Christmas time!

I can't believe Christmas is only 2 days away!  I have been very busy getting ready but right now I feel as ready as I'll ever be and excited to just enjoy the holiday with my family.  At age 3 Xander has really started getting into occasions like holidays and birthdays.  He was so excited for Halloween to come and now Christmas.  He was been telling me all month what he wants to ask Santa for.  I have had him go visit Santa twice now.  It is a special thing to see him so excited.  Wesley could care less but I'm sure he notices all the beautiful lights and the Christmas tree.  My kids didn't scream when they saw Santa, but having no reaction is kind of strange to me..

I'm feeling the holiday spirit and can't wait to give out my gifts to my family, especially the kids.  I'm so glad I have work off for the holiday..unfortunately I will not have Christmas off next year if I'm still at the same job.  I wish I had all the holidays off.  I hope everyone out there is having a good holiday and thinking about the true meaning of Christmas, celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.  

Photo Card

Fanciful Snowflakes Christmas

Find unique and Personalized Christmas cards at Shutterfly.com.

View the entire collection of cards.

My Gratitude post

Thanksgiving is tomorrow so I thought I would make a gratitude post to keep with the spirit of this holiday.  The top thing I have been super grateful for is my health.  I have been blessed with a healthy body and it has allowed me to do most of the things I want to in this life.  I decided that I didn't want to take my health for granted so I have been on a weight loss journey since the beginning of June.  It has been almost 6 months since that time and I have lost 40 pounds!  It is so liberating.  I think I am healthier than I have ever been in my whole life.  I workout because I love it, the only thing I had to change was to eat healthier.  I track everything that goes into my mouth every single day.  I have already decided to give myself a day off for Turkey day tomorrow.  I am around the same weight I was in high school, possibly even smaller since I fit into the smallest pair of jeans I have ever owned in my life!  Having health is a blessing.  I think taking care of your body can have blessings in many areas of our lives.  If you are taking care of yourself you will be better able to care for others.  I can now be fit and healthy for my kids so we can grow up playing together.  I feel better about myself which gives me more confidence.  I can enjoy things better and not worry about too many limitations.  If I ever do find myself sick with a minor or major illness my body will be able to handle it better.  It is a wonderful thing all the way around to take care of the body God has blessed each and every one of us with.

Me at my lowest/current weight



I am grateful for my wonderful marriage to Jeremiah.  When we started dating it was a crazy time in my life.  I was just starting out on my own and had gotten out of relationships with some guys that I should not have been dating.  I think I was just trying to figure things out but doing it in the wrong way.  Jeremiah came into my life and after a couple months of dating I knew he was meant to be my husband.  He is an awesome husband and father.  We are not perfect by any means, but I can say that we are happily married and have been together for over 8 years! 

I am grateful for the greatest thing to test and try me in this life so far...being a mother.  Those kids drive me crazy on a daily basis, but there is just something special about having little children in my home.  They are a lot of work!  I probably burn more calories taking care of them than my workouts at the gym some days.  I live for those special moments though.  There are those moments when Xander will say or do something and just make me laugh, or he will give me a hug.  Some days I need that hug more then he does.  Wesley will just blow me away with his cuteness.  We are going through a rough time with him right now, most likely teething, but he has been such a sweet little addition to our family.  I love those kids and I hope Jerry and I are giving them a good childhood and they can grow up to be good people.   

.

There are many other things I am grateful for.  I know I could name hundreds of smaller things to be grateful for on a daily basis, like warm water, having transportation, having money to pay the bills, being able to eat when I am hungry, having a job that lets me stay at home with my kids every other week.  I am grateful for chocolate, and that I can still enjoy it daily and still lose weight!  Another huge thing to be grateful for would be that I am a member of the LDS church.  I believe in this church and I know it helps me become a better person.  I feel like I would be lost without my faith in my life.  I'm not strong enough to face the challenges of this life without being able to look to my faith and have Heavenly father always waiting to answer my prayers and guide me. 
  Having gratitude is something we all should think about on a daily basis, but it's good to have a holiday to remind us about this concept.  I will be enjoying good food tomorrow, but most of all being able to spend time with family.  My brother is engaged again, but this time to a great person and I'm super excited to welcome Kristen into our family in January.  I"m grateful that my brother found a good person to be his companion.  I am grateful for my family that I grew up with and that we all get to be together tomorrow to celebrate the holiday.  Christmas is right around the corner!  Happy Thanksgiving! 



 

A whole random update of everything...

This blog really is designed to be a place to keep friends and family updated on our lives and I feel I'm past due on making an update.  I have been busy as usual.  For a few years of my life I was doing school full-time while working a full-time job.  I thought my life could never get busier than that, but I was completely wrong!!  I'm still working full-time and a college graduate, but once you add some young kids in the mix you are busier then ever.  Xander and Wesley are only 1 and 3 and depend on me for everything.  I have been told that I will miss these days, but at this point I look forward to the day when they can get their own food and bathe and dress themselves.  After everything I do, there really is no time to be bored, that never happens anymore.  If a parent with a young child says they are bored..then they are not really taking care of that child!!  Jerry and I do love our kids very much and I know they have made our lives so much richer.

 Xander posing for the camera!

 Xander as Plex the robot, he finally settled on a costume.  

  Wesley took off walking about 3 weeks after his first birthday and he is now a pro.  He is very happy and healthy.  He loves his big brother very much.  He likes to do everything Xander does, which is a good and a bad thing!  He has more teeth and was really moody while they were coming through.  His recent milestones are that he can drink from a straw and he can spoon feed himself.  He is very messy, but I am amazed that he is already learning these things.  I feel like my baby doesn't want to be a baby anymore.  He doesn't say very many words yet, just some basics, like uh-oh, up, dada.  I keep trying to get him to say mama but he is taking his time.  I hope he doesn't have speech delays like his brother.  I'm trying not to worry about it too much yet.
  Xander is talking a lot more now.  I understand most of what comes out of his mouth.  He has a big personality and is happy most of the time.  He is mostly cranky when you try to get him up from a nap and he just doesn't want to be awake.  He loves his little brother, but he still doesn't know how to behave around him. This can get very frustrating because I am constantly playing referee.  He pushes him over, hits him with toys and is just too aggressive.  We take away toys and do time outs.  I just hope that this gets better.  I can't get anything done unless I have some way to keep them separated.  Xander is at least halfway potty trained.  Just recently he has finally started going to the bathroom on his own.  Before we had to constantly make him sit on the potty several times during the day, now I think he is finally understanding when he needs to go.  I absolutely hate potty training.  I dread potty training Wesley and just hope it will be better with the second child.  I'm open to any good potty training book suggestions!!
  I am still following the program on Sparkpeople.com faithfully everyday.  I track everything I eat and every exercise I do on my phone and the computer.  I don't know that I can ever give it up.  In part of the program they say that eventually you can cut back to tracking food only every few days, but I can't imagine not tracking I'm so used to it now.  I'm staying consistent and having an average weight loss of 1.5lbs per week. There are weeks where I lose a lot, weeks where I lose very little and weeks where I don't lose, but I'm still losing and so happy to be healthier.  Since June I am 34lbs lighter and loving it.  I love that I can fit in smaller clothes and that when I exercise I feel stronger and more energized.  I think I have reached a new fitness level because of running.  I need to sign up for more 5k's and possibly a 10k if I feel brave enough.  I found an interesting cardiovascular effect to all my running, my resting heart rate has dropped from the 70's to below 50.  My heart beats really slow when I'm not exercising.  I have done research and learned that an athletes heart becomes more efficient at pumping blood and will slow down, so now I have the heart of an athlete!  I'm excited to continue this journey and see where it takes me.  I'm not going for a whole bunch of muscle but I would like to looked toned and have visible muscle definition.  I'm getting there!
  Now that we have great benefits at our jobs and a little more money to go around, Jerry and I are going to have some medical procedures done on ourselves.  Jerry has had a dream of getting his teeth straightened and he will be going to an orthodontist to see how they can help him.  My dream is to get my poor vision corrected.  In January I'm going to get PRK done to correct my eyesight.  There is not 100% guarantee that I will have perfect vision, but I have decided that any correction is better then what I have right now.  I would love to wake up in the morning and just be able to see without feeling around for my glasses.  I hope our dreams will be fulfilled in the next few months!
  Halloween is still one of our favorite holidays.  It is a month of going to corn mazes and haunted houses and a month of decorating our house.  Last year Jerry created a demonic centipede.  This year he made a scorpion.  We had to find a huge  pumpkin and haul it home.  I'm very curious how much it weighed, but I guess we will never know.  He cut it in half to create his creature.  I will post more pictures after the holiday is over.

Spike

Spike Marty Stephenson (2003?-2011)

Spike passed away peacefully on September 28th 2011 after battling feline kidney disease.  He was a sweet cat who loved his family.  He would come to you if you whistled and he liked to give his humans cat baths.  His birth is unknown because he was adopted in the spring of 2004 by his human family. He was said to have been homeless in the beginning of his life and given the name Marty when he was discovered at a Wal-Mart.  He was a playful, loving and social kitty in the years that he was at his best.  He is survived by his big fur-sister Cordelia and little fur-brother Jasper, his human family: Jeremiah, Elisa, Xander and Wesley.  Pets come and go, be we always carry part of them in our hearts when we have to say good bye.  We will miss you little Spikey.

No heaven will not ever Heaven be, unless my cats are there to welcome me.Anonymous.  
Of all God's creatures there is only one that cannot be made the slave of the leash.
That one is the cat. If man could be crossed with a cat it would improve man, but it would deteriorate the cat.
Mark Twain

My weight loss journey

I was going to wait and write this post when I finally reached my weight loss goal, but I'll just post it now since I'm so close!  I know some people have a whole blog dedicated to weight loss, but I'm just going to post a little about it on my family blog since I don't want to make a whole blog just about losing weight.

 I'll start with a little background.  When I was younger and growing up I always felt big and awkward.  I grew faster then everybody else my age when I was in elementary school.  Kids would tease me and say that I got held back, or I would get called names, like Stork legs.  By the time I slowed down and people caught up to me I reached a height of 5ft 7in.  I like being a taller female, in fact I wish was even a couple inches taller!  I have fought with my weight for most of my life too.  I was overweight for a few years as a teenager.  One day I weighed myself and was really unhappy with what I saw.  From that moment on I was determined to get physically active and stay that way for the rest of my life, and I have to this day.  Once I started exercising the weight just came off and I was to a normal weight in just a couple months.  Despite being a normal weight I still felt bad.  A lot of my friends were just skinny and I was jealous.  I stayed at a healthy weight until I got married.  I blame myself, but I also blame my weight gain post wedding on the birth control pills I was taking.  I put on weight and I could not get it off no matter how much I exercised.  Before getting pregnant I was at my highest weight and just thought that was where I would be stuck. I had two kids in 3 years and I did lose the pregnancy weight within the first few months for both my kids.
  About a month after having Wesley I discovered an app on my new smart phone that would let me keep track of everything I was eating.  It was through a program called Spark People.  I started using the food journal for a couple months but never got totally serious about that or the program.  I was also nursing my baby and I know you don't want to cut out too much food if you want to make that work.  Finally when 2011 rolled around I was getting more frustrated about my weight.  I decided to read The Spark.  It is a book from the SparkPeople.com program.  I reached my aha moment while reading the book.  I had to realize a couple things.  The most important one, and my main motivator is to tell myself that I am worth it and I deserve to be at the best health I can possibly be.  The second realization was that diets really don't work, eating better works!  I do not believe in diets.  I honestly never tried a diet in my life because I knew I wouldn't be able to stick with it.  Now I have found a program I can stick with.  I finally believe I can do this and I can get to a healthy weight and stay there as long as I stay diligent.  I learned that exercise alone is not going to help lose weight.  If I exercise a lot, then go home and eat bad, I'm going to keep the weight on.  I might have muscle, but it will be hiding under fat!
   I am doing a few things to help me lose weight.  I set new goals for myself all the time and make them simple enough to follow through.  I make small changes to my diet that I can follow to eat healthier.  My biggest challenge in the beginning was getting my full servings of fruits and veggies everyday, and right now I do get at least 5 or more on most days.  I don't deny myself anything.  If I want my chocolate, my cookies or my ice cream I have them.  I just only have one portion size though and I make sure it fits in my daily calorie range.  I workout just about every single day and I love it.  I have always loved working out.  My motivating goal is to get at least 10 minutes everyday and I do!  10 minutes is a piece of cake for anyone to follow.  I am challenging myself in many ways with exercise.  I try to run at least 5 miles or more every single week.  I strength train 2-3 times a week.  I do aerobics classes that I enjoy and I always look forward to them.  I am not punishing or depriving myself in any way.  I am rarely ever hungry because when I do eat, I make sure the calories are meaningful instead of empty.  If you get enough protein and fiber you will not be hungry until your next meal or snack.  The most important thing is that I am doing something for myself that I can live with my whole life.  I really enjoy what I am doing.
  I am so close to my goal..As of this morning I am 2lbs away from being in the healthy weight category!  I am 7lbs from my goal, which was to weigh what I did in high school.  After I hit my goal I"m going to keep going, but I will only lose enough weight that it is healthy for me.  After all is said and done, I will focus on maintenance and I know I can always make goals to get fitter and healthier.  There is never an end to getting fitter, you can always do more!  The beginning of June was when I finally figured things out and really started the Spark People program.  Since June I have dropped about 28lbs!  If I can lose weight with this program anyone can!  It is free and all they do is give you the tools, knowledge and support you need to get healthier.  If anyone needs a workout buddy I would be more than happy to help.

Birthday month!

The Cars cake had black frosting!

Back when I found out I would be having another July baby I thought it would be cool having my two kids share a birthday month. Now I'm thinking that it's just a little bit stressful, but we made it through. It was fun but I need a break from birthdays!

Xander was supposed to have his party on July 9th, a few days before his real one. However he got sick the night before with croup right in the middle of summer! Luckily I was able to reschedule for his actual birthday on the 13th. We just went to Boondocks and ate lots of pizza and cake. I can't believe it's already been 3 years since we brought home a late pre-term 5lb baby. He is now healthy, happy and well over 30lbs. My kids both have their yearly checkups next week and I'll have to post some stats if I can.

The final party was for baby Wesley on the 22nd. He is supposedly a toddler now but he is so tiny and sweet that he still seems very much like a baby to me. He still weighs close to what he did at 6 months. I don't know why he is so much smaller than his brother but he is still very healthy. I was hoping he would be walking by his 1st birthday, but he's not there yet. He is super close though. He walks with his toys and his newest trick is standing up on his own in the middle of the room. He just stands up and doesn't know what to do after that. He'll be walking soon enough, I'm sure it will be in the next couple weeks.

We had a Dino party for Wesley at our house. We invited close friends and family and ate lots of food. I wanted a barbecue but that's a little hard with no grill. We just ordered sandwiches instead. Both kids are spoiled now. If I ever have time I'm going to donate some old toys and clothes that my kids don't need or use. Wesley should be able to use a lot of Xander's old clothes, but with him being smaller, I have been having to buy him new outfits to fit the summer season. Wesley only wears 12 month size right now. Xander can even fit in clothes he wore a year ago. We built up a lot of clothes and toys in just 3 years!

I always like to include stats so here they are:

Wesley 12 months: 19.2lbs 29.5 inches

Xander 36 months: 34.6lbs 38inches

They are growing like crazy!