Five Years Ago Today.......

My, have they changed just a little?

What we are up to at the Hall house

What we are up to these days:

SCHOOL IS OUT! The kids have been busy playing in our muddy backyard, taking walks (even Kade is walking now), playing with friends, bugging Rhett and Natalie incessantly and building a fort in the "woods."
I GOT A JOB! The big kids started going to daycare 2 days a week while the babe goes to my sister's so that I can start working more for Adam. He needed to hire a secretary and since it would be cheaper to pay a little babysitting rather than an employee, I got the job! The pay is really really lousy though, like non-existent. Haha. But I am excited to keep up on my accounting skills and keep my brain fresh in case I ever need it one day. Lol. The daycare that the kids are going to does all day field trips on Tuesdays and Thursdays such as hiking to the Y, bowling, swimming, Jump On It, etc. so Mick and Vic get to have some fun adventures while they are away and Kade is loved and well taken care of and only a block away if he needs me. And I find my boss extremely attractive ;)
I AM ALMOST BACK TO MY PRE-INJURY RUNNING! Loooving it!
ADAM IS SUPER BUSY WITH WORK. He works an average of 14 hrs a day 5 days a week and a few on Saturday. It's a struggle sometimes but it beats the pants off having no work, that is for sure!
I hope to have more exciting news to report of super awesome things we did by the end of the month. Wish us luck!

Welcome Summertime!!

Lately, I have been running off an average of 4 hrs sleep every night, getting lots accomplished, feeling super happy, yada yada yada. Is it because of the warmth and longer days of sunshine? Maybe, but whatever brought it on, I'll take it!!

I have felt midly to severly depressed off and on for as long as I can remember but it really took a bad turn when my dad died and Tori was born in 2005. I tried everything to get better during that next year, but now looking back, I think it was just something that had to run its course and I couldn't change much about it. Finally mid 2006, I started taking anti-depressants. They were a godsend and finally turned my funk around. I won't go into any more dark details about that time in my life other than to say that I did feel better and able to function but never completely happy or optimistic. I really thought that maybe I would never know what it is like to feel happy.

Also at this time, I started running long distances. I have always been into excersising and being active, but never really considered myself a runner until Tori was about a year old. Running had a magical power to make it so I could cope with the rest of my day.

Fast forward 5 years- In February I noticed that I felt not sad or depressed but super irritated and angry all the time. Anything I couldn't change myself would just eat at me and bug me to no end. I felt short and rude to the kids. I hated my teeth, my weight, my color of hair. Some of my favorite people would bug me for no real reason. I couldn't sleep at night from nervousness. The list goes on.

I decided to dump the anti-depressants. Now, I am not saying they are bad or people shouldn't take them. I loved them when I needed them, but I think that once I didn't need them anymore my body started to notice the side effects of them. I went off cold turkey (which they say is not reccommended, oops.) A major side affect of the brand I was taking was anger and nervousness. Within a week, I was falling asleep immediately, I had so much more energy, the kids seemed so less hard to deal with, etc. I was loving this new me.

A few weeks after this I ended up not being able to run due to an injury in my back and glute. Adam says now that he kept waiting for me to have a complete breakdown cause he knows that running keeps me sane. I HATED that I couldn't run and I felt sad off and on, but I never did get super down about it.

Also at this time, I finally grasped the true importance of positive self-talk. Actually what got me started on it was a book about running. It tells us how at first its hard not to want to say negative things so until we learn not to say negative stuff, we should just end our sentence with, "but it doesn't matter." For example:

"I am so tired of the kids getting the house dirty, BUT IT DOESN'T REALLY MATTER because they are happy and laughing."

This last mile of my run is so long, BUT IT DOESN'T REALLY MATTER because I am almost fininshed anyway."

My legs are not as toned as they should be, BUT IT DOESN'T MATTER because I can lift weights & eat better from here on out."

I started doing that in my head and after a while, I got to where I didn't want to think or say those negative things anymore.

The next step was thinking and saying positive things to myself. Now I don't go around bragging about myself, but when my cookies come out of the oven tasting great I make sure to give myself a little pat on the back, or if my run doesn't feel as good as it should have I make sure to find something I enjoyed about it anyway and tell Adam when I get home. I tell myself over and over while I am running that I am freakin' awesome that I am even out doing it when most of the USA's population are not fit or healthy.

And it is AMAZING what this has done for me........ AMAZING. I am happy, truly happy. I didn't even know people could feel like this. It's an addicting feeling too. It keeps making me want to find more ways to see the positive in life, kinda like it's a game.

I have so much excitement for life now. I do need to add that I do still have bad days and a couple of negative thoughts a day, but I am able to move past them quickly and re-focus.

My friend, Kira, and I had a discussion about how we heard God hears what we say, sees how we act, and also knows what's going on in our hearts and minds, but Satan can only see how we act and hear what we say but he cannot read our minds. So if we act happy and say happy things, then Satan cannot use our negative thoughts against us to make us unhappy. Pretty cool thought, huh?

I know this was long, but I hope that someone reads it and gets something from it, and I really hope that my kids read it someday.

Positive thinking and self-talk really really do work. Please try it! That's all I have to say about that. :)

Baby Eagles Spread Their Wings

Victoria and her awesome teacher, Mrs. Barnett.

Victoria had her little Kindergarten Graduation Program today. I love to go to these. The songs are so cute and I am really proud of her and not only of the "book" smarts she has learned but because it seems to me that she is growing up to be a sweet nice young lady.

I feel bad now that we didn't get a picture of her with her Aunt Natalie. Natalie came and even brought her a little graduation present. It's so fun to have family close enough to do these things with us.

Our Super Awesome Weekend

Last Friday Adam being the great dad he is took all 3 kids down to St. George to help Rhett and Natalie move back here to our neighborhood in their new house. ( Super Awesome thing #1.)

While they were there, they made a trip to an awesome park that St. G has, it's a lot like our new playground here in Spanish Fork, but bigger. Adam does such a good job on photos even with our normal cheap $100 camera. I love these:

Adam said that this group of girls were in love with Kade and swarmed him the whole time. I have to say that they have excellent taste. Love those eyes :) This may be where he picked up the nasty stomach bug that he got on Monday though. I don't think putting your mouth on playground equipment is the best idea for health and wealth.While the cat was away, us girls sure know how to play! Robyn, who has been my friend for 20 years (yes, I am that old ) came out to spend the night and run a 5k in Provo with me. We hooked up with our other friends, Lily, and Jessica for dinner and shopping the night before the race.
Here is Robyn in her new running shorts from Sports Authority. No worries, she took the jeans off to run in them the next day. Haha. We had a pretty entertaining time in that store. Ask the guy with excellent hearing who loves Kneader's tarts and the poor lady who didn't lock her changing room door well enough. :)

Just getting ready to leave the next morning.

Here we are left to right: Jessica, Lily, me, and Rob.
So this was my first 5k and I had no idea what to expect. I knew you just ran fast, not holding back like you do in long races so I did. Ran a really fast first mile and burned myself out a little too fast, the next mile was up a steep hill and it was terrible, then felt better that last mile and picked it up again some. I was still disappointed with my time but I had been injured and off running for the last 6 weeks and hadn't trained for any hills so I was okay with it. Robyn and Jessica came in a minute behind me and they were a little disappointed with how hard it was also. We had breakfast, watched the winner of the half marathon come in, and left.
Later, Lily dropped by and tried to hand me her medal (She won 1st place!). I couldn't figure out why she was giving it to me but she explained that it was mine and that I had won 2nd right after her in our age group. Haha, I never expected that. I felt better about my race after that. LOL. Jessica won 3rd, and Robyn, by half a second, 4th place. So all four of us girls won 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th. Are we totally in sync or what?

Here is a cheesy pic of me with my medal on. Pretty awesome feeling.........Then I got to top off the wondeful weekend with a perfect Mother's Day on Sunday. The kids made me the cutest books and Adam let me be lazy all day.

It really was the best weekend EVER!

I lose more rolls of toilet paper that way.............

Egg-Dying 2011

The Prep:

In the Process:

Just for cuteness:

The Proud Display:

( I don't have a clue what Mick is doing in the background. Maybe having a smoke break? Lol.)

The Finished Product:

We had a lot of fun with these this year. We drew on them with crayons while the eggs were still hot out of the pan. The crayon melted and made some cool designs. Then we colored them in the egg dye. We will being doing that again next year for sure!