St. George Vacation

A few weeks ago, we headed down to St. George with most my family and enjoyed a few much needed days on vacation.

We headed down on Valentines Day, so needless to say, we didn't get much celebrating of it this year. Which to Sam is ok. He really doesn't like Vday. I, however, love it. Whatever. A vacation was totally worth it. We took our sweet time driving down there, stopping in Fillmore to play so the girls could stretch their legs/Maddi could eat. We spent about 45 minutes there. After that, we stopped in Cedar and spent a good two hours there visiting with my old bishop and his wife and eating at Top Spot. Bishop Adams has been by far my favorite bishop. Him and his wife are the sweetest people in the world! They even made the journey up to Salt Lake for our wedding. I sure do love those people. It was so weird hanging out in their house with my two kids. I've come a long ways from college days. I miss those days so much, but I would not trade where I am in life now for anything!

This is the extent of our vday celebrating

Beautiful sunset driving into St. George

We finally got to our condo about 6:45, and the rest of that night, we just relaxed and waited for everyone to arrive. 

The next day, Saturday, we woke up at our leisure, then packed up the car with picnic foods and headed to a super fun park. The best part about having an almost 14 year old niece and an almost 12 year old nephew, is basically I didn't  have to watch Abby play. I got to sit around and talk while they ran around playing with Abby. So nice. Abby loves them, they love Abby, so its a win win win. After the park, Erik and Ali made a quick surprise visit. They couldn't stay for long as my brother had to work, but spending the evening with them was so much fun. We hiked around Skyline Drive til dark and then went back to the condo and made mini pizzas. They had to leave shortly after that. So glad we got to see them for even just a little while.

Sunday morning we woke up and attended a sacrament meeting. After that and lunch, we went on the Chuckwalla trail. It was beautiful, the weather was perfect, and it felt great to hike. Abby walked most the time, and by the end, she was completely tuckered out and had to sit on daddys shoulders. Maddi enjoyed hanging out on my back. 

Stay tuned for the last few days of our vacation coming soon!!

Madalyn Marie Update

Months: 6 months! Already half way to one. I don't like that. Nope. Not one bit.

Weight: She was weighed Friday and she was up to 16.10 lbs. She's got rolls for days!

How she is sleeping: The past few days since we have been home from vacation, she has been sleeping wonderfully!! Thursday night in particular, she slept from 9-7:45. It. Was. The. BEST!!

What Madalyn Loves: Toys that glow, daddys beard that tickles her face, sitting up, bouncing on our knees, and chewing on her tongue.

What we're working on: STILL trying to roll over. Well I mean, she can do it, but she chooses to be upset on her tummy anyway. But she has rolled over, so I know she can do it. We are also working on sitting up. She is getting really good at that. And, even though she sleeps well at night lately, we are still working on a better sleep schedule. For both my girls really.

What's new this month: She grew another cute bottom tooth, and she found her tongue and will just chew on it like crazy. She also loves playing peak a boo with her burp cloth.

She seriously looks like me here I think

How is Abby doing? She seems to be doing ok. She doesn't get too jealous, but she has asked me and Sam to "put her{maddi} down" a few times. But, she loves her little sister to death, and is even starting to learn to be softer with her. The other day I heard Abby reading a book, and I walked into her laying next to Maddi and reading her one of her books. Heart melted. And then this happened. Maddi was less than thrilled.

My Cell Phone Device

Life has been Abby being not shy one bit. One Sunday, she was showing off her sucker to my two favorite people in the ward: Brother Ostergaard and Sister Coon. She then decided to get cozy in the Bishops office and help with tithing. Later that week, we fixed some blueberry pancakes, and then played in the freshly fallen snow.

 Since both Sams and my grandparents are dead, life lately has been snuggling with an adoptive great grandparent in our ward during Tuesday RS night. Its been sleeping in late in mommy's and daddy's bed, and just staring at how I made two perfect little girls. Life has been Abby throwing a fit because I took her toothbrush away from her and then I gave it to her so she would stop crying and she then fell fast asleep. She won that fight. And, its been snuggling my sick teething baby.

 Life lately has been Madalyn getting big enough to sit in the Walmart cart. Its been a poor sick snuggly Abby. Life has been putting Maddi in a target cart and her being too little for it, and life has been making my 10,000 step mark on my fitbit!

 Life has been making a delicious Sunday dinner of pork ribs, Maddi being adorable during dinner, Abby fighting so hard not to eat it put her to sleep, and trying to get a cute picture of us 3 girls. 

And, life lately has been Abby keeping Rikelle from exercising during aerobics one day. Its been another adorable sleeping picture of my girls, making sugar cookies (but not finishing frosting them and they are probably bad now) and an adorable Madalyn being up all hours Thursday night due to her excitement of vacationing the next day.

Fitness

I just have to take a moment to brag about myself on this here blog of mine. I've been feeling down about myself and my image. I have been trying and trying to lose weight. I exercise like a maniac, I write down my food intake in My Fitness Pal, I try my hardest to stay within my calories (except on those darn weekends. I fail at those every time.) and, I am breast feeding, which is supposed to make you lose weight right? Well for me, it makes me 10X more famished, so naturally I eat more. Well, the scale hasn't been changing much, and the weight I do lose that takes so much of practically starving myself and working out really hard, seems to creep back on quickly in a moment of starved weakness when I just don't want to be careful anymore. 

So, after feeling sorry for myself this weekend, I decided to go on a run Saturday. It was a warmer day, the air was clear, and there was that rainstorm smell coming in. So, I started to run. I ran, and I ran, and I kept running wondering when I was going to have to walk for a few minutes to catch my breath. It never came, until I had 5 more minutes left of my workout, but I pushed it. I ran those 5 minutes. I ran almost 3 miles straight. (my gps was waaay off. I later drove the route and it was like 2.9 miles. If I would have known that I would have kept running til I hit that 3 mile mark.) I don't know when the last time, if ever, I have been able to run that far without walking. I know 3 miles non-stop might not seem like that big of a deal to some of you, but to me it is. And it was fast for me too. I estimated my mile per minute to be about 10:30 maybe? I've never ran that fast. 

So then it struck me. I may not be losing the weight I want as fast as I want, but I am at a really good personal fitness level, especially for having a baby that isn't quite 6 months old yet. It took me til Abby was at least a year to get to a point where I felt I was getting back into shape, and now my baby is 6 months and physically, I feel great. 

I am thankful for my body. I am thankful for what it can do. I am thankful that it can have babies and I am equally thankful it can get back into shape. Maybe a day will come in my life where I will love the rolls too, knowing those partly come from growing a baby inside of me, (but mostly from the food inside me) but for now, I will keep exercising and trying to avoid overeating and someday, hopefully soon, I will completely love my body for what it is. 

Fall 2013 Family Pictures

Back in September, we got family pictures taken by the talented Katie Howe. I LOVE how they turned out. I would have posted them sooner, but our laptop died, and our desktop wouldn't let us put pictures on it. We got a new laptop yesterday, so here we are.

The only downside: Maddi wasn't cooperating, so we didn't get all the pictures we wanted of her. Abby on the other hand was being a camera hog, so we got lots of her. Without further adieu, here are just some of my favorites. (It was really hard to just choose these.)

This is by far my favorite picture of these two!

This basically sums up my girls relationship

Madalyn was done by this point. 

And this is my favorite picture of the two of us.

This family of mine? I love them.