Today.....today....

Today I'm going to write a post on my poor forgotten blog.  I have been toying with the idea of making another blog that deals with some of the diy make-over stuff I've been doing in my house.  I've been obsessed with the diy blogs for a few years now and I've been a loyal reader, so I figured why not start one. I just wonder if I'll be able to keep up with it and be at all consistent.  It's worth a try right :)  Today has been a good day.  I have the missionaries coming for dinner tonight and I have to clean up my house.  I've been struggling with trying to get Sophie to sleep for the past few hours.  Usually she goes down for naps pretty well, but today has been a challenge.  I think she may FINALLY be out though.  EEEEEHHHHHHKKKKKKKKK!!!!!  okay.....that was to demonstrate my elation that she's asleep and I can get some things done now.....but I am now writing a blog post, so I guess I won't be getting anything done, just yet. ;)   We went to a little free, once a week preschool that a girlfriend of mine told me about today.  We've been going for a few weeks and it's a lot of fun for  Sophie.  Isla was late for school today and I just decided to take her with us to Sophie's preschool instead.   She had a lot of fun with her little friend Bella and I got to have some great girl talk with my friend.  It was nice..

I went grocery shopping and decided to make baked ziti for the missionaries that are coming for dinner tonight.....but I completely forgot that my stupid oven was broken!!!!  I forgot until today.  So I was fretting about that until we figured out a way for Brent to take it somewhere else to bake it.  So he's going to be here in a half hour to pick up the unbaked casserole.....guess I had better go put it together.  People, do you wonder....how does she do it all...AND be so unorganized?  I am a scientific conundrum.  Somehow I manage, although, I'd LOVE to be able to be a super prepared, organized, never late, perfect person.  Who is going to start teaching classes?  Really, I need someone to teach a class.  I'd pay good money to learn these skills!

So anyways, this is my day today.  LOVE goes out to anyone who manages to read this, since I'm not going to share it on Facebook or anything.  Well, LOVE goes out to everyone anyways, because I'm in that kind of a mood today, but extra squishy, great big, chocolate and caramel covered LOVE goes out to my sweet friends that might read this :)  Have a great day you guys!!!!

xo
Anna

been a lot going on, continued....

So,
as I said before we've spent a lot of time with family lately.  Then, of course, when you are around a lot of family (or people for that matter), you will of course pass germs around.  And boy did we get some GERMS.  It started out as a lovely little sore throat and sinus/cough thing we all had.  THEN it morphed into a stomach bug...with my poor little Isla getting the worst of it.  I swear the already skinny little thing looked like she was in a concentration camp for a little while there.  Thank goodness for whole milk and it's ability to make you fatter :).  She's looking much better now.  Finally....FINALLY! we are all better.  So if you've been sick, know that I love you....but STAY AWAY!  at least for a little while so we can bask in being healthy for a short time.

 Other than that, it's been back to business around here.  We didn't do much for valentines day.  We never do.  I wish I could be better about it and go all out with the crafty valentines decor, etc.  Maybe someday....just not yesterday....  You know, to me (and I imagine it's because I have four small children), but it is just too soon after christmas and new years and all of the back to back holidays.  I'm still worn out from all of that.  So my big thing lately has been organizing and purging.  I've decided that I can't jump into any big projects until I have this place organized.  First of all, there is just no place to work.  That garage of ours is craaaazy.  I want it to become a lovely workshop for all of my new tools, oh and a laundry room (new plan is to move the washer and dryer out there to make room for something really great that I'll tell you about later....stop it Anna! getting ahead of yourself again!), and then just space....ahhh SPACE!  Anyways, so I've been working on room to room to room getting things in order...and catching up on a mountain of laundry (yikes).  So!  I know all of you that really want to see Isla's bed hurry up and get finished since I went on and on about it (what maybe three people that read this blog, lol) sorry....I've told myself that it HAS to wait until I have a organized place to build it in.  I do have all of the materials though...and it's just KILLING me to not get started.  So that has actually been a big driving force for the new found motivation I've had.

In other news, I've started a diet.  I mean full blown diet.  before I was just doing my best to change my and my family's eating habits for the better...but was never strenuously restricting myself.  Now I'm full blown on phase 1 of the South Beach Diet.  I know it's an oldie, but I've always used it when I wanted to drop some weight and it's always been a miracle for me.  I have made it through two days successfully (that's a lot seeing as how the first day my husband tried to sabotage me by BAKING COOKIES...really, Brent!  and the second day was Valentines day....I hid my chocolates!  lol.  So, I'm happy with my will power.  Really, I am very glad that we've been "eating right" for about three or four months now as a family, because it makes the hard stuff a lot easier.  I feel like I have successfully changed our lifestyle instead of just doing a diet, and then stopping and going back to eating crap.  Hello yoyo!  I will post more about some of the other stuff I've been trying as well...but I think if I continue talking about all of that, I'm afraid the three of you that will read this...will be asleep :)

Would you like to see some pictures of me through the years yoyo-ing?  that sounds like fun, right?  Keep in mind, I've been having four babies too...

1998

 1999

 1999

2000 - in love and getting fat

 2001 - just married and getting fatter

 2002- whoah, am I ever fat!  lol, that's chase growing in there :) Halloween and little cousin Cassidy with me there...

 2003- yoyo....skinny again

 doing alright in 2004

 prego again in 2005

2006 -after baby and hiding from the camera but you can see I'm pretty hefty

getting better a little later- 2006

 2007--yoyo again

 me and grandma the end of 2007 (miss her!)

 2008- geez I want to get back to this size...

 2008 in the fall....was pregnant again

 2009 after having Isla- look at her cute frog feet!

 2009 a few months after baby....fat people should NOT wear shiny shirts...wow, anna...wow...

 2010-Isla's first birthday.  Had lost some weight, but not all....and was secretly pregnant in this picture.

 2010 after having Sophie...double the baby weight!

 Christmas-time 2010 not much better

 2011 still really fat....and with a bum knee, beautiful...

 Easter 2011

 Christmas time 2011- most recent picture of me that I can find...yeah, finally losing a little weight

Will post a picture once I've been on my diet a while and see what I can do this time.

NO MORE YOYO-ING!!!!  I'm ready to be healthy and fit :) I want to last to see my grandkids grow up.  Hope that was mildly entertaining.  I realize I went a little overboard with the pictures, but it was fun going back through all of them today.  I re-lived some great memories :)

xoxo
Anna

****disclaimer****
I just wanted to add that I am not getting down on myself.  I love myself the way that I am and am completely happy in my own skin.  I thought it would be an entertaining idea to have a look at how I've changed over the years.  It was fun, I enjoyed going over my adult life in succession today.  I'm obviously more interested in being healthy above all else.  I'm comfortable in my skin no matter what size (something that's taken years to arrive at, I'll admit).  I just didn't want anyone to think this was a pity party.  I'm trying to get in shape and blogging about this is a way of holding myself accountable.  So, hope there weren't any misconceptions.  Thanks!

Been a lot going on...

Hello!
I have not abandoned thee, Oh Blog!  There's just been a heckuva lot going on.

 First let me start off by saying that a lot of our time and energy has been suddenly diverted towards our family for the past several weeks.  The world lost a amazingly wonderful man in late January.  My father-in-law passed away after a long battle with cancer.  He has certainly left a very large hole in our world and our hearts.  I am forever grateful to a man, who I loved as much as I love my own father, for raising a son just like him ;).  Without that man, my husband would not be the amazing person I love so very much.  He taught him how to be...pretty much, the perfect man (well at least the perfect man for me).  He has truly left an indelible mark on the world around him...one that will never be forgotten.  I'm so happy to know that such a man is part of my Forever Family. 

John Thomas Carter, Sr.

 

With Isla when she was about 1 year old.  She loved him so much....just sat and stared when I took this picture for like 30 minutes :)  

We all loved him so...




I'll end with this tribute here.  I don't feel like adding the rest of the stuff I wanted to say is appropriate, so I will post another post with all of the other stuff that's been going on with us. 
xoxo
Anna

I love feathers :)

Check out my sweetie's hair.  Isn't it the CUTEST !!!  :)  I love it!

I got a wild hair this morning and just grabbed a feather boa I had out of my mountain of crafty supplies, and I cut two sections of about three inches of the boa (make sure, if you do this, you pull back the feathers and only cut the cord....well, I guess that's a duh thing, but I've made that mistake before).  All I did was curl them around her pigtails and then clipped them with a little alligator clip, the same kind you use for regular bows.  It was so easy, took five minutes and it stayed perfectly the whole time she was at preschool.  I think I may go back and put some anti-fray stuff on the ends of the cord where I cut it.  I don't want it to unravel.  I'm certainly going to re-use these pieces in lots of different ways in her hair.  I just love feathers!  Oh and bonus, the feather boa is still plenty long enough to be useful as a boa if I still want to use it as such in the future. 

Just thought I'd share, have a great day!
Anna

great idea...

I had a great idea this afternoon.  I don't know why I've never thought of it before...

We usually don't ALL go outside to play.  It's usually the big boys playing outside while the little girls nap, or when there's another adult around to watch the baby.  Today was a really nice day outside (I know, right...it's january), so I just suddenly thought....why not bring her high chair outside!  What a DUH moment.  The girls needed to eat lunch and they all wanted to play outside, so this is what we ended up with.  Oh and don't judge the crazy looking high chair.  The cover was in the wash....I try to keep things clean.  Speaking of....what a GREAT way to not make a mess in the house.  It was fantastic, the ants are now praying to us in thanks because of the great feast they are currently having.  Oh, and wow...I just realized how completely redneck this looks, HA!  No, I didn't leave the high chair on my front lawn. 

I used this as an opportunity for a little photo session for my babies.  
Eat your heart out :)

I think her lips look pretty in this one

My angel :) 

 

I looked across the yard after taking the above, and there they were eating cheese and crackers sitting just like this!  They are so sweet!

 

That's a juice box chase has there....looks kinda weird...

 

They started hamming it up

 
This one is funny....they all decided for a moment to make grumpy faces.  I couldn't get them all to smile at the same time....but sure, easy peasy to get grumpy faces across the board...ha!    

 But it didn't last long, they were all smiles after a second.  My favorite picture :)  Chase has a great smile :)

Just the boys, I love my boys

oh, little beautiful Cole

And sweet little Sophie was sitting there through all of this.  She was happy to have her momma back.  I just LOVE this one. 

And then she said she had had enough and it was time to go inside. 

Goodness knows I love my kids.  These pictures inspired me to make my blog wider.  I feel like an Html  wizard after that!  You like?  Now the narrow-ness of my blog doesn't chop the sides off of my pictures.  Bad thing is that it's taken me so long to finish this, that it's now after 7pm and dinner isn't ready (well almost, five minutes, I swear).    Ohwell....I get points for having lunch outside today, right.  Have a good evening everyone!  

Love, 

Anna

Stresssssss

okay, this isn't going to be a long post, but I just wanted to say STRESS is a killer.  I apparently can't deal with stress.  Thought I could....but nope, no I can't.  I have stressed myself so much lately that I wound up at urgent care this afternoon.  Yeah, I was having chest pains!  Boy, if you ever want to be seen quickly at the doc, just say the words "chest pains."  Turns out it was all stress, for which I'm very thankful, of course.  But now I've got to figure out how to deal with my stress....because I'm not one of those that will be pill popping the xanax.  Getting back to the gym will most likely help....and I've been wanting to get into yoga more.  Netflix has a yoga video on it now.  Might have to hit that up every morning.  Anyways, wish me luck! 

Anna

Juicing....

I recently got one of these for Christmas!

 That's a GE electric Juicer.  I've been wanting to try it for a little while.  A friend of mine posted about it awhile back and it got me on a kick reading about it, and I decided that I think I could seriously benefit from adding some fresh vegetable juice to my diet every day.  My lovely sister bought me this for Christmas.  She really is the best ;)

 My sis Joi with a couple of my munchkins :)

 I'm not on any holistic kick or anything, but I am interested in trying to take whatever healthy preventative measures I can to try and combat any of these nasty diseases that tend to pop up as you start to get older.  I did just turn thirty.....and it's also a good time for a resolution (you know...new years).  So I decided to start with today. 

My new approach to things lately has been less of restricting myself of certain things and more trying to add things that I know I need.  So instead of going on some huge diet, I have started going to the gym 4-5 days a week (well, ask me next week, since these last two have been shot with the kids out of school and christmas, etc.)  But I have been able to stick to that for a good four months so far :).  Also, the idea with the diet is to try and add more and more good things.  Seek out salads and veggies and fruits.  I'm not saying no to chocolate or cheese or whathaveyou...but the idea is, if you try to eat more of the other things, they will replace the bad stuff....I mean, who has time to eat constantly ALL day.  So if you add some things, other things end up being replaced, am I right?

Well, this is my new method as of late.  It's part of my ongoing battle to inject more moderation into my life.  I've always been from one extreme to the other....and I'm sick of it. 

So today, I'm adding fresh vegetable juice to my daily routine.  My goal is to drink at least one big glass of it every day. 

This is the recipe I made today: 

Alkaline Juicer Recipes Heaven

Apple, cucumber, celery, carrots and spinach
- 1 cup of spinach
- 1/2 cucumber
- 2 stalks of celery including leaves
- 3 carrots
- 1/2 apple

Wash all vegetables thoroughly, top the carrots, remove apple stem but don’t peel apple (the peel is full of flavonoid antioxidants), enjoy.

got this from: juicer recipes now

they've got a bunch that I want to try. 

Everybody have a great day! 
Anna

need some help!

Okay....I am trying to figure out what fabric to get to cover Isla's bed with.  I can not decide!  I'm going to show you some rough (really really rough) sketches I did to try and see some of these fabrics together.  Her bedroom is pink and white.  I have plans of throwing in some accents of very light silver gray.  So I thought pink white and gray would be pretty for her bed.  Please note, before you look at these pictures, that there are huge differences in color.  All of the whites look beige, but they are white.  Here goes: 

 

Okay, so this was my original idea.  But now I'm thinking it would look a little crazy.  I love the scrolly fabric in the soft gray with the white, and I love the pink houndstooth (which is also pink and WHITE, even though it looks not-white).  So, I guess the question is, do I go with the houndstooth? and a plain fabric for the middle, as in this next picture?  

 

 Or do I go with a plain pink on the outside and a pretty gray-ish fabric on the inside?  

 

I added a few more of the fabrics I've been looking at as well.  See they make the houndstooth in gray too...hmmm?  Also, the pink color in this one is not the color of pink I would go with....it's the color of pink they had in microsoft paint!  Yes, I'm that fancy....microsoft paint! 

Also, keep in mind that the middle portion will be diamond tufted (like in the white fabric above)...just not so many of them.  I'm going to do big chunky ones with much more space in between.  oh, and the pretty scrolly fabric doesn't look like that, for some reason they have added weird pink stuff in between.  It really looks like this:  click me ;)

Please help me decide on this.  I really am stumped.  I would appreciate any comments that are left.  

P.s.  showing dirt is a HUGE issue for me, so I am also taking that into consideration as well.  

Thanks!  

Anna

hmmm....

Can't think of anything to post about, but I promised myself I would try to do this every day, so here is a post about NOTHING :) 

some random facts about the day.....

Cole wrote a new song with his new spiderman guitar (a real acoustic guitar)  It was called Loaded Spider and he performed it in a full spiderman costume.  It was pretty awesome :) 

The boys have been playing (and fighting over) the new X-box Kinect all evening. I've decided that it's the only allowable video game system for our house....only because these kids are panting from how much exersize they are getting.  BONUS! I am, however, slightly weirded out by the video camera on it that randomly takes shots of our entire living room.  Just saw a very awkward one of myself that I didn't know was being taken.....that coupled with the fact that this thing is connected to the internet.  The conspiracy theorist in me wonders if it's possible for somebody to hack in and watch us?  .....spooky....

The baby is aaaalmost walking.  She actually took three steps today while just barely touching my finger.  She will be 14 months old in two days, so it's about time.  Am I a bad that I really don't want her to walk?  She could take another three months and I'd be happy. 

Brent hung with the kids today so I could go grocery shopping and look for a bed frame for isla's bed.  I found a metal bed frame (so I won't have to build slats in the bed I'm building, I'll just set the metal frame inside the shell of the bed....easier and I won't have to worry about my creation not being sturdy enough.).  The bed frame was only tend dollars!!!!  Awesome.  And then I went grocery shopping, filled up my shopping cart till it was so full that we had to get a second cart while checking out....and I came in under 200 (190 to be exact).  Double awesome!....no Triple awesome for that one.  It looked like I had at about 300 worth of stuff.  Man I'm good....ha!

well, that's it for now! 

have a great night!
xoxo,
Anna

Happy New Years!!!

Happy New Years Eve!!!! 

Hope everybody has a safe and happy New Year's Eve :)  We are having a low key one around here.  We will be hanging around the house and breaking out my boys' new Xbox 360 Kinnect.  Today is not only New Year's Eve....it is also my Chasey-boy's ninth birthday <3 <3 <3.  I can. not. believe it!  He is growing up so very very fast. 

 

Such a good lookin kid!  

Happy Birthday my sweetheart!  

Wanna deeper peek into our lives?  I just thought the following was funny.  Brent and I got into a little tiff this afternoon and ended up resolving it via text message.  Does anybody else argue like this?  I think we are total nerds.  He's going to kill me for posting this.  haha!  

Let me preface this with basically, he just hurt my feelings....no need for anymore detail than that ;) 

Here goes:  

Brent:  I just felt like you were taking something simple and turning it into all kind of drama.  You know I love you and I always do my best to take care of all of you.  When you start pouting and saying ....., I thought that was melodramatic and a little juvenile.  When I stated as such, you wanted to go tit for tat and make it worse.   You always want me to apologize and I do, but sometimes if you would just pause for a second instead of trying to make a mountain out of a mole hill, there wouldn't be as much drama as there is.  We have a great life.  We have healthy kids and we love each other.  Why do we need manufactured drama?  If I get a tone you don't like , maybe you could say "Hey calm down, it's no big deal" ....and if you said it in a non-rude tone, then I would correct myself.  But coming back at me with a silly, rude comment exacerbates the problem and doesn't help.  If I'm not responding like an adult then you need to. Same goes for me with you.  

Anna:  When you behave a certain way to me, when you are short tempered and act like you don't have time for my "foolishness" or what have you, it makes me feel pain. No matter what your intents are, or excuses are, it still hurts.  I never try to make something more out of a situation than it is.  I just react to the pain I am feeling.  

Brent:  If I get all rude and such, if you don't stay calm and act like the adult then I will have a harder time correcting myself. If you join in with my rude-ness, then the problem will only get worse in the moment.  I love you and didn't mean to make you upset but you upset me too.  

Anna:  You're right, it's just hard when you've hurt my feelings and I want you to realize that you've hurt me.  but instead I get more hurt feelings because you take my reaction as an attack on you.  

Brent:  I'm not trying to hurt your feelings, I'm talking about how you react to it.  How your feelings get hurt is a part of who you are and has nothing to do with me.  I need to be more cognizant of your feelings as always.  I just need sometimes when I get short with you, for you to let me know directly instead of immediately taking it personally and letting your claws out.  

Anna:  Yeah, I know, you are right....but it is really hard though.  It's hard to control a reaction to someone else upsetting you.  Just like you say that if I don't react meanly to you being mean to me, then you won't react back to my reaction.  The thing you are telling me to do is because you are trying to keep yourself from having to do that very same thing.  It's a two way street.  It would be much easier on both of us if you just wouldn't be nasty in the first place.  But yes, I agree that if either of us is unable to control ourselves, the other should make an effort to be the bigger person instead of perpetuating the argument.  But then what if we both aren't able to control ourselves?  lol

Brent:  That's what happened today, we didn't control ourselves.  I will do better.  I understand I get frustrated and get angry.  I love you and will work on being better.  

Anna:  I love you too and I feel a lot better now too :)  

Am I a lucky lady or what?  I mean he was a total butt-hole to me earlier, but I come off as the mean one in this conversation.  He really is a great guy.   Are we just dorks or what?  Not what you would expect out of a "fight"  In fact....we don't really fight, we debate.  We are like a couple of nerds debating...haha! 

I don't know why I thought to share this, but I thought it would at least be entertaining. 

Have a Happy Newyear!!!