November 2015

November 1st, our family was still celebrating Halloween! We had the Stoker Halloween party that day up at my brother's house in Clinton. His son, my nephew, Zeke was set apart to become a Deacon that day and was given the Aaronic Priesthood as well.

Curious George and The Man With the Yellow Hat

Popeye and Olive Oil- the winners!

Katniss and Peeta

My family is so fun. They all dress up! We took a vote on best costume and my brother Mike and Nicole won for being Popeye and Olive Oil and they tied with my younger brother Tyler who was a bearded pirate. 

I had to snap a picture of the girls with our pumpkins before throwing them out:

This was also my last night to be "bad" with eating. So I pretty much ate all of Lily's good candy (her Reese's, her Kit Kats, etc.) and ton of homemade chocolate chip cookies Aunt Diane gave us. I went to bed before I got too full and sick with treats!

Come Nov. 2nd I was ready to get down to business! I started the 21 Day Fix Extreme. This involved exercising for at least 30 minutes a day (following a schedule of workouts) and following a nutrition plan that is portion sized based and eating as cleanly as possible. Every day I got to have 3 green containers (about 3 cups of vegetables) 2 purple containers (about 2 cups of fruit), 4 red containers (protein servings), 2 yellow containers (carbs/potatoes, corn/peas/tortillas/breads/rice/treats/etc.) 1 orange container (seeds and dressings), 1 blue container (healthy fats like almonds and cheese), and 2 tp. of healthy oils and butters.

Every day on The Hungry Mom blog I posted what I ate, what exercise I did, and how I felt. I had a few cheat treats and meals here and there but mostly stuck to the plan and did so pretty easily. It is a very satisfying and nutritionally dense diet. Plus drinking Shakeology every day helped curb my cravings and give me an energy boost!

I ended up losing 9 lbs. and 11 inches! I felt really good after too. I haven't been eating the best since then and can feel a major difference. I need to get back on track!

This month Lily and I went to the dentist. We both were cavity free! Lily was so brave this time! I was proud of her.

My sister-in-law Nicole also took our family pictures this month. I will do a separate post of those :). To prepare for the pictures I went and got my hair done by my friend and old wardie Stephanie Tenney. She did an amazing job! I love it. 

We still had some sunny days so we went on a beautiful walk around the pond park that is behind Lone Peak High School. We walked down a trail we had never noticed before (we swear it must have been hidden) and found a beautiful ampitheater and a staircase made of stones and lots of cute benches and little bridges and scenery. It would be an amazing place to take family pictures and we plan to next year!

Amber and I took a UEN class together to help renew our teaching licenses. I was an idiot and thought the class was Wednesday and Thursday. Tuesday morning after finishing my workout I check my phone and I have a bunch of missed calls, texts, and emails from Amber and Michael trying to get in touch with me! First I thought something terrible had happened. Come to find out the class was that day and Wednesday! I was supposed to pick up Amber so I let her down and she had to drive with her hurting back and hip =(. Last minute Alison agreed to watch the girls and I headed up there getting to class almost 2 hours late! Luckily the teacher was nice and didn't make a big deal of it and I still got my 1 SUU credit. Few! It turned out all right in the end but I was extremely stressed and mortified! Amber and I still had fun going to lunch both days and hanging out :). She helps make those classes bearable! They really aren't bad. Just get a little boring sometimes.

The girls are starting to play more together. Its so cute! One afternoon they were Mickey and Minnie together for like an hour! I think we need to go back to Disneyland!

Lily and I got to have a magical Mommy Daughter date and girls night with our friends Amber and Sophie, and Mickelle and the other Lily :). We went to Disney on Ice. The girls all dressed like little princesses and Mickelle made the moms matching shirts that said "Official Princess Protection". They were so cute! We ate out at Zuppa's together first (probably my favorite reasonably priced restraunt) and carpooled together up to see the show. Lily was absolutely enraptured and loved it so much. Since the characters were all far away she felt safe to watch them and enjoy the show. She gets freaked out seeing them up close. We had so much fun! I think I might have loved the show even more than Lily. My favorite part was when Rapunzel and Flynn Rider kept grabbing onto long sheets of yellow fabric meant to be Rapunzel's "hair" and were just flying around the the stage doing cool tricks and poses. It was awesome!

Our kitty is still the best! He is sweet, affectionate, cuddly, and nice to the girls. We love our Toothless!

We also have some pretty adorable girls!

A bunch of us in the Stoker Family went and saw the new Charlie Brown Peanuts movie. It was really cute! I took Lily and Michael stayed home with Lucy. Lily was laughing and loving it the whole time. She brought along her Snoopy. We all had $1 popcorns too. It was fun!

Lucy fell asleep eating breakfast one day since she had been up since like 4 am

Thanksgiving:

We had two Thanksgivings again. We went to the church across the street from my parent's house and ate together with my family from about 1 to 4:30. My sister decorated the tables all so cute with magnetic boards showcasing pictures of our family and lots of cute fall decorations. We had the kids do the traditional Turkey Race which is always so funny. Lily put a sweatshirt on too and walked around like a turkey for a bit but didn't want to do the race. Michael thinks its down right freaky!

At 4:30 we headed over to the Malouf home and celebrated with them. More yummy food, family, and fun. I am so thankful for my daughters, my wonderful husband, and our extended family on both sides. We are so blessed. 

Most of the cousins. We are missing Holly, Zac, Bentz, Max, Katie, and Cami.

Elsie, Jayme, and Lily all pretty in black and grey

Lily got to go to her first BYU Basketball game with her daddy and her grandpa. She had so much fun!

 November was another fun and busy month. It flew by and December has already started to zoom away as well. This is such a fun time of year celebrating the holidays with our little families. The holidays are even more fun when you get to see them through the eyes of your children.

October 2015

Our little pumpkins :)

We love Halloween in our  family, so October was a fun month!

Now Lily likes to strike this pose from time to time :)

 Conference was pretty relaxing! I made cinnamon rolls as is our tradition and we all snuggled and watched conference together. Lily colored her Doc McStuffin's Magic Marker coloring book and the kitty watched her and admired. Lucy showed off her excellent upside down skills. On Sunday we went to the Maloufs' house and had some delicious lasagna! It was a great weekend!

We had a lot of beautiful, warm days in October. we went to the park a lot!

Because I have a sister, I'll always have a best friend. 

Princess Anna had a beautiful hair cut

I got to read 5 Little Pumpkins with Lily's Preschool class. It was so fun! 

Grandma and Grandpa Malouf got a cute new kitty. Her name is Molly! She is so cute and sweet and playful.

Lucy is still obsessed with my hair. She even has to hold it while we shop in the grocery store. She likes to rub it on her nose, mouth, and ears and on her sippy cups, stuffed animals, and the cat :)

Look who has the cutest freckles!

I got to go on a field trip with Lily's Preschool Bear Hollow. We got to have 2 other little friends ride in our car and play with us at Hee Haws. They loved the corn pit, playing with the animals and choosing their own pumpkins to take home.

Lucy had her 15 month appointment. She is growing great and healthy and happy! She says "kitty, meow meow, mommy, daddy, and Lily." She is really good at going up and down the stairs.

Lily painted her pumpkin from Hee Haws to look like Cinderella's Carriage!

She loves her little pumpkin!

Michael and I went on a double date with my parents to see The Adam's Family at the Hale Center Theater in Orem. We loved it! It was so funny and the actors were wonderful.

We went to Cornbelly's in Lehi with our friends, The Stapleys Lily and Lucy loved the Pumpkin Princess Land, the Pig and Goat race, the corn pit, the hayride and the corn maze. It was a fun but very chilly night!

Lily's Magnet Monsters

Our sister-in-law's sister got married. The Maloufs all went to celebrate with Lexi and Jared. Blake and Lily were such cute little buddies holding hands and running around together.

My students had their Halloween Piano Recital! It was so fun. The students all performed really well.

I also became a Beach Body Coach!!! I love Shakeology so I decided to be a coach for the discount and to maybe help others on the way. I'm a huge fan of all of Beach Body's workouts so it made sense :).

It has been a busy couple months! In 2 months I wrote 55 blog posts for The Hungry Mom, a few for Savvy Stoker Sisters, I self-published 3 books on Amazon, wrote another romantic novella and submitted it for publishing, became a beach body coach, started teaching piano lessons, Lily started preschool and dance, and Lucy became a very mobile and get-into-everything toddler! It has been crazy but fun and rewarding too!

We have a fun Harry Potter themed fitness challenge in our beach body coach group coming up in about a week! I participated in the last one and it was such a blast and very motivating. This time I will be the Professor of Defense Against the Dark Arts so its going to be even more fun!

Lily was excited with me when my 21 Day Fix Challenge Pack came!

Getting into the Halloween Spirit!

So Creepy!

I'm their favorite couch.

Lily is still loving dance with her buddy Sophie.Lucy likes to color while we watch them dance away.

I got to help with Lily's Halloween Class Party. It was so fun! The kids are adorable. Miss Molly does such a good job. Lily was the leader that day so it was fun watching her say the class prayer, lead the Pledge of Allegiance, count the days on the calendar and call on kids for activities. Then we had the great honor of bringing Little Bear home with us for the weekend!

We went to the parade at Freedom Elementary School with the Stapley's so we could watch Ryker walk through who is in kindergarten! My students from my last year there are in 6th grade but I hardly recognized any of them! It was fun to see old teacher friends and the cute kids.

Then we visited Daddy at his school Mickey and Minnie together at last!

Later that night on Halloween Eve we had our "Pumpkin Night". We picked up a Pumpkin Pizza from Papa Murphy's for dinner and then carved our pumpkins. It was some fun family time!

That is how Lucy always holds poor Toothless. He doesn't seem to mind too much though.

Finally it was Halloween! We went over to Chris and Alison's at 5 and ate a delicious dinner with them and then we all went trick-or-treating with the Malouf cousins (except for Ryan and Emmy) in their neighborhood. Lily loved it so much. Little Bear came along with us dressed as first Minnie Mouse as well and then as a cat when Lucy didn't want to wear her hat anymore. They traded :)

It was so fun! And Halloween still isn't over! We are celebrating it again with my family today for Zeke, Elsie, Talmadge, and Kyler's birthday parties. We didn't have time to get together until today. November 1st is still a little bit Halloweeny, right?