Halloween, a little late

 Evelette was a "ballerina" for Halloween this year. Her first Halloween really wasn't all that exciting, sadly. We were out of town the weekend before and missed the party and trunk-or-treat we would have dressed up and gone to. The actual Halloween night, we just stayed home and played cards with Mike's brother Jordan, who was staying with us for a few days, while the trick or treaters came beggin' for candy! I am pretty sure Evey was dressed up for like 25 minutes or not much longer. haha but she sure did enjoy dumping the candy bowl everywhere and smashing all the remaining candy, that is probably a good thing though because I do NOT need extra candy sitting around the house tempting me every second! We didn't end up taking her trick-or-treating because she can't walk yet, and probably would just be scared and hating the cold. Anyways, we're hoping next year's Halloween will be a little more eventful for us. Here are some pictures of Eve in her tutu I made:

Being little miss persistant, doing everything in her power to get my camera... haha obvisouly not working out too well.

cutie pie

I kept trying to get her standing up, but as soon as I got my camera ready, she was already going to her knees, on her way to steal my camera....silly Evey!

My camera is SO slow!!

Love this little ballerina of mine :)

Hope you all had a much more exciting Halloween than we did!!

Fall and My Birthday Weekend

The beginning of fall has been great, besides my 3 week never ending sinus infection, so far! Evey is still as curious as ever, more and more as she is able to crawl, scoot, climb, walk along things.

She loves to follow me around the house and "help" me organize and clean things. She is such a cutie.

I turned the big 23 on October 23. My family came out to celebrate and I also was VERY, VERY, VERY surprised when I went to answer the door and my two best friends, Britny Burningham, her little boy, and Jamie Hunter, were standing on my porch. I about had a heart attack!!! We had such a fun time together that weekend. I couldn't have asked for anything more than my family and all my friends crammed together in my small house for three days. :) SO MUCH FUN!
Now, just a million pictures of our awesome weekend here in Rangely, CO :)

Aiden and Evelette had so much fun together!

I am blessed to have such a happy, happy baby!

My lovely husband got me a wonderful birthday gift, head to toe riding gear! I love it!

This is one of Eve's MANY, MANY faces. I am in love with her spunky little personality.

Her faces crack me up!! ... much more to come...

Cheesin' it for Grandpa Blackwell!

The boys going riding, without ME of course... :(

Showing off her big muscles!

Eve's with Aunt Lelly

Goin on a walk!

I love this baby girl of mine

Of course, the one day I decide to be lazy and not get ready, I have surprise visitors! haha good thing they love me anyways :)

Evey loved having his friend visiting for the weekend

One of my favorites of the whole weekend, Evey sure loves her daddy!

Us girls making some goodies in the kitchen!

She loves to eat big girl food!

Enjoying me some birthday cake!

Our wittle family!

Happy 23rd to me and thanks for helping to make it a special one for me everyone who came to visit!!

P.S. I have NO IDEA why some of the pictures are slightly to the left or right.... sorry I fail a blogging haha

My battle in losing my baby weight....

Gotta love Mike's hat... hehe

Warning: This post is mainly for my personal use, but read and please leave any tips, suggestions, recipes that you think would make this process easier (if that is possible)! Thanks!

So this is a picture of me the summer before I got married, I felt like I was in great shape and I actually liked my body. And as all of you mothers out there know, having a baby pretty much ruins that. I tell myself every day and every single time I look in the mirror that it sure is a good thing that I absolutely adore my daughter and wouldn't change having her (or any future children) for the world. It took me a long time after having Evelette before I accepted what my new body looked like, stretch marks and all.
When Evey was about 3 months old is when I started dieting, working out, and trying to lose weight for the time, thanks to my friend Brit Burningham! I was able to lose 22 pounds in 3 months doing a program with her. I quickly got back into my old eating habits and felt CONSTANTLY hungry, I blamed it on breastfeeding. Once my milk supply ran out when Evey was 6 months old, I told myself I have no more excuses and it is finally time to get this extra weight off!! My dad introduced me to P90X even before I got married, he lent it to me and I tried about three of the workouts and turned them all of within 15 minutes because I just simply could not keep up with them! I recently started the P90X workouts again and have seen incredible results! I have lost 13 pounds so far, in 5 weeks time. I plan to continue until a couple weeks before Christmas, unless I reach my goal weight before then (but I don't see that happening). I was so motivated those first 4 weeks when I was seeing instant results, but like normal, I have reached a halt in my weight loss.  I just have to take the dieting and working out one second, one minute, one hour, one single day at a time, it's all I can do to keep going!
I needed to write this down, not necessarily to let everyone know how much weight I needed to lose or how overweight I was, but so I could look back when this is all done and realize how much progress I've made. I seriously believe that losing weight is next to one of the hardest things I have ever done. My goal is to weigh a lot less BEFORE I get pregnant again, than before I was pregnant with Evelette, that way it won't be this hard after my next child to lose my baby weight (HOPEFULLY!!!).
Well I have about two months left, so wish me luck! Not sure if you will even be able to tell a difference but I will post a before and after picture when I am done. If any of you have any tips, suggestions, recipes, ANYTHING that has helped you or someone you know, please don't hesitate to share.
I feel much better after writing this down, sorry if this was boring for any of you!!

Busy life the last 2 months!

What a crazy, busy last couple of months we've had finishing up summer and trying to squeeze in some last minute trips! We sure had a good one but we were sad to see the warm weather come to an end, really abruptly!
We went down to St. George with Mike's mom, Melanie, and some of his siblings. I wish we lived closer so we could go to St. George more, I love it down there!! We had a lot of fun playing cards, eating good homemade food, watching movies, swimming, going on walks, eating out, and just being with family! Evelette especially loved playing with cousin Xander! She followed him everywhere and always wanted his toys! She is such a tease sometimes, it's pretty funny!

At our favorite restaurant in St. George, Benja's Thai and Seafood, AMAZING!!
(I am VERY happy to say that I have lost 13 pounds since this picture was taken, I HATE my fat face and arms. But don't get me wrong, Evelette was totally worth the hundreds and hundreds of hours of sweating and panting and gasping for breath haha. and many more hours to go until I reach my goal weight...)

Cousins

LOVES to play on grass

Our cute lil' fam

Xander, David and Leslie, Evelette, Me and Mike, Mel, Jordan

Xander looking at Evey like what the heck are you doing!? haha

cuties

Going on a walk, her favorite activity!!

Her second favorite activity. She just loves being swung by daddy. 

We were finally able to go to Lake Powell, my very first time! Lynn was able to get his boat fixed after two years and we had a great time down there with Lynn and Lisa! It was in the upper 80s and low 90s the whole time and this was in the middle of September! We sure lucked out with incredible weather and warm water. Evey loves grandpa's boat, except when she has to wear her lifejacket (which is almost all the time haha).

Sweet Baby Evey being her little cute self

Chillin with daddy

She has never slept so good in her life than she did on the boat! I was very surprised!

She's our little navigator!

Our hike to the 'Indian cave drawings and house'

Sleeping with Grandma Lisa!

My little Evey has such a wonderful spirit and quite the personality! I feel so thankful to have such a happy baby! She is now 10 1/2 months old, 24 1/2 inches long and weighs approx. 17 lbs 7 oz (according to our scale at home).

My little helper

Her favorites for the month are:
-Pushing her walker toy and cruising around the house
-Saying "mama" and "dada" nonstop
-Loves to read (and smack) books with mommy
-She knows right where the pots and pans are in the kitchen, she pulls them all out and somehow knows to find a spoon in the dishwasher to smack on the pans. She is such a great helper in the kitchen! She has always loved being in there while I'm cooking.
-Evey loves the big bookshelf in our living room and pulling THE SAME book out every time, its so funny
-Her way of giving loves to us is by lightly bonking us on the foreheads, its our little game of "bonkies", I think I love to play it just as much as she does
-Her favorite food is steak
-She loves to play the "talking game", she will yell or squeal and then I do it, and we go back and forth. She gets mad when I don't play with her haha
-Evey is a good finder when we play hide and seek
-She gives her little rattle doll loves every time she sees it
-She loves her new sippy cup
-Her new discovery is the water in the toilet, ewwww. We have learned very quickly to always have the bathroom door shut!
-She is pretty much obsessed with any and every other little kid!! I love how her face lights up when she sees another baby!

Taking huge bites out of the cucumber!

Needless to say, I love my daughter more than I ever thought I could love someone. She is such a joy to be around!! She teaches me new things every day. She is becoming a mama's girl more and more. Well speaking of Evey she is pulling on my leg to come play with her. . . Goodbye!