Birthday Girl

We officially have a teenager in the house!

Sydney turned 13, on Wednesday

 

Happy Birthday, Syd!

 

 

Here's a few pics from our traditional birthday photo shoot.

 

 

I used to be afraid to have my kids grow-up and become TEENAGERS, but have since changed my mind. I have loved watching Sydney blossom into a beautiful young woman. She is such a sweetheart. I really feel spoiled with her, and grateful that she has made this transition into teenage-hood so easy. I know we are just at the beginning, but Sydney is pretty wise. She tries very hard to make good choices. I have no doubt we'll have a few bumps along the way, but I'm very excited to see what the next few years will bring.

 

 Soon we'll have teenagers busting out all over the place every year or two from here on out. Oh, My! 

I just realized yesterday that by the time Aftyn finishes kindergarten, Sydney will be graduating from high school. I only have 5 more years before Sydney is off to college. How can that be? I'm way too young for that, right? Oh heart be still, I don't know if I can take that. Aaawww...I won't think about that for a few more years.

 

Sydney, I am so proud of you.

Hope you know how much you are loved!

 

 

Back to School

Well this morning I sent 5 of my kiddo's back to school.

Sydney - age 12 (until tomorrow, yikes!)

8th grade

Kaylie - age 11

6th grade

Tyler - age 10

5th grade

Emma - age 8

3rd Grade

Todd - age 6

1st grade

Okay my little peeps I'll miss you tons but I know you'll all have a GREAT new year!!!



Aida

Ken and I had a way fun date on Friday night. We went to see Aida playing at the Murray City Park Amphitheater. It was a really fun play with a very talented cast including my brother, Craig, which made it even more fun to watch.

Craig has recently lost 50lbs. He is looking awesome. And look close because you may not ever see it again, he doesn't have any facial hair. For at least the past 13 years he has had something growing on his face. Sometimes a little patch of something, sometimes a beard, but NEVER nothing.

Kinda a bit strange for me to see my brother wearing more make-up than me, never thought I'd see the day. As long as he keeps it to the stage, AND as long as  I always look better wearing it I think we'll be okay.

Great Job, Big (in a much less way) Bro!

Ken and I were completely entertained. 

Losing It....

I know what you all were thinking....

you thought I meant my mind, didn't you?

Well losing my mind is debatable, but that isn't what I'm talking about.

I mean pounds, inches, excess largeness, that sort of thing.

I have wanted to post on this subject for a while now but kept putting it off because if I announced to the world that I was trying to lose weight then I would have to be accountable, which to me is the whole point, but I wasn't ready to commit. However, enough is enough! I've reached my "limit", you know what I mean, that very unpleasant number on the scale that you tell yourself you with NEVER go above. Well I'm there. I'm at my limit.

Now it's time to commit. It's time to get serious.

I had Ken take these pictures on my 36th birthday. That was 6 months ago, 2 wks after having Aftyn. This was to be my "starting point", unfortunately I couldn't really exercise for another 4 weeks because of my c-section. By then my fatigue had increased and my motivation had decreased. So, regretfully I have gained weight since these pics were taken. Which is actually pretty typical for me after having a baby. I lose weight while I'm pregnant then gain it back a within a few months while nursing. Now it's time to take it back off, and much more. ( 9 babies worth of more!)

I am not one of those people that think you have to be skinny to be beautiful, nor do I think a person's self-worth should come from how they look. I know I'm a daughter of God whether I am 100 or 500 lbs. This isn't about that, it's about being HEALTHY.

I don't plan on trying any radical or fad diets. I think those are for idiots. I just plan on increasing the good ol' exercise and watching what I eat. I'm planning on taking one step at a time, starting with baby steps until I eventually reach my end goal. Which I just realized I don't even know what that is yet. So, I will be figuring that out mighty soon. I do know what my first goal is though, and that is to see a 1 in the first digit column of my weight, not a 2! Aw....I can't believe I just said that out loud. (well wrote it anyway) Yikes, it's a little scary being so open with such a touchy subject as weight. But I'm going to tell myself I don't care and just move forward.

*This week my goal is to exercise at least 30 minutes everyday, cut the sweets, and increase my water intake.

I've decided to weigh myself every two weeks to check my progress. I'll probably post that often and report on how I'm doing.

Wish me luck. I'm not one to beg for comments, but a little moral support along this journey may be helpful. AND if anyone wants to share their successes I'd love to hear them. What exercise do you love? What low-cal foods are your favorite?



Adventures in Cedar City

Ken and I took the fam down to Cedar City this past week to spend a few days with his brothers family. We tried to squeeze in family time, cousin time, and adult time all in a short time, but I think we did a pretty good job.

I have a zillion pictures as usual.

One cannot take too many pictures!!!

*First a little fun in the park.

*Next the green show at the Utah Shakespeare Festival.

*After this my sister-in-law and I went to see "The Music Man". It was really a cute play.

*Next up we have pics from our picnic just before entering Zion's National Park.

Here are all the cousins together. There are 12 between our 2 families and you should have seen the looks we got at Zion's. Most of the looks were not looks of admiration, more like looks of disgust. Too bad for them, they don't know what their missing.

*Welcome to Zion's

Ignore the strangers face. Don't know him.

Waiting for the next bus.

Earlier in the day Ken and Tim attempted to hike Angels Landing, however due to the fact that they both have a fear of heights neither one made it passed the first set of chains. I was grateful they didn't go all the way. People DIE doing that. NOT good.

*The last family activity before heading home was swimming at the aquatic center.

Toddy was LOVING the water slide.  He kept going down over and over again. I went down once and didn't quite see the appeal, but that's because I'm getting old.

*We did other fun things too like date night with the adults. Dinner and a movie. Mmm....Mmm good.

* And Shopping. Oh, Yeah!

Good times, Good times.

The Fruits of my Labors...

ONE...edible and completely delicious,

and ONE.... not so edible, yet still completely delicious.

Do you remember Zachary's peach tree?

We planted it back in April and it looked like this...

Well now it looks like this...

We were told not to expect fruit this year and maybe not even for a few years, but we had so many peaches starting to grow that I had to thin over 20 or 30 peaches, leaving just a few, so that the young branches would not break.

Look at this beautiful site...

Being the sentimental girl that I am I couldn't resist taking pictures of Aftyn with the first peaches from Zachary's peach tree.

For dinner last night we ate the 4 peaches that Zachary's tree produced and they were delicious! We are looking forward to many, many, many more years of enjoying Zachary's peaches. 

The title of this post really should be... "the fruits of (OUR) labors" it just didn't sound as catchy, but Ken really has nurtured and babied Zachary's tree like a tender gardener would lovingly care for his garden.

This picture was taken during a late April hail storm. The wind was strong and the hail was pelting, but my boys gave that no thought as they stood in the storm to protect a little tree that has come to mean so much to us.

This little tree is not "just" a tree to us, instead it is a beautiful, living, growing reminder of our sweet little treasure awaiting us on the other side of the veil.

The "fruits" of my labors truly are sweet, all 9 of them.



Boys and Their Toys

Saturday morning while doing our family ritual of garage selling we ran across a little dirt bike. Knowing that my kids would think I was the coolest mom ever for at least a day or so on a whim we decided to buy it.

Since Saturday it's all my boys can think about.

I overheard Tyler tell his aunt that he never thought in a million years that his mom would ever let him have a dirt bike. Probably because I told Tyler I would never in a million years ever let him have a dirt bike. I knew after seeing them ride a little motorcycle at our last family reunion that I was losing my resolve, but that was my little secret.

On Saturday I finally gave in ONLY because I was comfortable with the size of this LITTLE bike.

Little did I know that I opened a big ol' can of..."now we need one for Ken, and a larger on for the older kids, and, and, and etc."

But this is all prelude to the real purpose of this post.

What I really wanted to tell you about is Tyler's prayer during family prayer last night.

It went something like this (Seriously)....

Dear Heavenly Father,

Thank you that we could buy a dirt bike. Thank you for all the many, many, fun fun fun times we have had on our dirt bike. Please help my Dad to get through school as fast as he can so we have more time to play together and work on the dirt bike. Please help us get the dirt bike all fixed up.

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

I had to refrain my laughter. Ty has a one track mind and right now it's completely on his new toy...

THE DIRT BIKE.