San Clemente, Ca Sept 2015

We had lots of fun in San Clemente in September. The kids love this place and it is so awesome that we get to go visit there once a year. Royce became a pro boogie boarder this year. Shiloh completely embraced the sand and everyone just had a good time!

Sara's 32 Birthday

James sent me this email today: I just wanted to put it somewhere where I would read it again.

Hi Sweetie,

Happy 32!  Its a beautiful thing.  Look what you have accomplished.  Your dedication to God and our family!  We have 6 children who would not be here, would not have the opportunity to have life, someday be married and have children of their own without your day-in-day out good times--bad times committed love and sacrifice.  I would not have these wonderful beautiful people that I can call my children and be a father too.  You have given me so much joy and such a blessed life.

I hope you have a happy birthday.  I hope you remember, when its hard, what you have done for this family--and the eternal rewards that you will reap from rearing children to the Lord.  I hope you know how much I love you and am grateful to you for.

With all my love,

Your husband James

Thanks James! Love you.

Bella put on a puppet show for my birthday. Jesse was squealing with excitement, so cute.

After living here for a year I finally have a dish washer that is functional. James installed it for my birthday. Thanks Sweet heart.

Jesse turned 3!

We were in San Clemente for Jesse's 3rd birthday

Birthday kisses

Hypoglycemia and Pregnancy

So here I am pregnant with baby number 6 and in my third trimester. I have dealt with symptoms of hypoglycemia my whole life. I figured out what it was when I was about 20, and was officially diagnosed when I was about 27. The doctors I have seen had very little advice except eat protein and eat more often. I still struggle with symptoms on a daily basis when I am pregnant especially in my third trimester when your body needs more nutrients for your rapidly growing baby.

Here are warning signs and symptoms I experience:

• It usually starts with me getting short tempered or irritated
• fatigue
• overall unwell feeling
• light headed
• nausea
• dizziness
• extreme hunger
• ect.

The worst part of it all is that it hits me like a freight train during pregnancy. I am totally fine playing with my kids and then I just feel stressed out and super tired. It really stinks, but luckily (through trial and error) I have figured some things out to hedge against it.

Here are some things that help me:

• Eat small meals ever two hours, even if your not hungry at that moment. I have actually set alarms for this and it really helps. For my body size (5'8" between 130-135 lb when not pregnant) I try to eat about 400 calories (give or take) of whole food (sugar is the devil). 5-6 meals a day.
• I made a food journal to figure out which foods set me off at different times of the day (I tracked myself for about a week). Anything processed, A lot of processed carbs, sugar (including natural sweeteners like honey, agave, or maple syrup) or oily foods are not good for me before noon, and definitely no treats (sometimes I do indulge at night and it doesn't bother me as much but I still don't feel great)
• I avoid anything with sugar in it like the plague (processed white sugar). That stuff seriously makes me feel terrible, and I will even wake up the next morning feeling sick and tired.
• My loved ones are very aware of my situation so when I feel symptoms come on I warn them that my blood sugar is dropping so they can pretty much steer clear of me till I eat.
• Having food that is whole and healthy prepared in advanced is a life saver because like I said it hits like a freight train so by time I am feeling hypoglycemic I don't have the energy to cook, and just need something to grab and eat

Here is what I eat on a typical day:

• 7am: I make a green smoothy with lots spinach, kale (or other greens that are in my fridge some bananas, frozen fruit, I love Garden of life Raw Meals in chocolate flavor with a heaping spoon of peanut butter. Most fruit sugars don't bother me if they are in their whole form with the exception of: pineapples and watermelon. I usually make enough for a couple smoothies. (I do not use juice, it does bad things to me, I will if I have it on hand put in unsweeted almond milk)
• 9am: left over smoothy or a couple pieces of fruit 
• 11am: I love having a huge salad for lunch, when I say huge I mean the whole head of romain with some kind of protein like organic chicken or beans.I try to just use some vinegar and olive oil with salt and pepper (avoiding store dressing)
•  1pm: veggies and hummus, avocado
• 3pm: Homemade Whole wheat bread and peanut butter, Baked potatoes with veggies or pita pocket with veggies.
• 5pm: This varies a lot depending on the day but most dinner are homemade with whole grains, organic meats and lots of veggies. Example: whole wheat pizza, Stir fry with whole wheat noodles, beans and cornbread and maple syrup, etc. I cook a lot of stuff from scratch. (which I know is hard but I feel so much better when I do)
• 7pm: leftovers
• 9pm: I tend to crave sweets at night if I am in a rush or tired I eat fruit but if I feel a little more energetic I might make some whole wheat peanut butter cookies or pancakes and indulge with a glass of almond milk.

This is my ideal diet, I am definitely not perfect and in the society we live in it is so hard to avoid sugary processed foods, but when I do I can feel an immediate difference in the way my body functions.

Having hypoglycemia can be rough but I actually feel grateful for it. It has really forced me to eat healthy. With 5 almost 6 very active children I have to stay at the top of my game and I feel eating the foods that make me feel good help accomplish this and keep me healthy.

Love this! Be proud of your body...

I know this is slightly inappropriate but I love it! I hate how women are ashamed of there bodies especially after we have work our tails off bringing these little people into the world. We should be proud of our bodies after baby, its should be a constant reminder of the beautiful life we brought into the world!

Moving to Missouri Oct 2014

This is a pic of me driving the silver Duke full of stuff to Missouri last Oct.

Mayors Loop St George, UT

Mayors loop is 5.2 mile paved trail in South St George. We have gone for walk runs there several times while we have been here, but this Saturday the kids and I did the whole loop. I was so impressed with my children's stamina they did so awesome (with a little ice cream bribing) all of them beat me to the end of the trail. Good job my little darlings. We like to call these kinds of activities family toughness trips (or being pioneer tough).

2015 Mortensen Cousin Reunion

James is having a blast this weekend down in San Clemente, CA and although the kids and I miss him, I think its awesome that his family does this. Its such a cool opportunity to just go and get away from everyday responsibilities and be a kid again with people you love.

Him being out of town is good for me, it helps me appreciate exactly how much I adore this man so while its fresh in my mind I thought I would list those things here. (Not that I dont appreciate him when he is here but it getslost sometimes in the daily routine)

• First of all he is really ridiculously handsome!
• He is a diligent provider for my children and me, It actually humbles me to think of how unselfish he is.
• He is eternally patient and calm.
• He is loving and tender with me and the children (most nights he lays in bed with at least one child till he or she falls asleep.
• He tells really good bedtime stories.
• He consistently backs me up in my role as mother and homemaker.
• He is really brave  which is something I hope wears off on me.
• He honors his priesthood and is just a good person.
• He has some amazing talents that impress me every time he uses them (playing the piano, writing anything, public speaking, ect...)
• One of the most amazing things to me is that he loves me the way I am, with all my faults.
• He make me feel valued and beautiful. Thanks babe!

James saying good-bye to the kids at the St. George airport.

 The kids saying adios to Dad.

Myrtle House Before pics and video

 Here is our house in Myrtle before we bought it. We bought it sight unseen, but we did have my sister and her husband (who is a contractor) walk through it and make sure it was structurally sound. The house was a forclosure and had been through the ringer. We bought it AS IS for $32,000! 1600 sq ft 3bed 1bath. It came with six acres of land, a barn, well, fully fenced and garden area. It was pretty much the cheapest house in the nation that we could find with everything on our check list. Now before you start romancing the idea let me explain that this place was in rough shape!

• It had 3 broken out window, and broken out sliding glass door, and back door
• No water was running to the house, the well was and still is not functioning, we are currently on city water.
• There was no A/C and only wall heaters which did not sufficiently heat the house (they also ran our energy bill up to $400 in Dec. 
• The house reeked of cigarettes!
• Nasty orange shag carpet (they had several dogs that also lived in the house)
• Ceiling tiles (which were gold in color because of the smoking) 
• Wood paneling thru-out
• The kitchen was so dark you could not see in the corners 
• It had the scariest bathroom I have ever seen! 
• I will not going to go into detail but there was a mouse problem and we did find a snake skin in the attack. 
• The siding is rotting out in places
• Very under insulated (we froze our tails off! it was the coldest winter of my life)
• The roof was and still is leaking slightly in the dining room

For the first two weeks we literally worked ourselves to exhaustion getting this place livable (my sister let us crash on her couch, the poor thing was in her first trimester and super sick) then we moved in and slept on mattresses on the floors for a while till we got painting and flooring done in most room. 

Are we done fixing it up? No not at all, I haven't even started on the laundry room but we have made significant progress and hope in the next two years it will get there. I didn't take very many pics before because honestly I was super consumed with just working on it but here are a few I do have along with a video walk through my sister did for us.

front of house

north side of house

This is were some sort of furnace was that the previous tenant saw fit to take with them

Back of house facing the East

 Patio in the back was rotting and fell down with a couple pulls (we plan to build a new big one that attaches to an above ground pool!)

 Brother in law Mario (the contractor) super talented guy

The barn(on left) the previous tenant took the wiring so there is no electricity out there and the well house(on right)

 they were nice enough to a deer leg hanging in the barn for us

the over grown orchard

throughout the 6 acres we have these awesome thorn trees, they are covered in thorns like 3-4in long with some kind of poison on them so if you get poked or scratched it burns.f

 There was also a huge trash pile that we ended up just burning

Let me just say this has been such a fun exciting adventure for our family, its way more work than I thought it would be, but I would do it again. 

Here is a link to another movie of the inside of the house

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7-h0s221Et8bkRKU3gxQXZLOUU/view?usp=sharing