Happy Birthday, Smokey!

Last weekend our Fire Museum hosted a birthday party for Smokey the Bear. Smokey turned 70 this year, and kiddo gets so excited when she sees his picture on billboards. She loves Smokey, and has even named one of her stuffed bears after him. My mom was a member of the Smokey the Bear fan club when she was a child, so we thought it would be a cool family day to spend it the morning at the Fire Museum celebrating Smokey's birthday!

We didn't stay very long. Kiddo got a little scared with all of the children singing and screaming for Smokey, so she was asking to go home before the cakes were cut. She talks about going to Smokey's house non-stop, so I think she had a good time.

Here are a few pictures from our visit to Smokey's house:

Those little squishy cupcakes became kiddo's favorite party favor. 

Future firefighter! :)

Kiddo hanging out with Smokey. 

Coloring Smokey a picture for his birthday. 

We are ready to help in case they need us. 

What's a birthday party without a cake?

Or two cakes...

It's Smokey!

After singing Happy Birthday, the fire hydrant went off! 

August Goals Preview

New month, new goals. Since I decided July was a great time to start making goals, I went a little easy on myself. This month, I'm going to step up my game a little bit.

AUGUST GOALS

1. Complete the Push phase of Chalean Extreme. 

It's time to rev it up a bit for the second month of the Chalean Extreme program! I think I'm going to enjoy this one a lot more since you concentrate on one muscle group instead of two for each exercise. I've also offset the weight days with different workout DVDs from my home collection. It's time to dust a few of these bad boys off and drop some pounds! 

2. Read 3 books. 

This will pretty much be a standard goal for each month. It may not be 3 books, but there will probably always be a reading goal. I love to read, and want my daughter to see me read so she keeps her love of reading also. 

3. Follow up on my personal chore chart. 

Yes, I made myself a personal chore chart. (Kiddo has one, so I felt Mommy needed one too.) There are some things that need to be taken care of around the house that I keep neglecting, so I'm hoping that the constant reminder will force me to get some of these things taken care of. 

4. Keep my spending (aside from bills) for the month at no more than $350.00. 

This will include groceries, school needs, fun money, etc. You name it, this is all we're spending this month. This may seem like a lot to some people, but I'm trying to do a better job at reigning myself in on the spending. With a roadtrip already planned for this month, I figured this was a fairly solid number to try and stick to as the high point. 

July Goals Recap

It's FINALLY August! I don't know about for y'all, but it seemed like July drug on forever to me. Since it's the beginning of a new month, it's time to check in on how my July goals panned out.

JULY GOALS RECAP 

1. Complete the Burn phase of Chalean Extreme. 

BURN = DONE! This is my second time going through the Chalean Extreme program, and this time I'm adding my own flair to it. I completed all of the strength training workouts, and was impressed at how much I could lift on certain exercises by the end of the month. (I only have weights that go up to 15lbs, but considering where I have been, some of those were impressive!) 

2. Begin and complete a Bible study of Philippians. 

I will be completing this one this week, since it went through 4 weeks and this is the last week of it. :) The last couple of days have you hand writing the book of Philippians and that may take me an extra day or two, but I will finish it!

3. Read 3 books. 

I blew through this one and ended up reading 7 books this month! I was not expecting that, at all. I've started keeping one book on my kindle that I'm working on, one book in the office, and one book next to my bed. Some people may find it confusing to tackle multiple books at one time, but for right now it works for me. 

Here's what I've read this month: 

4. Blog once a week. 

Every week had at least one post, so I guess there's some improvement there. Hopefully, I can continue to get in the habit of using this as a way of letting new random people on the internet get to know me, while still having it as a way to keep our IRL family and friends up to date on our adventures!