The Living Planet Aquarium Friday 4/16/2010

We had Kaili for her spring break this year, so Tyler took this Friday off and we decided to go to the aquarium. We were quite impressed and liked it much better this time, we went when it first opened when there wasn't much to look at. The kids loved it and Karson could have stayed a lot longer. The penguim exhibit was really fun and cute. I think I may even get a season pass there, it is only $20 a YEAR for adults and Karson is FREE until he is 3. What a deal! :)

After the aquarium we went to our favorite place for lunch Wingers. It was a great family day and I look forward to these kinds of days!

The next day was my race, and after I took a nap, we headed over to Mulligans to go miniature golfing, it was Karson's first time and he loved every second of it, he kicked and screamed when we had to leave. He is very into golf clubs and basketball hoops and stands right now, and baseballs too! He loves sports! Kaili did great as well and almost had a hole in one!

My First 5K!

Saturday April 17 I accomplished a goal, that really, I never thought I could do. My cousin Tara and I started going to the gym in January. In February we decided to start doing this running program, that was supposed to get you to be able to run for 30 mins straight. At the time we were both kind of like " yeah we'll see" but then the more we kept running, the better we felt. So we signed up to do the Salt Lake 5K. The above picture was on Thursday night after we went and picked up our shirts and number for the race.

This is race day at about 5:45 in the morning! Karson had kept me up from 1:45-3:00 am! I was still tired, but also nervous, so I didn't feel that tired. Just anxious mostly!

Tara and I waiting to start! We were both nervous, our stomachs were in knots! I have never claimed to be a runner, so this was a HUGE deal for me to be doing this. It may seem like a small thing to some people, but to me it was a big deal.

Tyler took this picture, I thought it captured the beginning of the race well. I was so nervous, starting off, but I had Rhiana's song "Please Don't Stop the Music" blaring and it helped get me going. Once I rounded the uphill corner at the start of the race, and got going at a good pace, I felt pretty good. I will say the last 1.5 miles were much easier for me than the first 1.6, at the halfway point they gave us some water, and then we started the trek UP HILL towards the capital for almost 1 mile! It was insane! But I am happy to say it didn't kill me, and I was able to do it!

This picture is out of order, but after the race my dad took us to Mimi's Cafe for breakfast! I have always wanted to go there and it was SO yummy! I got an omelet with bacon, avocado, salsa and jack cheese! YUM!

This is me finishing I don't know if you can see me, but I have my hands up waving to Tyler and the kids, it was such an awesome feeling for me to finish feeling good. I had goose bumps and I was on the verge of tears. I did cry when I saw Tyler and my dad after it was over and gave them hugs. After you cross the finish line, they make you walk through this area where there are bathrooms and all of these people are handing you stuff, bananas, powerade, chocolate milk, apples, cookies, it was a really fun atmosphere! People that you don't even know handing you stuff, telling you good job giving you high fives! It was an amazing sense of accomplishment, to know that yes, I can do that, and I did it. I finished in 39.58 which is the fastest I have ever done it. My pace was 12:52 a mile, which is very good for me. One day I hope to be able to do a 10 minute mile. I was in the middle over all and in the middle of the females as well, which I was very happy with.

After the race! I want to say a special Thank You, to Tara for helping me achieve this goal, she was a great motivator and it helped me a lot! I also wanted to say a special Thank You to Tyler! Thank you SO MUCH for your support, and allowing me to go to the gym, and coming to support me so bright and early in the morning with the kids. I love you so much, thank you for loving me no matter what!

5k...done. 10K......coming up next.....

Delicious Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cheesecake Bars...

I found this recipe on http://thegirlwhoateeverything.blogspot.com/ I really like her blog, she has a lot of really fun recipes, I have tried a few and have been happy with the outcomes!

Above is the crust. You will need 1 1/1 cups of graham cracker crumbs. ( since this was my first time making these, I followed the recipe exact, however next time I make them I will probably use at least 2 full cups of crushed graham crackers if not more. The recipe says 5 T of butter, but again next time I would use 6 T of butter and then 2/3 cup of semi sweet chocolate chips. The recipe calls for mini chips which would make it easier, but I didn't have any of those, so I just used the larger ones and it still worked ok.

Preheat the over to 325, butter a 9x12 baking pan, then line the pan with parchment paper, leaving enough to extend over sides. Combine graham cracker crumbs and melted butter, stir in chips.

Press crust into bottom of pan, bake for 6 minutes, set aside.

Above is the cookie dough.
5 T butter at room temp
1/3 cup packed light brown sugar
3T granulated white sugar
31/8 tsp salt
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 cup flour
1 cup semi sweet choc chips

mix butter, brown sugar, salt, sugar, and vanilla. Add the flour a little at a time, you might not end up using ALL of the flour, just use enough until your dough looks like a good cookie dough, stir in chips, set aside

Here is my cooking assistant eating his Daddy's favorite kind of popsicles, pace bars...

Filling

1/4 cup granulated white sugar

1 large egg

1 tsp of vanilla, I would do probably 2

10 ounces of cream cheese at room temp

FIRST beat cream cheese and sugar until smooth, then add egg and vanilla.

Pour the cream cheese filling onto crust, then take the cookie dough and roll into little balls and drop it onto the cream cheese filling, just kind of randomly drop them everywhere.I even took extra choc chips and drppped them as well. Bake for 30 mins at 325

It will come out looking like this....

Then to top it off, we add a lovely chocolate drizzle, melt 1/3 cup semi sweet choc chips in the microwave, add a 1/2 T of butter mix it in to mak chocolate more smoothe, and go ahead and lather this bad boy up!

Cool the bars completely in the pan for about an hour, take the bars out of the pan cut them up on the parchment paper, and serve or if you aren't serving right away put them in the fridge and then take them out a little before to cool off when you are ready to enjoy them!

I am glad I tried something new and different, I was happy with the end result! And the shocker is that my hubby loved them. Ty isn't big on cookies and cakes, so I was VERY happy that he liked this little treat!

RESULTS!

So today is a happy morning for me. Even though I am TIRED, because Karson slept like crap, I have some good news for me! In March I started this online workout program with a trainer. They send me work outs by e-mail, I keep track of what I do, and when I first started I took all of my measurements. I am happy to say that I have lost some inches, and I totally was not expecting it! I have lost 1.5 inches in my waist! What? That was a total surprise to me! I have lost 1 inch off of my hips (yay), a small .25 off of my calves, ( which doesn't matter any way) I have lost a .50 off of my thighs, I thought this one might be a bigger number, but that is ok, I need to give it more time, and I have lost .25 off of my upper arms! Sweet! I just need to keep up with it, however this was some very exciting news for me! Any way I just had to share!

Good, Good Weekend!

Friday night I headed over to my mom's for our once a month scrap booking night. We scrap booked until 11:30 and it was great! I got most of Karson's first year of life done. I thought i had it all done, until I noticed a zip lock bag filled with about 50 pictures, labeled Jan-Feb 2009. Oops I left those ones out and they were way cute pictures! So I have to add those back in. But I feel a little less anxious now that I am semi caught up!

Then Saturday my mom treated Luke Jr, Johnny and Tyler to 18 holes of golf at Alpine. Ty was in heaven! He even ended up taking first place amongst the 4 of them.

Kars and I had a laid back day! I went to the gym in the morning and ran for over 2 miles straight! That was exciting for me. Then Kars and I ran to Target to get him some new shoes, and we stopped at jamba on the way home, you can see that he enjoyed it very much! When we got home I played with Karson outside for over an hour! Like most little kids he LOVES to play outside and freaks out every time we have to come inside. He FINALLY went down for a nap around 3:30

We let Karson sleep until 5:15 and then we headed over to Olive Garden, my dad gave me $20 just for fun, I know right! So Ty and Karson and I went out to dinner! It was a great Saturday, we got home, played outside some more, and then came in for the night. I was so exhausted I fell asleep at 9:00, but Ty didn't mind because he was watching the Masters.

Sunday we headed over to Ty's parents house to celebrate his brother Matt's birthday! It was just one of those weekend when you are like " wow that was a good weekend!"

Someone recently said to me....

Someone recently said to me that they felt like I have a " negative attitude towards life in general" and that I have changed as a person. This has really bothered me since I received this interesting statement, and it made me start to think.

I feel like if anything my attitude towards life has improved over the past ten years. I have been happier than I have ever been. Sure there are times when I am sad, or distraught or worried, but who isn't like that sometimes? We all have our journey that we travel through in this life, sometimes the road is VERY hard and sometimes it is easy peezy lemon squeezy, as Kaili would put it.

I battled severe depression and eating disorders all through High School, I struggled through a divorce at 23 and I lost my first baby at 25 through a very traumatic experience. Sometimes those experiences are still raw and hurtful, but other times I can get through my thoughts of sadness when I think about those things. I have changed as a person, but for the better.

I could be negative, I could be bitter at the world for forcing me to deal with these sad, and discouraging things. But I am not. I have grown from them, I have grown closer to the people who truly love me, know who I am, and care about me. I haven't pushed them away, I have brought them in closer.

It's weird for me to think that my 10 year High School reunion is this year. In 10 years I have learned so much about what makes me who I am. I LOVE my life. I love where life has brought me. It's not always easy, it's not always perfect, but it's my life and I won't take it for granted.

So I am sorry that " they " feel this way, but really I just can't care anymore, because I am happy, I am blessed and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else, than where I am at right now in my life.

Dying Easter Eggs Saturday 4/3/2010

So while the boys were at Priesthood, we went over to my mom's house and had the kids dye Easter eggs! We also picked up some yummy salads from Kneaders! I love this picture of Karson with his eyes closed. He felt like such a big boy dying eggs!

Cute Kaili!

The girls!

Easter Morning

Karson was so excited when he saw the bright easter eggs throughout our house, he had a fun time finding them although he wanted to throw them like a ball...big shocker right?!

Kaili found her Easter basket pretty quickly while looking for eggs! I was sad I didn't get a close up of it,but she was exctied and emptied all of her prizes into that little pink backpack shown in the below pictures.

Karson with his basket, I think his favorite thing in the basket was the little tonka cars he got! He looks so old in this picture.

Kaili with her spring pj's. It's kind of turned into a tradition for me that I get the kids Spring jammies for Easter. It's fun.

Karson being a good boy and folding his arms for no reason at all!

Kaili with some necklaces she got in her basket.

Yes, this picture is not the greatest of me,but oh well. Me with my New Moon DVD! Sweet! can't wait to watch it again!

Kars and Kaili enjoying thier eggs that they found. They both ate two whole boiled eggs each. I was surprised!

Spring Clothes

So growing up I remener always going outside in our Easter outfits, and taking pictures! It seemed warm at Easter time when I was kid, lately the past couple of years it has been cold! So I had them stand against a white door in our house. Also no church clothes cause it was conference! But they still look dang cute! And yes Kaili has on BRIGHT PINK lip stick!

Cutie pies!