A Better Me & A Movie

This year I have thought, and worked towards, my New Years resolutions more than ever in my life. I’ve concluded that there are two reasons for this:

1. I’ve finally come to the realization in my life that true happiness comes from personal growth.

2. I set uncomplicated, attainable goals (as if I hadn’t been told that this was the way for like, my whole life. doh)

I don’t really want to talk about all of the goals I’ve worked on, but I do want to talk about how I want to continue to move forward with 2013, and things that inspire me to be a better me.

When I’m working towards bettering myself in this way and that way, I’m usually focused on how being a better person will give me a happier day to day life. However I LOVE LOVE this talk by President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, which I’ve read at least five times now, which talks about bettering ourselves more with the purpose of not regretting anything at the end of our life.

“The more we devote ourselves to the pursuit of holiness and happiness, the less likely we will be on a path to regrets.”

Having regrets is painful. I for one do not want to be in the next life, watching the “Movie of Ariel’s Life” and be just totally disappointed that it is such a lame movie. Some things from his talk I especially love that I think will bring everyone greater happiness:

• Let ourselves relax, play, take it slow, with no excuses…

“Isn’t it true that we often get so busy? And, sad to say, we even wear our busyness as a badge of honor, as though being busy, by itself, was an accomplishment or sign of a superior life.”

• “Go swimming” in The Gospel of Jesus Christ…Let Heavenly Father help me become a better me…

“When it comes to living the gospel, we should not be like the boy who dipped his toe in the water and then claimed he went swimming. As sons and daughters of our Heavenly Father, we are capable of so much more. For that, good intentions are not enough. We must do. Even more important, we must become what Heavenly Father wants us to be.”

“As we do so, Heavenly Father will reveal to us things we never knew about ourselves. He will illuminate the path ahead and open our eyes to see our unknown and perhaps unimagined talents.”

• Be happy NOW, no matter what goal is just out of reach…

“So often we get caught up in the illusion that there is something just beyond our reach that would bring us happiness: a better family situation, a better financial situation, or the end of a challenging trial.

The older we get, the more we look back and realize that external circumstances don’t really matter or determine our happiness.
We do matter. We determine our happiness.
You and I are ultimately in charge of our own happiness.”
“…it’s not a race; it’s a journey. Enjoy the moment.”

I thought it was SO perfect that Mike and I stumbled upon one of our new favorite movies right after we moved to Austin, where we moved for the purpose of having a better, fuller, more relaxing life, where we would have more time to love our loved ones, and spend more time on things that matter.

So we moved for a better life, watched the movie Defending Your Life, then heard this talk by Pres. Uchtdorf. Coincidence? I think not.

I don’t want to give any spoilers, but go and watch this movie! I also don’t want to talk it up, because then you will be disappointed because I made it sound like the next Star Wars…... So it’s a totally lame movie…BOOORING…..meaningless….

Now go watch Defending Your Life, read this talk by pres. Uchtdorf again and again, and look at life differently. Go about life with meaning and pursue excellence.

Quiet Time

I want to share what I do with Atlas now that he doesn’t want to nap every day, but yet he still gets a bit tired mid-day. This way there is no more fighting at nap time!

I’m really happy with what Atlas and I have settled into when it comes to nap time. Our journey to this point started about six months ago when Atlas started fighting nap time with ALL OF HIS MIGHT. Well I got tired of this fight so decided that we would just stop nap time altogether. This was in my third trimester. So in my pregnantedness I tried filling that time with the least demanding to me activities for him, which ended up being TV…I know…I know. I tried to get him to watch documentaries as much as he would….(Mighty Machines, how things work, planet earth, wild china are some of our favorites). Anyways, then after Urban was born, and after the move, he suddenly started taking naps again for about a month. THEN all of a sudden it became a fight again…what?? So for the past few weeks we’ve finally found this system that we both seem to enjoy. It was not my idea, whoever came up with it was a genius, but I saw a lot of people online doing similar things. Quiet Time. Me and Atlas also call it relax time, as I explain to him – our bodies like to relax and it’s a part of the day where we play quiet in bed.
After lunch I give him plenty of notice that its almost quiet time, so he’s not surprised at all when its time to stop playing. Then when its time, he gets in bed, I play with him for about five minutes, or read stories, and then I set the timer for one hour and place it on his bed, where he can hear it ticking away. About 40% of the time he will fall asleep and then the timer will wake him up and he’s so excited that he gets to come out of bed! Or he will fall asleep and even sleep through the timer and then when he wakes up he thinks it silly that he slept through the timer. Other 60% of the time he is awake the whole time and is so proud of himself for how quietly and patiently he played the whole time (and expresses his enthusiasm that quiet time is over by yelling YAY!! as loudly as possible and running around the house to no particular destination). On the days he does not fall asleep, he just goes to bed a little bit earlier at night time, so it’s a win-win ;)
I want to note that the first time we did this was not easy. He would play for a few minutes then say “all done with quiet time mommy!” “atlas come out? pleeease!!!”. Or he would say “timer not working!”  But I knew that if he would just see that the timer was going to go off any minute then it would be good! So I let him fuss for like the last five minutes and then once it went off I rushed in and said yaaaay you were soo good for quiet time now you can come out and play quiet time is over!” And he was sooo happy. After that we haven’t had a problem! He is old enough to understand and remember that the timer WILL eventually go off.
I rotate the toys and books. But these have been some of his favorite quiet-time activities (I’m about to need some new ideas because I anticipate him starting to get bored with some of mine, so please share any you have!) :

• reading/picture books
• lacing (similar here)
• quiet book (made by Bubba [what he calls my mom])
• puzzles (one of our favorites here)
• measuring things with a measuring tape
• coloring (lots of times I will let him pick out a free coloring page on the internet that we print off specially for quiet time)
• flash cards

Hopefully this is useful information for anyone else who is fighting with their toddler over nap time! I wish I had discovered this way 6 months ago :-)

Our Thanksgiving for four

It was quite sad to be without any family for Thanksgiving, but thankfully (har har) we happen to LOVE being together, just the four of us (still unbelievable to me that I have a family of four). So we had a fantastic long weekend together, and Mike cooked us up QUITE the last minute feast! Still feasting on de-lish leftovers here.

A note on the bareness of our home, just in case you didn’t know, we are in the middle of becoming home-owners, and we are living in a temporary apartment….hence the lack of tables…chair…couches….pictures on walls…..etc…..

On Thanksgiving day, I even attempted a camera-on-the-window-sill-on-some-dvd-cases family picture! Using my forgotten camera shutter-remote. Not perfection, but its fun to have one of all four of us, a rare occurrence! I don’t mind my head being cut off when its with these lovelies.

I found about a hundred of these on my camera. I seriously didn’t realize he had the remote as was just sittin there clickin away.

And then later, I told him he should take a picture of himself kissing Urban. Good shot Atlas.

Some more from the day:

I know the day of “Thanksgiving” is past, but I am endlessly thankful. Every day of the year.

This life. in this world. leaves me in awe constantly.

Singing my babies to sleep. Thankful.
Kissing my husband when he walks in the door after work. Thankful.
Exercising my able body. Thankful.
Skype. Thankful.

I’m Thankful For Now.

Blanket Fort

I’m not sure who had more fun with it…Atlas, Urban, or me. I was pretty devastated when Atlas went all destroyer on it (there were no little babies in there during the destruction).

Silence

We had a lovely weekend! This is the San Antonio Temple.

SOOOO happy I got to spend some time with my high school bestie Erin!

Watch Out…

H&M in Austin is opening tomorrow!!!

I don’t know why I love this weird H&M video…but I do

Let me just tell you, there being an H&M store in the same building that I drop my husband off for work every day….is not going to be good on our bank account.
I’m about to go all commercial on you, but seriously, I dress my entire family here (ok so not Mike as much, he has a few pieces from there but he’s kind of stuck up….)….and its CHEAP (for their basics, and if you shop the sales). Their baby clothes are almost the same price as carters/achildrensplace/yourgreatgrandma’sstyle except SO CUTE! Ahhhhh.
I was especially thrilled when I was pregnant the second time around and discovered that they have a maternity line- if you are expecting, this is the only place you need to go for maternity clothes. Like this shirt for $12. Yeah.
I’m not allowed to buy anything for myself right now, because I have a fitness goal I’m working on, and when I hit that goal, my reward is a fun time at H&M. But at least I can go shopping for the kids now! I haven’t been shopping for Urban since before she was born, so this is going to be quite the cuteness party I tell you.
SOOOOO since I’m all bummed out that they are opening tomorrow and I can’t go shopping for myself (and because my kids are napping so I can waste time like this [though my mile-long to-do list would say otherwise]), I decided to make a little H&M wishlist.

Now I can just look at this everytime I go to shove another tree-shaped Reese’s into my mouth….

Capacity to Love. A Love Story

I’m totally and completely in love with this tiny person.

This story may start out a little sad…but trust me, it’s a very happy ending :)
I was so scared when she was born. Even more scared than I was to have Atlas. You think you would be more scared for your first child. I bonded with Atlas months before he was born. Not Urban. My fear wasn’t that I wouldn’t know how to take care of her, like it was with Atlas. My fear was that I wouldn’t love her, because my love capacity was so taken up by Atlas…to the point of bursting….
There were even times during my pregnancy with Urban that I wondered why I decided to become pregnant, because I couldn’t play with Atlas like I used to, and I LOVE to play with Atlas….we would rough house and run and jump and I couldn’t do any of that anymore, at times I was upset with the baby inside…. :(
When I went into labor, I called my mother….sobbing….uncontrollably….I couldn’t even talk. All I could think about was loosing time with Atlas. No more one on one. Being torn away from my baby boy, that’s what I thought this stranger about to enter my life was doing…. Sounds so horrible doesn’t it….

And then I saw her tiny face. Her helpless cry. Crying out for me, the one woman in this world the Lord entrusted this angel to. Why, I’ll never know. I do not deserve her. Absolute purity. Absolute innocence. Part of me that I’ve missed for so long (23 years and 363 days to be exact). And my capacity to love increased in that moment.

Then a few weeks ago, I was laying in bed with Urban, just laying there looking at her. She was looking back at me. And I was overcome with the spirit and I knew in my heart – I would do ANYTHING for her. I would die before I let anything bad happen to her. I think being willing to die for your child is pretty much a given with motherhood, but we had been so busy with the move and jobs and life that I had let my mind fall into a drone-like state of love & taking care of my family in a way that saw to their needs, emotional and physical, but not much beyond. This feeling was faaaar beyond. Through teary eyes I kept staring at her until she fell asleep and long after. She was staring at me too as she fell asleep. We bonded.
My love for her is far beyond any normal motherly love. Equal to my love for Atlas. Very different, but equal. Its so strong….I just want to like….curl my hands into fists and scream. Its just that strong.

I stare at her as much as I can now. Its all I can do to not grab my phone or ipad when I’m about to sit down and nurse, but I’m always happy I didn’t grab one of those once we connect and start staring into eachother’s eyes for ten to fifteen minutes…we will only share this special bond for a year-ish…its all I can do to get Atlas to look into my eyes for five seconds, let alone ten minutes!

This is my commitment to savor every moment

my baby girl will stare into my eyes.

My Commitment to stare back.

you're not picky, you just haven’t had it cooked right

There have been a few times in my life where I realized that I’m not really picky, I just had never had certain things prepared right, and turns out…I do like them!

Some life changing examples:

Guacamole – I HATED it until we went to Mexico on our honeymoon. Ever since then I’ve been hooked, it can be lame or gourmet, I will eat it. Same with Avocados….I will eat them for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, I just had to have delicious Mexican avocados before I was converted!

Green Beans – My whole life I had only ever had canned green beans until just like a week ago I decided to buy fresh….turns out they don’t make me gag this way!

Steak – One of these days, take yourself to a nice restaurant and just order that $22 dollar medium-rare steak, it will change your life. There is more to life than chewy, overcooked grocery store steaks!

And this weekend Mike (my FOODIE hubs) made some groundbreaking progress with my palette…SUSHI!

I would like to personally thank HOW DO YOU ROLL restaurant (and mike’s master ordering skills) for changing my mind! I thought I didn’t like Sushi. I’ve had sushi so many times with Mike, been very open to liking it, and put forth my best effort to do so. Mike loves sushi. He’s always wished I liked sushi. He’s long believed that our marriage would be better if I liked sushi.

Since this is right next to Mike’s work, he kind of goes there all the time, so he was able to put together the PERFECT order for a non-seafood and non-sushi lover such as myself. Here is the recipe/order that converted me:

 Exact Order of perfection: (By the way, its only like $8/person….a score for sushi!!!)
Soy Wrap
white rice
Ahi Tuna
Avocado
Tofu Skin
Sprouts
Chili Marinated Red Onion
Cucumber
Topped with crunchy Tempura & Creamy Miso
Dipped in Ponzu w/ a touch of wasabi

Mike is so excited that our marriage can finally move forward.

Austin Adventures

This weekend we checked out this awesome public park with peacock’s roaming around. It was a beautiful park and a beautiful day. Its interesting how beautiful animals like this just seem to emanate a powerful peace….not necessarily because they are peaceful animals (are they? These ones were just so domesticated)….but because I can’t help but think about God’s joy in creating these things to make this world beautiful.

The park was very “ruin-sey” feeling. Old stone and crumbling walls (that I’m sure have been made safe). There were three or four ponds with huge koi fish (I think that’s what they were….)

Its called the Mayfield Park, you should definitely bring a packed lunch and a book to spend a quiet afternoon there some day if you are in the area. And I’m pretty sure your aloud to feed the birds bread, because we saw other people feeding them.