Ssshhhheeee's BAAaaack!

So, I've been trying to lose weight since the new year and I was having NO LUCK!

What?

It takes more than luck?

I KNOW THAT!!!

I was doing stuff!

I WAS!!!

But, left to my own devices I wasn't doing so hot.

So....

My personal trainer (from the race) is back!

We went to the YMCA together last Wednesday night and YAOWZAH!!!!

We went again tonight and DOUBLE YAOWZAH!!!!

I am a huge fan of the Biggest Loser so let me just say....

When they beg to be let off the treadmill or jump off when they KNOW Jillian is going to scream at them, I think, "Why bother? Save your breath!" or "Just keep going! She's going to scream AND make you do MORE!"

But....

Now I know. They really think they can't do it...or think they will fall....or puke. They waste the breath because they are trying to survive.

Sonia doesn't yell at me...but who can say no to, a calm and reassuring "Becky, you can do it!"

Last week I lost one pound!

Wahooooo!!!!

What?

I'm not up to anything.

Ridin' Cowgirl!?

Marley is scared of the vaccum. When she was a baby she wasn't...but, as she had grown she has developed this fear...interesting. Anyway, one day I put her up on the couch with her popper bus and she had a hay day! Shoulda put it on video...maybe next time.

To Our Adoring Fans....

This summer while we were in Utah we made sure to take pictures of all our immediate family so we could make a memory book for Marley. You know, so she could work on remembering our loved ones. She loves flipping through the pages and squealing at the funny faces!

The way it usually goes is, Marley finds the book and starts looking through it and pointing at people, then Nathan or I say the name of whomever she is pointing. The other day Marley and I were looking at the book and she started saying the names after I said them!


It reminded me of the scene in The Miracle Worker when Hellen Keller finally associates the symbols Annie Sullivan has been making in her hand with the objects she touches in the other hand. Hellen runs Annie ragged that day rushing from one thing to the next, soaking in all knowledge, now that she understands.

Okay, it wasn't that dramatic or nearly as close to being a miracle, but it was exciting for us!

So, this video is dedicated to The Orange Oracle and Company (Matt and Sam)...and pretty much anyone else who is missing our little Punxsutawney.

Solar Thaw

As I went to pick up Nathan from his first day of school, I heard on the radio that today Lincoln experienced a solar thaw. The sun melted some of the snow and ice. I knew this was going on because our living room experienced the solar thaw as well. It was wonderful.

Solar thaw....those two words brought warmth to my heart! Sadly, that comment was followed by, something like, "As the evening turns to night, all the slush will freeze. Drive careful out there!" So, it's not spring yet, but I'm grateful the warm sun came out to play today.

Marley was in her room playing by herself from 2pm to 4pm. She was supposed to be taking a nap and even fell asleep eating her lunch but, she has something against taking naps in her bed. Whatever. Since she fights to stay awake even when she is so tired, she passes out pretty soon after she is strapped into her car seat. Marley was asleep when my heart was warmed. But, it's ok, she warms my heart all the time. Like on our way to get Nathan she was rocking out to Evacuate the Dance Floor with me...and she initiated the rocking. Love that! (even though she may or may not have been rocking out just to fight sleep).

Since Marley fell asleep my wonderful husby and I talked in the car while she slept. We did that a lot during his winter break. It felt like we had all the time in the world. The sun shone in my face and across his face. I envied his full and naturally curly dark eyelashes, as I have many times before. He told me all about his day. He got to add the class he wanted and he thinks it will be the best class of his whole graduate school experience. NO PAPERS!!! The teacher is loud and boisterous, but not annoying. The teacher is passionate about his specialty, which is soil and he loves to sniff it (I liked to hear about someone else's fetish with sniffing, for once, I have to sniff everything!).

Solar Thaw....if I ever have a band, our name will definitely be Solar Thaw.

What do you think? Should we go check it out?

This fall we had some friends over for some homemade pizza and then we decided to go check out a park across town, to which none of us had been.

Pioneers Park.

It was unanimous! It's a beautiful park!

And look what we found there!

A big platform with two wooden plank slides.

We slid down on our butts, but we imagined these were created to be starting points for sledding down the big hill during the winter!

It was fun with no snow.

We left, looking to the future when we could return and play on them in the snow!

We still haven't gone. We have no sled and since we got stuck in Mahoney park we are apprehensive to drive all the way across town just to find it's a bust!

What do you think? Should we go check it out?

Our Own Little Snow Handcart Pioneer Adventure

On New Year's day we went out to our wagon and drove it over to our garage. We don't park in our garage because it's full of tools, bikes, boxes, shelves, food storage, hand carts, etc. but we went over there to get something out or put something back, I can't remember now. On the short drive over, the wagon felt like it was driving weird. I thought maybe we had a clod of ice stuck to one of our wheels.

Nope. We had a flat. Luckily, during the short drive Marley had fallen asleep. Nathan and I proceeded to change the wheel to the spare and found a screw in it.

Guess what, the spare was FLAT! Luckily we weren't far from home...just at the garage, remember? So, we called the store we bought the tires from, in American Fork. CLOSED! The closest chain store that could fix our flat for free was 48 miles away in Omaha. BOOOO! So, we called around to see who was open and how much they charge. Because we didn't want to call anyone for a ride and infringe on their holiday merriment we decided to pick the closest place (Sears) and walk.

7 degrees outside - we loaded our handcarts and busted over there on foot, as fast as we could. Marley was in our Jeep jogging handcart (ALL bundled up) and the flat wheel was in the bike wagon/double stroller handcart. Nathan pushed the wheel and I pushed Marley. The walkways were narrow, only the width of a snow blower in most spots...just smaller than the bike wagon. In one spot the sidewalk was not clear at all and we had to wait for traffic to clear and then we ran for it!

As we briskly walked I couldn't help thinking about how the cold made it feel like I wasn't even wearing pants or gloves or shoes. I thought about the Pioneers in dresses and sometimes NO shoes! Makes me cry thinking about it now...but, not then because my face was frozen and no tears could get out. The thing that makes me really tear up is, I was fine because I knew where I was going, about how long it would take and that when it was done, my nice warm house would be waiting to welcome me home. The Pioneers didn't know exactly where they were going. They didn't know how long it would take. And when they got there, they would have to build their homes, grow their food and still survive. What faith and perseverance they had!

I love them!

Sunday Thoughts - Quite Random Actually

My "one last thought" from my last "Sunday Thoughts" was, "Have you ever sat in front of the Cowardly Lion in church? We do almost every Sunday." Some of my faithful followers requested I explain.

There is a kind and gentle elderly fellow that we sit in front of at church. He actually has a very beautiful singing voice that pretty closely resembles the Cowardly Lion on the Wizard of Oz. I'm pretty sure there has been a Cowardlly Lion in other wards I have been.

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I am constantly reminded that Marley watches everything we do, but today in church she was literally watching EVERYTHING we did and then trying to do it.

She has been pretty good about folding her arms for prayers for awhile now; however, she loses interest pretty quickly and goes back to whatever she was doing. So, I have started telling her to close her eyes too. Attention span for the prayer increased about .2 seconds, but it's cute to see her cross her wrists (folding her arms) and then slam her eyes shut only to squint them open and close multiple times.

For the Sacrament prayer, I told her to fold her arms and close her eyes and she did, but then squinted to look at Nathan, who was rubbing the corners of his eyes with his thumb and index finger so she started doing that. Funny, and increased the prayer attention span .2 more seconds. She is up to .6 seconds!

She seemed to be having a problem with her sock inside her shoe, so I pulled her up on my lap and pulled her socks up as high as they would go and then folded them down. She loved that and then started pulling her socks up and then trying to fold them back down. Over and over. She has the hardest time folding them back down.

I had one arm folded across my torso and my other elbow resting on that hand, My other hand was at my face, with my fingers at my forehead and my thumg by my chin. Marley tried to mimick my position and it was hilarious. With her thumb on her chin, her fingers don't quite reach her forehead so she kept alternating which she would touch.

After the meeting the family in front of us stood up and the mom looked at Marley. Marley put out her hand so Sister Waite shook it and Marley had something very appropriate it say as they shook but none of us knew what it was. It was really funny.

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We used to go to church at 1pm and now we go at 9AM. I already LOVE going at 9AM better than 1PM. Booya!

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Have you ever taken a Love Language Test? Nathan and I took one in Sister Pulley's Institute class. This was before we were even dating and we both admitted later that we both tried to see what the other was marking. Ha! Young love [sigh].

My Test Results:
10%
Words of Affirmation
20%
Quality Time
13%
Receiving Gifts
23%
Acts of Service
33%
Physical Touch

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Two more things about Marley.

#1 She just went poopie in the potty. I saw her in "the stance" and grunting so I rushed her to the potty and kept telling her to push it out in the potty. I tried this once before but she had already gone. This time, I was demonstrating how to push and she kept laughing so I thought she was just going to play around, but I soon heard some plop plop! She has gone pee pee in the potty 4-5 times because I put her on anytime she asks. I tell her to make tinkle in the potty and she loves it! She doesn't always go but she tries. We have a big dance party in the bathroom when she does. This was her first time pooping! I think we should get her some little undies!

#2 She keeps coming over and giving me and Nate reverence lessons...right now, in our living room. She makes me stop typing and makes Nathan stop reading. She folds our arms and puts her index finger to her lips and says, "shhhhhshhhhhshhhhh." What a cutie pie!

The End.

Happy New Year & Decade!!!

I have been secretly hoping that all the pregnant women I know who are due or nearly due would have the first baby of the new year and decade. Is that weird? I don't think so.

Bille?
Jessey?
Shalantie?

Nathan's brother Adam is a new years baby...not the first, that I know of, but his birthday is today. Happy Birthday Adam!!! (I don't think he reads our blog, we better call him!)

I am big on making new year's resolutions or goals for the new year. We make a couple of family ones and usually accomplish at least one.


I have had the same new year's resolution for the past two years and I have accomplished it above and beyond both years. I set out to read at LEAST one book a month and read at LEAST two a month both years. Time to up the ante? Maybe.

This isn't an announcement or anything but, one of my resolutions this year is to have another baby (not pregnant and not trying yet). Can that even be considered a resolution? I guess not. But, if I'm going to accomplish my "new decade" goal of popping out another 5 babies...I gotta get started! Okay, I may or may not have a decade goal of 5 more babies, but I did figure out that if I have a baby every two years I could have 5 more before I'm 40. Nice to know. (it's math, I know!)

Marley's resolution/goal for the year:
"....potty train myself." Okay, those weren't her exact words but, we're her parents and can interpret her meaning better than anyone. High pitched, "PoTTy!" equals, "This year I am going to potty train myself."



What we did for New Year's Eve...in case you are interested.


We went to the Youth Stake Activity from 10AM - 3PM. It was fun! My favorite part besides the amazing and inspiration DVD from The First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, was soccer with a balloon tied around your ankle.


We drove around and found some cache locations but no caches. Stinkin' snow! We never learn.


Upon returning home, I blogged, which took FOR-EEEE-VER!


Fed Marley some leftover baked ziti and put that rascal to bed.


Made our New Year's Eve feast, which included a lot of hors d'oeuvre type foods. Nathan's favorite - little smokies. Becky's favorite - crackers with cream cheese smothered in tiny shrimp and cocktail sauce.


Then we played three games of Pirates of the Caribbean. Becky won two out of the three. Booya!


Then we chilled for a bit. I called my mom and woke her up 10 minutes before our New Years and 1 hour and 10 minutes before hers....party pooper. Nah, I'm kidding, she's a grandma, she's got rights!


After midnight we heard some fireworks, said "Happy New Year!!!" to each other and kissed. Then we fiddled around on our laptops. One of the things we found to watch was the CBS preview for Under Cover Boss. The first one preview was about the CEO of Waste Management and it made me totally cry. I want to see that show! The premiere will be right after the Super Bowl...I hope they post the episodes online! But, CBS isn't the friendliest site when it comes to posting episodes, so I guess I won't get my hopes up.

We also watched the first episode of ABC's Flash Forward! I'm hooked! I even started a notebook to try to figure out the intense mystery!

Happy New Year! We love you all!