Swimming Good for the Soul

We've been doing a lot of water activities as of late.

And I love it!

Summer and water are my domain.

We've gone to spash pads, back yard pools, and Cherrie Hill and so far Leilani is a fan too.

We went to Cherrie Hill today with my sister and her family and I am very sad I didn't take any pictures.

Leilani loved the lazy river.  She just sat on my lap as we floated around and said, "weee."

Love her.

Here are a couple of our other outings.

My sister-in-law's back yard.

Kooper really wanted me to take a picture of his muscles.

Splash pad with a play group from our ward.

Shedding

I am down 2 more pounds!

I don't usually do this...but I think that deserves a

WOOT! WOOT!

I've started exercising again which apparently helps.

Huh.  Go figure.

Fitness Tip #8

Eat with your family

You don't have to eat different food than your family.  Just choose the protein and vegetables from your family meal.  You can leave off half the fun of the sloppy joe and skip the side of fries, or have a taco salad while they enjoy a flour taco.  You will find that you will prepare healthier meals this way, like making sure there is always a side of vegetables.  Everyone benefits, but it doesn't have to feel weird.  Remember, this is a lifestyle for you, and eating with the family is part of life.  Learn to do it healthily, stay within your portion size, and calorie limits.  Fill your plate with what you will eat, enjoy it, then clean your plate and put it away, to avoid second helpings. But, if you'd like to sit back at the table to chat with your family, you don't have a plate to tempt you.

p.s. every picture I found of a family sitting at the table eating were smiling...I don't think that's a coincidence.

Click on the picture to read a good article I found about the benefits of families eating together.

Sand and Colors

We've been going to a lot of parks lately with the weather finally getting warm, YEAH!!!

Leilani likes to play for a few minutes but then is ready to do something else.  I noticed some mothers bringing sand toys to the playground and thought...Genius!

So that's what we did today.

I also wanted to tell you about another way to play in the sand if your like me, living in an apartment, or just don't want to buy a big truck full of sand and deal with it in your backyard.

Get one of those shallow storage tubs and fill it with a bag of sand.  When you want to play, take it out on your deck.  Then when you're all done you can snap the lid on and store it in the closet.  Cool huh!

Also, we've been working on our colors lately.  That is sure a hard concept for kids to grasp.  I mean if you think about it from their perspective it doesn't make sense.  It's a circle.  Yes, but it's a yellow circle.  It's a circle.  Yes, but it's a green circle.  To her, it already has a name.  So we pulled out her bucket of toys and color coordinated.  Her answer is still "Blluuuue" to any color question, but hey, we're working on it:)

Oh Baby Baby!

We went up to Eden today to pet some baby animals.

They were adorable!!

It goes on until June 30th, so you should definitely go.

(admission is $7 a person and includes a horse ride for all kids under 12)

From what I could tell this cute little lady ran the farm and the animals herself.  What a job!  But it was very low key.  Not a lot of people there and you could just take your time petting and feeding all the animals.

It took Leilani a while to warm up to the animals being so close, but when she started getting into it she was almost giddy with delight.

Why are babies so darn cute?

Lama face!!!

This dog was hillarious!  She chased our shadows around everywhere we went.

Even the baby pigs were adorable.

I didn't think she would get on the horse, but she totally did and said, "trot trot trot, hhheee" the whole time:)  She loved it!

Maybe we should move to a farm?

California Trip 2011

My sister (Allison) had her baby a few weeks ago and since Leilani and I have been free spirits this summer I thought it would be fun to go visit.

We left Saturday morning at 5am hoping Leilani would sleep in the car to the airport.

Of course she didn't.

But, she did fabulous on the plane. 

It was my first time flying with her on my own so I was a little nervous, but the plane rides were short and sweet which was perfect.  We flew to Long Beach, then had an hour layover- which made no sense to me cuz we got right back on the same plane- then headed to Oakland.  It was a 2 hour drive from Oakland to my sister's house in Elk Grove outside of Sacramento, but Leilani was still a little angel. 

I was quite amazed by her traveling skills.  She's pretty seasoned though, and has probably seen more of the continental US than many adults.

That night we went to my other sister's (Callie) multi-stake dance festival.  She had been helping out with it for the last 6 months so it was quite the production.  Her oldest daughter danced in several of the dances and it was just fun to see so many youth having fun while ACTUALLY dancing.  It was great.  But it made for a long day and even among the loud music, lights, clapping and whooping, Leilani zonked.  Amazing!

Sunday, was a great relaxing day.

I got to spend it with Allison and her cute new family.  I've only met her husband briefly, so it was fun to get to know him a little better and get some cuddle time in with baby Annie.

Wow, what a perfect baby! 

She was only 5 weeks old and she SMILED!!

Not just those baby gas smiles, real smiles.

She was just so happy with her new life, new body, new mommy and daddy she just couldn't contain herself.

Cutest thing ever!

(Allison's "utter cover" as a cape...genius:)

Monday we went to the park and then over to Callie's house for family night.  Leilani loved playing with her cousins and they loved playing with her.  It was perfect.

(Can you see those pink cheeks?  It was so hot she was sweating and didn't really know how to react to it.  We haven't had that kind of experience yet in Utah:)  oh and this cute little boy shared his sand toys)

Tuesday was pool time at Callie's house again.

I went to get my hair done and apparently since I have SOO much hair, (which is the new thing every hair stylist who touches my hair is saying to me), I spent the entire afternoon in the salon and missed splash time in the pool.  Darn it! 

We said good bye to Callie and her family that night, but luckily it will only be for 3 weeks until everyone comes out here for our annual Bear Lake trip!  YEAH!!

Wednesday Allison and I got some paints to finish the lettering in Annie's adorable Winnie the Pooh nursery.  I painted a few flowers on the letters and it finished off the room perfectly.  I forgot to take a picture, but you could sit and rock a baby in there for hours.

Allison and I also had a Twilight series marathon every night.  It'd been a long time since she'd seen any of the movies and I just finished reading the books so it was fun to watch the saga again.  (Even though the movies are pretty much crap compared to the books.)

I always learn something from my family when I go visit that makes me want to be a better person and I was amazed by my sister and her husband's punctuality.  There is no procrastinating in their home.  Which is pretty much my greatest downfall.  So I have committed to being more punctual.  Many times I tell myself that I will play now and do all the "other" stuff later.  That has been my mentality probably my whole life, but I have never liked it.  Everything always got taken care of in their home and they still had time to play and relax and probably even relax better than I ever do because I'm always thinking about what I'm supposed to be doing instead.  I don't know if any of this is making sense, but I do know that I am going to work on not procrastinating.  So thank you Allison and Tabor:)

Thursday morning we got up at 5am to head to the airport.  Again Leilani did not sleep in the car.  Little stinker.  But she flew our first flight just fine. (I was very pleased with my Jet Blue experience.  Much better service than our Delta flight.)  Anyway, we had a four hour lay over in Long Beach this time around so my other sister, (Melanie)-I know it can get confusing...I have six sisters- lives around that area so she and her three daughters met us at the airport and took us to the beach.  We ate some lunch, played in the sand, and dipped in the water.  I felt so lucky to be able to see all three of my California sisters while I was there.

(This is Melanie wearing her 8 year old's jacket! lol- The fact that she could even get her arms through it killed me:)

We had to go back through security before our last flight and Leilani passed out even before we made it through the line.  For some reason I beeped this time and I had to be frisked by a very strange old lady while I had a sleeping baby on my shoulder.  It was a little awkward.  They said it was something on my hands.  I said I've been playing in sand and eating ranch Doritos:)  That must have been it...

Gratefully Leilani slept the entire ride back to Salt Lake.  She was exhausted.

We had a great trip and I want to thank all my sisters for their wonderful hospitality and my amazing husband for letting us leave for a week!!

It's Just One Pound

I weighed in this morning and guess what! 
I am down 1 pound!

One pound?  That's lame, you're thinking.

Well guess what.  I was on vacation while I lost that one pound.

How many times have you lost instead of gained on vacation?

Me? NEVER!

So ya, I must be proud of that one pound.

"Only 1 Pound"

Hello, do you know me?
If you don't, you should.
I'm a pound of fat,
And I'm the happiest pound of fat that you would ever want to meet.
Want to know why?
It's because no one ever wants to lose me.
I'm only one pound, just a pound!
Everyone wants to lose three pounds,
five pounds, or fifteen pounds, but never only one.
So I just stick around and happily keep you fat.
Then I add to myself, ever so slyly,
so that you never seem to notice it.
That is, until I've grown to ten, twenty, thirty or even more pounds in weight.
Yes, it's fun being only one pound of fat, left to do as I please.
So, when you weigh in, keep right on saying,
"Oh, I only lost one pound," (as if that were such a terrible thing).
For you see, if you do this,
you'll encourage others to keep me around because they'll think I'm not worth losing.
And, I love being around you -
your arms, your legs,
your chin, your hips and every part of you.
Happy Days!
After all, I'm
only one pound of fat!

By the way...remember my tip last week.  I'm totally sticking to it.

See, this was my grocery cart this morning.

Pineapple+cantaloupe+apples+

peaches+bananas+grapes+tomatoes+lettuce+

peppers+cucumbers+zucchini=MMmmm

It seems that every time I go visit one of my sisters I always learn a new life lesson that I especially need at that moment.

This time it was how to prepare fruits and veggies:)

How appropriate.  I know!

So I have now washed, chopped, sliced, and placed in the forefront of my fridge (NOT in the crisper) all this deliciousness.

So go ahead.  Have a snack!

Cheerio and Top o' the Day To Ya!

Leilani and I were on vacation last week so there wasn't a lot of need for extra activities to keep us busy.  And yes I said, "us."  These activities are just as much for me as they are for her:)

But there was a little down time one day where Leilani was feeling like she needed a little somethin somethin.  So, we pulled out the Cheerios and a piece of ribbon and went to work.

I wrapped a piece of tape around the end of the ribbon to make it pointy and let Leilani string the cheerios into a necklace. 

She was much more interested in eating the cheerios than the actual making of the necklace, but it was good practice for those little developing fine motor skills.

I was going to use yarn for the string, but realized afterward that it probably wouldn't have worked very well because Leilani slobbered all over the ribbon and it still held together. I don't know if yarn would be so sturdy.