Sustain.able Sprouts is doing a giveaway!

Sustain.able Sprouts is having an awesome giveaway! They also have amazing baby carriers, and you can never go wrong with a well crafted baby carrier! So go check em out and show your support for their business! They can be found on facebook, just follow the link below :) Have a great day and happy baby wearing!!

 https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.245675295456382.67626.236578589699386&type=3
 


(feel free to mention my blog or name on their page as to who sent you)

Move it to lose it!

Today is the dayyyy!!!! I am starting my weight loss! I am going to be logging EVERYTHING, please bare with me. Right now I do not have a way to upload pics so that will have to be on hold for a little bit. I will update as I go along so many blog posts may be updated several times a day.

as of 4/11/12

Weight: 237 lbs
Pant size: 17
Shirt size: 1XL
Height: 5' 7"

GOALS!
goal weight: 180 lbs
Pant size: 10/12
Shirt size: LG

I plan to achieve my goal by 9/11/12

4/11/12
FOOD INTAKE
-------------------
Breakfast: 16 oz Water
Lunch: 1 cup cottage cheese, 1 cup peach yogurt, 1/2 banana,  16 oz water





EXERCISE
-------------------
Spent one hour manually mowing lawn

Easter

I just wanted to sincerely wish everyone a Happy Easter... and despite all the candy and Easter egg hunts lets try not to forget what this day is really about. The day that our wonderful Lord arose again. I plan to take my family to my parents house for the Easter holiday. We are going to do Easter baskets, paint eggs, have a wonderful ham dinner, then do the Easter egg hunt with the resurrection eggs. In case you are wondering, a resurrection egg is one that opens up and each egg tells a part of the story of Jesus' crucifiction as well as his resurrection. It's a great way to to help teach your children the meaning of Easter in a fun and interactive way. I will post a link on how to make resurrection eggs at the end of this post. I hope everyone enjoys the rest of your weekend, and again Happy Easter!!!!

Link fort resurrection eggs: http://www.ehow.com/how_5848376_tell-story-using-resurrection-eggs.html

Beautiful day

Woke up to such a gorgeous day outside! Definitely a day to lift the spirits! Gonna spend it with my kiddos out in the beautiful sunshine... I hope everyone is having an amazing Easter weekend :)

Low Self Esteem

Okay, so I ave been thinking about my body and my health lately.... and quite frankly I have grown to hate the way I look. I am not happy with what I see in the mirror and those feelings have caused a lot of insecurities for me in my marriage, as well as some not so fun health issues.

A little history, okay so before my first daughter was conceived I was 17 yrs old and I weighed 130 lbs. I was very tall and slender, yet I have ALWAYS thought I was fat. Growing up my dad always pushed exercise on me and used to criticize any and EVERY little piece of fat that may have been on my body. There was even a point when I was 16 that I dropped to a staggering 97 lbs (bare in mind that I am 5'7") I became so ill because I just quit eating. That was the only time in my life that I looked in the mirror and I actually felt pretty and skinny. I look back at those pictures now and it makes me cry. I was so sickly looking. So dangerously thin. I looked like I could just blow away, and I cannot for the life of me seem to grasp how it was that I thought I was pretty. And now even when I look back to my pre-pregnancy pics of 130 lbs, I cannot fathom how I ever thought I was fat!

Everyday I wish I was 130 again. It would be so nice, because now, I actually am fat. Now I have a reason to hate my body. After my oldest was born I weighed 208 lbs. That was the heaviest I had ever been in my life. I became so depressed. And when my oldest daughters father left us, I got even more depressed and quit eating again. Within 3 months I had dropped to 170 lbs. And then I met my now husband and I became happy again. I stayed 170 for the longest time. After we got married I put on a little weight because I got so comfortable with him. After we conceived my second daughter in January of 2010 I weighed 208 once again. By the end of that pregnancy I weighed 216. Unfortunetly this time around I didn't lose the weight. Rather, even despite breastfeeding, I just gained and gained and gained. now, 18 months after I gave birth to my second daughter, I weigh 240 lbs. (I have actually lost about 10 lbs the last few months) But I am now THE heaviest I have ever been in my life. Over double the weight I was back before kids. I am covered in stretch marks from my arms, to my stomach, all the way down my legs.

My self esteem has never been as low as it is now. I deal with high blood pressure, extreme fluctuating blood sugar, and severe migraines and joint pain from being so overweight. I hate looking in the mirror, I had going shopping for clothes. I even hate having my picture taken. I used to take pictures of myself ALL the time. Now, I never do. I don't want to keep hating myself. I want to be proud of my body, not disgusted.

So. I have a goal this summer, and I need as much support as I can possibly get. My goal this summer is to lose 60 lbs. I need motivation and support because without it, I just cant even find the drive to push myself. So I hope to start my weight loss journey hopefully this week. I plan to log everything I eat, everything I do for exercise and do a weekly weigh in and monthly pic update. I need you guys! I want this so badly for myself. Help me make it through this and succeed <3

Sad Day

Well this completely and utterly sucks. My husband was anticipating getting a job at Les Schwab. He had done the interview, they loved him! He submitted the back round check, the driving record, everything. Only thing he had left to do was submit to a urine analysis and was told as long as it was clean that he had the job. So we yet again for about the 4th time took a trip into Spokane (we live an hour away) so that he could submit his UA. We patiently waited for three days before the results came it, just waiting for the call that said he had the job. We this morning we got the complete opposite. The manager that had interviewed him and liked him so much was calling to say that he didn't have the job.

Driving record, clean. License check, cleared. Urine Analysis, clean. So why didn't he get the job? The manager had initially pulled up my husbands criminal record and saw that he had a felony back in 2007 but assured us that it would not bar him as they hire people with felonies all the time. Well apparently the corporate office had contacted the manager yesterday and they informed him that they would not be hiring Tyler because the nature of his felony.

The manager explained how sorry he was and such. But because my husbands felony was for a forgery, they could not hire him. The saddest part here is they told him that had his felony been drug or violence related, that he would have the job. I cannot wrap my brain around that. A convicted drug felon could potentially run drugs in and out of a company (high risk), an assault felon has the potential to harm or even kill a customer or fellow employee if the circumstance arose (also high risk), but because my husband forged his friend's check he cannot get the job. What risk is he? He would only be working on cars. Does his teenage stupidity from 5 years ago inhibit his ability to work on a car? Is he a risk to his customers or fellow employees? No.

At this point I just don't even know what to say or do. This whole thing just seems so ass backwards to me  (excuse the language) But I am very upset. We had wasted so much time and gas to do what needed to be done for this job, but in the end all we received was a big slap in the face. I guess that's all I can really say right now. I'm really just trying to find the positive in all of it. Like maybe this was meant to happen. Maybe something better is in store for us. God I hope so because we are at the end of our ropes and running out of resources. Something has got to give.

Marriage: for us

Marriage for us is something you have to work at everyday for the rest of your life. You struggle to hold it together. You can hate each other but love each other all at the same time. You will fight and yell and say a lot of things that you really don't mean. Marriage isn't this picture perfect white picket fence senerio that you imagined as a little kid. A lot of people may not even understand why you stay married... but to us, this is our life. People may not get it, they may shake their heads, but they can't know and will never know the love that we share between us. They can't know the passion that burns so bright. Some days we may hate each other and want to call it quits. But we both know that isn't an option. He is the yin to my yang. We are each others other half and without one another, our souls would die. We may have to work at it but that is what makes us great.

Sure, there is so much more we "could have" done with our lives. I could have graduated high school and went on to a University somewhere out of state while he could have joined the Marines like he had initially planned. But we found each other, and we had children. To me, that is greater than any plan we could have ever made for ourselves. Going to sleep each night in each others arms. Now THAT is my Heaven. There is no greater joy then waking up each morning to see the father of my children laying next to me. There is no greater joy than looking at my children's smiles and knowing that if "WE" had never been, then "they" would have never been either. Because of fate, or destiny, or just God's plan, we came together and we made a family. To me, that's not just something you choose.

We know it was God's plan for us to be together and we know that it is God's plan for us to remain together and one. We have been through some rocky situations. Some worse than any one will ever experience in their lives. But we have managed to remain a unit. And we didn't do it on our own. We did it with the help of God himself. That's how I KNOW this is all meant to be. Because if our marriage was destined for failure it would have failed a LONG time ago.

I love my husband so very much! And although we have been through such rough hardships, we vowed for richer or poorer, for better or for worse, in sickness and in health, till death do us part. And we intend on keeping our word. Till Death Do Us Part. To me that is VERY black and white.I cannot put circumstance on our marriage or our vows. Because our vows represent UNCONDITIONAL love. That is why our marriage will last forever. It will be till death do us part. Because no matter what obstacle we face, our love for each other is unconditional and will remain so forever and always. I love you Tyler Dawson <3