My Motivation

I am my own motivation.  My body shape is mine.  I do not look to photos of others for what I want to look like.  I take photos of myself and aim to only look better from there! I took these photos right after I found out I was pregnant.  I knew I would gain some weight and I wanted to remember what I felt like and looked like at this point.  I felt so fantastic.

 

I will admit my diet has not been fantastic this pregnancy.  I have thrown up less and less with each pregnancy and hardly threw up at all this time.  However, I didn't feel well and the only thing that made my stomach feel better was food, especially carbs. I remember this well from my other pregnancies too.

Before pregnancy,  I was on a very low calorie (but healthy and controlled) optimal health program.  In order to keep the weight off, you generally transition out of it adding different things back into your diet in a controlled way.  It is a proven method.  Unfortunately for me, I was not able to transition properly, being pregnant.  Some weight gain was inevitable.  However, I did not control it as much as I should have. 

 

I did not fall back into old habits entirely. There are a lot of things I have changed permanently.  I will never be back where I was at 265 lbs., five years ago.  However, I definitely "let myself go" a bit.

 

However, I am not sick anymore and am doing much better now.  In fact, this week, I deleted sugar back out of my diet, and started drinking 130 oz of water per day again (water made me gag when I was in the first trimester so didn't drink nearly enough, although still about 60 oz a day). I have taken five pounds off this week.  I am NOT dieting.  I just cut out sugar and upped my water.

 

So here I am 10 lbs. from my goal weight.  I will get there again.  In fact, I will surpass it and hit my goal!  And I will keep eating better and help myself not be so far away from that goal when my little bundle of joy comes. (Not to mention, creating better nutrition for my little human.) Oh I can't wait to meet this little person! :)

This is actually right after I found out.  Miss Lib and I were taking pics expressing our joy that we were finally getting a new baby.  The pic is silly but I think it shows how excited and happy I am.

Pet Slug

The Libster dressed in a ballerina costume holding her ginormous pet slug!  He's since went to slug heaven but she enjoyed him for a bit.

Mother's Day Tradition

 

I don't think I've ever done this before, but I have a pic of me and my mom together on Mother's Day when I was five.  I think it is because she had made our dresses and they were matching but it made me want to take one with my kids.  There just aren't enough pics of my mom and us when we were kids, in my opinion. (I'll have to scan that photo in, I'm pretty sure I know where to find it.)

 

Anywhere, here I am with my beautiful munchkins.

One kid lookin' one kid not.  One kid smilin', one kid not.

I'm including this one because I think Lil' Guy looks so cute with his hands in his pockets.  He's getting go big,

I feel so blessed to be their mom.

 

Longfellow - Evangeline

We went to see an old creole style cottage and farm.  Love the culture here!

The thing hanging down is a fan.  A servant or slave would pull the string and fan them as they ate their meals.

Look how huge bellows used to be!

Catholicism is so important to the local (and current) history.  The statues of Mother Mary are everywhere.  It's actually nice to live in a place where religion dictates much life. They are so proud of their culture and heritage and that feels so natural to me.

 

 

The Rolling Pin Bed.  Apparently they would take off the rolling pin in the morning and roll it all over the mattress to even out the Spanish moss that was use to stuff the mattress. 

The look from the back porch. I wish we'd gotten a picture of the outside of the house.  It was raining so it made it difficult. 

Again...the trees.  I will never tire of the beautiful trees.  Trees are named after they turn a certain age.  I can't remember the age or the name of this tree but I do know it had one. :)

Broom made of corn husks.  I hadn't seen that before.  I also love my little Lib in her rain boots in the background.  

An ever so popular and exciting sight for the kiddos: 

Lil' D was playing near these bushes.  When I picked him up he smelled like lemon scented cleaner.  These are some sort of lemon scented bush and I want to grow it in my house! 

Did you know these are called clogs because whenever the dutch would get ticked off they'd throw them in the factory wheels and they would clog them.  I learn something new every day.  

At the state park they are not allowed to pick the Spanish Moss off the trees.  However, they can pick it off the ground.  So the keeper at the farm picks it off the ground, hangs it up, and it creates more of itself.   

M's Planetarium Field Trip

I was lucky enough to be a chaperone for M's school field trip. 

He was so excited to have me there.  It was amazingly cute.  He kept cuddling me and kissing me and looking up at me like I was the best things ever.  He's such a cutie.

I love his tongue/dimpled look as he concentrated on building energy up in the rocket.  When it was full of energy it would shoot up in the sky and then fall back into the tube.  All the kids loved it.

M loved the planetarium show and soaked it all up.  He begged to stay of late every night to see the constellations.  It may be time to get that kid a telescope. 

Certified Aerobics/Dance Instructor

 Last month I certified to teach and aerobic dance class.  This is something I have wanted to do for a long time.  I had been looking into different ways to certify and classes to get certified in and hadn't found a fit yet.

 

Then my gym started a class called FunkieFusion.  It's sort of hip hop/old school aerobics.  I love it!  Everything fell right into place and I jumped right in. I was supposed to teach a class at my gym but so far they haven't followed through.  I am going to start hitting a couple of other gyms.

 

Eventually I will replace this pic with something better, but this is all I have for now.  The blonde is the girl who made the class up and it is becoming huge!  The girl closer to the camera is another instructor. 

Our Garden

We have a little garden.  A very little garden.  So far we have a ton of cilantro and we HAD two strawberries which are long gone.  The literal "fruit" of our labor.

Jungle Gardens - Avery Island

 The Jungle Gardens made me feel like I was in a fairytale land.  They are so beautiful!  I could imagine myself as a little girl running and playing and imagining. 

 Not a cute pic of the kids but I love bridges.

Bird Sanctuary - Avery Island

I'm so happy we moved here.  Sometimes I get very homesick but I am thankful to have the experiences we are having and to see the sites we see.  It's even better when we get to share it with our family.

I love this pic.  It looks like the front cover to a fantasy book.  Something about the leaf and the hood gets me. 

Avery Island

We took the fam to see Avery Island, where Tabasco sauce was made.

It has a pretty cool history and I love historical tours so I was right in my element.

 

They store the chili's in these barrels for quite awhile (can't remember how long) and cover them with the salt that is also mined on the island.

Churning the sauce. 

 

They have a little shop there where you can get all sorts of Tabasco stuff.  Tabasco soda and Tobasco ice-cream are big hits.  I actually loved the ice-cream, the kids...not so much.

I want this picture cropped but it won't load the cropped version!  Strange.

Avery Island was a blast and there is so much more to it in the next post!