This is Not a Hard Life

Enjoy

I missed posting Levi at 4 months so here are some videos of him.

I have heard that my 25 year old brother will laugh from across the room when my mother starts buzzing like a bee like she is going to tickle him. Here I am not even touching Levi and he is laughing like he is being tickled.

This one is for my friend Amy. She says her 4th kid is a screamer. All of mine have been screamers. Levi has found his voice. He is well on his way to be a screamer. He screams when he is happy mad sad glad. Here he wants me to pick him up.

I explain this one in the video. His Doctor suggested that he is ready for food. I resisted but he loves it!

The Adventure Continues!

I am guessing half of you have seen this picture and half have not. This is Roger and my engagement picture. 10 years and 4 kids later and we are still having a blast. At the very tender age of 20 and 23 we became mature- er, I mean adults- er, responsible people. We knew we were young (and still are) but we knew we had found something great that we did not want to pass up. Roger has exceeded my hopes and expectations 100 times over. He has taught me so much about loving, respectful relationships. We do all we can to make each other happy and feel loved. This was the best choice I ever made in life. I love you Roger! Thank you for being you!

Yea, well

I am kind of feeling over blogging. I don't know if I will stop but I am finding life is calm and there is not much to report about. Other than Roger taking the older 3 for a week of fun with family of which I have no pictures, we have just been playing. School doesn't start for us until Sept 10 so the next 3 weeks will be more of the same. Here are the pics of what I have made from the last month.

Its reversible. And it is a cover for my sewing machine if that was not obvious:)

still in the works:

Feeling Different Part 2

I think I must have come off as having a harder time then I really was in my last post. My drowning wasn't the depressed there is no way life is going to get better than this kind. It was the I am sick, my baby is sick, my kids are fighting, I can't get to my house let alone my hobbies until who knows when kind. I am much better now. Levi is going through 2 bad nights of sleep for every good night of sleep so I am a bit on the sleepy side but good things are happening here none the less.

Most of you will recall my spinach smoothie from last year not because it was oh so memorable but because my drinking smoothies everyday for a year came up in conversations. Well, that blasted smoothie! I attribute it to too much weight gain during pregnancy and then the giant child that came forth from that. Not that it was unhealthy as much as it started me out on a sugar high every morning which kept high through out the day thinking "oh- I can eat this cookie because I had spinach smoothie today" and then I would eat the whole row of oreos- in one sitting- on top of all the other sugary things I was eating. I had the best intentions. Really I did. I thought I was eating healthy with a few bad things a day. I never got a cold from all the Vitamin C too and I felt good except for the weight gain.

So then I had Levi and stopped drinking the smoothie because of the orange juice and the other fruit's acid. Then I got an infection on my ta tas that thrive on yeast so I cut out sugar to help the pain. Pain is a GREAT motivator. Anytime anyone had ever said they were cutting out sugar I thought they were CrAzY!! But then I had a great reason to cut out all sugar including natural sugar. I felt better and I lost another 15lbs in 9 days (the first 20 were childbirth and water gain losses). Since I want another baby soon and was told by the doctor that I had to lose my pre prego weight first I decided to go off sugar until after the next baby!

It has been almost 3 months since I have had sugar including most natural sugar. I only eat 2 sevings of fruit and have a little dairy which has natural sugar. Here's what I have noticed

-although weight loss slowed down I did lose that 1st 15 pretty quick and am still losing
-being hungry is not as bad because I am not hitting a sugar low too
-Levi's fussiness went away- might have happened anyway though right?
-my belly fat is smaller than it has been in years
-its no where near as hard as I thought it would be
- I HAVE SELF CONTROL!! Who knew! Now I just need to transfer that to other things like spending money :)

This week I also switched to eating only whole grains instead of refined. We will see how that goes. I guess my diet is basically like the second phase of South Beach Diet.

I also came up with a new spinach smoothie recipe that has a lot less sugar and is hopefully healthier. If you know better than me, please tell me! I won't pretend to know what I am doing. Sometimes I regret not continuing with the Dietetics major I started on. Darn Microbiology! I tried taking a picture this morning but couldn't wait to drink this "Blueberry Milkshake". My kids love it

1 cup frozen blueberries
1 1/2 cups skim milk
2-3 cups spinach
snippings of wheat grass
1 frozen banana (I just invited this sugary fruit back in my diet for smoothies)
1-2 Tblsp Fage Greek No fat yogurt (from Costco)
1/4 cup protein powder (unless Rory and Simeon are sharing)

Feeling Different

I don't feel much different from this:



but I have felt different lately. There was some drama going on in different areas of my life that effected me. Growing up there was a lot of real and pretend drama and I did not know how to survive without it. Even in college I still created drama. When Roger and I married, I swore off drama and for the most part that has been successful. So when drama came from different angles, I wanted to run far far away. Instead I dealt with it the best I know and became a peacemaker as best I could even though I was standing ground on my convictions. Vague enough? I don't like drama. Roger says that makes me more mature. Imagine, me mature. You are laughing aren't you?

Something else seems different too. I am feeling less able to express myself through words, spoken and written. I am less willing to say much for fear of sounding like a big dork. I wonder if I have always sounded like a dork and did not know it and am just now realizing it or if I have digressed with time. Its not that I am not talking as much as usual. Its more in writing, speaking to large groups, or when there is something really important to say.

Also, I reached a point of feeling like I was drowning this last week. Hero Camp took everything I had two weeks ago, then I came down with a cold and Levi came down with roseola this last week. There were days where I held him all day and he woke up every 2 hours at night. The big kids still needed to do things active and engaging and the house was out of order for me. I did not know how I was going to do anything. One night in the middle of it, the Bishop knocked on the door. I am so relieved to say no kids were fighting, the house was descent(except for the dinner dishes and the little piles I had not been able to clean up yet) and we were reading scriptures. Yep! What better thing to be doing when the Bishop comes in. It made me think about how the important things were happening in our home. Unfortunatly, it did not help wth the drowning feeling. Some of you know what is helpomg. The rest of you will find out later.

Thanks for listening- I needed it.