Morning walks

Getting out to the park with the kids is not my biggest thing. I could definitely stand to be better at that. The kids love to get out on their bikes, though, so I thought it would be great for me to get a walk in while the kids ride. We usually go after I eat breakfast on a mile loop. The kids do great - only complaining a little about being tired. They're troopers for going the whole way. I'm amazed at Andy's little legs pumping away at his pedals. I only wish he were a little taller so we could get him a bigger bike. Lilia does great on the balance bike. I'm just working on getting her to propel herself more and pick her feet up. She'll get there. And Anne just loves hanging out in the stroller. I know she can't wait until she's big enough for a bike, though! That girl does whatever she can to keep up.

This morning I checked the weather when we got back and it was 86 (feeling like 88) at 9:30a. I am definitely looking forward to some cooler morning walks!

misc

one of these days i may get around to having spencer take a pregnant picture of me. i'm just about 39 weeks. it really has gone by fast, but all the same, i am ready for this baby to join us. a couple of weeks ago my mom suggested i make a list of things i wanted to get done before the baby came to keep me busy and to avoid sitting around just waiting. i'm really grateful for that suggestion and got a lot of things done. i finally cut andy's hair, got our "dining room" table (most often used as a catch-all) cleared off and usable, got caught up on laundry, got more done on the girl's stocking (if i wait until december it'll never get done!), scrubbed the kitchen floor (on hands and knees this afternoon with spencer's help), and got 7 casseroles in the freezer. i've got two things left on the list that could go either way, really. hopefully she comes within the next week, though. i'd rather not get close to the c-section date (scheduled for the 24th).

i've also kept up my walking. i actually lengthened my original walk and am going almost 2 miles every day. i'm really grateful for it but it's definitely getting harder. i think i'll keep going every day partly for the sake of my pride. not a good thing, i know, but motivating!

it's been great to have spencer home. he's been a huge help with so much! he's been working about 20 hrs/wk from home for his dad's office. it's really nice. we've been able to do some fun things with the boys. we got a membership to the aquarium here and are looking forward to enjoying that even more. benny loves the sting rays and sharks and always makes a point to find "marlin, dori, and finding nemo."

the boys are growing up so much these days. it's been really fun to watch. here are some pictures from a few weeks ago. we set up the oscillating sprinkler in the back and the boys had a great time running through it! when drying off, benny asked to be tucked in. and, of course, he wanted andy to be included as well.

going strong

i went walking today for the second day in a row. it's been really nice to get out. i was sure i was going to wait for school to be over to start walking, but thanks to my sister bethany, i am participating in a healthy habits challenge. spencer and i both are. one of the habits is getting 30 minutes of exercise. spencer goes out in the morning and i leave when he comes back.
this is a competition, so of course, if i'm in, i'm in all the way. i'm eating my vegetables and fruit and avoiding sweets (that's one that's a little harder for me). i'm really glad to have the motivation to get walking. i'm already reaping the benefits, which (unfortunately) include being really tired in the afternoon and getting closer to a waddle in the evenings (thankfully i've been able to avoid the waddle in public).

here's to being healthier!

back at it

this morning i was surprised when spencer's alarm went off at around 6:30a (give or take a half hour since i was too tired, even, to look at the time on our ceiling). i assumed he wanted to get some studying done this morning before the rest of us got up and started distracting him. a little while later, however, spencer got back into bed and said, "it's your turn." he had gone on his run. obviously i'm not supposed to just pick up running in my condition, but i've been talking about getting back into walking before this baby comes. it just hasn't been important enough to get me out of bed before spencer leaves for school. i stayed in bed for a little while longer but i did, indeed, get up and go walking this morning. according to map my run i went 1.36 miles. not too bad for the first time this pregnancy. i'm really glad i went out. it was a beautiful morning - overcast with everything wet and smelling alive. i feel really good so i'll definitely be going once spencer finishes school this semester and i may bring myself to get up earlier in the morning to go before he leaves. no promises.


this will also double as a pregnancy picture. i'm just over 31 weeks and feeling good! spencer did some omm on me a few months ago that has really helped with my sciatic nerve pain (i'm reaping the benefits of having a physician in the home already!).

i know i haven't said much about it here, but we are very excited for "the girl" (as we've dubbed her) to join us. i've actually been much better at writing in my journal (and recently started working on our photo albums), which is more important to me than blogging these days. i'm not even sure if i mentioned we're having a girl. we're really looking forward to the new experiences we'll have. the boys will be great with their little sister. they come with me to all my appointments and benny loves seeing the "baby movie" or hearing her heartbeat each time. it's still quite strange to think of being a mother of three and a family of five, but we are thrilled.

by way of information, i am due 17 june but have a c-section scheduled for 24 june. we are hoping and praying that i go into labor on my own before the 24th, but we'll have to wait and see. any extra prayers are welcome! it's been an interesting experience here because my doctor can't talk very candidly about my having a vbac due to laws and insurance issues against vbacs. however, if i go into active labor on my own, they won't stop me. it makes it much more helpful that spencer has already learned to check for dilation!

before and after

i've started walking again fairly regularly - whether i go or not is still contingent on andy's eating/sleeping schedule (because he's sleeping 8 to 9 hours/night it's easier to go). i'm really glad i walked throughout my pregnancy - it really helped me to be in good shape - and i'm glad i've been walking again - it's really been helping to get me back in better shape (not quite good shape yet).

the before picture (on the left) was taken 21 december 2007. i wasn't as big as i got by 6 feb. the after picture was taken 21 march 2008.

i'm hoping to keep up the walking as much as i can in the time to come. i'm really hoping i can make it work once we move to tulsa. our schedules will be so different then that we'll definitely have to work to make it happen.


i do make sure i go walking with both the boys. i don't have a picture yet, but try to imagine me pushing the stroller with benny in it and carrying andy in the baby bjorn. it works great and i'm sure it's giving me a great workout! we done that walk up to campus and even down to the park on center street. it works really well, so i don't think i'll be in the market for a double stroller any time soon.

still walking...

i know it's not the best thing, but i've been pretty pleased that i've been continuing walking even through the inclement weather. the last couple of days i've gone the weather actually hasn't been bad at all - one day i even got fairly warm. last night, however, it started snowing quite a bit. i was wondering if i was going to have the guts to go walking this morning. amazingly enough, i did. i got up just after 7 and got all dressed to go. i debated on going on one of my
shorter routes, but decided that i would wait and see how it actually was. i was surprised when i realized that i had passed both turn-offs before i knew it - i think i was working so hard at not falling. i ended up getting about 1000 more steps than i usually do on this same route because my steps were so small to ward off falling.

this is a picture i took with my phone to show in what conditions i was walking. thankfully it wasn't snowing, but it seemed like the plowed sidewalk was covered in a sheet of ice with a very thin layer of snow on top of that. it really wasn't very safe... i did stop walking to take this picture. i probably would have killed myself had i tried to keep walking. i'm not sure how easy it is to see, but this is the beginning of a long downward slope. a lot of my walk is either up or down - not a whole lot of flat ground. i must admit that made it a lot harder to keep from falling - i caught myself
from falling lots of times.

i'm really not sure how long i'll be able to safely keep up this walking in the mornings. i don't want to give it up because i know how good it is for me. it's been helping me feel so much better. the days that i don't go walking (very few, mostly weekends) i can really tell a difference in my body - and mentally as well. i think it's a very good thing for me to get out in the fresh air for some exercise.

well, there aren't very many pictures of me at all since i've been pregnant, so i had spencer take this one of me after i got back from my walk. it's really not very flattering, but this is an illustration of how ridiculous i'm willing to look to keep up the walking. hopefully it will be able to last quite a bit longer.

counting steps

a few weeks ago i got the pedometer i ordered in the mail. it's a really nice one - it has a seven day memory, it counts aerobic steps (a certain number of steps in a minute or walking for so many minutes consecutively), it tells you how many calories you've lost (i don't know how accurate that really is), and you can enter your stride length and it will tell you the distance you've walked for the day. i got it because my sister bethany kept telling me that i needed to get a nice one and keep track (i have a cheap one that i got free from byu last year when i was working there and doing the "tour across america" wellness challenge. it was one of those that you can hear clicking with all of your steps. they're really not the most accurate. my sister eden and i were joking about how they are notorious for giving you many more steps than you've walked and also not counting any for a fair amount of time. this new omron pedometer, however, is amazing. it consists of some amazing technology that allows you to not necessarily clip it to your waist band, but you can put it in a pocket or your purse - and it supposedly stays pretty accurate. this has become somewhat of a family thing - both of my parents have this same pedometer, bethany and eden have one, and graydon has one (although i don't think he uses it very often).

if i am correct, the whole thing started when bethany started doing "the step diet." it's a diet that consists of finding out how many steps you get on an average day and gradually increasing your average for the week - i don't know all the details because i haven't ever read the book. i know there's also a section on what you eat, etc. bethany did really well while she was pregnant. she had a week where she was getting an average off 16,000 steps/day. i can't imagine getting that many - my high is just over 12,000, and that's only one day of that - not my average for a week. bethany is a believer in the step diet. she was really healthy throughout her whole pregnancy and gained the least amount of weight of all 5 of her pregnancies. her labor and delivery was also the easiest she's had. what i can't believe is that she, of her own free will and choice, went home from the hospital nov 1 (the day after grace was born).
i heard from my dad that she (bethany) was also feeling good enough to work on a dishwasher repair the night after she was home. when i talked to beth after she was home, she kept telling me i needed to get a pedometer and work for 10,000 steps/day. i agreed, but didn't rush to get one. at one point she even told spencer that he should get me a the pedometer and push me to get 10,000 steps/day. i finally pulled out my cheap one from byu and it took a little coaxing to work. it was barely counting any at all, but if you shook it, it slowly became more accurate.
this is a picture of a pedometer you can get from amazon for under $2. it's basically like the one that i had (although mine did have a few more buttons, and maybe more features). it counts steps basically by the bounce of your body. sometimes you can get lots of steps just from standing up from a chair. if you keep it on while you change your clothes, you can get lots more! i decided i should get pretty serious about counting my steps, so i wore the cheap one until the better one came.

my goal for a while was 10,000 steps/day. last week i decided that for right now, 8,000 would work better with where i am. it's definitely within reach, but it's a little stretch sometimes - i don't want it to be too easy, but i don't want to be discouraged by not reaching my goal day after day. for the last couple of weeks i've even been getting up in the morning to go for a walk (something spencer's been telling me would be good for me for quite a while). it's been really nice, and my loop around part of campus has gradually gotten bigger. the walk i've been doing pretty regularly now is just under two miles. it's a great way to start the day. last week while we were in draper i even got up to go for a walk along the trail behind my parents' house. that was really nice - and freezing! - and i was able to get about 2.5 miles those three days we were up there. i'm really looking forward to keeping this walking up - even through the snow. i think it will really help with the birth of our second baby boy - especially because the goal is to do a vbac (vaginal birth after cesarean). i was walking a lot every day before benny was born (i walked to and from church the day before and to work and up to the fourth floor on the stairs the day of) and i think it really helped - the little monkey was just feet first!

this is a whole lot of talk about steps, but i'm really excited about it, and i've been feeling great. my back and sciatic nerve have even been feeling so much better since i've been walking more regularly. let's just hope i keep it up until february!