Adalyn

Wouldn't you know that she would wake up as soon as I try to do a little update about her? She is almost 6 months and the sweetest little thing ever. She's very easy going but BUSY. She will be crawling any day now. We love having her in our family! I better run before she gets hysterical and won't nurse :)

Mya

This girl. I have no words. I laugh just thinking about her. She is the most silly, funny, loving, girly, sassy thing I know. She likes to dress up and add accessories. She loves shoes and the movie Tangled. She also LOVES pink! She keeps me on my toes and makes me laugh every single day. The other night we let the kids stay up late to watch Zookeeper with us. We had all the lights turned off, and she was snuggled up to me on the couch. I wasn't really paying attention to what she was doing during the movie since it was dark, and I was holding Adalyn too. When the movie ended, and I took her up to go to bed I laughed til I was in tears at what I saw on her face. She had been using a washable marker as lip gloss throughout the movie. She also decided to taste the marker. End result: some very blue lips and teeth. She was embarrassed when I took her to show her dad.

Jacob

This is his current most favorite thing to do. He wants to ride his bike everyday. This picture is him riding in a little skills bike park. He LOVES it and tells everyone he's a mountain biker now. He's gotten so good at it that we're looking at buying him a nicer bike with gears. He has a hard time pedaling this one uphill which frustrates him. He wants to! Other news about Jacob: Tball starts tomorrow. Preschool year is winding down. We went to kindergarten orientation last week. He was excited to tour the school and see where he will be going in the fall. He still loves to play with his friends and would do so everyday if he could. He spent quite a bit of time on the ski slopes this winter and has gotten pretty good at that as well. I have secret hopes that he will be pro at skiing or biking someday :)

Update

Just a quick follow up on my last blog post. I am still working at getting our family more healthy. We have made a lot of changes that I am happy about. Besides the cereal and chicken nugget thing, I stopped buying processed snack foods for the kids. So no fruit snacks, granola bars, crackers, etc. I do buy Triscuits since they have like 6 ingredients and I know what they all are. And Tostitos makes these black bean tortilla chips that are all natural. I can even get a giant back at Costco :) I have also stopped buying a lot of products that have high fructose corn syrup. That stuff is in everything!!! I make granola bars from scratch and the kids snack on fresh fruits and veggies, string cheese, or yogurt (no sugar added-I buy plain greek yogurt and add a little honey or berries. They really like it frozen). We've also gotten a lot better at eating leftovers for lunch. Jacob LOVES PB & honey sandwiches! And our peanut butter is all natural now. No sugar added or HFCS. We've switched to brown rice and whole grain pasta. My kids don't know about white bread so that hasn't been an issue. but buying a true 100% whole grain loaf of bread can be tricky at some stores. I really need to start making my own bread!!
I am still on track to run my half marathon in June as well!!

Theme for 2012

I have a ton of pictures and other things that I should blog about for my "journaling" purposes, but my thoughts are almost always concerned with one word-HEALTH. My focus for 2012 is on being healthy in every aspect of my life. Physically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, financially...you get the picture. I have been contemplating this for several months so it wasn't necessarily sparked by the new year. It was actually sparked last year by some different things that happened to people we love. But I was pregnant and all of my energy was consumed by growing a healthy baby and giving birth to her. Once I started feeling somewhat normal again it was time to tackle this task of becoming a more healthy me and helping my family become more healthy as well. I have spent a lot time reading and thinking about how best to clean up our diet. I have big plans for this for what I want to see happen with that this year, and I am excited about what I have been able to do in just one month. My goal is for us to 80/20. That means 80% whole foods, 20% other. No more processed crap. 80% of everything we eat this year needs to come from real, made from scratch foods. The very first two steps I did were to stop buying cold cereal and dinosaur chicken nuggets. These were very difficult for me to do because I am NOT a morning person and cereal is so easy to fix for my kids. And what's easier than popping some nuggets in the microwave and adding some fruit and calling it lunch? And those were Jacob's favorite things to eat. He had them everyday for months/years. BUT my kids deserve better. I recently read an article about how feeding our kids sugar daily from an early age is like giving them a cigarette at an early age. They get addicted and the sugar is killing them slowly. Yikes!! What about all the other stuff in the packaged foods we buy? Can you even pronounce the names of half the stuff that's in there? Last night I read an article on ksl.com about a politician in Oklahoma sponsoring a bill that would make it illegal to put human fetuses in food. WOW!!! I was floored that that would even be a concern. Makes you wonder what else they are putting in there. I could go on all night about this. Bottom line is I want to live a long healthy life. I want to be able to ride my mountain bike and hike and do everything else I like to do in 30 years. I want the same for my kids, and I don't want my husband dying on me at age 60 due to something that can be prevented, which almost happened to my mother-in-law last year. I know I will never be perfect. My kids will still get/want their treats, and we will still have pizza sometimes. I took the kids grocery shopping today, and Jacob wanted all this "junk" food. All I had to do was remind him that we are trying to take care of our bodies a little better. And he gets it!!! So I am making him some oatmeal walnut chocolate chip cookies :) No white sugar or eggs. Just oats, nuts, chocolate chips, a little oil, brown sugar and flour. And on June 25 I will be running my very first half marathon!!

Thanksgiving Point

We did the wagon ride through the lights at Thanksgiving Point twice this year. Each time with a different group of friends. We also stopped by to see Santa's reindeer and to get a treat.