Just give me

some baked

goods and no

one will get

hurt!!!

24th of July week

Last week was the biggest week of summer around our house.  The Bountiful parade and fireworks are the highlight of summer.  I go every year to put out chairs for the parade.  As a rule I WILL NOT go before 6:00 a.m.  This year was ridiculous.  People slept over and most around me had gotten there at 4:30 a.m.  I luckily got a fairly most of the time shady spot.  After I came home I said this may be the last year I do this.  Of course then we had so much fun at the parade I can’t imagine not going.  We went with the Sowby’s and had a great time watching Megan and Ellie in the parade this year.  Jonah loved every minute of the parade.  He was fascinated by the whole thing.  We then raced to the Murdock’s for their annual barbeque.  This is Bryan’s favorite thing of the whole year, when people ask him why he says it is a culmination of what summer should be.  We love the Murdock’s and love hanging out in their backyard.  We wish our backyard was like theirs, it isn’t but luckily the Murdock’s are so nice we pretty much can go hang out anytime we want to.  The food and company was excellent just like it is every year.  Mo Mo is a great host!  Some of my family joined us back on our top deck for the fireworks.  We claim to have the best view, just like all of our neighbors claim they have the best view.  It is so fun to watch them at eye level.  We had a great time hanging out and visiting until WAY past my bedtime!

By the time it was actually the 24th we didn’t do anything.  We took the boys to the park for the handcart days celebration, usually I send them with Bryan, but I thought I would go with them.  It was so hot I think next year I will just send them with Bryan again.  Jonah loved going on the train ride.  We went to a dollar movie in the afternoon and then everyone went to bed early, perfect!

Saturday evening we met my brother and sister-in-law at her parents country club (yes I know, we are so upper class) and swam.  It was so much fun.  I said I need about 12 more days of swimming this summer.  We ate by the pool and stayed until it closed.  Then we went to their house and did some fireworks.  What a great day.  How can I figure out how to do this every day???

Last night we hung out in our front yard until the Beck’s invited us over to roast marshmallows in their fire pit.  I can now say that I have loved summer.  If only every week could be like this one I would be so happy.

Now back to real life this week!  And don’t remind me that summer is quickly coming to an end.

7 days without sugar…

Can make a person very ornery!!!!!  I made it, one week down two more to go.  The first 5 days I couldn’t think about anything but sugar.  All day long I just kept looking at things and knowing I couldn’t eat them.  I know I was not a very nice person during those first days.  The last 2 days haven’t been so bad.  I think I can do it now, but you never know I could crack at any second!  The problem with going without sugar is that I over eat in every other area to make up for the fact that I am without wonderful sugar.  Maybe this isn’t such a good idea, but I set the goal and now I have to stick to it.  I did run better today, and biked better, and swam better so maybe it is working!  And as a bonus the scale says I have lost 2.5 LBs.  I don’t know if I can belive it but hey if it is true then I am doing good!

A good day full of good food!

I have been training for the Bountiful Triathlon for the past 8 weeks or so.  My goal for this year was to do a tri and so I was deciding which one to do when our RSFG (relief society fitness group) Nazi leader sent out the word that this would be a great event for us all to do.  I of course immediately signed up.  The training has not been hard and I don’t think the tri will be very hard, but I may say differently when it is over.  The point I am getting to is that I am very good at exercising, I don’t mind getting up early and I enjoy it.  Now it is the eating part that is my problem.  I seem to think that I can eat whatever I want, whenever I want, and as much as I want.

Take yesterday for instance.  Brandon and Jacob are in Arizona with their cousins so Jonah and I have been hanging out.  Tiffany called to say she and her kids were going to hang out at her Mom’s and that I could come over, not that I needed an invitation.  We always have a great time at Chris’s house and the best part is the food.  She always has good food.  So with no thought to what I was consuming I ate 2 cheese and tomato (said with an english accent) rolls, a bunch of sun chips, several doughnut holes and a brownie or two.  Oh ya and then snacked on licorice bites.  I went home and cooked a healthy dinner of chicken breasts with peppers and red potatoes.  There now, I made up for my afternoon of eating with a nice dinner.

We decided to go to the Gateway and do a little shopping, we are kind of like on vacation with only one child at home.  Our friend Ryan called at 7:30 and said, we have 2 extra tickets to an 8:15 showing of Harry Potter can you come.  Well we were already at the theaters so I made a flurry of phone calls to try to find someone to watch Jonah.  No luck so we said No.  At 7:54 I thought, why don’t we just take Jonah to the movie?  It was a special pre screening event put on by Key Bank so the tickets were free and they gave us a $5 concession gift card.  I figured we would need popcorn to keep Jonah happy, so I got the large popcorn with a large diet coke.  Did I just have a handful or two of popcorn?  No way Jonah and I downed the whole thing in no time, oh ya Bryan had some too.  Off the subject, but Jonah decided at 10:00 he didn’t want to sit and eat popcorn in front of a movie anymore so I spent 20 minutes or so walking the hall with him and then Bryan came out and said we better just take him home to bed.  The tickets were free so we weren’t out anything.  It was a fun spur of the moment thing to do.  Oh and another side note, Jonah threw up most of the popcorn at 4:30 A.M.

So here is my whole point.  I am good at taking care of the exercise portion of my life and now I need to start taking care of the eating healthy portion.  This Saturday marks 3 weeks until the tri so I am going to cut out refined sugar starting Saturday.  I know I can do it, I did it for 3 weeks before my first half marathon.  Hopefully it will do my insides some good and maybe take a centimeter off my thighs!  Also hopefully it will kick start me into eating a little bit better.  So if you are planning on bringing me nordy bars or something you better do it before Saturday or put them in the freezer until August 8th!

What it is

My stressful summer, it is what it is and I am going to just start enjoying it! I was all ready yesterday to write a negative blog post and then thought better of it. I have a great life, I have almost everything that I ever could want, I get to stay home with my boys everyday, I have friends who bring me presents and make me yummy treats. Yes I DO have it all!

Now if I can just survive the 12 hour drive ahead of me today and then back on Sunday I will be sooooo happy!!!! And if I get to go on vacation at some point this summer I will be even HAPPIER!

Happy 7th Birthday Jacob

Hurray for Jacob’s birthday.  Jacob gets SO excited about things so it is very fun to celebrate his big day.  Even though it was Sunday we tried to make it a special day.  He picked all of his favorite meals and we had my Dad and his wife Judi and the Sowby family over for dinner.  The meal he picked was Shepherd's pie, usually just a last minute throw together meal, but to Jacob it was worthy of being his birthday dinner!  We enjoyed sitting outside in the wonderful weather and I believe everyone had a great time.

Jacob sometimes gets forgotten as my “first” miracle baby.  My wacky body was trying to shut he and I down when he persisted on putting me into labor even though I was taking medication to stop labor.  Thank goodness for him arriving before either of us didn’t make it.  He came 4 weeks early weighing what I thought at the time was very tiny, 4 pounds 6 ounces.  I was so worried when I realized he was coming early that I would only have a 6 pound baby (I always wanted at least 8 pound babies), I about died when the nurse told me his weight.  What a fighter he has continued to be.  He had his tonsils and adenoids out when he was 2 1/2 and then brain surgery when he was 3 1/2.  Nothing slows him down!

He sometimes drives me up the wall with his energy, but I love it.  He gets excited about a lot of the same things I do so we have a lot of fun together.  I love my little Jacob and am grateful for him in my life.  Jonah absolutely adores “ashob” and they have so much fun following each other around the house.

As soon as his party ends tomorrow afternoon I will officially be done with birthdays for another 11 months!!!!!!!!

4th of July fun…..

We all recovered from the stomach flu in time to celebrate our nation’s great day.

We started with our annual rootbeer float party with the Barlow family on the 3rd.  Bryan and Brandon then rode their bikes to the Eaglewood fireworks.  I stayed home and put Jonah to bed and watched the fireworks from our deck.  Jacob went along with the Barlows.

The 4th was spent at the annual barbeque/

water baseball game,

and new this year blow up water slide party at the Sowby’s.  We love this annual event and always have fun.  Thanks to the Sowby and Unwin families for always inviting and including us.

Jonah looking a little tipsy here at the party.

And finishing off the night with fireworks at 8:00 so everyone can get to bed early!

Summer of Love???????

I keep thinking of that B52’s song, its the summer of looove, love, love.  You know what summer is supposed to be about, love, laughter, relaxation, endless days of heat.   At our house it has been the summer of sick, sick, sick.  And I am SICK of it!  We started out the summer season with Jonah having rotavirus over Memorial Day resulting in he and I not flying to Arizona for the weekend.  The next week Jacob had it.  The last day of school of course was Brandon’s famous supposed swine flu which was really strep throat.  9 days later Jonah gets an ear infection and 2 days after that Brandon has strep again.  So Brandon finished his 10 days of anitbiotics we are free and clear and then Tuesday Jonah wakes up throwing up and I have my drug reaction episode.  Wednesday we are all feeling great until about 8:00p.m. when Jacob starts throwing up every 20 minutes and at midnight Brandon starts in.  So yesterday I attended to 2 sick boys and as soon as Bryan got home from work he went straight to bed feeling it as well.  Whew at least I survived………until an hour after I went to bed last night.  Yep spent the whole night awake and on the toilet and wishing I could puke my guts out about a hundred times.  This morning the boys are all better and I am not as bad as they were, but certainly not feeling like a holiday weekend.  Between the sickness and the RAIN, I may have to go live on a beach in Mexico.  Our pediatrician said, “just get your boys to do a better job at washing their hands”.

Good thing I am not a drug addict

I had a small procedure done yesterday which required me to take a Valium and a Percocet.  I got to the doctor’s office and had to wait a long time in the waiting room, they messed up on the schedule.  The nurse finally came out and said it would be about another 30 minutes, I was feeling just a little light headed and asked Bryan if he wanted to go somewhere instead of waiting.  He said No I am not going to leave you in this condition.  I was just fine I didn’t think the medicine was going to work.  Well about 5 minutes later I start getting very nauseas and I can’t open my eyes.  I was barely breathing, sweat was pouring down my face and just wanted to be out of there.  I managed to tell Bryan that I needed to lay down.  He went and talked to the receptionist and soon I was being led through the waiting area with everyone looking at me and I am sure wondering, what happened to her.  I got to a room where I laid down and several nurses descended on me.  My blood pressure was about 90/40.  They found every pillow in the office and propped them under my knees and said DO NOT GET UP.  Don’t worry I wasn’t going anywhere.  After 10 minutes or so I started to feel much better.  Soon my nurse came to get me and move me to another room where my doctor asked if I would be O.K. to go ahead with the procedure.  Oh yes, I have made it this far let’s get it done.  So everything went fine until it was time for me to sit up and leave.  It took another 10 minutes on the bed and then slowly convincing myself that I would be better once I got home in my own bed.  I know Bryan drove me home, but that is all I know.  I had thought he could go back to work once I was home and Brandon and Jacob could help me with Jonah.  HA, I was completely out of it until 6:00 p.m. when I made myself get up and walk around.  Luckily the pain was never bad so I didn’t have to take another Percocet.

I know that Morphine and Lortab do these same things to me and now I know not to take Valium and Percocet together!  Really it is a good thing I am not an addict!