Update

Well, first for Arnie: He lost another pound and a half last week, while his biggest competition only maintained. Woo hoo! Official results were not mailed on Monday, so that's all I've got for now.

I am still waiting on the disk with the kids pics from Sunday. I think he was supposed to get it today, but he is working late, so maybe tomorrow!

Finally...da da da da! We got a call from our manager today and Jadon is no longer on hold to shoot his commercial...he is officially booked! We are excited, but still cautious as we have no details on time, location, or pay. All I know is that on Friday we are due to be somewhere to shoot. I will still wait to tell you for what in case we have to sign some kind of privacy/secrecy clause on Friday. I would be shocked if we did...the product is no big deal, but just in case, I don't want to get us in trouble!

The Biggest Loser

For those querying (Jeremy), The Biggest Loser challenge in Arnie's office continues. He seems to be doing really well eating extremely healthfully all the time at home and packing very good stuff for the office. He went to Orlando for 5 days a week or so ago and ate amazingly well at the buffet. I am SO impressed. I think he is looking thinner. His assistant at the office has a before picture of him that I will have to get so that I can post. They are only finishing the third week of a twelve week race so I will let you all know results after the official Monday weigh in tomorrow morning and will try to post a progress picture in the next week or so when his efforts should be even more evident. I believe his goal weight is around 150, which I don't think he has seen since high school, so that will be quite an amazing feat if he gets there.

Meanwhile, I should have some new shots of the kids to post soon. Arnie is scanning Carter's Disney/Behr paint ad that is currently available at Home Depot in the paint section (it is a brochure for the Winnie the Pooh line of paint). Also, Arnie's assistant's boyfriend, a photographer, took some pictures of the boys today in a beautiful natural light studio in Santa Monica. He is touching them up and will give us the disk on Wednesday, so I will definitely pop up some of the cute ones. The kids weren't the best (they all have colds, but I don't know how much of an excuse that really is), but they did okay and we got some pretty cute pics.

Finally, fingers crossed, Jadon is "on hold" yet again to shoot a national commercial on Friday. This is the fourth or fifth time we have been held for a commercial, but we have never been booked, so we are hoping to finally get one. For those not in the industry...oh, I guess that is basically everyone , being on hold is the final step before the booking of a commercial. Usually the order is first audition, then potentially a callback, rarely a second callback, then a hold, then finally a booking. In this case, there were no callbacks, but the initial audition was 20 minutes long. A far cry from the usual 2 minute in and out that most of them are. So I am hoping that posting will put more positive vibes out in the universe and that maybe good thoughts will help us this time. I'll tell you what the commercial is for after we either do or don't get it, which we probably won't know until Thursday night.

Look for pictures later this week. My last week of break! These 7 weeks sure did fly by!

Today...

Today we are just hanging out. It is raining off and on...heavy at times. Something we love, but are very deprived of here in So. Cal. We have tons of snow in the local mountains so whenever the clouds break, we are greeted with glorious snow capped mountains. Beach anyone?

I have only a week and a half before I return to school. I made a last minute decision a week or so ago to attempt to start nursing school this August as opposed to August 2009. SO, instead of taking 8 units this semester I am looking at taking somewhere between 13 and 17 with either 3 or 6 more to take in the summer. I am afraid I may be absent from the blog again for a while, but at this point I am not really sure who is reading it anyway! If I don't post pictures, I can get a post up pretty quickly, so maybe I will just do a lot more journaling.

Everybody here is well. Jadon has a cold, but in the winter generally one of the three is always sick, so there is really nothing new here. Arnie is working his butt off at work and at home. He is competing in his office's version of "The Biggest Loser." They've been at it for two weeks now and so far he is winning! Go Arnie! 7 of them each pitched in $50 to participate. The winner takes home $300 and second place gets their money back. I think it is a great incentive! I am trying to follow along here without the incentive. Lord knows I need to. It took me a little while to get into the groove and I am not working out (bad I know), but at least I am being great about my eating.

Off to study! I will update again soon. If you are reading this, post a comment so at least I know we are writing to someone!

Watch out, french fry!

Lately, all three boys linguistic skills have just blossomed. It has been totally delightful to listen to all the off the wall things they say. As I am writing this, Cole is building a train and talking about how great it is and how I am going to get to see it. Then he follows up with, "how lucky are you, Mom?" Funnier yet is Carter's recent discovery that he can make people laugh using all his new words. On our way to Arizona, the big boys were telling Carter to repeat various things. At one point Cole was having him count (repeat after me style). Every once in a while, rather than obligingly repeating, Carter would shout out, "french fry!" This would immediately send all of us into hysterics. After a while the funniness wore off. When it did, Carter switched to "pancake" and then to "bagel." We can't get over his sense of humor at 19 months old. Also, I have been trying to work on animal sounds with Carter. For a while he seemed to know several, but now, when I ask him what an animal says, his response is "watch out!" I'm not quite sure where he got it from, but I can't help laughing when he does it, which only reinforces the behavior.