Very important and fascinating things

I know you all keep coming back to this blog because I am so fascinating and witty and I do exciting things like come in contact with poop and fold laundry and make sandwiches. So here’s some more of that adrenaline-inducing stuff, illustrated with unrelated pictures of our annual Rake Up Leaves And Jump In Them photos. You’ll be excited to hear that this year, not a single leaf or bug found its way into my bra. And also, it’s snowy and longjohns-cold outside, so don’t think this is what it’s like here right now.

First of all, in exciting and earth-shattering news, I’m caught up on my blog reader for the first time in literally months. It took a lot of skimming, ‘mark all as read’ on some blogs, unsubscribe to others, etc. Any blogs that posted as many advertisements, Todays Deal At This Deal Site Is, etc as regular posts in a week got the boot. I was sad to see some go, but some of the blogs I unsubscribed to were craft blogs that posted once or twice a day with half of that trying to get me to buy something. Drives me loco. I totally understand that getting free stuff and/or money is enticing, but if I want a shopping blog, I’ll sign up to a shopping blog. I even have… Bargainmoose.com anyone? :)

Equally exciting – okay, more exciting – is that I have been focusing on my health and fitness since the end of October. When Olivia weaned herself (aww, I wasn’t ready, but she dropped one feeding after another and eventually lost interest entirely.) I gained about 8lb in one month… ouch!! ! ! ! !!! and was suddenly pushing it in size 12 jeans. I’ve been eating clean and working out two to four times a week and I’m nearly in size 8 jeans now in early December. About 7 weeks, nice! (I can button the size 8 jeans but have muffin top.) I’m focusing on health and strength, rather than weight loss, and while the weight loss excites me I am treating it as a byproduct/reward for healthy living. And oh yes… I graduated high school as a size 12. :) I’m so proud that I can barely do five REAL pushups, when I could barely do girly pushups to begin with.

I recently read something in a fitness magazine from a mother who had turned her lifestyle around from couch potato to fit, and she said something along the lines that it suddenly occurred to her that by being obese, she was modelling to her children that it was acceptable to be obese and to not care about your body. That really struck me. I have thought a lot about health for the last few months, and I think it’s so important to teach your children how to love their body no matter what their body type, but also how to take care of their bodies. Nicole and I have a big bone structure. I always thought of it as big boned as in destined to be fat, but recently I’ve been thinking it’s more like an athletic build! My husband and his brothers are all built that way too, and they are big STRONG men. I want to be a STRONG woman! I want to dance in my kitchen with my kids for a solid half hour without losing my breath or skipping a beat! I want to race my daughter up and down the hill and only PRETEND to let her win. And I want to teach my daughters to be passionate about their HEALTH rather than their SIZE. If my daughter asks me why I exercise, I tell her its because it’s good for me, NEVER because ‘I’m too fat.’ Exercise isn’t a punishment!

I actually quite enjoy going to the gym. Nobody there expects me to wipe their bum, ever. Utopia. I only make it out about twice a week at the moment, but I try to make the most of the equipment when I do. When I’m at home, it’s pushups, lunges, squats, etc… all while being attacked by small human projectiles. It’s exciting and painful simultaneously. Ask Nicole to show you how to exercise and she’ll do strange random repetitive motions while grunting like its taking everything she’s got. Flattering indeed. I find many little home-workouts on Pinterest or bodyrock.tv for free! Then I get a lot of variety in my workouts, my body never knows what's coming, and I feel like that helps get results.

Whew! I got a little excited there! I have been doing a lot of reading, and thinking, and thinking, and reading. I haven’t really had anywhere to channel that except internally, though! I’m not always sure how much I can say without coming off as a jerk ;) No judgement for anyone else… these are just my thoughts as I feel like they apply to me! Other people’s perspectives have inspired me and I hope mine is either inspiring or boring, rather than getting anyone’s undies bunched.

Lets go back to these photos… Olivia was not too impressed with her first Leaf Pile Jump. The above picture is her trying to run away.

This above picture is a little bit more accurate. See those arched brows? Not impressed. Now watch her run away again.

Don’t worry, we were watching her the whole time, and my brother was loitering behind the scenes (he was not being photographed because his hair was not pretty. My brother is kind of Maintenance, lol!) so Olivia The Adventurous was supervised quite well.

I really am making progress on this whole ‘back to blogging’ thing. I have some projects ready to be photographed and blogged, and I’m about 80% done clearing out my horrifyingly messy storage room craft room as of today.

I literally iced Olivia’s birthday at 9am for her 10am birthday party. Whoop whoop!  I did a bit of a faux-ombre, I have seen all these lovely ombre cakes floating around on pinterest. I just iced the cake in the light pink, then mixed more red into my icing to darken it up. I put some darker pink icing around the bottom of the cake and then went around a few times with my icing spatula to blend it in the middle a bit. And then I took it back down a few notches by randomly spewing icing doodles on the top like a pro.

Faux-ombre. Fombre. I think it’ll catch on. Remember where you learned the word. That’s right, the ever-fascinating and rarely long-winded blog of Laura V. PS, do note the fruit platter. If you only buy one snack food for your next little kid party, buy a fruit platter. Or make one. I was trying to be healthy, and we put the fruit platter down and this tiny little hoard of small children descended on it and made it vanish. They wanted it more than the cake. I wouldn’t joke about something like that.