thanksgiving

turkey trot!!! best way to start out thanksgiving morning {unless you’re brigham..then its turkey bowl}. my family has been running this since before i can remember! in fact, a couple years ago…we won a turkey for having the most popular last name at the race. {meaning out of all families at the race, the LeSueur’s had the most runners.} i was extra excited about running this year since ive actually been running lots. it felt like nothing compared to the half. nate {my little bro} & i ran it together. at the last stretch of the race he stopped for a minute because he was feeling sick & i just kept running because i wanted to see how fast i could do it. once he took care of business, he sprinted the last stretch! i’m such a mean sister, i left him in the dust on his 18th birthday! and beat him by one minute :) i did it in 47 minutes which means i beat my personal record..yay!! my father in law and sister in law were so kind to come watch & babysit maddix, olivia, & gracie!
 
after the race, i went home, cleaned up & got cookin’! sweet potato casserole for the weight party & fruit salad for the lesueur party.. i was not a fan by any means of the sweet potato recipe. sad day. my parents had about 120 people at their house for lunch!!! i kinda have a large family. for the weight side we reserved a church building & ate lunch & played games! very busy, but fun day. maddix was so worn out by the time we got home, which meant he went straight to bed. brig & i cleaned up our ridiculously messy kitchen & then he headed off to his brothers for their madden tournament. katie & reagan came over & we had a girls night :)

yesterday morning i went out to target & to the mall with reagan & katie. maddix got a little tired of shopping after a couple hours..but i did get some cute stuff!! when i got home from shopping, brig had put up the tree, hung the stockings, hung the wall hanging from his grandma leavitt & another wall hanging & put up the alaska bear nativity set. too cute. brigham gets so excited about this time of year. i love it to death. we went to costco to walk around. we ate lots of samples & ended up eating dinner there {delicious & cheap…healthy? not so much}. last year we started a tradition the night after thanksgiving. so this year was our second time doing it! we made monkey bread & watched a Christmas movie together! it was delicious & lots of fun.
tonight we went to costa vida for dinner, stopped by qt for some amazing hot chocolate, then walked around & looked at the temple Christmas lights. maddix loved all the beautiful lights! we had an elder take our picture, but it was ridiculously blurry..& then had someone else try to take another one later but battery was dead..oh well. i’m sure we will be back plenty of more times this season :)

{picture found here}

go see them!!! they are wonderful. makes for a great, not to mention cheap, date night :)

i felt the need to ramble

yay for CHRISTMAS music!

{ive been waiting for delilah to start chattin up on 99.9 considering it started the night of halloween 2 years ago.}

this weekend was great. friday night we went to dinner and then walked around target. we had fun picking out toys and such that we would love to had if we were billionaires. i have come to realize, as has brigham, that my Christmas list is a tad bit longer than last years…and most of them are not what you call cheap or affordable. {please tell me i’m not the only one like this?} but after hearing the talks in sacrament meeting today i had a little bit of a change of heart. the youth speaker gave a great talk about learning to be grateful for what we have instead of always dwelling on what we do not have. brig and i both looked at each other and confessed that we could both use that great counsel.
last night my friend sarah took some pictures of our little family. she did great. probably my favorite part of pictures was towards the end when maddix was totally done, so brig would run around in a few circles while holding him to get him to laugh, then we’d hurry and pose and snap! :) it was awesome. after pics, sarah, melanie, and I went to costa vida for dinner with bentley and maddix while the hubs vegged out to ufc. then sarah and baby b came over, we put the kids to bed and had fun chatting about running, babies, bodies, and everything else. i love having girl talks! thanks sarah and melanie for the fun night! :)
 
    
thanksgiving is this week :) which means TURKEY TROT time!!! this has been a family tradition {kind-of-ish} for like the past…long time. brig will not be joining me due to turkey bowl-shmirky shmowl. im not bitter or anything :) {he will make up for it by running londons run with me in january so no worries!} im actually really ready for it this year so im excited!!
this morning i woke up to breakfast in bed :) i had a rough night with a terrible sore throat and a crying baby. did i mention i slept in until 8? dont remember the last time that happened! brig got up with maddix at 6:30, fed him, played with him, made me a delicious breakfast burrito and kindly delivered it to me in bed. along with a bottle of ketchup and my favorite pink water bottle :) thanks brig, you are the bomb dot com.
i felt the need to include my ridiculous Christmas list..just in case santa reads this.
 

1. NOT! okay, these are just weird. i saw someone wearing these at the airport. people really run in these?
2. these are hot. i would love to be seen running in these. i bet i could run 10x faster while wearing them as well! ;)
3. this is what i continue to dream about. maybe someday when im a rich nurse. HA! ya right. i would love to capture pictures of my little man and big man with this snazzy camera. but it looks like for now i’ll just keep dreaming about it..
4. santa, this one is a must. i cant stand to miss any more adorable moments of my sweet family. pretty please!! i want to capture every memory possible before my little man grows up too fast. {already happening by the way.}

oh and brigham wanted me to let you know that all he wants for Christmas is another year of health. i know, he’s so needy isnt he? sheesh. oh and a money clip while you’re at it.
love shelbs.
p.s i’ll be sure to leave you some yummy pumpkin chocolate chip cookies and some cold milk :)

feeling grateful

the past couple of days ive been feeling very grateful for so many things.
i am so grateful for my family. my husband is so hardworking, loving, handsome, hilarious, patient, talented & fun. i’m so lucky to be married to him for eternity!! and there’s sweet little maddix. he keeps us so entertained and makes us so happy! plus he’s super handsome :) i love my family SO much and i’m glad they keep me around!
      
i am grateful for my Savior. the other night brigham & i were talking about how excited we are for the the second coming. it is going to be the neatest thing ever to see his face. we were talking about how we are so happy now that we can’t even imagine the amount of happiness that we are going to have at that time. i love my Savior & i am so grateful for the atonement that allows me to constantly repent & be forgiven of my mistakes.

i am grateful for my healthy body. i am so fortunate to have a body that functions well and allows me to exercise and to do the things that i love to do. this past weekend i ran my first 1/2 marathon with my sister in law katie. it went really well! it was so much fun to finally race after all the training i did! my time ended up being 1:52:30. I beat my goal so i was happy!  a couple weeks ago brig did a triathlon and competed against some family members! it was great.

i am grateful for the prophet and all of our church leaders. this past weekend we had stake conference. we were able to hear from the president monson & some of our other general leaders. we are so lucky to have satellite broadcast so that we can hear from our prophet and leaders so often. i know that they are called of God and that their messages are revelation from Him.

i am grateful for all of the comforts of life that i enjoy. my house, food, clothing, bed, furniture, car, and everything else!

i am grateful for my talents. i know that sometimes i complain and think that i dont have any talents, but i realized that i need to be grateful for the talents that i do have because my Heavenly Father has blessed me so much. 

i am grateful for this beautiful weather & time of year. i love that maddix and i can go for walks every morning & play at the park without being drenched in sweat. i love that i can run in the afternoon without dying of a heat stroke. i love the smell of Christmas. i was so excited to buy my autumn spice candle! it totally sets the Thanksgiving/Christmas mood in our house. i love the green garland with gold berries and sparkly red pinecones & Christmas light sitting on our ledge. i love that my husband simply cannot wait to put up the Christmas tree, watch Christmas movies, go see Christmas lights, and bake/eat Christmas goodies with me :) i love that i can open the windows all day long! i love that i can finally put maddix in his snuggly sleepers and me in my comfy sweats :)
  
 
thanksgiving: 9 days. Christmas: 34 days. 2 year anniversary: 43 days.
im a happy lady :) especially at this time of the year!

9 months

happy nine months to my baby boy.

this little boy cracks us up with his animated personality. he seriously claps anytime you say “yay” or “clap”. he is now walking around while holding onto chairs, stand up fan, stroller, etc. this scares us a little! his top teeth are almost here! one has already broken through the skin, its about time! just glad to hear there’s a reason for his fussy self. every morning we go on a walk to the park and swing on the swings. he loves it! he laughs so hard. its the cutest thing in the world.  he still has the chunkiest legs in the world which i absolutely love and don’t mind a bit! maddix loves bath time as you can tell in the above pictures. he was too busy playing to look at the camera. he also loves playing ball! we will sit on the floor across from him and roll the ball to him and he’ll hit it back! most likely not intentionally..but who cares? :)then he starts to clap and bounce up and down because he’s so excited..which then usually makes him fall backwards. that’s the thing about this kid, he could care  less if he falls over {most of the time}. he just gets right back up! did i mention he loves to attack other children? including “big kids”? i was babysitting my niece that’s 22 months old..she was trying to hand him toys and talk to him. until he lunged towards her and began to attack her! now she runs away from him. :) ‘atta boy! chasin’ the girls already. reeeal great! {picture me saying this with a hint of sarcasm}. oh and he also put a boy, that is his age but much bigger, in a headlock at church! yeah. no joke. and….he’s ALMOST sleeping through the night ;) {i’m sure you’ve never heard me say that before..}. good thing he’s cute.

well i think you get the picture. we love this little man to death. couldn’t live without him!

love, mamma shelbs

p.s. nine month stats will be here next week!

huhwhyeee

we had such an awesome time in hawaii! big surprise huh. we flew into oahu on tuesday afternoon and spent the rest of the day walking down waikiki. before we left for our trip brig said..”let’s not eat anywhere that we could eat in az!”. this did not happen. at all. tuesday dinner was p.f. changs. but it was delicious! YAY for happy hour appetizers. we also enjoyed something deluctable called hula pie. basically a large piece of ice cream cake covered in hot fudge and macadamia nuts. heaven right there. on a plate. mmmm. by about 7 o’clock we were dead tired..we had not yet adjusted to the 3 hour time difference. so we listened to our bodies and went to bed early. bad choice! i was WIDE awake by 3 o’clock. AM that is. {6 o’clock az time}. so we decided to take advantage of it and begin our day early! at like 5 o’clock we went and ran 5 miles. it felt so good to run there.. on the beach! and yes, brig did keep up with me :) after running we got our swim suits on & headed to breakfast. yes we even went out for breakfast..then we went to the swap meet & got some lovely suveniers. After that, we went snorkeling at Hanauma Bay. This didn’t last super long. It was windy and the water was choppy so we were only there for about an hour. Which is totally lame considering most people spend at least half the day there. Oh well…we then went to lunch at a place called Cheeseburger in Paradise. pretty delicious..and pricey. We decided to spend the rest of the day on the North Shore. GREAT choice. We went to Pounder’s Beach and were pretty much the only ones there. The rocks sand was beautiful, the waves were brown blue, and the water was freezing perfect. however i will admit that it took a lot to get me in the water considering the sky was completely covered with clouds AND wind. so, i decided to be a fun wife and do a little boogy boarding with brig. we had fun :)
thursday morning we went to breakfast then headed off to the North Shore for the Laie Temple Open House. it was beautiful! after the open house we went to the polynesian cultural center and spend the rest of the day there. my personal favorites were the samoan islands and the tongan islands. those guys are hilarious! great sense of humors. i also got selected to be in a “dance off” with the tahitians..way out of my comfort level. i thought i looked good up there..and then i saw the video brig took of me. probably the most ridiculous thing ever. after leaving that little adventure, i discovered that i gained some popularity with the old ladies at the pcc. example, random old ladies on a canoe “SHELBY! shelby!”. me, “who are they? oh well. {friendly wave}”. voices again “shelby you were so good up on that stage!”. oh great. they remembered me..even after i put my hair up to try to disguise myself. nice job shelb…nice job.
friday morning we went to breakfast. {see a trend? probably not recommended for half marathon training.} then we went and climbed diamond head crater..not so much a hike. we pretty much knew that before we even started. seeing that the people hiking down were wearing dresses, flip flops, holding canes, you get the point. but the view at the top was gorgeous! after diamond head we headed to kalama beach. this beach was awesome! there was basically a walk way between two houses and again like NO one on the beach. the only bummer was that it rained almost the whole day..but that didnt stop us from playing in the ocean! well, for me it kinda did..but i eventually got in. we decided to take a lunch break and eat some authentic pizza..BUT the GPS took us to two different places that didnt exist. so we ended up eating papa johns. we ate a large pizza. yes, that means i ate half and brig ate half. don’t judge.. {on this trip we definitely established that i eat as much as brig..if not more. and also that someday my terrible eating habits will probably catch up to me..} later on our way home from the beach we stopped at the pali lookout. my family described this place as VERY windy..in fact they could jump and it would kind of pull them backwards. so we tried to jump, a few times in fact. but nothing happened! thats okay family, we believe you. must’ve been a bad day for pali. :) that night we ate at cheesecake factory..our favorite! then of course i had to get some kind of frozen treat :) so we went to yogurtland. a.ma.zing. i got a large thinking brigham would share with me. but nope..he wouldnt eat it. so i had to! bummer.
saturday morning we went to breakfast :) then we headed to the swap meet but it was unfortunately closed :( sad day. so we decided to just spend the whole day on the north shore. we got some delicious shaved ice at matsumotos, then just drove around enjoying the amazing scenery. then headed to pounders beach again. it was a relaxing day! for lunch we went to a place called kahuku grill that the stake president owned. best hamburger and fries ever!! the rest of the afternoon was spent at the beach. after awhile we decided to head back to waikiki for the night, but first we stopped by and said hi to my friend kilie and her husband. it was good to see them and talk to them! that night we went to chili’s for dinner and then watched all the street performers! fun day.
by sunday morning we were pretty ready to come home to little maddix boy. we missed him badly. but we did have such a fun time being alone together and not having any responsibility for a few days!! it was great :)


 


  
p.s. thanks to our awesome families for watching maddix!

i would be afraid of those guys too maddix..i don’t blame ya bud!!