Hippie-dippie

So I am on a mini beach vacay with the fam. We have invaded my sisters house on the gulf coast for the Memorial Day weekend and already there have been many high-jinks. Something about getting my brother, sister, mom, and myself together tends to lead excessive trips for ice cream, talking as loud as we can all at the same time, me getting in trouble for saying bad words, laughing until we want to puke, and teasing mom for every thing she does/says (poor mom, but we can't help it she's so cute!) I cannot stress how much fun we have, but the most unfun thing happens on these trips.....bedtime. I hate for the laughter to stop even for a necessary thing like sleep because chances are I've guzzled coffee and probably a two liter of coke all day (plus I was born a party animal) and I sit in bed by myself unable to sleep. Usually when I am trying to fall asleep every thought in the freaking universe decides to dance around in my skull which is annoying but tonight I feel kind of like Buddha.....I've reached a level of enlightenment (it's okay, feel free to roll your eyes.) I've decided that I am a good person, defiantly not perfect....but good, and my intentions for the world around me are good and I am not the only person out there that is good. I focus alot of my thoughts on the things and people that are so horrible in this world and alot of selfish thoughts and excuses on what is wrong with me but why? I feel when I'm so focused on the negative I am not celebrating all the amazing and beautiful souls that I am surrounded by. I feel encouraged to make every day into the most epic and magical day that I can even if that just means focusing on things differently than I normally do. I want to encourage everyone to laugh as loudly, genuinely, and as often as you can because I swear it is like releasing joy in the air and sometimes people need to breath that in! Okay enough tired mommy thoughts here are a few " pics" of our beach excursion using a cool app called waterlogue, it manages to turn my mediocre snapshots into watercolors. I'm definitely addicted.

Little nugget sleeping on the beach

Mom being adorable and in her bombshell bathing suit 

Me showing off my non-existent biceps

Run! Forest! Run!

I feel like a neglectful blog owner, I have gone on a few major adventures in the last few weeks and plan on going on several more in the weeks to come. I promise to do better and keep everybody in the loop and I will have to do a few backtrack posts, but oh well! I am a busy mommy with a little boy that is learning to crawl and get into everything so as you can imagine I have about 1% of free time available.

Today I kind of felt fed up and irritated at myself and other people and needed to take a second to rant for a bit. Soooo here it goes! I am a vain person.......there I admitted it. I am very narcissistic, I like to look good, and I like for people to notice how good I look. Not very many people can be honest with themselves and other people about that, but I like to be upfront. With that confession out of the way I can now get to business, I am fat, I am not morbidly obese, but by my personal standards I am fat. I realize I have had a baby within the last six months but it has been very hard going from a size 9 to a size 15 within a year. When I look in the mirror I don't see myself, I see a stranger. It is a very strange feeling because I can hear my voice and I hear my laugh and my thoughts are mine, but my face and body aren't me. This isn't meant to be me whining but really just to say I am aware of my situation and nobody notices the differences more than me so it really irritates me when I have "well meaning friends" comment on my weight gain because "they want to give me some negative reinforcement so that I will be motivated" especially if these people are men that have never experienced pregnancy, birth, being solely responsible for another human life! I very much enjoy the gym, I always have, but I have had a hard time getting myself out of the gym mindset because there are definitely ways to tone up and get where I want to be without it so I was so happy to find this great workout on pinterest!

I went to this awesome ladies website http://slapdashmom.com/ and there is alot of other fitness posts and tons of yummy recipes I cannot wait to explore her blog further! I have done this a few times and let me tell you I got through the jumping jacks easy-peasy and by the time I did 12 lunges on each leg my body felt like jello! I have been able to do this a few times and it makes me feel so accomplished and like I can do anything!

This is me and my sister wearing some super awesome 80's madi gras dresses we found. Not to toot our own horn (but I will) we are definitely a family of sexy ladies! I was prob about a few weeks pregnant here and had no idea, but even with my legs being pasty and white I had a killer bod......trust me I looked good naked hehe!

and this is me now :(..... Now that I have exposed myself for all the world to see I am determined to get my body back! This is my declaration of independence from my negative thoughts and feelings of helplessness because I am so blessed to be able to do something about my situation. 

on a lighter note, I needed some socks to wear with my sneakers to work out and this is what I found which made me laugh because I felt like Nanny from Muppet Babies. 

Creek Adventures

Today was such a wonderful day! We got to spend some amazing family time with my nephew before he goes overseas for a year. What started off as a casual Sunday dinner ended up as a random outdoor adventure, which many of the dinners in our family tend to do. We decided that we needed to make our way down to "the creek." My brother had informed us that he knew an easy trail and we should follow him so I went to strap Conner into his adventure backpack but my mother forcibly removed him and told me that this was not a trip for infants. I huffed off and complained  "what's the use in having a baby if you can't do what you want with it." but one minute into my brothers "easy" trail I was glad I had obeyed her. We were smacked and abused by thorns and tree branches and complained more than the Israelites being led by Moses into the wilderness, but once we finally saw the stream it was like walking into the promised land.

It looks like a magical fairy home!

Looking in the still water for fishys and crawdaddies. 

Be careful on these rocks, they are slippery!

As you can see even with my wizard staff I found my way into the water.

Even if you don't intend on getting in the water everybody ends up in it.

Who knows what treasures you may find in the riverbed, basketball anyone?

The triumphant explorers!

 

When you find yourself in the forest without a snack cooked air jordans make a tasty snack

Or a useful torch.

Tried to find enough junk to make a "peace symbol" but the boys were threatening to leave us.

Why wait in line at the dmv when the creek can provide a tag?

Finally, no family occasion is finished without a kitty photobomb.

It's A Jungle Out There

Today we decided to take Conner to the zoo, even though I know he is probably to young to appreciate it, but I really really wanted to go!

here where are at the beginning of our adventure, just chilling with a hippo (statue actually) 

Conner and his Uncle Chris hanging out with some parrots 

oh boy! toucan sam! 

 They are such a brilliant shade of pink!

 these little monkeys were having such a good time jumping around and showing off for us. 

 This gorilla was so magnificent!

 a dwarf mongoose posing for his picture

 I forget the name of this squirrel but it sure was cute!

 After looking at all the little children he went to look for a snack :)

 zebras also getting their snack on.

 this giraffe was hanging out all by himself, I wonder if he was in time out.

 one of the elephants being adorable.

This happened just as we were leaving, he was worn out after seeing so many new things.