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Monday, January 30, 2012

8 months out

Last Monday was my 8 month mark from my weight loss surgery so I thought I would post a progress report. I'm excited to announce--I'VE LOST A TOTAL OF 120 POUNDS!!! I finally got some sexy boots for the first time since I was a teenager :)



Weight loss has definitely slowed down, but I'm still plugging along. I started going to a personal trainer every week and have been working on toning and strength. I love that seeing her is no extra cost and provided by my surgeon's office!

Here is a month-by-month breakdown of my weight:
Online Graphing
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And my progress picture (click to see a larger version):

I feel amazing and have recently noticed how much better I sleep at night and how much more I can move. This is truly the best thing I have ever done for myself! I still would like to lose 25 more pounds, and then comes the real beast: maintenance. I know it will be a constant struggle, but I have amazed myself so far with my lifestyle change and never want to go back. I feel like I'm getting close to the "me" I want to be :)

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

December happenings

On December 3rd we went to our ward Christmas breakfast. There was hash brown breakfast casserole, bacon and sweet breads, then the kids got to decorate sugar cookies. It was fun except I had mistakenly called the event "ward Santa breakfast" for weeks, so the kids were really disappointed when the expected visitor didn't come!


We did two crafts, a Christmas train caboose at Lowes, then these snowman napkin holders at Home Depot.

Shortly after that, we had to get over to the Festival of Trees where Faith did an amazing ballroom dance performance. Afterward we enjoyed some of the activities and crafts.





The kids were starving by this point, so we drove over to Chick-fil-A for some lunch and the kids played for over an hour at the play land. We went back to the festival to finally check out some trees!

This display in honor of someone's dog they lost this year made me cry thinking about my Crumpy-Dump.

Unfortunately, after his already long day, Christian had had enough and went into meltdown. We only got to see a few of the gorgeous trees and then had to get my Buddy home.

On Dec 5 they came around the neighborhood fixing cracked sidewalks and curbing. We had several squares of our sidewalk ripped out and replaced a few days later. Christian was fascinated by the machinery and even secured several broken pieces of concrete as souvenirs (??).

On the 8th Buddy built marshmallow dudes (there is a candy cane spine in this one) and decorated them with frosting and colored sugar sprinkles. He took a whole bunch of pictures documenting his process, which is absolutely adorable!

On the 9th Ann came over with her kids for a play date. I had some sugar cookie dough waiting for the kids to roll out, cut and bake. They did such a cute job! I didn't make up any frosting, so they got creative and ate the cookies with raspberry-peach freezer jam.

That night Faith did a ballroom performance at somebody's ward Christmas party,

then we met up with Tammy and Zach at Panda Express for dinner. Afterward, Tam took the kids for a sleepover.

The next day Tony and I got to do some Christmas shopping without the kids (woo hoo!) and then picked them up late that afternoon from Tri City Nursery. They were having a holiday open house with free face painting, hot chocolate, cookies, visit with Santa,

and real reindeer.

On the11th after church we set about making rosette cookies. I had remembered making them with my Grandma Quinn and had asked her for the set of irons and recipe. They are a bit dangerous since they're deep fried, but I still let the kids help and we had some fun.


We brought some to my parents' for everyone to try, especially my grandma!

Tony had the day off on Dec. 16th, so he, Christian and I went and ate lunch with Faith at school. We got her out 20 minutes early (because they have early out on Fridays at 1:25) and went to the movies! We saw the new Muppet movie, but Buddy had fun with this display:

After the movie, we toured Ogden's Christmas Park and I nearly froze to death! It was probably not even that cold, I just get cold easier these days.

We then had dinner at a favorite that we hadn't visited in a year--Lee's Mongolian. It was amazingly delicious! The best part is that they even went back to their original egg rolls!!! Instead of being in an egg roll wrapper, they are battered and then deep fried.

On the 17th Faith had her winter ballroom dance recital at Clearfield High. Here is one number where she didn't have a partner.

She was so cute and did such a great job! I think she was especially darling with one of her partners, Kyle Lortz, who's in her school class and in our ward. My mom & dad and Tammy came, but Larry had been in the hospital for a severe intestinal virus so he and Lana missed out.


On the 18th Christian passed an exciting milestone, he lost his first tooth! He is the exact opposite of Faith, who waits until the poor thing is hanging by a tiny string and then makes her dad pull it. Christian noticed that it was loose just a few days before and was trying to pull it out himself! Tony told him that it had to loosen up more first, but if he would push it back and forth then he would lose it sooner. While our home teacher was over, Buddy finally almost got it out and had his dad pop it out! Such a handsome, toothless little guy 

On Dec. 22nd we invited Ann and her kids over to do a Christmas craft with us. Unfortunately, when I stopped by Michael's Craft Store on the way home from my personal training appointment, Christian thew up all over their floor while I was in line to buy googly eyes. Buddy was so upset, but even more than feeling sick or embarrassed, he was throwing a fit because I didn't get the google eyes! Luckily, his dad picked them up for us that night and we made our felt finger puppets without the fun companionship of our friends. We were glad not to share that Christmas gift of tummy flu that just kept giving with our family!

On the 23rd I baked all day and got some yumminess out to the neighbors. We had differing amounts of the goodies, so every plate was unique, but this is the sum total of what I made: wreath cookies, microwave salted caramels, reindeer peanut butter cookies, snowflake rosettes, soft ginger cookies,  fudge, sugar cookie bars, and brownie peppermint cookies. I was so proud of how everything came out! Too bad I can't eat any of the delicious junk--I just have to keep telling myself "nothing tastes as good as thin feels"...


Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Thanksgiving and end of November

After dealing with only one car and having to drive Tony to the park & ride every weekday morning at 5:50 a.m. for several weeks, we finally got a new car on November 23rd! It's a dark gray 2012 Hyundai Elantra and it gets amazing gas mileage. It was dark in the garage when Tony brought it home and got the kids in it for a ride, but trust me--it's awesome!

The 24th was Thanksgiving and we started our day of gluttony at my parents'. Here are Joy with baby Brandt and Eric,

Noah, Celeste, Alaura and Lily,

Christian and Faith,

Brad, Grandpa & Grandma Quinn, Sarah, Brendon & Celeste,

and Mom and Dad. They put on an amazing spread, as always! I didn't go too crazy on the food, since I couldn't fit much :) I started with some turkey and then had a bite each of my favorites: stuffing, sweet potato casserole, cheesy veggies & fruit salad.

I love how comfy Brandt got after dinner!

My mom made cute ice cream cone cornucopias filled with runts and Faith enjoyed hers while playing on her cousin's (I think Celeste's) iPod Touch, furthering her desire for one from Santa.

The little kids spent a lot of time out on the deck playing with Joy's family's new dogs. Somehow this picture was taken of the even which lacks many kids or any dogs. Oh well, Sierra looks cute, even through the patio screen!

At Braegger's Tammy wanted a family picture before dinner. Good luck getting this crazy bunch to settle down :)


As usual, I didn't take as many pictures later in the day, but there was a lack of people there. Just Larry, Lana, Tammy, and us! We still enjoyed a delicious second dinner where I had a bite each of Lana's stuffing and cranberry salad, and way too many bites of steam pudding! We had fun playing games after dinner.

 The next day was Nutcracker night with Grandma Peterson and the girl cousins. My aunt Sandra was going the same night with her granddaughters, so we met up first at her house for talking and treats.

Sierra was finally old enough to come along! Unfortunately, she had an allergic reaction to the sulfur drug she had taken (because they already knew of her allergy to penicillin) and was covered in red, itchy splotches :(  Still, the girls all looked beautiful!



The girls all had their purses full of mints, ready to go.

We all loved the ballet and Grammy brought gifts for the end, as usual--

light-up snow fairy ornaments. We had lots of fun and Christian got to have a fun night at Boondock's arcade with his dad while we were gone.

On the 26th we made our way over to the nativity display at the old church in Kaysville. We love to search for the specific pieces on the clue paper.

They even have some that you can play with.

These kids do amazing coloring!

Afterward, we enjoyed some frozen yogurt with an absurd amount of candy and toppings to unhealthy it up. Well, I didn't, I just get a tiny bit of the frozen treat with some fresh berries on top, but the rest of them sure did.

Here is finally a picture of the Savage family dogs from November 27th. They are Brussels Griffons, brother and sister, about two years old. The curly coated one on the left is the female, Delilah and the short haired one on the right is Samson. A neighbor of Jordan's sister owned them but had to move out of the country. They are sweet little things!