That Four Letter Word . . .

I know what you guys are thinking, omg she's gonna swear! Well in my household it is a swear word in fact I have a saying "Diet is one letter off from Die" yes the word is DIET. My sisters and I have decided to go fully into weight loss mode together this year. Made our own Facebook group to cheer each other on and put up our lovely (horrific) "Before Pics" like the infomercials (and no one will ever see them except my sisters because they are terrible). Up until this point I hadn't been able to do anything because I'm breastfeeding and I wasn't 6 weeks post partum yet. I've surpassed the 6 week point and decided there's no time like the present to start. I started my diet or "lifestyle change" as we're calling it, yesterday. Ok so I know the change is supposed to be good for you but midway through the day I hadn't even been eating different for a WHOLE day and the cravings hit! Oh man it was brutal. I am what you call a "bored eater" and I hit the sweets when I am mad or sad or just all around in a mood. I had a situation with our pediatricians office and was so ticked off because we had to push back Gavin's 3 year appointment until February 13th and that's when it hit me.

Seriously I was so mad! I sat at my computer and started to crave chocolate or ice cream and it was so bad! Because I was mad my body was trying to get me to eat something sugary for comfort. It got to the point where I went into the kitchen and got me a healthy snack, Pretzel sticks and a fat free chocolate pudding cup, which didn't really help I mostly got mad at the pretzel sticks like they were hindering my eating something sugary. I tried the pudding cup thinking oh man its chocolate so it's got to help squelch this craving. Nope it wasn't enough apparently to make it go away. Needless to say though I resisted the urge. My mom said it takes a few days until the cravings start going away but somehow I think its going to be more then that. C'est La Vie, I'll just keep on keepin on, wish me luck.

First Smiles . . . So Flippin Cute!

I dunno what I did to make him smile, in Rowan's opinion I'm sure I'm funny looking. I sat down in front of him while he sat in his swing and the smiles came out. I made faces and funny noises and it happened. He's already 6 weeks old, I can't believe how fast he changes from day to day and week to week. He is about 12 pounds and getting super chunky which is so cute. Spencer keeps making the comment that we sure do make cute kids together and I totally agree. I may be a little biased but they sure are something else. Here's the smiles. I fall in love all over again every time I look at these pics. *Note* there's a dimple there I know you see it, I sure hope he ends up with dimples they are so cute.

I had a good day

So today was the 1rst annual Gifford Family Snowman party. My best friend Leahona and her husband Jacob put together this fun open house at their place and I decided to bundle up the kids and walk over to their house because Spencer was working. What a fun get together. We had pin the nose on the snowman, all the food was white and some people brought their favorite white foods. My personal favorite was the "Melted Snowman Soup" which was potato soup with a carrot and two raisins floating in it. Gavin and I had fun being social seeing as lately I've been a home body and I don't have many friends so taking the opportunity to meet and hang out with people from our ward was fun. I was the last to leave of course (I always tell them to kick me out whenever but of course we end up chatting until its really time for me to leave.) I noticed it getting dark and had to head home. Gavin passed out just before we left and woke up when we got home so it made for a nice quiet walk home with both boys sleeping.

For those of you who know me I'm a big dork and play world of warcraft every once in a while and so when I got home we made dinner and I got the opportunity to play a little. Gavin climbed into my lap and was watching Spongebob while I played but snuggled up under a blanket with me. Rowan started to fuss so I grabbed him too and pulled him up under the blanket. The 3 of us snuggled and warmed up while I kind of browsed the internet seeing as my hands were full of kids so I couldn't play anything. Shortly after Gavin had to go to bed but I sat with both my boys in my arms and felt truly blessed for such sweet boys. Gavin can be a handful at times but compareatively he really is a good little boy. Rowan so far is a really really really mellow baby and barely ever gets upset (this could change I know but so far he's 6 weeks and is really a good baby *knock on wood*). I am handling things with two so far ok, just need to get into the swing of things. I am learning to get a shower means getting up early and mastering the 3 minute shower. If not then it just doesn't happen and I end up staying in my pjs all day. I've also learned that having a baby at least in my case, makes your hair curl. Quite foreign concept to me seeing as my hair has been so straight for forever that any curl is like what the? I think back to when I was having the worst of my troubles getting pregnant with Gavin and it seems so long ago. Gavin just turned 3 on the 5th and in my head I kept thinking "you can't be that old already can you?" at the same time I'm sure when Spencer turned 31 on the 11th he was thinking the same thing about himself "you can't be that old already can you?" lol. Time flies when you're having fun I just wish it would slow down sometimes like it did this evening when both my boys still fit in my lap, someday sooner then later they will be too big to hold and I will remember today fondly.

Puddle Jumping Pics

Puddle Jumping

I discovered yesterday the key to entertaining a 3 year old is letting him run. It was cold outside but being in the house all day with nothing to do and nowhere to run around he was driving me bananas! It seemed every time I'd get an opportunity to sit and relax he'd be into something new or poking at the baby or just plain poking at me. I decided enough was enough! We're going outside! Get your boots and bundle up we had the best rain all day yesterday for making awesome puddles its time to go puddle jumping! I put Rowan in the snuggly and bundled him up and we were out there. The wind was so cold and I was freezing but Gavin seems to be cold resistant or at least really good at ignoring it. He found a really good one in the parking lot by a speed bump and preceded to wade ankle deep back and forth til he was absolutely soaked! I finally got cold enough where I said its time to go in and the only way to get him to come was to say "Ok I'm going inside goodbye! Have fun alone!" He slowly followed me in and when I got to the door had to strip him down to is diaper on the doorstep so he wouldn't get anything inside wet. We bundled him up with a big fleece blanket and I made him some hot cocoa. I told a couple friends what we had done and so far the consensus is I'm a fun mom, Yay me! Here's some pictures of the fun while it lasted.

Rowan Pics (also known as Mommy + Camera = Stalkerazzi)

I had the same issue when I had Gavin. We have a digital camera but do we develop any pictures to put in a photo album? Uhhh no...

My sister in law pointed out in her last blog how its interesting how when we were teenagers there was no internet, or personal home computers (I know when dinosaurs romed the earth). I remember when we first got the computer and internet and that it had a timer on it because you paid for time not just the connection. We would get a warning that you have 15 mins before the internet would turn itself off. That has totally changed and pictures are all digital but the biggest problem we have is we don't develop any just keep adding and keeping them on the computer and sending them to people over the internet to keep people updated. I need to join a scrapbooking group that meets from my ward and get that taken care of as a goal we'll see if it happens. I've already started adding so many pics of Rowan and Gavin to our collection.

Rowan is already 10 lbs plus, almost a month old and getting chunky. My family was up in Canada for about a week and when they got back my mom asked to hold him and realized holy cow he's already getting so heavy! Here's some new pics of Rowan to show you his face is getting chubby and rolly even since a couple weeks ago. I guess mommy's milk is nice and fatty and is helping with that. Enjoy our little guy, he's still a really good baby and we're enjoying every moment of him still.

The Last pic was taken today so you can see the how chunky he is now.

Merry Christmas!!

Ok so I know this is a little late but better late then never right? I am typing this with one hand as we speak and feeding Rowan with the other so this might take a while lol. The year Gavin was born we had decided not to put up our tree because I didn't want to have to worry about taking it down. He was born after christmas so that was fine. This year with Rowan being born before christmas we didn't have any excuse not to put it up except for I really didn't have the energy and Spencer was working so it never happened. This is instead what we did for Christmas morning. My mom equated it to the charlie brown pathetic tree on Charlie Brown's Christmas. Basically it was a centerpeice someone brought us from the Relief Society dinner and it worked for what we needed.

Gavin still doesn't quite understand all of christmas this year but next year we aren't going to be able to get away with it.

Spencer and I had decided this year not to buy anything for each other except for one gift each and the rest was going to be for the boys because we were low on cash from him switching jobs this year. We were very blessed to have everything we needed this year and then some. This year was a Thomas Christmas and here's Gavin opening presents.

And here's after Daddy set up one of the sets for him and he was playing with it. We've since then set up the biggest set and it has an electric Thomas with a controller to it and it entertains him for hours.

We did Christmas eve dinner at Spencer's parents house and then did Christmas morning at home and then went to my parents for the day because my little sister was there for christmas this year and we had a lot of fun and good turkey/ham dinner that evening. We got tons of snow as you saw in the last post so we went and played outside. My dad being from Newfoundland originally apparently had lots of experience building snow forts and so he went out without being asked and made one for the boys (I think for himself) lol. It was so cool!

All in all we had a wonderful christmas with lots of family and friends close by, Amanda and Donovan (her boyfriend) came up from Utah and were here until Saturday so we had fun with them and my little sister Chelsea was also here from Utah so it was great. We hope you had a wonderful christmas and a fruitful new year.