Getting My Body Back After Pregnancy

This little cutie turned 6 months old yesterday.

Long before he was born I had the goal to reach my pre-pregnancy weight by the time he turned 6 months old.  I completed a similar goal with Jensen and felt that I should be able to do it again.

I don't believe that it was a drastic goal or anything.  I just picked my goal by looking at the middle of the BMI index for my height.  Honestly my overall goal was really just to be healthy.

I gained 30lbs with Declin's pregnancy which kind of felt like a lot; so I was interested to see if I could reach my goal by the 6 month mark.  Unfortunately the holiday eating hit soon after I gave birth to him and things were not looking good as I was not loosing very much weight by the end of 2014.  But then in January, Feb, and March things went a lot smoother as I was eating at home more and I was back to my regular exercise routine.  I did not "diet" or change any habits differently then when I was pregnant.  I still ate desserts and except for 1 week of using my fitness pal app. I never counted calories.

I ALMOST reached my goal.

Today I am about 5 lbs away from my pre pregnancy weight.  I don't have a scale so I am not sure of the exact numbers.  But all of my "smallest" clothes fit again and I feel great.  So even though I am not quite there (I hope to get there in the next month or so) I am happy with what I have accomplished.

The main thing I am most grateful for is healthy eating.  We are not perfect, but I LOVE how far we have come with food.  It has taken years of pretty intense focus to get to the place that we are now, but we now have a great "book" (most of them are on pinterest that I just "refer" to) of recipes that we love.  I use certain tips and tricks that work great for our little family and our schedule.  We have also found a great balance with eating healthier, but not going WAY out of control with our food budget.  McKay and I are both happy with this aspect of our lives.  I really like the way I am able to gain weight for pregnancy and then lose it without having to stress too much about all the details and calories in between.  Healthy eating is perfect for all the different stages of life that we find ourselves in.  No more fade diets or just "letting" myself go just because I am pregnant.

Ok I am done preaching.  :)  Here are a few before, during, and after pictures just for fun.

Before- 

December 2013 (right before I got pregnant with Declin)

During: 

Pregnant with Declin

After: 

1 week post delivery (look at his hair!)

Today- 6 months after Delivery (5ish lbs away from my goal)

So grateful for a my body and all that it is capable of.  I will update about the real star of the show (Mr. Declin) soon!

    

            

Time Out for Women and a Double Baby Shower

This weekend was wonderful!  It was filled with so much goodness and as my Monday morning started today I felt happy, content, and loved.  What a way to start a monday right?!

This weekend I got to attend Time Out for Women for the first time.  We went to the one here in Idaho Falls and I got to go to it with lots of my favorite women.  Last year my mom and Larissa went to Time Out for Women in New York together and they loved it.  They decided that all of us needed to go to one together this year.  The Idaho Falls Time Out for Women was the best time for everyone so it worked out perfectly for me to be able to bounce back and forth from home to the event so that I could feed Declin.  He is still nursing full time so it was pretty essential for me to stay close.  Thank you thank you to everyone who traveled to Idaho so that we could all be together!

So all my sisters (Larissa from Connecticut), my mom, Melanie from Kansas, Rebecca (Bradley's wife), Aunt Libby, Aunt Heather, and Grandma all came to Idaho Falls and we partied together for 2 days.  The event went from Friday evening to Saturday evening.  We stayed in a hotel Friday night so that we didn't have to worry about the kiddos and so that we could all have a bed.  :)  The event was so fun!  I loved the whole thing and really learned a lot, but my favorite was the Friday night speakers.  Mercy River the music group spoke along with John Bytheway.  I totally felt like I could relate to the ladies from Mercy River (hello one of them just had a baby 2 weeks ago) and they were all hilarious and kept things real.  The second day was beautiful too and I really want to get some of Josh Wright's CDs now to listen to.  I LOVE piano music.

This event was just what I needed to feel refreshed and renewed.  The last few months I have felt pretty spiritually constipated (with no better way to put it.  lol).  I think I have been too business like with my to do lists and taking care of 3 little ones that I never really stopped to just listen, think, and ponder spiritual things.  Things that should have made me feel emotional just didn't.  I had lost the softness and sweetness to life.  I wasn't depressed just not very in tune with the spirit.  But after I had went to the temple on Thursday night and had time to ponder and pray there and then going to the event on Friday and Saturday I feel much better!  I am so excited to listen to general conference in a few weeks so that I can learn and grow some more.

Why I ever wanted brothers I don't know...  Having all sisters now is WAY too much fun!

Another thing I loved about this event was being the rest of the women that were there with us.  While we didn't really venture out and chat much with those outside or party you could just feel of their goodness.  I love going to things like this where you know that everyone there came because they wanted to be there.  We were all there for the same reason and we all had very similar goals.  There is power in a group of women like that and you could feel it.  There were a million pregnant ladies (our group was no exception... more on that later...lol) and lots of little babies with their mamas, lots of grandmas, and every other age in between.  Fun fun fun!  Declin boy loved all of the attention he got and in turn he was an angel baby during the whole event.

After the event we headed back to my house and thanks to McKay's hard work in prepping the house for us I was able to host a baby shower for both Larissa and Melanie. Larissa is due with a little one in late August and Melanie is due in May with a little girl.  Larissa wont be back from Connecticut until Christmas so it was now or never.  So happy that we got to have a shower for her even though she lives so far away.

  

I love hosting parties and baby showers are my favorite.  We didn't do too much since we didn't have a ton of time, but it was still sweet to watch them open gifts and eat some food.  For the meal we had the traditional chicken salad sandwiches, sweet potato fries, and italian salad.  We then had mini cheesecakes for dessert.  

Mommies to be with their mommies!  

After the shower my mom and sisters stayed the night at our house so that they could spend some time with the kids.  Then they went home Sunday morning.  We didn't do too much Saturday night because we were all pretty tired from the fun weekend.  So it was a movie and game kind of night.  Sad that dad and the other brother-in-laws couldn't be there.

So happy to spend such a memorable weekend with family.  This is what life is about.  Sweet experiences with our eternal families.  These times are ones that I will always cherish.  

  

   

  




    

     

Spring is in the Air

I know we have all said it a million times this year, but this year's weather here in Idaho is very abnormal.  The other night we went for a walk around a park at sunset.  The weather was beautiful with no wind.  I just want to document these pictures here so that years down the road when we have a foot of snow all the way until June we can go back a remember the "good" years.

  After resetting up the trampoline outside and pulling our slides out from the basement the kids have spent as much time outside as possible.  We don't have a fence around our backyard so I still worry that one of them will escape and take off down the road, but in general they do really well.

One of my favorite things about our backyard (it is pretty bare so there aren't a lot of favorites), but I do love that Adalyn's best friend Hannah lives in the house right behind ours.  Our backyards run together and they play often.  These girls are 1 day apart in age and have very similar personalities.  They play so well and just adore each other.  Most days you can see them running around holding hands and bossing Jensen around.  Hannah being our back door neighbor is a big reason for why we don't have a fence around our yard.

Adalyn and Jensen just discovered "riding bikes".  We don't actually own any bikes, but they love riding our super old princess push car and the tricycle.  They now want to go for "walks" daily.  We don't make it very far, but they sure love their new found freedom of riding themselves instead of being pushed in the stroller.   

I have had this desire recently to understand Jensen.  Really understand him.  I used to think he was super social and just as out going as Adalyn.  And as a baby he was.  The week he turned a year old his whole personality changed.  Seriously McKay and I still talk about it and everything is referred to as "before he turned a year old or after".  Since then he has been hard for me to fully understand.  He is not out going very often in front of others unless he needs a good hour to warm up first and if you catch him on a good day he can be hilariously cute, but not many people see it because he is shy.  He is a softy and does not like loud noises or scary things.  He likes cars, balls, and other boy toys, but he is also just as happy to play with babies and dress ups.  He loves playing rough house and wrestling with McKay, but he LOVES to be held by his mama and is a huge mamas boy.  I can't wait to see what his and Declin's relationship will be like.  It should be interesting... 

   

Runny nose man!  Jensen loves for me to wipe his nose and often brings me the tissue first before I see it.  Although in these pictures he was distracted with the fun dish water that he was playing with.

For me this week was a discouraging one.  Not with anything major, just the little things that get us down.  I was extra tired and had extra things to do.  I get self conscious about some things and think about other things way too much.  I felt like I was running in circles to keep up and yet I was still letting people down in the process.  I have really felt the pull to keep my focus on my home and children.  For several years I have always wanted and needed extra little things or friends to fill my time and keep me sane.  These days I feel like I am starting to enter the busy stage of life where just the daily grind with kids has to be my main focus.  I don't have time to build every friendship that I want, I can't go to every girls night out, or do every little project that I want.  It is ok.  I can choose the most important ones and do those along with my church callings and family.  It is sometimes hard to prioritize but feels good in the end.  

And I am so thankful for this good man that helps keep me inline and supports me in everything that I do.  Oh and he does the dishes... a lot.  He loves that baby in his arms they are pretty good buddies!  

    

March 9th

Today:

The boys are sick, and Jensen's nose is like a fountain that never stops running.  Moms always joke that all they do all day is wipe their kids noses and change diapers.  Well today, that really is what I did all day.

We hung out all morning feeling sad for ourselves that we had to stay home yet again because of sick kids.  By the afternoon I was ready to be a little more productive.  So I finally finished the Spring banner that I had been working on for a few weeks.  So glad McKay goes to work so I can just sit home, make crafts, and eat bon bons. ;)  

While I crafted the kids switched off between playing outside and crying at my feet.  It was a long day of no naps.  

After dinner we headed to the park for FHE.  This was our first time back at the parks for the 2015 season.  The kids were a little rusty and it took them a few minutes to gain the courage to go down the "big" slides. 

Declin spent his park time in Daddy's arms looking as cute as can be in his little bear body suit.  Today is the first day Declin has shown preference towards someone and that someone was Daddy.  He was smitten and did not want daddy to leave his side.  It melted both mine and McKay's hearts.  What a cutie we have!  

Happy Monday everyone!

  

*Little Things* #1

I have noticed that since having Declin my posts have become very business like.  I write about the main events in our life and hit on all the major milestones, but all of the fluff and fun is gone.  Part of it is that the spark in the blogging world is gone.  Nobody blogs anymore, nobody really reads personal blogs anymore, and hence it makes me not very excited to write anymore.  Secretly (or not so secretly) I blame Instagram.  haha!  I have very much a love/hate/annoyed relationship with instagram, but I wont really go into all of that because it doesn't really matter.  It is what it is and blogging is old school.  BUT this is our family journal and I want to keep documenting our lives and until I find a better solution then pictures on Instagram I am going to keep blogging.

So in an effort to spice up the old blog and help me enjoy writing about the little things again I am going to start a "Little Things"series.  Nothing super exciting, but just little things from our week that I want to remember to document.  Seriously don't get too excited, it wont be much.  But hopefully it will give me a place to write about the random things that might be forgotten.

Here we go.... This weeks *Little Thing* is Jensen blowing bubbles.

This guy is getting so independent and "I do" are his favorite words.  It is so fun to be able to understand him more and more.  He is a pretty serious guy most of the time and is not very social, but when he does open up it is usually him being a tease.  He loves teasing and has already pulled some pretty funny jokes on me.

I love these pictures because they are real, not staged (hence the fingerprints on the window) he didn't know that I was taking them, and the lighting was perfect so no flash was there to mess them up.

Oh toddlerhood... I think by the time I am done raising toddlers I will love it... maybe.


Oh and this other boy, Declin, is trying to skip my favorite baby stage by crawling before he can sit up on his own.  How dare he!  I LOVE the stage where they can sit up and entertain themselves, but they can't move off your specifically designed play area aka, a blanket.  But the kid has been getting up on his hands and knees this week and rocking.  Say what?!  He will be running away from me before I know it!

Oh and I also while I am talking about the boys I have been meaning to give a quick update on our cloth diapering adventures.  They are both in diapers these days, but we are only using cloth diapers with Jensen.  We tried them for about 2 days with Declin when he was 3 months old and then he pooped.  That baby/breast milk poop is some serious stuff and it just left our diapers in a disgusting mess!  It was way too much work on my part to get it off and I told McKay it was not worth it to me to keep doing that.  I guess you can call me a fair weather cloth diaperer. So we are waiting until he is eating more solids before transitioning him to the cloth diapers.  But cloth diapering a toddler is seriously easy and it is going very well.  Jensen has been wearing cloth diapers since last July and I have only bought 1 box of disposables for him since then (for trips to Utah).  Sweet!