Horse Girl

 Olivia has been riding horses since she was 5 years old. Her lessons have been irregular lately, but it is pretty amazing to watch her on a horse. She has even been thrown off and ended up in the emergency with a concussion, but got right back on the horse and has never looked back! I am so proud of her!

I love Olivia's teacher, Cassie. She is such a sweet and patient teacher.

Riding side saddle.

Painting

I really love to paint. I love to change a room and make it my own. Here are some projects in our house I have been working on. I still have a long way to go, but I am finally making progress!

PROJECTS

We have lived in our house for 2 years now. Even though the dull tan paint, dirty base boards and terrible light fixtures have really bugged me,  I haven't started to change things until recently. 

 My friend that has a beautiful house suggested I start one room at a time. The kids/guest bathroom

has always really bugged me, so I am in the process of a complete makeover. I will post more pictures when it is finished, but for now this is what it looks like!

Before

New paint, light fixture, shower curtain, towels and rug have already made a huge difference!

Lucky for me, the nice wood boards were already there, so I am adding white paint to brighten up the room a little more.

The office is where Neal does all of his freelance work. I told him he could pick the paint for the room and he choose "Caterpillar." This is the final result. He wanted something really bright and fun and he certainly got it! 
I will be painting the desk white eventually and then hang movie posters up for Neal around the room. We 
call the office the "green screen" room now. I don't think he will have any trouble being creative in this room anymore!

Come What May And Love It

These two little people have just about killed me lately. I thought they were hard when they were toddlers, but the last 3 months have been, or at least seemed, so much harder than those years.

The school year started off great. I hated sending them back to school like I always do. I spent a few weeks just folding laundry and watching movies until I could adjust to being home alone all day. Then I got used to it and started loving my freedom and found projects to work on. And suddenly, one day in October I got a call from Joseph. He had a terrible stomach ache. I checked him out of school and we ended up at the hospital getting him tested for appendicitis. Turns out he just had a 12 hour bug. He got over it and was back to school the next day. 

All was well for a week. Then the next Wednesday, I got a call from the gym teacher at school. "You'd better get down here quick. I think Joseph might have broken his foot." So I rushed down to the school to find Joseph on the floor of the gym, surrounded by concerned classmates trying to help. He had done something awful to his foot and couldn't even stand on it. His friends made a stretcher  out of gym mats and rolled him down the halls of the school out the door to the car.

Another trip to the doctor for ex rays. Luckily he didn't break his foot but tore several tendons, which they informed me can be more painful than a break. He sat on the couch for days, but could eventually walk\limp on it. He eventually just learned to deal with the pain and after a few weeks it didn't bug him too much anymore. Sadly, this happened 2 weeks before Halloween and he couldn't walk around very long to trick or treat because of the pain. He was seriously bummed. And to make matters worse, the week before Halloween he suddenly got the worst case of hives he's ever had. Like every where on his body. He has had them many times before, but never this long and never covering his entire body. Back to the doctor we went.

They couldn't do much for him, which I should have known. Unless he was struggling to breath, we had to dope him up with Benedryl and Zyrtec to help with the itching and awkwardness of the hives. For one week I would get up at night to check on him, make sure he was breathing okay and give him more medicine. And then, as quickly as they came, they just disappeared. Just like that.

Halloween came and I felt like finally our lives were going back to normal.

We had one week of health and happiness. No worries, no serious trials. Oh, except Neal was turning 40. He was super freaked out about that but we decided to have an 80's bash to help him forget. It was totally a blast and the kids loved it. Lots of good food and great friends came to support Neal in his old age.

I seriously thought life could not get any better. I was starting to plan for Christmas, was enjoying my free time, volunteering at school and started getting into genealogy.

And then suddenly our world turned upside down. On Saturday, November 9th we took the kids out to dinner to celebrate their good grades. We went to PizzaPieCafe and let them eat until they were sick. When we got home we all got in our pj's and crawled into our bed to watch TV. Without warning, Olivia suddenly got an excruciating headache. Like so bad she couldn't handle noise, light, or being touched. She was so miserable and I couldn't do anything to help her. Over the course of that weekend we tried baths, medicine, oils, massage and anything else I could think of to help her. She just constantly had a headache and nothing helped. We went to the doctor, and he said he was very concerned and saw a lot of red flags as she was describing the pain. Yeah, that didn't help her already freaked out mother. I had been sleeping in her room with her or really instead of sleeping I would spend hours trying to comfort and help her.  We went to another doctor and he said she probably has a sinus infection and gave us meds to try. They did not help at all.

My sweet girl went from being a very happy, energetic, playful girl to a very sick little girl. I would often hear her in her room praying, asking Heavenly Father what had happened to her and why all of her joy was taken away. She told me many times that first month that she wasn't the same girl anymore. She said she had been erased like a picture on a chalk board and a new girl had taken her place. She said the new girl was sad, sick and upset all the time. It broke my heart.

We were in and out of the doctor several times each week for the first little while. We went to the chiropractor,  eye doctor,  family doctor and our pediatrician's office several times. I can't even tell you how many doctors we saw during that time. We finally got to see our regular pediatrician (who saved Olivia's life when she was born, but that's another story) When he started checking her I started bawling. There was just something different about what he was doing that helped me feel better. He was very thorough. He determined from what he was seeing that she was healthy, but wanted to do am MRI to see if we could see any serious problems. We took her to Primary Children's a week later for her test. We were so scared, but hopeful.

Livy was so brave and didn't have any problems. The hospital staff was wonderful and so helpful. We were told it might take a few days to get results, but as Olivia was coming out of sedation a sweet little man appeared at my side and told me he was a pediatric neurologist. He just happened to be there and looked at her MRI. He said "Her brain is perfect. She doesn't have any tumors or any other issues that we are concerned about. She is going to be just fine." He was a tender mercy and an answer to prayer for me. Although it wasn't exactly a direct answer as to why she is having headaches, he gave me the answer we most feared. She didn't have a brain tumor.

We left the hospital feeling relieved and again hopeful that we could get some resolution. Since the MRI, we have been working with our pediatrician a lot. He started Liv on a medication to help with what he has diagnosed as chronic migraines. It took about 4 weeks for us to actually see results from the medication, but it has finally started to help. It has it's own terrible side affects though. It makes her hungry all of the time and because it is an antihistamine, it makes her so sleepy. She is constantly asking for food and feels sick when she doesn't eat.

The headaches are getting better, but she still has them frequently. The weekends, especially Sunday, are the worst. I haven't been to a full 3 hours of church in months. Livy has missed a lot of school too. School is so hard for her because of the noise. How do you tell a 7 year old to just deal with it? I have had to many times,  as instructed by our pediatrician and it is hard. She has to go on with life and not let her headaches change things for her. Something like this can be so debilitating. She just doesn't understand why she has to deal with this and why she is having this trial. I don't know either and I wish I had an answer for her. We have talked a lot about her strength, her compassion, her love for others and how she loves to sing. She has been singing a lot about this trial. I love the days she feels well and feel so grateful for those moments.

While this is far from over and now several others trials have been added on top of it, I am determined to rise to the top and learn from it. I will Come What May And Love It!  (find this talk @ lds.org)

I still wish I knew what to do. I wish Heavenly Father would just tell me plainly "if you do this, Olivia will be healed." Wouldn't that be so nice? But I know that won't happen. However,  I do know that if I keep calling on him he will help. He will give Olivia the strength she needs to deal with this. He will strengthen our family and as we are faithful and give ourselves to Him, we will be blessed.

Nobody Has It All Together

Yeah, this is my family every Sunday. Why do we always think everyone else is totally put together and perfect?

What Do You Really Want?

On my recent journey to optimal health, I have had to ask myself that question a lot. It was hard at first, but now I find myself pausing and asking myself that question all the time.

We get so used to one way of eating that it just becomes a habit. Many times we don't even realize what we have eaten and how much. We eat to fill our stomachs, but how many times during the day are we eating as a distraction? As a way of overcoming fear, or feeling sad? Or just because we are bored?


If you are seeking a change in your life, first of all, you really have to be ready. Then when you are ready, start by asking yourself "What do I really want?"

When I started asking myself that question, these are the answers that came:

*I want to be around a long time for my husband and children.

*I want a healthy body so I can play with my children.

*I want to create good habits for myself and share what I've learned with my family.

* I want to look good for my husband. (actually I want to look like a sex goddess for my husband!)

*I want to be healthy so that I can serve my family and help other people. 


It's time to ask yourself!

( If you have questions about the program I have been doing, please let me know. I am not selling anything and would love to help anyone that is looking for optimal health.)

The Power Of Food

I eat used to eat a lot of sugar, like Buddy the Elf.

On my journey to health over the last 6 months I have learned a lot about food.

I have learned that I am a food addict.

I associate food with happiness, use it as a reward for myself and children and I think about it a lot.
 
  Here is what WebMD say's about food addiction:

"The idea that a person can be addicted to food has recently gotten more support from science.
Experiments in animals and humans show that, for some people, the same reward and pleasure centers of the brain that are triggered by addictive drugs like cocaine and heroin are also activated by food, especially highly palatable foods. Highly palatable foods are foods rich in:

Sugar
Fat
Salt

Like addictive drugs, highly palatable foods trigger feel-good brain chemicals such as dopamine. Once people experience pleasure associated with increased dopamine transmission in the brain's reward pathway from eating certain foods, they quickly feel the need to eat again.

The reward signals from highly palatable foods may override other signals of fullness and satisfaction. As a result, people keep eating, even when they're not hungry.

People who show signs of food addiction may also develop a tolerance to food. They eat more and more, only to find that food satisfies them less and less. 

Scientists believe that food addiction may play an important role in obesity. But normal-weight people may also struggle with food addiction. Their bodies may simply be genetically programmed to better handle the extra calories they take in. Or they may increase their physical activity to compensate for overeating.

People who are addicted to food will continue to eat despite negative consequences, such as weight gain or damaged relationships. And like people who are addicted to drugs or gambling, people who are addicted to food will have trouble stopping their behavior, even if they want to or have tried many times to cut back."

Isn't that scary?

Food is powerful. 

We are surrounded by food convenience. 

It is accessible at anytime, at any moment we want it.

As I have been learning to eat healthy foods, I realized I have been poisoning my body with all of the fast, convenient food out there. Even what I thought was healthy before didn't come close to the pure, good food I have been eating lately. 

On days that I am really struggling I will say out loud or too myself "I am stronger than food."

It's so true. I am stronger than food! I won't allow it to consume me anymore. To solve my problems or take away pain. I will use it to fuel my body and give me the energy I need. 

That doesn't mean I won't ever eat my favorite foods again....like Bajio or Cafe Rio Salads. Or doughnuts. Or Oreo's. I could just keep going and going because I have lot's of favorites. 

I will just eat them in moderation. I will think before I eat. I will make a plan before I eat out. I will show God that I appreciate and love this body!