Christmas

Christmas will be explained as a plethora of pictures!

It starts with a visit from Santa Clause in his fire truck! Daniel's face tells you what he thought of Santa.

We went to Explora! on Christmas Eve. It's a children's museum but I think we grown ups like it more. Last time we went Ashley (my sis-in-law) and I were both prego and couldn't go on this air bike. We both got to go this time!

Also, on Christmas eve, we went to the natural history museum and looked and some dinosaur bones.

I made the boys Superman shirts

I helped the kids make a ginger bread train. They did awesome! Joey is also showing off the drill he got!

Joey and AJ dressed the same one day!

Daniel helped Aubrey eat her food. They are both big eaters.

Ashley, Mom, and I made cards and both went home with a boxful! Expect birthday cards this year made with homemade love!

Nate and Julian read to kids at quiet time.

My two cute nieces were just cute.

 Believe it or not, the one on the right is a year younger

Daniel played with the early 1900s Italian nativity scene that my Dad inherited from his Mom who passed away this year.

My new nephew was given a baby blessing.

This is most of the grandkids, minus 3.

Daniel Asa with Papa Asa.

Joey playing Lincoln logs with Papa. More like, Joey watching while Papa plays Lincoln logs.

Papa took the kids to the merry-go-round at the mall. We went on the spinning cup the second round and my niece and nephew almost got me to puke.

Bragging Rights

I quickly want to brag about my husband ... although I should have done it last month.

In one of his business classes they did the Business Strategy Game. You start a mock business and compete against everyone else in the world and in your own little groups. Nate won in his class, then, he got an email from the BSG that his business we 67th in the world! He would make a brilliant business analyst.

The other thing is that he won the Baker-Friedman award. It's actually a joke, but it means that he got the highest points in his upper level Economics class. His prize was a beautiful framed picture of his professor (Baker) with Milton Freidman (a famous economist).

http://www.suu.edu/faculty/baker_j/econ3010/baker%20freid/bakfried.html

Isn't he brilliant!?

October: Cedar Breaks, the Livestock Fesitval, and Halloween

December's craziness is already past for me. It started with all the normal stuff plus the Relief Society dinner, which I sang in a duet for, then our Stake's Creche fesitval, which our chior sang at, then the ward party, which I took rolls for and helped clean up, a friend's son wedding, for which I helped set up and clean up the reception, and the choir Christmas program in sacrament meeting, for which I am the choir pianist. It was all fun and I enjoyed it, but Woo Hoo! It's done! Now I get to just enjoy Christmas!


We have some catching up to do! At the beginning of October we drove up to Cedar Breaks. The leaves were changing colors and it was beautiful! We used a disposible camera and only some of the pictures turned out.

Then there's Halloween! Carving pumpkins:

We took these next ones in December :):

This is Daniel with his buddy, Tyson, after taking halloween pictures. It good to have friends who are "bad" like you and didn't take pictures yet, so we did it together:

Joey with Tyson's big sister, Kylie. They really could be twins:

The day before Halloween we went to the Livestock Fesitval, we managed to get the boys cowboy hats, 2 for $20, we bargained!

 And everything else:

He's a puppy dog! 

 Joey started giving Daniel rides on his bike.

We were given this couch and the boys love to jump on it. Thank goodness we were given a new couch and this one is history! The new couch is much prettier, and bigger.

For Thanksgiving we went to Roosevelt, and stayed with my grandparents. After coming home a lady in my ward sat next to me in Relief Society and after asking me where we went for Turkey day we figured out that she was one of my mom's high school buddies. It seems to be a small world when your from a small town, hehe :). 

The Type 3 flag

Background: we have this book, by Carol Tuttle, that tells you about the 4 different types of personalities (or energy types). Nate, Daniel, and I, and like half of my family are all Type 3.

In our office, we have hung some flags we have. Nate was sitting on the couch with Joey and telling him the name of each flag. He pointed to one and Joey told him that it was the New Mexican flag. Nate pointed to another and told Joey that it was the England flag. Then he pointed to another and said, "this is the Taiwan flag". Then Nate pointed to the Texas flag and said "what's this one?". Joey's response: "The Tai Three flag!"

Hehe :)

Daniel's first words

Daniel mostly babbles, but we can definitely tell that he knows what things are called and tries to say the word. Recently he has said, in order of appearance:

Doctor (because we were singing "put the lime in the coconut and drink it all up ... say 'doctor', is there something I can take, she said 'doctor!', to relieve this belly ache").
Bubble (more like "bub .... bull")
Look (while pointing)
Bite
Ball

He'll also tell me whole sentences of stuff without me understanding, but it's cute as heck!

We LOVE this boy!

HCG is complete

So, I hit a rough patch and stopped loosing. You're only supposed to do 40 days on the HCG but was told to go until the weight stopped coming off. Yesterday was my last day. I'm going to switch over to another program and be done before Thanksgiving. Here are my results:

47 days on HCG
31.2 pounds lost
From size 16 to size 11
28 inches lost over my whole body!
7 inches alone came off my lower abs
4 off my belly
4.5 off my upper abs
4 off my hips/bum
and 1-3 inches everywhere else.

I say that was a success! Woohoo! I am now starting to fit into a couple things that I was wearing when I got married. I'm loving it! Now I can't eat startch or sugar for 3 weeks but can eat anything else. This PH Miracle plan that I'm going to start starts with a two week liquid feast so at the end of next week I will start that. Since the liquid feast consists of no starch I can overlap it with this last HCG phase. It's gonna be awesome!

Injuries and ... blogging about weight(?)

First, Joey seems to have just gone through an injury phase. He's smashed his head, stubbed his toe, fallen, and run into things all over the place. There were two big injuries, though. On Friday night something possessed him to jump off the top bunk. He fractured his foot. Lucky we were able to show it to a retired chiroprator in our ward, he told us what was up and what to do. No cast was necessary. This was a huge relief: no ER visit, no bills. Then, on Tuesday we were getting out of the car and I got out this little stroller and told him to climb on while I got Daniel out of the car. Next thing I know, Joey's screaming. I guess the stroller wasn't all the way open. He had put his hand on the side and sat down, pinching his hand into a part of the stroller as it closed. The palm of his hand was firmly stuck in there with way more skin than the gap had room for. I tried to get him up and close it to let his hand loose, but he decided to yank it out, tearing the skin. It was not a pretty wound, and he was not a happy boy for a very long time. We wrapped his hand with gauze and taped it and it's doing better. The first day he couldn't really use his hand (the right one). But now he is walking, and running (with a promt "NO RUNNING" from us), and using his hand better. Daniel decided join the fun and climb the high chair and fall off, he had an immediate dent on his head, and now a bruise, but it's not too bad.


So ...

Well, I've never blogged about my weight, but here I go. My new year's goal this year was to finally get it taken care of, forever. I tried many things and nothing worked, dang it! Anyway, then Nate figured out that I had algea in my body. We got rid of it and 6 lbs fell off. By this time, it was the end of August, and I was very grateful for that 6 pounds, but things had to go faster! Then, my visiting teacher told me about something she had just finished and had lost 40 lbs in 40 days. Crazy I know. I asked my kinesioligist about it and she knew of it, said it was safe and worked very well. I did tons of research, including reading the doctors manuscript and started on Sep 6th. You take HCG and gorge for two days, with as much of the fatiest foods possible. This opens your fat cells and gets them active. Then on day three you cut down to 500 calories, and keep taking HCG. Your body feeds off of the open fat cells. This actually consumes the artificial fat reserves and restores the natural fat reserves. Oddly, natural fat reserves are depleted in the overweight specimen :). The food options are slim, but after a few days all cravings are gone and my desire for food died out. The first week was easy and I felt great, then week two got bad. I had some very rough days, some where I made mistakes and gained, but more where I was emotional. But, I've come out of it and I am very excited now! I plan to reach my goal by Oct 31, which will give me time to do the 3 week 2nd phase and be eating normal by Thanksgiving. I have lost 16.5 lbs since the 8th (22 days). I have 46 pounds left and I am aiming high! I feel really good, have normal energy, and just have to remind myself that none of that delicious is going to disappear off the face of the planet! I will be able to eat it again. I'm amazed that close to a month is past and, starting tomorrow, I will have only one month left! So all my many faithful fans and cheerleaders ...


... sit back and watch me shrink.

Update: as of Oct 7th, I've lost 23 pounds! woo hoo! I have 41 to go.