Tuesday, September 11, 2012

Lake Powell 2012

We hadn’t been to Lake Powell for a couple years and thought it would be a great year to go. We all had a blast! What did we do at Lake Powell? Absolutely NOTHING, and it was great! Okay not nothing, but let me tell you there was a lot of relaxing going on. Mixed in with the relaxing we went jet skiing, we laid out in the sun, we read books, we sat on top of the houseboat and looked at the stars, we had glow stick parties at night, we went on a hike/hiked up a giant sand hill, we played plenty of games, and we made daily trips down to the shop to get a treat. Mason enjoyed playing with the hose while it filled up the blue pool. Avery liked to sit on the tube behind the boat and swim all day long. She also liked to line up all the pads on top of the house boat and pretend they were a train or do gymnastic tricks on them with Mason following right behind her. Plus we ate some pretty darn good food! Good food always makes for a great trip.

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This popsicle started out as SpongeBob but quickly melted

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Thursday, September 6, 2012

Preschool

Avery just turned three and started her first year of Preschool.  We have been talking it up all summer so she wouldn’t be nervous.  The first day I could tell she was a little nervous when she asked me on the way to preschool, “Mom, you are going to stay with me right?” Oh, my heart strings being pulled! Once she got in there with all the other kids she did great and told me bye! That made me feel much better about leaving her. 

To tell you the truth I have been pretty nervous about her going to preschool too. I signed her up kind of late and her age class was full so she was put into an older class. Avery just turned 3 so she would already be the youngest in the younger class and now she is going to be with the older kids about to go into kindergarten. After a few weeks I talked to the teacher and she said that Avery is doing so well. She said that she is doing much better then a lot of the older kids in her class.

Avery loves preschool and is really learning so much. At first I just thought Avery needed preschool to be more social and have more interactions with kids her age, she tends to be shy like her mom. But really Avery has learned so much. She is always telling me things, or writing things, or asking me things and I just think, Wow!

After one week of preschool she was drawing on her magna doodle and she said, “Look it says mom.” I looked at it and it really said mom. I couldn’t just trust that she really just wrote that, I had to see for myself. Maybe she just scribbled and it ended up looking like MOM. Nope, I was wrong. I asked her to do it again. She started by drawing a circle in the middle, The O,  then she put two M’s on either side. She really did just write MOM. These aren’t even the letters that they have gone over yet in preschool. I couldn’t be more proud of Avery. She is doing so well in preschool and loving every minute of it.

Avery’s favorite thing at school is show and tell. She picks the thing she wants to show to her class on Monday and carries it in her back pack all week until Friday when the actual show and tell is.

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Wednesday, September 5, 2012

Swim Lessons

This last week Avery had a week of free swim lessons at Aquatots. She had a ton of fun and she learned a lot of good skills. She was the best in her class at climbing out of the pool by herself. The other kids needed a little boost here and there. Avery is getting better at floating on her back. When we would practice at home she didn’t like putting her head all the way back because she got water in her ears. At swim lessons she finally mastered it and will put her head all the way back in the water. She is also getting a lot better at using her arms to swim.

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We couldn’t leave out this happy boy!

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Sunday, September 2, 2012

Princess dance camp

Avery went to a princess dance camp for a day. She loved it. She got to make a crown, learn a dance,  and look in a magic mirror.  When I picked her up all the girls did a little dance they had learned.  Avery is the one in the pink tutu and black leotard. Sorry it is so far away, I sat down right in front of her and when they started the dance for some reason she ran to the other side of the room. All these girls dancing reminded me of the movie “The Little Rascals” when the boys are dancing around not knowing what the heck they are doing; especially when Avery just decides to twirl around in the back.




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Paleo Diet

I just wanted to start out by saying that I have never been on a diet in my life. EVER.  Even if I thought I was going to start a diet, it wouldn’t even last a day. Lets just face it, I LOVE chocolate, and food, way too much to diet!
With that being said, here’s my story of the Paleo diet.  While I was in Utah in April I had made some arrangements to see some friends. We usually meet for dinner after they get done with work. While at Carrabbas, shoving our faces full of their delicious bread, crab cakes, our actual meal plus two Dr. Peppers, we started to discuss what girls talk about, thinking that they are fat.
I can’t talk for my friends, which I think looked great, but at that moment I was definitely at my heaviest weight in my life. I would like to think that I could blame it on being married. Or possibly that I have two kids under the age of 3; doesn’t everyone use that excuse? Well those are definitely not valid excuses.  During dinner my friend Alece told us all about the paleo diet that she had tried. We all decided to start the diet on May 1st for 30 days. She sent us a bunch of emails about the paleo diet so we could get ready for it. While I was in Utah I never had the time to actually do any research or plan out what I was going to eat. I drove home to Arizona the day before we were to start this diet. That night at ten o’clock I was reading what Alece had sent me and thought that I was going to die. My mom just laughed and laughed at me when I was telling her all the things I couldn’t eat. To put it simply you cannot eat anything. Okay not anything, but that’s how I felt. You cannot eat dairy, bread, sugar, and by sugar I mean anything with sugar in it like ketchup or any dressings. You wouldn’t believe all the things with added sugar. You can’t put butter on anything or cook with it.  All you can eat is fruit(natural sugar), vegetables, and meat. Some refer to it as eating like a caveman. Here is the link of the 30 day program we followed.
The first day I really felt like I was about to die from starvation. I was definitely not prepared at all for this. The only thing I ate the first day was carrots and fruit. I was starving! That night I decided I was going to get some recipes and everything I needed for them so I wouldn’t be tempted to eat all the snacks around the kitchen. Trust me, I have a lot of snacks around. I think with kids you just have to have snacks on hand.  I also got a huge bag of raw almonds to snack on if I thought I was about to give in. I won’t bore you with my day to day progress. I will just say that I did it! I stuck to it the whole month. Not one Dr. Pepper was slurped during the month of May. Here are my results. This is also with little to no exercise. I did walk 30 mins everyday for the first week and then my back was acting up and I didn’t exercise the rest of the month.
Measurements
  • On each arm I lost ½ to ¾ of an inch. You know the area when you wave to someone and your under arm flab waves back.
  • On each thigh I lost 2 ½ inches.
  • Around the hips I lost 1 inch,
  • Around the waist (belly button area) I lost 2 inches.
  • Around the biggest part of my butt, which had gotten rather large, I lost 3 inches.
  • And of course the one place where most girls would rather gain weight I lost the most; around the chest I lost 4 inches. Trust me there wasn’t much there to lose either.

The grand total of weight lost in the month of May was 15 pounds. I had lost 12 pounds in the first two weeks and then I came to a huge slow down and I lost the last three pounds the last two weeks. Now that the 30 days is over I have gone back to eating my “normal” just more cautious of what I am eating and not snacking so much. I have lost two more pounds and slurped plenty of Dr. Pepper.