A Walk and some Ava Posin'

(These were taken at the beginning of January.  I forgot about them until Ava and I were looking at older pictures on our computer today.)

 For whatever reason Ava is into giving the peace sign in pictures. 

Oh man, you should see her front teeth today.  Her adult teeth are pushing these baby teeth out and forward.  It's seriously like bad British teeth right now.  In fact when I kissed her good-night she nearly cut my lip with those fangs and then giggled at my pain.  They are so loose but she won't let us try to pull them out.  So stubborn.

I love when she does this with her hair.  When she leaves it "long and loose" as she calls it it's in her way when she plays so she's constantly holding it out of her face with her hand.  Silly girl.

The day was so gray.  Drives me crazy.  I'd rather have two feet of snow on the ground and the sun shining with blue skies. 

 My baby.  She loves going for walks in the stroller. 

A picture of Ava with her gingerbread house before we tossed it.  I love putting away Christmas decorations.  Once Christmas is over I want all the red and green put away. 

Weight Loss Wednesday

This week I have added some ab exercises and core workouts.  My abs are so weak.  The day after my first set of ab exercises I felt as if someone had punched me in the stomach.  I was so sore.  It's getting better though. 

Still dancing and walking.  I can't believe I'm going to say this, but I am getting a little tired of the dances on Just Dance 3.  You can buy more dances but I'm probably too much of a cheapskate to do this.  We're thinking of buying Zumba or Just Dance 2 for the Kinect.  The reviews for Zumba are mixed so I'm not sure.  I wish there were more snow and then I could go snowshoeing at Sugarhouse Park. 

This week I've lost 2 lbs.  Which is par for the course I think.  I still am drinking 16 - 20 oz. of coke a day, and I haven't sacrificed too much in the food department.  I just eat a smaller portion than I used to.  I'm cutting back on the Coke, slowly but surely.  Yesterday we went out to Smashburger for lunch.  Instead of a cheeseburger I got a grilled chicken breast sandwich on a whole wheat bun.  I didn't order fries, although I did steal a few off of Brig's plate.  I got a 20 oz. drink and only drank those 20 oz. and didn't leave the place with a refill like I used to do. 

As I've mentioned my family is doing a Biggest Loser competition.  Some people in my family have lost 4, 5, 7, and 8 pounds in a week.  You'd think this might discourage me, and to be honest I'm surprised that it hasn't.  It's just I already feel so much better with just the seven pounds that I've lost.  My stomach is flatter.  My jeans are looser and I have more energy to do other things that used to exhaust me.  Plus I know that my weight loss will extend past the three month competition, so it's not really about the money or winning, but the end goal I've set for myself.  In the past I've went really gung-ho with weight loss, eating a very restricted diet and exercising like mad.  While I've gotten results, I can never sustain that behavior because well, frankly, it sucks.  I was miserable and felt awful.  It usually makes me give up, and this time I'm not giving up so for me a slower weight loss is okay if it means I can still enjoy eating and I don't feel like I'm being deprived. 

This shouldn't come as news, but I feel better about myself and about life in general now that I've taken control of my weight issue.  For so long I've felt as if it were out of my hands.  I couldn't help overeating because it's what I did for emotional comfort.  I couldn't help not exercising because I was so tired.  But now I feel as if I could do this.  I feel as if I have power over the things I put in my mouth and how I treat my body.  I don't have to be slave to my passing cravings, the way to deal with past emotional hurts or current stresses is not to eat everything in sight.  I deserve to lead a long healthy life in a body that can go on hikes with my family, chase my kids around the park, and can fit into cuter clothes. 

Best of luck to all those in the trenches.  Remember if you have a bad day or give into temptation you can make a better choice the next meal or the next day.  Never, never, never give up.

My Norwegian Roots

This post is basically for my mom.  She was very close with her grandma Rangna, her father Rangvald Carlsen was the first in his family to emigrate to America to join the saints in the Salt Lake Valley.  I've heard many stories about my Grandma Rangna, my Grandpa Denzel's mother.  She died a year before I was born so I never knew her.  She was born in Midvale and when she fell in love with a small town boy named Paul Clark she married him and moved to the country.  My grandpa tells me that she had a hard time adjusting to small town life and never really stopped missing the city.  So in that I can relate, except it is reversed for me. 

It occurred to me that there would be some gravestones nearby I could visit for my great-great grandparents Annie and Rangvald Carlsen.  So I got online and looked up their burial plots.  They were in Murray City Cemetery.  A lady from the Sexton's office walked me to their gravestones.  I had cut some berries from a bush that grows next to the driveway because I figured flowers wouldn't last long in the cold. 

I've always felt connected to my ancestors.  I've often contemplated what it would be like to leave a place that had always been your home and cross an ocean to get to a land that you had so much faith in.  I've looked up pictures of the land in Norway where the Carlsens emigrated from and it is beautiful, green and lush.  I can't imagine how different they found the high desert of Utah.  Although I haven't ever met these people in person I'm so grateful to them.  I'm grateful that they sacrificed so much so that I could be born in a free land with all the opportunities to make my life what I wish it to be. 

Here's the pictures of their graves that I took for mom to see.  Maybe one of these days we can visit them together. 

 Sixty-seven at his death.  Too young.

 James M. Carlsen 1905 - 1908

 Roy H. Carlsen 1907 - 1908

 Wilhelmine A. Carlsen 1860 - 1884 (maybe this was Rangvald's first wife?)

 Carl W. Carlsen 1883 - 1884 (A baby with Rangvald's first wife?)

Grandpa Rangvald's marker is in between these trees and Grandma Annie's is on the right in this picture. 

Mortifying Memories...My First Bra

As most of you know I was an early bloomer, much to my ultimate horror.  In third grade I started "developing".  By fourth grade my mom kept prodding me to look at bras.  My answer to that: heck no!  As far as I knew no one else in my grade was wearing a bra and I'd be darned if I strapped one on for the whole world to gawk at the bra lines on my back.  That summer before fifth grade began Mom put her foot down.  I think it came shortly after we were driving in the car and I raised my arm to point at something from the back seat and in the rear view mirror my mom spied my hairy armpits.  In my mind she slammed on the brakes and said, "Denise, we need to shave your armpits!"  I'm sure it wasn't that dramatic but I was pretty embarrassed by her discovery of my Sasquatch pits.

Mom I'm sure planning out the day as some womanly bonding moment, I was planning on being as obstinate as possible.  On the drive into Logan my mother informed me we'd be picking up my Grandma Margaret because she wanted to be a part of the special day.  I about had a coronary in the backseat.  To be looking at bras at all was bad enough, but now it had turned into some teary-eyed nostalgic adventure with three generations searching for the perfect over-the-shoulder-boulder-holder.  I imagined the worst...we'd be standing in the lingerie department, some employee groping me to find out the perfect size while my grandma and mother loudly reminisced about their first bras...mid grope here comes my elementary school crush...Kevin Benson.  Oh no!  I'd have to duck and run behind that rack of Just My Size bras in those rectangular boxes as if inside you'd find some yummy movie theater candy.

I chose the first bra my mom and grandmother suggested because I just wanted this trip to be over.  To my great relief I saw nobody I knew.  In fact, the rest of the day was spent with my grandma buying me a few things and then we went to Frontier Pies that used to be in the Pinecrest Shopping Center in Logan and Grandma paid for lunch and even let me get a banana cream pie...my favorite.  I look back now and wish I had been a bit more relaxed.

My Grandma Margaret has since passed away and I miss her terribly.  I miss her giggle.  I miss visiting her on Sundays.  In the winter we'd sit on the warm radiators in her kitchen and read Star Magazine.  In the summer time we'd be welcome to get ourselves a cold Coke out of the fridge and often times would walk up to Mack Park.  I even miss her sternness when we'd put a toe out of line, like when she'd find the dark cookie halves from Oreos that I had licked clean in the garbage.  She must have found this terribly wasteful.

That bra was the first of many.  There's no holding back the onset of one's well-endowed genetics.  Fifth grade was only the beginning.  In middle school I'd endure boys making comments about my chest, as if just because they were obvious it was okay for them to talk about them.  In seventh grade someone told me that they had heard a rumor that I'd been born with boobs.  Which is so laughable now but back then I was super embarrassed that people would believe it.  I could envision myself on the cover of The Weekly World News, you know the one with every other week having a story about a bat boy with huge ears and sharp teeth, only this time it would be a baby in a onesie with a Dolly Parton chest, the headline proclaiming The Boob Child of Clarkston.  Oh the wonder years...I'm so glad they're over.

Weight Loss Wednesday

Well, judgement day dawned bright and early.  With Brielle babbling happily in the doorway I tapped the scale with my foot.  As if sensing the importance of the moment Brielle gathered round ye olde scale and smiled mischievously up at me as I sucked in and tried to get the proper foot alignment because I believe like a fool that the wrong foot positioning could really add a few pounds.  I wonder why a berry cheesecake doesn't give me the same pause?

It wasn't all bad news.  I didn't lose any weight from last week, but I didn't gain any either.  I'd curse the cheesecake again but I don't want my blog rating to go from PG to PG-13.  Plus, I guess it's about time for me to hold myself accountable.  No, Melissa it wasn't your fault, or yours Jill.  It was mine.  But as one of my favorite fictional characters, Scarlett O'Hara would say..."After all, tomorrow is another day."

I've really enjoyed dancing with the assistance of Kinect.  It's helped me besides just burning calories and having fun doing it.  Believe it or not, it helped me realize that I have a problem.  I know, how is it possible that I can get to the weight I am and not really believe it's that big of a deal?  Maybe it's because I avoid the mirror at all costs, and it used to be I'd avoid the camera until I realized that I was white-washing my kids memories by refusing to be in any visual documentation of their childhood.  With the kinect you get to see the outline of your body on the t.v.  I couldn't make any excuses for poorly fitting clothes or unflattering angles like I could when I would see a picture of myself.  There it was...me on our box tv screen.  Not hourglass, not even pear, but apple shaped.  Hey, apples are my favorite fruit but no one wants to look like one.  It was a wake-up call.  A long overdue one. 

It doesn't matter that I'm married and off the market, it doesn't matter that I have had children, what matters is how I feel and to be truthful being this size makes me feel miserable and no amount of red vines and coke can make me feel better.  Anyway, Ava's begging me to dance so I better put my meanderings to bed. 

To my fellow fat fighters: Keep your chin up and stay away from the cheesecake.

I Cheated on my Diet

I am scared to get on the scale tomorrow morning.  I blame it all on Kneaders having a drive through.  It should be illegal for bakeries to have drive-throughs.  Don't they know there are people trying to reunite their upper bum to their lower bum...people with very little self-control and a biblical knowledge of what it's like to savor the berry cheesecake on their tongues....people who are shamed by their incredibly comfortable but equally ugly electric blue Crocs who dare not show their unpopular choice in footwear in public.  See?  The drive-through is just too easy.  Damn you berry cheesecake! 

Then there is my old flame that just won't burn out...Coca-Cola aka the nectar of the gods.  Everyone tells me to just drink diet.  Listen carefully o foolish ones - I'd rather drink Milk of Magnesia.  I know there are a lot of Diet Coke fans out there, but why? 

Meanwhile Jessica Alba's in my face with her better-than-ever post baby body.  "You would never know that she gave birth just six months ago..." The butt kiss of an interviewer exclaims.  Mariah Carey is screeching on t.v. in a tacky gold midriff-baring dress? half tube top/half long loin clothe? proclaiming that Jenny Craig worked for her.  Like the tacky getup I believe that Ms. Carey belongs back in the nineties as well.  Just because you married a much younger man doesn't mean that you are still relevant to the current generation.  Is this the aging diva's game plan?  The ultimate hip accessory is a husband born in the nineties.  Watch your back, Justin Bieber...Madonna's got her botoxed eyes on you.  Janet Jackson is instructing me to get on it.  Whatever that means.  I'd like to meet the ad wizards who came up with that slogan.  Get on it.  Pfsha.


Got off on a mean rant about skinny celebrities, didn't I?  Sorry about that.  Like I said I'm scared for the morning.  Pray for me.

Weight Loss Wednesday

Sunday kicked off our Biggest Loser competition on my side of the family, so I put it into high gear because nothing's greater motivation than sibling rivalry, right?  For once in my life having more weight to lose puts me at an advantage over my petite, marathon running, five kids birthing, BLOND sister.  I mean, did God really have to give her blond hair?  That was like salt in the wound.  Not cool, dude.  I'm hoping a bolt of lightning doesn't crash through the roof, maybe calling God dude is not exactly appropriate.  But come on, to top it off you give me this wildly curly hair that according to the Millionaire Matchmaker is a sure ticket to get rejected by a millionaire.  The only thing worse...according to her...is red hair.  But I digress. 

I've been waking up and dancing for an hour, walking in the afternoons and generally cutting back on my portions.  I've tried letting go of Coca Cola.  It's been a rough battle.  The longest I've been without it was three days, then I caved.  It's something I will continue to work on. 

Have you noticed that there are a million food commercials on t.v.?  It's awful when I'm trying to keep my thoughts pure and free of greasy fast food. 

This week I lost 3 pounds!  Yay!  I've never lost 3 pounds in a single week.  Next week I'm hoping to continue to try to improve the quality of the meals here at home with more vegetables.  I've never liked vegetables.  They taste very, very bitter to me and only a boat load of butter and salt and pepper can improve their taste. 

Hope everyone out there who are striving to get healthier are keeping the faith.  It's not easy, but to use an over worn phrase, it's worth it...we're worth it!  I keep imagining laying on the beach without my ugly granny swimsuit I was forced to buy a couple of years ago, and feeling more confident in my healthy body now ensconced in a cute hip swimsuit.  One piece of course.  No amount of exercise is going to get these stretchmarks off my tummy...thank you Ava and Brielle.  Still, they were worth it.  Who needs a flawless midsection anyway? 

Good Book, Good Movie

Growing up my favorite Christmas present by far was always a novel to read during the break.  This Christmas I read Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand.  It's the story of a man named Louis Zamperini who grew up in Southern California.  He becomes a world class track star who eventually gets to compete in the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany.  He trains for the next Olympics but World War II breaks out, ruining his plans.  He is eventually drafted into the Army Air Corps and is trained as a bombardier.  The book follows his travails through WWII and what happens to him after the war.  Although some parts of the book were really hard to read, in the end it is so inspirational and confirms that life is a precious gift and that healing and forgiveness are possible even after the most horrendous trials. 

It's been a long while since I sat down and watched a movie and afterwards thought to myself what a wonderful experience it was.  For me, Midnight in Paris was one of those rare movies.  Gil, played by the very likable Owen Wilson, is a successful Hollywood script writer vacationing in Paris with his fiance (Rachel McAdams)  and her parents.  Gil has written a novel, but has doubts about his ability to cut it in the literature world.  He laments "selling out" for the prosperity his shallow and unfulfilling job has provided him, and regrets not trying to make a go of being a serious author.  He longs for what he believes were the glory days of Paris...the 1920's, filled with writers and artists.  His fiance, who is the wealthy daughter of a right wing businessman, doesn't share his enthusiasm for Paris or the past.  She's what I like to call a dream squasher.  Anyway, her character is very unlikable...as is intended, but man oh man I liked the clothes and shoes she wore.  It's clear from the get-go that these two people are not at all right for one another.  Anyway, after a dinner with some old friends, Gil decides to walk back to their hotel while the rest of the group go salsa dancing.  He ends up lost in Paris at night.  An old car rounds a bend in the cobblestone street and stops.  Some, shall we say, vintage characters urge Gil to join them.  He hops in the car and is whisked back to Paris in the 1920's.  I won't give the rest away, but Gil is able to live out his fantasy night after night while his fiance and her parents begin to wonder where he goes each night.  Along the way he meets Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gertrude Stein, Salvador Dali and Picasso to name a few. 

If you care little for past artists, then maybe the premise will not be as cool to you as it was to me.  The movie is really kind of a love letter to Paris, itself.  Having never been there it was so beautiful to see the different shots of the city streets and the well-known buildings.  For me the ending was a little weak, but overall I really enjoyed the movie as a whole.  Of course, if you're like my husband, after having watched the movie and after hearing me declare my love for it you might say, "Really?" in a very surprised/confused manner.  Then again, Brig has never met an action movie he hasn't liked which tells you something about his taste in movies. 

Owen Wilson is fabulous playing the free spirited Gil.  I love his crooked nose and his voice.  His voice is so pleasant, isn't it?  I dare you not to like his character. 

I have to get back to folding clothes now.  Just had to get that off my chest.

Bree Oddities

My second born is a funny girl.  She recently started hugging a lot.  Not just people, either.  One day while I was doing my hair in the bathroom I peeked out into the hall to see her flush against the wall, arms outstretched making a kissing noise.  She regularly hugs the couch and Ava's Disney Princess chair.  This morning she was carrying around a copy of X-Men First Class DVD, hugging it to her chest and saying "Mmmmm-mmmm," the noise she makes when she is being affectionate.  I'd like to think she's just a very affectionate little girl.  The sweetest thing is when Ava cries, which is often lately (girls are so moody), she will make a bee-line for Ava and hug her and pat her head.  Of course the claws do come out occasionally...she is a notorious hair puller and I'm constantly amazed that sibling rivalry is born so early in one's life. 

Another funny thing she does is pull Ava's underwear out of her top drawer and carry it around with her.  She has a specific preference for panties.  Sometimes she attempts to put them on her head.  I always wonder, why the panties?  Why not leggings, or socks? 

She's always been much more vocal than Ava ever was.  I don't know if this is due to the fact that I could never get her to take a pacifier and so it left her mouth free to grunt and growl and yell.  She really loves dogs.  Whenever we see one she makes the panting noise.  Recently she's started yelling at them.  At the park yesterday it was like a doggy bonanza and Brielle was spellbound.  She kept yelling and yelling. 

One of the fun things about being a mom is watching the personalities develop in your children.  This little girl has a big one.  I love her very much, even if she does keep waking me up at 2 a.m.  It's like Stockholm Syndrome.  She's tortured me with greatly reduced sleep for over a year now and yet she makes my heart sing when she smiles at me.  Love my baby girl.

Weight Loss Wednesday

Thought I'd forgot about it, didn't you?  In good news on this front I've lost 2 lbs!  In bad news I gained 4 lbs over the holidays, so really in all I've gained 2 lbs.  If I could make money as easy as I can gain weight I'd be very, very wealthy. 

Gosh that Jennifer Hudson is looking good, isn't she?  Tis that time of year when the t.v. is bombarded with diet-related industry commercials because they know we're all feeling especially bad about that third serving of pumpkin pie.  

My side of the family is having a three month biggest loser competition starting this Monday.  This should give me some incentive.  Also Brig and I's ten year anniversary is coming up this year in October and I'd like to be near what I weighed when I got married.  My hopes are we will be able to get away together without the kids.  It's been quite a few years since we've been able to even stay overnight somewhere for our anniversary. 

I've been dancing about an hour a day.  We got the Kinect for our Xbox for Christmas and one of the games we got was Just Dance 3.  It's a lot of fun, and I'm all about fun when it comes to exercise.  I also have a couple of friends from my ward who are threatening to drag me to the gym with them every morning.  They are both in fabulous shape, which intimidates me.  I may just give it a chance though. 

As far as eating goes, this is my biggest challenge as I've talked about before, I want to cook more healthy meals for my family.  We have frozen huckleberries in the freezer and the infamous frozen rhubarb that I once used to ice my wounded boob from my eight month old's sharp teeth and I've been blending up smoothies for lunch.  This is good for me as I'm most tempted to eat poorly at lunchtime when my energy wanes and Brielle goes down for a nap. 

By next Wednesday my goal is to lose 1 - 2 more lbs.  According to the Mayan calendar 2012 will be the last year we all exist before the destruction of the world next December...so obviously I want to be in shape for that ;) 

Hope all that are reading this who are wanting to lose weight can find it in themselves to make themselves a priority this year.  I have a tendency of taking care of everyone else but me, and I don't want my girls growing up thinking that they should follow in my footsteps.  I know that I am happier when I'm exercising and feeding my body with the nutrients it needs.