Why am I so Mad?

We are remodeling our bathroom and yesterday I spent my day painting it a beautiful brown color (if I do say so myself). Anyway, after I had put two coats on the walls, and just had to do cutting in, I decided to take a break to eat dinner and grab a drink. My break was probably about 15 to 20 minutes. After feeling refueled, I head back to the bathroom to continue my work. I open the door and see AUDREY with the paint roller in her hand and a scared look on her face. WHAT?? I freak out wondering exactly what she has done... AUDREY!!!!! I look around and see she painted our brand new bath tub, tile/grout, floor, wall, counter, and our bright white new vanity with brown paint. I cannot explain the rage I felt at this moment. Daddy scolded her good, spanked her, and sent her to the corner. Meanwhile I scrub the vanity with tears running down my cheeks, feeling so picked on. After which I sent Audrey to bed for the night, making sure she understood what she did was wrong. Audrey never ceases to amaze me at what she will do next. Oh how I love this crazy little woman, and it is a good thing too, I don't know if she would have survived last night. Amazingly enough I got most of the paint off of everything that we have already replaced. But it does not mean that there is not any traces of what went down. The grout has some light staining, but pretty unnoticeable. Anyway, I thought I would share yet another adventure from the life of Audrey Paul. My crazy Audrey!

Victoria's Plea

Last night when I was going to bed, I found a little note left by my door. It Read:
Dear Mom,
I have to move out of this room or Adrey moves out of my room. I almost lost my leapster tinkerbell game cause of her and soon my tinkerbell and the princess and the frog game will be lost. And she talks in her sleep and snors at night and becuse of her I can't go to sleep.
Love, Victoria

I feel her pain. Audrey would be such a hard person to share a room with. I think her personality might be a little too big for such a little body. It's a good thing we love her so much.
Alan and I talked it over, and we are going to let Victoria share a room with Ellie for awhile, and Brayden with Audrey. I am little concerned with the Brayden/Audrey Combo...we will see how it goes.

Maddie

As most of you have heard, our next door neighbor Maddie was killed in a car accident on October 7th. She was walking to school when another girl her same age (13) was driving and struck with a car.
Maddie was our kids babysitter, friend, and neighbor. We loved it when she watched our kids, because she did such a good job and the kids loved her. She was always smiling! She was probably one of the most Christlike people we knew. In fact the day before she died, I saw her walking on our street with some of her friends. She had a huge smile on her face, and I thought "Maddie, is such a good person!" There was something so sweet about her...I think it was just in her countenance. When you were near her, you wanted to be happy.
When we first moved here a year ago may, we learned that Maddies family (our next door neighbors) lost their Dad a couple of years earlier. We would often see their home teachers over. We had a street party last year, and that is were I first officially met Maddie. I asked her if she was interested in baby sitting my kids, and she said she would love too. Maddie was pretty busy, but we tried to get her to sit when we could. I often wondered about the loss of their Dad and how hard that must have been. Apparently, the inheritance money they got from their Dad's death was lost in a Poncy Scheme. So, all their savings were gone.
Thursday morning I got a text from a ward member and neighbor saying Maddie got hit by a car and we all needed to pray for her. Tears filled my eyes, but I was hopeful things would be OK. Maybe 30 min. later, I received another text that said Maddie had just passed. I just broke down, and couldn't believe it was true. How could SHE be gone? How could Maddie be gone? She is such an Angel. How will her family be able to cope with another loss? I called Alan and told him what had happened, we were both in shock. I immediately started to worry about my kids and how they would react. Especially Victoria, I really worried about how she would do. I had to teach at 4 and the kids were going to be watched by a babysitter, and they don't get home until about 3:45. I was worried they might hear it from someone else, or hear something on the way home. I didn't want to break the news to them, and then leave them a mess for the babysitter. So, I decided to check them out at about 2. I took them home and sat them down on the couch and broke the news. Victoria broke down and cried and cried. She kept saying she couldn't believe Maddie was gone, that she didn't deserve to die, and that she really wished that girl wouldn't had taken her aunts car. We snuggled and talked about how Maddie's death is part of Heavenly Fathers plan, and that it is so sad, but we know she is happy. We also talked about how hard of a time the girl that hit her is probably having, and how sad she must be that she did this. Maddie is in heaven with her dad! Brayden kept saying "Mommy, I feel really sad for Maddie." Victoria was pretty weepy all night. I really worried about her. Death is a hard thing for adults to deal with, I don't think kids are quite equipped to deal with it.
Today at church, it was fast and testimony meeting. Everyone had taken the news hard and there were many tears. I couldn't help but feeling guilty. Almost like I didn't have the right to grieve Maddie's loss, shes not in our family, so I don't deserve to. I keep thinking of her family and how hard this must be for them. I don't want to draw attention to myself. "I'm so sad, pay attention to me." This is about Maddie, not me or anyone else. I just kept my feelings in. I wanted to blog today, to relay what a beautiful person Maddie was and how much we will miss her. But I think the fact of the matter is, we can't help but grieve the loss of such a wonderful person, and feel for her poor mom and sister left behind.
Maddie's family is in a scary financial situation and they need help. Please visit http://madisonmecum.org/. Our ward is putting together a huge yard sale this Saturday morning/afternoon in our neighborhood. All the proceeds will go to the Mecum family. If you can help in some way, I know it will be greatly appreciated. Also, please remember this family in your prayers. Thanks! April

Happy B-day Alan, Summer, and so on...

Lovely! Brayden has a chocolate face from Alan's birthday cake.

Ellie loves cake

Audrey in a leotard sitting ON the table next to her cake

Helping Daddy blow out the candles

Weird pattern of candles, it looks kinda like a J.

Wow, he has allot of kids!

"Chips Ahoy, just what I wanted!" These cookies were from one of the kids.

I took the kids to go see Despicable Me on Saturday night because Daddy was hunting. Surprisingly, the kids were perfect Angels and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.

Ellie at Victoria's Soccer game.

Victoria's first Soccer game.

All the kids at Geertsen Family Birthday party.

Grandma Shirley had one of the birthdays.

Heather and Sean

Meliek made the Lego dude that was sewing for my mom's birthday. What a thoughtful gift, she loved it.

What is that face?

Beautiful

Brayden's First day of First Grade.

Victoria's first day of Third Grade.

Victoria and Brayden with our down stairs neighbor Carlos. They walk to school together every morning.

My brother in law Erik and my sister invited all the nieces and nephews to come up to Strawberry and go Crawdad fishing with them, and then come back to his folks cabin and cook em' up. To Crawdad fish; you tie a chicken drumstick to a piece of string, throw it in the lake, then pull the chicken up and retrieve the Crawdad (which can be a little creepy, because you have to grab it). It was such a blast! We had a feast of Crawdads, Potatoes, Corn on the Cob, and Sausages sprinkled with Cajun seasoning. Oh my! So Delicious! The Crawdads were pretty good, if you could get past the yellowish green goo that squishes out when you detach the body from the head. Brayden was fascinated with the little things, and was tearing it apart one piece at a time and inspecting every inch of it. That kid should be and doctor and make use of his fearlessness to things that most people would be squeamish too. He loves to help Daddy tear apart Doves when he comes back from hunting.

The Crawdad

Aunt Heidi and Audrey

Ellie

Austin fishing

Victoria with her Chicken drumstick

You just fish from the dock, couldn't be funner!

Heather and I went to Thanksgiving Point's Farm Country at the end of the summer. It was allot of fun. The kids got to see a brand new baby calf and lots of other animals. This is a picture of us waiting in line to ride the ponies (it was an hour wait). I love the look on Dallin's face.

Dallin and Heather

Ellie was supposed to ride on a pony too, but she was too scared, so I walked around next to Audrey.

Victoria feeding a Llama dried corn.

My Dad and Glo through me a surprise Birthday party in St. George. It was so much fun.

This picture is so funny! My dad had put sunscreen on, and coulden't get it to rub in!

Audrey painting her bobble head!

I guess I really like this picture!

Ellie, under the table agian!

Kids painting Bobble heads in St. George.

Beautiful Victoria (sorry the pic it sidways)!

Ellie's favorite place, under my vanity (or any table or desk).

Hello

Look at those eyes!

It Worked!

This is a follow up to the post "My Promise." So it actually was not that hard to do the 15 days, because I knew that is was only 15 days. I must admit, I was so proud of how strong I was. And not weighing myself was awesome, because I didn't feel the pressure. I think stress sometimes effects weight loss and I don't feel like I had any stress that way. I actually ended up weighing less than my goal, but partly because I had thrown up the night before. But I am at my goal weight and I am so excited to be allotted more calories. I am now eating 1928 calories a day. That is actually allot of calories, especially since I am used to 1550. I am still counting calories obviously, but I don't really know how to do it any other way yet. I divided my calories like so;
Breakfast 500, Snack 200, Lunch 500, Snack 200, Dinner 526. If I know I am going out to eat I will eat less for breakfast and my snacks to allow more calories later. I really wish all restaurants knew their nutrition info. because it is scary to guess how many calories are in dishes at restaurants. What I have done so far is ask the server for there opinion on the healthiest meals on the menu . Then when the meal comes, I eat half the portions they gave me. Restaurants don't usually take a precautions to making a meal lower fat or calories like I do at home, so I have a hard time trusting them and need to make sure I do what I need to, to make sure I don't eat too much. I know that creamy pasta dishes a restaurants are around 1500 calories or more per plate. Which I think I ridiculous! But my favorite food is Fettuccine Alfredo, and to ever be able to eat it at a restaurant again, I will have to save calories from earlier in the day and then only eat half of it. I feel empowered knowing that I can't just go to a restaurant and order what ever I want and eat everything. I know the outcome would be weight gain.
I recently went to get my hair done and while they were doing my hair, I was reading an article about weight loss in Elle. I found this article very insightful and eye opening. It said when you are hungry, the food you reach for is the most important thing. Meaning that the food you reach for most often when you are hungry is the food that brings you the most joy. So if you are always reaching for snickers, then emotionally snickers equals joy to you. There are actual feelings of joy when you eat it. But if you change the food you reach for when you are hungry and continue doing so, you can change what is your "Joy Food." For example if you always reach for an apple when you are hungry, pretty soon the apple will start to sound just as good as that Snickers did for you. That is amazing! Sometimes some cravings are so strong for my joy food (which prob. is Snickers or Chocolate) that when I am strong I can resist them, but when I am emotional or stressed it is so hard to resist. I really think I would be cool to change my emotional eating to something more healthy! Anyway, let me know if you know of any eating out tricks or Pot luck tricks, I would love to hear them.

Brayden's Break Dance

I did 5 or 6 posts today, and I included all dances from the recital. Hope you enjoy!

Brayden and Toria's Ballroom Dance

Brayden was MIA in the beginning of the Dance (apparently he was thirsty and went to get a drink and missed his entrance). In the beginning there is one girl dancing by herself and that is where Brayden is supposed to be. Victoria is the second or third girl to dance with Brayden.

Victoria's Ballet Dance

Victoria is in the middle 4, all the way to the right at the beginning and ending.

My Choreography.

This is a Level 6 Ballet class at Center Stage.

I Luva go bahyeah

Audrey is the crazy blonde hamming it up. You can click on the lower right side to make it full screen. I wish they would have kept the camera on her the whole time, because it doesn't show all of her craziness.

My Promise!

So as some of you know I reached my weight loss goals and reached my pre babies weight. It's been awhile now, but I have really struggled learning how to maintain my new weight. I have gone up a couple down a couple (or more) over and over and over... I am so sick of feeling like I am always on a diet, when I have already reached my goal. But I don't want to become a statistic and gain my weight back. I really want to stay at my goal or lower. Anyway, I am fed up! A couple of things I have learned are; that my normal diet (that I used to eat when I was 10 lbs heavier) makes me gain weight at my new weight. That I can NEVER just eat whatever I want, or I will gain weight. And that One day of eating crappy takes 2-4 days to loose that weight again. Mindless eating always = weight gain.
I have made a plan.
I have 15 days of eating 1550 calories a day (a good amount for my body to lose weight). And 3 rules that I spit swear I won't break. 1. Don't ever eat ANYTHING without writing it down first. This has been my biggest problem. If I don't keep track, I lose my motivation for the day and I end up eating way too much. 2. I am not weighing myself for the 15 days. I find myself getting frustrated or depressed if it doesn't move quickly enough. 3. Don't ever eat more than my allowed calories. I know that this doesn't leave much room for mistakes. But I know I can do it, it's only 15 days. Also, I will still try and get in 4 intense workouts a week.

I am pretty positive I will be back down at the end of 15 days, then I am on a journey to figure out how to maintain it.
I know HF wants us to learn to control our appetites and desires, I know he can help me to do this. I feel like it is a righteous desire. Anyway, please don't judge me. I know this is such a small problem compared to so many people, but it is big to me.

Happy Birthday Ellie!

Ellie eating birthday cake on her birthday.

Ellie eating a birthday cupcake at the Geertsen May Birthday Party. The birthday party was for Erik, Ellie, Meliek, and Amber. We would have loved to include Dan, but he is in jail right now and will be for the next 2 years. We (Alan, myself, and the kids) went down to Manti to visit Dan in jail on his birthday. He said it was the be present he could have gotten. He has longer hair now and said life is pretty boring. He said they made weights out of water bags and they are either working out or watching TV. He really likes watching Ellen, he said she seems like such a happy person. He wants to change and hates it in jail. I told him we all will love him no matter what, but we do hope he can stay out of trouble.

My nephew Austin, Victoria, and Brayden.

My nephew Dallin with Audrey eating chips? I can't tell...

My nephew Meliek.

My neice Jayda.

Ellie playing with Grammy.

Audry climbed into the bath with one of the kids.

Video of Ellie of eating her birthday Dinner.