An exciting Saturday night

Sorry, it's been a few days and I don't really have any pictures to post tonight, but I should in the next few days.  This week we got our new windows!  We weren't sure how much of a difference they would make, but the difference is actually amazing!  It is SO much quieter now.  I used to be able to identify every type of vehicle that drove by, and I don't even hear most of them now.  It's a lot less drafty too.  And we have screens on all the windows now!  We just need some nice warm weather so that we can finally open the windows.

I guess Mike and I are still kind of surprised that it's still so cold in March!  In Denver there was always the occasional fluke snowstorm, but there were also quite a few warm, beautiful days.  We really haven't had those here.  Today it was finally sunny, but the high was only about 40.  We're so used to doing a lot outside that it's hard to be stuck inside so much.  Everyone keeps promising that the summers are beautiful, so we're really hoping it will hurry up and get here soon.

My workouts with Greg have been going really well.  I work out with him at 6 am on Tuesdays and Fridays, and I've gotten a lot stronger already.  He was surprised at how much weight I could lift the other day.  This morning I went to the gym and did an hour of cardio, which is definitely the most I've done consecutively since high school soccer, but I felt great afterwards.  I did 20 minutes each on the treadmill, the elliptical and the tread climber.  I had seen the tread climber at the gym before and thought that it was sort of akin to the "Gazelle" on those infomercials, but it's actually a really good workout.  It sort of feels like you're hiking.  Breaking it up on different machines is a great solution for me because I usually get so bored that I feel like I'm going crazy.

Mike's Aunt Chris just got a Mac and we got to ichat with her tonight, which was so much fun!  Lilly always goes mute whenever we're hoping she'll talk (and vice versa), but we got to talk to Chris and this weekend she'll bring her computer to Mike's parents house and we'll get to see them too.  It's so nice to actually see people in person, they don't feel quite so far away.

Lilly is now able to sing the entire ABC song (though she calls it the ABCD song), and she can also count from 1 to 10.  She and Mike watched some snowboarding videos on YouTube and then she started "snowboarding" on our bed by jumping into the pillows.  I was counting to three for her to start when she informed me that "Lilly do it self" and she counted as follows: "1, 2, 3, 14, 5, 6, 12 - Go!"  But she really can count to ten :)

That's it for now - I'll post more pictures soon - maybe some of our house?  I know a lot of people haven't seen very much of it.  Have a great weekend!

Sugar hangover...

I still haven't figured out how to post pictures (see below) and text in the same post without it looking crazy, but I'll get there someday!  Happy belated Easter!  Mike and I both helped out at both services at our church yesterday, so we were there from 7:30 until 12:30.  It was a long morning, but really neat to meet some new people and to see our friends Amy and Thad and Allison Doyle there.  Mike got up on stage to do the "hello" and "goodbye" parts, and the best part of that was that he got to wear a flesh-colored, boy band style microphone.  You know the kind that hooks over your ear and then has an arm that extends toward your mouth?  It was a good look for him.  Hee, hee.  He did a great job though, and I think things went pretty well with the children's ministry too.

We went to the Doyle's house for dinner last night and it was so nice.  It's hard to be away from family on holidays, and we weren't able to go to Pennsylvania to see our grandmothers, or to Massachusetts to see the Leesons, so we were happy to have plans.  The Doyles are just wonderful hosts - they had a fire in the fireplace, delicious food and yummy drinks.  Lilly LOVES to play with Allison, so they had a great time and we got to just sit on their comfortable couch and chat, and then stuff ourselves with a fantastic Easter dinner.  And then the lovely night was capped off with Lilly having a big explosion.  She really knows how to time those things :)

It's so nice to go somewhere and just feel like people have thought of every little thing to try to make it nice for you.  I've always really admired people who are so thoughtful in that way.  Roxy Leeson and Mike's Aunt Chris are both like that too - they just make you feel so comfortable.  It's a treat.  I aspire to be as hospitable as they are.

Lilly loved everything about Easter yesterday.  She loved to wear a pretty dress, and play with the other kids at church, and she really, really loved the candy.  She only gets the occasional dessert and has probably only had candy a few times before, so we just let her have at it.  Tonight I am boxing up all the rest of the candy to send to work with Mike.  Not having had sugar myself in a few weeks, I also kind of went crazy yesterday, but I still feel terrible!  I think I function much better without it.  I just have to remember that!

Lilly has been loving the Easter books that Grandma and Grandpa T sent her.  I went in to get her out of her crib one morning last week and she told me that she was still reading books and that I should go take a shower.  So I did!  It was great!

We get our new windows on Wednesday, and we're so excited about it.  Mike and I were really feeling old the other night when we were getting excited about the features of the new windows (screens!  double-paned!) and talking about the cost of utilities.  We're still trying to deal with the fact that we are paying a small fortune for the privilege of being so cold in our house.  We just got our gas bill and it was $220 less than last month.  Progress, progress.  Hopefully the 26 new windows will be less drafty and we won't hear as much noise from outside.  I long for the days when we talked about books and bands instead of low-e glass and furnaces.

I have to run off to take advantage of nap time and get some cleaning done.  Have a great week!

Easter pictures

A Tolerico family Easter self-portrait

Lilly checking out her haul.  She tasted jelly beans for the first time and LOVED them.  She doesn't get too much sugar usually, so she really loved them :)

Lilly in her new shirt, which reads, "I want a cat please."  Mike wasn't amused.

Eating her Valentine's Day ice cream from Grandma and Grandpa T at Ben & Jerry's

"Working Out"

At the Hartford St. Patrick's Day parade last Saturday

Dancing in the outfit she picked out all by herself (head to toe stripes)

Watching her favorite movie of all time, Monkey George ("Curious George" to the rest of us)

I'm out of blog title ideas already

I think some people have read this - how fun!  As I suspected you seem to be most interested in pictures of Lilly, so I will post some more today.

Another cold, rainy, gray day in Connecticut today.  Yesterday morning Lilly and I spent 2+ hours at the DMV so that I could spend $125 to get a Connecticut license.  We still hadn't changed our licenses or car registrations, so I thought it was about time to get going on that.  Spending over two hours with a very antsy toddler at a hot, dirty place full of angry people is not my idea of a good time, so Lilly and I were both glad to put that behind us.  But they took my Colorado license and kept it, so that was sort of sad.  Am I just a little sentimental about things?  We get to do it all again when we go to register our cars.

This morning we had our weekly trip to My Gym, which is Lilly's favorite activity of the week.  They get to play on all kinds of equipment and dance and sing songs.  She gets pretty crazy about My Gym, it's really fun.

We have realized that Lilly is a great encourager.  She loves to encourage us (like when I put something in our cart at the grocery store today and she told me "good job, Mama"), and she also loves to encourage herself ("good job, Lilly" when she puts her toys away or uses her fork or does just about anything).  Lately she has been all about telling people that they are funny.  She'll even bait me sometimes by saying a crazy word and waiting for me to repeat it.  When I do she says "You're funny!"  I love it, it really makes me laugh.

Happy Wednesday, I'll post some pictures now.  I'm not sure what they'll be of, but we have thousands (literally) of Lilly, so I should be able to come up with a few :)

Mike and Lilly at Horton Hears a Who

Lilly in our new kitchen (note that she put her shoes on herself and they are on the wrong feet)

I love talking about weather

Today we have a sunny day in Connecticut!  It's not exactly warm out yet, but the sun is an incredible encouragement that Spring really is coming.  I'd forgotten how long a New England winter feels.  I went running outside this morning, thinking it might warmish, and my hands nearly froze off, but I could hear the birds chirping!  We're getting there...

It's been a fun adventure for us to come here.  It's been a tumultuous few months - selling our house in CO, moving in with Mike's parents, moving to CT, living in a hotel for about a month, buying our house here, renovating the entire kitchen, etc., but things are finally starting to slow down a little bit and that's a great thing.  I think we'll really feel a lot better when we can do more outside and we see some more sun.

On Saturday we went and wandered around in the center of town and ended up eating at Whole Foods.  We started talking with the people next to us and they moved here from Denver two years ago, and the guy actually worked at Travelers, in the same building as Mike and me.  It's such a small world.  Unlike us though, they HATE it here.  We did get to rant for a little while about how incredibly rude the drivers are here, and how very much we miss Chipotle and the mountains :(

Lilly is doing well with potty-training.  I won't go into too many details, but she had another big success this morning :)  We took her to her first movie yesterday, Horton Hears a Who.  It was so much fun to get to watch her watching the movie.  She was pretty good - Mike just had to take her to the back of the theater for the last 15 minutes or so.  There were a lot of kids there, all talking throughout the movie, so she did really well for a not quite two year old.

I'm going to try to post a picture of Lilly and Mike at the movie, and maybe a couple others.  If this goes well I'll try to post more soon!

Lilly is funny!

I know that really people are much more interested in Lilly than they are in me, so here are some of her most recent sayings, activities and general hijinks:

1. We started potty-training in earnest about two weeks ago.  She has been doing a great job and is SO proud of herself when she goes on the potty, but also has no qualms about going in her diaper.  I think it will be a long process, but there is nothing funnier than seeing her sit on her potty, reading a book.

2. Tonight I was making dinner and Mike was in the kitchen talking with me.  Lilly started talking from the living room, so I went to see what she was saying.  She was lying down on the floor in her red silk gingham dress, white sweater and tights, and she would lift her legs in the air and then put them back on the floor.  She told me she was "working out."  Where does she learn these things???

3. She has started singing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and knows the whole song.  It's really so cute to see her sing it because she holds her arm up in the air and looks up at the sky the whole time.

4. The other day she and I were out shopping at Tuesday Morning.  Anyone who knows Tuesday Morning knows that they have a strange assortment of things.  She suddenly turned around in the cart and pretty much shouted, with total awe and amazement, "God!"  I turned and saw that she was looking at a Santa Claus figurine.  (Oops, where did we go wrong with that one at Christmas?)

5. Anytime she has to say goodbye to Addie (when we're going out, or when she's going to take a nap or to bed), she gives her a big hug.  And then she insists on kissing Addie right on the mouth.  Thank goodness we have such a sweet dog :)

That's all I can think of for now, but I'll get some pictures up here soon!

South Beach

I gave birth to the amazing Miss Lilly almost two years ago.  I had a very rough pregnancy and gained lots of weight.  Then I had a thyroid problem that went undiagnosed for a year.  So, to make a long story short - I still have not lost all of my pregnancy weight.  And that has been really bugging me.

When I was single and didn't have a little person to look after every day, it was a lot easier to have a great schedule and stick to it.  But since life has changed a little, I've gotten myself a trainer to show me how to best utilize my time at the gym and not keep going to the same machines I've been using since college. I've now had my first three sessions and been INCREDIBLY sore following all of them, which is a great thing!

Part two of my plan is to start eating really healthy foods, and to not eat so much.  I think it is a family trait, but I love to eat and would very happily eat all day long if I could.  I decided to try the old South Beach Diet, because I think I have sort of a "mild" carbohydrate addiction :)  I started it on Tuesday and haven't needed to douse my sorrows in a bowl of mashed potatoes yet, so I'd say it's going well. I've actually been feeling really good and I've been so enthusiastic about it that Mike's decided to do it with me.  He has *never* dieted (is that possible? I think so, knowing his metabolism), and really doesn't need to lose any weight, but I am not one to rebuff some company.

This long-winded explanation is my way of saying that I am turning 30 in June and going on an amazing trip to Europe and I'd really just like to be in great shape again.

Update: Mike couldn't even handle it for 36 hours.  He thought he was dying.  I even drove to his office to deliver some food because he was "so hungry."  He was such a grouch that I was begging him to stuff some bread in his mouth 10 minutes after he got home from work :)

My first post...

I'm not the best writer and I definitely don't have the deepest thoughts (mine are more aligned with those of the literary genius Jack Handey), but here I go.  If you've come to this blog for consistency or thought-provoking discussion, keep going.  But if you're more interested in seeing pictures of what Lilly and I are up to, or what we're doing in Connecticut, you've come to the right place!

I'll give a quick shout out to my lone reader, Mike.  Thank you for always being interested in my deep thoughts :)