I love this time of year. The music, the lights, the general spirit of cheeriness in the air. A lot of people get angry that Christmas decorations are out before Thanksgiving but I see no point in that. Instead of thinking of the two holidays separately, I like to think of the Holiday Season in general. The happiness, the love, the beauty of the world. I like to focus on those things.

Since this is Everly's first holiday season I'm trying extra hard to make it a good one. I've been thinking about traditions I want to start with our family and things I want to teach her. She may be only 9 months old, but she's so smart already and learns every day. She's not to young to understand the meaning of love, happiness, and giving.

Last year Aaron and I started two family traditions that I hope to continue for a very long time. The first was a Secret Santa for another family. We wrapped up a little bundle of goodies we thought they'd enjoy and we dropped it off at their doorstep on December 24th. I was 7 months pregnant so I waited around the corner while Aaron rang their doorbell and ran like the wind. It was so much fun! That evening we settled onto the couch with new pajamas, hot chocolate and our Christmas book for the year, How the Grinch Stole Christmas. Aaron read it to my round little belly and Everly kicked him to say thank you. It was such a sweet moment for us all. I've already picked out our Christmas book for this year. It will be wrapped and waiting for us under the tree on Christmas Eve! I hope Everly enjoys it as much as I did growing up.

It's such a gift to see the world through my daughter's eyes. I took her outside a few nights ago to see the twinkle lights that are hung over the garage. She looked at them in awe and reached her chubby hand out to try and touch them. I've never seen more beautiful twinkle lights.

Because of Everly I'm seeing things in a whole new way. I'm remembering the true spirit of Christmas and I'm learning to keep a thankful soul. It's such a magical thing.

xo Sue

Have you ever in your life been unhappy with your weight or how your body looked when you saw yourself in the mirror? Have you ever had someone stand in front of you in a picture so that you didn't seem so fat? Have you ever tried to lose weight or become healthy and quit after a week or two because it "wasn't working"? I have been through all of those things. And let's put a beam of light in saying that one, you are not alone and two, there truly is a light at the end of the long dreadful tunnel. I say long and dreadful because of the pure and simple fact that being healthy and losing weight is a very long and hard process. You will fight with yourself, you will fight with your loved ones, and sometimes you will fight with a workout machine (yes I've done it). But it's worth it. Yes you've heard it before with the whole "oh stick with it you'll get there" speech that your skinny friend or family member gives you and you just want to scream because they make it seem so easy. It's not easy, there's no magical pill, or magical treadmill that will give you instant results. And quite frankly as much as you want to just talk to someone about how you feel it's hard finding someone who actually understands and will listen to you and try to help. Let me just tell you a little bit about my story so that you won't feel so much like I am a broken record or some infomercial about losing weight.

Hi!! My name is Heather and I am what they like to call an emotional eater. If I'm sad, I eat. If I'm mad, I eat. If I'm happy, well yeah I think you get the point. I have struggled with weight loss my whole life!! Having an obese mother and a father who taught us to eat everything on our plate or we'd go hungry it was a struggle to be healthy and I grew up having a relationship with food. Food equalled happiness and fulfillment in my life and that's something I needed because I didn't get it from anyone else. Okay moving on, so like I said I was a chunky girl all the time, well I changed that once I graduated high school. I wanted so bad to get out of the home I was in that I went to join the military. But I was way too overweight for them to even think about recruiting me. So I had to lose weight. A lot of weight. I lost 50lbs before they would consider me and after ending up not joining the military and moving away I lost another 15 or so pounds. And then I got married and ended up pregnant!! Yay!! I had a rough pregnancy, husband was gone a lot (he's in the military) and I had high blood pressure so always getting tested, and being stressed out I'm sure you know what I did... Yep that's right I ate, and ate and ate. And even though I threw up so much of what I ate I still kept eating. It was so comforting. Well after I have birth to my amazing little boy I had lost about 40lbs of my baby weight which meant only 20lbs more pounds to go to get to my comfortable weight yay!! And then reality set in. I was basically a single mother with my husband not really connecting with our son (he's sooo much better now a year & 1/2 later) and my marriage was on the rocks. I fell to a very dark place in my life to where I gained so much weight I was just miserable. I was obese, miserable, and still searched for comfort within eating.

Then there was a weight loss competition on base and I joined. And I was determined to beat a lot of people if not win. I dedicated a huge part of my life to working out and eating right. And when I say working out I mean I was always doing something to burn calories, and I calorie counted (so hard to do!!) I limited my caloric intake and I burned as many calories as I could and I drank A LOT of water!! I worked my butt off... Quite literally. I lost a total of 36lbs between Jan-April, and I won. I won the competition, but even better I was able to play with my son more without feeling like I was going to pass out, I started feeling better about myself, and the best thing is that I had no help, I did this all on my own with my own determination my own will power and my own sacrifices. Looking back I would say that had I gotten help from someone there's no telling how much better it would've been. Since then I have lost more weight to a total of about 50 or so pounds and I am wanting to lose more but am just not letting it control my life right now.

Okay so back to the reason I am writing this. My point in this very long blog is that losing weight and being healthy IS POSSIBLE!! I wanted to quit so many times, and sometimes I did. I would take a couple days off because I was just tired. But when I was done taking a break I went back at it full force because I WANTED TO BE HEALTHY!! And WANTING something is the biggest part of doing something like this. I've done it twice, because I WANTED it, not because someone else wanted it for me. Did I struggle? YES!! Do I still struggle? YES!! Do I still find comfort in food? YES!! But I've worked so hard to get to where I am that I am just not ready to give it all up for unhealthy food. That doesn't mean that I don't splurge and get a cheeseburger over a salad but I've come to a point to where I know how hard it is to work off what I eat, and I am an adult and have to make the decision as to if it is worth it or not and well sometimes to me it is. "One bad meal isn't going to make you fat just like one good meal isn't going to make you skinny" -that's something I've had to learn to live by.

Being healthy and losing weight isn't always fun, or the cool thing to do but it's so rewarding in the end. Feeling good about yourself is something that a lot of people in this lifetime just have never felt because they just don't know how. If you don't like something about yourself change it, you are the only person in this world that you should allow to change something about yourself. Allow yourself to live an amazing long life, feeling good about who you are and what you look like. And most importantly when you feel like giving up, know that you are not alone, someone out there is cheering you on and looking up to you as their inspiration!!

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I feel as if Everly's 9th month of life went by so quickly. More quickly than any of the others. It might be because her newest cousin Sam was born and we spent a good amount of energy and time focusing on that. And E just kept right on growing. Didn't she know she needed to give me a little break? But despite its quick passing this month has been absolute magic. Having little Sam around has reminded me deeply of when I gave birth to this little miracle of mine. And now I see her as this beautiful nine month old baby and I realize that she's been outside my body as long as she was inside it. There's something special about the ninth month and I believe that's it.

Everly is becoming independent and curious like never before. She wants to see everything, touch everything, taste everything, do everything.

• Everly has started walking. Last month I shared that she was taking steps here and there. Now she walks for real. She walks everywhere and always looks SO proud of herself afterwards. It probably helps that I cheer for her, but initially we did nothing to encourage her walking except watch in awe. She definitely decided to do it on her own. She's slow but steady and I'm sure the pace is going to pick up soon. She's already made improvements in just a few short weeks.
• She learned how to clap. She'll walk up to me and clap her hands. I always shout "Yay Everly!" when she claps for herself. She has the biggest smile when we do this.
• E's favorite song is "If You're Happy and You Know It"- obviously because she gets to clap the whole time. 
• We've found her ticklish spots this month and her giggle when being tickled is music to my soul. She also loves to blow raspberries, usually on my cheek to wake me up in the morning.
• Everly celebrated her first Halloween this month and was the cutest little lion there ever was. She also had her first taste of chocolate thanks to her daddy's love of it. She enjoyed the chocolate but thankfully still likes all the other flavors in the world and doesn't need the sweets.
• We finally found a food she didn't like: canned asparagus. I do wonder if she'd like baked asparagus because it tastes so different. Perhaps we'll test that theory at Thanksgiving!
• Ever picks a word of the day, usually mama or dada, and says almost nothing else for 24 hours. Then she picks again the next day. It's precious and I love when her word is mama. Then again, I love when it's dada too. This girl sure loves her daddy.
• E is still breastfeeding, bed sharing, and baby wearing every day. We've been doing those things since birth and I really feel the connection it's helped us develop. She adores me and I adore her. She's so much happier just being in a room with me and if she has my attention she shines. She loves her daddy and grandparents too, but right now she's definitely a mama's girl.

I cannot be grateful enough for this precious lady. She is everything that is good in the world and in me. I count her as my biggest blessing every single day. Mama loves you bugga.

xo Sue

Ask yourself this. What's your least favorite thing about yourself? Now lets change that. Lets change the way we see ourselves. When we look in the mirror lets not see the thin tired mouth, the dark circles under our eyes, or the fly-aways sticking out of our hair. Lets instead see the smile on the lips, the brightness of the eyes, or the curls (or straightness) of the pretty hair we have. Lets take the negatives and make them positives.

I have this idea for people to share their stories. Everyone has a story, right? I know I do. And maybe it's not the most fascinating story that's ever been told, but it's my story. And that matters. We all want to share our stories, to be heard. We talk about ourselves, every one of us. Especially bloggers! We write entire pages on the internet dedicated to ourselves. We like to share our stories because we want to be heard. We want to know that the things we value are important and we are not alone.

Lets start now, and make it a 2014 personal intention. Lets talk about body image and self love. Lets talk about the things that are good and the things that are bad. Lets talk about the beauty of motherhood- and how damn hard it is. No one told me it would be this hard. No one told me it would be this wonderful. Lets talk about the beauty and the hardships of just being a woman. Lets talk about it. 

Lets talk about the fact that while I was pregnant I had more than one person accuse me of having an eating disorder and hurting my baby. I didn't. I had a very dangerous and scary disease called Hyperemesis Gravidarum that caused me to be hospitalized three separate times, triggered pre-term labor, and made me so sick I couldn't move for days. I cried myself to sleep repeatedly because I was terrified that something bad was going to happen to Everly because of this disease my body was fighting.

Lets talk about the fact that childbirth was the most painful, beautiful, intense, emotional, difficult, spiritual, amazing thing I've ever experienced. And when it was over the realness of life began. I had the most perfect daughter who depended on me entirely. She loved me and I loved her from the moment she was born and that love has only intensified with every passing day.

Lets talk about the fact that daily I question my abilities as a mother. I often look at Everly and think to myself that I am not worthy of her. She is superior in every way. She is smart and curious and beautiful and I will fight for her every single day of my life just so she can know happiness. My life is better with Everly in it. I am so lucky she is mine. She teaches and tests me every single day.

Lets talk about the fact that because of my HG I didn't gain any weight during pregnancy, but in fact lost 20 pounds. But now that I'm healthy again my stomach has gone down but it's not where I want it to be. My stomach is my least favorite part of my body. I do crunches, sit-ups, and other exercises and still my stomach is not flat. WHY? I'm learning to accept it, to love it even. I love my stomach. I carried my daughter there for 9 months and even without weight gain it stretched out and changed. And that's okay.

Lets talk about the fact that I love my face. I know, that sounded pretty vain right there, but part of this experience is talking about the good things too. It's okay to say that I love my face. It's not perfect, but it's mine and I really think it's a good one. I like the imperfections too. I honestly do.

This is a small part of my story. I want to share more. I will share more when the time is right. I'm starting this now, The Discover Yourself Project. If you want to share your story I would LOVE to hear it. You can send any and all submissions to thediscoveryourselfproject@gmail.com or if you'd like to share your story anonymously just go to this form and tell me all about yourself and your life.

xo Sue

As of right now, stories sent to us will be shared through As It Seems and The Discover Yourself Project. If we start to get a lot of stories (and hopefully we will!) they'll mostly be shared through The Discover Yourself Project. Please take a few minutes to visit us there, like us on Facebook, and share us with your friends. It would mean the world to us! THANK YOU!