Cinco de mustache

Another cinco de mustache has come and gone.

We ate the Cafe Rio yummy recipes.

We beat down a pinata.

We grew mustaches.

We drank horchata.

Its always a fiesta to remember.

Well hopefully they remember it after downing those.

Oh come on, its just orange pop.

Or was it?

Hope everyone had a great Cinco de Mustache! I would just like to thank Chris for adding such beauty to the only family shot that both kids are actually looking at the camera. He's pretty much apart of the family anyways I guess.

One special girl

Travis had to work a 30 hour shift on Mother's day, so I didn't get breakfast in bed or the chance to sleep in. But that was OK because he got off work at noon and we went to church and were able to bless sweet Brooklyn. I was a little nervous that Travis would be "tired drunk" and would forget what to say, but he really was in tune with the Spirit and he gave an amazing blessing. That is something that I will remember on my 3rd mother's day. But Trav, you really aren't off of the hook. Next Sunday I'm expecting breakfast in bed, sleeping in, dishes done and time to myself. Love you! Enjoy these pictures of Brooklyn. She is such a neat baby.

Gettin' healthy... or die trying

I have a confession to make. I didn't gain very much weight when I was pregnant. In fact when I got home from the hospital after having Brooklyn, I only weighed 2 pounds more than the day I found out I was pregnant. I'm sure you are wanting to swear at me and punch your computer and hate me. But the reason I am finally confessing this is because I totally blew it after the pregnancy! I forgot that my body is weird and that I really pack on LBS during breastfeeding. I know a lot of women lose tons of weight during breastfeeding, but for some reason I just pack on the pounds. On top of that, life was crazy after the pregnancy. Brooklyn had to have surgery, my grandpa died, I was unexpectantly in Utah for a month without a husband, I was famished from breastfeeding and I forgot that nuts have a lot of calories. You see, my parents are health freaks lately. They don't have much junk in the house, so while I was staying with them, I pounded almonds like the end of the world was coming. What I'm saying is, I got chubs.When I was in Utah and Travis would call me to check in, I was always hogging down on something. One time he called me and I actually lied to him after he asked me, "are you eating again!"Anyways, when I came home from Utah, I was not fitting in my jeans, which I fit perfectly into 4 weeks previous (and post-pregnant). I gained about 6-7 pounds in 5 weeks.

Travis also has a confession that I will tell. Research hospital is a great hospital to work for because they provide free food from sun up to sun down. Travis really likes pancakes, and ironically, they make great ones. He likes to pound them every early morning. With that and 4 years of mostly studying and limited exercise unfortunately, his waste line has also expanded through the years.

It was time.

A lot of friends in our neighborhood have confessions as well, but I will leave that for them. Long story short, we decided to do a neighborhood weight loss competition. There were 20 people involved, 5 teams of 4 . We did a month long "lifestyle change." We based it off of the game on diet. I picked this diet because it isn't another one of those fad diets, where you lose 10 pounds a week. Its a diet that focuses on eating all things in moderation (sound familiar)? It helps you with portion sizes, balancing carbs, fats and protein and eating natural foods. It is a competition. You get points for eating 5 meals per day, sleeping 7 hours a night, drinking 3 liters of water, exercising 20 minutes, changing a bad habit, picking a good habit and communicating with your team. We were on teams of 4. This was serious because each person put 20 bucks in the pot. After 4 weeks of doing it, I was fitting back into my jeans, I was feeling great, I was detoxed from my sugar addiction and I was $150 richer! Our team barely squeaked out a W, it really was a close one!

We have been off of the diet for almost two weeks. I have splurged a little, but I feel like I have picked up really great habits. I really don't need to stuff my face as much as I have been, I don't need a dessert every night, I loved doing the habits, my teeth have never been flossed so much in their life! I feel like Travis and I got a lot closer too. We were totally on a mission. It is kind of funny though, because we know its the right way to live, but it is so easy to go back to bad habits, and of course we have slipped a little bit. The part I hated about the diet was that it was so regimented. I felt like I was on a breastfeeding schedule because I had to eat every 4 hours or I would lose points, but not sooner than 2 hours apart. I felt like I was always fighting the clock and trying to figure out when to squeeze my next meal in, etc. It was really fun to do with a group, and I felt like I couldn't cheat because I would let my team down. I do recommend this if you need to lose a few pounds, or even to just get into good eating habits.

Going along with the theme of being healthy, I ran in the Kansas City temple first annual 5K last Saturday. Kansas City is finally getting a temple, and the whole exterior is finished. What better way for us Mormon's to party hardy than by running a race! I haven't ran an actual 5K race in awhile, and I forgot how hard 5K's are. Its such a short distance that you feel like you don't need to pace yourself, so I ran hard throughout the whole race. I seriously about died on the last stretch. I ended up finishing first out of the girls with a time of 21:26. I can't lie, my friend Rachel would have probably beat me, but she had to stop and tie her shoe two times, and I only beat her by about 20 seconds, bad luck Rach! Here are some pics:

Me and my girls

Kim, Rach, Me and Brooklyn. Look how red faced I was

Accepting the awards, the temple is in the background (side note: Avery is pretty much potty trained, but we kind of forgot to ask her if she needed to go potty through the whole race, and she totally pooed her pants on that podium)

The people were nice enough to offer snacks for the runners... oh and their kids?

Sugar crash!

I think she got bored

So that is our little success story. I swear the older you get, the harder it is to keep up these days! My parents are coming in town this week, I hope they leave their evil nuts at home! Sid and I are doing a sprint triathlon. Stay tuned!

Eggs and such

Whoa! Can you believe it is already past Easter. 2011 is flying by!!! It has been a very different year for us so far. Lots of change and adjusting. We did what every other fellow Christian does for this great holiday.
We...

Colored some eggs... beware, these pictures may contain some brief nudity.


She was totally into it, we couldn't keep her busy body in her chair!




She was mostly into it, but mostly was into sucking on her left fist


He was into it, but not into constantly reminding Avery to sit her bum on her chair

I was pretty into it too

Can you guess who's egg belongs to whom (I hate the word "whom" I think it sounds so ugly)?




Oh Travis.

We also participated in an intense egg locating search in our neighborhood


This was before the damage

This was after

I think she is going to be a pretty intense athlete because she didn't smile once during the hunt, she was on a mission. Or maybe she just really loves candy? She had this look the entire time.

She was cool with the Easter bunny but I think she was still scouring the field for eggs. Intense I tell ya.

At last, Easter morning...

Avery's aunt Tracie bought her her Easter dress. Thanks aunt Titi. We curled her hair. She was looking fancy!

Trav got off work around 10:30 that morning, and it was the funniest thing, because he took Avery and Brooklyn out for a walk, and the Easter bunny showed up while they were gone. Perfect timing!

The Easter bunny decided this year to be more practical and have less candy this year, so Avery got a swimming suit, some white sandals, and of course a bunch of eggs filled with candy. She didn't give a rat about anything but the candy!

Brooklyn got baby hangers, binkies and baby wash in her basket, just what she needed!!!

Travis was spoiled by the Easter bunny this year. He got lots of candy, a swim suit, some shorts and some deodorant.

Yes that is my Pony Basket, and I got exercise clothes and candy


It was enjoyable! We tried to teach Avery the true meaning of Easter. At first it was hard to explain, because we didn't know how to tell her that Jesus died for us. But then my mom sent this really sweet package, and it had an Easter book about Jesus on it, so we just read her that story. Next time we will just leave it up to some random author who we don't know to teach our kid!

Happy Easter everyone!

Two

For one of my new year's resolutions, I decided I was going to blog more often. I did good for awhile. Then two kids happened. I got lazy. Two kids is tough. I will be honest. I thought it wouldn't be that big of a change. I thought going from zero to one kid would be tougher. You quit your job, you become a stay at home mom, you can't just get up and go see a movie with your husband, all that stuff happens when you have a kid, so I thought it would be a cinch to adjust to two kids. Boy was I slapped in the face with reality. It really has been tough. The thing is, I was blessed with probably the easiest baby God could have given me. Really. She sleeps about 12 hours a night with only one night feeding in the middle. She only cries when there is something wrong. She smiles a ton. She doesn't mind her very hands on sister and she loves to cuddle with me! The hard part is the two year old. I love that kid with all of my heart, but lately she has turned into a diva. We are working on it with her, but some days I have to go into another room and pull out my rug and chant. Between my needy two year old and my baby, who I think is perfect but unfortunately still needs to eat, poop and sleep, I have had very little time to myself. Blogging hasn't been on my top list of things to do when I have "me" time. Thirty Rock sounds a lot more appealing (I just started watching the first season, and it is amazing, why have I not watched it ever, Tina Fey is rocking my world, but this is for another blog).

Anyway, I have to talk about last Wednesday, and this kind of explains our lives right now... last Wednesday I was excited because I had plans to go to the library for story time, then go to the park with some friends. Avery woke me up about 7:30 and we started the day. We had breakfast, I even folded all of my laundry. I packed lunches, even showered and got ready for the day. I had both of my girls ready, with bows in their hair. This is huge for us! We were actually going to be on time for the library, I just had to get the keys and go. Oh wait, where where the keys? Hmmmm I couln't find them. This always happens though, and they usually are located within 5 minutes. Not this time. I looked for about ten minutes. I remembered that Trav was the last one to drive the car, so I called him at work, and he remembered seeing them in a weird place, but couldn't remember where. Crap. Time was ticking, and I was starting to get anxious. I did another sweep of the house and nothing! We were now officially late for story time. I decided to give up on the idea of story time and take a break from the keys. The next thing I know, my neighbor, Jana is knocking on my door. Travis had called her to come and help me find the keys. Ha! I told her not to worry about it (she has 3 kids of her own!) The next thing I knew, Travis was home from work on his lunch break. He must have felt really bad, so he wanted to come and help me. He looked for about 30 minutes and nothing. We were starting to think that Avery snatched them right up. So Travis went back to work. After he left, I got a call from him. He got a ticket! These missing keys were suddenly becoming a little expensive. I put Avery down for a nap, and searched a little more. When she woke up, there was diarrhea all over her and her bed. It was the nastiest smell ever!!! I was starting to lose it a bit. After I got Avery out of the tub, all the bedding and clothes into the laundry, etc I decided to give it up and just get back in my sweats. I tried, I really did. Anyway, after a difficult day with the diva and the keys and all that I started breaking down. Avery is a sucker for tears, so when she saw me, she came out of diva mode and was very sweet and comforting. Travis is also a sucker for tears, so he told me to take it easy and he would put Avery to bed. So nice, but I guess Brooklyn can see right through the tears, because she started bawling hysterically. I think she may have had the same stomach bug as Avery. Anyway, after a while of trying to console her, she finally fell asleep. Travis came down from putting Avery down and had a theory. Our downstairs bathroom toilet was a little backed up, he proposed that Avery flushed the keys down the toilet. He then proceeded to take the toilet apart and fish around. He came to the conclusion that he was wrong. And then he came to another conclusion that he couldn't put the toilet back together. I came to the conclusion that he should probably try to stick to the world of medicine, not plumming. So now we have no downstairs toilet, an expensive speeding ticket and no second car access. At this point, I just had to laugh. The rest of this story is kind of lame. I found the keys the next day under the bed under a blanket. I swear on my first born, we looked there.

The reason I wrote this whole story down is really just for me. 20 years from now, I will read about what life was like with young kids. I will be eating Turkish delight aboard my yacht in the Bahamas and just laugh to myself about the "growing times of my life." I'm so grateful for a sweet husband, good family and great friends (if you all stay true, you will be invited on my yacht.)

I have been such a slacker with posting pictures of Brooklyn. So I'm going to dedicate this post to her with tons of pictures. I love her.

OK Avery, you can be in one too. I love you.

5 Years Today

5 years today I did the greatest thing i've ever done. i still remember showing up just a tincey wincey late! and the way you looked, traipsing about in the snow for hours. and then the standing in line for hours. and then scrubbing the car for another hour because jon decided to use syrup. when i think back, that day must have been longer than a call shift at work! but the next five years have blown by, and i feel like we've done it right, and i'm so in love with you and our little family. you are beyond sweet. no more month long vacations, ok? welcome home and happy anniversary. trav.