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.

Noah's 1st Birthday!

How has the past year gone by so fast? Today we celebrated Noah's 1st birthday! We have absolutely loved having this little guy in our lives this past year. He's been such a fun baby, we all adore him! We had a fun birthday with him. The girls were so excited to give him the little presents they picked out for him and Myra talked me into making him a Spiderman cake. It didn't turn out great. I couldn't get the cake out of the pan, so I wasn't able to decorate it much. But Noah seemed to enjoy it. Happy Birthday Noah!



And now for a look at Noah over the past year! It is so amazing how much they change in 12 months!

Kindergarten 2010-2011

Myra started Kindergarten today. I can't believe my oldest is in school now! Crazy! She has been so excited to go and all morning she was constantly asking if it was time yet. Then the time came, we walked to school and she began her public school career with a big hug and a kiss good-bye to me. We'll see how long that lasts! =) (Hopefully a while still!) When I picked her up, she was the first one out, in front of the line behind the teacher. She's done nothing this afternoon but talk about all that she did. And she can't wait to go back tomorrow. I'm so excited for her!

Kindergarten Stats

Age: 5 years 3 months

Height: 45 inches (3ft. 9in.)

Weight: 41 lbs.

Hair color: Blonde

Favorites

Animal: Dog, Giraffe, Cougar, Elephant

Food: 7-Layer Bean Dip and Cafe Sabor

Game: Hopscotch and Soccer Ball (She's not really played either, but she's hopeful they will be her favorites. )

Toy: White Dog, Parrot and Wolf

Thing to do: Build forts, watch movies, play, clean my bedroom, make my brother happy, play with my friends and do things, and I love coloring. That's it!

Book: Short Puppy Book

Color: All of them, I can't choose a color, it's kind of tricky for me

Movie: Strawberry Shortcake, Dragonland and The Berenstain Bears

Primary Song: I love to see the Temple

My best friend is: Lexi

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

Things I like to do with my friends: Play dress-up

If I had a pet it would be a: dog

named: Ariel

What people like about me: Fun to play with and that I'm cool and awesome. They like a lot of things about me!

Things I can do really well: Entertain my brother and have fun with my mom, dad and Lexi. And I like school!

Cherry Tomatoes

We planted our little garden box this year with potatoes, peppers and tomatoes. The peppers haven't done anything, the potatoes are looking great and our tomato plants look amazing. We planted 2 different types, roma's and beefsteak. I was very excited to see all the little tomatoes start growing, but I was equally dismayed when the Beefsteak tomatoes suddenly started changing colors when they were only the size of cherry tomatoes. Wait, I guess they are cherry tomatoes, only they are orange! I'm not sure what happened. The seller we bought the starts from must have gotten them mixed up, but we now have 4 huge orange cherry tomato plants with 100's of little tomatoes coming. They are very sweet, but I'm thinking in a couple of weeks, I will have more than I know what to do with. Any ideas for cherry tomatoes?

Oh Lexi Lou

Last night we rode our bikes to the Library and while I was headed over to check out, Lexi tripped, fell and hit her head on a metal cart. She had about a 1 inch gash just above her left eye that definitely needed stitches. So, Chad jumped on his bike, rode home as fast as he could and came back with the car. I ended up staying at the ER with Lexi for about 3 hours while they prepped her, gave her a sedative and sewed her up. She was mostly brave. During the IV though, she really started screaming. She's got a good set of lungs on her! They put a movie on for her and that relaxed her quite a bit and she was completely out of it while they sewed her up. They gave us the option of just holding her down and doing a local anesthetic, but I felt that she would handle the knock-you-out sedative much better. I think I made the right choice! Anyway, Lexi ended up with 9 stitches! Poor girl! She's been pretty sad today, alternating between crying about how bad it hurts and staring at herself in the mirror. Then at about 11:30, she went back upstairs to her room and fell asleep again. It does look a little more puffy and bruised today, but not as bad as I expected. Anyway, as a side note, I've been to the Emergency Room with all 3 kids this past year! I hope we are done now!
Last night the meds hadn't quite worn off yet. She was much happier than this morning.

Keyser Family Reunion

Last week, we headed out to Winter Park Colorado for a Keyser Family Reunion. I always picture huge, extended families at reunions, so I'm not sure if it's the most correct word to describe our get together since it was just Chad's immediate family. Anyway, it's been a while since we've all been together. We've added 3 more kids since last time! We were lucky that Doug's family has a cabin in Winter Park and we were able to stay there. It was great, although sleeping on the bottom bunk with only a foot of maneuverability leaves much to be desired! =) Last Saturday, we put the kids to bed, finished packing the car and got an hour of sleep ourselves before heading out at Midnight. We had to drop Nena off at my parent's house and my mom was such a good sport to allow our arrival at 2 in the morning! I slept for about 20 minutes while we were driving, then Chad had to pull over because he was tired. This woke me right up, so I ended up switching him and driving for a while, so we didn't have to stop much on the way out. The kids were great! We arrived around 10:30. Sunday was a nice day of getting settled, taking a nap and relaxing. On Monday, we headed up to Grand Lake. We hiked up to Adams Falls. The girl's favorite part was taking their shoes off and playing in the water.
After the Fall's, we headed down into Grand Lake and had lunch by the lake, then the kids changed into their swimsuits and played in the lake. It was SO cold! Not just the water, but the weather was kind of yucky. The kids didn't last long in the water, but longer than I would have. Poor Lexi was shivering like crazy once she was ready to get out. After getting dried off and changed, we started to walk around the shops at Grand Lake, but we didn't make it too far with tired and cranky kids.


On Tuesday, the women headed back up to Grand Lake for a little outing of shopping and eating. We found a yummy crepe shop that made a delicious Asparagus crepe, yum! Judi also ordered a sample cheese plate for us to try. It was such strange cheese. Not a fan! When we got back, the guys were so anxious to get out the door, we practically had to run after then for updates on what the kids were up to! They headed out for 6 hours of golfing! When I asked Chad after the trip, what his favorite part was, he said it was the Golf trip! Kent won, of course, but Chad came in second. Good Job!

On Wednesday we headed out early to Rocky Mountain National Park! I think this was the day I was most looking forward to. I love National Parks and I'd never been to this one and had always wanted to go. We stopped early on and hiked a little ways down the Colorado River Trailhead. Of course there was water and of course the kids had to get their feet wet. I love wearing water shoes, I can just plow right in! It was VERY cold water, but we still had a great time.

Everywhere we went we came across tons of mushrooms. We've taken the kids mushroom hunting before and they were quick to point out every single one they came across. (They are very good to not touch them.) Anyway, I was surprised at the huge variety of mushrooms we came across. I think Chad got some good pictures!

As we continued into the park, we drove over the Trail Ridge Road. It travels up to the Alpine Visitor Center that is 11,796 feet in elevation! A note of interest - the road was built in the 1920's, the visitor center in 1963. It is the highest visitor center of the national park system and is completely self-sustaining. They use a generator to power it, carry out all waste and no telephone lines! It was so cold up top! The road was amazing. Not many people probably know this about me, but I'm terrified of heights while in a car. I can walk to the edge of a cliff and be just fine, but driving on a road that's high up, as a passenger, is so scary to me. And Myra has the same phobia! Anyway, it was a scary road! But, wow, incredibly beautiful. They were doing a lot of construction on the road and we weren't able to stop much, so I just took picture after picture out the window as we drove. Right at the top, we even saw a large group of Elk!

Picking Raspberries off the side of the road while stopped in traffic.

After coming down the Trail Ridge Road, we stopped for lunch. The kids enjoyed feeding the squirrels and then we headed back down to the river and played there for a while. Oops, no pictures of that! It was much warmer than the river we were in earlier. After that, we headed out to Estes Park for some shopping and dinner. It was great fun! Then, we rushed back in and headed back over the road in the dark. At least I didn't have to see the terrifying heights, but I knew they were there, just feet away. Which was worse?

On Thursday, we spent a lazy morning, just relaxing around the house. Some of the group went and played mini golf, while some of stayed back with sleeping babies. After, we headed up to hike Devil's Thumb. It was a 4+ mile hike one way, so a few people took off ahead of us, while Kent, Judi, Chad and I and the kids wandered leisurely up the trail.
We stopped and took plenty of pictures, admired the view and I beat the guys at a slingshot contest! We ended up hiking up about 1.75 miles to a waterfall before heading back down. The girls were awesome, although I ended up carrying Lexi a good portion of the way just because she was so slow! I think this was one of my favorite activities of the trip. It was a beautiful hike! I don't have any pictures of the "Devil's Thumb", but the other group made it all the way to it!

On Friday, we headed back up to the Devil's Thumb trail head to take family pictures. We had thought it was so pretty, that it would be perfect for pictures, but we didn't have a little difficulty finding a good place to pose such a large group. Our photographer is a family friend and she did such an awesome job getting us posed and all the kids smiling and happy! After the pictures, we goofed around for a while, at the water, of course!

After pictures, we headed back to the cabin and by then a bunch more friends arrived. The Smith family is also from Colorado so, they came out to play with us the last day. It was such a blast! We spent a long time slack-lining. I tried to get pictures of everyone falling off, but I didn't really get any great ones. After that we went over to the YMCA to play mini golf and eat free snow cones! It was pretty fun. Myra made a little friend there and hung out with him most of the time. Lexi sat by herself at the edge of the course most of the time and the rest of us enjoyed a fun game of golf. That night we BBQ'd hamburgers and played a game called Minute to Win It. It was so hilarious! What a fun end to a fun week! Saturday morning, we hurried and cleaned up then headed out. The kids all fell asleep right away but after a couple of hours, they were all awake and Noah seriously cried almost the entire way home. We kept stopping and he was fine, but the second he was back in his car seat, he was so angry. I guess now that he can move around so much, he doesn't want to hold still. We were just about at wits end when he finally fell asleep. We picked Nena up and arrived back home, safe and sound at around 11:00. It was a great vacation.