Leila vs Linley

Two pictures taken around the same stage in life. 4 months old. Two very different sisters... Linley is outpacing Leila in terms of physical growth, but both are very cheerful, loving girls. We are so thankful to have them.

Pre-baby body!!!!

I am a believer in Jillian Michaels. She's my new best friend. Ha!

After I had Leila, I used the P90X DVD series from Tony Horton to get back into pre-baby shape. It worked great, and I loved the variety of the program, but each tape is 60 minutes in length, with the yoga DVD actually 90 minutes in length. No time for that these days.

Enter: Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred DVD (thank you to my favorite neighbor ever!)

There are 3 workouts, labeled Level 1, Level 2, and Level 3. Each is a total of 25 minutes long, including warmup and cooldown. 25 minutes! All you need is a workout mat and some handweights. I pop that sucker in when I'm up super early with the baby or during a naptime, do my 25 minutes, and I'm done. Love it! Combine this with our morning jogs, and I sure hope the Miko pre-baby body returns ASAP. Of course, there are some things that will never be the same as good old pre-baby body, such as a stretch mark-free tummy, and non-sagging body parts, but that's just the way it is. If I hit the lottery sometime soon, I can always pay a professional to remedy the baby body issues, right? HA!

I started work yesterday. Same schedule as before, from home and evenings only. Hubby watches the kids while I work from home. It's way more crazy to manage than when we just had Leila but I'm sure we'll get the hang of it with time, as with anything. I miss the girls when I'm not with them. And that's even being in the same house as them! I'm so thankful the Lord gave me this work opportunity though so I want to make the most of it. We are so blessed just to have jobs. We can never forget to thank Him every day for that.

Batteries

Why is it that when I was pregnant with my sweet Leila, no one ever told me to invest in batteries? If you were to ask me today, out of all the things I registered for and received as gifts (thank you friends and family!), I'd have said I forgot the most important items: batteries!

Luckily I have a savings-savvy hubby who turned me on to rechargeable batteries.

I can't tell you how much our investment in rechargeable batteries has paid off. My hubby found these converter-type rechargeable cases, that allow you to insert AA batteries, and thus, make the battery the size of a C or a D battery, so really all you need are those cases and the AA batteries and you're set for any number of baby items around the house. Between the bouncy chair, play mat, Exersaucer, baby monitor, and a load of other toys around our house, we'd go broke buying batteries. It seems like the kids' things each have a different # of sizes and types of batteries too, so you can't get away with buying just 1 type of battery. There is this lullaby machine that hangs on Leila's crib that she absolutely cannot sleep without, and it requires 4 D batteries. The batteries conk out every other night. That's how much she plays with it during nap time and bedtime. So, we just take out the AA batteries in the D cases, recharge (takes just a few minutes), put them back in, and voila! Can you imagine how much it would cost us to keep buying D batteries?

That's my good mom tip for the week. Or maybe the month. It's hard to blog these days with 2 kids. Using most of my down time these days to sleep. =0)