Young Mothers

Sister Hinckley has said this about motherhood:

“It is the mothers of young children I would like to address first. These are golden years for you. These are years when you will probably do the most important work of your lives. Don’t wish away your years of caring for small children. Life is what happens to you while you are making other plans. This is a time of great opportunity for you to build the kingdom. When you teach children to love their Heavenly Father, you have done one of the greatest things you will ever do. If you can be a full-time homemaker, be grateful. If not, you must do what is best for you. I for one have never felt a need to apologize for my role as a full-time homemaker.

“These are busy, busy days for you. I have seen women in all kinds of circumstances—Chinese women working on road repairs, European women working in the fields, Asian women sweeping streets—but it is my opinion that … Mormon women are among the hardest working women in the world. They plant gardens and they bottle the produce; they sew and bargain shop. They go on the heart fund drive. They take dinners to new mothers and the sick in their neighborhoods. They take care of aged parents. They climb Mount Timpanogos with Cub Scouts, go to Little League games, sit on the piano bench while Jennie practices, do temple work, and worry about getting their journals up-to-date. My heart bursts with pride when I see them come into church on Sunday, some as early as 8:30 in the morning, their children all clean and shiny, their arms loaded with supplies, as they head for classes where they teach other women’s children. They scrub their houses with little or no domestic help and then try to be the glamour girl in their husband’s life when he arrives home at night. But remember, my dear young friends, that you are now doing the work that God intended you to do. Be grateful for the opportunity”

You win... you always do.

I didn't think it would really work, so I did it prove it wrong.
Well, I was wrong.

We bought the book entitled The 17 Day Diet. It promises you that in just 17 days, you will lose between 10-15 pounds. So we bought the e-book on our Kindle App, and went grocery shopping to buy lots of chicken, tilapia, salmon, turkey, lunch meat, yogurt (lots), eggs, and a hefty amount of fruits and vegetables. You can eat an unlimited amount of lean meats (chicken, turkey, salmon, etc.) and an unlimited amount of vegetables. You can have fruit (besides bananas) until 2pm and need to eat 2 probiotics per day--we chose yogurt. Oh, and tons of water. It's not a terrible diet. If anything, it's incredibly healthy. Here's a sample of what I would eat:

Morning: Omelet with mushrooms, onions, tomatoes, red/green peppers. Yogurt. Strawberries. 100% juice.

Snack: Orange

Lunch: Spicy Grilled Chicken salad with steamed vegetables on the side and a few sprays of Wishbone Ranch. Delicious.

Snack: Carrots and cucumbers

Dinner: Grilled Salmon with lemon and dill weed served with garlic green beans and steamed carrots. And a diet Dr. Pepper.

Dessert: New and awesome Dessert Yogurt Parfait- Grasshopper (it even comes in a clear parfait cup). They're about 50cents each if you buy in bulk at Sams.

*If you're on your you-know-what, you can have 1 oz. of dark chocolate. that's almost a 1/4 cup of dark chocolate M&M's. Or dark Chocolate Dove squares.

Now I'll admit, my first 4 days made me angry. I have never taken sugar out of my diet before. Apparently I had a bit of an addiction. But after that, I was fine. And really, today it doesn't even sound good. It's also very "cleansing" with the yogurt and vegetables and water... which is an objective of the diet.

So what are my results?
Now keep in mind I'm only 5"1. I started this diet weighing 132 (which according to the book puts me about 27 pounds overweight. yeah right. I'm not 11 anymore.), I ended it 17 days later weighing 122. Yep, my pre-marriage weight. First time in 6 years.
10 pounds!!!!!!! or 8%!!

And you're probably right, it's probably all water weight or something and I'll probably gain it all back almost instantly. But... it has been 4 days since I went off the diet, and so far so good. I'm definitely being more cautious at my portions now though.
Traditionally, in this diet there are 4 phases, 17 days each. With phase 2, you slowly add in brown rice and whole grains, and so on and so forth. If you don't get to your desired weight, after completing phase 2, you go back to phase 1 and continue on your journey. You really should do all 4 phases. However, because I feel absolutely fine at where I was before, I'm only doing 1 phase. It was really just an experiment.

Oh and did I mention... there was no exercise involved? Just a strict diet! Boo-Ya!!

I'm checking out for 3 months.

Today starts Winter 2012 semester! I'm off-track, but am taking 15 credits to stay on-track to graduate July 2013. I'm taking all generals, and am pretty nervous about what this semester will entail. It will be a true test of responsibility and good practice of time-management. I'll be on campus 4 nights a week, and am also taking 3 online classes. I plan on staying on campus for a couple hours extra each night instead of trying to shun my children away while I do it at home. Hopefully this will be a success rather than total failure.

Updates:
Jack is consistently saying 2-word phrases now and loves his speech therapist. He loves throwing balls, wearing his Cars jammies, and being sweet and chill. Unfortunately, he's also being raised by his older sister and secretly enjoys wearing tutu's and toting around purses full of random McDonald's toys.

Lillie can write her name legibly and is so proud of herself! She can identify every letter and can count up to 30. She understands quanitities, and is starting to figure out time (seconds, minutes, hours, etc.). Lillie enjoys any kind of art project and is constantly wearing dress up clothes, purses, fancy shoes, and singing some random song she made up on the spot at all times. She's very compassionate and very girly. I love her creativity and affection.

Dustin C Marshmallow is a good father and husband. He was telling me last night that even though he and I won't see much of eachother Mon-Thurs while I'm in school, he's excited to have the chance to spend so much time with Lillie and Jack. He's busy each day fixing rental units and doing lots of side jobs. He loves his old Chevy truck, and has been running quite a bit the last couple of months. He's very sweet and is always helping me with dinner, dishes, and the dreaded laundry. My favorite time of the day is when we put the kids to bed and spend time together watching movies, playing scrabble, or staying up late drinking Pepsi and playing cards.

You pretty much know everything about me. I'm happy to report that I did, infact, get into the music program! The program here at BYU-Idaho is very small and very difficult to get into. I finished my voice Jury last semester with an A-, which I'm very proud of. It was quite intimidating, to say the least.

We had a wonderful Christmas and really enjoyed being with both of our families. I'm excited for 2012 and all the opportunites life will bring us. Merry (late) Christmas!

Welcome, Friends.

I just realized I never posted about where we live.
So, um, yes.

We moved in June 3rd this year and we love it. It's a multi-unit home with separate basement and attic units. We have the main floor, yard, front porch, and back deck exclusively(which means we do the yard work). And with the 2 other units basically vacant, it pretty much feels like it's all ours.
One day in the near future I will go through and take pics of the inside, but I realistically don't see myself having time to do that anytime soon... nor do I think you care that much. So here are the basic stats:

1400 sq/feet of original dark hardwood floors. 2 large bedrooms both with extremely almost-a-waste-of-space walk-in closets that are serving as a play room and our office. We have a big kitchen and separate laundry room. Our living room/dining room is so ginormous, it houses our furniture with total ease. It has pretty neat 1920's era features that you just can't get from your typical cookie-cutter house and it has all new big windows. We love having a yard to mow and plant flowers in and a deck to sit out on and enjoy our lovely view of the Aquatic Center parking lot while sipping lemonade (or not). We seriously love this house, even with all of it's "special" (Daniel) characteristics. I always feel right at home when I walk through our front door. Plus, our ward is absolutely fabulous. I hope we get to stay here for a while longer.

My HUGE Stressor right now.

BLOGGING.

I can't even check other peoples' blog because it gives me HUGE anxiety. Really? What else do you have to share about your perfect life??

I know, I'm just being grouchy. Perhaps after my last final on December 15th I'll be happier. Tis the season to be stressed....

Our 25$ trip to Vegas

Last minute, Dustin and I were blessed to join the Horns and Halo's RAGNAR Relay team in Las Vegas back in October. It's 189 miles divided up by 12 runners. Each runner ends up running between 15-20 miles total. I was stoked, Dustin was unsure. After dropping off our sweet little kiddos at Aunt Dana's house to play for the weekend- we picked up our carpoolers and left to Vegas.
9 hours later... we met up with our team that we would really get to know over the next 36 hours- and then slept. 5am came bright and early, but Dustin (runner 1) started us off at 9AM on the dot. The next 35 hours are just a blurry mess of awsome.

Because Dustin and I were in different vans, we only saw eachother once every 6 hours or so. Here's the only picture of us together at the finish line!
We finished on Saturday late afternoon. It was exhausting, super duper hot, but really fun. That sounds weird and contradicting- but for any of you that have ever ran a relay like this understand what I mean. We loved every minute of it.

We also got to hang out with our oldtime good friends, the Delemonts! It was really fun to see them again and made us want to move back... almost.

oh, and how was it only 25$? Gas was paid for by the girls we drove down via BYU-I rideboard. The registration fee was waived by the runners whom we replaced, and our Hotel on Saturday night at the Paris was paid for by RAGNAR.

We spent 24.99 after taxes on our hotel at the Santa Fe Station for Thursday night.

Deuce

Bring it on, Jack!!
It's not like I haven't dealt with age 2 before.

I've been blessed to have a taste of what things will be like for the next 12 months. Jack loves to imitate Lillie's drive-me-crazy whiney voice. "uuuuuuuuuuuuuunhuh." He also loves to wear Lillie's Tu-Tu's and twirl. A couple weeks ago he dumped out an entire bottle of baby powder. As you probably recall, a year before he was covered in 5 pounds of flour. A few weeks ago I caught him shoving raisens into our DVD player. 2 months ago at church he grabbed 2 handfulls of cheerio's and threw them about 5 rows in front of us. This past Sunday, after taking a bath and putting on new pajamas, he decided to get back into the bathtub and play somemore, fully clothed and thrilled. I love being with that snuggely little boy. Sure, we've had our testing times- but I love hearing him say "I want Mommy!" right after he wakes up and picking up super-tiny peices of garbage and bringing them to me saying "Gank-oo!" (You're welcome Jack, I guess.)

I can't believe my tiny 6 pound, 8 oz baby with brown hair and blue eyes is now 27 pounds, has a buzzcut, and looks up at me with his brown eyes (yes) and kisses me on the cheek. He used to just sleep all day- now he reads books, colors, fingerpaints, and plays with his tricycle. I love that he hates TV, I love that he eats more than our 4 year old, I love how he always has a messy face no matter what, and I love that he loves me back.

Happy 2nd Birthday, Jack-ie! (as Lillie would say)