easter preview...

girls beach trip...

although the weather looked like THIS the entire trip... we still had a wonderful time at the beach! seriously, i have NEVER seen fog 24/7 at the beach. until this trip. it was the wierdest thing. no sun, no blue skies. just a gray foggy overcastness all day long. but it's true that you still get sun when it's overcast, b/c i'm looking all nice and tan... if i do say so myself! ;o) 

6 girls... no kids, no husbands, no work, no house to clean, no laundry to fold... enough said!

yep. we had it made! stayed in a condo that was ridiculously awesome. went out to eat each nite. below we were at lulu's... my first time to eat there. loved it! fun environment, good band, tasty food, great friends!

then we went to flora-bama... another first for me. can't say the band was that great (if you'd even call them that...) but they were funny. in a "you can't help but laugh and wonder did they really just say what i thought they said" kind of way. :) all of us, esp libby and i, had way too much fun... taking pics of our stamped hands, fb statuses that read "get.off.the.table.jamie." and trying to pee in the pitch black porta-potties. seriously... wish i would have know they didn't have real bathrooms there. wow. this one lady was in this white frilly sundress and she musta had a little too much to drink. (shocker.) she went in and came out of every porta potty saying there was too much pee (that's the rated g version) on the seats. so a nearby gentleman  drunk kindly offered to hold her skirt for her while she squatted. REALLY?!? yes, true story. again. wow. :) that's a whole new world to me.

so if you are new here, libby and i kinda like ourselves :o) and we like to take pics of ourselves... i mean, you can never have enough. and you know that out of all the millions of pics, you will like at least one of them :) i love this girl, and i'm so thankful we got to celebrate her birthday at the beach! you are beautiful, sweet, funny, an awesome friend, crazy, and semi corruptive a great influence on me. and i love you for it! :o) i will always shine the light for you, even in the ... (you know the rest. ha!)

ahhhhh. the.best.thing.ever.

saturday nite we went to eat at sea-n-suds... my all time fav! a trip to the beach is not complete until you've had fried crab claws from there! (btw, i hate seafood. with the exception of fried crab claws and fried popcorn shrimp. and i mean itty bitty popcorn shrimp, where basically you can only taste the batter and the ketchup.) i know, i'm wierd. anywho... sea-n-suds for dinner, and dippin dots for dessert! yummy!

wendi, tina, shannon, bethany, and libby... i had SUCH a great time with you awesome girls. i will never forget hello monkey lover, miss pt, what had happened was, squirrly and some change, get back in my pocket little girl, kountry with a k, and many other memories that might be better left unsaid. haha!

getting souveniers for the kiddos... and of course lib and i stopped to model some rockin kj-52 shades! ;o)

more foggy weather... i'm telling you, it was crazy! but pretty in a cloudy kinda way! :) our condo was right on the intercoastal waterway... the back patio opened up to the boat dock. so pretty, foggy or not!!

 ok i have to share this pic with you... and the story that goes with it. the fat dude beside us caught a baby shark. ummm can i just say those things don't stay babies for long! anywho. he threw the shark back in the water... and then his girl friend straddles him and he starts yelling "who's your daddy? who's your daddy?" true story folks, as libby said, we couldn't make this up. guess he'd had a few too many drinks as well.

and one more of me and libby for the road... this is our sorority pose! gotta love it! :)

seriously... we had a wonderful time! i'm so thankful for the chance we had to get away from it all. i'd be lying if i said there was a big part of me that didn't wanna come home for another week or so. :) but speaking of home and things i'm thankful for, i'm also SO.VERY.THANKFUL. for my sweet husband... he kept the boys all weekend and allowed me to go on this trip with the girls. of course by sunday the boys (namely lucas) were really missing mama and a little grumpier than normal, but he said they were good for the most part! he took them shopping, to play at the park, out to eat... i mean, what an awesome daddy!! :) can't wait til our next girls trip, b/c oh yes, there will be another one. i'm thinkin' a spring and fall trip is a must! :)

random

just a few random pics off my cell phone from the last week or so. yes. it's been a while since i've blogged. and now you don't even get anything good. please accept my apology, as i was at the beach with the girls last weekend. and now i'm back, so i'm in a funk. b/c i wish i was still there. anywho. :) i'm working on a real post, so there. you will see it. soon. but in the meantime... i sure do love these crazy kids!

this boy has my heart... he just climbed up on my back and loved on me while i was laying on the couch!

seriously. love them.

really... wish they were always this cute!

he loves me... and the feeling is quite mutual...

ohmygoodnessgracious. i could just eat sweet t up. and that little mohawk. wow!

me and my lala belle. love my girly girl niece... she stayed the nite with us one nite and we got some 1 on 1 girl time. of course i painted her fingernails and toenails to match mine! earlier she had told shannon- jj doesn't have any boys so she loves to do girl things with me! :) LOVE HER!

wow. the shirt says it all. TRUE.STORY. ugh. don't worry. we bite back. another true story.

i bought "real" chocolate milk, instead of mixing white milk and choc syrup. when trace drank it he said - MOM, is this chick-fil-a chocolate milk? me- yep, sure is buddy! ;o)

and last... nate cut lucas' hair, on a TWO! it is so short but so stinkin CUTE! love these buzz cut boys!! :) it's a great, easy, and super adorable summer cut! i think lucas looks like trace more than ever with his new short hair!

 the.end.of.this.random.post.

mama's first 5k...

so with it being spring time, and summer (aka- swimsuit season) is just around the corner, i thought about what i could do to shape up some. i've finally lost all my baby weight from trace and lucas, and i would love to continue getting in shape. a few of my friends have started running, and it got me thinking about it. i mean, i used to run in high school. granted that was 10 years ago... but still. :o) i decided to start slow and i knew i wanted a program to follow. i looked into the couch to 5k program and thought i could handle it. the one i'm following is a 9 week program, running 3 times a week. but let me add here, my friend libby's dad is a running coach and has his own program here if you want to check it out! the reason i'm not doing it is b/c it's more than 3 times a week. and he also has a running group, but it's hard enough for me to run on my own, much less at a set time. anywho. so i was on week 5 last week of c25k, and i wanted to see kinda where i was and what i could do. so i registered for the big springs 5k in springville. even though my program is a 9 week program, and i had only completed to week 5! so yeah, i was so nervous after i registered! so thursday nite, week 5 day 3 of my training, i skipped my regular workout, which called for a 20 minute jog. and instead i did a practice 5k (which is 3.1 miles) and fnished in 33:49. my goal was 35 so i was pretty happy with that. friday nite i went to pick up my race packet and i was super nervous... i wondered if i was really ready for a 5k! like, a real one, with 300+ runners! 

 since nate was still out of town, my parents came to the house to watch the boys while i ran my first 5k. i was excited, but still so nervous. i could barely eat anything!

i got to the race a little early, and stretched and did some warm ups. it was sooo cold. my hands were FREEZING! below is a pic of me, right before the race! in my bright pink track jacket of course! ;o) i ran the race and tried my best to pace myself. i started out slow, on purpose... at mile one i saw i was a little slower than i needed to be, so i stepped it up some. once i got to mcdonald farms, i ran up the hill, and knew it was literally all down hill from there. that was at mile two. then i kicked it into gear! once i got to hwy 11 and heard people cheering, i knew i was almost to the end! i saw my sweet friend ashley and heard her cheering for me! that made me sprint to the finish line! unofficially, i finished right under 32 minutes. i am waiting on official results for my time, and also to see where i placed overall, as well as in my age division!

 here i am... after the race! the cute jacket came off at mile one! :) i was sooo thankful for such a beautiful, sunny day. it warmed up some, and there wasn't a cloud in the blue sky!

 i wanted a picture in front of the finish line... but didn't want to hike down to it again. so it's way back there, in the distance! :) thanks ash for the pics. proof that i ran, and that i finished! :)

all in all, i was happy with my first race since my cross country days at hewitt... way back when! :)

one bummer though, my knee started hurting last week when i upped my workouts. i sucked it up and ran thru the pain saturday during the race. but i'm paying for it now and hurting. i haven't run since then, so my knee is slowly feeling better. but i'm not sure how smart it is to keep running while "injured." i have 4 more weeks of the c25k program, and i really really want to finish hard. and there's another race i want to run on april 29. so now i have to figure out what to do about my injury. well, actually i don't think i'm injured, b/c i used to have lots of problems with my knees in high school. but i guess i need to decide what best helps most: a brace, orthodics (which i had in my old runnin' days. they seemed to help, so i hope to get some new ones and i'm really hoping that will fix some of my pain!) or what!?

ok. so for all 4 of you who read my blog, i will update when i find out the official race results. also, i will keep you updated on my knee and running and stuff. as if you care... ha.

** UPDATED ** race results are in. my time was 31:53, i finished 10th in my age division of women age 20-29, and i finished 91st overall out of 321 runners i think. :) not too bad... for my first 5k in 10 years, only 5 out of 9 weeks of practice, and a bum knee!

date nite...

nate went to atlanta with a friend and was gone friday nite... so this mama took her 2 lil boys on a date! :o) trace got to pick where we went. so it's no surprise we ended up at mcdonald's! ha. i was really pulling for chick-fil-a so i could get a yummy banana pudding shake, but trace won! the boys love some kids meals with chocolate milk to drink. lucas thinks he is TOO big when i get him choc milk. he takes my hands off of it and will not let me even help him the tiniest bit. he says "i do it myself mama!"

 we made a deal, and since they ate all their chicken nuggets, they got icecream as a reward! :o) again... lucas and the whole "i do it myself" thing was a little too much! especially with an icecream cone! but they enjoyed them!

 trace will hardly ever let me take a pic of him anymore... but lucas insisted on sitting with mama (b/c he saw a bug OUTSIDE the window and he freaked.) anywho, so i snapped a quick pic with my sometimes  sweet boy!

 and what date nite is not complete without a trip to wally world? i had a ton of groceries to buy... and let me just say, as much as i hate rushing and trying to buy them on my lunch break, it beats taking the kids with me. we ran out of room in the buggy, so trace had to walk. then lucas wanted to walk. next thing i knew, a stranger had lucas by the hand at the end of the aisle, stopping him from escaping any farther from me... wow. so yeah, we survived, finally got to the checkout lane and then i had promised the kids they could ride the toys. a train ride kept them happy for a minute... then they moved to the firetruck (didn't include the pic, it was blurry, sorry..)

 and last, they rode the motorcycle. i was kinda hesitant to let both boys on there, but it ends up we didn't know how to make the thing work anyways. mama couldn't find the gas pedal or whatever it's called on a motorcycle. (poppi, if you are reading this, what is that thing called??) ha!

so yeah, there ya have it... date nite with my 2 fav little guys! we had a good nite, but were happy to see nate when he got home saturday afternoon!