Guilty Pleasure- Getting my teeth cleaned

Does anyone else out there LOVE the feeling of walking out of the dentist with slightly bloody and sensitive gums with the benefit of spotless pearly whites? Makes me wish I could get my teeth cleaned every month. I've always wanted one of the sonicare toothbrushes because I hear it gives you the feel of 'just leaving the dentist chair'. Maybe Christmas.

Easy Entertainment

I love this kid.

If I had an extra $225...

I would get these amazing heals from JCrew.

Teething

Does anyone have a child that got their top teeth first? I'm about 99.9% sure Will is teething and he is constantly shoving things in his mouth and he'll grab any part of your hand and chew on it. I was feeling in his mouth this morning and it felt like there was a tooth trying to come through on top, but no signs of teeth on the bottom. We're rocking the baby Tylenol pretty much non stop. Pictures of everything Will shoves in his mouth to follow.

Homesick

Top picture: A group of random guys that asked to take a picture with me at the Summer Palace in Beijing. Bottom left: Me on the Great Wall. I'm standing in the archway (i know it's small). Bottom right: The best part about China- the people and specifically the kids. Being perfectly honest, are there cuter kids anywhere else in the world? These were some of my favorite preschool girls- Jessica, Maria, and Sabrina.
Top picture: Cami (another preschooler) and I having a little too much fin with stickers. Bottom left: Leah (a jr. high girl) used to ask me to braid her hair before she went to sleep. This time I asked her to do my hair. Bottom left: Me holding Larry (one of my regular students) with the main part of the school behind us.


Man, I miss this place. Prior to marrying Cort (because everywhere he is will always feel like home), I have never felt more 'at home' any place in my entire life. I thought it would be fun to post some of my favorite pictures. This is my first time scanning anything, so it's not the best, but you get the idea.

Rise and Shout!

The Cougars are out!!! Anyone else dying for football to start? I am officially stoked for the season. Just got my "Quest" t-shirt in the mail and everything. The other day I was singing in the shower and then realized I was singing and then took a minute to figure out what I was singing (does that ever happen to anyone else?). Anyway, I was totally singing the cougar fight song, out of the blue! Here are the lyrics, in case anyone out there forgot them over the long off-season. Editions made by the Cortney McAllister Family.

Rise, all loyal Cougars

And hurl your challenge to the foe.

We will fight, day or night,

Rain or snow.

Loyal, strong and true,

Wear the White and Blue.

As we sing, get set to spring.

Come on Cougars, it's up to you!

So Rise and Shout, the Cougars are out

We're on a trail to fame and glory.

Rise and shout, our cheers will ring out

As we unfold our vict'ry story.

On we go to vanquish the foe

For Alma Mater's sons and daughters.

As we join in song,

In praise of you, WE HATE THE U!

We'll raise our colors high in the blue

And cheer our Cougars of BYU.

I want to see those fists pumping!!!

My Body, For Life

This is me-before. Cort and I decided to start Body for Life this week and this is my official before picture. Last week, I crossed the abyss into the 130s. I don't think I'vev weighed under 140 lbs (minus pregnancy), since I was in 6th grade. It seemed like I would forever be a 140 kind of girl, but nope! The scale surprised me and I've maintained my new 138 lb. weight for a whole week. That was just the boost I needed to keep going and have a specific fitness regimen. I don't really care about losing weight, I'm doing this to be stronger and feel better. And honestly, I already do. In the Body for Life book, it says to write down your goals and read them often. So today, I will share them with you.

1) Look at myself in the mirror and think "Yeah! I look good!"
2) Be able to not have my legs rub together when I walk and finally have toned thighs.
3) After goal #2 is met, I will be rewarding myself with this running shorts pictured below. Of all the miles I've run in my life, I have actually never worn running shorts, because of chaffing from lack of goal #2. So now I will have toned legs and sport real running clothes- the mark of a true runner.

In addition to this new commitment, I will also be training for some races coming up to make up for the poor performance at the 5k of recent posts. They are as follows:

Dead Celebrity (5k), Halloween

Columbus Turkey Trot (5 Miler), Thanksgiving Day

Wish me luck!

Guilty Pleasure- End of the Season Clearance

There seems to just be a wonderful scent in the air this time of year. It could be the smell of summer- kids running to the pool, standing in line for ice cream, or stopping by our local lemonade stand. But while these are all familiar scents, my nose detects something else- that of red clearance tags. Its the perfect time to stock up for next spring/summer and get a few trendy things that you couldn't justify paying full price for during the season. Enter: Snake Skin heals from Kohls- $8.

Our Little Stink Bug

Will has officially adopted the 'butt in the air' form of sleeping.

The other love of my life.

Graeter's Ice Cream is quite possibly one of the most delicious things on the face of the earth. I have recently become an ice cream lover. Now, being that I'm mormon, I already had an affinity for ice cream, but I never wanted to eat it just by itself. It needed the companionship of a brownie, cookie, or fudge. No more my friends. I have walked into the light. I realized probably one of the reasons I didn't like eating ice cream plain was because I never had good ice cream. My parents are notorious cheap skates (and I can't say that I blame them either) and since they had 4 kids, the only ice cream that we ever really had was the gallon tub of $3.99 ice cream that gave us the fix of ice cream without it really being very good. But since that's all we ever had, we didn't know the difference anyway. However, since my recent love affair with Graeters started, I have discovered that ice cream should be (like the name) creamy, and chocolate chips shouldn't leave a wax coating in your mouth either.

Enter: Graeters. An Ohio original. To this day it is hand-made and in small batches of just 2 gallons at a time. I mean this next statement with all genuineness and from the bottom of my heart- it would totally suck to be someone who has never had Greaters, or worse yet has had it but is now not living in an area where Graeters can be purchased.

Probably the most ironic part about this whole affection is that my first real job was working at Cold Stone. One day I came across the nutritional facts and I never ate it ever again. It just shocked me that so much fat could be jammed into such a small space. I am quite positive that Graeters if far worse for me than Cold Stone, but somehow I can totally justify it every time.

My current favorite flavor is: Coconut Chip.

All those fellow Graeters lovers, please list your favorite flavor. Mmmm, my mouth is already watering.

Blog Catch-Up

You don't even want to know what was in his diaper after this picture was taken.

Dad and Will watching the USA vs. China basketball game before church started. Notice both of their concentration.
From behind...
One of these days I'll have a flattering picture of myself and Will, but for now these will have to do.

Idiot

Good thinking John. Way to kick your wife when she's down.

This is the view from our apartment. Isn't is amazing? This is probably at the top of the list of things that I will be oh, so sad, to leaving when we move. This is Beekman Park. It's owned and operated by OSU and it houses 6 softball fields, 2 basketball courts, 3 volleyball courts, a jungle gym, and a duck pond. Notice how manicured the grass is- I think these softball fields rival AAA baseball fields with their pristine grass. At night we open the windows and listen to bats make contact with the softballs while hearing the chimes of crickets in the background- beautiful sounds. Its almost like being in Field of Dreams (directly south of our apartment is a large cornfield), except Shoeless Joe Jackson doesn't normally play on these fields, and I haven't seen James Earl Jones come out of the cornfields lately.

Today in Relief Society, being that it was Fast Sunday, the RS president left a few minutes for testimonies. No one got up (don't you just hate that? it's so awkward!!) and that deafening silence filled the room for a few very long uncomfortable minutes. No worries, my son in his little 3.5 month old body broke that silence and the sound barrier with a huge, long juicy fart.

...lesson learned.

Our ward held a 5k yesterday as a fundraiser for the youth and I learned a few things that I would like to share with all of you so you won't have to experience the same thing I did.

#1. Rest the day before the race. I consider myself a fair runner, so I thought I should run a 5k the day before 'just to make sure I could do it'. Had I not boosted my ego, I would have had a better chance of not having a side cramp that felt like someone stabbed me for 7/8 of the race.

#2. Eat pasta the night before. "carb load". This picture below constitutes what we ate the night before. Our good friends, the Staceys, had coupons for Ted Montana's Grill (owned by Ted Turner, actually) and not really knowing what kind of food they had, but heard great reviews decided we would give it a try. 3/4 of the menu consisted of burgers. Bison (buffalo) burgers to be exact. Feeling our mouths salivate, we decided bison was the next best thing to carb loading. Boy, were we wrong. Although I loved that juicy burger that night, I woke up the next morning not exactly feeling light and fancy free, if you get my drift. You can probably avoid waddling 3.1 miles if you don't eat about 3/4 lb. of bison the night before.


Pre race. Trying to look chipper, but knowing the next 30 minutes are going to be sheer hell.
And after the race. Note, this is a good 15 minutes after the race was over and we still look dog tired. Had we had the energy to take the picture right after, you would have seen me holding my side cramp (like that really helps) and bending over in pain and Cortney gasping for air.

Oh well, lesson learned. Good thing we could make the 'its just a fun charity race' excuses for our pitiful display of athleticism.