My Family

more pictures!

Amber was my best friend in high school. Even though we drifted apart towards graduation, we always found our way back to each other. This weekend I had the pleasure of taking their family pictures at Snowbird. Luckily they had snow and it made for some fantastic shots! Here are a few of my favorites.

Dylan's Senior Pictures

I took Dylan to do some senior pictures. I think they turned out awesome, with one exception. Unfortunately the only time we had to do these was at like 11 am. Which meant the sun was high and bright. And although we did our best to make sure he never faced the sun, it was such a bright day that we still had squinting :( Oh well, they're still pretty awesome.

I like pictures.

I like pictures. I like getting our pictures taken and I like taking pictures. I love that it captures moments and memories. Even if in 10 years I look at it and say, "wow, what is with that hair?" Sometimes I feel like pictures see more than I know in that moment. Anyhow, I've been taking pictures more and learning more about how to use my camera. I've already posted some wedding photos and here are a few I've done since then.

Looking good, feeling great!

Alright, a few weeks have gone by since setting goals. We haven't been perfect, but we're making it work as much as we can. We've fallen off the wagon as far as eating out, it's so hard when life gets so busy! It's just so much easier to go out and have someone else do the work. Plus, I get these ridiculous cravings for the foods that are bad for me. Ah, well it's been getting better again and we're starting to behave some more. 

The real progress is me! I've been back on Herbalife and the inches are just melting away! I lost about 6 inches by only changing one meal a day (breakfast) to a shake. That's it. So I kicked myself into gear and thought, if I can lose 6 inches by still being lazy, lets fix up the meals side of it better. I noticed that I wasn't craving the bad food nearly as much and I stopped over eating! I am so bad when it comes to overeating, if I bought it, I will eat it! I don't like to see wasted food. NO MORE!!! Then I started thinking that I'd really like to be more physically fit, rather than just skin and bones. I've decided that I'm a "skinny fat". Basically it means that I'm not considered fat and I don't look fat, but I don't feel skinny and all of me is pretty squishy. Ha. That sounds funny. In any case, I was sick of being out of shape and starting to realize that Sawyer is getting bigger and faster everyday! I need to be able to keep up with him! So... I started P90X. It's only been a week but I can already SEE the difference in my legs and arms. And soon it'll be noticeable all over! Woo Hoo! See how great Herbalife is? It's been the push I needed!

A few of my favorite things

I LOVE WEDDINGS! Seriously, weddings are so great. The dress, the flowers, the decorations, the suits, the chaos: it's all beauty to me. I've had part in two weddings this year.

The first one, in June, I was the maid of honor for my friend Amber. Now, her wedding was not traditional. Both her and her husband had kid/s from previous relationships/marriages. Since they're all still under 10, and these two in general are just not the big fancy wedding type, they got married at The wAIRhouse in Salt Lake. This is a trampoline park. It sounds weird, but it was so perfect. The kids were able to enjoy the wedding and everyone loved it.

The second wedding is my cousin's. He married a gorgeous and funny girl that fits his world perfectly. I'd only met her once before, but even then, I knew she was the one for him. I think we all did. They got married in Wisconsin this past weekend, so we went out to just go to the wedding. When I got there I decided to put my camera to use and play around a bit. I took a few classes, I can now shoot manual, but I am in no way a pro. It was so exciting. They weren't planning on doing actual photo shoots or anything, but I still got them to do a few poses. Other than that, it was just capturing the happenings. It was so much fun. I took well over 1000 pictures, several of the same things of course. After weeding it down and editing, there are over 292. A few of those are duplicated with different coloring and whatnot. In any case, I feel like i was able to help preserve the memories of this fantastic day. If I had more planning and time to model people, I probably could have done more. BUT I feel like they were perfect and we captured the essance of the group.

I love that I was able to be a part of two weddings this year, I still sometimes dream of working with more weddings. Maybe someday!

Here are a few pictures.

Beginnings, Middles, and Ends

Our new work schedules came out for Sept 15- Jan 12. I will be back to a more "normal" schedule, 4:00 pm - 12:30 am, with Thursday and Friday off. This is going to be so great for so many reasons. I will still be able to keep Sawyer home with me, since I'll start work when Josh gets home. Since it's ending just after midnight, I'll actually get sleep at night!! I won't be a zombie all day! Yay! Weekends I can actually be with family, rather than sleeping all day to try to make up for the weekdays! Although it means that I'll have less daytime with my boys before we put Sawyer to bed, it'll make the rest of the time more liveable and usable. And since I'm working from home, I'll be able to take breaks with them, like for dinner and helping to put Sawyer to bed. As for the days off, our office is 24 hour, 365 days a year. Meaning we don't get holidays off unless we're already scheduled off or we request it and there's only limited approval for requests. Christmas is on a Thursday this year! This means I'll have ALL of the holidays off, including Josh's birthday as it falls on the day after Thanksgiving. This really helps me for a few reasons, one of which being that I had planned on being on maternity leave for the holidays since I was due Dec 17. When I lost the baby, I thought all hope for holiday time with family was lost. My seniority is so low in my department that I knew that my request for Christmas would never be approved, as there are too many other people ahead of me. Needless to say, we're pretty happy with the new schedule.

In other news, working from home is still awesome. Even though I hate working until 4:30 am currently, it sometimes gets really slow, with a lot of downtime. So, I've been doing some projects in my downtime. I've completed a few that had been started long before, as well as started and finished some new ones. Most of the projects are for my walls in the office. I really want to do a travel theme, but couldn't find a map that I liked, so I'm making one. I also have a little file system from Ikea that I've dressed up. I made some pillow cases for Sawyer and finally added vinyl labels to some jars and other containers. Here are a couple pictures of some of the projects. There are others too, but I'll post those another time.

 I still need to color the map in, but I've got the outline! After I get it colored in, I'll do a fun background.

 This is the Ikea wall hanging file system, it's a cream color metal. Very boring. Sooo.... I added some color!

Now I just need to hang it!

Progress

I suppose you're wondering how we're doing. Not too many updates, just a lot of busy and crazy days. Josh has been going to a class either at work or at contractor school every night and usually getting home about 7:30ish. So on the nights that I work it's rough, because he's home just before I start work. In some ways we're used to being apart like this, when I was working days, I went to school at night and when I was working afternoon shifts, I'd be gone before he got home. At least now, we're in the same house when I'm working!

We have only gone out to eat once in over two and half weeks now! It's so refreshing to not be spending unnecessary money.  I suppose it also helps that I don't need to leave the house much now that I work at home! I love that I'm getting so much time with Sawyer and knowing that he's getting better food with our dinners. My Herbalife has already made such a big impact in my energy levels, digestive, and overall attitude. I love feeling more healthy and it's only been just over a week.

Little by little our house is being rearranged and the clutter is being removed. Sometimes I feel like I need to keep things just because I know that a week after I throw it out I'll need it. Or maybe I spent enough money on something that I don't want it to "go to waste". I have turned over a new leaf and stopped buying unnecessary things, another perk of not leaving the house as much, I don't put myself at as much risk to buy frivolous things. My office space has come together so nicely and it looks like I've had a few great ideas to put the rest of it together. I've finished a few of the unfinished products that I had stashed in there, which helps to make me feel a little more at peace with myself. I like that accomplished feeling. Soon I'll post some shots of those projects and the de-cluttered house.

Oh, and did I mention? Only 36 days till Utah football!!!!

A Long Time Coming

Change can be so good. This post is about some of the why and what we're going to do in our house to make some changes. I'm going to give you a little bit of background that's been leading up to these changes, which might help to understand some of the motivation and some of why I think that maybe this time around, it's going to work.

The last few weeks I've been feeling like our lives are at a weird stagnant point. For those of you that know us, you know that we usually travel a lot, but lately, not so much. That could be part of it, as I don't like to sit still for long, I like to be doing things, experiencing life. I've been working the night shift of 8 pm to 4:30 am. It's so difficult. Having a toddler wake me up at 8 am, is not awesome, even though he's so cute. Josh has been working days, usually leaving around 6 am and getting home at 4 in the afternoon. We have a decent system, depending on how long Sawyer let me sleep in the morning and depending on if he let me nap when he naps, Josh would let me nap again when he got home, before I'd need to leave for work at 7 pm. Luckily most nights I didn't need another nap. And on weekends Josh lets me sleep in until I need to. Hopefully in September I'll get a better shift.

Josh and I found out we were pregnant with baby number 2 the day after our 6th wedding anniversary (April 11). It was a difficult secret to keep, because I just want to share my joy with everyone. We kept quiet until I graduated with my bachelor's degree on May 1. Most of my family was in town and so we'd be able to tell all at once. At that point, I was only 7 weeks, but I just couldn't hold it in anymore, and there wouldn't be another chance with us all together. We were all elated, so happy. I was graduating, I was going to have a baby, we were going to have more time to be a family now, it was perfect.

A few short weeks later, I found out that I had a low lying placenta, which usually will fix itself, but precautions were to be taken, putting me on a modified (mild) form of rest. I wasn't allowed any activity for more than an hour, and no grocery trips longer than 5 items. Unfortunately, while work generally wouldn't be an issue, working late into the night and having all day with Sawyer, wasn't going to work. I started staying home in the beginning of June, and hoped to return to work soon. Things seemed to be getting better, until they got bad. To keep it cleanest for everyone, I started hemorrhaging. It was horrible, I'd been going to the doctor twice a week as it was, now I rushed in and was basically told it would heal and I'd be fine - I was told this was normal. Long story shorter, I'll never go to this doctor again. It wasn't normal and it wasn't ok. I miscarried the baby on Father's Day morning. I wouldn't wish the experience on anyone. The next few days are a blur. I didn't want to leave the couch, didn't want to eat, didn't want to see anyone or even talk to anyone.

Since I was already out on FMLA leave from work, I stayed out for a few more days. I was looking forward to the ability to work from home, something I've wanted since I was hired on, but it'd taken more than a year for an opening. I had been waiting and waiting and I thought everything would be ok with the pregnancy if I couldn't just make it to day I could work at home. So I stayed off work until I could get my stuff and be home. Since then things have perked up, I've been working and even picking up extra hours. I've been social again (even though I'm not going into the office) and I've been happy.

Thankfully, work at home has brought more opportunity than I had realized for change.  In the process of getting my home office set up, we completely remodeled what was my sewing room. There had previously been no window and it was painted dark and light brown. The room was a clutter of things that were just kind of stashed and hidden away. Now I had a reason and time to clean it out. While I was at it, I painted after Josh put in a big new window. I've been organizing the office things and the sewing things. The room is great now, bright and happy.

Now that I'm home more and have more time since I no longer need to commute, we're also making a few other commitments. This blog is now going to be dedicated to sharing with you our progress in these commitments and holding ourselves accountable. I hope that maybe it'll help to inspire you and maybe we can work on this together! Over the next few updates, I'll go into more detail as we go over our progress. Below is a list of our new goals, we'll see how it goes!

1. Eat better

Reason: We eat out probably about 90% of the time. I hate that we spend so much money on this silliness. I hate that we eat so poorly, it's just not right, I mean really, I take better care of my hair than what I ingest into my body.

Action: Pay attention to grocery sales, cook and eat at home, find healthy recipes. HERBALIFE. Some of you may remember I did Herbalife for a while, but I stopped when I was pregnant with Sawyer. I love Herbalife and feel a little guilty that it's taken me this long to go back. Herbalife is amazing and it's not a diet, it's a lifestyle choice and the results are amazing. (I am a distributor, so let me know if you're interested). I want to be healthy. I'm not planning on working out beyond walks with Sawyer and sit up when it's slow at work. But just changing our diet and having the proper supplements will be fantastic for now.

2. Cleanliness

Reason: I have a 22 month old. My house is a disaster. I need to be better about keeping clean and getting rid of my clutter. I don't need to be a pack rat.

Action: I've printed out daily chore lists and have dedicated my mornings to doing them. Previously mornings were dedicated to being lazy and relaxing on the couch while Sawyer played because I was exhausted from working all night. NO MORE! I can nap while Sawyer naps, I don't need to watch TV while he plays, I can clean! Maybe he'll learn to help, he does have his own broom after all. Also, at night when (if) it gets slow at work, I've been able to catch up on little projects, like sewing or organizing, or catching up on shows, which helps get things accomplished without little hands to worry about.

3. Take Sawyer out more

Reason: This sounds silly, I just said we eat out a lot. But when we do go out it's usually for Josh or me and Sawyer just drug along. I want to create more time just for him at parks and zoos and other activites

Action: Just do it. Afternoons when Josh is home either after work or Saturdays. Nightly family walks, when time permits.

4: Josh = Journeyman

Reason: Why not? It's been a goal for a while, and he's finally to a point where he can do his prep work and test.

Action: He's going to a contractor school (which wasn't cheap) and he's going to pass. It'll help our family financially and help him to advance in his work.

5. Get financially fit

Reason: I hate being in debt. It's scary and the worst.

Action: Now that schools over and I don't have to leave the house for work, I pick up overtime and extra hours where possible. Josh does side jobs when he's not studying or playing with us. And, as mentioned before we aren't eating out.


This was a long post, and I appreciate everyone's support. Let me know if you have suggestions or comments!