Best Nativity Ever!

Are you ready for this? This is our family's FIRST EVER Nativity... and it turned out AWESOME! I have been laughing about these pictures... can't wait to SHARE!!!

Here are our SHEPHERDS...

Here are our STABLE ANIMALS...

Here's the HOLY FAMILY... complete with ANGEL...

Here are our THREE WISEMEN...

This is another SHEPHERD and our INN KEEPER...
And here's the entire CAST... (minus the NARRATOR... ME.)

I can't even WAIT till next year!!!

FIRST ANNUAL NIELSON-HARRIS CHRISTMAS PARTY!

We decided to have a dinner party for our good friends and neighbors, the Nielsons. I'd ALWAYS wanted to do this. I asked them if they would join us for Sunday dinner and... sorry, but... wear your SUNDAY CLOTHES! When I told that to Lilian, she said... "you mean the Sunday clothes we wear to church or the Sunday clothes we wear AFTER church." Unfortunately... I meant CHURCH CLOTHES. I told her I wanted to have a nice FANCY Christmas dinner for once in my life. Little did she know...

I had NO INTENTION of making this dinner FANCY.

Here is our nicely set table... complete with Christmas dishes (thanks, Lilian) and goblets. Notice something missing from this table?That's RIGHT!

In each of those nicely tied packages were a pair of GLOVES and a plastic APRON.

Tee hee hee...

And of course, we served SPAGHETTI ...

Merry Christmas, Nielson Family... Love you guy!

Missing Tooth

Jack was so excited to lose that sucker... he'd been wiggling it for weeks and finally, one evening as Jack was eating popcorn, it just FELL out. Jack had FINALLY lost his first tooth! For some reason, this is a really special time... kinda like passing into KID-HOOD. After we put Jack to bed that night, he got up and asked if he could call Ed and Mimi and tell him his wonderful news. Of course, we had to let him!

Quote of the Week...

When Disco was asked what he wanted to BE when he grew up, he said... Either way... he'd be set for life.

HAPPY 30th BIRTHDAY ALLISON!!!!!!

LOVE YOU AL

Sorry this is a day late, I'm not very blog savy.

Hope you had a great day!

Allison, Why are you so Awesome?

I thought that I would post some of the many faces of Allison. She is so amazing and does so much for our little family. I sure love her!

I wish I had more pictures, but Allison takes most of them, and she deletes the ones of her that I take, which isn't enough. I hope she knows how much we love her.

Quote of the Week...

The other day, when Jack was walking out the door to go to Kindergarten,

he turned to me and said... We ALL do, kid.

Quote of the Week...

Yes, Porter... I know.

Quote of the Week...

Frank is Jack's uncle and would probably make a great AGENT! What do you say, Frank?

Barn...

I came across this file of pictures today... I can't believe I havn't BLOGGED this yet! This might be the GREATEST idea the LUNT sisters have had in a long time!

A month ago, we went up to our cabin. One of the nights we were there, we surprised all the kids with a spooky movie. No big deal? The thing that made it so much fun was we got everyone in their jammies and bundled them up and took them outside to the creepy BARN where real BATS and SPIDERS live. It was so fun to see their faces as they walked in. We set the TV and tons of blankets and chairs up in a dark corner and got comfortable with our Diet Cokes and Popcorn.
The movie was ARACHNIPHOBIA... you know the one with all the spiders that live in that barn. It was PERFECT!

Here is my favorite picture... they are watching so intently!

It was so fun... no doubt we'll all remember this for a long time!

Celebrating 6...

Jack counted down the day until his big day... September 30th could not have come sooner! He started his day with a pile of presents... mostly LEGOS, but there was a backpack and movie in there too. That night we had family over for sandwiches and cake... and, of course, pink ice cream. What a great day! But the celebration didn't stop there. The next day we invited a few of Jack's friends to go to a movie with us. They LOVED Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs. Afterward we had pizza and cupcakes... and, of course, pink ice cream. 2 days of fun for a GREAT 6 year old!

Quote of the Week...

SKI-BEARS = mosquitos.

Happy 6th Birthday, Jack!!

Has it really been 6 years? I sure love you, Jack, and I hope your have a fantastic birthday!

Show Time!

WARNING... The images displayed on this post are SHOCKING! Not only is Allison wearing a bikini, but she's also greased down and painted BLACK. View at your own risk.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!!!!!!!

Today, I'm feeling pretty good. My competition is over and I am happily fed and watered. I had a great day yesterday... met a lot of great people and had a lot of fun! Here are some pics from the event...

I am second from the left.

The Class winner AND Overall winner is that chick with the really short dark hair... 2 to the right from me.

It was a long hard haul, and eventhough I didn't win (or even PLACE, for that matter) I feel great about it. I'm not going to lie... I wanted to win... I'm sad I didn't! BUT I feel good because I reached my goal... to be as lean and as cut as I could by September 26th. The day before the show, I weighed in at 118 lbs and 9.8% body fat! I'LL TAKE THAT!! (and not to be RUDE, but chick that won my division was NOT that lean.)

Well, now I know what it feels like to be in a FIGURE COMPETITION. Truthfully, I don't know if I'd ever want to do another. I LOVED the training and getting to know my body more and becoming lean and fit and strong... I'd do THAT part again! But the actual SHOW... I don't really GET IT, I guess. I didn't WANT to wear all the crazy sparkly jewelry and funky make-up. I didn't really LIKE to walk their special walk and paint myself black and POSE and fake smile and hope the judges like me. I thought it'd be more about levels of fitness... it wasn't. It was like a pagent and that is SO NOT my style. I loved learning what it's all about and I'm glad I did it! Maybe it's too soon to tell... (I hear you get the "BUG" for it)... but today... right now... I don't want to do another one. I reached my personal goal... to be the MOST FIT in my class. And even though the judges didn't think so, I feel like I WON!

Thanks to all my friends and family that supported me!

Quote of the Week...

Good thinking, Disco.

Al and her crazy ideas...

BEFORE YOU READ... just know that the pictures displayed are AFTER my 2 hour work-outs at the gym. I look like CRAP! so don't make FUN.

I've been meaning to post about this for a long time. I've reached my HELL-WEEK and I can feel my strength, energy and brain slowing down. I've hit my head about 6 times today on walls and chairs... I've tripped and fallen bout 3 times... I've lost some concentration and comprehension... and I'm more than irritable. What's going on? you ask. I've entered myself into a contest... a FIGURE COMPETITION.

For those who don't know... Figure Competitions are kind of like Body Building contest... except not really. There ARE Body Builders in the show... but it's considered a different class and I will not be competing against them. FIGURE is not about muscles and being shredded, but about looking feminine, lean and strong. You lose points for being too muscly/masculine.

How did I get myself into this?... I ask myself this question regularly. Well, it all began a couple years ago. As you might know, I go to the gym quite often... love it there... and I have a lot of friends there. I watched some of my friends... Dana and Quincy, to name a couple... as they'd go through their training and I remember thinking how AMAZING they looked. They were FIGURE competitors. I asked my friend, Ashley, HOW these girls got to be this way. She told me it was lots of exercise and a crazy diet... no sugar, no trans-fat, and only complex carbs. That's when I decided to go off sugar... that was something I could handle. I know what does and does not have sugar... I'd start there.

So I did. Now, there's sugar in just about everything... so I made a rule: nothing with more that 10 grams of sugar. July 2008 was the LAST time I had a dessert. It was hard at first, but honestly, after the first 2 weeks, I didn't look back. It was amazing to me to see how FAST the fat melted off me! People told me how much I had changed and how quickly. When other people notice... THAT is your reward. I FELT GREAT!

Then I had someone... her name is Carrie... ask me if I would ever compete in a FIGURE competition. I had never thought about it before... I didn't really know what that even meant... and I certainly had NO idea HOW. She told me a little about it and I just kinda shrugged it off. Sounded fun... but difficult... I'd think about it. I shoved the thought into the back of my mind... and it's been in the back of my mind for a while now. Maybe one day I'd find the courage.

A few months went by and I'd get asked every once in a while if I was doing a FIGURE completion. So, now it was on the BRAIN. People told me how EASY it would be for me and how much I'd love it and how great it felt to accomplish such a huge goal.... blah, blah, blah. I made a deal with myself that if ONE more person asked me if I was competing that I WOULD. It happened the next day. OK... I'm in!

So I started asking around... what kind of diet do I need?... what sort of exercising?... what do I wear?... how do I DO THIS?! That's when I was introduced to my girl... Karli. Karli is the sweetest, kindest, most sincere person I've ever met and she wanted to help me. Karli did a show last spring and won 2nd place. (first place went to Andrea... a girl Karli and her husband TRAINED!) She knows how to do this. She put me on a diet and helped me learn how to walk and pose and just explained the whole thing to me. She even took me shoe shopping! If nothing else, I've made a good friend out of this. Actually I've made a LOT of friends out of this. I have so much support from people at the gym who want to help me... who want to see me succeed.

Anyway...that's how this all got started. I've been exercising for years... but never with a goal. NOW, I have something to shoot for. For me, this experience has been about self-mastery and wheel-power. I've gotten to know my body. I know I store sugar in my upper body... I store milk products in my tummy area and extra carbs in my thighs and butt. I love to feel the energy surge through me about 8 minutes after I eat an apple. I love to see my muscles fill up after I eat carbs... bodies are incredible.

There is a spiritual side to all this... It's hard for me to understand people who don't believe in God. There are too many coincidences... too many things that are too perfect and too complicated for happenstance. I would never have KNOWN how much our bodies DO for us if I hadn't entered this crazy competition. I would never have known exactly what a GIFT our bodies are and that our Heavenly Father truly, truly, truly LOVES us. It's hard for me to talk about without getting teary-eyed. I will always be grateful for this incredible machine that I have been trusted with... I will always and forever respect this body.

CHANGE THE SUBJECT... I get a lot of questions about this whole thing... let me see if I can answer any you might have.

The most common question... WHAT DO YOU EAT? Well diet is about 70% of this. Here's a typical day's diet at 8-4 weeks out from the competition: Breakfast... a serving of OATMEAL with almonds (and I LOVE IT... I don't think I'll give that up after the competition.) Then a PROTEIN DRINK. For lunch... TUNA FISH and BROWN RICE and an APPLE. Snack... HARD BOILED EGGS (usually 2) and CELERY. Dinner... grilled CHICKEN (little seasoning.) BROWN PASTA with a dressing-less SALAD. PROTEIN DRINK before bed. I could also eat BLACK BEANS, YAMS, and AVOCADOS. I eat very little FRUIT (too much sugar), NO MILK and low SALT. Throughout the day I have to drink a GALLON of WATER and have about 120g of PROTEIN. This is NOT considered a HEALTHY DIET. It's just the way to get out all the JUNK under your skin and inside your muscles.

A couple weeks ago, I started the PROTEIN-SWAP diet. One day, a diet like I described before and the next day only the morning oatmeal CARBS. This is a BODY SHOCKER diet... the more you SHOCK your body, the more calories you burn.

Now... tomorrow... I'm starting HELL WEEK. I have to cut my carbs WAY down. I only get my morning OATMEAL and that's IT for carbs. (DANG... I LOVE CARBS!)I'm drinking a gallon of water a day, but that decreases each day until Friday when I'm only drinking about 1.5 cups for the entire day. (DANG... I LOVE WATER, TOO!!) This diet wouldn't be so bad, but since I still need to work out... it's really going to be tough. The cool part is... on Saturday, before the show, I get to CARB LOAD and WATER LOAD. The idea is to starve the muscles so much that when they get carbs and water again, they just SOAK them up and look better than they really are. (SEE how AMAZING our bodies ARE!! I'm also amazed at all the science behind it!!) I'm TOLD that you can actually SEE your muscles swell. I'll be sure to BLOG it! :)

Another question I'm frequently asked... DO YOU HAVE TO WEAR A BIKINI? The answer is YES. It's not exactly a bikini... it is called a POSING SUIT and is made specifically for these contests. They run from $300 to $1,000 and are usually pretty sparkly. I am renting mine... it's purple with rind stones. They have strings that cross in the back and attach to the bottoms so your LATS are nicely displayed and they are cut really... and I mean REALLY... high above the hips so they flatter the hip-flexors. (they look straight out of the 80's..UGLY!!) So, yes... it's a bikini... but not a sexy one by any means.

People ask a lot about POSING. In Figure, you never flex your arms above your head or bring your arms together in a chest flex. It's really all about being feminine and looking symmetrical and balanced. We have to gracefully walk on stage one at a time... sucking in our tummies and sticking out our booties. We will stop and strike a pose at 3 different (judge-picked) spots...2 side poses and one front/back pose.... and we have to look like we're having the time of our lives! Then we have MANDATORIES. We line up across the stage and try to make our muscles look the tightest and strongest we can. We do front, then side, then back, then other side. Our shoulders have to be square, our heels touching each other, our muscles tight and flexed, our faces relaxed and smiling and NO shaking. We do these mandatory circles over and over... maybe 50 times!... until the judged are happy with their judgements. I'm told it's a pretty difficult work out.

I am asked if I would ever do it again. Honestly, I don't know... I haven't had the pay-off yet. If the show is really fun and I do well... then I might think about it again. If I do horrible and it's not fun... then NO WAY! I'm way too hungry today to have it turn out bad.

Well, anyway... that's what I've been up to lately. Thanks for READING! I'll for sure be blogging about Saturday... so stay tuned.