Orange

(Some people come up with the most clever blog titles. I'm not one of those people. Even during my BYU days as editor of The Daily Universe, I struggled with those darn titles. That has nothing to do with this post, but is just an explanation of the current lame title and the lack of creativity for all future titles.)

In Knoxville, orange is the color to wear--especially during football season. Those UT Vol's fans are crazy into their orange. In the Candrian family, however, orange is important for a different reason. My dad raised us to be San Francisco Giants fans and he's trying to do the same with his grandsons . . .

My Family Came to See Me

After Brian's family left last month, my family followed shortly behind. James was in a sassy mood with all the visitors, but loved having so many people to play with him. His Grandma bought him a sprinkler ball, took him on a boat tour of Knoxville, built endless domino towers just so he could knock them down, etc. His Grandpa even showed up a few days after everyone and he was definitely in heaven then.



Apparently this is the site of the home of the author of "Secret Garden." Who knew? Good book, by the way. Just in case someone out there is debating reading it.
James is a daddy's boy these days. He can be in a bad mood all day and as soon as Brian gets home from work, he's as happy as can be.
He's also super into giving kisses these days. I dread the day he grows out of it.
Pretty much Jamers favorite person on the planet, besides his dad, is his Aunt Andrea. We're pretty lucky she lives close enough to visit us on a regular basis.

Jameisms, Part II

Our favorite 19-month-old's quotes of the week:

"Holy smokes, look at that!"
(He said this on the way home from church. We have idea where he got this from.)


"Dad, I'm packing heat!"
(He said this as he grabbed his VERY full diaper. Definitely learned this one from Brian.)

June Visitors

We've had a lot of family visit over the past couple of months and I've failed to write anything about any of them.

In mid-June, Brian's parents visited and we all took a trip to Hilton Head prior to Brian's brother graduating from the UT Oral Surgery program (since he graduated, we're now family-less in the South. If anyone wants to change that, we'd gladly welcome it.). Hilton Head was beautiful and a much needed vacation for everyone. The first night we were there, however, poor James took a dive off the bed and right into the sharp corner of a nightstand. He now has an ugly little scar at the corner of his right eye. Thank goodness we had an oral surgeon or two in the house.

James and his cousin Coleman had a blast pushing each other around in this new stroller Brian's mom bought James. I think they're both still learning what it means to "take turns."



The best part of the trip was the beach. I loved watching James experience his first beach visit. He loved it. Loved the water, loved the sand, loved the people, loved the shells, loved the creatures. Loved it all. And, of course, I loved that he loved it.





We had a great time with Brian's family and it was sad to see them all go. Luckily, we'll see them again next month.

July So Far

Today is my fourth wedding anniversary. To celebrate, Brian is at work. It's the third year in a row he's had to spend it working at the hospital. But, to my surprise he was able to escape for lunch and we celebrated at our favorite restaurant.

He's been working hard lately. Poor guy. He can hardly sit down for 10 seconds before he's sound asleep.


Jamers is still lighting up our lives and providing endless entertainment. He's getting pretty good at constructing actual sentences and it's hilarious to hear the things he comes up with. His most common sentence so far is this (which he repeated at least five times today): "I scared of bears! Bears are scary. Rrrraaar!" Lesson learned this week: no more reading "Going on a Bear Hunt" before bedtime for awhile. The poor kid really is terrified.

Today, on the way to Target, while we were stopped at a red light, he blurted out "Get out of way, cars! Honk, honk!" I laughed so hard. I guess that's a sign that I need to work on my road rage.

I love getting packages (I won't complain if anyone wants to send one). So does Jamers. It's the simple stuff that's always the most entertaining.

Oh, and look, he has HAIR! Yay!

So this next picture will make me look like a bad mom. And sometimes I am. I won't deny it. Case in point: My kid has a thing for chips and I often oblige. However, I don't normally (or ever) let him have the entire bag. I usually just give him one or two small ones and that satisfies him for the day. The other day, however, while I was making lunch he asked for a chip and I pulled out the bag, handed him one and then set the bag on the counter out of reach. Or so I thought. Five minutes later I noticed it was rather quiet so I went to see what he was up to and found this:

Watch out! This kid is now tall enough to reach things on the edge of the counter. Yikes. . .

Fatty

(This post is brought to you by the big fat letter "F." Oh, and the shock and horror that plagued me after looking at pictures taken of me last week.)

Last night I couldn't sleep.

In between my wide-eyed state and falling asleep, my mind was racing with thoughts of how pitiful my current active lifestyle has become. Or lack of it, to be more accurate.

I've been lucky most of my life. Growing up, I ate whatever I wanted and never gained an ounce. I even went on a diet once to gain weight because even I knew I was too skinny (especially after my Scoliosis surgery when I weighed in at a big fat 90 lbs. I only remember this weight because my brother kept calling me the "90 pound weakling," which I was.) and my doctor concurred. At the recommendation of that doctor, the "diet" consisted of a big milkshake every night before bed. Oh to go back to those days . . .

I remained in a fairly toothpick-skinny state up until college. And then finally after three meals day in and day out at Deseret Tower's Morris Center, my metabolism finally started slowing down. That's when my round chubby cheeks (on my face! . . . okay and probably somewhere else) kicked in.

And I was fine with it, because the rest of my body was still pretty skinny. And besides, I was a Candrian and Candrians just don't get fat. I had nothing to worry about.

And then I got married. Yikes. I always made fun of girls who gained weight after getting married. "Why do they let themselves go like that?" I always thought. And although I'm pretty sure my weight gain had more to do with leaving a walking-city like D.C. to a drive-only place like Richmond, less than it did with marriage, I still shuttered that my pants were all getting tighter and tighter.

Then I got pregnant and finally, it was okay to be fat. So it wasn't such a big deal.

After I had James I was so lucky. So SO lucky. Within three weeks of having him, my body was back to even my pre-marriage weight, maybe even pre-college weight. The fat melted off like butter (and obviously went straight to Jamers, because did you see his cheeks when he was a baby!?!). It was the most amazing thing I have ever witnessed, besides a child being pulled from my cut open body, of course. It was like having a baby was a miracle diet. In fact, the other day I caught myself thinking "I need to lose weight badly. Maybe I should have another baby." (no comments on this one, please!) Those two things usually don't go together, but they did for me and it was awesome!

Now 18 months later, I am back to where I started before James, but worse. Much worse.

And I have no one to blame but my fatty self. I exercise only if you call chasing a toddler around exercising. I eat well, for the most part. But only if you call sneaking cookies into my diet eating well.

And it was all these thoughts and more that were swimming around in my brain as I tried to sleep last night. And then I had the most terrible thought of all: What if one day I am diagnosed with a terrible disease and my doctor looks at me and says "If you were in better shape this disease wouldn't be a problem, but since you're not . . . well, I'm sorry."

So, today I publicly announce that I am going to start exercising. Real exercising. Maybe I'll even use that darn Bowflex that's been sitting in our guest room untouched since we moved here.

And maybe even I'll swear off of sugar for a few weeks (realistically, I might have to start with a few days first) just to see if it helps.

And then maybe I'll be able to finally get some sleep at night.

Oh Say Can You See?

I hope everyone had a great 4th of July. I know James did. Here he is trying to learn our national anthem (with some help from his grandpa and aunt). The video is pretty dark, but some of us have already forgotten everything we ever learned in our broadcasting classes: