My New Year's Resolution...

This past month i've been thinking about my life and about myself and about the things i want to change. I like to think i work on all those things daily, so i wanted to pick one of those things and sort of put it under a magnifying glass, so to speak, and really focus on it and try to "make the change". So what i decided i needed to focus more on and really get serious about is my love of...(clear throat) addiction to chocolate...I seriously LOVE chocolate. Mostly just M&M's...i could eat anything chocolate any time of day, breakfast, lunch dinner and of course dessert, but M&M's i feel like i constantly crave. At first i thought chocolate, or M&M's, was just "my thing" like some people's "thing" is soda, or gum, or "fill in the blank"...you get the point. But when i'd rather have chocolate in place of a meal, every day, at every meal, is when i realized this isnt just a "thing" it's a problem. SO a week ago or so i decided for the entire month of January, 31 lonnng days, i am going to give up ALL chocolate, (i was going to allow 2 cups of hot cocoa a week but decided against it). My hopes are that after 31 days of not eating any chocolate at all my body will no longer crave it, at least not to the extent that it does now. I want a much healthier body and I believe this is the first step. So for a few days i thought about this, giving myself pep talks about the upcoming month-all along stuffing my face (horrible picture!) with anything chocolate around the house, because, you know, i'm afraid i'll regret not getting what i could, when i could! So something, motivation, hit me during that week of eating chocolate and thinking, and i decided that i'm going to give up.... ALL JUNK FOOD....for the month of January, all 31 days of it. Not one piece of chocolate or junk food will hit my lips. I'm absolutely decided on this, now i'm just trying to draw out my boundaries (are wheat thins considered junk food, etc). I had to post this blog because for one i am very competitive, so knowing that you all have read this i will hold to my word and not cheat, not even once, i suppose for fear of "losing". In my mind, i would see it as you all "winning" if i cheat-fail, and because i like to be the winner, i cant cheat on the new set of rules. I also wanted to post this for support and help from you guys, ideas on healthy snacks and meals that dont' make me feel like i'm living in the rain forest eating bananas all day long and not carbo-loading and defeating the purpose. I know there are tons of tasteful, easy, healthy snacks and meals out there, so i'd appreciate any ideas you might have for me! One last part-i have an "abb wheel". It's a small wheel with a handle on each size, you get down on your knees, grip the handles, put the wheel to the ground and roll it outward until your nose touches the ground, then slow and controlled, all the way back to your knees. anyone that has ever tried one of these knows that doing about three of them will kill you for about a week afterward! haha, i love it, almost instant gratification. So, i've always wanted to do it 20 times a day for one month (all in one hit or 10 in the morning, 10 at night, whatever i'm feeling that day) and see the results, i've tried before, but lack of motivation and competition left me quitting 2 or 3 days later. So i figured this is the moment to do it! then i kept thinking(i know i know, i think too much) that if i'm down on the ground doing abb wheels, i could handle 100 crunches and 10 REAL push ups (i'm out of shape, so 10 is like woah, for me).I'm excited to measure my arms, legs, stomach, and weigh myself new year's eve and again on February 1st and see how it's changed! So to recap. My New Year's Resolution in a very healthy "nutshell" is:

• Absolutely no chocolate
• Absolutely no junk food-no chips, french fries, cookies, ice cream,no drinks containing calories, etc
• 20 Abb Wheel, things, a day.
• 100 crunches a day
• 10 push ups a day

I know most people think it's dumb to do the "diet" thing for a new year's resolution but i think if it gives you the motivation, go for it! (josh is not into the crash dieting thing-smart man-he set longer term goals to get healthier) again i am doing this not to just lose weight, but to really kind of flush my body and start off eating how i should. I don't think Heavenly Father gave me this body to fill with all sorts of crap. I'm hopeing this will jumpstart me, mind and body into a much healthier lifestyle. I don't plan to never eat those things again, just in much, much smaller portions. ... I hope any goals you set, will hlep improve your quality of life, and i offer my support :)

GLOBAL WARM THIS!

I know there are psycho people out there on the Internet so i try to be careful about saying where i live exactly etc. But i just have to say i live in the coolest place EVER. It gets super hot in the summer which i love, it cools down in the fall and all the trees look so pretty and it also snows! way too cool. Not to mention, we can go dirt bike riding from our back yard practically, not too far at all from the beach, and like an hour from 5 ski resorts. come on. so cool

I was out of town visiting family the day it snows, of course. Murphey's law? About 10min away from my house on the way home the pouring rain turns into a beautiful soft white now. I was the only one driving with my arm sticking out of the window :)Riley wasn't sure what to think, she wasn't dressed for it when we got out of the car, she had just woken up and it was night time. but we did let her eat some snow
It's hard to see since it was night, but since i was last to drive down our culd-a-sac(sp?) you could see just where i came in, sorry i'm so excited about this, i just think it was awesome.

I kept walking outside just to look at it. It was beautiful.

Randomness from the past month...

As if writing 100 new blogs just to update life, in one sitting isn't random!

The new best pacifier in the world, or at least that's what riley said...RING POP!

New Beanie, she had me and josh laughing so hard. She would put it on just like this then try and walk around. She kept running into the couch and falling over...haha, bad parents you say? Well, she seemed to be enjoying it too..so YA WE DID, we just let her do it!

Aw, my lil baby
Unfortunately this doll has a story.My mom brought this over with a few of my other childhood and high school things one day. Now that i have a house with storage, i get all my crap back. a very sarcastic "yay". Well this was with it, so when i saw it i called her and asked her if i was supposed to keep it, if it had sentimental value to her. And she said that it didn't to her, she thought it might for me. I used to like porcelain dolls when i was little, but nothing too expensive because i liked to play with them. I think a neighbor gave this "thing" to me, haha. Well anyway, i was ready to toss this scary looking doll with a SCRUNCHY still in her hair when Riley laid eyes on this beauty. She fell in LOVE with it. At the time she didnt have any other dolls (santa is bringing her a few and mom is being good and holding out until then) she went right to it and gave it a BIG kiss over and over...and picker her up and walked her all around, so i couldnt' throw her away after that. A week or so later, i was telling someone how i was amazed that porcelain legs and arms still hadn't broken, then right then, CRACK i broke her foot. but luckily, for riley, noone else, i was able to glue it back together...her doll was saved, but only for another week or so, i broke it again! I swear it was on accident, and this time no top notch surgeon could of saved it. So even though josh and i though it was hideous i was kind of sad to throw it away after all....Riley did recieve a new doll, plastic and soft, from her aunt for an early christmas gift. All is well in the fisher Home.

Check out this video. Riley has recently learned how to spin in circles, pretty funny, but what you can't really see, and it's the funniest part, she looks so hard out of the corners of her eyes as if to keep looking where she came from, so she looks just hysterical when she does it!

2 park trips in the past few weeks

The past few weeks have really been the longest days ever, with the exception of a few days. I dont know why, but i've just been bored out of my mind. I do feel exceedingly blessed that i have the opportunity to be bored out of my mind and that i'm not tied up having to go to work, etc. I guess i just have had a lack of creativity recently (open to suggetions of what to do with a 1year old with a low budget)

I finally got my behind in gear and we went to the park

I'm very pround of all the new skills Riley is learning, something as simple as learning to climb a new set of stairs really makes my day!
Or walking across a VERY WOBBILY bridge :) hold on!

That's right! Jessica WUZ here! haha, how dumb, "let's go to the park so we can write on the stuff and say we were here!" idiots

Another day we also went to a park with lots of ducks to feed them our old bread, and this time i met up with my friend christy and her sone cade.

Riley wasn't too sure about the ducks but she did try to feed them, she as just pretty nervous the whole time

Cade and Riley swinging. It was cute, cade wasn't into riley at all, his mom said he loves to find another boy at the playground and tag along with him, and that is exactly what he did!

Fake tree, what have i come to?

Riley, josh, my friend Elizabeth and i had fun doing some baking and putting up our tree. Not only do we have a fake-o tree this year, it's a borrowed one, ha! Then my parents ended up giving us their extra one. I love real trees and will always pick those over fake ones, but i just figure i'd rather a have a fake tree this year than spend 100 dollars on a real one, hopefully we'll have a real one in the future again. sorry no pictures of josh or my friend, josh isn't a picture person and my friend left by the time i remembered to take our picture! i hate that :)

Riley helping me out with the mixing...
She loves her new christmas apron a family friend made her!

And mommy loves her matching one! (my first apron, so cheesy, but i really was excited!)

We put all the durable, soft or expendable decorations on the bottom half so i didn't have to keep a constant eye on riley. Good thing too, she has a few favorites she loves to go pull off!

Frenotomy...

I think that was what it was called...On the 9Th of this month Riley went to an outpatient Surgery Center to have this surgical procedure done. Let's start at the beginning...this is a blog isn't it?! I can't make it too short, ha. When she was about 6 weeks old i noticed that when she stuck her tongue out it kind of forked and pulled, resembled a snake tongue a little bit...and i thought huh, that's weird. So i asked a few mom's at a play group i used to go to and they said "oh, she is probably tongue tied" and i was like what the heck is that?! Well, i learned that sometimes that thing under your tongue that kind of connects it to the bottom of your mouth can connect to far forward toward the tip of one's tongue, which is exactly what happend with Riley. So i took her to her pediatrician and she said that it looked really mild and she'd rather wait til she is older and if it's causing a problem then we can go ahead with speech therapy and if that isn't helping then they can "clip" it or "cut" it or what have you. And, being a young, first time mom, i talked to josh and we were like hm okay. We also learned that if you notice this right when the baby is born, they dr will just come in that day or the next and just cut it right then and there, no hassle, etc. Most dr's don't even get an anesthetic...Well, a few weeks later josh and were still not sure how we felt about just leaving her tongue, we did like the idea of not having to put Riley in pain but it just didn't sit well with us to wait on it, so when riley got a little cold and i had to take her back to the dr's, her peditrician was out and we saw the dr in the office that was the one who actually does the tongue cutting stuff...so i asked him his opinion (by now riley was like 6months old) he also agreed that it was very mild and he looked at me, kind of pained like and said "i would of done this if she was more of an infant, i just hate to do it now. I hope you don't mind my decision to not do it" -how does one respond to that? so i said. Ok. Well, still not feeling satisfied months later, i sat down one day and said all the letters in the alphabet then i said all the sounds, holding the tip of my tongue down, just like riley would have to do and i realized that the sounds and letters that were the hardest were "R", "L" and "SH" sound...RILEY FISHER...would be more like Wilyey Fisa. sad! i told josh and he agreed, this needed to be dealt with. I talked to her pediatrician and demanded a referal to the ENT. LOVED HIM! He said, "i agree it's mild, noone knows if she will have problems with it or grow out of it. Regardless, i don't argue with parents, if they want it done i do it!" i was soo thrilled. I almost got him to do it right then in the office, but since she has teeth he said they need to put her under general anesthesia at the outpatient surgery center, and to top it off he still gives a little numbing shot under her tongue, "i like to feel like i'm doing something to help the pain" he said. So she went from...This poor little "snake" baby who could only stick her tongue down toward her chin a little ways, as it pulled and forked, and couldn't lift it up in her mouth toward the roof or from side to side...to a happy little kid who is moving in a new direction every day! I smiled so big today when i gave her a beater to lick cake batter off of and she could actually get her tongue far out of her mouth! what joy :)

The surgery went well, the nurses were so awesome, they had a toy room and everything. The saddest part was when Josh and I got her from recovery and she wanted her pacifer but she kept spitting it out because, well we think because, her tongue was numb, so it felt weird and she was crying. I don't think she felt any pain, i gave her a few doses of baby tylenol that day just in case. She came home and played and was a little drowsy, after a waffle and some fruit, i looked over from doing the dishes and this is how i found her! Too cute

So this bird...

So this bird has decided it needs to sleep above our front doors every night, for about the past week. It kind of freaked out when we come in our go out our OWN FRONT DOORS, so i've learned that when i am exiting our home i just have to run for it...or be dive bombed by this sparrow looking thing. We haven't had any incidences up to last night, it just kind of flys around our front porch until we are done coming or going. But when you are leaving our front doors you cant see it unless you are daring enough to stick your head far enough out and look straight up and a little back (exactly why i just make a run for it...) so last night Josh and I had a church activity we had to go to (where we played Joseph and Mary) of course we were running a bit late, so josh called on his way home and said i should drop Riley off at the sitter's while he was driving home so we could just hop in the car and take off right away...well i was trying to be really on top of things, Riley was taking a nap so i decided i would go put my purse and sweater in the car so that when i got riley from her crib i could just run downstairs and hop in the car with her...okay, time to exit our house...you never know if this bird is there, but since it was night time, my guess was that it was sitting it's little bird butt right about the door. I tried to look but was not gutsy enought to really take a good glance so i decided ill run for it...this is where i made my mistake, i left the front door wide open and ran! Well, i looked back and there it was, just sitting and staring on it's little perch that is becoming poopy :( i put my stuff in the car and came back...we had a little stare down, and nothing...we were in a stalemate. SO i think tomyself, what are my options? I could run i the house, the bird will most like start flying around and scare the crap out of me, so instead i pretend to (this is where you guys can totally start laughing at me by the way!)... i PRETEND to throw my keys at it, hoping it would get scared and fly away...nothing. not a blink of it eye. SO then i take of my sandal...yes that's right, laugh it up and pretend to throw my shoe, nothing! this bird, i'll tell ya...so then i think ok i'll really throw my shoe at it, not to hit it but just to scare it so i could get in the house because A. it was really cold out and B. it was already time to get riley and go, since i spent so much time with this bird! (side note: SOOOO glad that josh and i have never agreed more on anything then on the side of animals. we both dont' like them., and never want a pet! we dont' mind when we visit other people with them. it's always fun to play with a puppy, but not in our home! anyway, although i dont like animals at all, i still never like to hurt them or see them hurt). So i threw my shoe, aiming next to it, VICTORY, for a split second. The bird took flight...right into our HOUSE!!! great....right?! so it was flying around our entry that is two stories tall...not knowing what to do i just look at it in disbelief as it lands on our blinds at the very top...i hurry and open up both of our front doors and then run to the kitchen to get a broom, not that i could reach the bird anyway. Well when i came back it flew into our hallway UPSTAIRS and right into our master bedroom...oh geez, only when you have somewhere to be does this happen! so it's flying circles like crazy over our bed and i'm scared of the dumb thing for some reason so i would peek in the door then get scared and run into our laundry room...haha...i called josh and he talks me into shooing it out with the broom...then i call the sitter because i didnt' know what else to do...i needed to talk to someone! and she had a level head and told me to open the windows in our bedroom and take off the screens, so as i BRAVELY entered the war zone and did so, the bird flew into our closet :( oh after pooping on our dresser, i might add... then i got a little riskier and started to try to aim it, with the broom towards a window...no luck, the thing was probably so scared of me, as i was of it. It just kept up in circles. so finally, i called josh again and he said to just shut the door and take riley and that he would take care of it when he got home (by the way, he thought i was a wus for shreaking and making all sorts of girly noises on the phone, he thought this PSYCHO bird would be no problem) after i dropped off riley and got back home, i came up stairs to find josh fighting the bird still! ha, it wasnt' just me being a whimp! He was getting all frustrated, and i wish i had my camera at this point, but we were already running late...the bird by now was in our bathroom and josh opened the window and door to the toilet room and we were trying to get into that room so we could shut the door and go. This bird was getting so tired but not giving up! we finally get it into our laundry basket and shoved it in the bathroom. Slammed the door, took a breath and just thought what a crazy night! we decided we should turn off the bathroom light, hoping the bird would go out inot the real night...so we left and went to our church activity, sure that when we got back the bird would be gone...we come home go upstairs and i open the bathroom door to find....

uh huh, the bird! still in the same place....
So the fight was on....the laundry basket was back out...

and the broom ready...josh finally just locked himself in the bathroom with the bird and basket and after a lot of thudding, he came out victorious....

And that my friends, is the story of the bird in the fisher home....

Amazing Gift Anyone Would Love!

If there is anyone out there who is stumped on a christmas gift for a loved one this year visit http://personalizeddoormat.com/c/french_quarter and you can order them a welcome mat for their front door with their last name or anything (up to 15 characters) written on it! I recently posted a blog asking for help to find one in my price range and Josh's cousin found one for me. I ordered one for my sister in law (that is what she really wants for christmas for their new home) and it only came out to be $34.50 including shipping and handling! There is a coupon code to recieve $5 dollars off your purchase EARLYSHOP08 so be sure to plug that in at checkout... On the same website there are even cheaper ones if you just want to write their initial...like i said if you are stumped on a gift you might want to check this out, it is super personal so whoever you give it to will know you really thought of them...merry christmas!