June 5th-11th {yet another catch up post}

Sunday {5th}, I taught sharing time since June is my month.  Love it.  Love those kids.  We heard some pretty funny things.  Just one, "Who is our prophet?...Thomas..."  "Jefferson!"  Haha. 
Ate lunch at Cleaver's house and Grayson played outside under Z's watchful eye while Beckham and I took a nap.  A blissful hour for me.  Love.  Ate dinner at Pete's place and enjoyed all the company & good food all day. 

Monday {6th}, I left the boys with Zac while I ran errands, got my brows done, and got a bit of work done.  Got home, continued working, boys napped/rested, LOTS of laundry to put away, and then we played together.  Had Mom and Dad Cleaver over for dinner and FHE.  Made delicious crockpot turkey sloppy joes and FHE was a great success on honesty.  Found it on Pinterest and it led me to this website: Or So She Says which has TONS of cute ideas.  I love the techy era we live in and the generosity of people willing to share!  Enjoyed dinner, FHE, having the parents here, and getting the boys in the tub & in bed on time. 

Tuesday {7th}, Gray had his follow up dentist appointment that I already detailed in the previous post.  We ran errands after and spent the rest of the day recovering and playing.  I also made these cute candy gram gifts {also found on Pinterest} for our niece Madelyn and my primary bisopric counselor, Bret.  Bex slept while Zac worked from home and Gray and I delivered bithday presents.  We had three to deliver in our ward boundaries & it took about an hour and 35 miles.  Crazy, huh?  It's just life for us though, and I wouldn't change it.  Here is what the candygrams said:

For one of our ward’s 3 MUSKETEERS,
Happy birthday Bret!  You take great care of our primary & bring so much JOY to all who know you.
Guys like you are worth a MINT!  Thanks for not SNICKERING too much at my methods.  
You’ve helped us out MOUNDS of times when we’re in a CRUNCH and that means a lot to us & the KIDS.  Wish we could pay you 100 GRAND for your efforts!  You are a WHOPPER of a counselor & friend!  Thanks for all you do,
Love, Karli & Fam

Dear Madelyn,
Happy birthday!  Don’t SNICKER, but we think you are quite a sweetie!  Grayson and Beckham have
MOUNDS of fun with you and you bring so much JOY into the lives of our whole family.  You are
always BURSTING with happiness and so willing to play with and entertain our boys.  We think
you are a WHOPPER of a cousin & niece.  You are worth a MINT & 100 GRAND to us.  Thanks for
liking us even when we are NERDS!  We love you!
Love: Zac, Karli, Grayson & Beckham

We came home and the boys played in the garage while I got a great upper body workout in.  When I was done, we called Madelyn to sing her happy birthday.  She is such a sweetie and I can't believe she's 11.  My boys just love her.  Got the boys to bed, chilled on the couch, and went to bed way too late.

Wednesday {8th}, I had a haircut at my friend Nikki's house and the boys played at Grandma Wendy's while that was going on.  Madelyn and Em were there, along with Chels & Lyla, and the boys didn't want to leave when I got back.  I LOVE my hair cut & love that it's different, yet subtle.  Excited to try curling it and differnt styles.  Zac is a fan which is always a good thing. 

Got boys down for naps and took them to T&T's after they woke up.  Zac and I headed to the temple and enjoyed doing sealings with a few other couple's from our ward.  Love doing this with him and being there with him.  We chatted lots on the way there and back, and he was laughing at me because I kept giving "uh huh," type answers because I was SO TIRED!  I finally snapped out of it enough to be a better listener and conversationalist.  And, it poured on our way home, but we saw this beautiful double rainbow.  Love.  T&T had taken the boys to our house and put Bex down, but Gray was still up.  He went to bed really well for me and we appreciate Taylor and Talon so much for being willing to be parents to our kids so often.  They really are great with them.  

Thursday {9th}, Madelyn came over for a couple hours in the morning to play with Grayson.  Bex went down for a nap and M & Gray played outside wonderfully.  He adores her.  I hosted our last class reunion meeting and had fun visiting with the girls and finalizing details for next week.  I'm so looking forward to it.  I also wanted to post about my weigh in/workout, so I'm copying & pasting this from my Health Confessions blog so I have it in my book: 

Confession: I wanted to give up today.

 I got up excitedly to weigh in {I generally weigh on Monday’s & Thursday’s} and the scale said the very same thing it said Monday.  WHAT??  I was ticked.  I have been working my butt off, eating clean, and downing at least 100 ounces water daily {in addition to my 24 ounces diet coke}.
 How could I not have lost??  Now the logical part of me knows our weight fluctuates, I could be retaining water, the soda isn’t helping, I’ve introduced more fruit the past couple weeks, I’m gaining muscle, I’m only getting an average of 5 hours sleep each night, I should measure it by how my clothes fit, la de da de da.  Blah. Blah. Blah.
 It doesn’t matter.  Because when I step on that scale, I want to be rewarded.  I want instant gratification and I want the scale to smile at me and give me a LOWER number and to love me.  Argh.  Husband was in the shower & thus saw my less-than-happy reaction.  He {intelligently} didn’t say anything at that moment.  I got dressed, stormed around doing my regular morning routine of laundry, getting kids breakfast, etc. and thought, “What’s the point anyway?  I should just eat the cereal or bagel with peanut butter, or 6 Eggo’s with butter, syrup AND powdered sugar that I want.  It’s not like the good things I’m doing matter anyway.”
 I was totally having a pity party.
 I drank two 16 ounce glasses of water & sat down with my chocolate mint medifast bar and a banana and felt a bit calmer after getting some food in my system.  Husband came in and asked how I was feeling.  He encouraged me not to stop exercising and to keep doing what I was doing.  Then he said, “I know you’re mad about the scale…but don’t you feel really good right now?”  And I started laughing, because I DO feel good right now.  It’s as if my body & the scale are just not in tune with each other, because I feel thinner each morning, regardless of what the scale says.  I know the good foods I’m feeding my body and the kick-butt workouts I’ve been enjoying {mostly after I’m finished!}, are helping a lot.  And I know they’ll pay off if I’m consistent.
 And therein lies the kicker.  Consistency.  It has to happen.  I can’t expect change to come with two hardcore weeks of exercise.  It happens after lots of long days of no changes that add up to months & years of BIG changes.
 So I ate well.  I played outside with my kiddos.  I grocery shopped & filled my cart with great fruits & veggies and meats.  I drank lots of water {and a little diet soda}.  I smiled and wore my cute jeans with happiness.  And late this afternoon, I did the 100 workout again.  And again, it kicked my trash & I toughed my way through it.  And at the end, when I had to run for ten minutes, I was tired.  I wanted to be done.  But I did it.  My previous one mile time was 10:54.  Tonight I did it in 10:15.  Yeah, yeah, I know this isn’t a great one-mile-time.  But guess what?  The only person whose record I’m trying to beat is my own.  And tonight…I did it.  And I plan to do it again.  And then again.
 Here’s to each of you finding a lemon in your day and making lemonade…
 But only figuratively, of course, because real lemonade has an awful lot of sugar in it.

Friday {10th}, we headed to Kelsey's in the morning so we could finalize the stuff for my business cards.  She is uber talented in this area, so if you need anything designed, check her out HERE.  She won't disappoint.  The boys play well together and had fun while we "worked."

That afternoon we played, napped, cleaned, and made brownies.  Grayson was helping me and I gave him the beaters to lick when the batter was done.  I left the room and came back to this.  He was dipping the beaters in the batter & enjoying it.  I wanted to laugh, but snapped a picture and asked him to please ask for help next time. Smart boy, eh?

 When Zac got home from work, we headed to Lance and Kelsey's for a BBQ.  They had T&T and a couple of their friends, and another family in our ward, Ali & Francisco and their kids over.  It was so nice.  Beautiful night, the kids played well, and the guys shot skeet.  I shot five times and got one.  Not great odds, but fun to do.  I love Lance's shotgun because it kicks the least of any I've tried {not that I'm a pro}.  Grayson played especially well with Ali's 5 year old, Evie.  She is adorable and they just followed each other around, played with the kittens {or tried to}, jumped on the trampoline, and laughed.  So cute.  We hung around for a while longer and took the boys home to bed.  Thanks for the invite L&K, it was fun!

Saturday {11th}, we pulled out Grayson's new slip & slide.  For $5, I was seriously impressed with this thing.  He loved the sprinkler action and although he never got brave enough to slide {I was too cold to show him-I needed a little person}, he ran through it a million times.  Zac got home from work just in time to take two sliding turns himself, but Gray still was unsure.  I don't blame him, Zac was cut up & sore after doing it! (:  If summer ever gets here to stay, we'll be ready!

 Zac took our Cricket staff to a movie for their reward of hitting their May goals, and I wanted to go with him, but hadn't taken the time to get a sitter and also needed to attend the reception of some of our friends.  I got the boys ready and headed to our ward building, only to find that it was in Nyssa-I'd forgotten.  Ran in there and got the boys out to find the line out the gym & into the hall.  It was the longest 30 minutes of Grayson's life...and mine after holding Beckham's chubby body!  Gray could see the ice cream bar and just wanted to eat it, but he wouldn't let anyone take him {thanks for trying Tara!}.  We got through-saw the beautiful Genniel and her new husband Spencer, talked to her sweet parents who I love, and got the boys their ice cream.  They deserved it for being so patient.  We visited with friends JD & Danna while eating and then packed them up and headed home.  Got the boys to bed and I worked & read till Zac got home.  Visited with him about the movie and headed to bed.