Family Wall Hanging

For Christmas this year I made my parents a wall hanging that says "family". There are 6 letters in the word family and there are 6 kids in my family. Each letter represents one of us kids. So I made different images to put on the front of the letters that goes with each individuals personality, hobby's, things they are good at, you know stuff like that. I also had everyone write a message for mom and dad and put those on the back of their letter. I really hope that my parents like the gift! I think it turned out pretty cute. Here are some pictures of it =DThe back where everyone's messages are.




Hopefully you can tell what everything is on the fronts but if not here's a list of what they are and my thought process

F (Sarah) sewing machine and spool of thread with needle. She is awesome at sewing
A (Josh) mixing bowl, various ingredients and cookie. Makes amazing cookie bars!
M (Lars) a open book. You could be "deep" and say Lars is like an open book or that he has to study a lot for law school however you'd like to look at it lol
I (Darby) “comedy/tragedy” mask, paint brush and paint splatter. No brianer because she is artistic.
L (Maren) knitting needles and a cozy home. Have you seen those adorable hats she's knitted for the boys? They are GREAT! And she has made such a cozy home for her family
Y (Ashley) scissors and Patch. The scissors could represent a lot of different things for me... doing hair or anything crafty that I do tend to need use of scissors at some point. And Patch b/c she's my baby!

and here are close ups of each of the letters because they took awhile to design and actually get made so I want to show them off =D

hair

So I finally have redone my color ... it was sooooooooo faded the browns were a red color, my hair ALWAYS fades to red which is amazing because I've stopped using color that isn't pure ash (blue) base but it still fades to red! And it's not like a little bit red it's like people ask "oh so you've put red in your hair" Nope! That's just what it does. Anyways off of my hair stylist rant lol here are some pictures of my hair :)


I really like it to be mostly brown with highlights now a days ... well to be fair it's pretty even between blond and brown but the brown is a more dominate color.... And who's noticed how long it's getting? YAY!!!! Finally it grows soooo slow. Welp that's enough talk about my hair :)

offended much?

I've realized that the older I get the more easily I get offended by people, and honestly most of the time it's silly things that are taken wrongly and then multiplied and than I go looking for other reasons not to like that person! Can you said crazy lady? *conducts the chorus of crazy lady* And other times I feel justified in my getting put off by someone and instead of wanting to revolve those feelings I just avoid being that person because, heck, that's a whole lot easier than given them a chance to "redeem" themselves. Which is dumb how can someone make up for something they didn't even know they did. Everyone say will say something that will offend someone else without even knowing it.

Case in point there is a woman in our branch at church, for those of you who don't know we're in a care center for our church calling which we LOVE! (no sarcasm we really do love serving there) but there is one woman that is just a bit ornery, she's made comments about a dress I wore that she didn't like, she's asked me if I'm pregnant (which I'm not people I just carry my weight in my tummy!!! lol) and quite a few other things. So when we were at the center doing some visiting we ran into LaRae and she was telling us that she "apparently" had offended a lady that lived there and the woman told LaRae that she would NEVER talk to her again and has been true to her word. But the thing is LaRae had no idea that she had done anything to this woman and was upset that she had. LaRae told us she tries not to offend people which goes to show that even the most "offensive" people probably don't mean to be.

This post is just for my benefit really to show how silly it is to become offended by people and to let it interfere with being friends with someone or harboring bad feelings about someone. It's not showing so-and-so anything all it's doing is hurting ourselves. For one you've lost a friend and two you're the one left with the negative feelings. So silly! So I guess the whole reason for this post is to show that again I'm NOWHERE near perfect and that hopefully it'll help someone out there. I know there aren't a whole lot of people who read my blog but still hopefully it helps someone =D And if I've ever offended you I'm SO sorry I didn't mean it in that way and I didn't mean to hurt you at all. I'm in this whole journey called life along with everyone else and I make just as many mistakes as the next person if not more and I apologize for my insensitivity and hope you'll forgive me if I have cause you to be offended.

Parents

I saw this posted on a cousins blog. It was very powerful and I feel the need to share it on mine as well

http://www.danoah.com/2010/09/you-just-broke-your-child.html

It just breaks my heart to know that there are children who aren't getting the love they need and have the god given right to have in their lives.

weight loss progress

So I know I still have a pudge but I don't think it looks bad it just a little cushion ... I'm still planning on working out and loose more but here's some tummy shots. Hopefully you all can see a difference and that I'm not just crazy. (and I'm a bit bloated from being that time of the month so I actually am a bit smaller than this)

=D

Losing inches is fun! Haven't lost anymore pounds which I honesty could weight 500 lbs as long as I looked good lol I don't think that's possible ...well I guess wolverine is pretty heavy with all the metal (yes I'm a nerd, I know) Anyhow the latest measurement update 2 inches off my pudge YAY!

turbo jam

So I know it's not huge, but I've been doing the turbo jam videos for almost a month now, and it's working! I've lost anywhere from 5-8 lbs (my weight fluctuates like no other I swear I can range within 5 lbs within a day! I think it's crazy) and I've lost about an 1-1 1/2 inches around my pudgy area on my tummy which is what bothers me the most the rest of me doesn't bug me at all. I wore a fitted shirt to church yesterday and people actually noticed that I had lost weight! Yay me!