Third Baby

I was worried about having a third baby. Don't get me wrong, I was thrilled we were pregnant. We had tried for over a year before I got pregnant so we were definitely happy about it. The thing I was worried about was my heart making room for this new little person. It shouldn't have been a worry considering that I had already experienced the heart expanding joy of a second baby. Still it was a nagging worry in the back of my mind. I had already made room for two babes. Surely I am all loved out. Then Rose was born. You know how people say that their heart doubled when they met their new little one? When Nicco was born my heart doubled. With the birth of Lola it tripled. With Rose's first cry it quadrupled. My heart and I can now love the whole world! At times it feels as though it will burst right out of my chest. My ribs are a poor cage for all this love.

With each child that was given to me I had a change of perspective along with all that heart expanding. With Nicco my life changed from a purely temporal idea to an eternal one. With Lola I began working on being a strong female example. Having Rose in my life has changed my perspective yet again. I am now seeing that this life is a sweet gift. People always say that life is too short to be someone that you aren't. I feel that the opposite is true. Life is too long to not be the person that you truly want to be. The goal should be to live a life full of living. Redundant but true. The day to day can drag on if you are not being true to what you want. Then before we know it the years have flown by. It is a vicious trick of time. Now all I need to figure out is who I want to be. What do I want to be? What do I want to spend my life doing? Who knows. Maybe it is better to focus on what I want to spend my time doing right now as opposed to worrying about my whole life.

I do know that I want to spend as much time as possible with my family and friends creating sweet memories. That is my motivation for working this blog. Making crafts, having parties, sharing meals and creating memories. It should be fun! Life should be fun. Lets share a life full of living.

Organizing Is Not My Strong Suit

This year is going to be the year of organizing our house. It is a sad truth that it will literally take the whole year! That is because I want to do deep organizing and a deep cleaning. Not to mention getting rid of all the unnecessary things we are hanging on to. We need to really take the time and figure out the best ways to organize everything. I love the idea of everything having a place and everything in its place. That is going to take some serious work and planning. I signed up for Apartment Therapy's January cure to help get a jump start. I also started a pinterest board for organization. It is exciting to get started on something that I really hope will help simplify our lives. Below are some great links I found with TONS of ideas. 

50 organizing tips

Love this storage idea and this list.

um what?! This is a freaking awesome idea.

I love this totally cute bathroom storage.

I NEED to do this!

One Word To Rule Them All

Isn't she cute? UGH!

We're back baby! The holidays were awesome and the break was even better. But I am so glad to be back here working in this space. I wish I was coming back with more of a bang but I am back with New Year resolutions. Is that lame? Are you sick of reading these posts? Well then turn back now!

I feel like New Year resolutions are sort of made to be broken. Don't you? Maybe it's just me. We all have this grandiose ideas of how our life will be made perfect this year and how we will prevail against every weakness we have. Maybe that is the issue. Maybe that is just my issue. I give myself a list of things that I damn well better accomplish. It usually goes something like lose 101 pounds, workout 2 hours everyday, make my business into a million dollar endeavor, be the best mom in the world and solve world hunger. They get bigger and bigger until they are just so ridiculous that clearly they won't be happening. Don't get me wrong I intend to do all of those things. It's just that somewhere along the way I lose my motivation. 

This year I am taking it easy on myself. I read this post by Elise over on enJoy it. And I LOVED it. I love the idea of taking one word and making that my mantra. Just one thing to focus on all year and make it part of my life. It has taken me a while to actually figure out my word. There has been one that I can't seem to let go of, however. And that is BRAVE. I want to be brave in my work life, my blog life, my home life, my personal and in my health. I like to think I am a brave risk taker but that is just not true. I want to take reasonable risks to help me become a better person. I am not talking risks that will ruin our lives. I mean I have a family to take care of after all but careful risks. Things that will make me get out there and find the right opportunities. It may be striking up a conversation with another mom at the playground or finally opening my Etsy shop. Who knows. I am going to take the next month and just chant the word BRAVE to myself. See where it takes me! To bravely go where I have not gone before. 

I am still making two resolutions (of course). 

1. Clean and organize the whole house. I am talking going through each room and getting all the stupid little projects done, scrubbing them top to bottom and purging all the crap we don't need. 

2. Eat at home 5 nights a week. With all of our hectic holiday schedules we stopped eating at home. That has made us all feel sick and even more worn out. No more I say! More of this:

This picture has nothing to do with this really other than he is holding food. But isn't he cute?

Are you making resolutions this year? What are they? Did you notice that at no point did I say that I am resolving to lose weight? Yeah I did. It was on purpose.

Peace out! -AnneMarie

weight loss

That picture literally has nothing to do with this post. But I love a good selfie as much as the next person. This post is an update about my weight loss journey so far. DUN DUN DUN!!!

The first week I rocked it. I was an animal! I was so disciplined. That discipline payed off in a big way. I lost 11 pounds and 9 total inches. What?! The second week not so much. I gained 2 pounds. Wah wah! You know what was weird though? I still lost another 2.75 inches. Explain that science.

So what changed from the first week to the second? In short I got lazy. I went from being strict and on my diet to lax. I went back to work and didn't prepare my food before hand. Before heading out the door I would try and scramble to get something together but it never really happened. Which then forced me to get take-out. Yeah I was forced. I stopped drinking the water like I should. I could go on but really I cheated. I am a cheater! UGH! The sad thing is that I just cheated myself. I traded in my long term goal and happiness for a tiny moment of fake happiness.  

You would think that after the success of the first week I would be so pumped and rock my second week. What was the difference? What can I say? Old habits die hard. Real hard. I have learned already that weight loss is an extremely emotional thing for me. There have already been many feelings that have come up. Anger at myself and at others! Fear of the unknown. Fear of failure. Joy! Happiness! But mostly anger. HA! There are things that I clearly need to work out. I am not sure how to work through them but I will figure it out. My hope is that the sweat and tears will be cathartic and help me to wrap my head around the emotions. The funny thing is that I think I deserve better than the body that I have created for myself. I deserve to be able to chase my kids around the yard. I deserve to go on hikes, walks and runs. I deserve to be strong and healthy! That has to be a step in the right direction! The next step is knowing that I deserve more. I need to know it deep down in my heart.

Any helpful and kind tips and advice are so welcome! 

I am hopping on the bandwagon

This blurry picture was taken by my son. I am sad to say that it is one of the ONLY pictures taken of me in the last few months. Literally. I like to be behind the camera not in front of it.  

Emily's post yesterday about DietBet made me think. It reminded me of the one pull up goal I made and then promptly threw aside. Well in all fairness I did do the upper arm workout once. ONCE! Ugh. I am here to recommit to my cause! No more waiting around for it to be cooler, hotter, morning, night, after dinner, before breakfast etc... I have an excuse for any time of day. The only time I have is now. I intend to use it more wisely.

As a family we have decided that it is time to stop eating sugar and fast food. Solidarity! We decided to do that mostly because my husband and son have sensitive stomachs that can't handle it. Really though we all need to lay off the sugar and fast food. Their poor stomachs are a great reason for us to make better health choices. None of us really feel well and that is largely due to what we put in our bodies. I am excited for the challenge of not having sugar. I am also scared shitless! The inevitable weight loss will be an excellent side effect but really I just don't want to feel like crap anymore. I feel like I need to say that we will not be giving up sugar entirely. Our plan is to cut it way back so when we have a special dessert it is a treat instead of an everyday occurrence.

Plus also as well! The time has come to recommit to my one pull up challenge. At the very least I need to be doing some kind of workout. So yoga with an emphasis on planks, lots of push ups, dumb bell rows, bananas and reverse bananas and inverted rows. I want to feel strong. Of course some cardio thrown in there too. Probably walking and jumping rope.

It feels empowering to take back your life. I have a long row to hoe. There are going to be times that I want to quit but I am hoping I can keep the enthusiasm up! Or at least fake it until I make it.

What do you do for workouts? Do you have any good recipes? Help a sister out!

-AnneMarie

 

Is this it?? YES!! I can do hard things and I am going to prove it! Weight loss journey happening here!!

So...I need to lose weight. Boo. Actually I am officially down 23 lbs but by basic accident. I have been trying LOTS of different programs, I mean LOTS and I think I have finally (I sure hope so this time)found what is working for me. I am drinking lots of water, avoiding carbs, attempting to keep them under 50-100 max a day, increasing fruits and veggies, limiting sugar (back to the carbs thing) and exercise.4 days a week. I have promised myself that I will stop eating when I am full, at the first inkling even. You'd think that would be an obvious thing but it hasn't always been that way for me. I also promised myself if there is anything I really want to have I will just have it. No denial. Starting with 3 bites. I am finding that usually after 3 bites of that naughty food thing, it sometimes wasn't all my mind had it cracked up to be so I can leave it and if it is I eat it. Hopefully avoiding the spiral into binge land when I can't stand it anymore and eat far beyond what I should to satisfy the craving.

ALSO...

I found a rad new game weight loss website!! You can click here to go check it out. Its called diet bet and the concept is that everyone playing puts in $30 and all who lose 4% in 28 days gets to split the pot!! HOW FUN?! They also have 6 month games if you are interested. Go check it out!! You can even start your own game if you want with your friends and family!! 

PS I am not being compensated by diet bet..I just think its cool and want to share.  They have a game that just started today so go and have some fun!! Lets do this together!! 

LOVES!!

Em

Ensign Peak

We made a goal as a family to hike once a week all summer long. Our hope is to try and enjoy the lovely mountains and trails around our state. What a waste if we don't! I am going to be sharing some of our favorite hikes here.

 The first hike we took this year was Ensign Peak. This hike is basically our first one every year. And it is rad! The Ensign Peak trail is pretty short and pretty steep in some places. There are a lot of loose rocks and pebbles on the trail so you can slip on the way down. So be careful! The kids do really well on this hike. Lola stands up the trail and yells at me to keep going and that I don't get any more breaks. So fun... 

Just check out these views! You can see for miles in basically all directions. So awesome. The kids swore they could see to Africa. We tried to explain why you couldn't see Africa. Five frustrating minutes later they still didn't get it. Remind me next time that it isn't worth the effort! ;)

It is also really great at night. Last year we went up at dusk. We watched the sunset and then used head lamps to hike back down. That was crazy fun. The kids loved the headlamps and the view was one for the books.

I will be the first too admit that I am not in good shape. Like at all. Hence the one pull-up challenge. But I really enjoy hiking and this one is a pretty great hike. I do have to rest my calves a few times on the way up. If I head down too quickly then my knees are aching by the time we get down. But it was well worth it. 

If you are local you need to check out this trail for a quick fun hike. And if you are visiting then it is a must see!