Customs and More

In between advanced dining reservations and fastpass+ selection, there is quite a bit of waiting lol. Once you get your dining reservations done I would suggest starting to order any custom made shirts you would like. I dropped the ball on this part of my planning. I did manage to get one custom shirt for our trip, but I plan to do much better our second trip. I used Etsy to find shirts I liked and then favorited them so I could easily find them. Part of the reason I ended up dropping the ball on custom shirts is because I thought closer to our trip there would be more Christmas Disney shirts...I was wrong. If you are new to ordering custom shirts, especially on Etsy, it can take a minimum of 6 weeks just to ship. I do plan to show more detail of things once we get back, so with that said I will not be posting a picture of the shirt I got for Maddy.

The next thing I had to figure out was the stroller situation. Maddy is tall for her age, and has outgrown all of her strollers. I searched for a stroller that could accommodate her height and weight for what seemed like forever. I did find some online, but they were all around $250. I am not paying that much money for a one time use. I ended up going with a rental company in Florida that carried a stroller that met our needs. For the stroller and insurance it was just a little over $100 for our entire stay. They even give you the option of getting a cooler and rain cover for free. They deliver to Disney resorts, so it is there waiting on you when you arrive and at the end of your trip you take it to the hotel bell stand and they will come and pick it back up. I will also be updating on this once we get back and will give you more details of the company I used and will give my review.

I am hoping to do a what I packed video soon, but if I don't get to make it before we go I will either do one when we get back or just talk briefly in a post what we took. Once you make it to this point all you can really do is wait. You can start making lists of things you may need to do or get prior to your vacation.

Planning Phase II

Now that you've booked your reservations, you can begin planning other aspects of your trip. If you are staying at a Disney resort, 180 days away from your vacation you can begin making dining reservations. If you are wanting to dine at Be Our Guest for dinner it is a must to be online and ready to click submit the minute they open. These reservations go fast and often even at 180 days away are already booked. I completely forgot to do this when our 180 day mark hit and I was SO upset! After a bunch of googling I found a way to get a fastpass for lunch. It is not advertised very well at all and I'm sure that's done for a reason. I believe since it is a fastpass it will only work 30 days away from your vacation, but don't hold me to that. The site is: https://beourguestlunch.disney.go.com/ I was able to book mine the same month I left for vacation.

If you are not staying on Disney property I am not sure how the dining reservations work, What I do know is you can google it and find out those answers. I will probably post all our reservations in a different post once we are back. 

Making dining reservations may sound easy, but it was no easy task for me. There are so many restaurants to choose from and trying to narrow it down to our vacation days was extremely hard. We worked on our dining reservations one full Saturday and only got lunch and dinners planned for two days. We wanted to have reservations to cut down on wait times. I recommend reservations if you have kids because they are already going to be exhausted from all the excitement of being in Disney, I am sure come dinner time they will be quite grumpy and not willing to wait very long for food. 

The next exciting thing to plan for is your fastpass+. If you are staying on Disney property you get 3 fastpasses per person per day I think it is. You can start choosing your fastpasses 30 days in advance. These go quick, so make sure you plan out what rides you want fastpasses for each day prior to the 30 day mark, If you get a fastpass for Be Our Guest, it does not count as one of your fastpasses. We were able to get fastpasses for everything we selected. 

I think this is all for dining and fastpass+ reservations. I think this phase is fun. It can be time consuming, but it helps keep the excitement level at bay :)

Planning a Walt Disney World Vacation

I know there are a lot of YouTube videos on planning a Disney vacation, and I'm sure there are some blogs out there as well. I thought I would go ahead and share how I planned our vacation. I have been to Disney a few times, but was never in charge of the whole nine yards. I actually started planning for our trip in August 2013. Disney is out of my budget, so I needed a lot of time to save. Planning has felt very overwhelming. There is a lot to consider. I'm going to try to break this down the best I can.

Step 1 is to decide when you want to go. Everybody is different and everybody's schedules are different. Some people have flexible schedules while others may not. For our trip I could pretty much go whenever I wanted, so I did not have a lot to factor in. I had two time periods I was trying to decide between. While trying to decide when to go I stumbled upon a crowd sheet. I have no idea how I found it, but it tells you the most crowded times and the least crowded times. Here is what that looks like:

For most of our trip the chart showed light crowds. One of the times we wanted to go was considered not a peak time, while the other time was. Something else I looked up was when the best time to go to Disney World was. The results were September, October, and November. With everything I looked up we just kind of pieced together an ideal week to go. We contacted a few travel agencies to get quotes on a resort we really wanted to stay at, but it was way over the budget. We had to let go of our ideal room and move to a resort other people we knew really liked. 

Along with figuring out when you want to go, you will need to figure out what your budget is. Prior to making your reservations you will also need to decide if you want to include any of the dining plans. I found that some people really liked the dining plans while others did not. As a first timer I thought it would be a great idea to purchase a dining plan. I purchased the deluxe dining plan that gives you 3 table/quick service meals that include an appetizer and dessert as well, and 2 snack credits. At the time of purchasing I did not know how much the plan was a person. It wasn't until I started researching it that I found it was $100 for adults and I think $29 for kids. While we are there I plan on tallying up my totals to see if it was worth the money to purchase the plan, or if it is cheaper to not purchase. Sometimes you can get the dining plan for free, but if you get free dining then you are not eligible for any room discounts. 

Other factors to consider are how you plan on getting there. Do you plan on flying or driving? This question was not answered right away for me. I really wanted to fly to maximize our time in the parks, but flying out of my town is really expensive. After looking online for a few days my mom found a great deal and just like that it was decided we would fly.  The last thing I can think of to consider are how do you want to tell your kids or family they will be going to Disney for vacation. Do you want to surprise them? If so, how? When should you tell them? I will talk more about what I did in another post. 

This concludes the initial planning/reserving stage. I may have missed something, but for now this is all I can think of. Google and Pinterest have been my best friend in the planning stage. I will have a few more Disney posts that will be coming :)

Jeremiah 29:11

Progress Report

This past week has been trying in just about every way possible. I almost did not even weigh myself this morning, as I knew I had probably gained. I felt like if I didn't go ahead and weigh I would not be 100% truthful and that is not okay with me. I woke up Wednesday morning feeling puny. I had a pretty bad burny throat and absolutely zero energy. As the week went on, instead of getting better I felt worse. There were days I really struggled to stay on Weight Watchers because I felt so bad. Overall I am pretty proud of myself. I only used about 6 of my extra weekly allowance points. I did zero exercise. I pretty much stayed in bed when I was not working. Most days I did good to get in 1,000 steps. I know that's pretty pathetic...trust me! All in all I was not looking forward to weigh in day. To my surprise I barely gained anything. In my mind I basically maintained, but technically I gained 5/10 of a pound. I can knock that off pretty easy this week...I hope.

I did not keep much of a food journal in my fitness pal this week. I will go ahead and post what I do have. Most of my diet consisted of Halls, tea, and water.

The other thing I forgot to mention is pretty early in the week...Wednesday to be exact, my microwave decided to blow. I don't cook meals every single day. Maddy is not a left over type of person, so I generally cook one or two things throughout the week. All I had on hand were frozen burrito's and a few vegetables. I've learned just how much I took my microwave for granted. Something that used to take 1 minute 30 seconds, now takes 28 minutes in the oven. I just started feeling better yesterday, however, I ended up with a migraine all day yesterday. I was so nauseous and finally remembered pickles were zero points, so I ate a pickle and drank a little of the juice. 

I did measure my waist and hips today. My waist stayed the same, but I lost half an inch off my hips. I would love to see a 3 pound weight loss this week, but that is almost unrealistic for me. The thing to remember is to keep going even when you want to give up. Have a fantastic week!

Jeremiah 29:11 

The Results Are In

I am so beyond excited to share that this past week I lost a total of 1.8 pounds!!! I was hoping I would have at least a full pound lost. So in 3 weeks I have basically lost 3 pounds...woohoo!!! For these weekly updates I will share screen shots of my fitness pal entries to show what I ate and then explain my exercise. Before I begin sharing pictures I want to add that I am still doing weight watchers. I count everything that goes into my mouth and I weigh everything before eating. I do not use any of my weekly allowance points, nor do I add extra points for activity. I strictly eat my 26 points.

Wednesday
I did not add my food to my fitness pal, so I cannot share what I ate because I don't remember. It shows I had 4,720 steps from my fitbit. I also cannot remember if I exercised. If I did, I would have done 20 minutes of body rock. Wednesday's are usually my off days because it is a night filled with church.

Thursday
I did not enter in all my food entries. I will post what I did enter though. I am also not sure if I exercised, but if I did it would be another 20 minutes of Body Rock tv.

Friday

I am pretty sure I did not exercise Friday.

Saturday

I did a hour long step class at the gym Saturday morning and then did 5-10 minutes of the Zumba class afterwards.

Sunday

I did not workout other than going to the park and playing with Maddy

Monday

I did an hour Zumba class at the gym.

Tuesday(Today)

I did another hour long Zumba class at the gym. 

One thing I forgot to add to today's is I will probably have one more glass of sweet tea, otherwise, I will not meet my 26 points. 

As you can see I tend to eat a lot of the same things over and over. It is not a have to, but a want to. If I find food combinations that work for me then I tend to stick with them. I have never felt hungry since starting weight watchers. I have also been drinking more water. I get the most water when I work out at the gym. Since I now only have one glass of sweet tea during work hours, I drink more water. I have to have a drink with me at all times. 

I have just started noting my measurements, so the next update will include if I lost any inches. I'm not sure what next week will bring, but for right now I am very pleased with my progress. I do plan to keep my weight watchers up through Thanksgiving, so we will see how that goes. I hope you are having a great week!

Jeremiah 29:11

Getting My Body Back

I have been trying to get my pre-pregnancy body back for 5 years. I have tried a few things off and on over the years. I did a lot of reading to see how other people lost their baby weight, but could never find anything detailed enough that would help me. I had tried weight watchers in the past and knew it worked, so two years ago I signed back up online. I bought the weight watchers frozen dinners and stuck to the point system. I think I may have lost 2/10 of a pound my first week. I was really discouraged. The next week I lost close to the same amount. I talked to my mom who was also doing weight watchers and it just wasn't working for her either. I decided to give it up and try something else. In the long run I didn't really try to do anything else other than eliminate as many processed foods as possible. October 2014 I started a program I had never tried, but could not hit the numbers I needed to in order for it to be successful. By this point my mom had signed back up to weight watchers. 4 weeks into her journey she had lost a decent amount of weight. I decided I would give weight watchers one more try. Weight watchers allows you to eat whatever you want, but you have to stay within your points. If you eat chips and candy, then you're gonna go through your points fast and still feel hungry. If you eat lean meat and vegetables, however, you will feel satisfied and still have points left over. Weight watchers allows room for error, or as I like to call it a cheat day. You have a weekly allowance of points outside of your main point system, in case you do go over your points. I think it's designed to help you not feel like you completely messed up. Most fruits and vegetables are zero points, so if you have exhausted your points for the day you can just go find you something that has zero points. I did not weigh myself before I started weight watchers because honestly I couldn't handle what the scale might tell me. I weighed myself starting on my second week and was still pretty horrified. My first week of weighing I lost 4/10 of a pound. I still felt very discouraged and if I hadn't known my mom had lost quite a few pounds I probably would have quit. I thought maybe I didn't lose much because I wasn't getting in my 10,000 steps each day. My third week I tried my best to get my steps in, but I rarely made it. I did exercise two days my third week and then it was time to weigh again. I was scared I didn't lose anything, but luckily I lost 9/10 of a pound. I weigh in on Tuesday mornings and found another problem that might have prevented me from losing 1 pound a week. I usually have about 3-4 big glasses of sweet tea. When I started weight watchers my tea consumption dropped a little, but I was not counting my tea as any points. I plugged in the tea information into my fitness pal and realized the amount of tea I drink is probably at least 4 points each glass. If I have 3 glasses that is 12 of my 26 points gone. I am hoping since I have been counting my tea as points now to see a bigger weight loss. I am also starting to go to fitness classes at the gym I belong to. Saturday morning I got up early to go do an hour of step class. It was not just step, we also did a lot of squats, push ups, and abs. My legs are so sore right now it isn't even funny lol. Right after step is zumba so me and my mom did as much as we could of that. We used to do zumba every friday morning, but my work schedule got hectic and I wasn't allowed to flex as much as I had in the past so we quit going. This week we are going to go Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday afternoon to see which class we like best. Then on Saturday mornings we will do step and a little Zumba.

My whole reason for posting this is if you have struggled with weight loss for any reason at all, I just wanted you to know there is hope. I'm not sure if I will ever really get my body back, but I am going to work hard at getting it back as much as I can. There are many different programs out there that can help you lose weight. I chose weight watchers because it doesn't limit what you eat, it just limits how much you eat. I plan to give a little update each week on my weight loss. I want to include things I eat and what exercises I do to help lose the weight. When I did weight watchers in the past I mainly ate the weight watchers frozen meals. Since I have cut out processed foods (as much as I could), I am not buying them this go round. I eat mostly the same foods throughout the week because it works for me and I like them. I save most of my points for the evening. During the day I will have a glass of tea and then in the afternoon I will have either a pack of peanut butter crackers or a healthier granola bar. For dinner I have half a cup of mashed potatoes, 1 cup of shredded chicken breast with BBQ sauce, and either some baked beans or broccoli with cheese. For snacks I have a cup of popcorn if I have points left over or a small bag of chips or a cappuccino blast from baskin robbins. If you can't or don't want to go to a gym a great at home workout site is: http://www.bodyrock.tv/ I lost inches from their workouts prior to weight watchers. On days I don't go to the gym I will continue using their workouts.

I hope this time next year I will feel much better about myself. I have started this process so many times before and ended up quitting. This time I am pretty serious about sticking with it. I told myself I would not be where I wanted to be by this Christmas, but if I keep going I can be by next Christmas. Challenge accepted :) I will not post pictures on here of me, but I may post my numbers later on.  I am going to include a snippet of my fitness pal on here because I can't stand a plain blog post lol.

This snippet from my fitness pal was pre-weight watchers. It was when I was on a new to me program that required a lot of protein. I was basically eating nothing but protein and just felt so full all the time, but could never hit it. The bottom picture is from my fitbit app. I have the fitbit one and I absolutely love it. It is very accurate and they've added challenges you can create with your fitbit friends to motivate you to get moving. This was one of my best days. I was in a challenge with two people and I am very competitive lol.

To Homeschool or Not to Homeschool...That is the Question!

Parents are constantly making important decisions for the their child. One of those decisions include where your child should go to school. Should they go to public school, private school, a charter school, or homeschool? The only person who can answer those questions are you. My advice is to pray about it and see where you feel led to send your child.

When I first started thinking about schools for Maddy, I thought homeschool was out of the question for me. I thought since I was still working (I want to be a stay-at-home mom SO bad) I had no choice but to send her to school somewhere. I did a lot of research on our local schools and I could not find peace in any scenario. I often walked away from my thoughts discouraged because I had no idea what to do for her school. I ended up being faced with the question, "Why can't you homeschool?" I started to answer, but realized I really had no answer. It was in that moment that I knew I was being led to homeschool and that I could homeschool. Once I said it out loud that she would be home-schooled I had instant peace.

Most people who choose to homeschool will often say they were called to do so. I don't believe homeschool is for everybody. I think some moms will feel led to send their child to public school, while another mom will feel led to send their child to a private school. It's going to be different for everyone. God knows what is best for you and your child and if you just listen to Him, the decision about school will be made clear.

Jeremiah 29:11