Little Lexie Lou is not so little anymore

We recently celebrated Lexie's first birthday and we were lucky enough to do it with both sets of grandparents. Lexie will have a birthday like mine that will more than likely always fall during spring break, it's awesome! We spent the first part of spring break in Vegas with my family and the second part with Joe's family. We did something special both places just for Lexie. Although she's too young to understand, and most of the attention surrounds her anyway, we still wanted to document how much we love this little girl by making her first birthday special.

In Vegas grandma Sue took us to a really fun play area. It seriously was one of the best play areas I've seen. And although it is in an outdoor mall, Joe and I felt like we were in a theme park. The park had tree houses, a maze, a water feature, slides and many other fun things to keep the kids busy. Lexie especially loved the slides. Grandpa Rick took Lexie out to dinner at daddy and Grandpa's favorite Vegas restaurant, a Japanese hibachi steak house. She loved watching the fire and how the guy cooked and especially loved the noodles and fried rice. They even sang a very special birthday, Japanese techno song to her with flashing lights. Then it was on to presents. She wasn't quite sure what to do but loved them all once they were open. Too bad she didn't get to play with them until we got home almost a week later! At Grandma and Papa Norby's, grandma made Lexie a cute pink sprinkle cake. All would have been fine if she hadn't burned her finger on the candle. So needless to say she looked like this the whole time instead of eating the cake. But don't worry, she got plenty from dad the next day when she was feeling better. And then it was present time again.

It's hard to express how much we love Lexie. She is VERY different from our other children and quite a bit more hard to handle, but she is Lexie and we love her, through all her strange little quirks.

I took her for her one year appointment yesterday and besides the fact that she screamed her head off the entire time (not just for shots, the.entire.time) she is looking good. She is my smallest baby yet and isn't a big eater but we're not worried.

She weighed in at 18 lbs (7%), 29.5 inches (62%). She's still running a bit low on her fine motor skills so I just have to keep working with her. But other than that we think she's one of the best girls we know!

I just finished my second week of the Couch to 5k program and let me tell you, I'm loving it! I am not naturally a runner but I desperately want to be so this was the program for me. If you've never heard of this before it's an 8 week program to get you from doing nothing to running a 5k. The first week you start off slow, walk to warm up for 5 minutes, and then interval 60 seconds of jogging with 90 seconds of walking 8 times and then a 5 minute cool down walk. Each week you step up how much you run. I now look forward each morning at 5:30 am (only time I can go with my crazy schedule and kids) going to the gym and accomplishing my goal.

In just the two weeks I've noticed a huge change in my energy level, body image and self image. It's quite remarkable. Some friends and I are planning on running a 5k at the end of May, something I never thought I would ever be able to do.

This program also has a great app that I use on my iPod touch that is free, works with my playlists and tells me when to walk, run, warm up or cool down. It keeps track of my workouts and really motivates me. There is nothing that gets me going better in the morning than hearing "Welcome to c25k, begin workout now".

If you're interested in this app, head on over to the app store and type in couch to 5k, it's free (there are other ones you pay for but the free one is awesome!).

A nice day at the park

Saturday we were having a beautiful day with very light winds (this will change very soon!) so we decided to walk down to our park and enjoy the day. Lexie has not been to a park since she was very small and I'm pretty sure she thought she was in heaven. We did the seesaw and she loved it, she got to swing and loved it and she got to play with a dog, could life get any better?

She loved this! So did she! Pure joy! This may be a miracle, Kalli never gets close to Lexie unless she's going to torture her. Aww, there might be hope for these two yet. Closing shot of this crazy, amazing little girl. Have we mentioned how much we love her?

I also promise that Blake was there but he was too busy riding his bike and making friends to take any pictures. He didn't even come near us until we told him it was time to leave.

11 pounds down!

So in January the St. George Deseret Book store challenged all the other stores to a biggest loser competition. Because my boss and I had recently had babies, we decided to take the challenge. Each Monday we have to report our new weight and this aspect I think has really helped me to lose weight, being accountable each week really helps. There were so many times I felt like just quitting but because I have to report my weight, I just couldn't.

This week I hit my first goal of 10 pounds lost. I've actually now lost over 10 pounds and can't wait to hit my next goal of another 10 pounds. My hope and work is going towards losing at least 35 pounds by the end of the year, which is quite doable.

The competition ends at the end of March and my goal is to have lost 15 pounds. Our team has been in third place for quite some time, so I'm hoping slow and steady can win the race in the end!

Our sofa story...

Joe and I had decided to buy new couches with part of our tax return. We were sick of our old couches which were saggy and getting quite uncomfortable in our opinion. We had been shopping a couple times and picked out what we wanted but decided to wait until we actually received our return before we bought. Joe had decided to just give our couches away because he didn't think we could get any money for them. I thought we should put them on craigslist for $40, just to get some money for them. In our experience with craigslist, we expected the couches to take a week or two to sell. Seeing as our new furniture would take a week to come in once we ordered them, we thought it would be wise to get the ball rolling on selling our old couch set. Well, apparently we priced them TOO low. Within the first 10 minutes of being posted, I had over 10 calls. We were to have people over that Sunday for the Superbowl, so I kept telling people that I wouldn't get rid of them until at least Monday. One guy was so adamant about wanting the couch set that he paid us $100 to take them that night. I couldn't resist the extra money so I consented and we started our week and a half of sitting on the floor. The first couple days weren't bad but as time wore on, we were getting very sick of sitting on the floor. Our Superbowl guests were very gracious about sitting on blankets on the floor. We were originally told it would take one week to get the new furniture in, but it actually took a week and a half. When they called last night I begged and pleaded to have them drop them off that night. I think the man had pity on me because they dropped our furniture off at 7:45 last night. I have never been so happy to sit on furniture! I love the way it all goes together. I especially love my accent chair!

The fabric is a very soft microfiber (which is awesome with children!) that is made to look like corduroy. My accent chair. This chair was discontinued the day before we went to order the furniture but fortunately they still had some in stock. Luck! Also, even though it's an accent chair, it is quite comfortable to sit in. Can you tell the baby is excited about the furniture?

Our little Kalli Bug

I've been meaning to write a post about Kalli for so long but other things just keep coming up. I feel like that is what Kalli's life is like. It's probably very hard to be the middle child, I was never one but I feel pain for her all the time.

We were sitting in our tithing settlement in December and the bishop said I know Blake and I know Lexie but who are you. I felt so bad for Kalli because she lives this everyday. People always know Blake, he's outgoing, social and a friend to all. People all know Lexie because she's the baby and was born here so people feel a connection to her since they were present while I was pregnant. But poor Kalli is not as recognized. I feel that people don't get to know her very well because her brother and sister outshine her most days.

But if you do know Kalli you know that she's incredibly sweet and very kind hearted. She's the girliest girl I've ever met and I think it's so adorable. She loves having the foam curlers put in her hair at night and loves it even more when I take them out and her hair is so curly. Kalli is usually in a dress up princess dress all day long unless we need to go somewhere or she's eating. In fact, she has one fairy dress she loves that has little crystals on it and in the morning when the sun is really shining she likes to do the crystal dance, which is when the crystals catch the light and put little rainbows all over the room. I often find Kalli playing with her doll houses and having the best time with her imagination.

If you know Kalli you also know that she's not too fond of her little sister. In fact, she ignores her all day long and gets really upset if Lexie comes near her when she's playing. The other morning she was whining about Lexie and I told Kalli that she needs to be nice to Lexie because she is her sister. Kalli proceeds to tell me "no, she's my brother's sister". I couldn't help but laugh. I hope one day she will grow to love Lexie.

I am so happy that Kalli is part of our family. She's very unlike me or Joe, so that has been a challenge of sorts but we love her no matter what.

Midnight in Austenland

If you've never read a Shannon Hale book you are seriously missing out. I like to joke with a good friend that all we want to do in this life is play miniature golf with her, she just seems like such a fun person to be around. I got the chance to read an advanced copy of her newest book Midnight in Austenland. I wasn't the biggest fan of the previous book, Austenland, but I was very excited for this one nonetheless.

This book didn't disappoint, it was sweet take on Northanger Abbey (Jane Austen). Never having read Northanger Abbey I had a few ideas of what to expect but this surpassed all expectations. Charlotte leaves behind her cheating ex-husband and kids to escape to the land of Austen to be transported to a different time of courting gentlemen and corsets. What Charlotte finds instead is a terrifying (in her mind) ghost story and what she thinks is a real life murder. While everyone is pretending to go along with the story, Charlotte is trying to figure out if there really was a murder or if it was just part of the story they're acting out. Amidst all of this, Charlotte finds herself falling in love and becoming a stronger woman than she ever thought she could be.

The story moves well and leaves you not only wanting more but rooting for Charlotte. If you're a Jane Austen fan, you will most certainly enjoy this read!