Cake Boss

I remember driving from Provo, UT, to Albuquerque, NM, (10-11 hrs. depending on if it was before or after my speeding ticket in Navajo Nation--55 feels like a standstill after you have been going 80+ for awhile) and thinking that it wasn't that bad of a drive. Put three kids 4 and under in the car and anything above 2 hours, turns into 4 hours feeling like 10 hours when you factor in the children's music (have you ever listened to the children's station on Pandora and counted how many times they play the hawaiian somewhere over the rainbow song within an hour). Then anything above 4 hours makes you wonder what the guinness world record is for number of times a human can go to the bathroom in a day. So on our way up to the Boston/Cape Cod area (6 hours, or 3 years of lost life expectancy due to premature insanity) we decided to break the traveling time up by stopping in NYC and visiting Mia's high school friend for a couple days. (In case you were wondering, I'm pretty sure it took 5 hours just to get to NYC. Why is it so hard to find a gas station with a bathroom out East?).

Instead of driving straight into NYC we first went to Hoboken, NJ, to visit Carlo's City Hall Bakery, home of the Cake Boss. Buddy makes some awesome looking pastries and cakes, but I wasn't sure how that would translate as far as taste was concerned. But we decided to wait in the 2 hour line to find out. Luckily there was an ice cream truck to help the girls cool down and distract them from the fact that they were in a line. It was a good distraction for the 5 min. it lasted. It's hard to justify waiting in a line for 2 hours just to get pastries . . . that is until you have tried one of Buddy's lobster tails or a cannoli. (earmuffs) Holy crap. After we ordered, what I initially thought was too much to ever eat but what ended up being not nearly enough, we had a little impromptu photo shoot in the back alley behind the bakery. This is where the flour gets dumped on the delivery guys, unfortunately we did not get to see that live.

The next NYC day was spent walking around, a lot, and discovering that all the big photo stores in NYC are run by Hasidic Jews, and therefore closed on Saturday. People actually adhering to their religion, weird. We ate at a delicious Mexican establishment, called La Esquina. Evidently the entire corner has 3 or 4 different restaurants all under the La Esquina brand. The most popular, and hardest to get into was a dinner only place, so we ate at the cafe (there's also a taco shop). Great place to check out if you're ever in NYC.

Caught Mia while chewing. Turns out she does a little Blue Steel while she eats.

Yes, Hallee is sleeping standing up.

Even crack is more affordable on Canal Street. (Every time we go to NYC with Mia, the girls hit up Canal St. for some new purses).

NYC Parking

That night Megan and I went out with our friends, the Calls, and hit up the Comedy Cellar. Aziz Ansari was headlining. There were about 6 comedians and each was dang funny. It was very hard to refrain from loud laughter, or from keeping my eyeballs from popping out of my head, my mouth from drooling, and my pants from being peed. I'm pretty sure when I laugh hard I turn into an infant, or old man.

The place we stayed has an amazing view being right in between the Manhattan and Brooklyn bridges and right in front of this amazing park. Hallee was using these binoculars to people watch. There are always wedding or other special occasion photo shoots taking place here.

Maddie was deathly afraid of the dog, Brooklyn, when we first arrived. By the time we left she had warmed up to her and was only mildly timid, but with a smile.

Milestones

K, so we just had this great trip to New York, Boston, Plymouth Ma, and Cape Cod, BUT...I will let Kyle the magnificent photographer do that post, and include whatever pictures he desires.

SO...Until then...I will talk about our little man.

Our little, almost ONE YEAR OLD, man. 11 months old. This is the month of milestones for this kid. It's like he turns 11 months, and everything changes.

*FINALLY got his first tooth! The girls were both 5 months old when they got theirs, so it was so bizarre for me to have a kid get teeth this late.

*Officially going up and DOWN the stairs all by himself, without me being concerned that he would fall.

*He's been crawling like a champ for a few months, but now it's all the time on hands and knees, and no more army crawling. He also pulls up on everything and cruises along the furniture.

*Standing all by himself! This still only happens for a few seconds at a time, but I think only because he thinks it's a game.

*Folding his arms for prayer! - This is my favorite milestone. SO CUTE!

*He can also make the sounds for a lion, elephant, owl, and says uh-oh.

Anyway, I am just completely in love with this little boy and I can't believe he will be 1 soon!

Run run run

So, the past 3 or so weeks, I have started a new running program. This is HUGE for me. I have always been an athletic person, dancing and what not, but for some reason, running has been a very big struggle for me. I have only run an entire mile one time in my lifetime, which was when I was in my best physical condition. I have some kind of athlete's asthma which makes it really hard for me to breathe while running. But I see all these people on Biggest Loser do it, and they weigh 300 pounds more than I do. So why can't I do it???

That's when I decided I will do it. I downloaded this app called C25K (Couch to 5k), and it is amazing! It basically get's you to go from the couch and no running at all, to running a 5k in 9 weeks time. There is a 5 minute warm up and cool down, and 20 minutes of running/walking. The best part about it is that there is just a voice that comes on that says, "Walk." And then he says, "Run," when it's time to run. It's so simple, yet it is exactly what I need. I have already seen a HUGE improvement in my endurance and breathing. It has also affected the rest of my life too. I have more energy to do other things and my appetite-inhibitors are a lot stronger, so I don't snack as often. I haven't lost any pounds yet, but I know I will get there.

I don't think I can explain it in words how big of a deal this is for me. It's just one of those things that I thought to myself I could never do. And here I am doing it. And kind of enjoying it.

Sigh

So, without going into much detail, things around here have been a little rough and stressful. Finally, after about 4 months, I feel like I can breathe. I am sure that some of you know that I stress myself out more than I should, and I am working on that.

But, thankfully for my wonderful husband and amazing kids, we got through it all and got all our plans figured out with our living arrangements, and Kyle has had an awesome internship all summer, and we have had some fun weekends, which all helped me get through the stress. I am so grateful that Kyle is who he is. He is my human stress reliever. He knows just how to make me laugh when I need to. He is such a great dad too. He is a great example of hard work and great faith to our kids. Then there's our children. I am so incredibly blessed to have been given these particular little spirits to raise, teach, and nurture. Just last night, as we were laying in bed, talking about our day, I said to Kyle, "It really is amazing how much I love our kids." My heart is so full of love for my family. I am actually glad we are so alone out here because it has brought us all closer together, allowing us to brace ourselves together for the upcoming adventures and big life changes. In just over 10 months, Kyle graduates from Law school and we will be *hopefully* moving to Dallas where he will *hopefully* have a job lined up. I have loved the crazy adventure that has been Philadelphia, but I am very ready to go back to the west, where the general public is less brash and the cities are cleaner. :)

I feel like I have been m.i.a. for a while because of my stressed-outness. I am so over it and so ready to enjoy the rest of our summer. Yay!

WHAT??

New post? No way. I can't believe it's been almost 2 months since I last posted. Big time fail. Anyway, Hallee turned the big 4 on the 12th, and we were lucky enough to go visit Uncle Aaron and his family down in Lusby, Md. And lucky for us, their neighborhood has their own beach. Yay! It was lots of fun and Hallee had a blast with her cousins. So we had fun at the beach and then came back to their house, let the kids crash for a while, then had her party celebration with a Costco cake and presents. She was in heaven.

I am so grateful for my Hallee. She is so incredibly smart and so funny. She is the best helper a crazy mom like me could ask for. She loves her sister and brother with all her little heart and would do anything for them. Her sense of humor is to die for, and I just love it when she catches jokes and busts out laughing. She is so beautiful, inside and out, and I love her so much!

Happy birthday, little Hal Pal!

The Resurrection and Bunnies

"Easter, the day Jesus rose from the dead--what should we do?"

"How 'bout eggs?"

"Well what does that have to do with Jesus?"

"Alright, we'll hide 'em."

"I don't follow your logic."

"Don't worry there's a bunny."

Hallee doesn't quite get the oddities of the Easter tradition either. "The Easter Bunny hides the eggs." "Why?" "He likes to hide things. He is going to hide your basket too." "Why?" "Stop asking questions, you'll get candy out of it." "Candy?"

We started the weekend with an Easter-egg hunt on Saturday morning. I don't think anybody told Saturday about the plan because it decided to rain which kind of killed the festivities early, as in nobody wanted to stick around, but we still hunted for some eggs despite the rain.

That evening we dyed some eggs so that the Easter bunny would have something to hide, since he enjoys hiding things so much. Que the ginormous pictures (yep, it's a Kyle post).

Sunday morning, before church, was filled with finding what the bunny had hidden and also getting ready for church. Connor is modeling his new tie that Megan made for him. That's right, Megan made that. (I'm not acting surprised I'm just stressing the point, in case you read that wrong). I now want her to start making ties for me. At church Hallee sang with her primary for the first time in her career. We both got teary eyed seeing our little angel up there. Maddie was there for me though and broke up my sobbing with laughter everytime she would yell "hi" to Hallee and wave. She was excited to see her sister up there.

To end the evening we ate a delicious, yet meat-less, Easter dinner. We made margarita pita pizzas and used some fresh basil from a basil plant we just planted. We are hoping for the plant to keep on providing us with its delicious leaves, but we are not the best plant people and today we awoke to it already wilting away. Hopefully some more water will perk it back up.

We also had a family night to make sure that we did focus our Sunday on the real reason we were celebrating. We watched the video below and bore our testimonies to the kids. What a blessing that after this life is over my family and I will rise again, to be together in the eternities. I love my Savior for making that possible. He lives!

The China Study

So, Kyle just went to Utah this last weekend to go to his cousin's wedding. While he was there, he learned about this book, "The China Study." To my surprise, MY husband came home requesting that we eat less meat. WHAT?! His favorite places to eat dinner are Outback Steakhouse and on a night of extravagance, Ruth's Chris. Anyway, we talked more about this book which shows different studies that prove PROTEIN to be a likely cause of cancer. And where is most protein located? In meat. You can read the book yourself to discover what it all entails. I won't go into details, but after discussing this protein business and our personal eating habits, we decided to look into getting recipes that involved little or no meat. We will still enjoy our steaks and chicken from time to time, and this will be a gradual process, but I am actually excited to explore a new way of thinking and a new way of eating. We are buying a lot more produce, trying new foods, and experimenting on new flavor combinations. It is actually really fun, and we have only been doing it for 2 days. ha! I am also at a point of frustration with this whole weight loss business, so it's refreshing to have a new perspective on food and what I am putting in my body. Anyway, we will see how this goes, and if it will last very long. But it should be fun!