Diet

I just thought I'd take a few minutes to let you know that this diet hasn't been such a walk in the park.  Practicing self control is hard.  And although my progress is extremely motivating (I've lost 10 pounds so far) and exciting at the same time.....I am really starting to want a cookie.  Or two.  Or ten. THIS however, is the reason I haven't had one.  I know if I take one bite, I'll just want more....and then all of the sudden I've had more than I can count.  No.  I won't do that.  I want a cheeseburger.  I want PIZZA!   Today everybody at the office went to Maxie's pizza.  My FAVORITE place to eat out for lunch.  My favorite pizza.  I was SO close to going.  But I didn't. 
And yesterday we decided to welcome our new neighbors who just moved in.  I made a batch of cookies and didn't eat a single one.  I even had 100 calories to spare on my count for that day.  I totally could have done it, and still have kept within the 1200calorie limit.  But I didn't, because I knew I'd want another one.  We gave half to the neighbors, and I asked Parker to take the other half to work.   (Because incase you didn't know.....my chocolate chip cookies are awesome).  I can't keep them in the house to tempt me every day. 
I'm also down a pants size.  It really is exciting.  I can't wait to get to go shopping and get myself a new swimsuit, and wear a form-fitting shirt without worrying about a muffin-top.
I'm also doing some light exercise.  I jump-rope till I can't breathe (usually just a minute or two) and then I go inside and do crunches and push-ups.  Then I go BACK outside and jump-rope again till I can't breathe anymore.  Then I do another set of crunches and push-ups.  The whole thing takes barely 15 minutes.  It's not the kind of exercise that the health professionals recommend.  But it's something. 
Every day is a battle.  The progress is so exciting.  Last weekend I wore a pair of pants that haven't fit in 4 years!  It was so awesome!  But I face decisions every day.  And cravings.  I satisfy my sweet-tooth with fruit smoothies (if I have enough calories to spare at the end of the day) and frozen bananas with cocoa powder. 
I hope to lose at least 10 more pounds.  So.  No cookies.  No cheeseburgers.  No fun.  But DANG I'm gonna feel good about myself when summer gets here!

Angie's 3rd Birthday

January 15th, and my little girl is 3 years old.  My how time flies.  And thinking back to when we brought her home (click here if you'd like refresh those memories), it just blows me away that we have been in this house that long allready.  And that she has grown so much.  She is just about the age that Caleb was when we brought her home. 

What can I tell you about Angie.  She is the stress of my life, but also the joy of my life.  She is extremely strong-willed, but then surprises us with her sweet kindness as well.  Her most prized posession is her blanket.  The red one with poka-dots is her favorite, even though she has 2 others as well.  Most of the time she's trying to figure out a way to tote it along wherever she is going.  We are constantly having arguments about how she can't take her blankie into the store, or to church.  She'd rather be wrapped in that thing than her coat if she's cold.  She likes to spread her blanket on the floor and play.  This could be dancing on it, lying on it like a bed, or playing with her toys on it.  When she's in a particularly good mood, she will sometimes offer to share her blankie with one of her brothers.  This (in my opinion) is true love.  This morning baby G was lying on my bed, and she climbed up there and covered him with her blanket.  And this evening Caleb hurt his foot and was whining on the couch.  Angie ran up to him and said, "It's gonna be ok Caleb.  You want my blankie?"  Other times, however, she won't share with anyone, and will throw a fit if you even TOUCH her blanket. 

Angie loves having her nails painted, changing her shoes, and playing with her dishes and play-food.  She has a very good imagination and asks her brother on a daily basis, "Can you be dad?"  (She likes to pretend she's the daughter and Caleb is her father).  Other times when I tell her to do something she'll say, "No....I'M the mom."  And if I address her as "mom" she'll do as I say.  Lately she's been putting her shoes on at bedtime.  I always tell her to take them off, but every morning when I go to wake her up, I see that she managed to sneak out of bed and find her shoes and put them on her feet before falling asleep.  As a result, she's had some really stinky feet lately.

Angie still does her "happy dance" (click HERE if you've never seen THAT before) when she is particularly excited.  And although the video shows her dancing to music, she does not need it.  Her CRAZY hair and I have a love-hate relationship.  I love how unique it is and that it reflects her CRAZY personality.  But I HATE that it's just so OUT OF CONTROL all the time.  Her ponytails are starting to look pretty good, but it's still a wispy mess by the end of the day.  Her bangs never seem to grow, but I am constantly having to trim around her neck and ears to keep it short.  I am hoping one day if I cut it enough.....it might all be the same length.

 

Angie has a TERRIBLE sweet-tooth.  I'm always catching her sneaking treats and candies.  And chocolate chips.....OOOH THE AGONY!  We have the SAME FIGHT every day.  She asks for chocolate chips when she wakes up in the morning.  And when I tell her no, she has a melt-down.  Then when I pick her up after work, she asks for chocolate chips.  I tell her no chocolate before dinner.  MELTDOWN.  And we go through it every day. 

 

She has EXTREMELY dry skin.  If I'm not really faithful about putting lotion all over her body after every bath, she scratches herself so bad that she bleeds.  This is ALSO something we fight about.  She HATES getting lotion after her bath.  And we ALWAYS have to do it.  She hates how it makes her cold, and then her skin burns after I've put it on.  There are times when I feel like she is ALWAYS whining.  And ALWAYS crying, and she just can't be made happy.  Then there are days like today, where she just somehow happened to wake up on the RIGHT side of the bed for once, and she melts my heart with her cute, happy little self. 

Angie's birthday always seems to get swept underneath the rug, because it's so close to Christmas.  But we did celebrate with Grandma and Grandpa Lyons the weekend before her birthday.  When I asked her what kind of cake she wanted...she replied, "Pink!"  And when I asked her what present she wanted she said, "A PINK one!"  So easy to please.  She just loves pink.  She's always pointing out pink things.  "MOM!  It's my fav-orit culler!"

 

She's a little-miss-sassy-pants at times, and yells and screams in public places sometimes.  She likes to flirt with getting in trouble by saying naughty words like "butt"  and "fart" (thank you Kaden and Perron Hansen) and her current favorite is to use made-up words that SOUND like naughty words.  Her personal favorite, "Doodie."  She uses this word to irritate her brother, and always uses it in a kind of sing-song voice.  "Ca-leb  doo-die"  It doesn't matter how many times I've told her not to say it,  she knows she can always get a reaction out of her brother if she says it.   

 

She was so excited to turn 3.  I just love this video of her opening her present.  Her little excited giggle melts my heart.  I just love it.  And I love her.  My girly-girl Angie.  Happy birthday. 

 

Weight loss attempt #?

Well I'm trying to lose weight....AGAIN.  In all fairness to myself, my previous attempts haven't been total failures, I always have done quite well when I decide to lose weight.  Then I get pregnant.  After that what's the point right?  Well.  I'm NOT pregnant.  And I'm NOT breastfeeding anymore.  And I've run out of excuses.  So on the day after new years, I started my "diet.  Incase you don't remember, and you don't feel like checking the archives for the last time I did this, Here's the low-down.

-No sugar....EVER.
     Natural sugars from fruit ok.  Added sugars are not.
-No bread.
     I am making a TINY exception to this rule.  I'm allowing myself 1 piece of bread as long as it's whole-wheat bread.  But I still try to aviod it as best as I can.
- No white flour.
     This pretty much is included in the no bread thing.  But I also can't have soups or things that are thickened with white flour or cornstarch.
-No potatoes. 
     Yams are ok.  But not potatoes.
- No pasta.
     I also make an exception to this rule MAYBE once a week, and if I do, it's ALWAYS whole-grain pasta.

AND (HERE'S THE HARDEST PART)
1200 calories a day.  You must count.  And you must record.

8-10 glasses of water a day.

All other products (salad dressing, yogurt, cottage cheese, sour cream etc) should be low-fat.  This is not a RULE, but I'll tell you this.  If you only get 1200 calories a day, you're not gonna want to waste 100 of those precious calories to your salad dressing.  Going low-fat on these products makes it easier to fill your belly with FOOD instead of high-calorie extras.

I've found myself skipping out on things like putting butter on my toast (I'll use sugar-free jam instead.  60 calories vs. 10 in 1 tablespoon) and I avoid cheese a lot, because there's so many calories in just one ounce!  Anyway.  Today is day 12.  I've lost 6 pounds so far.  And I forgot to measure my waist so there's no quantifying there....except I can tell you that I allready feel smaller. 

Things are going well, and I'm motivated and disciplined.  This summer I want a new swimming suit.  And it's my 10 year high school reunion, so I've got plenty of reasons to keep on going.  I found an AMAZING app on my phone that is helping me SO MUCH!  It's called "my Fitness Pal"  and it counts the calories FOR ME.  I did this diet last time just counting on a piece of paper.  But my phone goes where I go.  And the app helps me to know how many calories in each portion INSTANTLY.  And It's been extremely helpful.  I also record my weight on the app, and it graphs my progress and gives me a projected date for when I will hit my target weight.  It's very exciting.

Brrrr!

After Christmas a storm rolled in and dropped about 4-6 inches of snow.  Fun right?!  Except the snow was dry and fluffy and not good for kids making snowmen. 

After the storm came the cold.  Here's the temperature from my CAR on my way home from work today.  The sun was still out!!  BRRRR!!

The low tonight is in the negatives.  Seriously, I hope the power doesn't go out.  We'd be screwed.

 

New Years

 Just a week later we made ANOTHER trip to Ogden for the New Years Eve party at Parker's Aunt Jo's house.  Everyone on the Moore side of the family is invited and they do it every year.  It's so much fun.  Jo has a large great-room downstairs that is very open and great for having a lot of company.  Above her garage is a bonus-room that is kid-heaven!  All the 2nd cousins play upstairs and the grown-ups watch football downstairs and play games. 

 

Here's a picture of all the 2nd cousins.  I don't think we ever actually got a head-count but there were SOOO many people in that house.  It was so fun!

I'm sad to say Parker couldn't come.  He had to work at the new years eve party that the casino was throwing. So I attended his family party without him.  Another drive to Utah without him.  Thank goodness the roads weren't bad this time.

 

The picture below was of all the birthday kids in December and January.  So Angie got to be sung to.  She's so cute standing there!

 Caleb buddied up with Bryson and Jameson.  And honestly, I think those boys spent a lot of time huddled around an ipad.  But when bedtime came, Caleb ran up to me and BEGGED me to get to sleep next to Jameson.  They were so excited to get to spend the night together.

 There was so much food!  I made some dip for apples, and a cocoanut cream pie.  The pie was gone within 15 minutes and the dip would have disappeared too if there'd been enough apples.

 

Parker's cousin Merrin brought mustache stick-ons for the kids!  Oh my they had a ball with that!  Angie even wore one (sorry I didn't get a picture of THAT), but I DID get a picture of baby G and Caleb wearing THEIRS!

Angie and Caleb both stayed up till midnight.  I didn't think Angie would make it, but she did. No doubt because she had a 2 1/2 hour nap during the drive down.  After midnight arrived, a lot of people went home, and the rest of us who had to travel to get there, all blew up the air mattresses and made our beds all over the floor.  There was hardly any empty floor space to walk around.  And upstairs where the kids were was even worse.  Everyone settled down after 1:00.  Let me just say that I'm a light sleeper and I heard every person who woke up to go to the bathroom,  and every little cough.  And lets not forget I still get to feed a baby in the middle of the night.  Thank goodness my air mattress doesn't leak (like half of the people there).  I didn't sleep much at all.  And the next day I packed up our stuff and drove home. 

WOW.  That was a hard drive.  I was eating, and making phone calls just to stay awake.  But we made it, and the kids actually slept most of the way.

 

We love our new years tradition!  Hopefully Parker will get to come next time.

Grandpa gives us a scare

Just a few days before Christmas we got some news that rocked our world.  Parker got a call at 7:00 in the morning from his mom.  Dad's had a heart attack.  She wanted to know if he would come to the hospital in Burley to give him a blessing. 

Of course all I hear is Parker's end of the conversation.  "What?!"

"Is he okay?"

"I'll be right there."

 

So once I heard, I called into work and said I wouldn't be coming in.  Parker did the same, and then he jumped in the car and drove to Burley.  I got the kids ready and told Caleb he wasn't going to school.  A few hours later we found out that he was being transferred to Mckay Dee hospital in Ogden.  So I packed the kids, and a bag for Parker (who simply got dressed and then left) and we drove to Utah to be with Grandpa.  Parker rode with his mom and his brother, Garrett. 

 

Wouldn't you know we just happened to be driving with a storm front.  The mountain pass between Burley and Utah is a tretcherous drive when there's a storm.  The roads were packed with at least 4 inches of snow, and it was falling so fast you could barely see.  It was a complete white-out, and I was driving with my kids in the back. No husband.  I was freaked.  I had a death-grip on the steering wheel.  With all the trucks, and flying snow and slush, it was one of the scariest moments of my life.  The baby cried for a large portion of the drive, and Caleb did what he could to make him happy as I drove, including feeding him and giving him his nuk over and over and over.  Of course I couldn't stop because I was afraid of getting stuck.  The snow plows weren't even out yet.  What is normally a 2 1/2 hour drive took me nearly 4 hours.

 

When we got down to Ogden we had more news about Paul.  He had 2 blockages in his heart.  One was 100% blocked and the other about 50%.  They placed a stent in the one that was completely blocked, and said that the other could be treated with medication.

 

No permanent damage to his heart.  They said it was kind-of "bruised" but that it would fully recover.  He was told he could go home in 2 days. 

He didn't have many risk factors.  Only that he's a man over 50.  There's really not much heart disease in his family and at 56 he was the youngest cardiac patient on the floor.

We are so glad Grandpa is ok and that he is still with us.

Christmas

Christmas this year was lots of fun.  With Christmas day falling on a Tuesday, it made for a long weekend with no work!  So Friday after Parker got off work we drove to Boise to spend the weekend at my mom and dad's.  We did some family pictures (though I'm not sure how well they've turned out) with all 12 grandkids and all my siblings and our spouses.  I got some new clothes for the kids and it really looks sharp.  Here's a picture of Angie's new outfit.  I didn't get one of Caleb, but he got a new sweater that's black and grey horizontal stripes.  He loves it and it looks sharp.

The kids had a blast hanging out with their cousins.  Caleb ran a fever up to about 2 days before Christmas.  He handled it really well though, and as long as I kept him on medication, he continued to play and have fun.  Christmas day he passed it onto his sister, only Angie did not recover as well.  She ran a fever for 5 days straight and finally I took her to the doctor and she had an ear infection.  A day after being on antibiotics, and you'd never know she'd been so sick for so long.  What a bummer to have sick kids for Christmas, but as I said before it really wasn't that bad because as soon as the medication kicked in they were happy and ready to play.

 

On Christmas Eve we spent the day at my mom and dad's.  We exchanged our gifts and then headed home at about 4:00.  We got home with enough time to make a batch of cookies for Santa, and to read a Christmas story under the tree.

 



Ignore Caleb's bad attitude in this video.  We're still teaching him a few lessons on Christmas etiquette like "We never ASK for a present." and we are always grateful for a present, even if it's not a toy.  I won't lie, it kinda bothers me that he acted this way.  Every time we visited a grandparent or Aunt/Uncle he asked if they had a present for him.  I've really always thought to myself that I am not gonna spoil my kids, but there were moments this Christmas season, where he really did act that way.  Angie is so young, she's grateful for anything.  Whenever she was asked what she wanted for Christmas, she'd always reply, "A toy."  Simple.  So easy to please.  Hopefully we can spend the next year teaching Caleb a little more about grattitude.  Even though we had so many talks about the true meaning of Christmas and the spirit of giving, I suppose it's a lesson that will have to take a little more time to sink in.

 

Christmas morning was exciting, and I think the kids really liked their presents. 

Baby Garrett didn't get much....honestly....what's the point?  We got him some new jammies (see the picture below....monsters inc. SO CUTE.  And a little toy to hang from his car seat, and a johnny jumper.  He looks pretty happy with his Christmas don't you think?

Christmas jammies!!

My grandmother always gives presents to her grandchildren and great grandchildren.  I really don't know why....she has SOOO many!  I mean, we're talking over a hundred people there!  For her great-granddaughters (at least the ones in our family) she made these little princess costumes!  She made them each a skirt, and a matching hat.  Isn't that so cute?!  The girls LOVED IT!

On Christmas Day after our little family was done opening presents, we made the drive to Burley to exchange gifts with Parker's family.  Robyn and John were in town, and so Caleb and Angie got to play with their cousins Lucas and Kayleigh. 



We had dinner and then headed back home because Parker had to work on the 26th.  Thank goodness I took the 26th off.  I used that time to recover the house from the Christmas bomb.  Wouldn't you know, with Angie having the fever that she did, I ended up calling in sick on the 27th and managed not to work a single day last week.  NICE!  With new years eve, and new years day off as well, we're looking at almost 2 weeks off.  It was very hard to go back.