Sleeptracking

Today was my first day as an official sleep tracker. For those who wake up cheerfully each morning blissfully unaware of the almpost painful grogginess some of us face each morning regardless of the amount of sleep gotten, just go back to bed. For you normal readers, have you heard of that new watch that is sensitive to movement and is supposed to wake you up in the morning at a time when you are in a light sleep phase rather than dreaming so that you wake up more refreshed and alert? Well I have. I read about this new alarm watch called the sleeptracker a couple of years ago in the reader's digest (yes I do read this magazine cover to cover each month). I was intrigued and considered buying one because I am always almost desperate for a way to make mornings less horrible but decided to wait till it had been around for a while to see what people thought of it. The fact that the watch was way out of my price range may have had something to do with it as well. Anyway, every birthday and Christmas I have debated asking for this watch but have never pulled the trigger. Some people swear the sleeptracker changed their life but others didn't think it made any difference and there were different issues with volume of alarm, size of the watch (earlier models were huge) etc. and it was still so dang expensive. Well the new model seems to have solved most of the problems and happened to be on sale at woot.com so I got it for Christmas this year (I found the deal, put it in the cart, entered credit card/shipping info etc. but Aaron came over and clicked the last confirm button so it counts as his present to me).

Anyway, for some reason I am having a hard time keeping this short and sweet but my sleeptracker arrived and though I left it in the box for a couple days planning to wait to use it till Christmas a couple days ago something happened to change my mind. Those who have known me a long time know that I talk/walk/dance etc. in my sleep. I am glad that we didn't have cell phones with video cameras when I was younger or I might have been the embarrassed subject of a youtube video. Anyway, I have been sleepwalking a lot lately and it is really disturbing my sleep. Sunday night was one of these nights and I woke up out of my bed 4 times. I woke up Monday tired and grumpy wishing there was something I could do about my sleep patterns but I think it is just genetic (I could go on for hours telling stories of a couple siblings nighttime adventures). I have tried to monitor what I do and eat before bed but I cannot come up with any pattern that coincides with my sleepwalking. Enter the sleeptracker.

I used my new sleeptracker to monitor my sleep last night. Of course since I was monitoring it I actually slept soundly for once but even though I don't remember waking up at all I still moved around quite a bit and had less time between movements than normal. Anyway, I am going to monitor my sleep for the next couple weeks along with keeping a journal of eating/exercising/stress before sleep so try to come up with any ideas of how to stay in my bed where I belong at night. Here's hoping.

Romeo and Juliet

This is a conversation I overheard between my daughters Gwen (10) and Maddie (8).

Gwen: I like our song about Romeo and Juliet but I don't think they were very smart.

Maddie: Why not.

Gwen: Well Juliet pretended to be dead and instead of making sure Romeo drank poison and died too and then when Juliet woke up and saw Romeo dead she killed herself too. I think that is just stupid. If that happened to me I wouldn't kill myself, sure I would weep for a couple of days but I wouldn't kill myself about it.

Maddie: Yeah, me to.

I am glad that my girls aren't overly dramatic and have a love of life, I have always felt kind of the same way about Romeo and Juliet, they seemed overly dramatic, immature and selfish throughout the play (yes I know I am a cold and heartless woman). The part I found hilarious is the fact that Gwen used the word weep rather than cry. You can tell she reads a lot because I read the word a lot more than I ever hear it. I think that I am going to start using the word from now on.

First Day of School!

This year I made a goal to enjoy the my summer with the kids and not wish the whole time that they were back in school. I feel like I did a pretty good job but I will admit I was not sad to see this day come. Things are just so crazy in the summer and it is so hard to keep things structured for so many different aged kids and without structure they get bored and cranky. Anyway, today was the first day of school. It was Brock's first day of middle school which made me very nervous. I didn't like middle school and have heard horror stories from another mom who took her kids out of school because he was being bullied. Anyway, I am still a bit overprotective and it doesn't help that my oldest is more book smart than social smart. Well he just got home and said that middle school is awesome so one day down a lot to go. This year is also a first for Liam, he is now in first grade and goes to school all day. In his case I am more worried for his teacher than for him but she seems like a very patient woman so here's hoping. Gwen and Maddie are also very excited to go back to school though at back to school night last night Maddie only said one word to her teacher so I guess her shyness didn't disappear over the summer. And Gwen is the leader of the pack, a big fifth grader who loves school and gets along with just about everybody. My one child that I am not worried about right now which probably means that she will give me the most gray hairs as a teenager which she is quickly approaching. Overall I think it will be a good year and it sure was nice and quiet in my house today with only the two little girls.

Oh the Blogs I Could Blog

Oh the blogs I could blog if I just had the time
I could add awesome pictures, I could make my words rhyme

I could tell of our trip to Saint George for Spring Break
I could tell of my son's request to buy him a snake

do you want to know the home improvements I've lately made?
how about my fitness goals and how much I last weighted?

Oh the blogs I could blog if I just had the time
I could add awesome pictures, I could make my words rhyme

If I just had the time I would tell all of you
about soccer and swimming lessons to name just a few

of the many fun things that keep us so busy
if I told you them all you would start to get dizzy

Oh the blogs I could blog if I just had the time
I could add awesome pictures I could make my words rhyme

I love the Spring weather but not all the work
the yardwork is something I wish I could shirk

We've planted 10 trees and chopped down 3 more
my allergies are awful and my back is so sore

Oh the blogs I could blog if I just had the time
I could add awesome pictures I could make my words rhyme

But alas there is so much to do that indeed
I don't have time to write, I don't even have time to read.

Before Pictures

I usually don't put up "before:" pictures until I had "after" pictures to go with them but I am having a hard time getting motivated to get my latest project done. So here are some before pictures of our playroom.

First off you will have to try to ignore the 5 year old who did his very best to get into every pictures I took, as cute as he is the pictures are supposed to be of the playroom, not him.


I kind of cheated in that I left the playroom messy for the picture and didn't fold up the treadmill. When I do those things the room looks a lot better but I figured this way the end result will look even better right?
So the problems with the playroom are: I hate hate hate the rag-roll painted walls, the room is way too crowded, the exercise stuff block the toys and it is hard to watch tv while exercising or sitting on the couch.
My plan is to paint the room, rearrange the furniture and install a wall-mounted tv that we got from Aaron's grandpa for Christmas. It is going to look fabulous if I ever get up the go to get it done.

5 weeks

I have now been exercising regularly (4-5 days per week) and eating healthy for 5 weeks. Now, since it seems like every friend or relative I have has run some kind of half marathon/marathon/triathlon etc. I know that this will not impress any of you but it happens to be a record for me. I hate to exercise. I like to play sports like volleyball and I like to go on walks and such but frequent and strenuous exercise is not my cup of hot chocolate (which I have not indulged in for the said 5 weeks). I also happen to like baked goods and fried food a lot more than I should. Anyway, here are the results of my amazingly long heath stretch:

Weight lost: 5 lbs.

Inches lost: 1

endurance improved: I can now run 3.5 miles without stopping instead of .5 miles. Again, small step for others, large step for me. I happen to hate running and have trained more for the quick (the baby has a steak knife) type sprints.

Healthy recipes found (tasty ones): 6

Recipes (or the foods made from them) I would not feed to my enemies found: 3

Improvement in energy: none

improvment of attitude: none

So some stats are ok, others not so great. I would be happy if the last two listed stats were better but oh well. Now that I have broken my record for longest health kick I think I will go eat some icecream and catch up on all the tv and projects that I haven't had time for (just kidding, I am still plugging along but I can't promise how long before I crash).

Our Beautiful Madeleine

Madeleine Eve Redman is our third child. In fact she is a third child of a third child (me) of a third child (my mom). Does that mean anything? When Maddie was born I had a 2 year old a 1 year old and a newborn so sadly my memories of the time were of incredible stress. However, if I were to do it again I would space them just as I did. Maddie and her sister Gwen are best friends and have a great time together so hopefully that makes up any lack of attention.





Maddie has always been a sweet and happy little girl. When I read back over my journal entries from when she was a baby (there are a couple) I was always commenting about what a cheerful little one she was.Maddie is a very girly girl and has always loved singing, dancing, princesses, dress up, and all those other estrogen associated activities (though I have had a son or two who likes these things as well). She was a cute chubby toddler though she is skinny as anything now.
I mentioned earlier that Maddie and Gwen are the best of friends. I love how well they play together and how kind they are to each other. I hope that Mia and Evie are as good of friends as they are.

You wouldn't think it to look at this picture but Maddie is incredibly, sometimes painfully shy. Her shyness started as a toddler and I remember her sunbeam teacher asking me if she could speak. This was around March so she had been in the class for over 2 months at this time. We worried about her in school because she absolutely will not talk to people she doesn't know well and if she is upset she won't even talk to me and Aaron. She has had a couple rough times in school when she got upset or lost and wouldn't talk to anyone to get help but she has had some good, understanding teachers and she has made it through. Last year when she was in 2nd grade, about half way through the school year the teacher asked her a question during class and she answered the question. A boy in the class yelled "Maddie can talk!" and the whole class cheered for her. The mom of another child told me later that her son came home and the first thing he told his mom was that Maddie could talk.

On the other hand Maddie doesn't seem to have much stage fright at all. Her teachers have told me how surprised they are when they give her a part in a class play or reader's theatre and she will get up there and perform without a problem. She will also sing and dance for others, go figure.

As the picture shows, Maddie definitely has her saucy side as well, at least when she is at home. She was a rockstar (she called herself a cheetah girl because her skirt was cheetah print and she had heard the phrase from friends talking about the real (but not nearly as awesome) cheetah girls). She looks way too old in this picture and it gives me a queezy, I am soon to begin the teenage children years, feeling in my stomach.

Maddie turned 8 on January 21st and on January 30 she was baptized by her dad. This was my third baptism as a Mom and I will just say that it was just as special as the first. The spirit was so strong and I was so happy that Maddie was my daughter and that she was making the choice to be baptized. It was a truly wonderful day. I think the hardest part for Maddie was being the center of attention. We were worried about her Bishop's interview because we knew chances were she wouldn't talk to him but we asked him about it and he said a nod was just fine (thank goodness because that is all she gave him). She did a great job and looked beautiful in her baptism dress.
Happy Birthday Maddie! You are my favorite 8 year old in the world and I love you.