Beauty Knows No Pain, Girls!

Movie Quote from Title (one of my favs!)

Beauty may know no pain...but that doesn't make it any less sad sometimes.

I pretty much hog tied Alexa down to put her hair up in pigtails for the very first time the other day. She wasn't happy, but she was so cute, even in her sadness!

Sometimes the price of beauty/cuteness seems way too high! Good thing she's learning that one early in her life.

Love Grows!

When Alexa woke up from her nap yesterday just a couple hours into the whole ordeal, she was just crying and crying and I decided to go in and see if I couldn't soothe her back to sleep.

I just held her and rocked with her.

I did this for 1 hour and 20 minutes. That wasn't expected, but very welcomed.

While I was holding and reading Peter Pan to her I got to thinking: "it's not fair that I will not get to do this with our other kids." The more kids we add to our family the more my time has to be divided between each of them. I desperately want my babies with me, but it's just not fair that they won't get as much of me as I want to give or feel like I they deserve to have.

And so I held Alexa a bit tighter.

I may have shed a little tear, mourning for the pending craziness of my future life where I won't be able to take up my child for 80 minutes and just hold him/her. By ourselves. Without interruption.  Just one more gesture that I could make to help them know how much I love them.

I was saddened by that thought and then this idea scurried across my mind for just a moment: "I'm pretty sure I can be happy as a mom of just one beautiful baby girl, and then she can have all my attention, and all my love."

But just at that moment, this musing entered my mind: "Love Grows."

Time may not be able to be justly divided between everything and everyone I love, but that thought gave me hope. The pounding in my chest as I feel my heart pump out love for my daughter and husband will only get more powerful with every new addition to our family. The joy I feel each day as my daughter embraces me with a tight neck-hug or a slobbery open-mouth cheek-kiss will only widen and deepen with every child that comes into our home.

My mourning turned into songs of rejoicing once I realized that even though nearly everything in this world we experience is finite in expanse and scope, love is the one exception. It grows and grows and grows until your heart feels like it may not be able to contain all the love that is growing up inside it and is then poured out from overflowing cups of love and joy as little drops of tears from one's eye.

There is no need to fear the impossible list of future responsibilities and tasks that will surely unjustly steal away those precious moments I wish I could have with each of my children when I know that God has given us such an incredible gift. He gave us the capability to experience and share love with one another. And then, as if that wasn't enough, we get to grow right along with love and are able to watch love grow and develop into a starry night of infinite beauty and possibilities filled with relationships of our families and dear friends. 

I so gratefully praise the Lord that love grows!

Spring Sprang...then Snowed

There's this beautiful tree just outside our condo with lovely pink blossoms. It's simply lovely, and it's just as lovely during an annual freak spring snow storm. It was pretty mild this year, at least around our house, but still, it happened on April 3rd. Crazy Colorado! I took the opportunity to snap a couple shots of the beautiful, albeit ironic, scene.

Good Riddance 2LBS, Hello Roses!

My cousin Kara received 24 roses from her brother the other day because of a great loss in her life.

She lost 24 lbs. and her brother (and sister-in-law, my guess is she had something to do with it), sent her a rose for each pound lost. How awesome is that?!

When I reach my goal weight (which I'm 2 pounds closer to since this morning!), I hope someone sends me 16 roses.

Nick, I know you read my posts, so just keep this in mind for later!

Since two weeks ago I have gotten up by 6:15 most mornings, headed over to the gym, and worked out for at least 50 minutes. Somewhere around 40 minutes of cardio, then jumping rope or jumping jacks, and then a short ab work-out to finish things off. Also, I have really decreased my snack intake in between meals. I no longer graze all day, which I think gets me into trouble. I eat breakfast, a couple hours later I have a small snack (if I'm hungry), a couple hours after I have lunch (usually soup), a small snack a little later, then dinner. My snacks are no longer just hoards of whatever I can find. A few crackers and some fruit. It's good. And if I want ice cream, a couple bites work, I don't need 3 ginormous scoops. I'm not making huge changes, but lots of small ones.

Working out, eating less, and eating better when I do eat...who knew one could lose weight like that?

I'm also learning what foods I am willing to sacrifice, substitute, and not willing to do either. For example, I will not eat low fat ice cream, but low fat yogurt instead of the original is just fine. Reduced Fat Ranch dressing is pretty gross, but Reduced Fat Sour Cream is pretty indistinguishable from the original. Maybe over time my taste buds will evolve, but for now these small changes will do.

Counting calories doesn't work for me; my food choices need to focus more on portion control and substituting bad for good. We'll get from good to better and better to best eventually, but I'm staying positive and motivated, which is hard to do when you're making a lot of changes in diet and exercise.

What I'm trying to say is yay for me, and good riddance 2 lbs!

I Am a Blackened Banana: A Memoir

I read this great blog (my go-to for a lot of fashion tips), and the author began this guest author segment called Beauty-ful Tuesday. I thought just in case I am asked to include my thoughts on beauty, I'd like to be prepared. Here are my thoughts for the day.

I feel like my life has been a lesson on acceptance. Whether that's accepting my body, my face, my circumstances, or just accepting others and everything that goes with them. Some situations and people are easy to accept and love and it's just a natural kind of connection, other things take work. (i.e. Accepting my long, thick, blond hair is fairly easy; accepting my dysfunctional ovaries is a bit more challenging.) Some days I go to sleep at night wishing I'll wake up as a size 6 with clear skin (which explains the inordinate amount of skin remedies I have in the bathroom cabinets). Then I wake up and start my day disappointed with myself. Too often I spend my time trying to figure out how to balance changing the person I am into who I want to be and accepting the person that I am right now and spit in that skinny, clear-skinned girls face (nobody likes skinny, clear-skinned girls anyway).

Surprisingly, I think I've been doing it wrong.

To accept something means you take it as it is, and are happy. But, acceptance is no way to treat something that you interact with everyday, that you can control (to some extent), and that is eternal. My body, my beauty, does not need acceptance from me. It needs to be embraced! When I think of the people that are easiest for me to accept and admire, I realize acceptance is only the beginning of those relationships. I embrace those people. I want them to envelope me with their beauty, excitement, and wonder. I want to be surrounded by each of them so completely because they inspire me to develop qualities that I already have into characteristics of the person I hope to someday become. 

From now on, I think I'll try to first accept my imperfect beauty of today, and embrace my potential beauty of eternity. Accept then embrace, the latter of which means (to me) doing all I can to develop, strengthen, and transform today's imperfect beauty into a perfected beauty that I can truly be proud of.

Isn't that what eternity is for? To improve and perfect what we have been given? And just because my beauty isn't perfected yet does not mean that I don't have all the ingredients inside of me already to get me there.

Giving up on my beauty now would be like throwing out some blackened bananas because their beauty is not obviously there. I am a blackened banana: full of over-ripe potential preparing to make some delicious banana bread!

But not banana nut bread. Nobody likes nuts in their bread; dysfunctional ovaries; or skinny, clear-skinned girls. Okay, I maybe wrong about the girls, but I stand by the nut-thing. And the ovaries.

***Just to be clear, if I ever write an auto-biography, I call dibs on the title 

"I Am a Blackened Banana: A Memoir". Respect the dibs!***