Detox Week

That's what my friend calls the few days after Grandma goes home: detox. On account of we've all stayed up way too late and had too many treats and parties and not enough sleep. Gagh.

And I know you've all been sitting hunched over your computers, weeping and hitting the refresh button over and over again waiting for me to write on my blog. So that's my excuse.

On the up-side, we've had a pretty fantastic last week with Grandma. She got here on March 7, and Katie decided right then and there that she was going to be superglued to Grandma's side the entire week. When we put her to bed that night, she said, "Good night, Grandma! I'm going to wake you up tomorrow!" She never failed to keep that promise.

I know right? We don't look anything alike!

We didn't do that much out of the ordinary while she was here, but our regular business was way more fun. For example, she seemed to bring the sunshine with her, and Katie got to actually ride her bike a little bit. We went shopping, read probably a bazillion stories, and, between Mom treating us and the various birthdays, ate a lot of food.

One thing's for sure, though. My mom is super great. We went all crazy the week before she came because Mike had a week off between quarters. How did we spend it? Cleaning our house. Both because it needed it and because we really didn't want my mom to come here and spend a week cleaning our house. So what did she do? Wash most of the dishes while I was holding babies. Scrub the kitchen floor while I was taking a shower. Start my laundry while I was at the store. Geez, Mom. Do you have to be so awesome? Next time, I'm going to make a schedule full of crazy fun things to go out and do so that you won't just come in and clean my house. Also, I sure love you.

While she was here, she had a birthday (yay!) and also Mike had a birthday (yay!), so there was an abundance of cake. For Mom, I made vanilla-almond cupcakes with white chocolate frosting. They were like magic. I'ma have to make them again. For Mike, well, let's just say OMNOMNOMNOMNOMNOM. Grilled chicken with goat cheese and lemon butter sauce, mint moose tracks and caramel caribou ice cream, and angel food cake (which I make from scratch because baking is the one thing I know I can do right). Yeah, you're jealous. Now I have approximately four holidays' worth of decorations in my kitchen. I should probably take several of them down.

I just saved us hundreds of thousands of dollars with that present right there that he's holding.

In my effort to distract myself from my mom leaving, we got all crazy on the new healthy resolutions train. For example, Mike convinced me that Joshy's hair was getting a little gender-neutral. Heaven forbid his MAN child get confused with a girl.

The best part? Those faces they're making in the "after" picture is what they automatically do whenever I point the camera at them. Turns out that having a mom who frequently (some might venture to say "excessively") goes on picture-taking binges results in kids who know how to pose. Score one for the Mommy!

That night, after the kids were in bed, Mike and I had a goal-setting meeting (cue forboding music). The results? We're forcing ourselves into some new healthy-eating habits and some exercise, and we're continuing our 30 minutes a day scripture challenge, but we're starting the New Testament. (We just finished a Book of Mormon challenge where we read 10 pages a day, but I think 30 minutes will be better.) I'm totally jazzed about reading the New Testament (I haven't done it seriously since, like, college), but the whole diet and exercise thing is not making me a particularly happy mommy. We're even doing it right, with no extremes, and we're still allowed moderate treats and snacks (you know, the healthy kind). But I've been an emotional eater for a long time. And just two days of this is already making me into crazy diet impatient mom. This is bad.

But I know that in the long run, this will be better. We'll be happier, have more energy, and, eventually, I might have good self-esteem again. Who knows? In the mean time, here are some adorable pictures of my family.

Happy (maybe for real this time) Spring! I'll try to be better now that we're getting back into real life and a routine and all that jazz. And hopefully the sun will finally cooperate and melt the giant snowbanks that are still there even though it got up into the 50s last week. Maybe.