Recap

Life the last couple of weeks has been super busy.  And I haven't been good about taking my picture a day :(  But here is a little of what we've been up to:

Hudson got spacers and this coming Wednesday will begin the first stage of his expander/braces journey.  We predict that it will take about 2 years to move teeth back and straighten everything up.  He's not sure whether he should be excited or nervous about it.

Practicing our instruments and rocking out. Well sort of.  Hudson has since stopped taking guitar (more on that later) but Cooper is continuing on!

Isn't this the truth! Whew!!  Today marks day 13 for us on our 21 day cleanse.  The first week was really brutal for me.  Probably the worst in all the times we have cleansed.  No idea why.  But thankfully I am over the hump and feeling better.  Oh, and I'm about 4oz away from being 10 pounds down.  Woo-hoo!!

Just normal, silly ole' Hudson!

We've had a few beautiful days sprinkled in with the freezing cold days so we took advantage and headed to the park.

Cooper loving on Rudy before school one morning.

Took the boys to the movies yesterday afternoon because they had early release.  They enjoyed popcorn while I ate an apple.  If that isn't willpower than I don't know what is!  Ha!

Hair and Cleanses

I made a hasty decision yesterday:  I had my extensions removed.

I'm not sure what came over me.  I had a pretty stressful week last week. On Sunday, sweet boy and I were getting ready to see a movie and I was pressed for time.  I was drying my hair (having extensions pretty much doubles the amount of time taken to fix your hair) and one of them came out.  I think this was the final straw for me. So I immediately texted my friend and told her that I needed a break from my extensions.  Yea, we broke up for a bit.

I won't lie.  It felt sort of weird carrying a bag with half my head of hair out of the salon.  I'm pretty sure I'll regret this move next week.  My hair is so. freaking. thin.

If you are looking for a yummy pasta that is quick to make.....this is a good one. (this is the dinner I mentioned in my last post when the jar of roasted tomatoes splattered on my driveway)

So yea, we started this yesterday.

I went to the store on Sunday and stocked up on all the fruits and veggies for the week. I spent half of yesterday making soups and salads and dressings.  You definitely have to be prepared and organized to do a cleanse.

We do this one twice a year.  I'm so ready to cleanse and detox and feel better.  I woke up with a splitting headache because I'm having caffeine withdrawl.  Not fun!  But I'm reminding myself that the first 5-6 days are the hardest and that it gets so much easier after that.

In the past, I've lost roughly 10 pounds each time I've done it.  For the sake of documenting, I decided to step on the scale to see what my starting weight was.  Huge mistake. The most I've weighed since I was pregnant.  Awesome.

I don't typically do a cleanse in order to lose weight.  That just happens to be a great benefit though of doing one.  I hope this will be just the jumpstart I need to get these extra 25 pounds off.

Are you doing any type of cleanse or eating plan or workout program to lose weight?  If so, please share!

A picture a day: Week 2

Day 6:  

Hudson started Mathnasium on Monday.  I think the gaps with Hudson are too big and having someone to do homework just isn't enough.  Mathnasium will do daily homework with him but they also reteach anything he doesn't know (based on an assessment they gave him)  While this place costs the equivalent to a small monthly car payment....I think it's going to be worth it.

Day 7:

Christmas continues to take over my house even though the decorations are down.  The boys have sooooo many Legos and nowhere to put the built sets.  We have some shelves in the play room (that are full) so my next project will be to figure out a way to get these out of my kitchen but provide a spot in the playroom to display them.

Day 8:

Dinner with girlfriends!  Wednesday night I met some of my sweet friends for dinner.  So great to catch up.

Day 9:

This week has been a little nutso for me.  I managed to run by the grocery store and get stuff for dinner and a few other things we needed.  The recipe I was making that night called for a cup of fresh basil.  The grocery store was out and I didn't have time to go to another before picking the boys up.  So I sat through 2 sets of school parking lots and school zones and got Hudson and Cooper and then headed to another grocery store to get the basil.  Got it and went home.  Opened my trunk and the jar of roasted tomatoes came rolling out and splattered all over my driveway.  Did I mention that the roasted tomatoes were the key ingredient?  So without those, there was no dinner. Ugh.  So I did what any other frustrated mom would do- ordered pizza, poured myself a glass of wine, and called it a night!

Day 10:

Most of our Friday mornings look like this- driving and any free moments (with the car stopped of course) I am calling out Cooper's spelling list words to him.

Day 11:

We met Poppy and CeCe and the girls for breakfast at Ihop on Saturday.  Hannah (Jason's sister in the grey) is heading to the University of Arkansas and she met us for breakfast before they headed in the car to make the drive.  We are so excited for Hannah (and I'm secretly a little jealous) and pray she has an amazing time in college!

Day 12:

This is the boys with our sweet sitter, Emily.  She lives 2 doors down and is always our go-to girl when we need a night out.  Sweet boy and I had a date night on Sunday.....and Emily took the boys to the park since it was a beautiful day.

Last of the Vacay

I've had lots of people ask me about where we stayed in Park City.  So here are some pics and info:

We stayed at Newpark Resort and loved it!  The resort is located in an area called Newpark....that is about 5-8 minutes from downtown Park City.  It is in the middle of a huge shopping area, which was super convenient for us.  We were able to get food, water and snacks from the Whole Foods.  We bought a movie at the Best Buy.  We watched The Hobbit at the movie theater.  There was another grocery store, a bowling alley and several other stores and places to eat.  I loved the conveniences that were literally outside our doorstep.

Because we didn't ski on this trip......Newpark was the perfect place for us.  If you are planning to ski the entire time, you might consider staying at Deer Valley or Park City Mountain resort because it's located right on the mountain and has a ski-in/ski-out set up. Since we were only doing snow type activities, it was nice to not be in the middle of the craziness of all the skiers.  However, you could certainly stay here and get to the mountains pretty easy too.

 On our balcony

 The bathtub was the biggest I've ever seen.  Almost obnoxiously huge.  But you better believe I was in it every.single. night.  Ahhhh!

 On our first day.....checking it all out.

 We had our own hot tub on the balcony.

 We went with a 1 bedroom suite.....which was well worth the extra money.  There was one separate bedroom and then the kitchen/living area.  It was nice after spending the entire day together to have some space and a little privacy.  After hot baths and showers and a full day, it was nice to lay down and watch some TV while the boys played and watched their own TV in the living room (which had a queen sized sofa sleeper that we pulled out each night)

Living room/kitchen area.  It was nice to have a kitchen.  We ate a simple breakfast and coffee in our room each day.  We ate out for every lunch because we were out playing and exploring and dinner was a mix of eating out and eating in. I made a couple simple dinners and one night we ordered take-out.

 Outside area

 View from our balcony

The boys loved the pool too.  They had a large inside pool area and then you could swim under that big glass door and get to the outside pool.  They had a hot tub outside as well that the boys really enjoyed.

We had a fun day at Gorgoza Park.

 If you got too cold, you could go inside these heated yurts.  They had hot chocolate and snacks.

 These boys had so much fun just playing in the snow.

We enjoyed our day of snowmobiling.  We used Rocky Mountain Rec and were pleased with their tour.  We were a little disappointed in the lack of snow (which is obviously out of their control).  I think we just got really spoiled last  year on our trip to Jackson Hole (which was our favorite out of the two)

 About half way through, we stopped at this little cabin to have lunch.

 And played a little in the snow

 The boys were intrigued by the huge icicles.

We used North Forty for our dog sledding tour.  We had a good time....and I think if we had never been before we would have really loved it. But the truth is, we just got really spoiled last year on our trip.  The lack of snow definitely played a part in this tour as well but overall this company didn't seem to have it as together as the tour we did last year.  The dogs had a hard time getting started.  They were easily distracted.  They would run for a few seconds and then stop to smell the bushes or they would use the restroom on everything (which I know is normal but they didn't seem to have much control over the dogs)  The first 15 minutes or so was a bit frustrating.  Lots of stop and start.  Once we got going though, it was a lot of fun.

 Cooper loved this dogs eyes- 2 different colors!

 Love my boys!

So much fun building a snowman!

Good thing Santa brought us our very own snowman it.  It came in handy on our trip!

Again, we had such a great time.....taking a break from normal life and creating some awesome memories together.  I feel so blessed that we were able to go.