70+ Reasons for a great Christmas plus a horse ride!!!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope that everyone had a wonderful holiday and a few days to relax and enjoy family and friends - we certainly did! This morning was a pleasant surprise - down to 270.5 which means I have gotten to the 70 pound mark! Yippee! I can't think of 70 better presents to give myself than these. I feel SO MUCH better than I did this time last year! Although I will have to really work hard this week to keep it, because among other great non-food things, one of my gifts was not one, but TWO boxes of decadent, dark chocolate covered cherries from Aunt Charlotte's Candies which is a little candy store in my home town that makes the BEST candy in the world... and I ate half a box of them yesterday. Yikes! And Yum! The rest of them will be shared generously!

Lucia was such fun to be with - she still believes in Santa and he didn't disappoint her - he brought her a Barbie Dollhouse that is taller than she is! That should keep her busy for a while. She also got a new beanbag chair. I got a great self-portrait she painted of herself framed, and some new sweaters which were wonderfully in L and XL sizes, not a 3x like before! Yippee! So much fun to get new clothes! And we're JUST losing the snow that came last weekend, so I certainly have the weather to wear them. Overall, a great, relaxing christmas. Dennis's sister and her husband come today, and then we're heading down to his folks house on Friday, so lots more celebrating to come. And a week off with nothing official to do before that!

Lucia & PJ

Yesterday, we went to visit a friend of ours, Jennifer and her horse PJ to help her brush him and feed him carrots. We kept it as a surprise for Lucia, because we weren't sure it would happen, and she had a blast - Jennifer even let Lucia ride PJ! I'm not sure I've seen a bigger smile from my daughter... we might have opened a slight can of worms with introducing her to PJ! She looks like a natural, and was SO comfortable with the horses. I think anytime Jennifer needs help cleaning or brushing PJ, she's got a life-long helper!

Jennifer, Lucia & PJ

Today is the fun of cleaning up the house and starting to put things away. I am really going to try this week to start weeding things out and simplifying a bit. The more weight I get rid of, the more other stuff I want to start shedding and really have a simple, "light" existence! We'll see how far I get with that!

NOTE: Thanks all - I did actually mean 207.5! Yikes... :-)