Down 30 Pounds!!

Before (February 2008)

After (April 2008)

I know what you are thinking, "why would you want less of such a good thing"? The weight loss is actually an awesome side benefit to the Isagenix cleansing program that Janese and I have been doing. I am still pain free and doing great! I am also wearing pants that I haven't been able to wear for the past three years. They have been sitting in the "some day" section of my closet and have been almost on their way to Goodwill several times. Janese has lost 14 pounds and looks incredible, but I was told that if I put her picture up I would be killed, and I believe her.

Slacker!!

I have been such a blog slacker these past couple of months. I do not know how these bloggers that do multiple posts a day stay on top of things.

We have been very busy since my last post. Janese and I took it upon ourselves to paint the entryway and the upstairs and downstairs hallways of our home. It took a lot of paint, tape and sweat equity. Also since Janese can climb a really high ladder, but can not function once a few feet off the ground, I had to tape and paint all of the vaulted sections of the entryway. It went very well except for one night when I did not have the ladder high enough on the wall. In the middle of painting the ladder started to slide back down the wall. I started screaming like a little girl and Janese had no idea why, because it was a slow slide. Finally I was able to get some coherent words out of my mouth and she saved me from plummeting to my death. I was actually more worried about dumping a gallon of brown paint all over the entryway. It was the only gallon of brown we had. I also made enough noise to bring almost all of the kids running out of their bedrooms, after being down for the night, wondering what the heck was going on. The kids didn't appear too concerned about my dangerous situation and seemed more to enjoy telling me I scream like a girl.

Everyone is very busy. Tyler started a new season of hockey. His first game of the season is this Saturday. Madison, Zakary, Tanner, Megan and Makena all have some type of music lesson on top of Scouts, Young Womens and Activity Days. We need a full time chauffeur that can cart all of the monkeys around for us.

I'll post some picture of the new paint job and of the kids. Our new landscaping is starting to bloom and grow and it is very exciting. Once we get more growth I'll have to post a before and after picture of the landscaping as well.

Since my gorgeous picture below I have done two more cleanses. I am not down 26 pounds and several pant sizes. The weight loss, living pain free and new energy is awesome! The expense of buying new clothes is going to suck.

Garrin & Janese

Last month we went to Mike and Carla's ward to bless their new baby. His name is Garrin and he is a cute little red head. Janese, Megan and I all took turns holding him throughout the afternoon. Even though we already have eight kids of our own we can't seem to get enough of babies. We will sometimes plan where we sit at Church so we can steal someone elses baby during the meeting. We get an instant baby fix and they get a small break. It's a win win!

The best part is after the meeting is over we get to give them back.

Cleanse!!

I know what you are thinking, "That is one burning hunk of a gorgeous man!". Also no, I am not posting naughty pictures of myself on the Internet either. I started an Isagenix Cleanse on January 27th and ended it this morning. I don't know if you can notice much of a difference in the pictures, but on top of feeling incredible I lost 12 pounds.

The other great benefit from the cleanse is I haven't had a headache in 11 days. Before this cleanse I was taking 800 to 1,600 milligrams of ibuprophen a day. I haven't taken any since I started.

Now it's all about keeping my improved health going.

Party!!!

Makena and I were both born on the 3rd of January. Normally that means I get to blow out candles on some girlie pink Barbie cake. This year Janese out did herself. On top of some awesome gifts we each had our own cake.

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Makena's Baptism

Makena was baptized today. She was very excited. I think she was most excited about getting her scriptures, which is a family tradition. After every kid is baptized they get a new set of scriptures as a gift. We have six down, two more to go

Makena was lucky she actually got baptized today at all. It seems like we always run into some type of problem on baptism day. On Tanner's, people forgot things important for the meeting and Ireland threw up all over the place. His Uncle Brad ran over to him and picked him up and proceeded to run him all over the room with Ireland throwing up, making sure they spread the barf over every part of the room. They acted like some type of horrible vomit sprinkler system.

When we arrived at the Church for the service at noon, the ward before us thought they were being helpful by draining the font and putting back all of the chairs. Somehow they failed to remember that 5 or 6 other wards had baptisms after them. We had to wait for 45 minutes to re fill the font with now freezing water. Once it was high enough they turned the water off and started the meeting. When it came time for the actual baptism they realized that the seal was not put in the drain correctly and most of the water we had put in had drained half way out again. Makena was baptized by her Grandpa Gillam and they tried to dunk her before the water was completely gone, but after two tries they gave up and we had to wait for the font to fill up a second time. Finally on the third try Makena was officially baptized. Quinton will be baptized in November of this year. I hope all the kinks are worked out of the system by the time his day comes along.

After the service was over and after dragging everyone out of the Relief Society room, we went to the Gillam's for lunch. They are wonderful people and great to be around. They take great care of the kids. It ended up being a good day. Joy made an awesome lunch and we hung out for a couple of hours.

It was a good day that I am sure Makena will never forget.

Thank goodness for my ipod!!!

Merry Christmas!

I want to wish our family and friends a very Merry Christmas. I hope everyone had a wonderful day with family and friends. I wish we could spend the holidays together, but being spread out throughout the country makes that difficult.

We had a great day. Janese and I got up at 6:30 am and got ready for the attack. I think this is the first time in my life that I took a shower before opening presents on Christmas morning. Normally I am woken up and dragged out of bed, but not today. I actually had to wake some of the kids up.

Our tradition is to open gifts one kid at a time, youngest to oldest. With eight kids that can take a while. It went by pretty fast this time. As the kids get older they mainly want electronics, which lowers the overall number of gifts they get due to Santa budget constraints. We video taped a lot of their opening of gifts (courtesy of Panasonic) and caught the different squeals of delight and excitement.

After we were done opening gifts, the downstairs looked like a Best Buy blew up in our family room. There was stuff every where. I spent the majority of today assembling all of the different toys, adding batteries, and trying to keep everything organized. Janese and I also helped everyone open up the boxes and take the toys out. In their excitement to open the box, the kids practically rip the toy itself apart. It does not make it any easier that the toy is virtually cemented inside the package with all of the tape, wires, and screws they use nowadays to keep everything in place in the box. I guess the ride over from China can get pretty bumpy?

The favorites this year seem to be the Guitar Hero III, Nintendo DS, Legos, iPod Nano, cell phone, and the many Wii and DS games. Some of the kids have not been seen since we finished opening gifts this morning. I am sure they are creating Lego villages in their rooms as we speak.

Thank you again to everyone for their awesome gifts. We appreciate your love and support and wish you all the best in 2008. We love you all tons and can't wait to see you again. Merry and Christmas and Happy New Year! May you be blessed with all the best in '08!