We saw this during our walk and I asked, "Is this popcorn?"

"Nope," replied Josh. "Then where is it coming from?" I asked. There were no trees where we were. "There," replied Josh. Further down it looked like popcorn had popped on this here bush thing.

And Natalia thought, "Oh, so that's where popcorn comes from," or "I am soooo t..i..r..e..d..."

I just remembered I never talked about Tuesday. Josh took Tuesday off so we could go see the Avengers during the day with our free movie passes. Tuesday was a great day; it also served as a celebration for Josh's new job he starts on Monday (Hooray!).

So we started the day off by a morning walk. We really do live in the perfect place for walks. Going up hill while pushing a stroller is somewhat of a workout and going downhill while holding onto the stroller works the muscles too. The area is beautiful as well. Anyway, after the walk we got ready and headed to the new theater in Farmington. The Avengers was awesome!  I did cry for a few minutes when you-know-who died. We had watched him in other movies over the past few months and I had grown attached to him I guess. I'm still sad about it. He was one of my favorite people in the movie. I hoped he would come back alive after the credits or something, but he didn't. Anyway, the Avengers was great for several reasons. One of the reasons I told Josh is because it has a number of my "boyfriends" all in the same movie. I told Josh it was the perfect girl movie ha ha. We definitely want to see it again when it comes out of video, not just because I like most of the heroes though.

Oh yeah, during the movie I felt bad about the volume being really loud so Josh covered her ears during the movie except for while I had her to nurse her. Natalia did really well and was able to sleep for most of it.

After  the movie we went to one of our newly declared favorite restaurants, Rumbi's Grill. The funny thing is that we had our first date at Rumbi's Island Grill in Bountiful and I thought it was pretty gross, never wanting to eat there again. I thought they had pineapple in everything and I do not like warm fruit or fruit mixed with warm foods. Well, somehow we have found our way back to Rumbi's and love it. I got the Jamaican Jerk Caesar Salad with the dressing on the side; it was the best salad I have ever had. Mmm, I can't wait to go back in a couple months. (We allow ourselves to go out to eat once a month, if we can afford it.) Also, Josh had saved a $20 in case any special occasions should come up so we used that to pay for lunch.

After lunch we went to Menchies. This time I decided to put fruit in the bottom of the cup and then put the frozen yogurt on top. It was so good. Josh did the same thing and it actually weighed less than when we have been there in the past. I thought the fruit would add more weight.

So that was the end of our all day family date. It was nice. After Menchies we went to Josh's sister's house to do something with their new laptop. After that, we went home and Josh and Natalia ended up being asleep by 7:30, 8:00. Yeah, early, I know. I should've gone to sleep, but I wasted time or did something else instead.

All in all, it was one of the best days. I love Josh so much and am so proud of him. I'm so excited for him to work at Ultradent. He is the best.

Natalia doing an ab workout with Mommy

We had a cute one of us looking at each other with Natalia smiling at me, but I couldn't post it :( I love my Baby Girl. Good thing babies get cuter as they get older and smile more; it makes having a baby all the more fun.

Tonight we went on a walk to the library. It was great. We absolutely love living in Kaysville. We love the area. It was such a nice walk. For part of the walk we just walked in the middle of the street. It was funny when we reached an intersection and there was a guy coming the from the road adjacent to us who was also walking in the middle of the street. Oh, on our way out we saw a dead bird on our lawn. It was gross. I wonder how it died. On our way back, there was a guy walking his two dogs. He was singing some funky song. I forgot the words. It was funny. I admire his confidence. Oh and another thing, leaving the library I did lunges in the parking lot until we reached the street. It felt so good to start working my muscles more. Josh told me that I wouldn't like it tomorrow though. Tomorrow is going to be awesome, and I'm sure I'll enjoy the soreness too. Josh took the day off and we are going to go see the Avengers. We are also going to eat waffles, fruit, and cliff bars (during the day). Mmmm.

Before I talk about the weekend, here are a couple pictures from the Sunday Natalia was blessed. I feel like we have so many pictures of Josh and Natalia so I try to get more of her and me. Her shirt says "I Love Mommy." It's so cute. We got it from Amber and the girls, along with a million other cute clothes. I love Natalia's jeans. They are my favorite.

My baby is so dang cute. We got the pacifier holder thing from Joann.

This is Natalia's first time in a swing and of course we caught it on camera.

 

Now onto last week. Last week was a good week, they all are. It was a terrible week for my eating healthier goal though. We had chips and these delicious spanish crackers that I snacked on everyday...there's a lot of extra calories not needed. Tuesday is when I weigh myself...dun dun dun. Anyway, this weekend we made Josh's dad a card with the following 4 pictures. It turned out cute. We're secretly in the running for favorite couple...ha ha jk.

 

I am a genius. I am not a cook by any means. The way I cook is put things together and stick it in the oven, hoping it'll turn out. Usually we eat brown rice and chicken. I made this baby by putting frozen chicken in a casserole dish, added a cup of brown rice (Thanks to Liz), 2.5 cups of water, some frozen snap peas, and a can of pinto beans. I added some taco seasoning on top, put it in the oven, and it actually worked! I didn't think the rice would cook. I checked on it after an hour and the rice didn't look like it had cooked at all, but after waiting longer I saw that the rice was actually cooking. Josh like it and it tasted pretty good, especially with some salsa. I was very pleased with my experiment and it's pretty healthy. I'm sure it's high in sodium because of the taco seasoning, but I used the less sodium version. Next time I'll add in some onions or peppers to add flavor instead.

My favorite part of the weekend was going on a 2 hour walk Saturday morning. Here is Natalia all bundled up. She is just so dang cute. Oh and happy 7 week birthday! She turned 7 weeks this Saturday, which is when we took this picture. 

It was a chilly morning.

It's the cemetery! I got lost on a walk I went on with Natalia earlier in the week and ended up by the cemetery. We had walked to Bowman's and a few of the other stores on that strip. I went a different way on the way home than we had gone and ended up across from the cemetery. Luckily, the cemetery was close to a road we had walked sometime before and we found our way home.

There's Studly pushing the stroller for a picture.

Have you seen cuter pajamas? We thought they were adorable.

Yesterday we visited an old roommate I lived with at BYU. She had her boy 4 weeks after I had Natalia. Here are our cute babies together. 

Natalia turned 7 weeks on Saturday, like I said earlier. She is smiling a lot more now; it is the cutest thing. She doesn't cry much, unless she's tired. She cries more when we're at other people's houses, but be doesn't cry much at home unless she's tired. Natalia is quite vocal and talks a lot. Well, I'm s\Starvin' Marvin so I'm going to go eat.

I found video from right after Natalia's birth. They were so tender to watch. I won't post those for the sake of Natalia's privacy, but he are other videos from the camera.

Natalia and Mommy on her birth-day.

Blogger is not letting me upload my other videos so perhaps I'll try again tomorrow.

I did some reading today about nutrition and lactation and here are some things I learned:

• One of the two things that most affect milk production is maternal hydration. (The other is how often the infant nurses, which I knew).
• "It is generally advisable for lactating women to maintain an energy intake of at least 1800 kcal/day (Mahan & Escott-Stump, 2008, p. 187). ( I had read 1500 kcal to 1800 kcal in papers I got from a lactation class).
• The DRI for protein for the average (not obese or below weight) nursing mothers is 71 g/day. That's a lot of protein! I tried calculating how much protein I have consumes today and I'm not even close. Guess I'll be drinking more milk. I think milk is 8 or 9 grams of protein per serving.
• I need to be better about omega-6 in my diet. I think I'm good on omega-3, at least better than omega-6. The AI for omega 6 is 13 grams a day; omega-3 is 1.3 grams a day.
•  160 to 210 g/day of carbs is needed to maintain enough milk.
• 87% of breast milk is water.

• "Aerobic exercise at 60% to 70% of maximum heart rate has no adverse effect on lactation" (Mahan & Escott-Stump, 2008, p 189). Good to know because I was wondering how hard I could push myself without it affecting supply. Max heart rate is 220 - age. So for me, my max heart rate is 197. 60% - 70% of that is 118 - 138. Also, the CDC recommends at least 150 minutes a week of moderate exercise for nursing mothers. My goal of 30 minutes a day meets that recommendation.

Mahan, L.K & Escott-Stump, S. (2008). Krause's Food and Nutrition Therapy. St. Louis, MO.

I can't believe Natalia is still sleeping. She's almost gone 4 hours without eating. Usually she eats every 2 hours during the day. I hoping my sleeping babe wakes soon. She must need the sleep.

Last week I decided to start going back to how I used to eat before I got pregnant. Really, it's just eating as healthy as I can and watching portion sizes. We try to eat everything natural, whole foods(100% whole wheat, etc.), and rarely any sweets. Rarely for me is maybe once a month, if that and if I do have something it's like frozen yogurt or something. Josh isn't so strict on the sweets thing. I just don't like them very much anymore. I also had general goals I wanted to keep, one being walking at least 30 minutes a day, or something like that. I have been eating more salad and fruits. I haven't started counting calories just yet, but that's fine. If I ever feel more hungry after or between meals then I eat fruit. With the exception of Sunday and the doughnut holes and a couple tastes of sherbet Josh will share with me, I've laid off sweets and I feel great. I feel a lot better eating better. I feel clean inside. On Sunday and the in-laws, Josh tempted me with a slice of blueberry muffin leftover from a tray his mom bought for after the blessing and I turned it down successfully. I never feel good after eating stuff like cake, which is what the muffin basically was to me. Another thing I did was at the beginning of last week I wrote my weight on the mirror so I could track it every week. Since last week, my weight is 3.2 pounds lower. I was surprised it was that much, especially since Sunday I definitely did not hold back. Seeing the weight everyday and seeing how much I lose is motivation to not over eat when I want to. I also haven't been walking since Friday I think, for legit reasons. I'm proud of that weight loss especially since it felt like I had plateaued before trying to actually lose weight. I didn't necessarily expect to lose any weight this week, I just wanted to see if making the changes I did would do anything and it did. My tentative goal is to lose a pound a week, but I'm not stressing so much on that number on the scale right now. My main focus is getting into the habit of eating healthy and portion control. Another thing I've done is liking the way I look now and to be honest, I do like how I look. I like the extra skin/fat that bulges over. I think it looks kind of cool. What really helped me be confident in how I look was going back to church a couple weeks ago and being surrounded by other mothers. Even though I felt new all over again, I felt like I had more in common with them. I am a mom and I have a mom body. I just had a baby. That is why my body looks the way it does and I should be proud of it. I felt that being ashamed of the way I looked was indirectly having negative feelings towards having my baby girl. So I love how I look because of why it looks that way. I love Natalia so much and I don't want to ever associate any sort of negative feelings for her.

K enough of that. Natalia has been sleeping SO WELL today and I feel SO MUCH BETTER. She is sleeping in her bed in between feedings and I was able to "sleep in." Part of me wonders if she kept waking yesterday because she was cold or maybe it was her tummy. She hasn't pooped very much the past couple of days. Well, I'm done writing for now. Bye.