Eureka!

Jason and I took advantage of this BEAUTIFUL 3-day weekend to get out of the office and play "tourist" right here in Northwest Arkansas! On Friday, we had lunch on the patio at Jose's and took a walking tour of downtown, on Saturday we headed to Eureka to visit our wonderful photographer friends Kym and Ben Rodda, on Sunday we picnicked in Gulley Park and on Monday we drove down to Lake Fort Smith with Jamie and Joe for a hike! It was such a fun weekend!

Here are a few pictures from our adventure in Eureka Springs. We happened to end up visiting on their monthly "First Saturday" drum night, where all of the residents and tourists gather for an evening of wild drumming, dancing, hula hooping and good company. It was crazy! We loved every minute of it!

Due Date

Well, it's finally here. Shiloh is officially "due." As I dealt with the rollercoaster of emotions that hit me after he was born, I was afraid that somehow his due date would be a stressful day or a hard day, or at least an odd day, but it turns out to be just another day. Other than the unbelievable fact that my precious little boy is now 6 weeks old, which is just crazy to me!

I was worried about it because of a variety of crazy and slightly psychotic feelings that I had been struggling with regarding irrational jealousy of other pregnant women who were pregnant and due around the same time as me. I kept watching all of their joyful posts on Facebook as we got closer and closer to their babies being born and thinking, "THAT SHOULD BE ME!!!" All of that joy and fun surrounding the anticipation of this wonderful event, all of the aches and pains at the end of the pregnancy, all of the happiness when the baby is born and they just get to nurse it and cuddle it and go home, I wanted that. Really, really bad.

I wanted to experience the feeling of being able to be excited about my baby being born instead of scared. I wanted to feel the intense pain and joy and sense of satisfaction that accompanies a vaginal delivery, and I wanted to get that experience that I see on all those silly baby shows on TLC when they put the baby on your chest right after it's born, and you just get to hold it and nurse it and cry from the overwhelming happiness. None of these were anything like my birth experiences.

I was fully aware that the jealousy was irrational, but that didn't stop it from festering inside me. At least for awhile. I feel like things are okay now, though. Maybe it is that my hormones are finally stabilizing, or maybe it's the due date being here, but I feel a sense of peace today along with a renewed realization that it doesn't matter how he got here, only that he's here and I should be thankful. And I am SO thankful, I really am. It's nice to be feeling logical again! : )

Night at the Fair!

Jamie, Jason, Norah, Shiloh and I made our way to the Washington County Fair last night for an evening of funnel cakes, mullet-gazing and livestock. It was pretty fabulous! : ) Here are a few snapshots from along the way!

Going Postal

While stopping off at the post office earlier today to mail off bunches of boxes of wedding photos, we decided to weigh one more little package while we were at it!





He's up to 7 pounds, 7 ounces! Way to grow, baby! : )

Labor Day Weekend!

We're really excited about this weekend... We don't have a wedding, so we'll have 3 whole days of nothing but relaxing (ish) family time, and the weather is supposed to be beautiful! We are thinking we may go to Eureka Springs on Saturday, hang out here at the house on Sunday, and possibly go take some pictures in old downtown Van Buren on Monday. All of this is, of course, subject to change, because it is our very own whole weekend, and we can do WHATEVER WE WANT! : )

Yay! Have a good one, everybody!

Saved by the Quiche!

I'm always on the lookout for easy recipes that the whole family will eat, and I get super excited when I run across an especially good one! In an effort to avoid wasting food (and thus money), I was looking for something to do with part of a leftover ham. Enter this yummy ham-and-cheese quiche recipe from MyRecipes.com.

It's pretty easy to make... You just line your pie crust with the wilted baby spinach and leftover ham...





Then pour your egg and cheese mixture (I used mozzarella instead of Swiss) over it and bake... Voila!






Yummy quiche that only took about 10 minutes of prep time, used up the leftover ham, and everybody ate! Well, Bear may have pulled every perceivable piece of spinach out of his before doing so, but still. We even had enough quiche leftover to eat it for lunch yesterday and breakfast this morning. It's a winner! : )

Happy September-Complete with New Goals!

I'm in Week 3 of my postpartum workout mission, and so far... Well, so far pretty much nothing has happened! At least not with regards to actual weight loss! I did, however, lose a half an inch off my chest, 3/4 of an inch off my waist and add a half inch on my booty! Here are all the walks I managed to get in during the month of August!





In case you are counting, that is 415 minutes, or 6 hours and 55 minutes, of walking in just over 2 weeks. I think that's pretty fabulous! : ) I don't look any different, but I think all those walks are starting to pay off in the way that I feel. I am starting to feel a bit more like my old self, and I can go a lot further without getting winded than I could immediately after the whole surgery and bedrest nonsense! I will be very glad when I am cleared for "actual" workouts here in a couple of weeks! I deeply miss my old life as a gym rat!

In the meantime, I've decided to start keeping a closer eye on my calorie intake for a while. For the month of September, I'm going to stick with the workout goal of aiming to walk or exercise for at least 30 minutes 3 times a week, but I'm also going to shoot for keeping my food intake at around 1800 calories. If I find that I'm still terribly hungry, or if I feel like my milk supply starts to dip at all, then I may re-evaluate that goal, but I think it is a reasonable starting point!

So I think we're off to a good start so far, and I'm really looking forward to getting things in gear. I miss my old clothes! Hopefully my favorite jeans and I will be friends again soon! : )

I think it should help matters that things should start to cool off soon. It's hard to make yourself get out there and walk when it is 95 degrees in the shade! So Happy Wednesday, everybody, and Happy September! Soon, it will actually be fall... I can't wait!