Update

What a week! I feel like I haven't blogged forever because I have pictures and different things and I just can't seem to get around to uploading them and stuff... So I am just going to give an update... Screw the pictures for now. So a week ago, when Twilight came out, I went with a group of about 90 other girls! Some friends reserved the theatre and we got our own special viewing... NO GUYS NO KIDS! It was so fun... However, I was quite disappointed in the movie. I really tried to not have too many expectations so I wouldn't be disappointed... I just did not love Edward. UGH! And with a book you've read 4 times and love to have the main character not be what you pictured... well you know. But it was totally fun to go with all my friends and we had a blast.
Then over the weekend we put up all of our Christmas Decorations! I've never done it before Thanksgiving, but it was so darn cold I figured I might as well enjoy my Christmas stuff. I LOVE CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS!
Last week, on Tuesday, my brother in law and sister in law and their 4 boys came to stay for Thanksgiving. It was so fun. The kids had a blast. We had a houseful of boys and I actually thought it went very well. I am so glad I get along with Brooke so well. We have lots of fun together and I really like hanging out with her. We did Thanksgiving at my house with most of my family and some friends. I think we ended up with 14 adults and 13 kids! It went really good though. I don't know where all the kids were or what they were doing, but it was not as crazy as you'd think it would've been. We had so much food though! It was insane. We must have had at least 10 different pies or desserts! Actually 11, I just counted!
Then.. I did it! BLACK FRIDAY! I've never done the whole get up at 4 oclock in the morning thing, but this year we went. I tell you, there is some serious strategy to the whole BLACK FRIDAY! I had no idea! Brooke had all of the ads out and we were going through them figuring out what we needed from where and what time we had to be there. We were up at 3:45 and out the door by 4! She headed to Walmart and I went to Toys R Us. They had a play kitchen for half price that I wanted for Kennedy. I got there and there were already at least 100 people in line. I couldn't believe it. But I got in and got everthing I went in for... Then headed to Shopko to finish up. We were done by 7... It was loads of fun, we were calling each other and everyone was buying for everyone else, depending on where they were at. I think I may have a new tradition! That night Brooke, Tiffany, Amanda, Brooke D. and I all went to see Twilight, again. This time I knew what to expect and I LOVED IT! (I think I am going again with some other friends) Seriously I woke up the next morning wanting to go to it again. After the movie we hit some more stores... Target and Kohls and got home about 11:30! What a day! I couldn't believe I still had enough energy to keep shopping that night. After only 3 hours of off and on sleep the night before and then the full day. But it was such a blast shopping late at night with my girl friends hitting store after store. We were giddy! It was too funny!
That was pretty much last week in a nutshell, a long nutshell... Sorry! Hope everyone else had a great Thanksgiving! I can't believe tomorrow is Dec. 1st! UGH! Where is the time going? At least I am done with my Christmas shopping now. Except Jacob! He is always the hardest for me to figure out what to get! Any ideas???
Oh yea... the song playing is Bella's Lullabye, I LOVE IT! Its so pretty. I am going to try to learn how to play it, but I am pretty rusty these days! Hope you like it!

Kids

So I went a little overboard a couple of weeks ago shopping at Gymboree. They got this line of pink and brown clothes that I fell in love with, like every piece. I haven't been able to resist taking pictures of Kennedy in everything. Can you see the boots? They are about the cutest thing ever. We also did a group picture of all the cousins. It was kinda a nightmare, but I am just hoping for one or two good pictures of each kid.

Kyson turned 7!

Kyson turned 7 last week! I can't believe it. He is just getting so big! He had a party with friends on Tuesday. Then on Wednesday, his birthday, Jacob went and got him and took him out to lunch. He got to pick the place, he picked Subway. That surprised me, but I guess thats pretty much the only fast food place we take them... Then we went out with the "family" to Inca, for Mexican food. Also his pick. There were 15 of us there, we are turning into quite the group. After Inca we came home and had a family party for him. I also took cupcakes into his classroom and stayed there for the afternoon.
I felt kind bad because I always do a big special cake, that takes all day and is super cool. But we couldn't find something he really wanted and the whole party was not really themed. Transformer invites and party bags, HSM Bingo, Cars Pinata, and then the cupcake tower. We had a bouncey house thing, and then it rained all day... So the whole thing was just thrown together. Thanks to Grandma Rose who had bunches of games to play. The kids loved Pin the Tail on the Donkey, Dropping Clothespins into a jar, Bingo... They seemed like they had lots of fun. I hope he didn't mind the chaos of it all. He didn't even seem to notice. I just felt like it was not my usual well put together party. But there was lots of sugar and loud boys, so I think it all worked out.

Some of my favorite things about Kyson:
*He is so tenderhearted
*He is such a good big brother
*He takes care of us
*He plays the piano
*He loves school (most of the time)
*He loves to cuddle
*He loves to spend time with us
*He reminds us to do prayers, scriptures, etc.
*His teachers have nothing but good to say about him
*He is such a big helper around the house
*He is so handsome
*He sings church songs
*He makes up songs
*He is kind to other kids
*He is soooo smart! (sometimes too smart)
*He is so fun to hang out and play with
*He loves to be sung to at night
*He loves to be tickled
*He still lets me pick out his clothes

We sure love you Kyson and are so grateful you are a part of our family.
Happy Birthday!

Another day in the life of Annette...

So you have to be open minded to read my next post, otherwise you will probably think I am looney!!!

I had another “Dr. Kris” visit this week, and after my last post about him everyone wanted to know what it is that he does. So I’ll try to explain it, best I can, and share what I learned this week. (might be kinda personal and long) He is a Naturepath and he uses a process called “Neuro Emotional Technique” which helps to identify and help you let go of “stuck” emotional patterns. When something in our life happens and doesn’t get completely resolved naturally, later in life when we experience a similar situation the old emotional response kicks in. Most of the time, we don’t even realize this is happening. He uses muscle testing which determines if your body is in harmony with a particular concept or idea which is linked to an unresolved emotional event.

So here is what it looks like… As you all know I have been working really hard to lose weight, hopefully that wont alert any psychos to see my blog… Over the last 2 weeks I have been “stuck”. I have totally been at a standstill. Which has been soooo frustrating! So I went in and told him that I feel stuck and I that I have been unable to lose weight. So I lay down on the table and the way he does the muscle testing is by pushing your arm down while you think about different things. (This works sometimes if you hold a bag of sugar to your body and when someone pushes your arm, it will go down, because our body is weak to sugar, whereas if you held broccoli and did the same thing, you would be strong and your arm would stay up.) Just a quick snapshot of how it works. If you are strong to it, then your arm will stay up, and if isn’t in harmony with your body your arm goes down. So I lay down, with my arm up, and he says some different things, I can’t really remember what, and then all of a sudden my arm goes down. He says, “so you are relating this weight to something in your past that you are still holding on to. So think about what happened last time you were at this weight.” Immediately my arm goes down. I knew exactly what he was talking about. I was at this weight, almost to the pound, after having Kyson. Jacob and I were struggling. I was working and feeling guilty and we had a lot of disagreements about how we should be raising him, what we should be feeding him, how he should go to bed, when he should cry, whatever…. The core issue being I felt invalidated and like Jacob didn’t think I could do it right. I know all of this because we went to see a therapist and worked through it all, and I realized that it wasn’t even Jacob that was the problem, I was feeling a certain way because of things I felt when I was much younger, and him doing what he was doing was triggering all of those stored emotions. So, I got over it, we had to more kids, never had the same problems cuz I was more aware and we both loosened up… 

Now, its 6 years later… and I’m at Dr. Kris’, as I am telling him all of this I can’t even hold my arm up, at all… Down it goes, over and over and over. It was kinda funny really. Then he goes into what happened after that, because I couldn’t control what was happening with Kyson I decided that I could control my weight and to punish Jacob I started gaining weight. He said all of this while my body reacted to what he was saying, what he didn’t know was that I gained 70 pounds that year that we were going through all of this. So it just all felt so right… So me hitting this weight again, had retriggered all of those unresolved feelings I had. Even though I thought they had all been resolved back in counseling 6 years ago. One other time about 3 years ago, I got right around this weight, never got past it, and ended up gaining again.

He was releasing it for me and it took him three times, I was pretty resistant to letting it go, I was attatched to it, apparently. But I finally let it go and it felt so good. I am so curious to see if I start losing the weight again. I am such a believer in this. I just think it is so cool. I wish everyone was open minded enough to give something like this a shot. I felt so much different leaving his office then when I walked in. So cross your fingers! Hopefully I will start losing again. I still have a long way to go.

So what do you think of that??? I’ll let you know what happens next….

Greys Update!

So... I was going to cut the article about Grey's but my computer is not working very well right now... But HAHN IS GONE! Yea! They are cutting her out as of this week. Thank goodness, I was ready to quit watching, it was getting way to over the line for me. Anyway, sorry to take your time with a useless blurb, but I am so glad!

My Closet!

So, I figured 30 pounds deserved a clean out of the closet. I went through and got rid of lots of things that are too big now... I just did this this summer... I got rid of a huge pile of clothes, like 3 big black garbage bags. I didn't really think I'd have that much to take out... I have decided I have a problem with buying clothes. Quite a few of them I got rid of still have tags on them. I don't try things on in the stores and I hate returning things.(Not a good combination) I keep telling myself no more buying anything until I get to the size I wanna be, its kinda just a waste of money right now. But then I find myself shopping. Just last night I bough a new pair of pants, which I love...
So here is the pile I'm getting rid of... it was about 2 1/2 feet tall...


Then I put up some new shelves for my shoes and purses and it feels so clean now. I love it! I love to be organized...

Doesn't it look nice?! Love it!

Halloween Pics!

Halloween!

Halloween was a lot of fun this year. Early in the week we went to Billy & Amanda's house and carved pumpkins with them and the Hansen's. Not to worry, those pumpkins were 80 pounds. Neffs grew them and they were HUGE!

We did the Trunk or Treat with our ward on Thursday night. The kids had lots of fun and came home with GOOD candy. Remember when we were kids, you were LUCKY if you got one or two little candy bars or chocolate... Man, not anymore, their bags were full of CHOCOLATE! Kyson doesn't like nuts or peanut butter, so we get to take all of the candy with nuts out... PB Cups, Reeces, Snickers, Peanut M&M's, Butterfingers, pretty much all of the good stuff. Unfortunately for me its another Halloween when I am on a diet (30 pounds, by the way) So I don't even get to enjoy it...

On Halloween I really wanted to figure out a way to get around trick or treating. I just hate all of the candy in the house. So we decided to go out to dinner and take the kids to a movie. Well, there were no kids movies out this weekend, at least not any that were worth paying $9./person to go see, so we ended up at our friends' house, (Neff's). We let the kids do about 5 houses and then we put a movie on for them and we played Pinochle, which we haven't done forever. It was lots of fun.(I did snag myself a Butterfinger, Twix and Peanut Butter Cup... YUMMY! They were good.) Whoever says once you are off sugar for a while and then you eat it, it wont taste good... well, thats a lie. It had been 36 days since I'd had sugar and it was GOOD! Although I did feel a little ill afterwards...

The next morning I decided to dump all the candy on the counter, I took out all the sticky/suckory type stuff, and let the boys each pick out a few things. I didn't think this would go over very well going from tons of candy to 10 pieces, but they didn't even mind. I let them each pick out their favorite 10 pieces, and put the rest in a bag, which I was going to take to my brother Terry. But I think Jacob snagged it for the office when he saw how much "GOOD" stuff there was. Sorry Terry! I tried! What I can't believe is its been two days, and their bags of 10 pieces are still on the counter. I figured they be long gone by now. The only rule I made for their candy was that they had to brush their teeth after each piece. I figured they'd have it gone by that afternoon. I was hoping actually. Its really hard to see it every time I go in the kitchen.

I have decided to stick with my diet through the holidays. I am hoping for another 30-40 pounds by the end of the year. So far, so good. But the holidays are always hard. I guess if you can do it through the holidays I should be able to do it anytime, huh?

Hey one more thing... when did every holiday become about the candy? Have you noticed this? Halloween, Christmas, Easter, Valentines Day... Did Hersheys invent these holidays or what? I hate that its all about junk. It seems like every time you turn around we are celebrating something, with candy. Its really hard to try and raise healthy kids in this enviroment we live in. Ok, enough of that tangent, sorry... but seriously! Oh, and speaking of Seriously, what is up with Grey's? Its getting kinda disgusting! Must every show have a gay couple? No offense meant to anyone, touchy subject, I know... but remember just 10 years ago when we found out Ellen was gay, not even on the show, in real life, and ABC cancelled her show, just for her coming out? And now, I don't know if there are any shows I watch that don't have a gay couple. I can stomach the "idea" but I can't stomach them making out on tv or showing or talking about what they are doing. UGH! Its so disappointing to me. No wonder this Proposition 8 is such a huge deal... with what the media is pushing into our homes we are really at a disadvantage as families trying to raise our children with morals. You don't even want to get me started on politics right now!

That was kind of an odd post, huh? Anyway, I hope everyone had a GREAT HALLOWEEN! Thanksgiving is right around the corner and then CHRISTMAS! My favorite time of the year... at least until Obama is made president and decides to do away with it. Oops, there I go again. I am really on one today!