Our Tiny Dancer

We were SUPER lucky to hear about this darling lady in our neighborhood who teaches dance in our neighborhood. Tierra Nielsen is her name, and Emme is just in love with taking dance from her.

I mean...

And when we put tap shoes on her, she was the sassiest little thing. (No surprise there!) This is going to be so fun!

January in Everyday Photos

Here is January in everyday photos:

We have this fun New Years tradition with the Scotts of having an auction with a bunch of dollar store stuff with the kids. They all get a sheet of "Al Bucks" with Grandpa Scott's face on them and bid on treats and junk. They LOVE it! It was sweet to watch Uncle Dan play with Hudsie.

Backstory: I always text Shaye with a few choices for dinner (...and he usually just wants cereal...). This time Brauts was one of the choices and the autocorrect sent back "Beauty" to which I responded with this lame selfie. He's not one to necessarily dish out compliments, especially over texting, and so his response really got me.

Shaye was out of town for work and I was at my wit's end one night, so I packed the kids up in the van, turned up the heat, and drove to Swig to get myself a Coconut Hot Chocolate. They were fast asleep before we even got there. Mom win for sure!

One day that was really fun was the day Shaye's Enchroma glasses came. These glasses correct his red/green color deficiency, and so we dressed in bright colors for his big color reveal.

The results were amazing. He couldn't get over how red this bush in our yard was. He said even our skin looked more red than he realized. Colors like purple aren't vibrant with his colorblindness, so he was astonished by how it looked. Those glasses are so cool!

My little workout buddy. It's half annoying and half adorable!

Me in all my nerdiness--thrilled to finally have curbside recycling!!

I love my new calling playing the piano in Primary. The music is simple and fun, and I'm learning to be a bit quicker on my feet with sight reading and following.

Traces of Shaye are so rare on The Piano Guy's social media, so when they post with him and the whole group, it makes me happy.

We had too much fun hanging at the Lofgrans' while Steph nannied for them. They also came over to our house. Below are some pictures of Emme mauling Anders.

I can't look at these without laughing. Emme was just real excited about having Sanders over. After this, Anders said, "I can't! She's too much!" Yeah, little buddy, I know what you mean.

These two have started playing outside together, and it makes my mama heart so happy!

The simple pleasure of playing at Little Valley park.

We got heart attacked in January. So fun!

My Guy

I have a serious crush on this guy. I mean, what's not to love? Okay, to tell the truth, he is quite the handful, but I sure love him anyway.

He got so excited about this plane flying through the sky. So sweet!

Little stop at Barnes and Noble's kid section. Who knew it was so quaint over there?

8:30 church and this little man RUNNING non-stop. The combo is not my favorite thing. I'm not gonna lie.

I have way too many pictures of him asleep in his high chair. Maybe I need to start a "sleeping angel" book or something.

I just love his little expressions and I love to see his little personality coming out. I'm one blessed mama.

My Sunshine Girl

Here are some sweet moments with my girl and me from January.

"I need more lipsticks," she's always saying.

We watched the Disney Film "Inside Out" and they use a green character to express the emotion disgust. I put this face mask on and Emme was convinced that I was dressing up as her.

Her first day of Primary. What a sweet transition. I can't believe I have a Sunbeam!

I love how her face lights up when she watches YouTube (cough! Digital nanny!) and I lot that she likes carrot sticks and will only take a bite out of each one.

One day during Hudson's nap Emme said she wanted to watch Mickey but instead I jokingly turned on Downton Abbey. To be intense shock and delight, she sat and watched an entire 90 minutes episode with me, totally transfixed. At the end she started clapping and asked if we could watch it again. I was beside myself with delight that she took a liking to a show that Shaye can't even sit through. Anglophile in the making here?

I play the piano in Primary right now. It's been a bit hard for Emme to have me in there but not with her, but Kandi and the darling Malea Scott have both helped a lot. Our junior primary is little. Usually 10-15 kids in there, but they all get a lot of love.

I took this shot at the Lofgran's amazing house where Steph was nannying. I love it so much! I still pinch myself that I have a daughter. Love this sweet Emmeline of mine.

Hitting Our Goal

January 1 was so much different this year than every other New Years Day I've had as long as I can remember. In the past, I have faced the new year with mostly excitement but also some trepidation. New Years resolutions are, in a way, setting oneself up for failure. I am a goal-setter, but I set too many goals that I generally cannot accomplish, so resolutions are a problems for me.

I still remember late December of last year when Shaye told me he wanted to start "low carbing" again. I immediately told him I was breast feeding and so it wasn't practical for me. He was supportive but also encouraged me that if I wanted to lose weight, there was still a way even if a breastfed. From that point on, Shaye was a tremendous support/motivator for me. I slipped up sometimes but he rarely did. He was a man on a mission.

Now a whole year later, and we've learned so much along the way. I've cooked with flours that I didn't know existed--coconut flour, almond meal, etc. I've learned how good stevia tastes, and I've learned portion control and calorie counting like nobody's business. We've used MyFitnessPal to track everything and have together lost about 95 pounds. (WHAT?! that's like a whole person.) For me, this was my baby weight, plus 25 lbs. Shaye lost 60! We are both at the weights now that we were at when we got married. It's such a relief. I'm also relieved just to have actually completed a resolution that I've set out to do so many times. Losing weight is hard, and I know that maintaining our weight is going to always be a challenge, but I'm just so grateful to feel so much lighter and healthier. I now run a 5K 3 times a week, something I could never do before. I didn't start running until the weight was almost off, which is an interesting choice, in retrospect. 

I put on my wedding dress to celebrate the occasion...because, why not? Here's to hoping that I can fit into it for awhile. That is, until I get pregnant again and start this whole rollercoaster ride again. Oh well!