The Duran World

Ready for a new week!

2011-06-12T22:11:00.001-07:00

This has been a tough week to say the least! Staying positive and know this week will be better!!! Finals week for my 2 classes is coming up. Online classes are a lot tougher than I thought! Lots and lots of work! Can get overwhelming at times! Summer's here and trying to keep the girls as busy as I can. Swim lessons in AJ pool Mon-Thur, the library and all the playdates we can get! Lol! Otherwise they are bored and drive mommy bananas! I have to say though... I love having them home. I love them so much and they make me laugh. Alina is quite the helper, she helps me with her sisters, cleaning up upstairs and everything I need :) I love her... Sofi has her days, but she is so sweet, and Lari is hillarious. Still working on that potty training.. .I have to admit, I do get lazy and don't work as hard as I should... I promise she will be potty trained by the time she is 3 (next month)!

I have a new found love for BUTTER!!!

2011-04-05T17:54:00.001-07:00

This is from a comment from the Nourishing our children page. Love it!

Why Butter? Butter contains many nutrients vital to growth and brain function such as fat soluble vitamins A, D, and K2. Healthy fats, such as raw or cultured butter from cows on pasture, supply nutrients that are essential for: growth, energy, absorption and metabolism of many nutrients, brain function, kidneys, heart and lungs, building cell membranes, formation of hormones, healthy skin, eyes and bones. Besides butter, the following nutrient-rich traditional fats have nourished healthy population groups for thousands of years: beef and lamb tallow, lard, chicken, goose and duck fat, coconut, palm and sesame oils, cold pressed olive oil, cold pressed flax oil in small amounts, and marine oils. Research is now showing that it is the new-fangled fats in the form of all hydrogenated oils, soy, corn and safflower oils, cottonseed oil, canola oil, and all fats heated to very high temperatures in processing and frying that can cause cancer, heart disease, immune system dysfunction, sterility, learning disabilities, growth problems and osteoporosis. These are the fats that are in large part responsible for our national obesity and health crises. Why Butter is Better: http://www.westonaprice.org/food-features/519-why-butter-is-better.html

New Beginnings!

2011-04-03T17:15:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone and Happy early Easter! I am starting my blog back up again! Last time I stopped because I thought it took way too much time from my life! I had a new baby and things were hectic. Well, it seems like now everything is pretty much normal! We moved to another house and we changed wards to the Pecan Creek II ward. We love our new (we've been here for about 7 or 8 months) neighborhood and adore our ward! First English ward ever, but we have met some fantastic people and are making tons of great friends and learning lots of new things :). I had a rough few months at the beginning of the year. I was sick for a couple months with kidney stones and bladder issues. It got kind of scary, but my heavenly father NEVER leaves me and I am in perfect condition right now (well...except for some seasonal allergies...). The girls are doing Fantastic! Larisa is such a big girl now, tall, tall, tall!!! she's wearing a size 11 shoe!!!!! Alina and Sofia are also great! Sofia is doing great in morning kindergarten with Miss Arnold, and my big girl Alina in 3rd grade with Mrs Rodriguez. Raul now works for University of Phoenix and is really happy there. He will be done with his Masters in accounting this upcoming August! Hooray! We are so thankful because he is the best dad ever!!! Through my health struggles the beginning of the year, I discovered a new way of eating. As you all know, I have always been a "healthy" eater, but I learned that was not the case. I met a new friend and she has been a wealth of information. I am now eating all organic fruits and vegetables, grass fed meat, pastured chicken and eggs, seafood, and raw milk!!!! I am also making my own bread and many other things. Although overwhelming at times it has been wonderful and exciting to feed mine and my family's bodies with the right foods! I want to be able to live a long healthy life, and this is helping. I purchased the book Nourishing Traditions by Sally Falcon, and have learned so much! I recommend it everyone! By the way, I love raw milk!!!! :)

Anyway friends, life is going great ! I will update my blog as much as I can from now on instead of just stocking other people's :) TTYL!!!!!!!

Welcome 2009!!!!!!

2009-01-02T19:56:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone! (if anyone reads this :P) Tonight I seriously started considering not blogging anymore. It's fun, and even more fun reading other people's blogs, but I just don't have the time to blog as much as I'd like to. Then I thought....well, at least once a month will do. So I'm still here.
December was a busy month! I'm just so glad the holidays are over. We had a great Christmas, spent it at my friend's Vasthy's house. I have no pictures of that or Christmas morning because I could not find my camera if my life depended on it! I took pictures with my cell phone but haven't figured out how to upload them yet so I will post those later! On 12/27 we went to check out the light rail. My husband was so excited (He's all about public transportation) and so were the girls. We took it somewhere in Tempe and then went to Mill for a little while! It was freezing!!! But, if was nice to see people for a change. I started getting a little claustrophobic from all the people in there. I guess I have been living in AZ for too long. Maybe I forgot I've lived in NYC with thousands of people. Aside from that, it was a ton of fun! I enjoyed people watching and my girls did too. New year's was fun as well. We spent it at another family friend's house and the gilrs stayed up until after midnight to say happy new year.

I am so very happy with my baby Larisa. She's starting to eat solids and starting to sit up! She's the cutest and best baby ever!!! Love her (love Alina and Sofia as well!).

Now this month of January just getting ready for my half marathon London's run (hopefully I can make it) and Alina's going back to school again. Also, my lovely birthday is on 1/6. Yes, ladies and gentleman I am turning 32...you'll see...you'll get there too! Oh well...Life sucks and the you die ha!

P.S. Sorry my pictures are a mess but I just haven't figured out how to organize them well on the webpage.

New things going on and thanksgiving..

2008-12-04T12:12:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone! Well, it's been an eventful couple of weeks. I ran my 1st 10k on Thanksgiving day the Turkey Trot. I am so proud of myself, not really in an impressive time (1hr 7 min), but very proud of myself and my friend Saasha. It was kind of a rainy crummy day and we were both sick, but we managed to finish. It was a lot of fun. Now I am training for my 1st half marathon The Londons run here in Queen Creek in January. Running has always been something I liked, but I never ran more than 3 miles. I am practically addicted to it now and my goal is to run the NYC marathon one day. Who knows... maybe in 2010!
We had a great thanksgiving. We celebrated it at my sister's house with friends and family and had a ton of fun. We did it the latin way....ate at 8 p.m. and danced till about 1 in the morning...it was nice, I love dancing and haven't done it in a while. My girls were tired and fell asleep early, but we still had fun!
We also had some professional portraits taken by Scott Cluff of cluffphotography.com at Freestone park (I guess that's the standard picture place). They proved to be a challenge either Sofia wasn't smiling or looking at the camera, or Larisa was looking elsewhere. We managed to get some cute shots... I have a favorite family one but I am not posting it because I am sending it out on christmas cards. Once everyone's gotten it I will post it. Anyway, now everything's back to normal. We decorated the house and put up our Christmas tree. My girls are so excited, they can't wait for Santa to come. Larisa is growing and getting stronger, she is huge! They grow so fast!

2008-11-24T10:40:00.000-08:00

This was an email that was forwarded to me.
I thought it was really special.

Before I was a Mom,
I never tripped over toys
or forgot words to a lullaby.
I didn't worry whether or not
my plants were poisonous.
I never thought about immunizations. Before I was a Mom,
I had never been puked on.
Pooped on.
Chewed on.
Peed on.
I had complete control of my mind
and my thoughts.
I slept all night.

Before I was a Mom,
I never held down a screaming child
so doctors could do tests.
Or give shots.
I never looked into teary eyes and cried.
I never got gloriously happy over a simple grin.
I never sat up late hours at night
watching a baby sleep.

Before I was a Mom,
I never held a sleeping baby just because
I didn't want to put her down.
I never felt my heart break into a million pieces
when I couldn't stop the hurt.
I never knew that something so small
could affect my life so much.
I never knew that I could love someone so much.
I never knew I would love being a Mom.

Before I was a Mom,
I didn't know the feeling of
having my heart outside my body.
I didn't know how special it could feel
to feed a hungry baby.
I didn't know that bond
between a mother and her child.

I didn't know that something so small
could make me feel so important and happy.

Before I was a Mom,
I had never gotten up in the middle of the night
every 10 minutes to make sure all was okay.
I had never known the warmth,
the joy,
the love,
the heartache,
the wonderment
or the satisfaction of being a Mom.
I didn't know I was capable of feeling so much,
before I was a Mom.

Halloween pictures!

2008-11-19T20:08:00.001-08:00

Got the Picture thing down. This is at my sister's house. 1st it's me as the blonde graduate, and Nancy (my step-niece)as cleopatra. Alina, Sofia and Natalie (their cousin) as the Disney princesses, and Larisa as an adorable butterfly!

Ok here we go!

2008-11-19T19:50:00.000-08:00

I never thought I would do this, but looking at other people's blogs inspired me! I thought this would be a great way to keep in touch with friends and know what's going on in other people's lives. I think people's lives are really interesting. Maybe that explains my addiction to reality TV. I, like Oprah (hehe) love to see how people live their lives. I told my husband tonight that I would start our own family blog and he thought it was a good idea so I went along with it. I do not consider myself a talented writer but will try to make it as entertaining and interesting as possible. I do not really have much time for blogging because I'm pretty busy with my 3 lovely girls but it gives me something to do to get out of the daily routine. Now, I just have to figure out how to add pictures to this thing...