Thursday, February 28, 2013

10 Months Old

Emma Jane is 10 months old already!

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Here are 10 fun facts about Emma:

1. She loves her big brother. If she hasn’t seen him for a while (for them that’s like a few hours), she gets really excited to see him again.

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(I know what this looks like, but he’s really not about to strangle her. Not in this picture, at least.)

2. Her favorite food right now is whole wheat Ritz crackers. She does a little excited dance every time she sees them.

3. She’s becoming quite social. She loves to wave and say “hi” and is perfectly happy to let strangers hold her.

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I told her to wave for the picture. She got a little excited about that.

4. She loves dogs and knows hoe to bark like a doggie. So cute!

5. Emma loves to play peek-a-boo. She particularly likes to hide behind curtains. She also loves to dance and sing.

6. No teeth yet. Maybe by kindergarten. Still no crawling either. No standing, no pulling herself up. No rolling around, no army crawling. This little babe is quite happy to stay where she is.

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7. Emma has the cutest crinkly nose smile and has started tilting her head way back when she smiles. So cheesy and so cute!

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8. Emma has beautiful big blue eyes. I’m sure they won’t stay blue, but I’m sure they’ll always be lovely. People always look at me and try to figure out where her blue eyes came from. I think it’s typical for babies to have blue eyes, although Nathan’s weren’t this blue. Ryan has very nice green-blue eyes though.

9. While still chubby, Emma has definitely thinned out and lost some of that super chub she used to have.

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10. Emma loves to take her socks off. She pulls and pulls until they come off. It’s really funny to watch her try to do the same thing with her tights.

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Thursday, February 21, 2013

Weight Watching

I’ve had a lot of people ask me about my experience with Weight Watchers, so I thought I’d share a little bit about my experience here. Hopefully I answer all your questions!

I did Weight Watchers for 4 months, and lost about 17 pounds. I know that’s not an earth shattering amount of weight, but I reached my goal and I’m really proud of that. I mean, I lost weight the week of Christmas!

I started 5 months after having a baby. I had lost the baby weight, but still had some weight from the time right before I got pregnant that  I desperately wanted to lose.

Weight Watchers can either be done only online, or by attending meetings and using the online tools. I did WW online. I actually surprised myself with my ability to stick to my goals, without being accountable to someone else (I didn’t have to step on a scale in front of a stranger, or discuss my goals in a group setting). I guess I quickly realized that the only person I hurt when I cheated, was me!

You get a certain amount of points each day depending on your height, weight, and age. You can use those points on any foods you want, although it’s recommended that you use them for foods that will fuel your body. I had 26 points to use a day. Everyone also gets 49 weekly points to use any time through out the week. You can save them all up and use them for an end of the week night out, or use a few a day to have a treat. I used about 7 every day, but loved having a few extra to use at the end of the week.

When I started WW I was nursing full-time, so I got an extra 14 points a day. When I started nursing part-time, I got 7 extra points a day instead. I never felt like I was compromising my ability to feed my baby by cutting my own food intake. That was really important to me.

Each food has a point value to it. The website allows you to calculate the points of all the foods you eat. Some foods are already calculated for you and you just have to look them up. Others, like your secret family recipe for Chicken and Dumplings, you would have to add and calculate yourself.

All fruit and most vegetables are free! Zero points! I love that because sometimes I just need to be able to eat without thinking about how much I’m eating and I never feel guilty about mindlessly munching on grapes.

You can also add points to your day by being active. I have to admit, I rarely exercised while doing Weight Watchers. I felt like I spent a lot of my free time tracking and calculating points and I didn’t know how to fit exercise into my schedule. Besides, tracking points alone was working for me. Would I have lost more weight if I exercised as well? Maybe. But maybe I would have just been so much more stressed and eaten more brownies. I guess I’ll never know.

I loved Weight Watchers because I never felt like I was denying myself the foods I wanted. I rarely even felt like I was dieting. If I wanted chocolate (I often did), I ate chocolate. I just knew that 3 points worth of chocolate wouldn’t fill me up nearly as much as 3 points worth of a good food would. I learned to pay attention to how much I eat. I learned to substitute healthier and equally satisfying foods for the full-fat, high calorie ones I was craving. But I also didn’t kill myself over every little point.  Essentially, I cheated a little bit. For example, every day I let myself eat the crusts off Nathan’s PB & J because it  satisfied me and kept me from eating my own peanut butter sandwich that I desperately wanted.

Now that I’m not doing WW any more, I’m finding it difficult to not track my foods. I hope this answered all  the questions I’ve been asked. If you have any more, leave a comment and I’ll try to answer them!

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Friday, February 8, 2013

Hi from Emma

Emma says HI January 2013 from Ryan Bartron on Vimeo.

By the way, she was sick in this video and doesn’t always sound like a crusty old trucker. Although if anyone could pull that off, she could!

Thursday, February 7, 2013

Primary Boy

Nathan is a Sunbeam now! I think he’s starting to decide he likes it. It’s been tough for him to leave nursery (and snacks) and at the same time change to 11:00 church and be in Primary in the middle of lunch. We’ve also already had stake conference and one sick week this year. I’m in the Primary Presidency in our ward, so I find myself hiding in the hall often, so he doesn’t keep coming over to see me.

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(first day of Primary)

I think once he gets the hang of it, he’s really going to thrive. He has great teachers and friends (lots of little girl admirers) and he proudly brings his very own Book of Mormon to church with him each week. We spent the whole first 2 weeks of January playing Primary at home. We drew pictures about why Jesus loves us and he got out his “poster” for singing time. It always amazes me how much he takes in, even when his little body doesn’t want to stay still.

I love watching him grow!

This is the picture I took on Nathan’s first day of NURSERY. Where does the time go?!

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