Is Wii Fit a waste of money?

Yesterday my hubby went to Best Buy when it first opened to get me The Wii Fit. He thought I lost my mind wanting to pay $89 for a game. He honestly did not think anyone else would be as crazy as me. Well let's say he was definitely surprised when he got into the checkout line and looked around. Every other person was buying a Wii Fit too!

After he brought it home, I waited until he left for work before I tried it out. I didn't want to look like a complete idiot! So after I picked the kids from school we set it up. I liked the fact it came with batteries, that is always a plus in my book. I had a little trouble trying to sync the Wii board with the console but it was nothing major. Next came the whole setting up the system for me. I had to put my height and birthday in. It then tells you what your Body Mass Index (BMI) and Wii Fit age is. Mine was not very good, but I am not surprised, I have not exercised in years. I am a couch potato. My Wii Fit age is 44. I am only 33 so I am weaker than I should be. According to Wii Fit, BMI says I am obese! I know!! I couldn't believe it. My feelings were hurt at first by now I am ok with it. Oh yeah my center of balance is all screwed up too. Would you believe the game asked me do a trip over my feet a lot? What is sad is the answer is yes! I can laugh about it now, but last year I fell at least 3 times. When we went up to the Dells I was looking at the pretty condos, tripped over my feet and rolled down a hill! My ankle was swollen the rest of the trip. The second time I was walking in the house tripped over the front stoop onto the concrete!! So I guess this game knows what it is talking about.

Next the game asked me how much weight I wanted to lose or gain and over how much time. I even got to pick whether I wanted a girl or boy trainer. I picked boy of course. He is so nice and encouraging. I named him Sam. There are four training modes I was able to choose from yoga, strength training, aerobics and balance games. I tried aerobics first. I went for the hula hoops and it wore me out! But it was fun too. I did 63 spins in a minute and a half. K.K. did 195, but remember she is 5 so it doesn't really count! I did a little yoga and step class, and soccer too. Sam is nice, he kept telling what a good job I was doing :)

The kids tried tight rope walking, running, yoga, skiing, and super hula hoops. They love it! Up to 8 can use Wii Fit at a time. It saves all your progress and how much time you spend exercising.

So is Wii Fit a waste of money? In my case no. It got me off the couch and exercising while keeping it fun. Another bonus is we are able to do it as a family. Some people may think $89 is too much to spend but it makes perfect sense to me. I have spent more that $89 on exercise equipment that is now sitting in the basement collecting dust.

Enough blogging for now, I am on my way to do some yoga. I can't believe I said that!

I thought I would nail this!

26

OnePlusYou Quizzes and Widgets

Wordless Wednesday

I have Social Anxiety Disorder

I have had a few people ask me what is Social Anxiety Disorder. most people have never heard of it before. Sometimes I find it hard to explain. I feel so ashamed about it sometimes. This is a big step I am taking by talking about it. I hoping by writing about it, maybe it will get a little easier to deal with and help me find myself.
It is basically an anxiety disorder characterized by overwhelming anxiety and excessive self-consciousness in normal everyday social situations. It is not the same for everyone. I did not realize exactly what this was until I was diagnosed about 5- 6 years ago. In my particular situation I am anxious about everything. If there is a upcoming wedding or funeral I literally get sick. My hands shake and I get really bad headaches. Sometimes I even get dizzy. I am not comfortable in any type of social situation. It does not matter if I know the person or not. I always feel liked I am being judged and talked about. I feel like others are judging my parenting style choices, what I am wearing, everything I say, my actions, everything I don't say, everything thing I do. There have been times where I have felt forced to participate in social gatherings and I feel so much anxiety I burst into tears. My anxiety is so severe there are times I don't leave the house for days.This has always been a part of my life. I don't go to a lot of social stuff because I don't want my family (husband and the kids) to be ashamed of me. No matter how much I try I feel like a horrible wife and mother. Because of my social anxiety I can not make friends so I pretty much have none, I could not attend my college graduation, sometimes I can't go to school functions for the kids, I get nervous talking on the phone, I have turned down job offers or backed out of interviews all together and sometimes I do not attend parties or family get togethers. Some people call me anti social but I do not feel that is the correct label. I would not mind being more social, hell I would love to be more social and have friends and all that stuff. I just can't. Even typing about it my heart is beating out of my chest and my hands are shaking a little.
Last year I found this site, called social anxiety friends. It was really reassuring to find people who completely understood me and were like me. I stopped going to it because I thought I was over it. How silly does that sound? I wasn't over my anxiety, just denying it. Well, I am going back to visit today. I think it will be good for me. I sure hope so.
If you know anybody that has any interest in meeting others with any type of social phobia please steer them my way. Maybe I will make some friends. This is my page at Social Anxiety Friends

Thanks for letting me ramble once again. Today is definitely a little better than yesterday

Another game for family night

The kids and I just finished a funny game of Memory. The reason it was so funny is because I have the worst memory in the world so I always lose horribly. The kids could not believe I could not remember a card I pulled over in my last turn. Nannah even accused me of letting K.K. win. That is so far from the truth. Nannah and K.K. have been the queens of this game for as long as I remember. Well, we started talking about adding a few more games to our collection. We need another Connect Four because all of the pieces are misssing and we need another Uno set because the kids lost the cards. We went online to check prices and found out about this cool version of Uno. I have never saw this before but it looks fun. The deck now includeds this card that says spin on it. If you get that card you get to spin the wheel (i love spinning wheels,lol) The wheel decides if you get to discard cards, pick up more or exchange hands with another player. I really like the idea of this because then the game is totally unpredictable and everyone has a fair chance of winning. I can't wait to catch it on sale and give it a try.

Losing the fight

Today was not really a good day for me. I suffer from severe depression and social anxiety. That is why I am currently on Zoloft. The medication helps sometimes. Except when I forget to take it when I "think" I am better. There are times when I am loving life and everyone in it. Then there are the days like today. I just feel this immense sadness. It is sort of unexplainable. I think deep in my heart I knew that moment was coming. I have been having migraines nonstop for the last 2 weeks. Unfortunately doctors just write it off to a stress headache. Except there are times I can never get rid of it. At least it is not as bad as previous times. Those times were really bad. I felt no hope and was literally lost. At least this time I have blogging. It is like some type of outlet for me. This blogging thing is sometimes like a double edged sword. Because of my social anxiety I have really bad panic attacks when faced with social situations, so I don't have any friends. But through blogging I meet some really cool and different people so I feel like I am not so "weird". When I have those terrible times when I can not leave the house at least I can communicate with the world through blogging. But sometimes it is still hard. It is even harder to explain. Mix that with a little depression and then it is not so good. But blogging keeps me focused and I get a chance to help people and just be myself. Ok, I'm not sure why there are tears running down my face while typing this. Today is just a hard day for me. I don't know. just feeling a little worthless and not good enough. not a good enough wife, mother, person. I finished all the laundry so that is good. It was about 11 loads or so. Sometimes blogging is so hard. There are so many good bloggers out there. I wonder do I have it in me. i have been thinking about just trying to get a job. but i am not sure if that will work out either. Sometimes life is just hard. I think it is even harder to find who you really are,inside. I know I want to be as honest and loving as I possibly can be. I don't want to be who everyone else wants me to be, even if the real me isn't good enough. I just want to be happy. I pray tomorrow will be better. So I'm off to take my medicine and hopefully get some sleep.

A contest with $1600 worth of prizes!!

No Full Stop is having a giveaway that I would personally love to win since I have no creative bones in my entire body. All you have to do to enter is sign up for email feeds. If you would like extra entries you can stumble the post, write your own post about the contest or subscribe to No Full Stop RSS feeds.

Here is a list of the prizes:

45 Minute Consultation From Liz of Successful Blog.
Two ProBlogger Books from Sara of DigitaPrank.
Fast Track submission to MakeUseOf Directory worth $50.
45 Minute Consultation for logo design from David Airey.
50 wiki pages from OneBuckWiki worth $1000.
Unique logo design from Recruit developer offshore which owes the logo company LogoAngel. The price of this logo design is $199.
Registered copy of premium theme worth $100 from Adii.
Two unique logo designs with one revision each from FashDesigns.
Registered copy of a yet-to-be-designed premium theme from Fab Flake.
One premium support email or IM session with remote support from Ask The Admin worth $75.
$50 bid on attractive bidding directory.
168 Entrecard credits for three different winners from Mike of Bloggin-Ads.
500 Entrecard credits plus 125x125 ad spot for two months from Darren of 1 Man & His Blog.
6 Months Medium Web Hosting Account from HostBrains.
125x125 ad spot for two months from Techno Life.
125x125 ad spot for one month from Contestime.
125x125 ad spot for one month from GorillaSushi.

Win a custom cut photo mat

Mommy Always Win is celebrating her 100th post, Yayyyy for her. She has decided to show her appreciation for her online friends who have shared their stories by offering a unique giveaway. She has partnered up with Matters of the Heart, to giveaway a FAMILY mat and frame to one lucky reader. If you win you get to choose your mat and frame color. This giveaway ends May 22nd so hurry on over and leave a comment.

Win a SEO optimized Blog

While dropping some Entrecards today I came across a giveaway at BrainFoggles. It caught my attention because in my eyes it is the "normal" giveaway. The giveaway is for a Wordpress blog with the works. You get hosting for a year, tech support, your choice of theme and complete set up of the blog with plugins. You even get a customized header! Being a newbie I am crossing my fingers and toes for this one. I could use the help. The giveaway is easy to enter so head on over to Brain Foggles before May 30th and put your comments in!

Friday Fill Ins

1. There is absolutely NO way you can get me to clean or eat fish my husband catches!
2. The sound of kids playing outside reminds me that summer is almost here!
3. I cannot live without my family, laptop and psp.
4. Skydiving and bungee jumping are two things I'd like to try.
5. When life hands you lemons pray about and let it go.
6. Going down south with my grandparents every summer is my favorite childhood memory.
7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to watching a Ben 10 movie with the kids and playing MarioKart on Wii with the family, tomorrow my plans include laundry, cleaning, laundry, cleaning, and did I mention laundry and cleaning? and Sunday, I want to relax and catch up on some reading

MommyFest Party Intro

Hi all you MommyFest Bloggers and welcome to my blog. So, I guess I need to introduce myself. Let's see, I am a stay at hom mom to 3 girls (14,10, and 5) and 1 boy(8). I have been married almost 12 years (for some odd reason I keep thinking 13, lol). My hubby is my best friend in the world and we have been together for 16 years. I am addicted to blogging and video games. Just got Mario Wii for Mother's Day. We have the original Nintendo, Playstation, Xbox, Wii, PSP, Gamecube, Gameboy Advance, and DS. I am a reality show junkie. Back in the day it started with Real World. Now I watch Top Chef, Making da Band, Run's House, Survivor, Big Brother and the Amazing Race to name a few. I hate the outdoors but we live right next to a nature preserve because my DH and kids love nature. I have social anxiety disorder but blogging helps because I meet some really cool people.

Thanks for stopping by and please leave a comment so I can visit your blog too. Have fun!!

What I've Learned as a Mom

Wow, there are so many things I have learned in the last 14 years.

• I can sleep without really sleeping. I always have one ear open. You know in case someone wakes up or falls out of bed.
• I have developed "Mommy Hearing". No matter where my kids are in or around the house I can hear everything they say. Especially when they are picking on each other or playing who can say the most digusting thing in the world.
• That anything I say don't do, my kids are guaranteed to do it or at least give it a good try!
• That at least twice a day, one of my kids will be mad at me.
• Kids can figure out passwords to unblock channels on satellite so pick something other than 1-2-3-4!!
• My kids will repeat everything I say to everyone who should not hear it.
• That my kids are really amazing and smart.
• That I do have enough love in my heart for all these little monsters. lol.
• That Toy Story 2 can make me cry.
• That unconditional love does exsist.
• That I can put someone before myself and not mind.
• The baby of the family can be a bully.
  
• That it is ok not be supermom, honestly.
• Teenagers embarrass easily, unless they need a ride or money
• Nothing is better than a hug or a I love you from your kids. It is one of the best feelings in the world!!
  

Blog Fest 2008 - 5 Things About this Mom

Almost missed another blog party, but I am ready now. So welcome Mommies!! I am 1stopmom. I can't wait to visit all of your blogs.
Let's see 5 things about me:
1. I love strawberry lemonade
2. I have social anxiety disorder
3. Flavor of love and Maury paternity test show are my guilty pleasures (shhh, don't tell)
4. I chew gum constantly. And I mean all the time. This is how my husband finds me when we are out in public. The kids have also told me this is how they hear me coming. I pop my gum nonstop, but I do not realize it.
5. Even though I may complain about being a stay at home mom sometimes, there is nowhere else I would rather be .
Now on to blog hopping, it may take me a while but I will visit all you guys. Just don't look at me weird when you see a comment from Blog Fest 2008 when it is Christmas time, lol!!

Learning how to catch the bus

In September Jazz will be starting high school and she told me transportation by yellow bus is not provided. I started thinking "Oh man, I am going to have to figure out a plan since I will be driving all the kids to school next year." The hardest part would be with school start and dismissal times. Jazz's school is over 45 minutes away from our home while the school the younger ones attend is only 5 minutes away. Jazz, being in such a hurry to grow up, suggests catching the city bus. The first thing I said is "No way!" I am a big time worrier (not sure if that is even a word). If it can be worried about then it is on my mind. I started thinking what if she gets lost, what if she forgets her phone, her phone could go dead, what if someone tries to grab her, what if she falls asleep on the bus? And it just goes on and on. It's funny because I started catching the city bus when I was 10. But dare I say it? Times were a different 23 years ago. I know I have to let her grow up a little. So I have made a decision that from now until school starts she can take trips to the mall or a relative's house by city bus. She can not ride the bus alone just yet. She will have to take Nannah until I feel she knows how to catch the bus pretty well. She has to have her phone charged completely before leaving the house and carry enough change for the payphone in case her phone has problems. She needs to call/text me when she has made it to the bus stop, again when she is on the bus, when she makes it to her destination, and when she is on her way home. There will be no riding the bus after dark. I will be letting her take her first bus ride Saturday to the mall. I am so nervous!!! K.K has already said she wants to go but I am not ready for that at all!
I has been years since I have taken a ride on the city bus so I went online to see how many buses Jazz would have to take to get to school. Mapquest is so cool. I typed in our address and her school address and it gave me three options to choose from for bus routes to her school. It even lists the times and everything. When I was riding the city bus all you had was a little pamphlet with the "possible" bus arrival times. So I feel a little better because she only has to take 1 bus to school. This just might work after all.

Blogger Problems

Please excuse the current state of this blog. I am trying desperately to fix it. Like a big dummy I tried to change my template. Now everything is messed up and will not fix.
Hopefully I will get to the bottom of this quickly

stupid error bX-xdmtya

A visit to the dentist

Well I just got back from taking all 4 kids to the dentist. It actually was a pretty nice visit. Dr. Peterson is really good with kids. One of the best parts is when it was K.K.'s turn to go back, she spoke! And not a just a little, this is the most vocal she has ever been with someone who is not family. That gives me lots of hope considering my recent post, Speechless - but not for long.

Jazz and Nannah both had no cavities. Yayyy! Nannah had to get 2 teeth pulled in the back. Her grown up teeth were starting to come in even though the other teeth have not completely fallen out yet. Luckily they were barely hanging on. TJ and Kayla had a 5 cavities between them. With Kayla I dropped the ball a little. She drank more juice through sippy cups then her sisters and brother so 2 of her back teeth are really bad. She got a silver cap on one today, we go back in 2 weeks to fix the other. Kayla also has 2 teeth coming out in the front so the tooth fairy will be making a visit soon! I think kids look so cute with those toothless smiles, don't you?

Wordless Wednesday

My New Favorite Popcorn

I need to eat better and I know this. This is an ongoing battle for me because most of the time the stuff that is good for me does not taste good. Well popcorn is one of my favorite snacks especially when I am watching a movie. For the last few years or so I have been obsessed with Kettle Corn. I'm not sure but it is something about the salty and sweet tastes mixing that is so good. One day while shopping in Pick and Save I tried a new type of popcorn they were giving out samples of. It was Orville Redenbacher's Buttery Salt and Cracked Pepper. It didn't sound very appetizing to me but the lady giving out the samples was so nice I just took one. The taste was different. I wasn't quite sold. Later in my shopping she offered me another sample. The flavor was growing on me. Let's just say I now have a new favorite. So last night I was waiting for the popcorn to finish in the microwave so I started glancing at the box. Would you believe I never knew this popcorn was whole grain!! In all these months I have never paid attention to the box. I just liked the taste of it. When I think about it I realized I am using less salt when I eat this popcorn. Usually when I am eating popcorn I add lots of salt but I have not added salt one time with my Buttery Salt and Cracked Pepper. And it still tastes good! Yay for me!!

Speechless- but not for long

Speech therapy in our home is road that we have travelled down before. Our daughter Nannah (10) had problems with others understanding her so out of frustration she would not talk at school when she started K-4. Luckily Nannah's teacher noticed the problem and got her set up for testing for speech therapy. We were able to find out that as a result of Nannah's numerous ear infections as a baby, she heard words differently. So of course she pronounced her words according to how she heard them. The speech therapy classes she attended totally changed Nannah. She went from a shy and self conscience child to a well rounded and very outspoken child.

We have come to find out recently that K.K. also needs speech therapy. See, K.K. does not talk around those she is not comfortable with. This includes family members that she does not see on a regular basis and her friends and teacher at school. My little princess has been this way since she has been on this earth. She has no problem speaking around her siblings and my husband and I. When she started K-4 we thought that K.K. just had to get used to be in a school type environment and she would eventually start talking. Unfortunately she did not. The issue of not talking became more of a concern when she started Kindergarten this year and still would not talk. She did take a few steps forward because she started whispering to a few classmates and her teacher. But K.K. would not talk so that she could be heard clearly. I became scared that the school would think that since she did not talk she was not learning anything. I did not want that to be the case especially since from the time she gets home until she goes to sleep she talks nonstop!! She counts and spells and even has started sounding out words so I know she is taking everything in. I came up with the idea to video tape K.K. just talking around the house with and I took it up to the school. The speech teacher watched the video and heard some problems in Kayla's speech. It turns out that K.K. has a severe phonological speech disorder. I am glad we were able to find out what the problem is because now we can work on fixing it. I just hate the fact that school is only in session for about another month. I feel so bad because I feel I should have caught this. I just didn't see it. As a mom I was just able to understand her even when she did not pronounce words correctly. I don't see how I missed it. Well tonight was the beginning of homework from speech class. We worked on the K sound and she did good. I could see the pride she was feeling when I told her how good she was doing. I am so glad we have a plan of action now.

What happened this morning?

Late last night Jazz reminded me that there is a field trip in the morning. I am not sure how I forgot it. I know I need to get my butt a little more organized. It is on my to do list. Honest! Of course K.K. discovered she was not sleepy and found every reason not to go to sleep. She may be only 5 but she is definitely crafty. My hubby and I were watching the season finale of Survivor and I turn around and K.K. has snuck back on the computer. She claims she just had to check her Virtual Villagers game but I'm pretty sure that was not the truth. Let's just say she did not end up going to sleep until after 12 and in my bed. I was so tired I just let her get in bed with us. I am hoping to be much better this week with making her sleep in her room. She goes through these phases where sometimes she loves to sleep in her own room and other times she wants to be in our room.

Anyways since Jazz is on the student council she is going on a trip to Chicago this morning. She had to be there before 6:30 am. Luckily I woke up before 6 and got all the kids' clothes ironed for school. But somehow we ended up being 15 minutes late. I do not know what happened. I swear it seems like the more I am in a hurry, the slower the kids move. Especially Nannah. I am not sure why, but she has an attitude this morning. But this is nothing new. K.K. shoes had knots in them and those were the only shoes she would wear. Tj was being me his usual self. At least he partially cleaned his room before school. So I guess it is time for me to get off the computer because my house looks like a tornado hit it. Hopefully I can do a little laundry, mop the kitchen , clean up my bedroom and bath, sort through the clean laundry, clean up K.K's room, put away my husband's uniforms, get books ready to go back to the library, fix the kid's computer, vacuum Tj's room and clean up the living room before the kids get home from school. Well I can wish can't I?

Happy Mother's Day

I would like to wish a Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there. New mommies too, (Sheena).

glitter-graphics.com



So far today has been a great Mother's Day. My beautiful kids actually tried to behave and that is big in their book! They cut their fighting down by at least 50%!!! My husband let me sleep in and it was wonderful. When I woke up, my kids were excited to give me their gifts. Especially K.K(5)!! K.K. and Nannah made me some beautiful flowers since I do not like real ones. These are much better because they will last forever. All of my kids made me pictures and picked out their own cards and gifts. K.K> being the sweet princess she is gave me a dollar in my card. She says that since we gave Jazz money in her birthday card she wanted to do the same. And my sweet and thoughtful husband got me Mario Kart for Wii!! Now I do not have to rent it anymore!! So I am off to spend the day with my family, enjoy your day everyone!!

Giveaways I Have Won

I love to enter giveaways because not only do I get the chance to win something but I meet some really nice people too. I think it is only right if I post about the prizes that I have won and give credit to the site/blog that I won the prize from. These are just 2 of my most recent wins. When I get the others in the mail I will add them to the post.

Fish Clackers - I won this book giveaway over at aParentlyspeaking
K.K. loved them but being the big girl she is, K.K. suggested we give them to 2 of our baby cousins as gifts! These fun books have the right name because they make that great clacking noise. It brings back memories of the clackers I used to have when I was little. Those had balls on them though. The fish and bee clackers are made to last because the along the spines of the books are durable fabric and the pages are high quality too. Each book includes a cute little story. These books would be a nice addition to any family. Thanks again aParentlySpeaking!!




Bittersweet Soap - I won this over at TheMommiesUnited Launch party. The soap is from Bittersweet Soap. This smells so good. I could honestly smell it through the package!! I won a bar of Tuberose soap. It was wrapped so pretty I did not want to open it. But I did! This soap is really good. It lathers up nicely while having this beautiful and calming scent. It made my skin so soft I just fell in love with it. I am anxious to try more of the products at Bittersweet Soap. Surprisingly these handmade products are not expensive. Something to keep in mind when you looking for gifts for your loved ones. Thanks for the unique giveaway Bittersweet Soap, you have a new fan.

From Dates to Diapers - Mother's Day Giveaway

From Dates to Diapers is having a great Mother's Day Giveaway. All you have to do is write a post about your favorite Mother's Day memory or what you love about being a Mom. If you write the post, you have a chance to win a Sandisk USB Gator Flash Drive. Of course I love Sandisk. I have a mp3 that has been dropped and stepped on and still works! So I would love to win this flash drive.

So the big question is why do I love being a Mom? Motherhood is definitely a road that I did not plan to travel when I was younger. I thought it was just not in the cards for me. I was told I could never be a good mom because I was too selfish. I would never put anyone before myself. Then my daughter Jazz was born. I looked into that beautiful little face and my world changed. It was overwhelming at first because I could not believe I loved this little person so much. I honestly felt like my heart would burst!! She became my world, my everything. Then 4 years later my Nannah was born. She was the cutest little chubby thing! She stuck to me like glue and I loved it. 2 years later my little man TJ arrived. Even as a toddler he showed his gentle and kind spirit. He is his father's son. And last but not least 2 more years later, K.K. made her entrance and life has never been the same. She is sweet and kind , bossy and stubborn. And you can't help but love the little princess!

My children have shown me how to enjoy the simple things in life and how to appreciate them. It tugs at my heart when each of them tell me I am their best friend or that they love me. But the best moments are when they hug me for no reason at all. Just because. I may not have planned to be a mom, but I could not imagine doing anything else.

If you would like an opportunity to win the Sandisk giveaway, head on over to From Dates to Diapers and follow the rules.

Wordless Wednesday

Words of Encouragement

I came across this poem in a post over at newyorkchica and I could not resist wanting to share it.

A POEM FOR OUR GIRLFRIENDS

Someone will always be prettier.
Someone will always be skinnier.
Someone will always be smarter.
Some of their houses will be bigger.
Some will drive a better car.

Their children will do better in school.
And their husband will fix more things around the house..
So let it go, and love you and your circumstances.
Think about it!

The prettiest woman in the world can have hell in her heart.
And the most highly favored
woman on your job may be unable to have children.
And the richest woman you know,
she's got the car, the house, the clothes~~~~
might be lonely.

And the word says, 'If I have not Love, I am nothing.'
So, again; love you.
Love who you are.
Look in the mirror in the morning and smile and say,
'I am too Blessed to be Stressed and too Anointed, to be Disappointed!'
'Winners make things happen~
Losers let things happen.'

Be 'Blessed' Ladies and pass this on to encourage other women.