Jack Maximus Ady.... blessing day!

Since I found out I was pregnant I've kept a personal journal with letters written specifically to Max. I keep track of what he's doing every few weeks and I write him letters on special occasions. I'm working hard to keep up on his photo scrapbook as well, but I realized I wanted to keep track of some of the smaller day to day things that we do, as well as post more pictures of the big events. I'm not going to go back to the beginning, just start now and hopefully I can get back in the habit of blogging! 

A few weeks ago we had Max blessed at our church. It was such an amazing day. All of my immediate family was able to be there, which was amazing! Most of Jack's family was able to be there as well and a few grandparents and aunts and uncles were able to make it. There was a snow storm that came in the same weekend as the blessing so we felt so lucky and blessed that so many were able to be there. 

My mom made Max's blessing suit out of my wedding dress. His pants, tie and the buttons on his vest were all from my dress. It was something I had always wanted done with my dress and I was just so happy that it worked out. It is something I will cherish for the rest of my life! 

Being Max's mom is by far my favorite thing! He is such a fun baby and he fits into our family perfectly. He really is the missing piece we waited all these years for! 

2014 Christmas Letter

2014 was an exciting year for us, and I think you all know the real reason why. After years of waiting, we were finally able to get new wood floors! #crazyblessed. What a time to be alive.

Dayna was able to retire from working at the school this year #ballermoney due to your basic run of the mill pregnancy routine. Step 1: don’t get pregnant for 8.5 years. Step 2: get a blood clot. Step 3: enjoy gestational diabetes. 4: Sometimes cry about hilarious things, like not owning a diaper bag, or that the kids at school hate you even though they don’t. Step 5: labor for 16 hours and then get chopped in half so they can pull a human out of your belly. Step 6: look good the whole time #kateuptonisugly.

Jack and Dayna rode down to Oceanside, California with Dayna’s sister and her husband in January (is this weird 3rd person thing weirding out the reader as much as it is the author? I mean, you know it’s either Jack or Dayna writing this, right? Well, either Jack or Dayna strongly agrees with you. It’s hard, but we stick with it #thesecolorsdontrunorevenjog.)

Oceanside is gorgeous. They were graciously invited by and stayed with Dayna’s grandparents, but in turn had to walk several dozen feet from their room to get to the ocean. They saw dolphins and whales and weird people and almost Steve Nash. Jack found out later that Nash lives right by where we stayed, which makes sense for rich people to make those kind of decisions.

Jack enjoyed Southern California so much that he took the whole family except for Dayna back down to Santa Monica in June. There he attended a private tour of Riot studios and sat front row for the League championship Series. He even had his picture taken with Will “Meteos” Hartman, and yes, he’s aware that most of you have no idea what any of this means, but this was really cool for him #nerdlifeforever.

It was our ninth anniversary this year, and we decided that since it was going to be our last one without children, we would do something fancy. Jack planned to take Dayna to an expensive restaurant in beautiful Sundance, Utah. The day of our anniversary, it turned out that Jack was too sick to watch Star Wars in bed, so the anniversary celebration was pushed back one week #isthedarksidestronger. Seven days later, Dayna completely ruined Jack’s romantic plans by thoughtlessly getting sick. At this point, can we even say we've been married 9 years? I guess legally we have to, but without spending too much money on a single meal, we both know-- in our hearts-- it’s a lie. Another lie was that whole ‘staying in third person’ thing. It just got really tedious, and this paper isn’t getting graded, so we dropped it

Our lovely dog Anne was also fortunate in 2014, as her parents' previously planned trip to Cancun was canceled by the arrival of her new little brother, Maximus.

It was a long day before he arrived. We got to the hospital at 6 AM on November 17th, and he was born at 10:57 PM. He let out a little cry when he emerged and promptly peed on his own face. Max is a special little guy, years in the making. We'd like to tell jokes about him in the future, but it’s honestly kind of difficult right now. We’re just really glad he showed up, even if he took his sweet time getting here.

Max grows leaps and bounds, seemingly every day. He has no siblings, so he’s started pulling his own hair. Still, he’s a patient boy, so he never hits back over the hair pulling. Jack is often jealous of Max-- eating all day, hanging out with Dayna, taking naps, no job and never paying bills-- it’s a sweet gig, no doubt, and one Jack aspires to.

As of the time of this writing, Max is developing his voice. He is not a baby that cries very often, but he's a pretty good grunter. Grunting means that he is communication one of three things: A) I need to burp, B) I need to break wind, or C) I have the ability to grunt.

Jumping back to first person, we're very happy with our growing little family. If you're reading this message, that really speaks to your character. It means that you've either avoided getting unfriended on Facebook all these years, or that you're too old for Facebook and probably live a weird, boring, Facebookless life. Either way, we're glad that you play a part in our lives, and hope you have a great Christmas and a happy new year #happyholidays #pleasenoonegetoffended #starwars7in1yearhype

Christmas Letter 2012

We are really having to rush this year’s letter to press, what with the end of the world coming on the 21^st. We really thought we had dodged a bullet when the world didn’t end twice already this year and thought maybe we could get away without a letter at all. It turns out that crazy old people are often crazy.

This year just really hasn’t been nearly as eventful as 2011 was for us. We didn’t buy a new house this year, or a new car, and despite Dayna letting the dang dog run away a couple times, she always brought that dang dog back, so no new dog either. That’s good though, because Anne is adorable. We call our “Dogter.” That’s how cool we are. Let that sink in.

Dayna was able to buddy up to the primary presidency in our ward and get them to release her. Once word of her craftiness, they decided to put her in a law of consecration calling where she makes free cute stuff for the relief society. Jack got released from the Cub Scouts through a series of menacing looks at short bishops and a serious case of being afraid of bears, which has crippled his ability to camp.

Bear related fear did not, however, cripple Jack’s ability to write things he doesn’t get paid for. Three times in the past year, Jack has had articles selected and published by KSL.com, Utah’s biggest website in the world. This has led to Jack being a huge celebrity around the house, sometimes polling as high as 50% among registered Anne-dogs.

Speaking of celebrity fame, Dayna, famed reader of both Twilight and The Hunger Games, had another extremely successful round of craft sellery at the annual Holly Fair. Bored women herded in droves to waste their husbands’ money invest in high quality goods hand crafted by Dayna. Hopefully we can use that money to finish our basement so we don’t have to be so close together and be forced to listen to each other’s lame jokes as often.

A bit more about the basement. If you haven’t seen it, it is 4000 square feet, has a theater room already in place, and a segmented glass area where the tile is ready for the pool. It’s also in Florida, and we both have nicely tanned six packs. Dayna teaches baby aerobics and Jack plays for the Heat. It is fun in our basement.

Back in reality, our basement is coming along nicely. We have the framing and electric work completely done, and the sheetrock is almost completely started as well. Once it’s done, we really do want to get a theater room setup with a projector. Next, we’ll save up for a psychiatrist who can help treat our ADD so we can both sit through an entire movie. These are the problems you have to deal with when growing up in America.

We both like our jobs very much. So much in fact that neither of us decided to even get raises or promoted, that’s how dedicated we are. We celebrated our 7^th anniversary this year, which means if you’re one of our grandparents reading this, you’ve been mathematically eliminated from being in your thirties.

To experience the true romance in our lives after seven years, we traveled to Tooele, Utah, where we toured—as a symbol of our relationship-- an actual shut-down asylum. The asylum, confirmed as actually haunted by the very respectable and trustworthy (read: sarcasm at full) folks over at “Ghost Hunters,” was a great time. I guess we also ate a fancy meal and stayed at a nice hotel, but we really just wanted to keep the description limited to the romantic notion of being trapped in a building with insane people. That resonates with these authors for some reason.

Each year we write down a few little anecdotes, but it doesn’t really matter if we have cool things to brag about or if we just distract you from our glaring flaws. We’re glad to have each other, and also to glad to have those of you reading this in our lives. And were also really glad that most of you are reading it electronically because, let’s be honest, you’re probably not worth the production cost of a printed letter, picture, envelope and a stamp, are you? We’d probably forget to send you one anyway, and that would just be awkward later on.

Merry Christmas you nobodies!

Love,

Jack and Dayna Ady

Anne's Infertility

It has now become official. Anne will never bare children. We talked quite a bit about whether or not we wanted to eventually breed Anne. We loved the idea of little puppies and especially the money we could get for them. But when it came right down to it we felt like the best thing for us and for Anne would be for her to be fixed. I was hoping we could get an appointment over Christmas break so I could be home with her all day while she recovered. The soonest they could get us in was the first week of January but they did have a Friday available so we could still be there for the weekend. 

I took her in before work on Friday morning. The waiting room was full of other dogs being dropped off and Anne freaked out. She clung to me the entire time. Anne usually loves other people. When we drop her off at the groomers she literally jumps into their arms. She can't wait to be showered with attention. So for her to be so clingy made it really hard. I'm sure she could sense my stress and the stress of every dog/human in that room. When the tech came to take her back I had to physically unhook her claws from my body. Poor thing. 

I had to wait until I got off of work to pick her up, so it was a long day. When I picked her up at 3:30 she was pretty somber. I picked her up and she just looked at me. I'm sure all the dog people out there will say she was just groggy from the drugs, but I know she was secretly hating me behind that stare. 

For the first night she was pretty sore and sad. We packed her around and spent the evening watching TV on the bed with her. Everyone warned us that she would be sore for quite a while and we'd need to keep a close eye on her. By day 2 she was over being sore and returned to the energetic puppy who wants to jump on everything and wrestle with us. We tried to keep her from jumping on stuff and kept her in her playpen most of the day but she recovered fabulously. She is back to being our crazy psycho pup-- and we love her. 

Week 2 Weigh In

Our engagement photo. Life before fast food and ice cream became our hobbies. 

On the show Biggest Loser they always have the dreaded "week 2". The first week you lose all your water weight and you have a huge number. Week 2 numbers are always significantly smaller. I'm not sure why I thought I could skip over that. I lost almost 10 pounds in week 1 and this week I dropped 1.4 pounds. It's still a loss but not nearly as much as I had hoped for. 

I had a few setbacks this week. I managed to get a 30 minute workout in every day. Unfortunately Wednesday night I was having a Debbie Downer day and decided a cup of chocolate chips and cheetos would cure the problem. They didn't. I ended up feeling sick all night and then the guilt made me feel sick the rest of the week. Friday night I decided to make cupcakes for my free day (Saturday) and I found myself picking in the cake batter the entire time. Not okay. So I can see where I need to fix some things for this week. 

This week my goal is to get a 30 minute workout every day. I'm going to avoid snacking on junk food completely and I'm going to do better planning my lunches. I did okay drinking my water this week but I'm going to up my intake and finish at least 1 Liter before work is over every day. My goal is to lose 3.1 this week which will get me out of the 250's FOREVER! 

I felt really disappointed when I got on the scale this morning but by the time we left our Weight Watchers meeting I had decided to brush it off and learn from my week. 

On the bright side. Jack reached his goal weight this week. He's lost over 50 pounds since starting weight watchers and he weighed in at 189.6 this morning. Hooray! He has 6 weeks to maintain that and then he will become a lifetime member. Then we can stop paying for his weight watchers and we will be 40 dollars richer every month! =) 

Week 1 Weight Loss

*For all of our viewing pleasure here is a picture of pre-fatty Dayna. I was about 170ish here. 

I figure since this is my blog I can write whatever I want on it. As you know, one of my new year goals was to lose 64 pounds. I went back to Weight Watchers to take responsibility and to start my new life. I weighed in last week at 263.8 pounds. Gross. I decided to jump right in this week and pre-planned all of my meals. Breakfast, lunch and dinner. Jack is in school full time so I am on my own 3 out of 5 nights during the week. I knew if I didn't have a clear plan of attack I would go crazy in the kitchen by myself. Breakfast was cooked oatmeal with vanilla yogurt and a banana, lunch switched off between salad/fruit and cottage cheese/boiled egg/ fruit, dinner most nights was a turkey sandwich and fruits and veggies but I did throw in a veggie chicken patty sandwich and a bowl of rice chex a few nights. I snacked on Peanut Butter and Oranges but tried to keep my snacking to a minimum. I took a 1 liter water bottle to work and finished at least one of those a day (which is HUGE for me) I worked out Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. 

After I weighed in last week I told Jack I was shooting for a 6 lb loss this week. I was only able to fit in 3 workouts so I changed my goal from 6 to a 3. I felt like I would be pretty proud of a 3 lb loss. I stepped on the scale this morning and saw the numbers stop at 254.4. That's a 9.4 lb loss in ONE WEEK! I jumped off and high fived Jack. That's the most I've ever done in one week and I was beyond excited. Turns out I was the biggest loser at WWers this week. I'll take it! 

This week really proved to me that pre-tracking and sticking to your guidelines really works. I really felt like because I pre-tracked I thought less about food. I just knew what I was going to eat and when I was hungry I ate it. I had a few un-planned snacks during the week (mini cupcake, jerky and skittles-- all on different days) but I made sure I tracked them and stayed within my points plus values. Seeing that I can lose 9.4 pounds and still have eaten some of my favorite "sinful" treats really feels great. I want to see what I can do WITHOUT eating those during the week but I really do feel great. 

Now we're on to the dreaded week 2. On Biggest Loser it's notorious for being a low weight loss week. I am determined to stay away from the "sinful treats" this week and make sure I get a good 60 minute workout every day. I'm shooting for a 6 this week. Tune in next Saturday to see what happens. 

*I realize a healthy weight loss is between 1/2 lb - 2 lbs a week. I know eventually my weight loss will slow down but for the first few weeks I am hoping it will come off a bit faster. 

2012 Stuff

I absolutely love the clean slate that comes with a new year. I know everyone feels like this year is going to be "their year" but for me it's true! I set a few personal goals and Jack and I set quite a few goals as a couple. We also set a yearly theme for our little family. Goals that are not written down are just wishes.... so here is how our year is going to go. 

We decided to set a family theme this year. We really wanted to focus on becoming better and strengthening our marriage at the same time. We chose "I love us" as our family theme. We set goals to help us become the people we want to be. We are constantly saying we wish we were skinny people, or wealthy people or more spiritual people. Our goals, at times, might feel like we are denying ourselves the things we want-- but in reality we are doing this because we deserve better. We love us enough to give up the things we want now to get the things we want most. Our goals will also help us reach the point where we can be the people we have always wanted to be. We can honestly look at every aspect of our lives and feel like we love the people we have become. I'm so excited about this! 

We set 8 goals for our marriage that we will work on together. 

#1   Attend the Temple 

We have gotten a little lax on our temple attendance and this year we are setting a realistic goal to increase our visits. 

#2   Finish the Book of Mormon

We've started reading the Book of Mormon many times in our marriage but we've never actually finished the entire thing. This year we're going to finish reading the entire thing. 

#3   Date Night

We're taking the time out every Saturday to spend quality time with each other. Instead of the fast food/watching tv dates we're used to we're going to plan out fun "quality time" with each other. 

#4    Walk Anne

This might seem like such a silly goal but we've really slacked on our dog walking. Anne is such a sweet puppy and walking her more often will give us more exercise as well as chill her out. We found a make-shift dog park near our house and we're looking forward to spending a lot of time there. 

#5     No Eating Out During the Week

Jack and I both do weight watchers and we allow Saturday to be our "free day". We plan on keeping Saturdays special by not eating out at all during the week. This will also help keep more money in our bank account. You don't even want to know how much we spent at restaurants in December. (we added it up-- it was scary!) 

#6     Finish the Basement

We are currently sitting on 1350 sq ft. of unused home. We have the coolest plans for our basement and we even have the money set aside to do it! We just have to get our buns in gear. When we're finished we'll have a huge family room with a HD screen and projector as well as a small reading nook, a large office/work out room big enough to fit our treadmill and weight machine while still giving Jack his office space and room for his music recording equipment, an enormous spare bedroom, a cold storage room and a 3rd bathroom. It will really add a lot to our home and we're looking forward to finishing it. 

#7    No Impulse Purchases

Jack and I are very fortunate to have great jobs that provide us with enough money to pay our bills and have some play money. Because of this we have got in the habit of buying things whenever we think we want them, regardless of the need. This year we are really going to pull back and think about purchases before we make them. 

#8    Pay off our Credit Card

We went through most of our marriage without having any credit card debt, but a few years ago we fell into the trap. We've slowly been paying it off but we've really just been paying the interest every month. We have $900 on our card and plan on putting $150 towards our bill every month until it is payed off. 

Personal Goals 

I decided to really focus on 2 personal goals this year. There are so many aspects of my life that I want to perfect but I chose 2 that I am really passionate about right now. 

#1    Lose 64 pounds. 

I know this is letting the cat out of the bag but I've come to realize that weight is just a number. I pretend if I don't tell anyone that they will magically think I am skinny. Everyone can see the way I look. You knowing the number on the scale doesn't automatically make me look fatter or skinnier. I weighed in yesterday at a whopping 264. This is sadly not the heaviest I've ever been but it's not a number I am proud of whatsoever. I stopped living my weight watcher lifestyle and put 23 pounds on in less than 2 months. It's a sad and disgusting reality, but it is a reality. I'm determined to hit One-derland by the end of this year. I bought a treadmill and have pre-planned my meals for the week. It's a start. And a start I'm very excited to make! 

#2     Expand my Craft Business

I absolutely love that I can make money doing something I love in my free time. I love making blocks and knowing that my work is decorating hundreds of people's homes. I love doing custom orders for people and I love coming up with new ideas that I know are going to be so cute! This year I plan on expanding from just doing the Holly Fair to either selling in a boutique or doing at least 1 other craft fair. This scares me to death because I have to put myself out there one more time, but I'm really excited about it! 

So there you have it. The (very long) breakdown of how 2012 will really become "Our Year"