Happy birthday America!

Well America gets to add another candle to its cake today! We almost decided not to go see the fireworks show because I have been pretty sick the last few days, but fortunately my brother basically rounded my whole household up and kidnapped us. I have to say that Conner really enjoyed his first fireworks show!

In other news...Conner and I went to the zoo this week. Yes, that is the third time this summer. What can I say? I love hanging out with other party animals!

Yep that is me riding a camel! I have been wanting to do this for about two years now. The first time I saw that you could take a ride I was pregnant, so hopping up there was a no go. Finally I decided to go for it, I just wished it lasted longer, I didn't want to get down!

Conner is increasingly interested In what is going on around him, he was really loving watching all the monkeys play, especially the gorillas. Maybe he thought they were related since I call him "my little monkey."

We took our first train ride, and let me tell you...this boy loves things that go fast, from what I can tell he is fearless.

This is the only group shot we got to take with all of our friends. It's so wonderful having a little group to play with. It is really fun to watch the kids interact with each other. (Plus let me tell you how awesome it is to have trusted people that will take turns holding babies so that we each can take baby free bathroom breaks haha.)

Oh my gosh! I don't know how to caption this other than.......how freaking cute is he!!???!!

Finally we ended our adventure at the zoo in the splash pad and he loved it! Savannah was the only one of us cool enough to completely jump in with the kids and get soaked. 

I am totally loving reconnecting with friends and having partners in crime to go on impromptu adventures.....who knows what we will get into next week!

Get out of bed sleepy head

I would just like to say that I reeeeaally love my bed...like.....ALOT! There is nothing more cozy than snuggling my face into my pillows and pulling my blankies up over my head, but for the last 6 months I've had somebody continuously interrupt my sacred time.

This guy:

Now I know we can all agree he is effing adorable with a slightly devilish streak, but since he has come into my life my bed is not used for sleeping nearly enough for my liking. My bed has been more like a playpen but now that the little nugget is crawling and climbing it has turned into a very small space and even if he cannot fully appreciate it we have been trying to go on more adventures and spend time with fun people lately.

We got to go eat dinner with two of my friends from middle school and each of them have a little munchkin of their own, needless to say we were the loudest table in the place. As far as children go I feel like they were very well behaved, but they are tiny humans just discovering their vocal cords so let's just say there were a few times that a "baby opera" may have been performed. We mostly had people who smiled in understanding as they watched us wrestle baby hands out of our plates, but of course we had a few grouchy meany heads looking at us in very unwelcoming ways. Oh well, mommies have to eat too! 

We were able to have a wonderful visit with my dad and his partner Gary. We spent the weekend driving around the country looking at old farms and eating yummy food. We spent the last hour before they had to leave at The beautiful Railroad Park. 

It was a perfect day and we were able to enjoy all the beautiful flowers and trees in bloom as we walked around.

Even though Conner looks confused (and his socks are falling off) I thought this was a cute picture of me, him, and my dad. 

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.

Spring Fling!

I cannot even begin to explain how much I love spring time! The winter blues are no joke, everything looks dead and bare, (including my soul...........haha just kidding, but seriously it sucks.) just when you think that it wont end the trees start making little baby leaves and things start to slowly turn green, and then you wake up one morning and everything you see has turned every color imaginable and it feels amazing outside! I thought it would share some pictures from our Easter holiday.

 conner's first easter!

a couple of chubby chunks hanging out.

kitty photobomb :)