Nobody wants to comment? EVER? Really? :-)

Maybe I'm just not interesting enough?  But I know there's people out there at least browsing at my blog, so I'd love to hear from you!

How am I going with my eating and exercising I hear you ask!  I'm actually doing really well.  I am still a bit undecided about which route I'll take though.  While I love the idea of 'clean eating', I really love food too, which clearly is what put me in the morbidly obese category to begin with.  I'm happy to eat healthily, but I enjoy my treats too, especially after a long day with the kids!  My foods/drinks of choice are: Skim Mocha's from a good coffee shop (this I am not willing to forego!), Feel Good Iced Coffee (this I've stopped having), Pepsi Max (I did lapse on this for a while, but I'm back to not having it again), LeRice (these are amazing, and while I won't have them daily, I do enjoy them as a treat), Sushi (this is not 'clean' food because of the white rice), bread (I don't have nearly as much as I used to, but sometimes there's NOTHING better than a Vegemite sandwich on fresh white bread) and Caramel Rice Cakes (these are to die for and great as a quick snack).  Now I don't have all of these things daily, but I generally have the skim mocha and one of the treat foods.  

Exercise wise; I have really come to the conclusion that I don't love Body Attack, Body Pump is fantastic, and I enjoy these classes!  I am happy to do Body Step, but the first 20mins or so does hurt the arch in my foot, I LOVE boxing, and am booked in to do a class of this tomorrow, but this isn't a frequently scheduled class at my gym!  Urban Rebound is great fun and only goes for 30mins, it's jumping on a mini tramp!  I can't always make it to this class, but will do my best!  As far as cardio on the machines goes, I'm sure I'll get back to them one day, but I do prefer the atmosphere of a group class, it goes quicker for one thing!  And in early Feb I'm catching up with a trainer so we can work on what I can do for weights!

Uni is back on Monday, so only 2 more sleeps until school's back for the year!  It doesn't feel like I've had much of a break, which isn't too far from reality really because I've continued to attend antenatal and postnatal appointments and a couple of births.  I love it, but I do live for the day when I can go to work, do 2 or 3 x 8-10hr shifts and come home to normal life.  Only 2 years to go, which if last year is anything to go by, they'll fly!  I start this year with 2 subjects, one is Perinatal Mental Health & the other is Physiological Adaptations in Pregnancy, thankfully I actually have personal experience in both subjects, so I shouldn't struggle too much.  Both also have case studies as assignments, and I enjoy these moreso than writing a straight essay.

Family; family is busy!  Miss 5 is about to start school, and in preparation we're working on behaviours and sleeping patterns.  Since I was pregnant with the triplets she's spent more time sleeping in our room than in her own; she has had a cot size mattress on our floor which she's slept on, but which also means she's disturbed by us, by hubby getting up for work etc.  We knew this wasn't going to work once she was at school so we've put a reward chart in to action for that and a few other things such as no tantrums each day, not annoying or hurting the triplets, putting her clothes away (she gets changed 500x per day), tidying her own room etc.  We must have been doing it for around 7 days, and so far she's going great guns!  Her reward will be a DS when she gets 200 stickers.  Doing the chart she decided to forego small rewards along the way (there's nothing she needs anyway) and save up for the DS that she had desperately wanted for Christmas, but which we didn't buy for her, hopefully this way she'll value it a bit more too!  I am having to take back her 5th portable DVD player tomorrow because they keep malfunctioning!  Talk about frustrating!

The triplets are great! Each of them had their 2nd swimming lesson today, and there's no doubt that they're water babies!  They all LOVE being in, on and under the water which is fantastic given that we live so close to the beach.  Life with them all continues to be hectic, but their little personalities make it all worthwhile (most days!)  I've just read the blog of a girl I know who has infant triplets (about 7 months) and she finds it really hard to get out, and busy in general, and she has help I think full time during the week while her husband is at work?  At that age, we had help for around 6 hours per week, but the rest of the time it was just us (me) and them!  Hubby is a shift worker, so he wasn't always around day or night, but I feel that I did pretty well!  Most days from the time they came home from hospital I got them out of the house, personally I found all of us a lot more tolerable if we went out and did things during the day! As a result they all have amazing social skills, the boys in particular are fantastic with their speech, they share with other kids, they recognise a LOT of what's happening around them and why, and I wouldn't change it for the world!  I sincerely hope that she doesn't end up feeling isolated because of it, because I know it can happen so easily!

Well, that's me done for the day! I've downloaded the latest episode of The Biggest Loser US and have another episode of 'One Born Every Minute' to watch while everyone but me is in bed!

If it helps to give me a topic, feel free!  I'll try to discuss anything that anyone suggests :-)

Watch me transform my body!

30+ kg gone, I'm not even sure how many pounds that is, but my calculations tell me it's around 69lbs?  Wow! That sounds like more than 30kg doesn't it?

So, my body is obviously a LOT better than it was to begin with, it's stronger, fitter, leaner and 100% healthier, but I'm still not completely satisfied!  The triplets have left my stomach in what would normally be unrepairable condition, but I'm lucky enough that I can have surgery, but there's other parts I'm not satisfied with either!  My arms still have bingo wings, that'll be a struggle to change.  My inner thighs have too much fat, diet may help that, and my lower back still has a small hump!  The size of this hump is my best indicator of weight gain/loss.

I've recently started going to the gym again, and the results won't be instant, and I'm not even sure that what I'm doing is the optimal workout for ME and MY body, which is why I'm seeing a trainer for an assessment and program to get what I want and need from the gym!  I see a LOT of women in the Pump, Attack and Step classes that have all the gear and no idea, I don't want to be one of them!  For a start, I can't afford a different Lorna Jane outfit every day of the week!  I don't have the time either to do class after class each and every day! Some days I can do Step & Pump, but my kids hate the creche, and on the days that I only have 1 child, I don't want them to spend a couple of hours in the creche!

The trainer I spoke to today though said that if I go ahead with more weights training, I may have to sacrifice Pump, which I can live with!  It'll be iPod on and up and off I go!  I'm under no illusion though that I do still have a fair bit of body fat to lose, that'll be done through a mixture of cardio and eating!  You can't outrun a bad diet, and skim mocha's, feel good (low fat) iced coffee and even Pepsi Max won't help me achieve the body that I want!  That's not to say I'll never have them again, but they're designed to be 'treat' foods, not part of my daily eating, and on the Weight Watchers plan, my favourite foods which I indulge in almost daily account for at LEAST 11 of my 28 daily points.  When you consider that 7 of those are liquid points, that's a lot of good food I'm missing out on.  

So, at this point I will bare my soul, and bare my body and put the photo's my daughter took this morning up for the world to see!  Well, at least the 7 or so people who have bothered to read my blog!  I promise you, if you continue to follow me, I can be inspiring, I can be motivating, I can be funny, my sense of humour can be dry, I can be brutally honest, I can be your best friend, or your worst enemy, but I won't bullshit you!  I won't justify the things I'm doing wrong with the 'but's....' I'll be accountable for everything I eat, every move I make, and I'll be rewarded with a body I'm truly proud of!

New Years Resolutions....

2012 has been an amazing year for me.  I actually achieved more this year than I had ever believed possible.  

So let's start with what I have already achieved:

1.  I completed my first year at University doing a Bachelor in Midwifery, and with the exception of 1 subject, I actually really nailed it with Credits & Distinctions!

2.  I maintained the weight I lost, I managed to lose 30kg in a nine month period.  I've since lost another 5kg, even without exercising as much as I should have, and being as strict as I could have!

3.  I RAN a 12km run with my husband!  It is an event called the City 2 Bay, it's 12km from the city of Adelaide to the beach at Glenelg, we did it on our anniversary, and I ran every single painstaking step without stopping!

4.  I taught 4 little people a little bit more about life and living.

5.  I managed to save for and plan for my husband and I to go on our very much belated honeymoon!  Trip of well a couple of decades to Port Douglas!  And it was an active, adventure holiday!  

6.  I nominated myself for Weight Watchers People's Choice award and in one of the final weeks, I received the most votes of anyone else!  I didn't win overall, but I achieved!

Okay, so it's not a huge number of things, but they're pretty significant!  And for the coming year?  There's still so much I want to do!

1.  Complete at least 250 exercise classes.  Classes, not sessions, because if I do (for example) Body Pump and then Body Balance, that's 2 classes, not 1 and I'm not going to rip myself off!

2.  Lose at least 7.5kg from what I weigh today (which is 82.5kg)

3.  Make it through 2nd year at University.

4.  Budget!  It's not easy with 4 small kids, money doesn't stretch as far as it should, but I'd love next year to be stress free when it comes to buying gifts etc for birthdays and Christmas! 

5.  Have my surgery!  Hoping it'll happen in about February, but we'll see!

6.  Volunteer at Miss 5's school to do 'something', canteen duty etc!

7.  Not take on as much as I usually do!  I'm always the first to offer to have people over, to make birthday cakes etc.  This coming year I won't do that!

8.  Get Miss 5 into a better bedtime routine!

9.  Take time to relax!  I will try not to let the little things get to me!  Let the kids make mess and make noise and be kids, for they'll be this small for such a short time!  One day I'll be wishing I could have this time back!

10.  One day per week of essential spending ONLY!

11.  On days I don't have skim mocha's, I'll put the $5.35 or $5.50 into a glass jar so that I can SEE how much money would normally go on the coffee's!

12.  All silver change will go in the kids money boxes at the end of each day!

I'll leave it there for now!  But I'd like to wish the very few people who take the time to read my blog a very Happy New Year!  Stay happy, stay safe, stay healthy and stay relaxed :-)

Christmas, Kids, Kilo's and Craziness!

My Dad is from a large family, my husband is from a large family, and we've created what these days is considered... a LARGE family!  Day to day having 4 kids is generally great, we get 4 x the cuddles, 4 x the love, 4 x the tantrums etc.  But at Christmas all chaos reins supreme!  The amount of presents the kids received was extraordinary! And while both they and us certainly appreciate that so many people care enough to buy them gifts, I fear that next year I may have to speak up and ask that changes are made to the gift giving process!

We all know that kids love toys, but they have a favourite that they find and they play with that frequently, they certainly don't have more than a few favourites, and when they get new presents, maybe only 1 of them will join that exclusive group.  So, I have a kitchen table FULL of toys which remain in their boxes, we have 2 drum kits, 2 sets of boy babushka dolls, 3 play doh sets etc.  Miss 5 got a number of presents valued at $20-$30 which she'll open and put away and more than likely forget about because she has so much 'stuff'.  She did get a 2 wheel scooter which is her favourite present, but the rest she's shown little interest in.  Now what she really wanted was a DS, which we were happy for her to have, yet finances didn't allow for one.  But, if each of the people who bought her the smaller gifts had put that money in, she could have got what she 'really' wanted and would have used until it wore out!  Like I said, I'm not ungrateful at all, but 4 kids with 4 lots of presents that are given for the sake of giving a gift, and they don't need so much STUFF! 

One of the things I want to teach our kids is how to value things, how to appreciate the things that you have, and when they have so many things that's a really hard lesson to teach!

So, I'm thinking that next year, I ask each family group to put in what they would have bought, perhaps buy 1 x $50 present for Santa to hand over, but then also have 1 more expensive present that they will get good use out of!

That's the Christmas part out of the way!  Now on to kids!  3 x 2yo's all in cots and eventually someone had to figure out how to climb out of the cot, and my 6pm-7am sleeping patterns have been thrown in to complete and utter chaos!  Day naps are slowly becoming a thing of the past, and this Mumma is going a bit crazy!  I'm not sure where I went right tonight (though hubby is on an afternoon shift?) but they were all asleep in their own beds by 6.17pm! After about two weeks of 8-9pm sleep times and it's a rare treat!

KILO'S, KILO'S, KILO'S, KILO'S & KILO'S.  Yep, add them up! There's 5 of them!  5 have gone on since I went to Port Douglas 1 month and 3 days ago.  Life has been out of control, watching what I eat has gone by the wayside and exercise had become a thing of the past.  But when I hopped on the scales on Wednesday morning (I decided to get Christmas Day out of the way) and I saw how much I'd actually gained, I decided it was time for drastic action!  Boxing Day was watching my food intake, the following day was going to my new gym for a Body Attack & Body Pump class, yesterday was good eating again and today was 30mins of Body Step, 30mins of Body Pump and 30mins of Body Combat!  I'm bringing sexy back!

In February(ish) I'm due to have surgery for my abdo separation and removal of the excess skin, I'm not ashamed of my body, it's carried my 4 children (3 at once), I've done remarkable things. But the abdo separation is a medical, stability, necessary surgery, and the excess skin is a bonus of that!  But having a very good friend who is an amazing photographer, I'm actually thinking of asking her to do a 'before' photo shoot (in underwear) so that I do have a record of what I achieved all on my own before surgery, the scars that came about from surgery that saved my life, and stretching of the skin that is a result of my babies going from embryo's to healthy little babies!

Craziness! Well, life in general is crazy, but I'm doing my very best to be as organised, motivated, calm, serene, happy and active as possible!!

Life is crazy! But I wouldn't have it any other way!

The past few weeks have been crazy time in our house!  I've had Uni placement, I've delivered 2 babies, I've had 3 assignments, 2 exams, 1 quiz and 1 portfolio to submit and do, and I've been in overdrive preparing our house and kids for Mum and Dad having a week away!

Little Miss 4 (almost 5) has started her school visits, and today marked the end of an era when she had her last child care day!  She's been at the same centre for around 4 years (or close to) and so many of the staff there have become like family!  Thankfully they'll continue to be a big part of our life for the next 2-3 years until the triplets 'graduate' to school!

Tonight we finally wind down!  Hubby started holiday's at 3pm today, I am left with ONLY one exam to do (once we get back) and on Monday we're off to tropical Port Douglas as a couple while my Mum has our little muppets!

How beautiful is it listening to the conversation of an almost 5yo?  We have an exceptionally intelligent little girl on her hands, and as I sit here typing, I am listening to her having a full chat with her Daddy about whales and dolphins and sharks and how they live and breed.  The time he takes to explain things to her is amazing.  As a busy Mum of 4 doing so much I often feel bad that I don't take the time to explain things, but surely I'm not the only one guilty of this?

When we return from our holiday, and Miss 4 winds up kindy for the year, I will have 3 days every single week until the end of January to spend 1 on 1 with her until she starts school and uni goes back!  I can't wait for long lazy days at the beach, the pool, the zoo etc.  Such precious time that I won't get again for a LONG time!

I really wanted to include the above picture of Daddy and Daughter having a chat :-)

Does it get any better than this?

Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday are my favourite mornings of the week lately.  When the weather's good the kids get up, have breakfast, we all go and grab a takeaway skim mocha for yours truly and we come home to have outside time for an hour or two before morning nap time!

The kids LOVE playing outside, and this weather is perfect for them to be outside in the morning.  We have a backyard that most kids dream about; a 12ft trampoline, a swing set, a big cubby house, a HUGE sandpit, a big patch of grass, a big area of concrete for them to ride bikes, a slippery dip etc.  

The awesome foursome love TV, they dance happily to the tunes of Play School, Fireman Sam, Bob the Builder, Peppa Pig etc but it's by no means a babysitter for them.  We often go a whole day without even turning the TV on (and no, not just the days that they're in childcare!)

Sun safety with the kids is important to me, but Vitamin D is also important to them for their bones, which in turn produce red blood cells which keep them healthy (see, I really am learning something from the mind numbingly boring Human Body lectures) which is why when we're outside at this glorious hour of the morning (it's now 8.30am) they are hat and sunscreen FREE!  The rest of the day when it warms up we put hats and sunscreen on, but given that there's such a huge Vitamin D deficiency in our population, this is something I feel is important for their growth and their health.

Another thing is reducing the sodium intake in the kids diet.  Have you looked at the nutritional panels on some of the foods you regularly feed the kids?  I was staggered at how much sodium is in yoghurt!  And the other day I went to buy rice cakes for the kids.  One had 42mg sodium per serve, yet I managed to find one with only 0.7mg per serve.  All it takes is to check the nutritional panel and compare a few different brands.  I've found the iPhone app 'Food Switch' great for this!  Tells you at a glance how foods compare.

On a brighter note, only 1 more sleep until my Human Body exam at 9am tomorrow!  I was up studying until midnight last night, and tonight will probably be much the same!  Keep your fingers crossed for me!

This is my 4 little treasures playing together outside this morning:

Am I really old enough?

Having dropped the triplets at child care this morning, and leaving the kindergarten after dropping Miss almost 5 off, I was heading down the steps in my trackies and Havi's and was suddenly struck by the realisation that I'm an almost 35yo Mum of 4 little people.

I don't feel old enough for that, I don't think I look old enough!  I know when I tell people that I have 4 children, they often say 'you don't look old enough to have four kids'.  I'm not 18 any more, and while it's been a LONG time since I've lived like an 18yo, I don't feel middle aged either, which realistically is what I'm very rapidly edging towards.  

I'm only now going through University, I've only recently discovered what I want to do with my life!  Have I left my run later than I should have?  Possibly, but I'm now old and smart enough to know that what I put in to Uni is for a good reason, I won't be putting in 3 years of hard work only to decide I really want to be a Marine Biologist instead of a Midwife.

But where has the time gone?  I lost a HUGE part of my 20's being overweight and miserable, I didn't truly live life, and I am forever grateful to myself that I won't be spending the 2nd half of my 30's the same way! My early 30's was about breeding so I could be forgiven for not 'living' the way I could have been, but now I get to look forward, and perhaps this is the right way?  Maybe living life from now with the benefit of wisdom to go with it is the smart thing to do?  I can go out and party and have a few drinks knowing that my 4 little alarm clocks will still wake up at 7am regardless of when Mummy gets home, so I hold back on drinking too much and don't spend a day suffering for it.  I am (usually) happily married, so when I go out I look good for myself, I'm not trying to meet anyone so I don't have that pressure!

A good quote from the Jerry McGuire movie 'I'm not trying to meet a man, I'm not trying to keep a man, I'm trying to RAISE a man'.  So true once you have son's!

But after all of that, my question is, when do we feel old enough?  Do we ever really feel our age?  Maybe when we're 80 our body feels every day of 80, but I'm sure my parents don't feel in their mid 50's!

We spend so much of our early lives waiting to get old enough, and from then on we're back to wishing we were younger!

This is me recently! I don't look a day over well 25? LOL