"Announcements! Announcements! Announcements! What a horrible way to die! What a horrible way to die...." 
Sorry that just popped into my head as I was about to make this blog post.  Forgive me....well I'm sure you can figure out what this announcement has to say for itself....

Yep you got it, we're expected another little one to join our family at the end of 2012.  We couldn't be more thrilled.  I won't be finding out girl or boy till July sometime. Anyways....the word is out.

Feeling Fit….

Who doesn’t get to a point in life whether it be a job, or you finally look in the mirror or even just reach a moment in a day and think to yourself…..” how did I end up in a job I hate sooo much? This isn’t what I wanted to do!”, or “ how did I get to this, this is not what I want to look like, this is not a happy person”, or “ how is it already 4pm and I’m still in my pajamas and my teeth aren’t brushed.  Well for me the looking in the mirror and seeing someone I didn’t know was the scenario that hit home. 
Infact it didn’t just hit home, it freakin smacked me in the face and hard!

     Prior to getting pregnant with Kal I was in pretty good shape. Good as in probably the best shape of my life….. infact I was working toward a “Fitness Competition Body” . I wasn’t planning on actually competing in any competitions but looking like I did and heck if I wanted to having the option.  I had a strict diet, and kept a food diary.  I also kept track of my daily calorie intake/ and calorie burn and I was burning substantially more than I took in.  I felt great!  My weight didn’t play a role at all.  After having struggles with eating disorders in my early youth I had always been careful about putting too much stock into that NUMBER on the scale. I didn’t want to strive for a certain number, my focus this time around was HEALTH.  And health to me meant FEELING and LOOKING great and the way to be healthy is in eating good portions of good foods, and getting plenty of sleep and exercise.  Well just as I was feeling like pretty hot stuff, I found out I was pregnant. 

    Whewee!  I was elated and soon INFLATED!! The first couple months I was good about what I ate and making it to theo gym regularly.  But the exhaustion of pregnancy was overwhelming.  I’ve heard it said you either get really bad morning sickness, or really bad exhaustion, or a little of both.  I had exhaustion in freaking OVER DRIVE and I let the exercise go by the way side.  Which started a domino effect, I wasn’t living an active lifestyle and what I was eating became less and less healthy, and I was taking the “Eating For Two” phrase LITERALLY.  Not keeping in mind that that second person I was eating for was like the size of a walnut…..Any way the pregnancy weight began to pack on in my second trimester.  I couldn’t believe the numbers at my appointments so I started evaluating my diet with the O.B. I asked her what I could do to slow this weight gain down.  She gave me some pointers. I became very strict and lowered my carb intake by quite a bit and really watched my portions.  My next appointment came around I still put on a substantial amount.  What the heck.  She asked if I was eating a lot of Salt. My circulation was horrid I woke up constantly at night because my arms were completely numb, and I had had to cut off my wedding ring because my hand swelled to twice it’s size one night.  My hands, and feet and face were ballooning up.  I told her I don’t really put salt on my food.  Well the next day I sat at the table working on crafts eating a handful of sunflower seeds!  I had been eating sunflower seeds like a handful a day!  Which are practically the saltiest things you can eat!  Gosh I’m dumb….So I cut out sunflower seeds all together.  Guess what I only gained 1 more lb. the remainder of my pregnancy.

(just a couple days before I gave birth)

  Although I was able to get smart at the end I had already done some damage amidst the pregnancy. Over all I gained a whopping 45-50lbs. during my pregnancy!  Yuck.  That’s almost double the healthy amount. I had Kalvin April 8, 2011.  By the end of that first week I had already lost 20 lbs.  I thought “This is awesome!!!  I’m one of those ladies who’s fat just gets sucked from their body while breastfeeding”  Well turns out that was probably just all that water weight I had put on.  because I platued after that.  This is about the time I looked in the mirror and was just DISGUSTED with myself.

(It’s hard for me to post this! It’s EMBARASSING!- This is 2 1/2 months after I had Kalvin and I still look pregnant!)

 

How did I get here? When I looked at myself in the mirror it wasn’t the person I wanted to see and it wasn’t the person I felt like I was on the inside.  So I had to  do what I had to do to become that person again.  So I worked my butt off.  Some days it seemed like I would never get there.  Some months I lost 10 lbs. Some were harder and I just coasted.  Although I can proudly say the number never increased on the scale.  And even more proudly I can say I have lost 70 lbs, that’s right 70 FREAKING POUNDS since I gave birth to Kalvin.  I am well under my pre-preg weight with Kal.  Although with the weight lifting and such I was doing before then I had some muscle weight, that I don’t have now.  and I think my fat to muscle ratio is still worse than before but I’m SOOO much happier and HEALTHIER!

(much better!  I can finally look at a picture of myself and feel  content and happy with how i look.  This is a year after giving birth to Kalvin)

Well just proud of how far I’ve come in the past year and thought I would share my good news of Health!

Making A House A Home….

Like a mentioned in a past post, we are living in the house of some friends while they are in Tennessee.  It has been such a blessing!  We are so grateful to the Walkers, and even more importantly to our Heavenly Father for being ever mindful of our needs.

So here is a tour of the house, and a look at my attempts to decorate.  I’m by no means am a professional, but I LOVE to decorate, and do DIY home improvement projects.

You walk in the front door and to the left is our front room!

Heather the home owner has great taste and had already painted the walls.  I love the Torquoise, and already had furniture and pillows and such to go with the color scheme.

Now if you continue in past the front room you enter our living room….

 

We spend a lot of our time in here.  Jeff picked out the couch and loveseat. I thought they looked very oriental, so I kind of went with that theme in here.  You can see the bamboo plant in the corner, and then the blind in the opposite corner.

The couch etc is SURPRISINGLY comfy!

As you can see from the living room you can see the casual dining area, and the kitchen.

Right off of the dining area is our main floor bathroom. Still toying with exactly how to decorate in here.

 

Here is a better shot of the kitchen….

Now turning to our right is the formal dining area, which is lacking a table I’m looking for a good deal.  The little hutch we got for free someone was throwing it out and I still need to give it some TLC.  And the dining chairs I got for $6 a piece at goodwill. 

As you can see this room doubles as our office, with the two file cabinets in the corner and our printer…

Now up the stairs….

Kids/Guest Bathroom…..

 

Spare Bedroom….This bedroom set was one that Jeff and I had when we first got married.  It was one he bought off his dad.  He wasn’t finished and I HATED.  But when we moved in here we put it in the garage for a while and Jeff ended up staining and sealing it.  We did a two-tone stain.  The drawers are darker than the main body.  I actually like this bedroom set now…

 

The Nursery…

Before we even had a definite house, I had decided on a giraffe theme for the nursery.  During conference Oct. 2010 I painted the mother baby giraffe painting and did all the other crafts to have them ready for when we DID have them when he came/when he had someone definite to stay.

Jeff’s sister Davina was soo awesome and got us our nursery furniture. Crib, rocker, dresser, changing table.  We love aunt Davina!

 

And now the Master Bedroom I’m still trying to find stuff to decorate. I’ve got a color sheme, and feel, but just haven’t found the right stuff to really finish it off.

You can see the Vanity and Bathroom off to the left and there is a Walk-In closet just around the corner. WHICH IS AWESOME!!!!

I’ve seen a few things on Pinterest that I’ve thought of throwing up above the head board….we’ll soo though.

Now the basement in unfinished, but it gets a lot of use!

Now to the right we have our entertainment area….

We’ve got a couch, and bed infront of it all for comfortable viewing of whatever we happen to being watching on the projector screen.  Dvd’s and keyboard in the corner.

Then scan right….

another bed, incase we have a housefull of guests… and the beginning of the kids play area, for when we have friends over.

Play area….complete with dress up station.

as we round the corner, we have my favorite area (sense my sarcasm)  The Laundry Station…

Food Storage ETC.

Craft Corner…

And the most important to my sanity and Self Image…my GYM away from the Gym.

Can’t wait for my bike trainer to here tomorrow!  I got such a good deal and would love to add cycling to my basement workout regimen.  Well that’s all folks! 

Busy Baby!

As I have mentioned before Kalvin is sooo busy CONSTANTLY. Here is a good example of what my day is like, I get to play with quite possibly the cutest kid ever. Here he is dancing for me!

Eat your heart out ladies!

Being a mom is soo much fun, especially when he’ll briefly stop exploring to cuddle me or eat, or he just turns from what he’s doing to wrinkle his little noise at me and smile with those big blue eyes.  This IS my dream job!

A few weeks ago I found these awesome wood blocks at our Goodwill and had to get them, and so glad I did!

He LOVES them.  They are one of the first things he wants to play with every morning now.  At first he just had fun knocking over the towers I would make, or trying to eat the blocks.  However now he’s been trying to stack them as well.

Kalvin also depotted one of my plants and pour the dirt out on the hearth,….then he proceeded to EAT the dirt.  So of course I grab the camera.

It was actually pretty easy to clean up considering the plan was dead and the dirt was bone dry so it vaccumed right up!  I don’t know if you can tell, but as I was taking this picture I noticed it had the word dirt on his shirt.  So I read it closer….

How IRONIC is that?!?  I found it pretty amusing….and he was having a good old time too.

Right before our trip to Aspen last month we bought a doggy door.  A good friend of ours was house sitting and dog sitting for us, sooo we thought it the perfect time to FINALLY (and I say finally because we’ve talked about it FOREVER) get a doggy door.  This way, while our friend was at work the dogs wouldn’t be pinned up in the house all day. Well Kalvin has become quite obsessed with the doggy door and will stand there with his head poking out for half an hour sometimes.  Not to mention he has crawled out of it a few times , and started making his way to the yard.

Kalvin has been throwing tantrums lately.  Not like him, but I think it’s connected to another new development.  He has gotten to where he doesn’t really like ME feeding him.  He like feeding himself.  However he doesn’t have the motor skills to spoon feed himself sooooo we’ve had a lot of finger foods lately.

my little man is growing up WAY too fast!

 

I find cool things on Pinterest ALL the time, sooo the other day I had seen a rainbow cake on there, and decided to give it a try!  I used a lemon cake mix, and strawberry icing.  Jeff thought it tasted like Fruity Pebbles.  Whatever it tasted like, it tasted good, and looked cool!

Jeff and I were just sitting on the couch talking when we heard a weird noise in the kitchen.  We looked over the halfwall to see Kalvin had gotten into the cabinet, had pulled out the dog treats had managed to get the lid off and was stuffing his face with doggy treats.  He had two in his mouth when we first went over and both fist were full of the “bacon” treats.  He didn’t mind me taking them from his hands but when I took them out of his mouth he cried.  They must be good.  Our little “Hudini” never ceases to amaze me.

LOVELY HUH? This is the pretty bruise I got from our ski trip last month.  It’s funny that’s all it was, was a bruise.  It was my other knee that I actually twisted and could barely walk on for a few days. Hoping we can join Jeff’s sister and brother-inlaw in Park City next month for another ski trip. Well until next time!

A Glimpse Of 10 Months w/Kal …..

MONTH 1:We fell in love with Kalvin the moment we saw him, but having him home was a whole new world for me.  I could go and look at him anytime I wanted.  I would just study the curves of his face, as if I were going to wake up from this wonderful dream and I didn’t want to forget him.

Just a couple days after we brought him home I watched him roll from his stomach to his back.  Many people didn’t believe me, and said it was a fluke, but he continued to roll over time and time again.  He was such a strong little guy!  He slept in a bassinet on his pack’n’play in our room for the first little while.  He would wake up every every 3 hours to feed. I had been soo scared that I would sleep through him waking up and he would starve so I set my alarm for every three hours the first couple of nights, but then I noticed he was waking up right before the alarm would go off, and I didn’t want him getting used to that. I wanted his body to sleep as long as he wanted to, and just had to tell myself he WILL wake up when he is hungry and I WILL wake up too. One night I was really tired and fed him laying down in bed, he finished up and I put him back in his bassinet.  I woke up 30 minutes later throwing the covers up freaking out thinking I had let him slide down under the covers and he was suffocating.  I had been soo tired that I forgot that I put him back in bed.  Needless to say I didn’t do that anymore. I made sure to feed him sitting up and completely aware so I didn’t have those kind of scares.

 

This was Kalvin’s first sunday to church-EASTER Sunday! By 3 weeks Kalvin was sleeping 4 1/2 hours between night feedings. So I was only waking up once!

MONTH 2:Kalvin was the happiest baby.  We hadn’t heard him cry since the day he was born.  No big surprised he was the GASIEST baby at church.  He was constantly tooting.  He’d get really angry (grunting and turning bright red) then there would be a long chain of farts, then Happy Baby!  Kalvin was peeing out of his diapers constantly this month.  So I finally said …’okay I don’t care how many pampers diapers we have left I’m getting him Huggies’  (these had proved to be the best in my daycare years)  and we haven’t had these problems since I switched.  I had gotten a lot of free pampers at the hospital and wanted to use them up first but I just couldn’t take it anymore. Kalvin got to meet his great aunt and his great grandma on his dad’s side this month.  And I got to celebrate my first MOTHER’S DAY. Jeff’s mom sent me a bouqet of beautiful tulips and it made my first mother’s day really special.

MONTH 3: Pretty early on this month Kalvin found his smile. And we couldn’t have been more thrilled. Okay….’I’ couldn’t have been more thrilled.  I would completely exhaust myself doing things silly things just to see that smile if even only for a second .  Jeff’s sister Mindy came into town and we did all kinds of outdoor things.  Hiking, Rock Climbing, Clay Pigeon Shooting, and we even went to the Zoo.   And Kalvin proved to be such a trooper.  He really is such a happy baby, no complaints ever. Soooo grateful I didn’t have a collicy(sp?) baby. This month Kalvin started sleeping 6 hours straight at night, and man did I feel like new woman!  Also he was rolling over from his back to his belly all the time  and would just kind of wiggle his way around the floor.

    

Kalvin LOVED hanging out with daddy.  Already such a Daddy’s boy!

Sleeping in the stroller at the Zoo. 

Month 4: This was a busy month for us.  Kalvin had his blessing.  Grandma Harris, Grandma & Grandpa Mundy, Uncle Tyler, and Uncle Dylan were all able to come into town for it.  He is soo loved.  We’re so grateful to have such a supportive family who want to be actively involved in our childrens lives.

Kalvin looked sooo handsome in his tux for his blessing! Thanks Grandma Harris for that!

After the blessing….

Uncle Dylan

Uncle Tyler

Grandma & Grandpa Mundy

Jeff’s brother David also came to visit this month, and stayed for a few days and we went clay pigeon shooting again. Developementally Kalvin has been above and beyond the projected milestones.  And this month was noo acception. He seemed happiest when he was standing on our laps, jumping up and down.  He is was sooo strong. Could he just slow down already, always in such a hurry to grow up!

Month 5: Kalvin had started giggling in month 4 but now he was a regular giggle box.  And everything momma did was HILARIOUS!  Kalvin was rolling across the room.  Infact he was starting to crawl…..but he would stick his bum in the air and push with his feet, and he would just drag his face in the carpet (which exerted A LOT of energy, probably didn’t feel so great, and wasn’t very efficient) so mostly he stuck with rolling to where he needed to go.  Kalvin could sit up by himself at this point with the occasional tumble.  He was beginning to have so much personality I couldn’t stand it!  He loves the dogs, but he was just starting to really interact with them, playing with their ears and such.

 

If Kalvin was sitting or laying anywhere Ginger was pretty close by.  She loves cuddling with him!

MONTH 6: Kalvin had a lot of firsts this month.  Kalvin started eating solids, which he LOVES! Veggies and Fruit the possibilites were endless. Another first was he said Momma!  He had just really started babbling and one night he was making “buh buh buh’s” and “mmmmm’s” so I kept saying it over and over as he watched my lips then imitated me.  It was sooo awesome, and the best part was Jeff was there so it wasn’t one of things where I tell him about it and try to get Kalvin to do it again and he makes me look like total liar.

Also Kalvin was definitely crawling by now….well it’s more of an army crawl.  It was almost as though he was rowing a boat, but hey it gets him from A-B, and he loves standing and holding on to me (Which he’s actually done for a few months now), but now he was holding on to other things furniture & such, although I had to watch him pretty closely because he wasn’t super steady yet.

I get lost in his big blue eyes!  Ginger had puppies this month and Kalvin LOVED them.  We would put them on his lap and he would pet them, and I would take the puppy away and he would start crying- the cutest thing!  The puppies loved Kalvin too, they would crawl to him, over him, and lay on his lap.

MONTH 7: Well it was almost a whole month since I had heard Kalvin say momma, and then he finally did it again, and again, and again.  It became all he would say, although I don’t think he knew what he was saying it was just a sound he had figured out how to make. Either way it would melt my heart everytime! We had halloween this month.  I wanted our family to have a costume theme, and Jeff came up with the cute idea of he and I being gypsies, and then Kalvin could be a monkey with cymbals.  I seriously screamed after I got his costume on, he looked that cute. What you don’t agree?!?

Also with Kalvin CONSTANTLY  being on the move….he was burning a lot of energy.  I would walk into the living room to see him completely passed out in mid crawl.  This kid plays hard!  He won’t stop till he drops LITERALLY….

  

                      

MONTH 8: This is the month we started to worry about Kalvin having identity issues, if he wasn’t chewing a rawhide he was eating dog food.

 

Kalvin was here one second, there the next this kid had the army crawl down , occasionally he would give crawling on his knees a try-but it just wasn’t the same. We had Thanksgiving, and invited Jeff’s mom to join us.  She had soo much fun with Kalvin this trip.  He loved playing and wrestling with her on the floor.  She tried to get him to finally say daddy the whole trip and then the day after she left I believe he finally did it, and then the excitement of a new word took over and this became the only one in his vocab for the next month.

Reading with Grandma Harris

Our Thanksgiving Décor…

This little booger would climb in and out of his swing and into anything he could get his hands on.  Our little ‘HUDINI’

We had family pictures taken before Suzy went back to Georgia….

 

 

MONTH 9: This month was another eventful one.  We started off December with my birthday and went to Olive Garden, where Kalvin stuffed his face with breadsticks for like 60 secs. (long enough for us to order) then he began screaming bloody murder.  So we had to take our food to go. Couldn’t ever figure out what was wrong with him….

We then had our anniversary on the 13th….we didn’t do much for this- went to chili’s maybe, which Kalvin loves and he always eats my fries. We then went to Utah to visit my family for christmas, which was a lot of fun.  Kalvin loved playing with the wrapping paper and the tissue paper was his favorite.   I had been using baby sign language with Kalvin.  Mostly for “milk” “more” and occasionally “please”.  however the only sign he had ever reciprocated was “milk” and he would use it when he was done with his solids and just wanted milk however…..I’m not sure when but sometime between month 7-9 the sign for milk became the sign for “hungry” “more” “faster” “FEED ME!!”  and then of course “milk”.  So basically before and while Kalvin eats until he is full and satified he’s pump his fists and say “MMMMMMM” very enthusiastically.  The family all got a really big kick out of this.  It is kind pretty cute I guess..

 

Kalvin went on a trampoline for the first time and then of course was showered with all kinds of attention from everyone.  We got to skype with Dylan (my brother who is serving a 2 year mission for our church).  And that was awesome!

Later in December we had Jeff’s birthday which was pretty low key.

The puppies loved all the additional people they had to beg for attention from.

Earlier in December my cousin Audrey had a baby boy, so we were able to stop by while we were in utah and I got a couple good squeezes out of him.  I think Remy and Kalvin will be good little buds.

Shortly after we got back from Utah Kalvin became obsessed with flushing the toilet and unraveling the toilet paper…..yay! more messes for mommy to clean up. I really don’t  mind though.  He’s learning something new everyday.

 

MONTH 10: We went to get together on NEW YEARS we’re friends with this awesome Samoan family and they had a fun bash.  With food, music, games.  It was soo fun to watch everyone dance.  Kalvin was shaking his little toosh. He loves music and he LOVES to dance, although he’s picky.  The beat has to be just right! Jeff had a lot of fiberglass speaker boxes he was shipping out and Kalvin of course always feels the need to help Jeff with whatever he is doing…

Kalvin can now climb up the stairs, he walks along all the furniture and loves to walk around with his walker.  He often times walks around the kitchen pushing our dining room stools infront of him.  He has mastered the art of sliding down backwards off of things such as the couch, stairs, and our bed.  He is a crazy kid.  He loves to explore everything!  He loves playing with Jeff’s bike he will spin the pedals, and pull the chain off the track.  He is one smart little guy.  Ginger had her heat cycle the first few weeks of Jan. so she was sporting a diaper….luckily her and Kalvin wear the same size!

The first few days I would bust up laughing every time I looked at her.  If you have been around our dogs you know not only do their tails wag but their entire back end, and it was just even more hilarious with a diaper in the mix.

We went to Aspen for a week skiing trip with Jeff’s sister Davina brother in law Brian, and also Jeff’s dad.  While there Kalvin took the back off of the remote control, pushed the trashcan around the condo, and just ran amuck.

 

There is never a dull moment with this little stinker!  I try and cherish every moment I spend with him.  How did I get soo blessed? Stay tuned for the moments we can’t help but want to share with all of you!