2 1/2?

Avery is 2 1/2!  She has grown so much in the last six months!  

Her speech has improved so much in the last six months!!  I love it!  There is never a quiet moment.

She's also starting to learn Spanish!  

A funny story about that.  She wanted to get up on our bar stool and I told her not right now but she kept saying "Up, up, up, up!"  Once she realized that wasn't working she started saying, "Arriba, arriba!"  I just looked at her and said, "Did you just speak Spanish to me??"  After that I had to let her up!  I mean she wanted to get up on those bar stools so bad that she resorted to a different language!  She knows how to say up, down, open, close, please, hello, and goodbye in Spanish.  As well as a few colors and numbers. 

She's been watching too much Dora the Explorer.

Avery is still so very smart!  At 2 1/2 she now knows all of the sounds the ABC's say, she can count to 20 and can identify the numbers 1-10.  She knows a lot of shapes, square, circle, rectangle, oval, star, heart, arrow, and triangle.  She knows all of her colors.  Now that I think about it, she's known all of her colors since before she was 2.  She has a great memory!  She can watch something once and she'll remembers what happens if we watch it again the next day.  I think this is why she's always had an easy time learning new things.

Her favorite things to do are play outside, build with blocks, jump, and be crazy.  She really is so crazy!  She is so energetic and is always going!  Her favorite thing to do outside is to go on walks in the stroller.  We have wooden blocks and we have mega blocks, her favorite of the two are mega blocks because they don't knock over as easily.  She is very specific in the way she builds with blocks. She uses certain colors in certain spots.  She is so much like her mom.  She's the same way about doing puzzles, taking the pieces out and putting them back in a certain order.  

She is still a GREAT big sister to Mary!  They are so cute together and I have loved watching their relationship grow!  Now that Mary is crawling she will follow Avery around.  Avery loves to tickle Mary and make her laugh!  When I was pregnant with Mary, Avery got extremely clingy to me.  She wanted me and only me!  It was so hard and I was so worried that having another child would be so hard.  It has not been though, there were a few hard times at first, but overall it has been wonderful!  I have been very blessed with sweet loving children!

We have started potty training this last week and so far it has been going well.  Each day gets better, today she has even been telling me that she has to go potty!  She is still a little uncomfortable about sitting on the potty, but I'm hoping she will get over that soon.  I'm so proud of her at how quickly she has caught on.  I still think we have a while to go, but she's coming along well!  I am loving not having to change two little kiddos diapers!

We love our sweet, fun, smart, energetic, adorable Avery!  She is such a joy to have in our home and I am so grateful that I get to stay home with her.  Even when I have hard days, I wouldn't trade it for anything!  I've loved watching her grow and can't believe sometimes how big she is getting.  

Before we know it she will be 3!

Color Vibe

Guys, I did it!  

I completed my first 5K!

It went well and I finished. . .I did stop once and that was my mistake that effected the rest of the race.

I ran the race with two of my sisters-in-law, Kami and Alisha.  I was ahead of them and at probably about a mile and a half I decided to stop for them.  After I stopped I just felt done.  I didn't wanted to walk.  I didn't stop again after that, but I did walk a few time each time for only probably 30 seconds.  It was also a fast walk and I was able to pretty much keep up with them while walking.  

Alisha had gone on in front of us and Kami was a sweetheart and stayed with me.  Alisha waited at the last hill so we could all finish together.  It was a lot of fun.  

So my lesson for whenever I do another 5K is DON'T STOP.   I don't think I'll ever do anything more than a 5K, I still don't love running, but I enjoyed pushing myself and I definitely want to do another 5K and do it without stopping or walking.

Enjoy a few pictures from the day!

Mother's Day

I love being a mom.  I have never felt so blessed in my life.

 I love my sweet, fun, energetic Avery.

 I love my loving, curious, giggley Mary.

I love my girls.

I love motherhood.

Also, click here to see a super cute video!

Fit In Six

I mentioned in a earlier post that I was doing this challenge called fit in six.  It ended a few weeks ago and I thought it was about time to post about it!  I did the challenge with Kami and Alisha.  To start I'll let you know what the heck fit in six is!  Well, it's a 6 week challenge of exercising and eating right.  Each day to get the maximum points you need to eat 3 servings of fiber, veggies, and fruit.  As well as 2 servings of protein and dairy.  Through out the day you should also drink at least 64 ounces of water.  You get 5 points for each serving you eat and for drinking the 64 ounces of water.  You can get 5 points for taking a supplement and 10 points for praying, reading scriptures, and not eating the 3 hours before bedtime.  As for exercising, you can get 20 points for exercising 15-29 minutes, 30 points for 30-45 minutes, and 40 points for 46+ minutes of exercise.  There are no exercise points on Sundays.  You weigh yourself at the end of every week and if you lose at least 1/2 a pound you get 10 more points!
There are a few other aspects to it, but that's the gist of it!  It was so great for me!  I have never been one to really exercise, but this has gotten me to really enjoy exercising!!  I love going to the gym!  I even kind of enjoy running now.  Gah!  Who would have ever guessed!!  (I'm even doing my first 5K this weekend, hopefully I'll survive to blog about it)
There are guidelines on what foods you can and can't eat.  For example on the "Bad Food" list is sugary cereal, anything white flour, soda (you can have diet), ice cream, whole or 2% milk, potato chips, etc.  The "Safe Food" list includes low sugar jam, pretzels, air popped popcorn, sugar free jello, lower fat sauces, etc.  And the "Good Food" list includes oatmeal, brown rice, whole grain bread and tortillas, fish, chicken, turkey, eggs, peanut butter, fruits, veggies, etc.  Thankfully you can have three, 150 calorie or less, sweets a week!  If you have more than that you subtract 5 points for every 150 calories.  I got negative points from this every single week!  I love my sweets!
I ended up losing 8 pounds in 6 weeks.  My goal was to lose 5.  So yay!  I am now only 2 pounds away from my pre-pregnancy weight, but my goal is to lose 11 more pounds.  That will put me back to where I was when I graduated high school.  I think I could have done better, but like I said, I love my sweets!  Plus Easter was in the middle of the challenge!  CHOCOLATE!!

Alisha and Kami were great workout buddies!  Here are a few pictures on our last day of the challenge!!

Alisha won out of the three of us, for her prize we paid for her pedicure and manicure as well as ice cream!  I cannot even tell you how happy Kamila was to get ice cream!  

It was also awesome to work out and then go get ice cream after.

Here is a before and after picture of me.  The first one is a little fuzzy because I did it with the self-timer.  Can you see a difference?  I can.  In my face especially.

I'm very grateful for the opportunity to do the fit in six, it has helped me be more aware of the things I eat.  I realized that I had been eating very little veggies!  It's helped my family be healthier and more active.  It also helped me grow a stronger relationship with Kami and Alisha.  Especially Alisha, and I am so grateful for the friendship we have now.

We are starting another round of fit in six on the 17th of this month.  We have several more people joining us this time and I am going to be the host.  I'm not sure if I know what I'm getting myself into, but I'm sure it will turn out great!  I'll keep you all updated!

Oh The Things She Can Do!

Mary may be little, (20% for height and 40% for weight.  Oh and 90% for head circumference hahaha!) but she sure is advanced! I still can't believe all the things she has been able to figure out!  Recently I took some videos of her crawling, pulling herself up, and cruising and I wanted to share them!  She is just over 7 months old now and growing so fast!

This first one is of Mary crawling.  She started army crawling a little before 6 months and real crawling a couple weeks after that.  For a while after that she would switch from army to real crawling and lately she's just doing the full crawl!!

Little girly pulls herself up on to everything!!  She is getting really great at it!  This video was taken a few weeks ago now.  She's gotten even better since this.

This next video is of her cruising along our couch.  She just started doing this within the last week.  She's not too great yet, but it's still impressive!  Sorry it's sideways, I don't know how to fix that so just put your left ear to your shoulder.

The last video is from last Thursday on our drive from Ogden back to Logan.  It was at night so it's pretty dark, but it's a cute video!  Mary has two words that she says.  Hi and Dada.  She doesn't know what they mean, but she can say them!  It's super cute and even cuter when she puts her two words together, "Hi Dada!"  Love it!  Even though I wish she would say Mama.

Love this girl!