Spring is here... somewhere, about to be burried under five feet of snow...

It's supposed to be spring (but instead we are experiencing a second winter...), and spring represents newness, a fresh start. Renewal. 

(Is renewal and newness the same? Where is my thesaurus? 

I dunno... I am just trying to tie in all of my two topics I want to share.... 

ugh never miiiiind.)

I never upload the pictures from my camera in a timely manor. In this day and age my Ipod touch gets all my shots, the Canon rarely gets any love. I read this article recently. Take a moment to read it. It's pretty much about how all the instagrams that we post are full of partial truths and glamorized moments. It's so true. But then why would I post a picture of the rowdy messy dinners, stacked dirty dishes or the shots of me with a double chin and dirty hair? I post only the awesome shots because that is what I want to remember. I want to remember the beautiful meal, and not necessarily the counters that I had to clean off after. I want to remember the sun peaking through the windows on the longest awful winter days, not the screaming kids dying of boredom and pissed that they can't empty out the dang tupperware cupboard again.

Which brings me to our Easter pictures. 

 I wanted the sweet family picture where we all SORT OF match. Where we are mostly smiling, where 

I don't have a double chin I have perfect hair and where Gabriel isn't picking his nose. Where Matt's eyes are open, and where Eli is looking in to the camera. (Max is never an issue. He is the photogenic one in the group.)

With that said, I now present to you,

The Hegstrom Family 

Easter Album

cute and happy all the time, Eli

Cute, moody all the time Gabriel

one sweet brotherly moment

no one ever takes mom's pic, so mom has to take her own pictures.

Gabe picked out his tie. I take no credit.

take one. nope.

take two. kinda. 

take three. mmm, sorta.

take four. close.

yeah, no.

And this these were the After shots... look at Gabriel's pants.

always happy and cheerful.

only shot with all the boys.

only shot of just max.

pirate face, it's classic.

(we were in the middle of painting , don't judge our two-toned cupboards)

And so there ya go. The good, the bad, the ugly. No glamorized edited photos here.

All jokes aside, Easter was great, it was a time to reflect on the resurrection of Jesus. A time to celebrate that our God is  alive. It was a beautiful day, bitter sweet. I missed my dad. Just a few days earlier would have been his 60th birthday. We spent the day with Matt's family. Got to reconnect with his dad Warren's side of the fam. I was in the middle of my whole30 reset, so I did not get to enjoy the cheesy potatoes, green bean casserole or delicious bars. 

But HEY! I completed my whole30 challenge yesterday. Today I got to re-introduce dairy. I ate two cheese sticks. It was great. In a few days I'll add back in gluten, legumes, and grains. I still plan to eat mostly paleo, with some dairy and a little sugar:) I want to do a whole blog post about my experience, but in a nut shell: over thirty days of eating only meat, veggies, fruit, seeds and nuts, and doing one hour Zumba classes at least three times a week, I lost over 15 lbs, I feel great, and I am ready to stay on track. Here are some before and after pics. Cant wait to post even more "afters" in the future.

before

after

Photo credit goes to my five year old, Maximo Joe.

Stay tuned for new posts about my whole30, house projects that are being completed, 

and whatever else pops in to my thoughts. 

Happy Spring everyone.