You should have seen that sunrise with your own eyes, it brought me back to life. You'll be with me next time I go outside; no more 3x5's ..

Random Pictures...

Savannah loves her stuffed dog - "Doddy"

She has him with her 85% of the time

They are so cute together!

She has been known to try to feed him milk, goldfish, change his diaper and wipe his face.

I think our real dog is cuter :) Sweet boy!!

Random Pic! I had some really old and dirty white chairs, and finally got around to spray painting them orange. LOVE THEM!

Where are you now? As I'm swimming through the stereo, I'm writing you a symphony of sound..

So, this is kind of a random post, but it's something that hit home with me, and I wanted to share it, and get feedback from people who have thoughts on this. I also thought that posting it might help hold me more  accountable to keeping up with the changes I want us to make. This topic is something that I don't like to talk about, at all, really, because it's something that I have struggled with for a while now. There are reasons why I am overweight, some that were totally in my control, and others that were medicinally and illness related, and it got really overwhelming to me. To be honest, I just kind of gave up. Life got busy and weight loss went on the back burner. But I feel very strongly that it is time to make changes. Not just go on a diet, but to change my lifestyle, my attitude towards food and to set goals to get more active.

It all started when I finally got around to watching a documentary on Netflix called Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. Now, I should mention that I typically don't get into fad diets and I don't really watch documentaries because I usually feel like it's just a bunch of extreme opinions that are filled with a little truth (unless they are historical documentaries - those I always love!!) That being said, I have no idea why I watched Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. Honestly, it just isn't something I normally would watch. But I am really glad I did. It was sort of just what the doctor ordered. The movie focuses on two men who start to juice fruits and veggies and drink only those juices for 60 days. The thing that REALLY hit home for me, what that these two men both had a form of vasculitius (not the same type I have, theirs would be there constantly if they didn't take medication). The fact that I have vasculitius and they doctors have no idea what causes flare ups or what kind of auto immune issues that I could have that haven't manifested themselves (the vasculitius being a symptom of something else). That scares the crap out of me. I constantly freak out when I see any sort of spots on my legs, and worry about when it might flare up again. But it's all unknown and out of my control.

That being said, watching these two men have a similar struggle was totally interesting to me. The movie made some very interesting points about food consumption. It talked about eating 400 calories and oils, or chicken or vegetables and how much they will or won't fill you up. 

It's so very logical. I'm sure that I've heard something so similar before but it didn't stick with me or I just didn't care or pay attention. However this time it did both. And I am not ignoring what I learned. I also watched the documentary Forks over Knives and I also took a lot away from that. I wouldn't have even cared about it if I hadn't watched the other one first. But they talk about all the benefits of a plant based diet and how can stop or even reverse heart disease. The adverse effects of to much meat and dairy.

So, based on all of that information, I've decided to make some changes. It all started with buying a juicer. And a lot - I mean A LOT- of fruits and vegetables. 

Then we made juice!

The fruits and veggies

Cut up and ready to go

Sunset Juice

Jacob and I actually did a 10 day juice fast, and it was a really good experience. It was hard, and kind of weird, but totally worth it. For me, it had a lot of positive benefits - I no longer got headaches throughout the day, I finally slept well at night and went to sleep with no problems (which is HUGE for me - I've struggled with sleeping well for a long time), I actually had good energy levels after the first few days, and I just felt really good. We've been traveling a lot over the weeks that followed the fast, but I am thinking about doing it again, and then really focusing on changing what we eat. I want to incorporate jucing into our daily meal plan and I think start to go with a more plant based diet found in the Engine 2 diet book. I've been reading that (this stems from the Forks Over Knives) and I really like what I've been reading and what I want to start incorporate in my life. I'm not giving up meat and dairy completely, but we will cut back on how much we eat. I also think it's important to set a good foundation for Savannah, on how to eat healthy. I want her to enjoy eating healthy goods (I know, we will see how that goes...) and to try new things. She's a good sport so far, at least with flavors, and I'm grateful for that.

That's where I am at with this for now. I want to work on getting more active and do a 5K this fall. It's a long road ahead, but I'm hoping that if I focus on the journey, not the destination that it will be a great, life changing experience.

So take care what you wish for, it may come true. But that September sky, how it whispered, "I love you."

Life has been good, and life has been busy lately! I feel like I am way behind in so many areas, and that I'm barely keeping up with the rest of them. I feel like a shift in priorities might be on it's way soon, because I feel like I'm on auto pilot and missing out on a lot of the little things that life has to offer, or that are so important. I think a lot of those feelings come from turning 30. I was pretty surprised with how strongly I felt about turning 30. I thought I might be down for a bit, and I was, but I was really not excited about having a birthday at all. I kinda wanted to just ignore it. But it was just another day and I have very sweet friends and family who made it special, and that makes me a very lucky girl.

A few weeks ago (almost a month at this point) I got to go to Dallas, TX to visit one of my favorite people, Andrea! I definitely do not get to see her enough, and I really miss her. This was the first time I have gotten to go and see her, and I had such a fantastic time! She is a really amazing person, and I am grateful that we have been friends for so long. I used to live in Dallas, so it was really fun to be able to drive by my old houses and some of my old schools. We also went to The 6th Floor, a museum all about JFK's assassination and the events before and after it. When we lived there and family would come to visit, my dad always wanted to take people there, so I went there a ton as a kid. It was a lot more interesting as an adult to take the tour! We also ate at Snuffer's, the best burger place I have ever eaten at. It was JUST as good as I remembered it. It was so nice to have a weekend with her, and see where she lives, works and those kinds of things. I'm grateful Jacob hung out with Savannah while I was gone. It was kinda hard to come home and not have her to hang out with! I love our friendship and how we can just pick up where we leave off, and it feels like we never miss a beat. I can't wait for our next visit!! 

We didn't take a ton of pictures, but here is one of us, even though my face is chopped off :)

We also went up to Helen, GA with friends for Memorial Day weekend and up to Blue Ridge, GA this last weekend with some families in our ward. We never travel, so this has been quite a busy month! I haven't been to Blue Ridge in so long, and it was such a beautiful place. It was also great to get to know people in our ward better! I don't always feel very social when it come to play groups and other activities at church, so I loved getting to know some great people even better.We went blueberry picking with another family and I loved it. I can't wait to go back and pick some apples in the fall! We also went and played at the river on Saturday afternoon. Savannah loves the water, and she loves her daddy, so she had the best of both worlds that afternoon! She is such a daddy's girl :)

She kept pointing out at the mountains and saying "Woah!"

She loved the tractor at Mercier Orchard

Playing with daddy at the river

The river was cold, but beautiful

The view from the deck off our room

Good times!

Can't you see, what it is you mean to me; Everything is peachy keen when you're by my side.

 

Can you believe this girl is already 16 months?! I sure can't. She looks like a toddler, and hasn't looked like my little baby for quite some time. She is always on the move and loves to explore. I can let her go out in the back yard and she run forever. She also stops a lot to pick up Bowsers toys and "throw" them for him, or pick a flower or any other thing she can come up with! Oh, and she loves to swing. Loves it. She just loves being outside.

Her and Bowser continue to be best friends. He is still the most patient dog and has this unconditional patience and love for her and I couldn't be more grateful. I love him and am so glad that he loves kids! I am pretty sure he also loves having company out in the backyard all the time too :)

She's also incredibly fearless. She loves to climb on anything and everything. In fact, if you don't watch her carefully, you can leave the room and come back in to have her sitting on the kitchen table. She also has become a full on toddler. We had one of those days where she just got into everything! She came in covered in dog poo (so gross!! I'm glad that isn't something that is a regular occurrence - just the one time.) The she got ahold of a pepper shaker (see picture below.... so much pepper everywhere! She loved to shake it and watch it fly everywhere. It was cute... but super messy.) There were also some incidents with some mud as well as climbing in her toy box and throwing out all the toys. Which I had just recently picked up. But hey, that's life with Savannah, and it keeps things interesting! 

Some of her favorite things: Her white stuffed puppy. She carries it around with her everywhere. She tries to share her milk with it, she hugs him and "sings" to him. She pushes him in the swing. It's adorable. She loves to sing. She walks around and just sings. I love that she does that. She loves dancing to. Pretty much anything related to music she digs. She loves Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, toys that she can push around that make noise, bath time, and shoes. She loves to have her shoes put on her, or to carry around our shoes. She also loves emptying out purses or diaper bags. 

She also has a lot of words she can say. It's crazy to her her tell me something that she wants and use the words for it! Some of her words are shoes, turkey, wa-wa, baby, mommy, daddy, bubba (Bowser), nigh-night, hello, bottle, cheese and bath. She says mmmm when she eats something she really likes and ohhhhh when she sees something that gets her excited. 

Oh, and I wanted to tell a quick story about the picture in the top of the post. She's sitting in a rocking chair that my grandpa's uncle made him when he was a boy. He passed it down to my mom, and my mom passed it to me, and now it's Savannah's. She looked so sweet in her Easter dress sitting in the chair, and spent a lot of time figuring out how to make it rock. It's so special that she can have a piece of my grandpa with her. He passed away when I was pretty young, but I have such special and fond memories of him. Very vidid memories of things we did and of spending time with him. I like that she will have something in her life that will make her think of her great grandfather and want to hear stories about him and the love he had for his family. I'm a sucker for family heirlooms because of the history behind them, as well as the memories that correlate with them.

Anyways, hopefully my next post will be typed up on our main computer so I can have some better pics of Savannah. These are all from my phone.

Happy birthday to you!

Ok, so I'm so far behind that there is no way to catch up. Here is a picture post from Savannah's first birthday, back on December 2nd. The difference between her then and now is crazy! Those are for another post. For now, here are pictures of my adorable birthday girl, and some family and friends :)

Rachel, Tai and Carter - some of her favorite aunts and uncle!

Savannah and Ben :)

My mom, Savannah, Cari and Kendall

Savannah and her aunt Taralee

My mom, me and Savannah

My mom made this really beautiful Dr. Seuss quilt for Savannah - it's awesome!

My brother, me and Savannah