Catching Up

It has been a little while since I have written anything.

Lets see...

Thanks Giving was alright. The turkey sucked! There was something wrong with it, it was like it had fat all through it or something, it was really nasty and I hardly ate any. Other than that the day was good. We played some games with the fam and that was fun.

I went shopping on Friday and Saturday and got just about all of my Christmas shopping done. Currently I have everyone but my dads present.

Last week was pretty uneventful. Although Zac took the first of three tests he needs to finally get into the Navy and he passed it, thats always nice. Oh and I went and saw New Moon. OH MY GOODNESS I LOVED IT!! It was so much better than the first one. I am going to totally buy that movie when it comes out. I went with my friend Savanah and she really enjoyed it too!

Ummm...Oh as far as my weight, I haven't been exercising because I have a cold that is in my chest and I get asthma really bad if I work out. So I am waiting for that to be gone so I can start running again. I did lose a pound last week which I guess I can't complain to much, at least it was something. That is a total of 6 pounds so far. Only 71 more pounds until I am at a weight I would be happy with. I would really like to lose 81 more pounds but we will see! I have a long way to go!!

I think thats about it for boring ol' me.

Anniversary Weekend

For our fourth anniversary we decided to take a weekend and go down to Lincoln City. It was a much needed vacation for sure! I realized while talking to Alicia that I have never spent the night away from my children. After discovering that, I was even more excited to get away for a couple of days. My parents were brave and took the the babes for the weekend which was very nice of them

We left Friday afternoon and headed down. The weather wasn't to bad, it was a little rainy but not to bad. When we got there we stopped for a late lunch at Pig'n Pancake which is always a good choice. We went to the store and picked up a few things and then headed to the house that we had rented.

It was a nice house, we really enjoyed the home. While we were just chillen watching TV/ movies, we kept looking around like we would if we were looking after the kids. It was so quiet and we could actually hear the TV. It was so weird! I kept thinking I had to go check on the kids. I missed them but I was still able to enjoy the weekend.

Saturday morning we went for a run down to the beach and on the beach, that was nice and very relaxing. We went to Pig'n Pancake again for breakfast and then we headed down to the Newport Aquarium which I have been to a few times but Zac hasn't. He really enjoyed it. He stopped everywhere to take pictures. I was just walking along and would turn around and Zac would be nowhere to found. He loved the sharks and being in those tunnels. We had fun.

We went out to dinner Saturday night at Kyllo's, our favorite restaurant in Lincoln City. It is right on the beach front and we got a seat right at the window so we could watch the ocean, it was really nice. When we were leaving the restaurant, it was starting to get really stormy. The rain was falling at a diagonal and the wind was so strong.

At the house we used the fireplace and had nice warm fire and watched TV again and ate WAY to much food!! Around 11 we turned off the TV to head to bed and realized that all the weird noises we had been hearing was the wind blowing chairs around on the deck and sending gusts down the chimney. We went to bed and I could not fall asleep, the wind was SO strong. I have never seen or heard wind that strong before. You could hear it coming; it would start out as a loud rumble and get louder and louder until it would slam into the house. It was nuts. The power went out at some point during the night and at about 6 or so in the morning there was a massive hail storm and thunder and lightening. We had ourselves a pretty crazy storm that night.

In the morning we got up and got ready to go, cleaned up that house and headed out. Zac was really wanting to drive out on the beach but when we got there, at low tide, the storm surge had the waves coming almost all the way up the beach so we decided not to go for a drive. We did, however, get out with the camera and head down. As soon as we started walking down to the beach, the wind picked up and the rain did too. The wind and rain was so hard and cold that it seriously gave me brain freeze. I could lean back into the wind and it would hold me up, and I am a big girl. It was pretty awesome except for the fact that we got soaked and now had no where to change. Oh well. We went down to Depot Bay next and stopped at Boiler Bay to take some pictures. Again when we stopped and got out the wind and rain picked up again soaked us even more. At Depot bay it did the same thing! I don't know what was up with that but it was weird. We had enough and were so wet we decided to stop and get some chocolates at Fuddy Duddy Fudge and then head home.

We had planned on heading back up the 101 to Tillamook but considering the storm that had passed through and that there were still gusts up 85 MPH being recorded there we decided to just go home the way we came.

We had a great trip and here are some of the pictures from it.

Weight Update

I haven't posted anything about my weight in a couple weeks because, well, I haven't lost any weight. There was something that was hindering my weight loss and needed to be fixed. I took care of that on Monday of last week, the 16th, and when I weighed my self Friday morning, I had already lost two pounds in three and half days. I was pretty excited. So far that is 5 pounds that I have lost.

I am afraid that this weekend I ate a little to much and a little to much junk at that. I hope I haven't gained any weight over my fun weekend getaway for my anniversary. I will write about my fun weekend and post some pictures of the stormy weather and the Newport Aquarium tomorrow. Good night!

Vacation/Funeral

We got a call last Tuesday letting us know that Zac's uncle had passed away. His uncle lived up in Port Angeles, WA so Zac and I decided that we would make a weekend out of it. I know that sounds horrible, yeah someone died, now we get a vacation! Before you judge, know that Zac only met his uncle twice in his life and the last time was about 18 years ago. We mainly went to support Zac's mom.

For anyone that has seen or is a fan of Twilight, I am sure you can guess what we decided to do. Yes we took a drive over to Forks, WA. We drove through the main drag which included a whopping one stop light and a whole lot of nothing! I think the only things they actually used in the movie was the welcome to Forks sign and I think a diner on the edge of town. I thought I saw another building that was in the movie which was the police station in the movie but it was not a police station in real life, if that was even the same building. Zac and I thought it was pretty funny. They did have these stores both in Forks and in Port Angeles called Dazzled by Twilight. They had all sorts of stuff Twilight related, I thought it was really funny.

                               

Anyway, we left very early Friday morning and headed up north. When we got to the Tacoma's Narrow bridge, I was very impressed. It was beautiful up there. I didn't think that it would be much different than Oregon but boy was I wrong. I think the main difference is that there is so much more water up in that area because of the Sound. We didn't get any pictures of the bridges but they were beautiful. There were so many hills and A LOT of trees. We stopped by his grandparents house for a little bit before we headed on to Port Angeles.

That was interesting, his grandparents are pretty old and his grandfather has Alzheimers which made conversation interesting but we were patient with him. It was his grandmother that was so impatient with him, she kept yelling at him and saying "Fred you just asked them that!" While we were there we got to meet Zac's uncle Fred Jr. His uncle Fred has horses, lots of horses. Kiersten enjoyed seeing them although if she got to close like within 5 feet she would freak.

After we left their house we continued on. We did a lot of driving, through the Olympic National Park, the Hoh Rain Forest, Forks and around part of Crescent Lake which was beautiful. The rest of the pictures are of our drive and of Port Angeles.

These are some pictures from Crescent Lake. It was pretty cloudy but the sun was making an appearance which made for some awesome pictures and great views.

Some views of Port Angeles.

Zac and I with the Port of Port Angeles and Victoria Canada in the background.

"Sigh" I Know Whats Wrong With Me

For the last few months, I have been feeling like I have been going crazy, seriously crazy. I am anxious all the time and have mood swings like like nobodies business. I have gained weight, well I have since lost 3lbs, but I started trying to loose weight because I had gained so much weight. I have an appetite, all I want is sweets; chocolate, cake, pastries, cookies, candy, just about anything with lots of sugar. Trying to loose weight has been killer because I haven't been able to control my cravings.

I have been trying to work out but due to the lack of energy, getting no sleep due to children and insomnia, I have not had the drive I need to get my fat butt off the couch to do it. Due to my messed up moods and anger flare ups, my marriage has been suffering and so have my children. My temper has been so short with them and I get to the point where I can't be around them anymore because I am just yelling at them.

I have been wondering for about a month and a half if there is something seriously wrong with me. I really didn't feel right in the head. Well I finally found out the problem. Birth control. I went to see my doctor and told her I thought that was what the problem was and she said that Mirena doesn't do that I might have a thyroid problem or a vitamin B deficiency. Well I just got the test results back today and I don't have a thyroid problem or a vitamin B deficiency.

For the last hour I have been reading all of the Mirena horror stories online and there are A LOT of them. Turns out me and thousands of other woman all have the same symptoms, with one common factor, the Mirena birth control.

So needless to say, I am calling my doctor in the morning and going off of the Mirena birth control AS SOON AS POSSIBLE!!!!!!!

I feel so relieved that I now know what is wrong with me and that it is a simple fix and I don't need any medication. Woo-hoo, I will be normal again soon!!

Halloween

For those of you who know me well, you know that I hate halloween but for the sake of my children, and how cute they look in their costumes, I take part in this evil holiday designed to scare the s*** out of little kids.

We didn't actually go trick or treating on halloween because Zac is scared of the neighborhood we live in and didn't want to venture out into the "ghetto". That was okay by me. I made it very clear to Zac that I wouldn't be doing halloween, or taking them trick-or-treating at least, when we got married. If he wants the kids to go trick-or-treating, other than ward and work activities, then he can take them. Last year was an exception considering Zac was busted up from falling out of a tree.

Thursday my moms work had a trick-or-treat at her work, you know cubicle to cubicle, office to office, which was a lot of fun. There were so many cute little kids there in their cute little outfits, except one of mine. We bought Fat Man a cute little monkey outfit to wear but it turns out that it didn't fit him when we tried to put in on Thursday. It wouldn't zip all the way up and he couldn't straighten his legs all the way. We thought we would just put him it for a few minutes at my moms work and then take him out. But when we got there he was asleep and we didn't feel like trying to squeeze him into the costume again. So we just left him in his white onesie and called him the Michelin man. It was pretty cute even though it wasn't planned at all.

Friday night was the ward trunk-or-treat and luckily, my friend Erin had a turtle costume that she used for her son last year and let us borrow it. Thank you Erin, you were a life saver! It was way to cold for Fat Man to be the Michelin man. Squishy girl was tinker bell and she was so darn cute. She even let me cut he bangs a little bit and she let me do her hair up all nice two days in a row. I was impressed.

Here are the pictures from the work trick-or-treat and the ward trunk-or-treat.

I Did It!

Last Sunday I wrote about being so fat and how sick I was of it and that I was going to do something about it. Well this last week I did. This last week I ate better, I had many slip ups and and bad choices, but I did better. I tried to exercise everyday which turned out to be more like every other day or so. Even with not doing as well as I had hoped, I still lost 3lbs. It isn't a lot but it is a start. I am more motivated now to do even better this week and maybe I will lose more! To be continued....

This Fat Has Got to Go!!!!!

I am fat and I am finally fed up with it. It consumes my every thought. I have never been this big unless I was pregnant. After I had Ethan, I started loosing weight, and it was coming off pretty rapidly. But when we moved I think the stress of everything really made me start gaining weight. Since I moved here I have gained 12 pounds. That is SO NOT COOL!!!

I can't take it anymore. I must loose weight, I MUST! I have decided today that I am going to change. I am going to start being more careful of what I eat and exercise every day. If I could afford a gym member ship I would go that route but since I don't, I have to make a point of doing my work out videos or finding the time to go out for a jog/walk.

Every Sunday I will weigh myself and post it up on here. I am not brave enough to post how much I actually weigh but I will tell you that I want to loose 87 pounds. I will do a before and after picture, I will post the before pic tomorrow.

I am determined to do this! I have to for my own sanity. It is driving me crazy knowing how big I am and that I don't fit right into any of my clothes. Next Sunday I will post my results for the week, I just hope that there is something to report!

The Pumpkin Patch!

Today we finally got to go to the pumpkin patch. There was no rain, just nice fall weather. The play group from my ward decided that they were going to go to the pumpkin patch today too. Samira and her two little ones carpooled with us and Kamaile and her two little ones met us out there. Paige brought a little boy she looks after and Alicia and her two little girls met us out at Krugers also. It was so nice to spend some time with some of the ladies from my ward and get to know them better. Both Samira and Kamaile have little girls close in age to Squishy girl so they have fun playing, kind of. They stare at each other more than anything, it's kind of funny.

It was so good to see Alicia and Paige too. I haven't seen them in two years I think, or almost two years. Either way it has been a long time. It was fun catching up.

I loved these pictures, the mommies and their babies. Alicia is one little girl short but it is still a really cute picture. The top left is Alicia and little girl Addison, Me and my Fat Man and Squishy Girl are top right. Kamaile and her little girl, (I have no idea how to spell her name) and her son, (she is carrying him) are bottom left and Samira and Isabella and Isaac are bottom right.

One of the first things we did was head over to see the animals they had. They had the biggest pig I have ever seen. She was HUGE!!! They also had a cow, a really hairy cow. We all thought he was pretty cute until he started sticking his horns through the gate trying to stab the little kids. That was not so cute. They had some chickens too, one of them had no feathers around its neck, not sure what happened there. In the chicken coup, there was a panel of insulation and the chickens were eating it. Not sure how good that is for the chickens but hey they aren't my chickens. Squishy girl loved it when the roosters would make their rooster noise, whatever it's called. She would laugh and it was the funniest little laugh.

We got to go on a hay ride which was very short and kind of pointless. I think it would have taken us less time to walk over to the mini pumpkin patch than to wait for, load, ride, and unload at the mini patch. Oh well, it was fun and I think the kids liked it, I think. They didn't dislike it but they weren't jumping up and down with joy either. I got a couple really cute pictures of Squishy Girl at the patch too. I love these pictures. Then again, I don't know that there are many pictures of her I don't like.

She wouldn't pick up the pumpkins because they were dirty. I did get her to squat down so I could take some cute pictures. Alicia picked up a little pumpkin and handed it to her and she was hesitant to take it because it had dirt on it, it was funny. I had to ask her five times to look up at me instead of the dirty pumpkin in her hand. The face I got in the shot looks so snobish, it cracks me up. After the pictures were done I told her she could put it down so she drops it and walks on like nothing happened.

Mean while, Page was holding my little Fat Man for me. Yes he is huge. Paige and Alicia kept on commenting on how big he is. And just in case you were wondering, I took him to the doc yesterday and he weighed in at 23lbs. Anyway... I got some cute pictures of Fat Man and Paige.

Fat Man got a little hungry while we were there so we reclined him in Samira's awesome double stroller, (which was a life saver for both of us) and he chugged away.

After the mini pumpkin patch we got back on hay ride and took the 5 minute or less ride back to were we started. I got a cute picture of Kamaile and Samira with there children, I wish I could have been in the pic too, but I was the one taking the picture, oh well. You can see both Samira and Kamaile and their little girls but both of their little boys, because they are only like 2 months old, are hiding under blankets.

After the hay ride we went back by the insulation eating chickens, the mean cow and the huge pig and browsed through the little market they had. We then headed over to the hay pile where the kids played for a little while. There was a pumpkin washing station and these evil little girls would let our kids even touch the bucket. Adam, the little boy with Paige was touching the pumpkins and these evil little girls kept saying, "these are our pumpkins, you can't touch them". They were sitting in water and they were scrubbing them. Adam was not trying to steal their pumpkins, he was touching them. Paige put them in their place though, it was funny. After getting some cute pictures of the kids we decided to head on to another pumpkin patch and get some lunch and see what else we could find.

Here are a few of the cute pictures of the kids I took at the Kruger Farm. I also got a really cute picture of Kamaile's little girl sitting on the hay pile. It was about time. I was trying to take a picture of her but everytime she saw the camera, she would run away. I have no idea who the little kids are in the background, it was some field trip group I think. But they all gathered and started singing some weird song, it kind of creeped me out, but to each their own.

We finally headed off to the cars to clean up and load up and head off to the other patch, The Pumpkin Patch, original name, I know. By the way, trying to contain all the mud we had accumulated on our shoes and children was fun trying to keep out of the car.

At The Pumpkin Patch we sat down and had some lunch before we headed off to look at some more animals. We got over to the barn that had the animals in it and trying to get some pictures wasn't easy. They had them in a pen, obviously but then they also had bars up in front of that, that blocked the view of the animals. You had to move around to get a full view of the animal, if that makes any sense. The pictures I did get were blocked by white gates and bars, so no pictures of the lama and pony.

The next fun thing was the big pumpkin for taking pictures. The kids had a lot of fun with that. These are my little ones. Squishy girl loved playing by this and thought it was fun sticking her head through. Here are Alicias girls and Adam playing too, they all were having so much fun.

I got a bunch of cute pictures of Squishy Girl today and one of them was the dirt that magically appeared on her nose. She was standing in front of me and she walked behind me then back around to the front and there was dirt on her nose. It was cute and kind of funny because if she only knew she had dirt on her face she would freak out. While we were in the market Alicia found a huge head of cabbage. It was bigger than her head. Guess there are lots of huge things that grown on farms, pigs, cabbage, and who knows what else.

Over all the day was really fun and I was glad that I was able to spend it with friends. Thanks you guys!

My Fun Weekend

I had a pretty good weekend, not that I usually have bad ones, but this one was eventful, I guess. Saturday I got to go RS Souper Saturday and spend time with the RS sisters from my ward. That was a lot fun getting to know them better. I also made some fun things.

The top picture is of the birthday board I made. When it is actually finished, and is in use, it will be hanging on a wall and will have ribbon hanging from each month with the names and dates of the birthdays or other celebrations on little wood squares attached to the ribbon. I thought it turned out really cute for the most part. I am not quite done with it. When I am all done, I will put up another picture of the finished product.

The bottom picture is of the Oreo truffles we made. They were SOOOO good!! I used halloween inspired colored chocolates to decorate my little truffles. I don't really care how they look though, they are so good! Thanks Jenny.

After I got back from the RS activity, I sat down for about 45 minutes before we got ready to go to a halloween party. We were actually considering not going because we didn't have costumes. But we called our friend Eric and he said he would rather have us there with no costumes than not have us at all. So we loaded up the kids and headed over to Beaverton, our favorite part of town. It turns out that we were the only ones there, I guess no one else had costumes either. Oh well, they missed out. We ate lots of yummy food and spent time with Eric and Lorraine. They were dressed up as hippies. We had lots of fun, thanks Eric and Lorraine!

Sunday we were actually on time for church. We bathed the kids the night before and got up early and got everything ready before 9:45, we were both impressed. Squishy Girl actually let me do her hair! I was shocked that she let me. She got a little grumpy near the end but I was able to finish. Now for those of you who don't know, Squishy Girl throws a massive tantrum every time I even try to brush her hair. By the time I am done brushing it, I am so exhausted I don't even try to do any thing with it. Instead, I am trying to peel her off the floor because she has thrown herself on the floor screaming and throwing a fit. But it looked really cute and I was glad she let me do it.

Here are a couple pictures I tried to get of her hair. I wish I had a video of what she was doing in the middle picture. She was burping her baby. She would pat the babies back and every couple of seconds say "burp". It was so cute! The bottom picture isn't of her hair but it was a cute picture of her playing with her Grandpa.

This weekend I also had to take some cute pictures of my Fat Man. This one is my favorite. He was trying to crawl into the closet. There wasn't much room in there for him but he kept on trying. It was cute.

This weekend, Zac also wanted me to cut his hair. I HATE cutting his hair. I am so afraid that I am going to mess it up! But I did it anyway. We just used clippers so it wasn't too hard but Zac thought he remember which size he used last time but apparently he didn't because his hair is much shorter than it was last time. This is the before picture:

He was all scruffy and his hair was growing down over his ears.

And here he is after, with very short hair and no scruff.

And finally, I bought the car seat for Fat Man today. I got it from Costco online, free shipping which is always awesome! And I got it in the green, just like the one I posted on my blog last week. I am excited and hope it is everything I am thinking it will be. I also had to buy more diapers today. I buy them online because I get the best deal buying them online but I spent almost $87 on just diapers!! Isn't that crazy. Oh well, I am not doing the cloth thing so thats what I get, right?

The Space In Which I Live

I was cleaning up our room today and realized just how small it really is considering there are four people living in here. Trying to find places for everything and make everything fit in this little room is a task! Everything that we have at my parents house is in this room, except for my Mary Kay stuff but I am sure that will be up here somewhere shortly. Everything else is in storage. It is hard not having all of your stuff and if I wanted or needed something it is such a chore to dig through the storage unit to find something, it isn't really worth it.

I don't know why, but I thought I would share my humble little space with you.

This is our little desk and computer. We also have Zac's dresser in this shot with all the things that I couldn't find a place for sitting on top. Oh, also, we have our air conditioner, which was a life saver this summer. Thanks Mom and Dad!

This is Fat Boy's crib. We only have pink sheets for it at the moment, at least we have blue blankets though. We did have a crib bumper for it but somewhere in the move from Utah to here, it got lost. We just need to get a new one, but for some reason, I doubt that will happen.

This is the angle standing over by the window. There is our lovely closet that all four of us share; its cramped, let me tell you. Fat Boy's dresser is in there too because we didn't know where else to put it. Squishy Girl's dresser is in the hall because there was no more room in the bedroom.

And finally, here are the sleeping quarters. I made up Squishy Girl's bed really quick just to see if she would notice. She did and it was destroyed in about 10 minutes. And my dresser is the first two drawers in Squishy Girl's captains bed and the top one in the middle. The bottom one in the middle is Mary Kay stuff and the last two are all of our movies.

There you have it, the grand tour of our little room. It's not much for sure, but at least we are getting our debt paid down which is the whole purpose of living here. We are not sure how much longer we are going to be here, a while, but no exact timeline. We are for sure getting anxious to have our own place and have even looked at an apartment but we just can't justify paying that much in rent yet until we pay off at least the rest of the medical bills. But if Zac gets into the military we will be staying here until he gets stationed somewhere, and with the military, you never know how long that will be.

Well friends, until next time...

My Beautiful Babies

Fat Man and Squishy Girl playing together, that only lasted a minute or two and then Squishy started taking all the toys away from Fat Man because they were "my toys". After I took these pictures I was looking at them, especially the bottom right, and man she really does look like me, thats so weird to have another person that looks so much like me.

After church we stuck on Finding Nemo for Squishy Girl and she looked so cute just sitting there. The pic on the top right was her "whats happening to Nemo" face. The two bottom ones were my attempts to get her to look at me so I could get her cute little face. But she would turn her head really quick and then look back. Then she started turning her head but looking back at the TV. Finally I got one shot of her looking right at the camera, silly girl.

I have to say these are my favorite pictures of Fat Man yet. He was sitting on our bed and was looking at me and just started smiling and laughing, I had to grab the camera and I am so glad I did.

My little Fat Man sitting up on his own! Yeah!! And man, that smile and those chubby cheeks, I just cant get enough.

This was yesterday at a friends house. He is getting so big! I can't believe that he is almost 7 months old! I love the bottom right shot of his cleavage.

Fat Man found one of sissy's socks to chew on, and of course it was the one she had just taken off. We took it away from him as soon as we snapped a few cute pictures.

Car Seats!

Who thought looking for a car seat would be so difficult! Luckily the infant car seat that we have was given to us when we had Squishy Girl. We used that for her until she was a year and then we bought her a front facing one that will hopefully last until she doesn't have to be in a car seat/booster seat anymore. We are now using the infant car seat for Fat Man. However, Fat Man has grown quite big and is nearing the time when he will no longer be comfortable in that seat. He is already 20+ pounds and so long that his big little feet stick out almost an inch in the infant car seat. He is so big that Squishy Girl and Fat Man are wearing the same size diapers and clothes. They are almost two years apart!!

Fat Man is looking like a hot dog smashed into a bun in his infant car seat. I have been looking at convertible car seats since July and still have not settled on one. I need to do so fast because we can no longer adjust the infant seat for Fat Man.

I think I have finally narrowed it down to two seats. One is a little cheaper but I like the more expensive one better, of course.

The first one, the cheaper one, is the one that Zac wants to get because it is cheaper.

This is the Eddie Bauer Deluxe convertible car seat. This one costs $129.99. It will seat Fat Man rear facing until he turns a year, he already meets the weight requirement. It will fit the Fat Man front facing up to 80 lbs. It does all the cool things that I like but the dimensions are smaller.

The one that I really like and keep coming back to is the Safety 1st Alpha Omega Elite Car Seat.

Now I don't think we would be getting it in this color, I wouldn't mind it but the cheaper ones that I have found don't come in this color. This seat will last Fat Man up to 100lbs. Also the dimensions on this seat are so much bigger and will for sure last the Fat Man until he doesn't need a car seat anymore. I found this seat for as low as $144.99 or something like that.

I think now it is just a matter of convincing the hubby to let me get this one :)