8 Weeks to a Better You

I recently signed up to do this 8 Weeks to a Better You Challenge. Some women in Arizona started the program and only expected 20 people to sign up, but they ended up with around 110. I'm not even sure about the final number. Everyone "bought" into it by paying $15 dollars. At the end, the winner gets 75% of the pot and the other 25% will be given to the winner of a random drawing. They also are planning weekly prizes. Basically, there are 10 things we have to do (or not do) each day and we get a point for each of these things. You can look at the website to read more about it, but they include:
*Exercising 45 minutes each day
*Getting 7 hours of sleep each day
*No Sugar
*No Junk Food
*Drink 8 glasses of water
*Eat 2 servings of fruit and 2 servings of veggies
*No eating after 8pm
*Write in your journal
*Scripture reading
*Act of Kindness or Service

We just started yesterday and so far I haven't messed up, but some of the things will definitely be a challenge. No Sugar? Anyone that knows me knows that I have a MAJOR sugar addiction. No Chocolate? Ugh! Actually, the hardest thing for me yesterday was no eating after 8pm. Chad and I stayed up until after midnight and I was starving! Luckily, there is 1 free day each week. I'm already thinking about what I'll eat on that day! Anyway, I think this will be a good challenge for me. I'm hoping to do things perfectly to the end. I'm sure there will be several "winners", but it will be great if I'm able to stick with it.

Noah's Walking!

I have to admit that a couple of months ago, I wasn't sure this day would ever come! Noah just started crawling at 11 months and now he is cruising all over the place and on Wednesday, he took his first unaided steps. Chad and I were quite surprised. We just stood him up and off he went. He seems to enjoy walking, but I think it's mostly just a game still. He's not quite ready to use it as his main source of transportation. We are all enjoying it though. Myra and Lexi love to have me set Noah up to walk to them and then he pushes them over and yesterday, Myra and Lexi were playing that they were Noah and they were pretending to walk to each other. Too cute!

Golden Spike National Historic Site

Last Saturday we went to the Golden Spike Historic Site in Promontory. If you don't know what that is, it's where the last spike was driven on the first transcontinental railroad in the United States. I've been there as a kid, but it's been a LONG time! So, we decided to go and check it out. I'm pretty certain not much has changed since I was there last. It's seriously just a building and 2 train replicas out in the middle of nowhere! We ate lunch there and checked out the visitor center. They had a couple of interesting displays to look at, then we headed outside for the driving of the spike reenactment. It was kind of fun to see all the people dressed up for the reenactment. Although it was kind of long and the kids lost interest. There favorite part was looking at the trains after, although they were sad they didn't get to go inside them.
After visiting the Historic site, we headed out to do a couple of geocaches in the area. I think it has to be one of the most desolate areas in Utah. Not much to look at. Anyway, we had a fun time!

Lexi Starts Preschool!

I can't believe that just 2 years ago, I was starting preschool with Myra and now it's Lexi's turn. This time around, Janelle and I decided to do a real low-key preschool with just Lexi and Maddie. Lexi was SO excited to start. We had it at our house and the kids seemed to have a lot of fun. I think it'll be a little while before they really get the hang of sitting still and focusing on things they are suppose to be learning. But, that's ok. They're only 3. We want to make it really fun for them. Lexi and Maddie have started to get a long really well lately and Lexi's always asking now when she has preschool again. I'm glad she's excited about it!

Preschool Year 1 Stats

Age: 3 years 6 months

Height: 3ft. 1in.

Weight: 26.5 lbs.

Hair color: Blonde/Brown

Favorites

Animal: Baby Elephants

Food: Spaghetti and Macaroni & Cheese

Game: Hungry, Hungry Hippo's

Toy: Pink Moose

Thing to do: Play

Book: Finklehopper Frog

Color: Pink

Movie: The Princess and the Pauper

Primary Song: Sunbeams

My best friend is: Maddie, Emmi, Leah & Myra

Other friends I like to play with: All of my friends

Things I like to do with my friends: Play

If I had a pet it would be a: Baby elephant

named: Sleeping Beauty

What people like about me: They like playing with me

Things I can do really well: Turn the lights on (Her answer. I don't think I agree. Every time she has to go to the bathroom, she yells at me to come and turn the light on for her!)


On a side note, a couple of days ago, when the girls got up in the morning, Myra came downstairs, but Lexi didn't. After a little while Chad went up to get her and this is what he found:



Seriously, all over! I guess she had done it the night before, but we didn't notice it when we tucked her in because it was dark. Anyway, she was pretty embarrassed about it and spent a good part of the morning covering her face and crying over it. The rest of us got a good laugh! Silly girl!

This is a little late, but I wanted to write about some business news. On August 27th, I reached 2000 sales on Etsy! Although I had hoped, I never dreamed that my business would end up being so successful! This past year has brought quite a few changes though. I'm still making blankets and such, but due to CPSIA regulations, I've really cut back and plan on mostly discontinuing baby things. I've found a lot of success with tutorials for baby items and have plans to make a few more. I've also found that selling supplies on etsy is very lucrative. It's interesting looking back and seeing how my shop has evolved. And I am grateful for the extra money it brings in. It's especially great that I can stay home with my kids and still do a little work.
In other exciting news, I've opened up another Etsy shop. I've wanted something new to make and came across pendant jewelry. Jewelry is very saturated on Etsy, but I still feel confident that I can be successful with this new shop as well. So, check out Ziggles! It was quite the process learning how to make these, but I'm so very excited with the end product! I have a couple of craft boutique's coming up and hope that they will do well there as well. At any rate, it's been fun to learn a new skill.