A Little Shorter....okay....a lot!

Okay, so I thought it would be fun to get a haircut...just a little shorter, you know, it's been like 6 months since I had my hair trimmed. I liked how long it was getting, so just another little trim on the layers. Abby had her hair cut awhile ago but wanted it shorter, but not like a boys...she was very adamant about this! So we go over to Great Clips. I'm not a fan of these haircut chains in general but they had been cutting Joe's hair and Hailey's hair this whole year and I thought they were doing a great job. My mom actually met us there and had her hair trimmed as well. So it was our little hair cutting party at the local Great Clips. I told the lady to cut my layers to in between my lips and nose but leave the length longer. Well, maybe it's because my hair just isn't what it was or ....actually I really think that's what it was because I left with a tail...I kid you not...a tail! It looked horrible! So I went back later yesterday afternoon and told them to cut the "tail" off, and of course, that left me with a very short hair cut....ugh! Abby's hair, however, looks amazing! I love her new little bob! Well, I go home to fix my new horrible hair cut and my big hot tools curling iron, literally explodes in my bathroom sink, blowing the sockets out, so they don't work now...I'm thinking I'm done with the whole hair cut thing....(Tammy, I need you!!!!) Below you'll find my cute Abby and the damage done on my SICK new hairdo...I totally feel like crying right now!!!

Thanks for tuning into my whining....good thing hair grows back :) Bring on the vitamins!

Salt Lake City Library

The Salt Lake City Library is one of our favorite things to do and since this is the last week to play before the kids are back in school, we had to visit this "fun" place! Here are a few pics. It was fun having Grandma June with us too, how we love her! Today was so nice and beautiful! We had to go on the elevator, up and down several times, of course (I think this is secretly Grandma Jeanie's favorite thing to do, not the kids!). We then went and explored the rooms at the library and read lot of good books, Goodnight Moon being the favorite, then we went on the elevator again! Lastly we went outside the library in the sunny room with band-aid lights (as Joe calls these lights hanging in the entrance to the stores and library) and ate snacks and lunch and all the treats grandma Jeanie always provides...it was such a fun day! Thanks mom and grandma for coming with us!

Hailey's Night of Tumbling

Hailey is in the middle in a pink and turqoise striped leotard in both pictures...check out those splits...dang!



Hailey jumpin in the pit!

Hailey's BackWalkover Routine. (She's way in the back and kinda hard to see) *I sure hope these video's work!

The Perfect Butt!

Okay, so don't go clicking this closed quite yet...it just might be achievable! I must say that this last year, I've learned quite a few things about lifting that backside...and here's a great website that gives a few pointers.

http://exercise.about.com/cs/butthipsthighs/l/aa092900a.htm

Now, my backside is still a little too wide for my preferred tastes, but I've definitely noticed a difference in some of the exercises that have become my favorites since joining a gym 1 year ago, here are a few;

CYCLING; or spinning as it's called. These classes are fun! They are fast paced with loud music and lights turned low. Now, I must say I was quite intimidated by these classes for a long time, but I met a great friend in Portland Oregon who teaches these classes and she gave me a free pass one day. So, I took her up on it and went...holy cow! After only about 30 minutes of these usually 1 hour classes, I was ready to go home and die! But, even through all the soreness I felt really good. I'd been running for several years and not seeing a whole lot of change so, I was excited to actually feel sore! Well, we moved to Utah last year in January and I'm sorry it was just too cold to run outside so I joined a local gym my sister-in-law had been attending...GOLD'S. We began going to these spin classes and I must say after the sore bottom and sore muscles, I really began to see a HUGE difference! I lost several inches and began to show a little of the good bulge in the right places....so take a chance on these and try them, you just might find yourself addicted like I am!

STAIRS; even better is hiking, but that's not always possible. This last summer I had the pleasure of hiking with my brother Brent. We hiked almost every Friday. It was tough! I think it was mostly because Brent moves at warp speed! After my lungs adjusted to the altitude and my legs began to understand what I was doing to them, things went a little better. This was great for my tree trunk legs and actually, contrary to popular belief, strengthened my knees. I've always had a weak left knee (IT Band issues) and I've had no problems since my summer of climbing mountains. So, this winter, I've devoted one day to the StairMaster for at least 45 minutes or more and again, that's made a huge difference as well.

WALKING; Walking has never been my favorite. Walking is just too slow and I feel as though I'm never making progress. But, add some incline or hills and pick up the pace and holy cow, it can be much more taxing on the lungs and more beneficial than the jarring act of running. This also is great for the inner thighs!

ELLIPTICAL; I must say this is my least favorite machine! My feet always have a tendency to fall asleep. I always get irritated when I see people walk in to the gym and spend 10 minutes on these machines and they go as fast as they can with no resistance and think they've achieved "exercise". To me, exercise is muscle burning, sweat pouring, panting hard.....WORK. But, hey, to each his or her own. So, back to this machine. This machine works good for the ever blessed behind but only if you use it right. Add resistance, make it worth your while!

WEIGHTS: These are another HUGE factor in lifting anything that sags, in general! My gym offers great classes and these are great for showing you correct form, but as you begin to learn what works for what muscle's, then venture out on your own. Use machines or free weights, both work well in helping you increase mass. And to put your fears at ease, weights DO NOT make you bulk up, especially for women. We just don't have the physical make up to bulk up, unless you take some serious supplements. Also, I don't care what people say, lifting 5 lb's will get you no where! As soon as you learn how to lift weights with correct form, then add extra weight until you feel as though you can only lift that weight 8-12 times and then take a 30 second rest and do it again!

So, these are my favorites. My #1 favorite exercise is running/jogging but doing this every day doesn't lend for much variety and isn't challenging my muscles the way cross training does. All of these exercises listed above compliment each other and help you become stronger at all of them and work many different muscles other than the same ones. Whatever you do for exercise, remember to change it often. Your body has a memory and will plateau and that's always frustrating. Again, make it WORTH YOUR WHILE!

So, I'm no expert, but have learned a thing or two and thought I'd share! Happy sweating!

Strategy!

So, we love to play games at our house. It's something we do almost daily! It's so much fun playing games with Hailey and Abby. They are beginning to understand not only how to play the game but how to play with strategy :) I love playing Blokus and Skipbo with Hailey. Both Hailey and Abby are so good at a fun game we learned from friends called pic. It's a word game using the scrabble pieces. We love, love, love learning new games! We had friends, just recently show us a fun game called Shanghai. It's sort of a twist on Phase 10 but much harder and a few rules changed. We just learned another new game (to us anyway) with Dan's brother Darren and wife Traci. It's called Canasta, an oldie but goodie. This game was sooooo much fun! They're coming over again on Sunday, and I'm excited to play this game again. I also think I loved this game because Traci and I were totally kicking Dan and Darren's b*tt (he, he) I love using my mind rather than sitting in front of the box. Don't get me wrong, I love sitting in front of a good flick, but playing games is fun because you get to know those your with and it sure brings out all colors of everyone's personality, especially mine! We've played some fun games over the years, some of which are; Liar's Dice, Scum, Acquire, & Pit. There are always those other oldie but goodie games like: Monopoly ( I loved this game as a kid), Risk, Uno, Phase 10, Taboo, Balderdash, Scategories, etc. I love card games as well like Hearts, 21, & Rummy. These games take strategy as well. At first, learning a new game is a little rough and rocky but there's nothing like the thrill of strategizing well and having it pay off, or of course nothing like the loss of having your strategy not go so well. So, tell me your favorite games?

Speaking of good flicks, we saw another movie yesterday with the kids that's a definate "must see". Spiderwick Chronicles was intense with a few scary scenes that had Abby on the edge of her seat but it was all in all it was a good movie.

Mall & Movie

When was the last time you went to the mall, any mall? It's been a long time for me! I've gone only on the occasional date with my hubby but to take all the kids to the mall? It's been years...just too much to touch, too ask to buy and just too much space in which to keep the Kiddie Ditties confined! Well, today, we ventured out. I thought I'd take the kids to the least busy and most familiar mall to me (I worked there for a few years at Deseret Book), Valley Fair. We had so much fun! The kids loved all the little trinket shops and I was surprised at how well they did! I keep forgetting that they aren't toddler age anymore. They all walked with me, no carrying or strollers, it was great! We looked at shoes, earrings, basketballs, toys, the whole sha-bang. We even ended our little trip with lunch...at the mall, all by myself. Now, I'm sure some of you are thinking, wow, what a lame thing to be worried about, but let me tell you, it wasn't to me! I had so much fun with the kids, we are definately doing that again!

So, since the mall went well, I figured we'd drive over the the dollar movies and see Bee Movie. We dropped by the dollar store and picked up candy. I didn't tell the kids we would be going to a movie, just in case, my nerves wore thin and because surprising them, I thought, would be fun. So when we drove up to the theater and started walking in, they soon figured out where I was headed and stopped asking me "where are we going?" and started celebrating! All I have to say is I LOVE DOLLAR MOVIES! They are cheap and easy and the kids just don't care how nice they are...so back to the movie. It was...okay. The kids had fun and got a little restless at the end, but sat through the whole thing! I was so thrilled! I can't tell you....well I can...it's been 9 years, since I've been able to go to the movies with all of my kids! They've all been too little and as the older kids grow older, we've taken the older kids, but Joe and Ray have always had a hard time sitting through the whole thing. They really want to go back and see Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. So, has anyone seen it? Is it good?

The kids have one more week off track and I'm hoping to fill our days with a little more fun!

A Few Pic's

I finally got around to downloading the pics from my camera. So, you'll get the past weeks happenings all in one post :)

These are the pj's the kids got for Valentines Day. Aren't they snuggly
Hailey got these cool sunglasses to wear for her Christmas Choir concert...she looks too grown up. The scarves I just made for the girls... what craftiness!
Joe's fav sport is basketball. We have this ugly hoop attached to the house and I would love nothing more than to get rid of it, but Joe loves shooting hoops any chance he can get, so I think it will be staying for awhile.
Hailey was getting quite frustrated because her dad would smack the ball away from her while she was trying to shoot. He's such a tease sometimes!

Anatomy of Peace

I have been reading a wonderful book, recommended and read by Laura and Marcie (thnx girls). This book discusses being at peace in your heart and not at war. Sounds all phsycological, doesn't it? I love this book because it's set up in a story format, about a certain family suffering with wayward kids. The parents send they're son to a sort of survival camp and the parents stay behind for two days to get some "advice" on parenting. So, I like the way the book sort of sucks you in. I think we all struggle with "people" in our lives. Why do they do the things they do? Why are they on again, off again people or why do they take advantage of us, or why are they blantantly rude? I think it's easy to very quickly feel "at war" with people and not really mean to, or maybe we do mean to. Ultimately, it's a choice. We don't view them as people, we view them as objects. I'm almost done with this book and I have learned sooooo much! Wow! I think this book is great in teaching us to be much more christ like and just how to do that. I certainly can see so many areas in which I need to change. Anyway, just a little book report for you... anyone interested in a good read, you'll find it in this!

Kisses!

What better way to share Valentines day than to share sweet kisses! Happy Valentines Day!!!

Kickbox is Back!

I love kickboxing...I'm one of those who discovered the birth of Tae-Bo and in fact lost a considerable amount of weight after my second baby doing this. That is until I discovered running ;) actually plodding but hey, it's faster than a walk, right?! Well, at my local gym, we had a super fun kickboxing class Monday mornings, until the instructor found out she was prego and couldn't keep up with it...so I've gone without and had to settle for spin...now don't get me wrong, I love spinning (cycling) but when the instructor plays the same music for a year, it get's a little old. Well just a couple of weeks ago, they brought in a new instructor for the ever favorite Kickbox class! I loved it! We all should exercise, so if we're going to do it, it should be somewhat enjoyable! The only problem, which doesn't seem to remedy itself with time, is my complete lack of coordination...lol! If there is any fancy footwork, I'm lost! It's quite silly, really, but hey, I have no pride! This is why I don't do step classes either....way too much coordination and when it comes to dancing...just the lip biting, head bob, will do for me...he, he! So, tell me avid readers, what is your favorite form of exercise?

OLD PEOPLE

Yet another...don't you wish you could do that sometimes! So funny!

Garbage Men

This is hilarious

To Working Mothers...

Can't find sleep...until 1 a.m. A child cries...2 a.m. She is sick. 3 a.m. another child find me, her tummy hurts. She sleeps on my floor. 5 a.m. alarm sounds...time to go to the gym. Can't go...too tired...6:30 husbands alarm sounds...I get up, bathe kids. I take a shower. Feed the kids, make lunches, do childrens hair. Feed kids, for me, no time for breakfast. Send kids to neighbor at 7:30 a.m. Take the younger children to my mom's. Barely make it to my training class that begins at 8:30 a.m. Learn about Scheduling, WBS, Activities, Project Management, etc. I get out of class at 3:00, drive to pick girls up from school. Drive to pick up younger kids at mom's. Visit for a few minutes, drive home. Take daughter to Jazz Dance. Give kids leftovers for dinner, pick up daughter from Jazz...7 p.m. pj's and prayers. 7:30 p.m. husband to return from scouts, has to catch up on work. Clean house, make grocery list, start laundry, watch a little American Idol. Hit the Hay...is the next plan. I've got to hand it to you Mother's who work, even those of you who work from home in your own creative way. I've stayed home with my kids, for the most part since Hailey was a little baby. It has been such a huge sacrifice! Times have not been easy. But, as my children get a little older, I find myself wanting to finish school or find some way in which I can acquire a skill that would pay the bills if I ever find myself in that sort of situation. Dan's business has been a great opportunity for me to help them and inch my foot into something that could pay the bills and is a much sought after skill. This has been a great blessing that hasn't required me going out of the home and has given me something to learn in those few hours during the day when my children are napping and in school. Taking care of my kiddo's is a full time job in and of itself!!! Taking care of the house on top of all that is another full time job :) Cooking....callings, exercise...it's a lot of work...so to add a couple of hours a day has been a good thing, but today, I realized that doing both the work outside and inside of the home is...well...for lack of a better word....a lot! Whew! I'm glad to be back to being, just mom, tomorrow!