Momma Monday

I have said that this blog will consist of a lot of different things (simply because there are a lot of different things that go on inside my head!).  I didn't want to start a blog that had a specific topic...I wanted to share my heart with people, so that's what I am gonna do! ;)  I think though to help with a little direction I am gonna do "Momma Mondays" and talk a little bit about my journey as a mom.  It has been a long and winding road (even in just the 3 1/2 years it has has been since Kolten was born) but an incredibly rewarding one.  So, here is the start to Momma Mondays!


I will be totally honest, there was a time in my life that I didn't know if I wanted to have children.  I come from a large family (I am one of 6 kids and I have 16 nieces and nephews) and it is nothing against all of them (you all know I love you DEARLY), I just didn't know if I wanted to have kids.  Keith and I got married fairly young, I was 20 and he was 22.  So, we weren't in rush to have kids right away anyway, after spending 5 years as "just us" we decided to really leave it up to God to decide if He would bless us with another little Hansen.  After a few months (including an amazingly fun trip to Vegas to celebrate my niece's wedding), we were blessed on Halloween 2009 to find out we were expecting.  I am not going to lie to you all...I did NOT really enjoy being pregnant.  I know there are many women who love it, and bless them for telling me how great it was, but I didn't agree.  I was SUPER swollen and I was due July 7th, so I was smack dab in the middle of a Kansas summer and pretty darn uncomfortable. To add to all the of swelling, I packed on over 50 lbs during my pregnancy.  Kolten was breach, so we had to do a scheduled C-Section and we scheduled it for July 1st (in my "plan" I thought about my birthday being in June, Keith's being in August, so we would have a June, July and August!) - BUT Kolten had other plans!  At 3:30am on Tuesday, June 29th my water broke!  We made it to the hospital and our doctor lived very close so he was there quick and Kolten Allen Hansen was born at 8:28am!

My mom, Jean Marie and I at my baby shower

 

 

 

Kolten and my Mom

Our hearts were so full, we thought we were going to be a "one and done" family.  Kolten was an amazing baby and turned into an amazing toddler, we had so much fun with him! He was so happy and fun loving, we couldn't ask for more.  As happens though, God had so amazing other plans in store!  In April 2012 (after going to Vegas again in October 2011), we found out we were (VERY unexpectedly) expecting again!  I was Due December 28, 2012.  This pregnancy was pretty different than before.  Kolten was almost 2 when we found out we were pregnant so chasing after a toddler did keep me a little more active the second time around, I still packed on 40+ pounds of weight and had a lot of swelling again.  One of the hardest things I went though during that time though, had nothing to really do with my pregnancy.  My mom passed away on June 10, 2012.  She had suffered a brain aneurysm when I was a senior in high school and had a long battle with her health including mild Alzheimers and dementia.  The last coherent conversation my mom and I had, I stopped by the nursing home to see her and she was having an okay day the nurses told me.  I was talking to her like normal and she was just kind of moaning or answering back in sentences that made no sense to what I was saying.  Then I told her I was pregnant again, that Kolten was going to be a big brother.  She looked at me, straight in the eyes and sighed.  "You better slow down on those babies" was the next thing out of her mouth and I couldn't help but laugh.  She was there, for that split second, my mom was there with me in body and mind.  It was amazing.  She started to go down hill very soon after that conversation and we never shared any other conversations.  However, not long after she passed, we found out we were having a baby girl.  That little girl as well, much like her brother had a mind of her own!  As I said, I was due December 28th and since I had a C-Section with Kolten, we opted for the same for Baby Girl Hansen.  We decided to wait until after Christmas, I wanted Kolten to have one last Christmas when it was all about him and we just barely made it!  We scheduled for December 27th and Keith's mom and dad were in town for Christmas, but his dad was going to have to head home on the 26th for work, so he was going to miss the birth.  On Christmas Day night, he said to me, "You know Lisa, if you have her tomorrow, I won't have to miss it!"  and I told him that I thought she was going to stay put and I was sorry.  Again, "man plans, God laughs"!  By 11am, I was having contractions and went to the doctor's office to get checked (we lived right across the street from the office), I was only dilated to 1 and he thought I would pry make it to the next day but instructed me to go to the hospital if they got more intense or started to come closer together.  By 3pm I couldn't take it any more and we headed to the hospital.  We got checked in, I got hooked up, and as the nurse walked out to go get a doctor to check me, my water broke!  Then those dang contractions got serious!  I am going to take a time out there and say YOU ARE AMAZING (and maybe a little crazy) to any woman that has had a natural child birth, and yes, I am a COMPLETE chicken.  Well, Grandpa Hansen did get his way, and he was there at the hospital to welcome meet McKinley Jean Hansen! She was born on December 26th at 5:28pm!

My Siblings (-1) and Dad celebrating Dad's 75th Birthday about 1 week before McKinley was born

McKinley and I in the delivery room

Being a mom is truly the biggest blessing that I have ever experienced in my entire life and I am amazed each day by how much our children grow and learn and just how they are being shaped to live in this amazing world. I am thankful to God for giving us these blessings and for Keith (who has some amazing genetics to create some beautiful babies ;) and has been incredibly supportive and is an AMAZING father - Kolten even told me he likes Daddy more than me - more about that in a different post ;)).

Stay tuned!  The adventures never stop with these too!  There will be plenty more entertaining Momma Mondays ahead!

Why AdvoCare?

Happy Sunday!

Today I am gonna post about something I originally planned to wait a bit to talk about, but as with most things in my life, God had other plans!  This weekend I had the opportunity to go to Des Moines for AdvoCare's Regional Success School.  It was a truly amazing opportunity and I came away with an even stronger, deeper feeling that God (and Jenna ;)) brough AdvoCare into our lives for a reason, a HUGE reason that I don't know if I can even fully see yet, but I want to explain a little bit more about why we have chosen to do AdvoCare.


I will tell you right now, I NEVER wanted to own a business or be in business for ourselves.  I had tried a few different direct sell companies in the past to make extra money but none of them took off and I ended up loosing money truly.  I had kind of a sour taste in my mouth with those experiences to be honest.  There was something different about AdvoCare...to be completely honest, the products can sell themselves.  They are formulated by some of the TOP doctors across the country and they WORK!  There is no arguing about that and while that was all well and good to me, it was something else that truly spoke to me.  It is the PEOPLE the people that are involved with AdvoCare that make the difference.  The people in the corporate office, the CEO, Richard Wright and his wife Sherry (Sherry herself said yesterday that they think of every one of the distributors in AdvoCare as their family - and they show it!), the people across the country that I have been able to meet and form friendships with at different AdvoCare events, and the people that are a part of our every day lives now that I would never have been introduced to or reconnected to if AdvoCare hadn't been a part of my life.  THAT is what makes it different.  You can buy products at a corporate chain or a big box store, but you don't get someone who will check in with you and see how it is going.  Encourage you when you are having a rough day (even when it has nothing to do with the products, because there are day when that happens!).

Awesome stage set up! :)

Yesterday and truly at every event I have attended with AdvoCare, I am reminded that there is so much good in this world.  People out there that truly care about making a difference in their communities and in the world and it lifts me up and fires me up! There is so much, so very much around us that happens every day to try and get us down.  To try and get us into that negative little hole in our minds that says we are not enough, that this world is a horrible place and gets us into that ugly spot.  You know what I am talking about.  I think everyone has been there, some are there now.  I was there, and I thank God EVERY DAY that I have been able to come out of it and for all the blessing and positive things and people I have in my life to help me stay on the track to know that there is MORE I can do MORE I can give MORE!  I am on a track to help others to see the same thing!  I am going to help as many people as I can to reach their goals and if I make some good money and can support my family and we can go on vacations and give to our church and community and live life on our own terms, heck yes, I'll take it!  I am so excited for our journey and if you are ready, I would LOVE to take you with us!  Let's do it! :)

Start NOW!

Something I think about a lot is why I waited so long or made so many excuses to lose weight. I knew my eating habits were horrible, I knew I should work out, when I looked in the mirror, I didn't like what I saw or how I felt. It wasn't all about losing weight though, I was unhappy, truly unhappy. I could put on a mask for other people and always lived by the "fake it til you make it" type of attitude. I thought if I pretended to be happy, that maybe one day it would just "click" and I would be happy.

Well, one day something did click, but it wasn't "happy switch" it was finally that part of my brain that truly realized...if I wanted things to change, I HAD TO CHANGE! Instead of focusing on what I didn't have, I focused on what I DID have and how blessed I was to have what I did. I started to truly recognize what I didn't have control over (which was a HUGE obstacle for me, I wanted to control EVERYTHING) and focus on what I could change. Who I spent time with, who I let guide me in my decisions, who I let determine my happiness. I took control of what I could and I left the rest to God. Another step in that was giving that control TO God, truly trusting that He would bless me and guide me down the path I needed.

What has happened since that point is amazing! I can say I am happy, REALLY happy! Don't get be wrong, it's a daily struggle, and some days the struggle is greater than others, but it is worth it! It is a hard truth to accept sometimes and honestly is hard to follow sometimes, but the picture above is a a great reminder that I turn to often. 

I hope your new year has gotten off to a good start and if you are ready to make some changes to start seeing results regardless if it's changes for weight loss or personal growth, career, relationships, anything or all of the above, good luck to you! Claim 2014 as your year! I know I am!

Have a blessed day!

Why "Champions"?

When we were talking about me starting this blog and moving forward with starting our own family website and such, we thought long and hard about what we wanted to call everything.  I felt an extreme pressure to make it catchy, or funny.  Keith and I are naturally very sarcastic, humorous people and I wanted that to be a focus.  I am rarely completely serious (it may be shield of sorts, but that is a subject for another post).  When the time came and I just finally just wanted to pull the trigger, we chose "Hansen Champions" and there are some very specific reasons I want to be able to tell you about.

We are what some would call an "AdvoFamily" we do AdvoCare.  We don't sell vitamins and health products; we help other to make investments in themselves to truly improve themselves through health and for those that choose, an amazing opportunity for financial relief and freedom to live life on their own terms.  The main slogan for AdvoCare is "We Build Champions"...so naturally that has some meaning behind the name, but it's what it means to be a Champion that truly spoke so strongly to Keith and I. 

Keith and I at AdvoCare Success School - Aug. 2013

We are not Champions in the sense that we are competing with others to win a prize of some sort (don't get me wrong, we are both strongly competitive people and love to win).  We are Champions FOR our family, FOR our faith, FOR YOU!  We want to go to work to help others achieve their hopes, dreams and goals.  There is no greater reward I have found in my life than truly having a servant heart and helping those in need.  Keith and I share that passion to an incredible degree and we work and will continue to work every day to shape our children in to servants for Christ and for others as well.  There is an incredible feeling that goes along with helping others and THAT is why we are Hansen Champions!

Have a blessed day!

The New Year is Here!

Happy 2014!

Looking back to 2013 and even over the last few years, I can't believe how far I have come as a wife, mother, and woman and am so excited for what 2014 has in store!  I have felt lead for a long time now to lead others and in doing so, decided to move forward in starting our new website and my blog.  I won't pretend to be an expert about anything that I do post, but feel I want to truly share myself and my heart with others to help them in any way that I can!

We will share stories on here about the adventures of our little family, our success and journey with AdvoCare and all the randomness that occurs in my head on a daily basis (stay tuned, they prove to be pretty entertaining most of the time!).

I hope you all have had a happy and safe New Years Eve, here are a couple pictures of our "Little Champions" Kolten and McKinley celebrating the New Year! 

I hope you are all excited and ready for what 2014 has in store for you!  I vow to help you have the best year yet and claim 2014 as yours!