Park City

Tomorrow we are leaving for a week in Park City. Give me a call if you can come and play, we'd love to have you! Here are a few pictures of last year showing the fun things we get to do this week:


Of course there will be lots of time swimming and playing by the pool.

Alpine Slide is always in the books (I'll be skipping out on that this year)

Last year we rented a boat at Jordanelle, that was a big highlite for the kids.


And for fun, a few from 2009, which will be more like what this year will look like for me... Lily was a month old, so I spent most of the time chillin', but it was all good.

Keeping an eye on the toddlers while the rest of the crew rides the Alpine slide.

Doing Grandma's crafts with cousins

More pool time

..and I thought Hyrum looked hilarious doing his penguin walk down the hall with the flippers on his feet and the snorkle still in his mouth. We are excited for a fun week!

Last Butterfly Post

This will be the last butterfly post since our butterflies are all gone now. Yesterday our last monarch emerged from it's chrysalis and took flight. Mel was on watch again to make sure we didn't miss our last chance to see a butterfly come out. She called us all over to see the exciting moment:


It's wings were so small and tight, but they seemed to double in size the first minute after coming out. She also wanted to hold it, since butterflies #2 and #3 flew off without saying goodbye. After an hour, I decided to risk messing up nature by getting the butterfly off the stick and pretending our fingers were the stick. As long as we kept it hanging upside down it should be okay, right? Mel got to hold it quite a bit, which is good, since it was her pet. She was there for it from the moment it hatched, which was a mere 21 days ago.


"Seems like only yesterday you were born..."


This one spent a lot of time in the yard which was fun. It flew from the tree to the grass to a branch, the kids would watch it. Maybe she was having second thoughts - not sure if she really wanted to take this step into the unknown. Cause you know she'd never flown before, she was trying to work up the courage to take the leap. Eating milkweed all day was a much easier life and she was seeing if she could just go back to being a caterpillar. Sorry girl, you've evolved, time to use your instincts or whatever it is that lets you know what to do next and go find yourself some flower nectar - good luck! You'll do great. The kids want to know if we can get more caterpillars. They were a pretty easy pet to have, and only a 3+ week commitment, so we might be able to handle that again. So maybe this isn't the last butterfly post... we'll see. :)

Butterflies!

We've been watching our chrysalis attentively the past few days and were so excited that two of our butterflies came out today - amazing! As they got darker and blacker and we could see their wings, I was wondering if/how those little wings would turn into big monarch wings...


Maybe these were miniature butterflies?


Nope, they got big and beautiful. We loved watching them hang and fan their wings.


We all got to play with one of the monarchs for about 15 minutes - it flew onto the grass and then onto a bush and we'd go get it on our fingers before it finally flew away too high for us to retrieve again.


The other one didn't try to fly until it was sure it could get away from all us onlookers and up all the way over the fence, and since I told the kids to not touch it until it left the branch first, we didn't get to play with that one at all, but the kids did see it flutter away happy and free :)

It was a lot of fun. We're excited for #3 to emerge tomorrow and then our baby caterpillar on Thursday.

And my daily discipline report for today (recorded in this food journal):


woke up at 7:30 - went to bed at midnight = 7.5 hours sleep
7:30 - cottage cheese, yogurt, great grains (270)
8:00 - exercise challenge - 400 lunges, plank and reverse plank 3x each for 1 min each
11:00 - chocolate shake and celery (300)
12:00 - wheat thins, cream cheese, tomato (330)
2:00 - ham, tortialla, cheese, lettuce and tomato (270)
5:00 - few chicken nuggets as I made dinner (guessing 150)
6:00 - Vanilla Protein Pancake (300)
Total calories - 1620 and I don't have the munchies or anything, so that's good! Almost 10:00 - heading up to bed soon, hopefully will get the kids in bed and myself too before 11.

And just to be accountable, yesterday I must report that I did end the evening slightly stressed and thus in my weakened condition had two balls of the frozen cookie dough since we were outside lighting fireworks and the box freezer was right there taunting me... Time to own up to my actions and look up how many calories are in those babies. Didn't say on the box, (probably not a good sign if the company is afraid to tell you!) And I couldn't find the nutritional value of Otis' oatmeal chocolate chip online either, but from the types of frozen dough that I found and their calories, I'm guessing each of those balls of dough is 170 calories!!!! Yikes. I've been nibbling on those quite a bit and didn't think they were that naughty. But even with the two balls of cookie dough adding 340 at the end, yesterday was still okay overall at 1800 calories (lucky for me I woke up so late I guess)

And lastly for your entertainment, here's Brian Regan talking about butterflies. I wouldn't have had any questions about butterflies before this summer, but now I might, but we've already looked up a lot of the answers. The funniest part of that clip starts at 1:30. "Don't even get me started!..."

Boring Entry of My "Follow a Plan" Stats

"When we deal in generalities, we shall never succeed. When we deal in specifics, we shall rarely have a failure. When performance is measured, performance improves. When performance is measured and reported, the rate of performance accelerates."

— Thomas S Monson

Day 1 following a plan, and I'm doing awesome. I think inside of me is a person who is happy if she just has a list of things to record and check off :) Kristi Approved's Program is good for that with their Daily Discipline in their Phase 1 book. I bought that over a year ago, in February 2010, and since then, from their website it looks like they've changed the packages they sell, but I have the phase 1 and phase 2 books, which have recipes, shopping lists and exercise routines. After I started phase 2 I got bored with the exercises and that's when I started Bodyrock in Costa Rica, which I'm going to continue with, but my plan for now pretty much follows Kristi Approved's Diet system and their "Seven Keys" - watch the video on that link if you want, but just wanted to reference it so that I can talk about their keys here without feeling like I'm telling you something that is a secret for KA members only. :)

THE 7 KEYS:
1 Nutrition
2 Hydration
3 Resistance Training
4 Cardio Training
5 Rest
6 Supplementation
7 Accountability

Posting all the boring details of my plan here will, I hope, help me be accountable to myself and maybe to any of you who want to join me. (You with me, Nicole?) Kristi Approved Key 7: ACCOUNTABILITY "Keep yourself accountable, make and report weekly measurements, Never change alone" I like their Daily Discipline, too... I'll try to post how that works later.

8:00 - woke up, took vitamins: Prenatal Vitamin, fish oil, and extra iron pill, since I'm slightly anemic right now - 8 pregnancies has totally drained my iron stores apparently. (note to self: work on getting up earlier...) but I did get 8 hours of sleep - the Kristi Approved Key 5: REST "Get 6-8 hours of rest per night. Being asleep by 10-11 pm is optimal"

Here was my nutrition plan for the day: KA Key #1: NUTRITION - "Eat 5-7 meals with the right types of foods (aka no cookie dough) and with correct food group combinations, every 2-3 hours. Plan/prepare your meals in advance"

8:30 - Meal 1 - breakfast total calories 300
grapefruit (100 cal) 1/2 c. cottage cheese (80 cal) 1/2 c. greek vanilla yogurt (90) 1/4 c. honey sunshine cereal (33)

9 - 11 - helped the kids with their jobs, read with Wesley, cleaned

11:00 - Meal 2 - total calories 270
Ham (100) & wheat tortilla (120) with cheese (30) lettuce & tomato (20)

11 - 1 - internet, email, news, etc, loaded dishwasher, cleaned my room, did Abi's hair

1:00 - Meal 3 - Chocolate shake - total calories 281
cocoa powder (15) Protein Powder (140) 1/2 frozen banana slices (60) 1/2 c. honey sunshine cereal (66)

KA Key #6 - SUPPLEMENTATION: Consume proper supplements including Mulitivitamins, essential fatty acids, recovery supplementation, and protein powder.

2 - 4 - exercised - did a 600 rep workout, which was mostly (KA Key#3:) RESISTANCE TRAINING - "Weight bearing exercise 3-5 days per week) Here's my Bodyrock Moleskin notebook that I made to be my exercise reference book.


I like these little books. I stole it from Corey - he does contract work at Veracity and had like 10 of these that they gave to him.)

4:00 - Meal 4 - total calories 280
18 reduced fat wheat thins (140) 2 celery sticks (4) 3 T. honey nut cream cheese (135)

4-5 - blogged about this here.

7:00 - I'll be finishing up with some scrambled eggs and tomatoes and salsa tonight

I've been drinking 2-3 cups of water with and between each meal. HYDRATION is the KA Key #2 - "Ddrink 3-4 liters of water per day (96-128 oz). I use this little pony bead thing I made to keep track of my water - have it hanging on my towel rack in my bathroom where I usually drink.


I've also used it to keep track of my lunges when I do a 400 lunge workout - each bead is 50 lunges. Helps me so I don't loose track in my head.


It's a handy little thing to have around. So, that's all the 7 keys and how they are part of my day- except I didn't do Key 4 yet - CARDIO TRAINING: "Perfom cardio training for 20-45 minutes 4-6 days per week" Maybe I'll go on a walk tonight, but I did get some cardio in my 600 rep workout doing side lunges and 180 step touches.

Oh, and my pregnancy workout today was 60 reps of each of the following:
1) deadlifts with 2 25 lb dumbbells
2) calf raises
3) push ups on knees
4) shoulder presses with 2 12 lb dumbbells
5) second wall squats 3 times
6) T-ups, no weight
7) plank hold with knees to elbows
8) 180 step back and touch the floor
9) reverse plan with kick up
10) side lunge touch
pregnancy bodyrock pregnant workout pregnancy routine pregnancy workout at home pregnancy plan

Make A Plan!

I'm recommitting myself to eating more vegetables, exercising everyday, and keeping my weight gain to a nice give or take 2 pound window for the next two months. The main key to my plan for success is to make and follow... a plan! ding ding ding!

Yes, having a plan makes a difference. I had an epiphany yesterday while making some curtains that were turning out badly: when I made an outline/plan of what I was going to do, it turned out well and much like the vision created in the plan such as my Young Women's Value picture for Mel's room. And, when I just winged it and tried to figure it out as I went along, it turned out bad and I hated it. I don't post those projects or take pictures of them, but I just fooled around with two things that come to mind - repainting a little wood birdhouse thing which looked terrible afterwards, and the other was the curtains I tried to make for the laundry yesterday - blah! But like I said I was just winging it, so like the curtains, I was just thinking of doing a temporary thing and staple gunning the fabric to the walls, anyway it was just bad and I hated it everytime I walked by the room or saw it, so it hung there for an hour then I took it down. Ya can't have something hanging around looking at you that fills you with negative energy, right? No. That's as bad as clutter (generating bad feelings, a sign to get rid of it! I should delete that clutter free blog ...started that 3 years ago when I was searching for my mission/purpose in life and thought about being a professional organizer.... I'd talk about helping other people de-junk and Corey'd be like "um, seems like we could hire you to work on our house. ...if you're interested...")

I warmed up for my plan of attack by doing a good job exercising this week, I exercised everyday for 30 minutes or more, but I did a terrible job with diet by eating a too much cookie dough and too many cookies - Tuesday a huge case of Otis Spunkmeyer oatmeal chocolate chip cookie dough that I bought was delivered, which I purchased in an effort to be a fun mother, but of course it's an enemy to me.

Okay, so with diet, I'm following Zuzana's cue to re-commit myself to eating healthy. My diet will be a mix of Kristi Approved recipes and my own ideas, similar to what I did for a while in Chile (little blogging project I thought I'd do to keep busy, but then I was dead on the bed with morning sickness...):

breakfast 7:00 - chocolate banana protein shake
snack 10:00 - protein pancake or french toast
lunch 1:00 - celery with pb and raisins
snack 4:00 - tuna salad
dinner 7:00 - eggs and vegetables

optional 6th meal - wheat thins and cream cheese
optional 7th meal - pumpkin protein shake

I think I'm also going to make my own sandbag, so I can start doing other Bodyrock workouts like this, but I'm going to use some of the wheat that we have in several 50 lb. bags in the garage. Put them in some plastic sacks, fill up a dufflebag or backpack or something. Here's a post with some ideas on how to make your own sandbag, I'll look at his PLAN and then make my own plan and then my sandbag will hopefully turn out into something I can use for long term and not be something I loath when I see it. Making a plan makes a difference! I knew that, but it's good to learn it again.

Orange Julius

Corey is a juice man. He loves juice, buys juice, drinks lots-o-juice. Last week he didn't realize it but he bought a Simply Orange juice with mango, and he's also a mango man, so he loved that.

Well, I did the grocery shopping this week and I did not buy any juice. Well, I did buy Walmart's OJ Concentrate, but that doesn't qualify as real juice. My beef is that the kids drink the fresh juice so fast, and I hate having them chuck the expensive stuff down, I'd rather give them the cheap stuff. But still, my dear Corey was disappointed that I didn't have juice, but then I offered to make him some Orange Julius!

It’s been a while since I’ve had a “real” Orange Julius like those from my teenage years, but from what I remember it was delicious. We tried this one last night and I think it's quite close to what my memory remembers:

6 oz. frozen orange juice concentrate
1 cup milk
1 cup water
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp. vanilla extract
8-9 ice cubes

1. Combine all ingredients except ice cubes in blender (unless you have a K-Tec -if you got a K-Tec throw it in and go to town)
2. Blend for about 1-2 minutes, adding ice cubes one at a time.

That’s a lot of sugar, right? Yeah, no wonder it’s so good. Another suggestion: use powdered sugar to make the drink a bit creamier. I tried 1/4 cup regular sugar and 1/4 powdered sugar and it was a hit with Corey and all the kiddos.

Feel free to share any julius recipe that is your family's staple. :)

Chore Boards Update

We're onto our 4th week of using our Chore Boards, and I must say it's going pretty well and looks like it will be a system we'll continue using this summer, and that we'll also be able to modify it once school starts and will still have a good thing going.

Here's once glitch I've noticed... when they finish their jobs they get an orange ticket which they can redeem for a half hour of Webkinz or Wii time. It's been tricky to award tickets when I have to go to each kid and figure out if they still need it or if they already used it, cause as soon as they're done they'll ask to go play and I'll be making lunch or doing something else and won't be able to go record their work or give them their ticket at that exact moment. Plus, it raises my blood pressure to have 7 kids ask me several times a day if they can play the Wii or Webkinz or check their email - too many questions too many times by too many kids (okay, only 6 kids - Lily doesn't ask for Wii or email time yet) plus, I don't want them to play the wii or use the comptuer every day anyway, so even though they've "earned" it, sometimes I still say no and they get a little miffed and then we're both in sour moods.

SO, I'm going to try a "Free Day" thing starting tomorrow - On free day they don't have to do morning chores or math or Spanish, but they do still have to do their music and hour of reading. Their free day is also their one day of the week to redeem their tickets and check their email. I've done it oldest to youngest: Joe's free day is Monday, Mel Tuesday, Ethan Wednesday, etc through Abi on Saturday. We'll see how it goes, but I plan on it being very nice tomorrow to only have one child ask me those questions, and I won't have to think about my answer, cause I already know for Ethan it will be yes, the rest of them it will be no. I feel like breathing a sigh of relief! (It seems like Melodie has been asking me every hour if she can check her email, and when I go see what she's doing she's usually sending an email to Joseph! I think that's a little bit silly.)

Other than that for the chores, it's going well. They get a "bonus buck" if they finish everything before 12, which buck can be redeemed for items at "mom's store" where I have fun sized candy bars for $1 bonus buck or big dollar sized candies (like big boxes of Skittles, Mike n'Ikes or Nerds) for $5 bonus bucks. Works pretty well at motivating them to get started on their work in the morning. They also can receive "Best Behavior" awards, but we haven't decided what those can be redeemed for yet. They are all really looking forward to their "Special Dates". Joseph's has 3 more days to earn his date (they have to do all their jobs and lessons to get a check/sticker, and 15 stickers means they've earned a special date). Joe's trying to decide if he wants to go see the new Harry Potter movie or go to Leatherby's for and Ice Cream Sunday. It's cute, and reminds me that anticipation is half the fun of making memories! :)

Four Chrysalis

We started with 4 caterpillars. Can you see four?

Abi loved the caterpillar stage - they were her little pets, and she was pretty careful holding them. She would ride around on her tricycle in the kitchen with them holding on to her fingers - glad they have such sticky little feet - like velcro.


Now we have 4 chrysalis.

Two of them J-hooked on Saturday night, that was fun to see.


I read online that they'd change within 24 hours. They were still hooked in the morning, we left for church at 9, and when we came back at 12 we were surprised that they had both already changed into chrylasis - only 12 hours after hooking.


(Wes has mosquito bites on his face from sleeping on the trampoline on Friday night) Sunday night the 3rd one hooked, and we barely missed him shedding his skin - found him probably an hour after cause his chrysalis wasn't smooth yet like the first two - look at how pretty they look in their chrysalis - they look like little emerald ornaments, a pretty green with little gold jewels:


We knew our 4th caterpillar, the one we saw hatch on a Tuesday two weeks ago, would be changing on Tuesday, cause it's two weeks after they hatch that they change. So last night he was still spinning his silk pad, this morning he was hooked -

We didn't know what time he hooked, but assuming it was somewhere between midnight and 3, we started keeping watch. Melodie played her flute, did her hour of reading, and her Spanish all while sitting in front of the hooked caterpillar. She was done watching at 12, and I took over. The caterpillar wasn't just hanging anymore but looked like he was having contractions. We didn't want to miss our last chance and seeing this stage of the metamophosis, and since I was now really interested and amazed at the whole process, I kept close to the little guy to watch. At 1:30 I yelled for the kids "I think it's happening!"


He really seemed to be heaving or breathing hard, and straightened out from the J-hook slightly, and sure enough, then we saw "his brains" coming out.


Really amazing!


Wes was a little grossed out by it and thought it was kinda scary. The shed skin looked like a dead fly or spider.

So, 2 weeks was just the right amount of time for a pet for us. Kept the kids interested, and not too much of a mess to clean up. Of course now Abi is a little sad that her pets are gone and that they are just ornaments on a tree. Two more weeks until they emerge, we are excited to see that part, should be fun, and we know not to touch them when they come out. Any of you have milkweed in your yard? The patches in our neighborhood are a little sparse, so I'm trying to plant the left over plants we have and see if we can get some growing in our back yard. These butterflies should be the last ones to lay eggs this season, and those eggs will change into the butterflies that migrate south to California. We are just learning so much about caterpillars and butterflies this summer! Pretty fun.

Heber Valley Camp

On July 1st, we and our crew joined up with Corey's parent's, siblings, and cousins for a night up at the Heber Valley Camp, and it was a lot of fun! (Hey Hibberts, this might be a fun thing for us to do sometime!) Here are a few pictures of our overnighter:

Corey teaching Lily and Hyrum how to rope cattle.


Lily riding the cattle! This is up as a possible "X is for ox" in her ABC book (I always have to get creative with X and Z, Q is always for "quiet"), which I plan on working on and finishing up at this years gathering of the Wrides in Park City - two weeks away! (The kids are excited!)

The kids really liked the built in bunks in the cabin - each cabin had 16 beds to choose from, tough decision for the little campers to finally decide on where they'd park for the night.


Corey and I didn't sleep that great, and Lily didn't help with that. I'd say it was better than sleeping with her on an airplane though. ;)


After we cleaned out our cabin Saturday Morning, Lily continued playing her favorite game of climbing the bunk ladders - her favorite activity at camp. Made me stress out cause the rungs of the ladder were just far enough spread that she could reach it, but just barely and almost slipped a few times - (I think she was trying to break her other leg)


A nice covered pavilion with lots of tables where we ate our meals.

There were lots of deer and they didn't spook easily and came really close to us quite a few times - the kids saw lots of them on the trails around camp too. Fun!


Saturday Activity: Play Doh. The kids were busy making cupcakes for their stuffed animals, then made candles for the cupcakes using salt crystals that they found - I'm guessing other campers left behind from making ice cream? We were very impressed with the kids' creativity.


We checked out at 2 and headed over to Legacy Lake for some canoe rides. Lily fell asleep in the car, so we let her stay and rest and I stayed in the car with her and read, so I didn't get any pics of the fun on the lake, but Corey joking with me afterward that their theme should be "No fun allowed" cause there was no splashing allowed and there were a few too many of the Senior missionaries watching their every action for them to be able to relax and enjoy themselves too much. ...Might be a little over managed. :) They are a little too prepared! But it was a lot of fun, two thumbs up.

Ramble

Just going to ramble here about my morning, but first, here's a picture of nap time last week:


Last week I didn't pass my gestational diabetes glucose test with flying colors, so they wanted me to come in again for a more comprehensive 3 hour test. So I set today as the day to go, was in a fast state, and got stuck in the arm 4 times. But, it was kinda fun cause I had lots of shopping time - I asked if it was okay for me to run errands, and she said yes, so after my 9:10 poke and after chugging the red glucose drink, I drove to Good Earth and bought my favorite Chocolate Coconut LÄRABAR and new equally favorite Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough that I just tried after a date night last month - I recommend!
I would have gone to the DI but they weren't open till 10, so then I drove by Hobby Lobby - they were open, I've been meaning to go in there for some time since I saw them building last year before Costa Rica. I went in and wow! That store is amazing, so many fun things, decorating ideas, frames, flowers, fabrics, I felt like I was in a candy shop - so many bright colors! So many ideas of things to do! Going to be going back there often I do believe. I bought some cute pink fleece to make the baby's fleece blanket (I've made a fleece blanket for each of the kids, the blankets have been good constant companions and have accompanied us to Brazil, Costa Rica, and Chile) so going to tie that blanket for the baby - another project on my to do list.

Back to the Dr's office for blood draw #2 at 10:15. After that the DI was open, so I went and found a few shade t-shirts and Downeast Outfitter's basic Ts - those are my maternity clothing must-haves. I also found some fun wood things for projects that I didn't know I wanted to do until I saw them for sale. Had fun, looked at my watch, time to go back to the Drs...

Blood draw #3 at 11:15, and my right arm was feeling a little picked on. I went back to Hobby Lobby again to browse the isles and look for some pens for when I do Lily's ABC book, then ran to Walmart for groceries and hairpins - going to try some of the 30 day hair challenge up-do's this next month.

Last blood draw at 12:15 then I was on my way home. Thanks for holding down the fort, Corey. I ate a lara bar in the car and decided to exercise today before I took a bath and washed my hair (I've trained my hair and scalp to only need to be washed once a week - I wash my hair on Thursdays) - I did a pregnant woman's modified version of the BodyRock 600 rep workout, took me an hour, but it was good to exercise.

1. Modified Burpees with Calve Raises – 60 reps
2. One Leg Push Ups on knees – 60 reps (switching legs)
3. Pendulum Lunges – 30 forward, 30 back
4. Dead Lifts – 60 reps total w/2 x 20lb dmbls
5. Crunches with Leg Extensions – 60 reps
6. Prisoner Squat and Front Kick – 60 reps (switching legs)
7. One Leg Tricep Dip – 60 reps (switching legs)
8. One Leg back lunge w/knee up – 60 reps total (30 on each leg)
9. Chest pulse w/elastic band - 120+ pulses
10. Back pulse w/ elastic band - 120+ pulses

I've been a slacker this past week with Corey gone overnight at scouting events, causing me to feel a little mope-y and lacking motivation and making brownies to bribe the kids to eat their dinner, but then I eat too many of the brownies too, tsk tsk... Anyway, I read this on BodyRock - an email from a bodyrocker who is 23 and 300+ pounds, and I liked the first comment by "guest" who said to take one day at a time and think "What can I do TODAY to make my life better" and then do it. So I'm going to take one day at a time, try to enjoy these last 9 weeks of pregnancy and not worry about gaining weight, but I'm also going to make a plan of attack for what I can do to stay strong and healthy, maybe it will help the time pass more quickly. I'm due September 12th. Excited for August to arrive, cause then I can say I'm due "next month!"

Well, time to go be a mother.