Wednesday Weigh-In: Week I've lost count so lets just start over at 1

Well, I'm back.  Life is starting to slow down some and I feel like I can finally get back in a good routine.  Something about me, I thrive on routine.  I do better when my days are predictable week to week.  So now that baseball is over and we're home most every afternoon, I can cook every night and get back to my favorite class at the gym.  I'm so excited for summer, I started last summer with such a dread.  I didn't want to wear shorts or tank tops or dresses, definitely not a swim suit.  I had no energy to do anything fun.  I was miserable to say the least.  This summer I'm looking forward to all the Summer things.  I've loved buying new clothes and swimsuits.  Part of that is due to the breast reduction.  I can now buy a swimsuit that actually fits properly and that is life changing.  But it's mostly because I'm comfortable in my skin.  I don't get tired just standing outside.  I can be active with my kids.  My diet has been terrible lately, like give me all the sweets and carbs.  I've been drinking sodas.  And I feel like crap.  I haven't been sleeping well, I haven't been able to work out with any consistency.  I finally got to go to HIIT Sunday for the first time in two weeks and I couldn't believe how exhausting it was.  I could definitely tell I hadn't been taking care of myself.  I can even tell a difference in my overall mood.  So this is week 1 of getting back on the wagon.  I finally got on the scale this morning, while it's wasn't ideal, it wasn't as bad as I was expecting.  I've always given myself a 5lb cushion while maintaining and I'm just couple pounds over that cushion.  I'm only 17lbs from my goal.  I've lost 50lbs, why is this last 17 so hard.  I'm a month away from the one year anniversary of starting this journey.  I fully expected to be at my goal weight, in my goal size, living my goal life.  I may not be at my goal weight or size, but life is pretty sweet right now.  I'm ready to reach my goal but I'm also ready to feel better again.  I can't believe how bad my poor diet has made me feel.  I'm ready to be back to feeling like it did last summer. 

Now for the scale.

152.4lbs  I'm 17.4lbs away from my goal.  I'm working really hard to get there by my birthday, July 27th.  I've got 9 weeks.  That's 2lbs a week.  It is 100% doable.  I'm getting back into the routine of tracking everything I eat in MyFitnessPal.  I'm going back to Keto.  Because I was successful but also because I felt so good.  I plan to eat more "healthy" carbs in vegetables and fruit but I'm eliminating all the processed junk that bogs me down both mentally and physically.  I'm excited to get back at it, I'm going to miss sweets but I know it's worth it.  I just have to remember that. It will all be 100% worth it!  Thanks for sticking around!

Mother's Day

We kicked off Mother's Day weekend with a little date night at Birmingham Botanical Gardens for the Arc Stories event.  We picked up food and met some friends and had a fun night listening to live storytellers.  I love the Arc Stories podcast.  I have a love/hate relationship to going to the events because while I enjoy listening to the stories live, I hate that then I've already heard the stories when they are on the podcast. So I don't go to many events but the one in the gardens is my favorite.

I'm not going to lie, getting there was a pain.  We were worried about getting our food and getting there on time.  When we got there we realized they didn't put forks in our to go food.  I threatened to leave and go home.  We ran to a store and picked some up.  It was really no big deal and I totally over-reacted. 

We made it a quadruple date night and it was so much fun! 

The kids spent the night with my parents.  Saturday before I picked them up I ran to the store to get last minute Mother's Day gifts.  Then we came home and relaxed at home!  I feel like we've been on the go so much this spring it was nice to just be home.

Patrick went to the grocery store on his way home and got stuff to grill steaks for my Mother's Day dinner.  We cooked way to much food but it was all so good! AveryAnn and her daddy both love corn on the cob.  She will eat her weight in corn.  

I forgot to take a picture before I dug in.

Sunday we got up and went to Mass.  I found this sweet Lilly Pulitzer outfit for AveryAnn in a consignment sale.  It is adorable and I love it so much.  They don't make this print anymore so I got on ebay to see if I could find a shirt or something that matched it for me.  Much to my surprise I found a dress so I ordered it. (I was talking to my mom about it and she ended up also ordering one for me.)  I love it so much!  I know she won't want to match me for long so it's fun while it lasts.

My sister and I both had our picture made in this little dress when we were around 3 years old.  I'd been talking about having AveryAnn's picture made in it for a while but I made my mom get it out for me so I wouldn't forget about it and her out grow it.  It fits her perfect right now so I need to hurry up and get her picture made in it.

We got to see Madelyn and Brooks (John and Hope too).  We were obsessed with Spot books as kids and of course my mom still has all of ours.  (For Barrett's first birthday John got him a Spot book and I ugly cried.  It was so sweet)  Now my kids are kind of obsessed with them too.  My mom got them all out for them when they were staying with them.  So AveryAnn was telling Madelyn all about Spot.  The girls are starting to play together more and more.  Madelyn goes to daycare and you can tell she's a lot more comfortable around other kids.  AveryAnn is getting there.

We left my parents and went to Patrick's parents.  We're so thankful for his Mama every year but especially this year.  It's been a difficult year for her but she is so strong and makes me want to be a better person!  We're so thankful for both of our mother's for everything they do for us.  They are so supportive and never hesitate to drop everything to help us in any way.  As I get older, I'm realizing not everyone is so lucky.  I try not to take either of them for granted.  

Take me out to the Ballgame!

I've done a terrible job at keeping up with things here.  We've been staying pretty busy, I keep saying "I can't wait until we're not so busy".  But I'm afraid this is just our life for this season in our lives.  We've had the best time this season playing baseball.  This was Barrett's first year of "real" baseball with umpires and everything.  After his meltdown at evaluations I wasn't so sure how the season would go.  We have been so surprised by how great it was.  We've heard horror stories about ballpark life but our first real season was amazing.   Our coach was great with the boys.  I loved that he let the boys play several different positions.  So Barrett wasn't stuck in the outfield the whole season.  I'm sure he says the same thing to all the parents but he never missed a chance to tell us how well Barrett was doing and how much he was improving.  He finally started hitting the ball consistently the last two weeks of the season.  We have loved watching him play so much!  It's also been so much fun getting to know other families in the community.  We're already looking forward to next season.  One of the dads were trying to recruit us to play football in the Fall.  I'm not sure if we're ready for that.  But we'll see.

Patrick's nephew plays for the local high school and they made it to the 4th round of the state playoffs this year.  They played the third round at home so we got to go support them.  We'd been trying to take Barrett to a game all season and couldn't work it out, so we were excited to get to go.  There was a big crowd and a lot of his teammates were there.  He went back and forth between playing with his friends and watching the game.  I was actually surprised by how much he really wanted to watch the game.  

Watching them work on the field between games.

I love this picture so much.  He wanted to sit there the whole time but we didn't think the men that put their chairs out at 8:00am would appreciate him blocking their view.

We had to get a picture of these cuties with Daddy's sign.

She was just there for the concession stand.  

They played a double headed.  They won the first and in the 6th inning it looked like a 3rd game was definitely going to happen so we left early.  They ended up coming back and winning and I was so mad that we left.

The last week of our season Barrett noticed some of his teammates had batting gloves.  We told him he didn't need them and that we weren't getting him any for the last two games of the season.  So he improvised with his Paw Patrol mittens.  I couldn't not convince him he didn't need them.  I told one of his coaches and he laughed and said he would handle it.  We all got a good laugh about it.  

He played shortstop during their last game.  We only played two innings because the weather was stormy.  Coach let the dads pitch to their sons.  I missed getting a picture of Patrick and Barrett.  It was really sweet though.  After that game we planned a little team party.  We had pizza and then played a Moms vs Sons kickball game.  We only got to play a couple innings before it started storming again.  Then Coach had roses for each of the boys to give their moms. 

Love these sweet boys and their moms!

My rose from my sweet boy!

This smile sums up how we all feel about this season!

10th Anniversary in Punta Cana

Last summer, we started throwing around the idea of taking a tropical vacation to celebrate our 10th anniversary. We started researching locations I wanted somewhere all-inclusive and not too far and Patrick wanted all-inclusive and not Mexico.  I really wanted to go to Mexico again but Patrick had no interest.  We contacted a travel agent (yes, I know you can book these things yourself but I wanted to talk to an actual person) and she sent over several ideas.  We decided on Punta Cana.  We booked it last August and we'd been counting down the days! 
We had to be at the airport at 5:30am so we took the kids to my parents Wednesday night.  We were kind of sad to leave them but so excited for a weekend away.  Patrick had never been out of the country and I'd only been to Mexico.  I was really nervous for the logistics of the trip but I knew it would be worth it when we finally arrived.

Bright and early at the airport! 

After 10 hours of traveling our first picture in Punta Cana, in the shuttle to our resort! 

We stayed at the Secrets Royal Beach.  It was beautiful!

We were handed a glass of passion fruit juice, while we checked in and Patrick was adjusting to luxury very quickly.  We got checked in and we were so ready to see our room and unwind. 

I joked with my friends that I was going to Instagram all my outfits.  I think they thought I was kidding. This was my travel outfit.  This sweater is so soft.  It was a little warm when we arrived in Punta Cana but I was fine.

We just had a tropical view room.  But we didn't mind it at all.  We weren't in our room enough to be bothered by the view.

We decided to go ahead and get ready and head to dinner.  We went to the seafood restaurant Oceana.

I couldn't wait to wear this dress!  It screamed vacation to me!

That nights entertainment was supposed to be a beach party and fire show.  We really wanted to go but we also really wanted to sleep.  We rallied and decided to go.  We walked outside our room and it was pouring rain so we decided that was a sign to go to bed early.

Friday morning I woke up before Patrick and ordered room service. While we were waiting for it, I headed out to the balcony with a cup of coffee and my bible to read.  It was a perfect start to each day.

We ate breakfast and headed straight to the beach!

I'd bought this bikini thinking there was no way I'd ever wear those bottoms in public.  But here I am, wearing it to the beach.  Partly because I just don't care what anyone thinks anymore, partly because I'm so proud of how far I've come, and partly because a spray tan is like a miracle.  One of my goals for 2018 was to wear a bikini with confidence and I can check that box now.

I made us these cute cups before I left home!  Ten years feels like forever and just a snapshot at the same time.  I know we still have a lot of life to live, but it felt good to celebrate the last decade.

We ate lunch at the buffet and our favorite was definitely the ice cream! 

I was so worried Patrick wasn't going to like this type of vacation.  I don't know why but I wasn't sure it was his thing.  I worried for nothing.  He had a blast.  By the second day we were already trying to plan how we could come back sooner rather than later.

Dressed up and headed to dinner. 

We planned to eat at the Italian restaurant.  We got on the list and got a drink and waited for about 30 minutes and then we decided to try somewhere else.  We headed over to the Seaside Grill.  Its only for preferred club members during breakfast and lunch but anyone can go for dinner. 

It was right on the beach and beautiful!

We each had the 15oz ribeye and it was delicious.  This ended up being our favorite restaurant.  We liked it so much we ate there on our last night too.

This is pretty much the whole trip.  We slept, we ate, we beached, we ate, we swam, we napped, we got dressed, ate dinner, and the slept.  I loved getting a full 8 hours of sleep every night, plus an afternoon nap.

Saturday morning we got up, reserved our chairs in the shade at the pool and headed to breakfast.  The breakfast buffet was my favorite.  It was amazing and the mimosas weren't too bad either.  After we ate we headed to the pool to relax.

This was my view for most of the day. 

Meanwhile, back home, my mom was handling Park Day at the ballpark.  I got a message from one of my best friends with this picture.  My mom had apparently gotten my car stuck in the mud.  We laughed and laughed.  She said Barrett was so mad. 

We were just soaking up the sun.  Patrick was fried.  I look naked in all the pictures because for the first time in my life I can wear a strapless swimsuit so that's all I wore.  Since we ate breakfast late we skipped the lunch buffet and got a snack from the little snack bar on the beach. 

This was our view while we enjoyed our nachos.

Beach bums!  

We ate at the Italian restaurant this night and it was good. 

The tiramisu was my favorite dessert of the trip!

After dinner we headed to the plaza to watch the Classic Rock show.  We got a drink at the bar and waited for the show to start. 

A guy right by us started smoking a cigar that smelled terrible so we ended up sitting on our balcony listening to the show.

We started the day Sunday with breakfast followed quickly by drinks on the beach!

We walked down to the water and took this picture.  When I looked at it I knew we had a similar one from our honeymoon.

So I had to dig through the facebook and find it.  I can't believe how much we've changed.  

Watched some drunk guys play "water polo" in the pool.

We got ready for our last dinner.  We decided to go back to the grill place because it was our favorite.

I decided to have the cheesecake this time.  It was pretty good but I'm sad I didn't get the carrot cake.  It looked delicious.

We got up Monday morning and went to breakfast before we packed up to head home.

One last mirror selfie.  We had to wait a little while for our ride to the airport.  By this point we were ready to see our babies.

Last flight home!  We didn't get land until 11:00, my dad picked us up at the airport.  We originally planned to just leave the kids at their house and get them the next morning since they were asleep but we had to wake them up as soon as we got there.  Barrett was so excited to see us!  It was so sweet!  Then it was back to reality.  

We had the best time.  It was a stretch for us both financially and time wise to spend 4 nights away but it was so worth it!  We couldn't have done it without our parents.  I felt so bad because everything that had been cancelled during the baseball season was rescheduled for that weekend.  My dad had to leave for one night to go to a meeting.  They had to take the kids to a Saturday morning game and park day (my mom did this one alone, she did get my nieces to help but I know it was a lot).  Sunday Barrett had baseball pictures and Monday he had a game, where it was my turn to bring snacks.  But they handled it all like a champ.  And she even washed all the kids laundry!  Seriously, my mom is a saint.  I knew she could handle it but I also knew it was a lot of work.  I'm so thankful for them!  Patrick's parents checked on our house to make sure everything was fine.  I know not everyone is fortunate enough to have family close by that can help so much.  

We're already looking forward to the next time we get to do something like this!  It was exactly what we needed!