Trying to keep updated!

Well it has been well over a year since I have created a new blog post. I want to be better. My new goal is to write once and month, that doesn't seem very often, but it is better than once a year! This is mainly for my journal keeping, but feel free to enjoy! It seems too much to try to catch up from the last year and half so I will just start from where we are at now.

Megan - Megan is 7 months old and is crawling! She is everywhere, nothing is safe. She wants nothing to do with baby toys. She mainly goes for cords and anything electronic. Oh, and Shawn's stuff! He is learning to keep his stuff up. She is eating baby food and still nursing. However she usually doesn't get enough from me and ends up finishing her feeding with a bottle.

Megan got her ears pierced at 6 months!

Megan also has 4 teeth, this was the best picture I could get!

Shawn - Shawn is 3 years old! I can't believe how fast my baby is growing up. Can you tell I'm still in denial that he is a big boy and not my baby anymore? He can name all the letter sounds and count to thirty. He has been able to do this for a while, so now we are working on word families. He loves painting, bubbles, and anything outside. He also loves playing and watching movies on the ipad, which he thinks is his.

Shawn driving with daddy while camping

Shawn graduated from level 3 swim lessons

Love our double stroller! Going to the park by our house- loving this weather!

Me - I loved bring at home with my kids during my maternity leave and for the summer. Unfortunately
I had to go back to work to start a new school year. I am still teaching 5th grade but I am at a new school this year to be closer at home. I am having a hard transition and am not enjoying work as much as I have in the past. I have 32 students, which makes work even harder. I am trying hard to balance life being a mom, wife, housekeeper, teacher, and small business creator. Often times I feel like I come up short in most of categories, but I am doing my best. I started a small business this summer and this fall my mom has joined me! We have been featured on Jane.com 6 times and have two more deal scheduled in the next month. Most people think I'm crazy to try to add this on top of my already crazy busy life, but I love creating things people want to buy! I eventually want to be doing this from home and not teaching full time.

Charlie - Charlie is one busy guy! He is taking 19 credits at ASU in the college of Construction Management. He has one more year left! He is also working part time with MKB Construction. It works out perfect because MKB is building the new School of Construction building on campus! Charlie is able to work during his breaks between classes.

I won!

I won! I cannot believe it! Charlie’s family decided on Christmas that we would start a biggest loser competition in January. Charlie’s sister, Britani had done it with friends and was so successful. She looks amazing and she was very encouraging to all of us that we could do it too! We decided we would start on January 3^rd and do it for 8 weeks. The person with the biggest percentage of weight loss at the end of the 8 weeks, wins.

I was really excited to do it because I have struggled with my weight for several years. I am ashamed to say this but when I started this competition I was 3 pounds heavier than when I went to the hospital to deliver Shawn. How ridiculous is that? We want to have baby number 2 in the near future but I did not want to get pregnant at the weight that I was at. Losing weight has been on my mind nonstop for at least a year. I just had no idea how to do it without spending lots of money on special food or at the gym. I was very unhappy with myself and did not feel attractive whatsoever (even though Charlie told me all the time how pretty was/am).

My mother-in-law let me borrow her book called the “4 Day Diet”. It was perfect because it told exactly what foods to eat and what days to eat them. They were not outrageous foods that I had never heard of before, they were normal everyday food. This really helped me and I lost 8 pounds in the first week just by following this book. I am still following the book, kind of. I still eat the foods it lists just not on the certain days. I like to think that I have weaned myself off the book and am still successful with weight loss with my own food choices.

In addition to a healthy diet, I have upped my exercise that is from hardly anything to running or doing my workout DVD 4-5 times a week. Charlie’s family and I participated in Susan’s run. Some ran the 10k and some ran the 5k. Needless to say I ran the 5k. I was really worried when I found out we were doing this because I literally could not run to the end of the street! I am not kidding, even ask Charlie! How in the world was I going to run 3.1 miles if I can’t run to the stop sign? I decided to I had to start somewhere and would run as long as I could and then walk, then run, then walk and so on. Within a few weeks I could run 2 miles in 20 minutes! Now I had to add on that third mile! This was harder than I thought. I ended up doing the 5k in 33 minutes and 55seconds. I couldn’t have been happier!

This weight loss could not have happened without the support of Charlie. He has been so wonderful to eat salmon and brown rice for dinner even though I know he doesn’t really like either one. He has also encouraged me to go running even when I am dead tired from work and just want to lay on the couch.

So today was the end of the 8 weeks. I have lost 26 pounds which is 15.66%. I have dropped 3 pant sizes and am wearing clothes I haven’t worn in years. I have learned that weight loss is a small part physical and a HUGE part mental. I still have about 5-10 more pounds to go. My goal to get those pounds off by Shawn’s birthday which is in a month!

Halloween 2011

I was really interested to see how Shawn would do with Halloween this year. First we went to our ward’s trunk or treat. He did really well and even put out his little pumpkin basket to get candy. It did not take him long to figure out there was candy in his basket and wanted to stop trick or treating after a few cars and just the candy!

Cute lion!                 yummy candy!

On Halloween Shawn and I went to Jake and Ashley’s for dinner and trick or treating (Charlie had to work). Shawn was in a really weird mood that night and would not even put on his costume. So he went as a really cute little boy.

Shawn taking Aunt Ashley’s candy

Cousin Charlee as Rapunzel

Trick or treating with Grandpa

We carved a pumpkin with Shawn this year too!

Let me help!                    Yew! Gross!

Pictures with our carved pumpkin.

Enough pumpkin pictures, lets play some hide and seek!

Mother Nature’s Farm

In October Shawn and I went to Mother Nature’s Farm with Charlie’s family. Shawn and I then went back another time with my parents just to take pictures.

Ashley, Brynlee, Charlee, Christina, and Shawn

“I want this one mom!”

Cousin Charlee

Shawn, Grammy J, and Charlee

Shawn would only sit on my lap to take a picture if he got to hold the “ball” (balloon)

Charlee, Grammy J, Grandpa, and Shawn

Charlee and Brynlee     Hi Grandpa and Grandma!

Shawn loved all of the pumpkins he called them all balls!

Pictures

Here are Pictures from Utah trip over the summer to just last week when we went to the park.