Day One on WeightWatchers

I chose the Core Plan--where you don't have to measure food or count calories. You just eat the healthy foods on the list until you fill full, but not too full. I really do not like counting calories, writing down what I eat, and measuring portions. The Core Plan works better for me. I don't want to be hungry or suffer any when I am losing weight. I did notice yesterday that there are quite a few foods that I consider healthy that are not on the core list. Such as Bread and Peanuts. Also the dairy products on the list are all non-fat. I went to the store yesterday and could not find any dairy products that where non-fat; there were reduced-fat or low-fat, but no non-fat. Also with this plan, I will have to be prepared with things for me to eat that are on the list. When I make meals for my family, I will have to take out a portion for me and not add the fattening things to it. With the CorePlan, you do get 35 points a week for foods that are not on the list. Yesterday, I used 8 of them. You can see that I will quickly use up all my points if I keep that up. Today I will be more careful.

Weight Watchers

I finally got around to signing up for WeightWatchers. I went to the first meeting last night. It was fun. I am excited. I really think I need that support. I have been preparing myself to loose weight for several months now. I have read some good books and learned a lot about what to eat and what not to eat. But, I still felt like I needed the support of others who are changing their way of eating. Also, I think the weigh-in is motivating for me. I do not want to get on that scale and see that number get higher.

Just one more week

I am way excited! Our missionary, Elder Anderson (Justin) comes home one week from today. We are going to pick him up at the airport at 11:06 p.m. Not the greatest hour to take seven children up to Salt Lake and wait at the airport, but I would go at 2:00 a.m. with twenty children if I had to to get my boy! Well, I say boy, but I am sure that I will find a man at the airport. A mission does amazing things to a boy. You send them out all immature and with the best training and teachings of the Gospel as you where able to give them and then letter by letter (or email by email) you see your little boy turning into a man and gaining the greatest testimony of the Savior. Sharing the Gospel with those who do not have it on a daily bases does amazing things to ones testimony.

I am sure that Justin will have a lot of adjusting to do when he is home. He plans on signing up for school and working with Steve. But it will be a huge adjustment for him where for the last two years everything was Gospel centered. I am excited to have him in our home and and I am sure his diligence to the Gospel will rub off on us some. Just having two missionaries out has made us have a stronger desire to live the teachings of the Gospel.

I think when Jared comes home, I will miss having a missionary. I will be thrilled to have them both home...safe and having served honorable missions, but it will be sad in a way too. It has been the greatest experience to read their letters and hear of the people that they are teaching and to feel of their love for them. We have been blessed greatly by giving our sons to the Lord. He has kept them safe and taught them much.

It is very bitter-sweet. It is heart-wrenching to let them go not to have contact with them except through letters and the two phone calls a year....but you feel extremely blessed the whole time they are gone and you don't want the time to ever end....yet you are counting the days until they return. The ultimate in bitter-sweet. I love it!

Our New House

These are some of our cute kids on our front porch of our new home. We moved here the middle of January and we love our house and the city.






The house looks small from the front, but it has been added on to and is about 3800 square feet with six bedrooms and two baths. Perfect for our large family.




The street is lined with these great shade trees. They are beautiful especially now that they are in full bloom. Main Street also has these trees on both sides for several blocks.

Here's the side view; you can see the addition.

Here's the other side and the carport. There is storage above the carport that we havn't even began to use because there is so much storage in the house.

The livingroom is the first room when you enter through the front door. It is long and skinny. It has a large doorway that leads into the kitchen.

The livingroom has this nice built-in bookshelf.

This bedroom is off to the side when you come in the front door. At first, Shautel was using it for a room, but we moved her upstairs with the other children and we are using this room as an office.

We are just loving the large kitchen. It has a beautiful floor that doesn't show all the dirt like our last kitchen floor did. It doesn't have a dishwasher, but we have found that we keep up with the dishes better without one because we make sure all the dishes are done instead of thinking, "oh, we'll get the rest of these in the next load"...which never happened because the next time you went to do dishes, there was the ones that you left plus enough for another load.

It has a nice big pantry in the back of the kitchen. It is a cleaning closet/pantry/coat closet.

Across from the pantry is the upstairs laundry. It has been so nice having it right in the kitchen. In our last house, the laundry was downstairs and we where always behind on laundry because it was downstairs where we didn't see it all the time. Now, it is right in the main hub and we are always throwing in a batch. The sink in the picture is what we call the "kid sink". This is where they wash their hands so they aren't using my sink.

This is the other side of the pantry, it has a built-in china cabnit, which I hope to have china to put in it someday, and a computer desk.

The master bedroom is huge! We have always just had room for a bed and a dresser until now.

This is the other side of the master bedroom.

This is the master bedroom closet.

There is a main bathroom right off the masterbedroom and at the bottom of the stairs that leads to the children's rooms.

These are the stairs that lead to the children's rooms. When we first saw them, we knew the children would naturally want to slide down the built-in slide on the side there. Steve sat all the children down and discussed how that was not going to be allowed. As of today, I would guess they have only slide down it about 200 times. Steve threatens to make them pay to replace the carpet, and someday I think they will have to.

At the top of the stairs is this little area with a closet.

The are no doors on any of the four bedrooms up here, but this one has a curtain. It is like a loft, yet there are four separate rooms. This one has a window-seat with storage under it.

Here's another bedroom. You can see that the upstairs has an A-frame shape to it.

The two bedrooms on the other side are really one bedroom with a partial wall in between. Both sides have these great cubbie-holes.

This picture shows the built-in bookshelf where we keep all the children's books.

Here's the other cubbie-hole. Plenty of hiding places for hide-and-seek. This really is the perfect loft for children to grow up in.

Here's the bedroom accross from the cubbie-hole.

Now we are have left the upstairs and are heading to the basement.

This is the familyroom.

Off the family room is an extra sink. There used to be a kitchen down here. I use this for grinding my wheat and making bread in my bread machines.

This is the downstairs laundryroom. My dream-come-true; two laundry rooms! No, the jeans in the picture are not our laundry, these where jeans I was selling on ebay.

This is the second bathroom. Yes, it needs some work, but the toilet, sink, and shower work. In our last house we only had one bathroom, so this extra bathroom is heaven!

This is the food storage room. Look at all those shelves!

And more shelves. We are using them for stuff instead of food right now. Maybe one day we will have them full of food storage!

Underneath all these clothes is our back patio. This was my ebay business; shortly after we moved, I decided to partner with my mother-in-law and sister-in-laws and move my business to my sister-in-laws place.

There's the clothesline which I use everyday now.

Here's the cute little workshop. It is actually not little. It has a basement, an upstairs, and a main floor. It is 900 square feet. Orginally, I was going to use it for my ebay business, now we use it for storage, yard tools, etc...

This is the upstairs of the workshop. We call it the play house, although we need to do some child proofing before the kids can actually play there.

There you have it, the completed tour of our new house!

Elder Anderson (Jared) Serving in Des Moines, Iowa

Jared is the one on the right

Elder Anderson (Justin) Serving in Panama City

Introduction

Hello. This is my youngest baby, Niekelle, she looks just like me. Todays blog is a quick update of what I have been doing for the last 14 years.

Steve and I got married in the Salt Lake Temple on May 22, 1993. We each had been previously married with two children. Steves two children (Stephen & Kaloni) where living in Idaho with their mother and my two children (Justin & Jared) lived with us and where sealed to us in the temple that day.

We decided that we wanted our children to be close in age so we would have one every two years. At the time, we didn't have a number, although looking back I was thinking about 6 and Steve was thinking 5 or six. (this number includes the 2 we both already had, so we where both thinking about four more)....we now currently have 11 total...four from previous marriages and 7 together...although they are all "ours".

So, there you have it, the last 14 years, I have been pregnant, nursing, and pregnant and nursing. In fact, I have been nursing pretty much nonstop for the last 13 years. And... I have been pregnant a total of 81 months/6.75 years of my life. I'm not complaining...I always say that I feel healthier than ever whe I am pregnant. I love the whole woman thing...you know, breastfeeding, menstrual cycles, birth, labor, mothering.... Shortly after my fifth baby was born, I certified as a birth doula. I support women physically and emotionally during labor and birth. I also taught childbirth classes for a couple years and certified as a Creighton Model Fertility Practitioner (Natural Family Planning Instructor). So, I've been having babies and helping other women and couples to have babies or not have babies, whatever it is they are trying to accomplish. It has been a real wonderful time of my life, I learned so much about live and about myself by serving other women in their "woman thing".

I started selling clothing on ebay about 2.5 years ago. I ran into a guy who sells bales of clothing. I sort through the bales, take what we need for our family, and sell the rest on ebay. It has been a blessing for our family. I figure we pay about .07 cents for a piece of clothing...not bad. We have more than enough clothing for our family, were before we always stuggled to clothe the children. A few months ago, I partnered with my mother-in-law and sister-in-laws to work the ebay business. I just was feeling to busy and not able to do it all myself. It has been great having them join with me and the business is starting to take off.

I am one of those people who do way too much and am always looking for more to add to my plate until it gets so full that I throw it up in the air and start over...hopefully not to fill it so full next time. Right now, I am throwing it up in the air. I took a brake from teaching/attending birth and natural family planning during my ninth pregnancy and this year, I have let go of the ebay thing, except I am helping my in-laws a bit. Mostly, I take care of the emails and I plan to start helping them sort clothing once a month or so...to help and to get clothing for our family as well.

Right now, I am working on putting my efforts into my family. My goals are to support my husband so he can make more money to provide for our family. This means keep a organized home, have his needs taken care of, and be there for him emotionally and spiritually. I also am looking forward to having more time to home school my children... I meant to meantion that, we have been home schooling for 12 years. I also want to work on homemaking: I like to bake, and I love the idea of the old fashioned housewife....cooking from scratch....making my own breads, muffins, etc.. canning, gardening....Since we moved to our new house in January, I have been hanging our clothing on the line....it has been a breath of fresh air, I love it. Steve remembers growing up as a kid and seeing his mom hang clothes on the line. He would always play in the clothes and she would get on him to get out of the clothes. He loved the fresh smell of line dryed clothing. When we where looking for a house, we both would get excited if it had a clothes line and the one we bought had one. Oh and did I meantion that I have been saving $50.00 a month by not using the dryer!

Lets see, what else can I throw in before I better go find out what my children are doing... Justin in serving an LDS mission in Panama, he is due to come home in 3 weeks and 4 days...not that I am counting...and Jared is also serving in Iowa. He has been out about 10 months now. We are loving being mission parents...our sons have grown so much spiritually and they are have matured so much. We have been greatly blessed to have them serving the Lord.

Here is the names and ages of our children:

Stephen 22

Justin 21

Jared 20

Kailani 19

Shautel 13

Kashée 11

Coleson 9

Taylor 7

Connor 5

Brinya 3

Niekelle 17 months

Children are gifts from God....