Best Picture of the Year

Well, this week was Jeffrey's birthday, so firstly, happy birthday my love! The two of us went out for a night on the town; dinner at Applebees, which was so so, and a movie. Thank you Mark & Emily for babysitting for us, you're the best!! We decided to go and see Pink Panther 2, we loved the first one and so decided mutually that it'd be an appropriate solution since there didn't seem to be anything good out right now. Boy, was that a bad choice! After about 15 minutes of watching that movie, which really only repeated the same jokes as in the first, we walked out. Jeffrey asked the ticket checker person if we could just go hop into Slumdog Millionaire since it was just about to begin and Pink Panther was lame-o. They didn't seem to mind! So, after 2 more hours had passed, Jeffrey and I found a new favorite movie!It's now no wonder to me why it won EIGHT Academy Awards, including best picture, best song AND best score! The 3 songs I've added to my playlist are all from the soundtrack and remind me sooo much of my mission, they really hit home for me. Anyway, we definitely would recommend this movie to all movie lovers! Just thought I'd share!

Of course...

... my family is sick! Again. We all have had sinus/coughing issues, but starting sunday night some sort of flu began! We spent the weekend in Edmonton at one of Brett's high school basketball tournaments (which he won btw...GO BULLDOGS!!). We went to West Ed for a while, though I'm not sure what we were thinking on a long weekend!! Jacey liked looking around at everything, but it was a struggle to keep him happy in the stroller. We let him out for a bit, but it's a nightmare to keep him going in the direction we want, so we ended up having to buy a bunch of candy to bribe him back into the stroller! :) Anyway...we had the sniffles under control, but sunday night when we got home and into bed, the vomiting began! Jaclyn was up all night getting sick over and over. That continued throughout monday and monday night. Tuesday morning Jacey and Jeffrey joined her. Luckily, I seem to be fine and have been able to tend to all the laundry and cleaning carpets that comes with missing the bucket and not making it to the bathroom in time! Not to mention all the baths that have been given! I haven't been able to keep up with my work out routine, but I've been worked out in a different way I guess. It's sad to see everyone feeling so bad, but I've got to admit, I love the snuggling! Jeffrey had a midterm Tuesday evening and was a trooper and went despite how he was feeling and left me with both kids. I was a little concerned about dealing with them both, especially if they ended up throwing up at the same time, but it was actually the greatest couple of hours!! They both slept in my arms for almost the whole time and I just watched Little House. :) Today started out rough, but I think the worst is over! Both kids have been more active and actually kept down solid foods! I can't wait to get back into our normal routine again. As normal as normal can be. I'm headed to Cardston this weekend with my sisters and my mom for a girls weekend! I'm looking forward to the break from my house and one child (I am taking Jaclyn with me as I am still her lifeline...she won't take the bottle) but I can't even think about being away from Jeffrey without tearing up, so I won't mention that part of it. Oh wait, I just did. :( Anyway, I think the break will be so good for me! Jeffrey and I don't even go on dates, so I am ALWAYS with my kids. And even though Jaclyn will be with me, having just one kid will be break enough. Plus there will be 6 other women I can hand her off to, hopefully, who can share the "burden" with me. As if Jaclyn's a burden. :) I'm actually hoping to get her sleeping through the night while I'm there. I'm taking advantage of being with my sisters, who don't mind a crying baby in the night. I'd say I'd post pictures of our weekend when I get back, but I probably won't take any. :) Actually I know I won't. But maybe I'll have a few stories to share. We'll see!

This is Jacey's piggy bank from Nana. It's actually what he calls his Mission Bank. If you can't tell, it's a missionary, he's got a tag and he's holding a Book of Mormon. Jacey doesn't know what a mission is yet, but he LOVES to collect money from anywhere he can find it, wallets, coats, drawers etc and put it in his mission bank! I hope he continues to be as enthusiastic about it later on in life, as he is right now!
My sick, snuggly baby. She is irresistable!
I don't know if it's big enough to tell, but this picture shows Jacey's eye colors really well. His eyes are two different colors, one is green with a smidgen of brown and the other is completely brown. I hope he's never bothered by it, because I think it's beautiful!!



UPDATE: I spoke too soon, both my kids threw up again tonight at bedtime. :(

It's My Turn!

I have complained for 10 months now, actually 2 years, about being overweight and feeling badly about myself. And for some reason, all of the reasons why I hate my weight and body have never been enough to do anything about it. UNTIL NOW!! I have totally come to a new point in my life where I actually WANT to work out and lose weight! And feel good about ME! Sunday night I was at my parents house for dinner and I made my sisters let me feel their stomachs. And man, do they have abs of steel or what!! And two of them have had FIVE kids each!!! After feeling depressed about that for a while, I decided I was just going to do it! So that night when I knelt in prayer, I PLEADED with Heavenly Father to help me keep the motivation and the will and the desire to work out every day and to watch what I eat. I know that I can't go on an extreme diet and only eat protein, or cut out the majority of good stuff I like to eat. That's not realistic for me at all! So my food goal is to eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner (just good, healthy food). And have a snack either in the morning, or in the afternoon, maybe both depending on what it is. Keeping it around 1500 calories/day. Then after dinner I can't have anything but water until breakfast time. For exercise, I'll do a 30 minute cardio workout of some sort and then on top of that, pushups, situps and arm dips things. I don't know how to say it, but you know, you put your arms behind you on a chair and dip yourself down, then back up again. To work the triceps. Anyway, with those goals and myfitnesspal.com to help me keep track, I'm destined to lose a pound a week! This way, I can always keep them off! I have to have it fit my life style, or it won't happen! Now it's only been two days since I've started, but I feel really good about it!! I know this is it! I AM going to lose weight!! Everyone says the first day and the first week are the hardest, but I haven't felt that way yet! In fact, I'm sad that I've already worked out today, I wish I could just skip to that part of every day and do it again!! I know it's because I included Heavenly Father in my plans! He really has the power to do anything and if our desires are righteous...and I believe mine are!!...He can bless us with all sorts of miracles!! I've been so jealous of my sisters and others who have been so dedicated and reaped the wonderful rewards of weight loss and getting in shape...but now it's my turn!! If there's anyone out there who finds themselves in my position, do it with me!!!! It'll be SO worth it!! I'd post a before picture, but since I still hate my body, I won't! But when I've reached my goal, I will post the before and after picture for you all to see! Wish me luck!!

Why Not?

The first 5 people to respond to this post will receive something made by me to you....my choice...made especially for you.

Of course there are some restrictions and limitations:

1 I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
2 What I create will be just for you.
3 It will be done sometime this year.
4 You have no clue what it will be... it may be a story; it may be poetry or an article on properly cleaning your face before a masque. I may draw or paint something; I may bake something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure.
5 I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must re-post this on your blog and offer the same to the first 5 people who do the same on their blog. The first 5 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they did will win a FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift by me!!

Oh and be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it!!

My Little Man

I guess this post is dedicated to Jacey. I haven't taken any pictures of Jaclyn lately! :( I have NO clue how to work the camera at all and Jeffrey has been too busy to break it out....so we've been having a picture drought! Heather and Melinda, any time you feel like whipping out your cameras to capture my babies, feel free! :) This first set of pictures you've probably already seen, they've been on facebook, but I have to put it here too, for when I one day make my blog a book. Jacey's hair had been getting really out of control. He has Jeffrey's hair I think, because it has SO much body! It wouldn't sit down on his head ever! Always poofy! And he has soo many cowlicks that there is no possible way to do his hair. So he was in desperate need of a hair cut! However, the last time I took him to Beaners to get his hair cut, I ended up holding a screaming child captive in my arms for the entire hair cut. It was a tad embarrassing! So since neither Jeffrey nor I know how to give real hair cuts, Jacey got a buzz!! We were worried about it after the first strip of hair came off, but we've gotten used to it. He's lucky his head is so round! He pulls it off nicely, I think. :) Plus, now it'll be a while before we have to worry about his hair again.

This next set of pictures I can thank Lizzie for. We didn't bring our camera down to Cardston when we went down last weekend. We went down for a 3rd ward YW temple trip. We had all the girls, leaders, the bishop and his wife stay at my parents "mountain home" on friday night, and went to the temple early saturday morning. With my family there, there were 32 of us down there at once! It was sooo much fun!! In fact, I'm going to snag a couple of the pictures from one of the young women's facebook pages to show you just how cute these girls are!!
We're a loving bunch!

A couple of my amazing laurels! It was super windy on friday night!

Okay anyway, I meant to just post these pictures of Jacey, but I got carried away! Jacey LOVES his Aunt Lizzie! He had fun posing for her and the camera! If you notice the table in the background, Jacey set it all by himself! Not bad for a 2 year old! :) He loves to help any way he can! Such a great age! :)