I Love Fall...

Okay...I lied. I'm a day behind on posting. But that's because I had SO MANY pictures from this weekend that I spent all day going through them and editing...and then my maid of honor came over to look at wedding magazines with me for like three hours after that. :D

Anyway...I was super bummed on Sunday. It was rainy and overcast all day long, I didn't get very good pictures because there was hardly any natural lighting, and it was only like 50 degrees. EW. Cold and rainy is not the reason why I love fall. 

I love fall because of...
color, pumpkins, carving pumpkins, apple cider, donuts (which I can't have), the smell in the air, Halloween, football games, baking, Thanksgiving, scarves, family get togethers, corn mazes, haunted houses and hayrides, and I'm sure many more that I can't think of right now.

I love the beginning of every season. When it's fresh and new. There are new smells. Everyone thinks I'm crazy when I say, "It smells like Fall". But it's hard not to notice the change in the air. Crisper air. And with all the new smells come the memories. Playing football with the family when we went to Arkansas for Thanksgiving about ten years ago. Carving pumpkins and having cider with James last year after looking at our first apartment. Going on the haunted hayride with friends my freshman year of high school. Homecoming at Olivet College. Hearing Aiden's heart beat for the very first time. I love the changing of seasons. 

Okay...I'll start with my photos of the day.

4.

October 5, 2012

The homecoming game at Maple Valley.

5.

October 6, 2012

My favorite shot of my gluten free chocolate cheesecakes. Right before I put them in the oven. And they are delicious! :)

6.
October 7, 2012
This was at the Country Mill in Charlotte/Potterville. Aiden had lost his shoe, and I thought this was a pretty cute picture. For anyone who doesn't know, this is James.

 I spent like two hours the night before making this hat for our trip to the cider mill. He had pulled too hard on the vine and completely ripped out all the stitches before we left. :/

I took some pictures of him in the hat before we left just in case I didn't get any good ones while we were gone. If you're wondering why the face in the first picture, he was trying to sit up. He does crunches all day long.

He wanted some of my apple cider slushy. He actually stuck his fingers in it at one point while I was holding him. :)

I absolutely love this picture. It looks like a computer background or something. This was the only picture I got that had the fall color that I wanted.

They had these face-in-hole cutouts on the playground.

Aiden got a little pumpkin of his own and got to "carve" it.

Mommy really carved it for him, but he sure enjoyed rubbing his gums on the cold pumpkin pieces. :)

Even though it was nasty the whole time we were at the cider mill, we got home just in time. About a half an hour later, it starting sleeting/hailing.

I think we may make another trip on a weekend where it's not cold and wet. And where I can get some better pictures. We need to get a new pumpkin for James anyway. He got frustrated while carving his face on his because it was breaking into pieces, and threw it halfway out into the yard...

Getting My Priorities Straight

So...after almost five months (yes, I can't believe it, Aiden will be five months old in only six days!) it's about time to get this weight off. I was able to lose some before I got pregnant, kept the weight off for two trimesters, but then gained 40 pounds in the last three months of my pregnancy. Was able to lose about 20 pounds after I had him while breastfeeding, but now that I'm not breastfeeding anymore, I haven't made up the difference with exercise/diet and I've gotten lazy. I have 80 pounds to lose total. :O

I don't even want to think about that number. 80 is a lot. BUT I've already talked to James about it a little bit, and he's going to help me reward myself at certain loss milestones (with something other than food). At ten pounds, I'm going to have him buy me a couple skeins of yarn for a project that I'm not getting paid for. Just for fun yarn. :)

I'm once again going with my handy partner, Herbalife. I love the shakes, the tablets never fail, and it helps that I get a discount on it. I just haven't made it a priority and haven't ordered any products recently. :(

So anyway...I need your help. I need ideas (relatively inexpensive) for rewards for myself. I have 13 other milestones, and I would like to do something different each time. For my final reward, James will probably take me up to the casino, or if it's after my 21st birthday, we'll probably save the gas and just rent a room at Firekeepers for a weekend. My birthday is 10 months from now, and I'd like to lose the majority of the weight by then with my final goal reached by August for our wedding if we keep it on our original date. :)

Return From My Long Hiatus

Soooo....it has been a crazy couple of months.

We just got done moving into my parents' house to save money while we look for a new place, my grandpa had surgery on his lungs to remove cancer and we almost lost him (very unexpected complications during surgery but now he's doing GREAT after only a few weeks! :) ), and after some issues that have been resolved, James and I are starting to plan our wedding with hopes that we can move it up to early next year instead of the end of next summer. Life has been completely turned around in any way possible multiple times, but today is a good day, and today is a start. All I can say is thank God that I started crocheting since it seems like my craft and the love for my son are the only things that have stayed constant during this amount of time. And it's an awesome stress reliever. If you haven't started some sort of craft or hobby...now is the time to do so, especially if you find yourself constantly wanting to pull out your hair.

I have been pulling things off my hook left and right recently to prepare for a sale that I was going to be a part of, but James got sick, so we had to cancel at the last minute. :(  I have a large inventory of hats, winter, and baby items now though so hopefully when I enter a sale at the beginning of this fall, I don't have to work so frantically to get everything ready. But that also meant a lot of unfinished personal projects that I started and didn't get a chance to finish.

Right now I'm in progress of:

1. A diaper soaker for Aiden

2. A Swiffer sock

3. Ripple blanket

4. Granny blanket for Aiden

5. A hat for myself (Callie Hat. Not free but it was included in the September edition of Inspired Crochet Magazine)

6. A hat for James (I forgot how stinkin long it takes to make an adult hat now that I make so many baby/kids hats)

7. Aiden's cowboy booties

8. About 3 orders that I have to work on.

Once I finish all this in progress "stuff", I'm resolving to only have 2 personal projects and 2 orders in progress at one time. Otherwise, I would never finish anything before I start something else.

Make it a great day! :)