4-5 of my favorite images

It's really hard to pick 4 or 5 favorite images. However, here are the most recent ones I love.

I love capturing his real smile. He can give me the biggest cheesiest smiles, but these are the smiles that melt my heart. And that window light is pretty awesome, too. 

Jonas loves his sister. He watches out for her, he takes care of her, and he is so gentle with her (sometimes). I love when I capture him being a gentleman. He is wiping the snow off her hand - so sweet!

Jonas, my son, wrote his name on all his valentines for preschool. I love watching him grow and learn!

They love to play together and she thinks he is so funny. I love capturing moments and freezing time. 

Couples are awesome because they are so in love. And capturing that love is a pretty cool super power, I'd say. :) 

Catch up

Let's play catch up, shall we?

Jonas

Jonas started preschool! And he (and I) LOVE it! He comes home from preschool and he acts like a big boy. He talks in complete sentences. He doesn't whine almost all day and he just wants to play. He doesn't seem to get bored at home and he doesn't want to watch tv. He'll use his imagination and keep himself busy for quite a while. It's so nice! Normally, he's acts bored and whines and wants to watch tv all day and it's just not fun. So ya, I love preschool. Plus, he doesn't like writing or learning from me, so at least he'll get it from someone else and hopefully seeing other kids writing and learning will encourage him to try. He can almost write his name by himself now.

We have also moved Jonas and Alexis into the same room, and we made Alexis's room a toy room. Best. Idea. Ever!  We only have 3 rooms in our house, and I've always wanted a toy room, so in they moved. I thought it would be hard because Jonas has never shared a room or slept in the same room with anyone, and Alexis isn't the best sleeper, but it has been great! And there was nothing hard about it. Jonas is usually so tired at night that he falls asleep within 10 minutes of laying down, and if Alexis has a hard time going to sleep and starts to whine, Jonas sleeps right through it. If she wakes up in the night, Jonas sleeps right through it. And the best part is the morning. If they wake up early, which usually happens, I hear them laughing together. Alexis thinks Jonas is so funny. They talk to each other and it's just so cute! That is probably one of my favorite things to wake up to - my kids talking and laughing together.

Jonas is so curious right now. He asks questions about everything and I can tell he's thinking hard about how things work, where he was at a certain time, etc. For a while, he was asking where he was when mom and dad were babies. He's trying to figure things out. I love talking to him. I feel like we can have almost real conversations together.

Jonas has 11 articles of faith memorized. He may not write very well or color well, but he can memorize anything! This is just a fun video of Jonas and Clint. Clint got into magic for a bit and tried some on Jonas. Jonas thought it was so cool!

Alexis

Remember how Alexis used to be in the 9th percentile for her weight? Well, at her 18 month check up she was in the 50th percentile. So she is just fine. I don't know how one kid can go from being in the 90th percentile (as a baby) to the 9th, and then back up to the 50th. She's all over the place. Jonas has always been consistent. Weird. 

I also think it's weird that she will be 2 in December! Crazy. I found out I was pregnant with Alexis when Jonas turned 2. I have no desire to be pregnant again. I had a dream that I was pregnant and I was bawling. Ya, not ready for another one. Ha ha!

But I still think age 1 is my favorite so far. I love watching her learn to talk and understand things. I love that she understands probably 80% (maybe more) of what I say to her. I can ask her to do things, and she does them! I love watching her personality grow.

Alexis LOVES to color. If it's quiet in our house, Alexis is usually coloring. She'll find paper and a pen (her favorite) and just color for a half hour. I love it. It's so nice in church to have a kid that will color. Jonas hates it. She'll be entertained most of sacrament by coloring. 

She can talk pretty well. She knows tons of words, I don't know how many. But she doesn't articulate them well, so only Clint or I can understand most of what she is saying. But I can tell she's thinking about the words. When I'm doing laundry I'll talk about how these are "mommy's shirts, pants, etc", and she'll repeat me saying "mommy's.......shirts" with a pause in between like she's really thinking about the words. It's too cute. She'll also say "mommy" or "daddy" over and over until we say "yes?" and then she'll just smile and do something else. And then she'll do it again. When we are in the car, that's what our conversation is - listening to her ask for mommy and daddy repeatedly and say nothing in response. Silly girl. 

She loves our dog, Arty. She'll go around the house yelling "Arty" (and it actually sounds like his name) and give him hugs and bend down and give him kisses, or let him kiss her. And she hugs him (squeezes the living daylights out of him). 

 

She can match colors now, and she loves doing puzzles. She's pretty good at them. It took Jonas quite a while to do puzzles because he didn't care to do them. Still doesn't. It's so interesting to see the difference between one child and the next and a boy and a girl. These two are completely opposite in everything.  Sorry the video is a bit shaky, Arty was climbing all over Jonas and I had to get him to stop.

I've been really into videos the past few months. I love photos, but sometimes a video can show more than a photo can. It can capture the excitement, the movement, the talking, etc. :) She loves this song. She sings it with me almost every night.

Clint and I

Clint rides his bike to work about 3 times a week, the days that Jonas goes to preschool. Pretty  much the same ol stuff with him. I don't know if I mentioned this, but he really likes comics. And he also really likes giving himself projects to work on - creative projects. His hobby. He actually wrote a comic, and he got an artist to draw and he colored it and submitted it to Image. I think it's been about a month since he submitted it, and they say if you don't hear anything in a month then you won't get published, but I think it's cool that he did it. 

I love being married to him. He's ambitious, he's sweet, he loves spending time with our kids, and our kids LOVE him. All they want is daddy when he comes home. Who cares about mommy. :) He's sweet to me and takes care of us. I just really love him and everything he is. 

We went to Bear Lake for our first ever family vacation. We've done things with my family and his family, but we've never done a vacation with just us. So we picked something easy, relaxing and somewhere where we could take our dog. Bear Lake. It was so fun, the kids loved it and we loved it. It was nice to get away. Even though it was cold weather and we didn't really want to swim, just put our legs in the water, we all had a ton of fun. 

It was cold outside so we hung around in the hotel for a while.

I have finally reached a weight loss of 20 pounds. It took me forever to get to that. Probably because I don't eat well all the time. Oh well, you gotta live. At least I'm still progressing and losing weight, even if it is extremely slow. It's a lifestyle change and not a quick diet. I keep telling myself that. 

I still take tons of pictures. I had to pick and choose carefully the ones to share, or else this would be a really long post of pictures. Ha ha! I have done 2 weddings this year and I really like doing weddings. I have a total of 3 lenses that I love and I'm completely happy with all the gear I have regarding photography. 

Our dog, he's so cute! I know he might look bug-eyed and it takes getting used to the look of these dogs, but he's got such a fun personality that he has become the cutest dog to me. He loves to cuddle at night before we go to bed and it's adorable. This was taken with my 85mm lens and I love this lens!

I've also been working with a lady that makes boutique style clothing. We made a deal where she gives me the clothes for my kids and I take pictures of them modeling it. So we both win. I get cute pictures of my kids in adorable clothes and she gets professional pictures. It's cool. 

I've also recently had a hernia surgery. :( It was an umbilical hernia, so I've had it since birth. The hole where the umbilical cord was, never completely closed. So over time and mostly being pregnant, it got stretched out and after Alexis I had a hole in my abdominal wall right behind the belly button. I didn't know this at the time, I just thought my belly button was deformed looking from being pregnant because pregnancy does weird things to your body, but it has been there since I had Alexis. Then I had a horrible cough several weeks ago and that cough made intestines (gross, right?) get stuck in the hole. Which made it necessary to have surgery. No fun. But at least it's taken care of and maybe my belly button will look normal now. Ha ha! But because of that I've had to stop exercising. NO!!!!! But I started again yesterday, doing super low impact, really modified stuff that is about 10-15 minutes long. I was doing an hour each day, lifting weights and doing HIIT workouts and all this cool stuff. Now, I can't even do downward dog. It hurts to do that, so I slowly have to get into it again. 

We went to peach days recently and Jonas went on the rides and this was his first kiddie coaster. This look sums it up. He looked terrified the whole time, which cracked me up. He said it was fun, but never went back on that ride.

I love my cute kids, I love being a mom. Life is good, I don't really have anything to complain about. 

I love watching them play together.

We recently did family pictures for my side of the family and she caught this sweet gem. I love it! I never get pictures of us playing because I'm usually the one setting it up and it seems more posed when I do it I guess. I just love my family.

I Wish..........

I wish I was one of those people that could eat whatever they want and not gain weight.

I wish I had crazy endurance.

I wish it wasn't so hard for me to lose weight.

But the fact is - I was "blessed" to be one of those people where weight, health, etc. has to be hard for me.

I still work out every day - hard core workouts where I'm sweating profusely by the end. And I love it. I have gained so much muscle! I can do 500 squats before my legs want to give out.

But, I did not lose the 10 more pounds like I wanted to by the end of June. I did lose 4 more and was doing great, but then I went camping with the family. And you know camping food. It's so amazing and delightful! And fattening and so not healthy for you. I literally gained 4 pounds in 3 days from eating horrendously. BUT - I haven't gained any weight back from the 15 pounds I've already lost. From the camping trip on, I've been making poor eating choices.

I weigh myself every day, every morning. It's actually proven that you can lose weight quicker, or better if you do that. I like to do it because it helps me see the consequence of my actions for the previous day. Like I said before, I wish I had one of those bodies that didn't suffer from eating poorly. But I'm not. Before I started exercising, I would eat poorly and I would literally be 2 pounds heavier the next day, and then it would take all week to get back to where I started. It was awful! I'm finally to the point where I eat poorly and I don't gain anything the next day. Probably all this muscle I have. I burn calories quicker. But ya, I have been in a rut for the past monthish or so. I just haven't been eating well. I started eating more carbs, and I didn't make dinner, which meant we had pizza or pancakes or something awful for dinner. Oh, and we got a puppy, and they are just as bad as a newborn. You have to take them outside during the night every 2-3 hours so they can pee, so they don't pee in the house. The first week was ROUGH! But it's getting better. He's going longer periods of time now and Clint helps, so I'm only getting up once a night now to take him out. But if I don't get good sleep, my eating choices are out the window!

However, I don't look at this past month as a failure. And that is one thing I've realized the past 6 months trying to lose weight. Losing weight isn't a quick thing. It's a roller coaster (at least for me) of ups and downs. Times when I do great and I'm on fire and I eat great, and times when I just want to quit, so I stop trying as hard, don't eat as well, etc. I'm really grateful, though, that I haven't had a roller coaster ride with working out. That is the thing that is helping me NOT gain weight.  I love working out.

But FOOD? Food is a trial for me. I hate that I have to lower my intake of certain foods (like carbs, sugar, fat) in order to lose weight. And eat more things like vegetables. Man, am I sick of green salad! And eating some of those things once can ruin it for me. It's an inner dilemma that I fight every day - should I eat some chocolate or get ice cream, or should I not? It's hard. I can't describe it. It's like having Thanksgiving dinner on the table and you haven't eaten anything all day so you can binge on all the wonderful food, but not being able to eat it. It's a real dilemma. For some people, food is easy. It's not hard at all to control your portions and eat healthy. And to them "binging" is snacking on a few handfuls of popcorn, or tortillas chips, or eating 1 cookie and stopping. Seriously? Who eats only one cookie and has the will power to stop? Oh ya, not me.  But, honestly, those people will probably never completely understand what it's like to have food as a weakness.

So there you have it. I haven't failed, I'm not going to quit just because I didn't reach my goal of losing 10 more pounds by the end of June. I'm going to keep fighting and just realize that there ups and downs and it's one step at a time.

I took this updated family photo a few weeks ago. I love it. I love my kids and I'm really grateful for an amazing husband. I love my family and I love that we are together FOREVER! I also love that I don't have anything bad to say about how I look. 15 lbs can make a big difference. Working out and strength training makes a big difference. 

A Day in Our Life

I've been wanting to do this for a while, but I just wasn't feeling the motivation. I love doing "A Day In Our Life" because it's so fun to see each year how my day changes.

To begin, we bought Clint a bike - an electric bike with a motor. So he has been biking to work every day (except Fridays because he's usually really sore by then and he usually comes home earlier so he wants to relax when he rides home). It's such a fun bike! He, and I wouldn't either, be able to ride to and from work (almost 20 miles round trip) if it weren't for it being electric. It assists you so you can ride faster (can go 20 mph on it's own with no pedaling) and it makes it feel as if you are not riding up hill. It's so nice!

That being said, I have a car at home now and it has completely changed how our day goes. I love it!

I was going to compile the images in a collage thing, but that takes forever. It's just easier to have them one by one, so this will be a long post. But enjoy it!

First, Jonas woke up a little before 6 today. For the past few weeks, he's been waking up between 5 and 6 am and it's killing me! Way too early. We're trying to fix that. That's another post for another day. But he wakes up, and he goes potty, and he KNOWS he's supposed to go back in his room and play quietly till everyone else wakes up around 6:45 or 7.

Once I'm awake, he can watch cartoons, and Alexis joins him. She woke up around 6:30 or so.

I push the smaller couch forward and I lay down my yoga mat and I exercise for about an hour while the kids watch and Alexis plays. 

Alexis was hungry about a couple minutes into my workout, so I stop and get her some toast. She's such a cheeseball. She knows that she should "smile" when the camera comes out. I love her cheesy smile.

I finish exercising, shower, and then I eat breakfast. That is usually when Jonas eats breakfast also, and Alexis joins us in eating something else. Today's breakfast? Eggs and toast.

When I have the car, and I'm not babysitting, I like to take the kids out somewhere. Today I wanted to go to the park. I notice if I get them outside, or we leave the house they act so much better for me the rest of the day. So I get them ready, dressed, etc. I made piggy tails for Alexis. I usually don't do her hair because she pulls the hair thing out by midday, but I did it today because I was doing pictures and I really wanted pictures of her in pig tails. Notice the binky. She's attached to it. Stinker. We wait outside while Jonas gets his shoes on. 

Today we go to the park. It's a little after 10 by the time we get to the park.

We were about to leave, but the truck for free lunch pulled up. I completely forgot that during the summer they have a free lunch for the kids. So we stay and wait for them to serve lunch to my cute kiddos. Jonas is silly. I love him!

The lunch for today is corn dogs, carrots and an apple. Jonas loves corn dogs and Alexis actually ate hers. I think they were both really hungry. It's around 11:30ish now. 

After lunch we get home, I lay Alexis down for a nap and Jonas picks "The Lorax" to watch while she naps. 

She's usually very tired after lunch so she falls asleep within 10 minutes. 

 During this time of quiet, I eat my lunch (turkey sandwich and apples). And I get things done, like I did dishes today and cleaned the kitchen.

About 20 minutes into the movie Jonas decides he doesn't want to watch that movie (seriously the first time this has ever happened) and he picks big Hero 6. This was completely perfect timing with him holding the movie right when it said "big Hero 6" in the background. It was awesome. Plus a natural smile from this cute boy.

So he watches his movie, and after I tidy up and do the dishes I take a nap on the couch while he watches. So nice! I haven't been getting good sleep since my kids wake up way too early and my body aches. I think I need a new pillow or something. So I nap a lot if I get the chance during this quiet time.

 Alexis wakes up around 2-2.5 hours later. Sometimes I have to wake her up myself or she would keep on sleeping. And then we play.

Where's Jonas? Ha ha

She was bugged in this picture for some reason. I can't remember why, but she's got such a sassy attitude sometimes.

 You know those pictures people take when they are at the beach with their feet and the scenery around them? Well, I did it too - mom style. Sweatpants, socks, and kids playing around me. Ha ha!

Well it's about 4ish now, so I need to start making dinner. I give them a popsicle so I can try to cook. It actually ends up being more work because I have to help Alexis push hers up. Oh well. 

So I turn on a little youtube to distract them. They love the Gigglebellies, and Alexis LOVES music videos. She can sit for a half hour and watch music videos sometimes. I've been introducing her to taylor swift. No judging, I like Taylor swift. She's cool!

Clint gets home, he's sweaty from his bike ride, so he cools down, showers and then we eat dinner. 

Enchiladas (which i haven't made in about 5 months) and lots of veggies. I still try to have vegetables take up half my plate. I try. I succeeded today. :) 

Clint waters the garden real quick while Jonas and Alexis chase each other in the backyard, and then we head out. The kids need new shoes. They both recently went through growth spurts and I need to pants. My others are too big. It's a good problem, right? 

 I love Ross. You find good stuff there.

 We go out and come back. I feel silly taking my camera out at a mall, but I did bring it. My hands were just full taking care of kids so I didn't take any pics when we were out. We come home, bathe the kids real quick. Separately because, you know, boy and girl. Jonas is getting too curious about body parts. 

Yes, she has her binky. She cried when I took it away. I pick my battles, and the binky is not one of them - yet.

Pajama time, we read "Scriptures." Which means we read a story out of the friend or we watch a mormon message. Actual scriptures don't quite hold their attention yet.  Sometimes we'll have Jonas repeat a verse.

 
And then they go to bed. I think it's around 8 tonight. We've been switching bedtimes up trying to get Jonas to sleep longer. He wakes up around 5-6 everyday no matter what time he goes to bed. Sometimes we put them to bed around 7, and in cases like tonight where we went out, it was 8.

Then Clint and I spend time together and watch TV or do whatever the heck we want. And that is why I like my kids going to bed early because I get some time with my husband. :)

That was our day. It was a good one. Trust me though, there are days where everyone is cranky, because of lack of sleep, or just tantrums or whatever. But today was good.