First Smiles!

Okay, I'm not intending this blog to turn into a Carter gallery, but it just so happens I never have time to write about anything useful and even then, I can only do it one-handed, so that's my lame excuse. Not that it's torture to look at Carter though. Seriously, could you die?

He started smiling several days ago and we just today captured one with the camera. YAY!

5 Weeks Old

Loving his swing.

Loving his sling.

They taste like chicken.

With his buddy Gavin, they were born on the same day.

Hello, Mommy!

3 Weeks Old and He Found a Foot Rest

First Bath

Five Days Old

This is a big mystery... how I found, you found me.

Yeah, Baby!

I don't have time to pour my heart out, which is the only thing I want to do for an announcement like this, so this will have to make do - along with the dishes :)

Yesterday afternoon we brought home our beautiful baby boy. Here he is all bundled up and ready to leave the hospital, showing his first little bit of attitude.

Is it just me?

Or is everyone most thoroughly enjoying Simon's relentless sexual harassment toward Haley Scarnato week after week?

"Unleash The Wild Side of Sanjaya"? Come On!

Sorry, but I just can't handle the first several grueling weeks of American Idol auditioning. It doesn't entertain me in the least bit and although America seems to get her kicks out of those few gems who are exceptionally "special", it's painful for me to watch. Truthfully, I'd rather shave my tongue. Ew. Now that we're in the bottom 12, I can actually bear my way through watching the rest of the season. Tonight's vote-off was no surprise. I felt it was justified. True, Sanjaya shouldn't be here but every season has that one person no one can stand that keeps going through to the next round so can you really be shocked?

Skipping over Chris Richardson, Chris Sly, Stephanie, Gina, and Phil (my next several picks to go home)...

The only reason Haley's not in the "no-comment" list above is because I can't help but point out the double-sided tape holding her shirt on for dear life. Am I the only one who noticed?

I felt Jordin sang fabulously, but needs to gain a little more control over those long notes. I sensed a nervous vibrato.

I'm so sad for that poor little girl crying in the audience. Everyone thought she was crying because she's Sanj's biggest fan, but it looked more like she pooped her pants and didn't know what to do about it. She looked terrified, although she's trying so very hard to keep it together and act natural so no one will notice.

Watch and you'll agree (sorry it's interspersed with lots of Sanj-nastiness):


Melinda Doolittle's "As Long As He Needs Me" was simply amazing. Top 4, I say.

Totally beside the point, every once in a while glimpses of Peter Noone look exactly like a blonde version of my uncle Steve.

A Much Needed Vaca

Steve and I have been married five years this May. We took a honeymoon but didn't travel far - just to Park City. We didn't have any money and knew we'd end up seeing the world together throughout our life anyway, so we figured why rush? It was perfect.

We keep planning vacations...Vegas extravaganzas, Hawaii, Italy, European tours, several cruises... even got SCUBA certified (well half of us...click to read story) we just never would put a date on our vacations, and somehow ended up here five years later without taking a one.

About 8 months ago we finally planned a vacation and promised this time we couldn't back out or postpone. And now it's upon us! We leave this Saturday on a 7 day cruise. I wish it would sink in with me...I can't picture myself on the plane or on the boat or on shore excursions or even packing clothes into a suitcase for that matter. It's so surreal and I'm completely freaking out about leaving my Dino and my Urban Botanic for 8 whole days. Breathe in.... Breathe out... On the other hand I'm totally excited to breathe in and breathe out in Belize and Honduras and Costa Maya and wherever else we're going.

Several of my friends had babies over the last few months and if there's anything I've learned from carefully watching and interviewing them, it's that this vacation of ours is much needed and in perfect timing. Apparently as soon as our baby arrives, vacations will be a no-go for several years. Well, we'll just have to see about that.

Digging Through Pictures

I was digging through some pictures today and found a few of my favorites from our wedding day. My how time flies.
I love this man.

Surprise, Surprise

Last week I received some exciting news. Utah Valley Magazine is a great, high-end magazine distributed locally. I was just flipping through the February issue and was very surprised to find that the magazine named my company in the top 3 "Best Products Made in Utah Valley". I was so excited, I asked the magazine to send me a PDF of everything so I could send it to my friends. Click here to view the article in a PDF... Very exciting!

An update on my smelly endeavors - Urban Botanic is now in 17 states and we're growing day by day. It is such a JOY to build this company and come to work each day with a great support system and the most wonderful fragrance designing Scent Consultants around the nation who are excited about our products and creating a business for themselves!

For those of you that missed it, I was also on TV last fall. It's pretty mortifying - what will I wear? What if I mess up? What if you can see beads of sweat running down my face? What if I accidentally snort while laughing? OMG WHAT.IF.I.FART.ON.TELEVISION? Then what???!?




So, it turned out okay. I didn't make a complete fool of myself, but it's still complete torture to watch. I cringe at my voice and my laugh... but I guess wouldn't we all - it's the self-critic thing. The bright side? I consider it practice for being on the Oprah show.

Pushing for $6300

It's Thursday again and I just had my weigh in for the week. I am now 242.3 lbs. That's 5.3 lbs less than last Thursday and another 2.13% body weight.

I promised I'd tell you what I am doing to lose weight. There are two things. One is my diet and exercise regime and the other is my motivation source. And here they are:

Diet
I'm doing a program called Isagenix and it's the easiest diet I've ever followed (and I've followed pretty much all of them). It's easier than Weight Watchers, South Beach, etc. My mindset has changed, so I know that's some of it, but what I love about it is that it is completely automated for me. I don't have to THINK about food which is a great thing because as soon as I start thinking about food, I start drooling over cheese and chocolate - although not together... hmmm maybe something to try as a reward sometime.

Motivation
I'm in a group of local people competing to lose weight. We all put in money each week which goes into a bank account set up for the group. Each week is a mini-contest on its own because the "Biggest Loser" for the given week, doesn't have to pay anything for the next week in the contest. 2nd place only pays a small fraction, 3rd place a bigger fraction, 4th place gets a small discount, and everyone else pays full price. There's enough people in the competition that the end winning pot includes $6300 cash for the one with the most percentage of weight loss. For me, because I'm bigger, this will be a challenge because if I lose 10 lbs and someone small loses 10 lbs, their 10 lbs kicks butt all over my 10 lbs. Last week with 4.9 lbs and 1.63% loss, I was in 16th place - still 15 from the bottom! ROUGH COMPETITION! Results don't come out until tomorrow morning but I did better this week than last and I have a feeling this is going to be a "tortoise and the hair" race. I may not be losing 14 lbs per week like our current winner (what on earth is she doing!?) but she'll slow down and I'm NOT backing out!

Wish me luck for next week.

Beginning Weight: 252.0
Current Weight: 242.6
Next Weeks Goal: 236.6lbs

Back In The Saddle

Ok I know rule #3 for blogging is to never make excuses about why you haven't been posting... So I won't! I was going to wait until my one year anniversary of slackerdom, which I believe would be May 17th but SURPRISE! My three readers get an early treat!

I have always hated New Year's resolutions. My New Year's resolution is usually to avoid the peer pressure of making a New Year's resolution. Simply because it's usually just a set up for failure and I believe if you want to improve upon yourself, you shouldn't wait until the new year. Do it now. Same with starting diets on Mondays. "Well, it's Thursday now, so I'm going to go ahead and order the onion rings because my diet doesn't start for 3 more days." We do it all the time.

This year, I'm taking a different approach. I do have some resolutions, but I'm trying not to associate them with the new year because of how that pattern goes. One is to stop swearing and the other is to lose weight. Both are out of control.

About 4.5 years ago I had some sort of endocrine FREAK OUT and in a couple of months time gained almost 100 lbs. It happened so fast I didn't even realize it. It was like one day I woke up, looked in the mirror, and went... "whoa, I'm fat!" I went from a size 10 to a size 20 but I didn't have time to buy any of the sizes in between because it really happened that fast. There are still imbalances in my body from the FREAK OUT, but things have in general worked themselves out. Now it's time to get this weight off. The only problem is, I've been faking myself out with negative thoughts like, "My body can't lose weight because I've been diagnosed with PCOS and dis-metabolic syndrome, and Syndrome X" Yes there really is a "Syndrome X". If you Google it, you'd think I couldn't lose weight either, but it's time for me to STOP letting the negative things doctors have been telling me all along affect my mindset. These negative thoughts I've had the last 5 years have been a toxic and enormous contributor to my maintaining this unhealthy state. I really have tried healthy ways of losing weight. But all the while, in the back of my head, I've wondered if they will work because of my Syndrome X. That shred of doubt is what failed me.

So time to poke a little hole in my mitote and start a new agreement with myself: I can lose weight. I have the same miracle human body as everyone else.

I'll tell you later about my weight loss plan, but for now, every Thursday at 11:30am is weigh-in time. Last Thursday my starting weight was 252. Today it is 247.9. That's 4.1 lbs in one week, people.

PS - Mitote is a "dream" or a haze we all have that makes up our perception of the world around us. Read about it in "The Four Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz. I love this book.

About Me

I am Kenna, married to Steve, mommy to Carter. I work full time at the fragrance company I started. My son comes to work with me most days, and as soon as we get home each night, life turns into laundry, dishes, dinner, and diapers. I rarely have time to get it all done before I crawl in bed to spend my last few waking minutes remembering that I am also an artist, musician, graphic designer, crafter, internet junkie, writer, and movie buff. Maybe tomorrow I'll have time to actually do them.

My favorite thing to do is laugh with my husband and cuddle my son. I blog for many reasons: a creative outlet, to wrap my mind around my thoughts, to remember the little things, to preserve my muses, and of course, to read your comments... so please leave them!

If you think you're my family member or friend, and want access to the "my family" section of this blog, email me at kennalyn1 at gmail dot com and I'll send you an email with the password.

Following are my other online contributions:
Urban Botanic
DesignCandy.net
Homemade-Spa
Domestication In Progress

Elle's Guitar Recital

Friday night I went to my 10 year old sister, Elle's guitar recital. It was so cool to see her on the stage strumming away! It's weird to me that I was just about her age when I started guitar lessons - and that she's now learning some of the songs that I learned during my lessons! Pretty soon we'll writing songs together :)

Here's a cute video of her on stage with her guitar. The loud voice you hear is her teacher, who needed to sing that loud to be a crutch for the students. But check out those mad skillz! Those base runs! That's my little sister!