New Year, New Update

Well, Leah's come so far in the potty training this past year. On New Years Eve she even went #2 in the potty all by herself without us having to prompt her. That's noteworthy!

We are also noticing Leah is saying more and more. Now it's not the same word explosion that I've seen with our other kids, because many of the words are still very "fuzzy", but some things have come out of her lately that really took me by suprise. Yesterday she brought me a piece to her puzzle and said "I got one Momma, Look." just as clear as day. I think that's the first time she's ever strung 5 words together. It's always amazing when your kids learn to talk, but with her it's even more so because we've been working for so long on it.

And she's saying words I never would have thought - like umbrella and blueberry. Dean said he wonders if there's a connection between her mastering the potty and her speech progress. We've heard there's a connection between the physical and speech.. you know first you learn to walk, then talk. Now that she's gotten farther along physically, maybe her brain is ready to move on with speech. Here's hoping this is just the beginning of a speech explosion.

On the diet front... I'm happy to say for the first time in 2 decades, I've made significant progress losing weight. (Excluding the times just after giving birth). Officially I'm down 17.5 pounds since I started sparkpeople.com in July. December wasn't a very good month for weight loss, but at least I didn't gain and I'm ready to plunge into it again now that the New Year is here. If you've always wanted to lose weight, and need a good [free] program, I highly recommend http://www.sparkpeople.com Then, REALLY commit to tracking your calories and excercise as suggested and you too can get there. There's really no big secret to losing weight- just a lot of committment and resolution needed. And some really good calorie tracking tools go a long way.

Other updates....well we finally gave in and bought the boys a Wii for Christmas. They were thrilled, especially Jonah. Now the only problem is how to regulate it so they don't spend all their time playing video games....