been doing P90X (have you seen the infomercials for this)? He loves it and highly recommended it (and gave it to us). I took a week to read over all the material, watch the videos of each exercise, learn about his eating philosophy, buy the tools I needed (like yoga blocks and heart rate monitor), take the fit test to make sure I was in good enough shape to start this, etc. Finally yesterday we decided it was time to start.

Day 1 for the program that I’m doing (the lean program) is Core Synergistics. It’s like taking a class at the gym that targets all your core muscles (its all combo exercises.. like you do lunges while using hand weights to work your biceps and tricpes.. then you do pushups with twists and jumps to work your arms, chest, abs and get in some cardio.. it’s hardcore). Day 2 is Cardio X, which I just completed. It’s a combination of yoga, kenpo (karate-style workout like tae-bo and I imagine boxametrics is similar), core synergistics, plyometrics (where do they come up with all these terms?). Anyway, it was really fun. I really like the way he changes things up. My thigh muscles and tricpes are sore already… I imagine this is going to be one helluva sore week for me. But I’m loving it.

As part of the P90X program, they recommend you take a whole series of before pictures in recommended positions. I’m feeling a bit Keri-like today and I’m deciding to post one of my before pictures. :) I’m only posting it because I like it though. There’s obviously tons of room for improvement, but this is a side of myself I never see and I was pleasantly surprised that it doesn’t look too bad. :)

I’ll update the site with my 30, 60 and 90 day shots too. Wish me luck! :)

Is it just me or do my girls take the most gorgeous pictures?!! Both of these pictures were taken today.

All this week, the kids at Halle’s school have been making Indian clothes and accessories. Today they had a little Pow Wow to show off their outfits and learn more about Indians. They sang songs like 10 Little Indians and something about a canoe, they followed moose and rabbit tracks around the playground (sidewalk chalked by the teachers), and they went on a bear hunt. It was very cute. I love having Halle at a school that does fun stuff like this! Here are a few pictures:

Elena turned five months old yesterday. As you can see, she’s getting big.. and she’s holding on to those gorgeous blue eyes. Elena’s big accomplishment lately is rolling over from back to belly. She rolls several times a day now, and she’s so proud of herself when she does. She’s a wonderful sleeper. Sleeps through the night in her crib most nights, but lately she’s been waking up with what appears to be teething pain, so I’ve let her sleep in our bed. She loooooves sleeping in our bed. I probably won’t let this happen too much longer, but it’s nice to have her in bed with us every once in awhile. She doesn’t eat at all between 7 or 8 pm and 7 or 8 am and hasn’t for a month or so. She eats baby food about once a day but doesn’t seem to be that crazy about eating. She is super smiley almost all the time, loves her sister and her daddy and her grandma very much, and makes the most adorable noises. She’s much chattier than we remember Halle being. She loves to hear the sound of her voice (and so do we). :) Here are some pics of her rolling from this morning:

The Cole Bros. Circus came to town and we figured Halle and Annabelle are at a good age to enjoy the circus, so off we went. Keri picked up some front row seats for all of us (thanks, Keri!). Overall the show was pretty entertaining. It certainly could’ve been better (the Ringmaster and “Big Top Beauty” were not engaging at all, and the pace of the show was much slower than it should have been), but there were enough cool tricks and neat animals to make the evening fun. Some of the highlights of the circus were:

Click here to see more great pics from our evening at the circus >>