The Rest of Destin

Too tired to blog about the rest of our trip, but I wanted to post the rest of our pictures tonight. And yes, Brady went under water for the first time and actually loved it. (If you look in the background, you see me cringing.) We also ate ice cream from the ice cream man and I pretended to be Michael Phelps and raced Justin in the pool. (Look how much I beat him by. It must be those days from the swim team!! I wanted to make myself a gold medal out of a yogurt lid!! Too bad I kinda cheated) Jeff and Justin also had a cannonball contest and taught the other kids in the pool how to run on the pavement. Ok, enough explaining, I just didn't want everyone to be totally lost with the pics... I'm off to bed now.

Destin Day Two and Three

Thursday we hung out by the pool by the beach a lot of the time. Yesterday, we took Brady out into the ocean again and he saw his first dolphins! (He didn't seem to care so much!) Last night we went to Baytowne Wharf (one of our very favorite places here) and hung out at Hammerheads and listened to some good music. Brady slept in his stroller the whole time during dinner and then we got him up for his dinner and some pictures.

Destin Day One... It's Beach Time!

Greetings from Florida!

We're now on our first family vacation with the little man!! We're with some of our dearest friends, the McCord's and we have been taking a ton of pictures (Suprise, Surprise) so we're going to make the attempt to update every day. (Mostly for our parents!) I do have to thank Justin for the pictures of the three of us! I also want to give a little disclaimer that in some of the pictures it sort of looks like I have my hands on my hips and I'm telling Jeff what to do... and I want to stress that this was NOT the case! I was actually pleasantly surprised at myself with how I did NOT give him directions. I was simply pointing out a huge school of fish!

Curled Up...

Yesterday I was sitting on the sofa with Brady in the boppy. He likes to stare out the window and I felt like being lazy so we played on the couch. When it was naptime, I got up to put him in his crib and I came back to find Georgia like this.... Love that dog.

First Cereal

Last week, I tried to introduce cereal to our little man. He's taking a full bottle at every feeding and I called the doctor last week wondering what to do when he starts not feeling full after a full bottle... because I'm NOT feeding him two bottles at a time! They told me to try a little bit of rice cereal after his bottle, so I've been trying it sometimes in the morning when he's a bit fussy still. He doesn't know what to do with the spoon and honestly he doesn't seem to like the taste of it either. He kind of makes a funny face every time I put it in his mouth and I can't tell if it's the taste or if it's the spoon.... :) Anyway, thought this picture was cute!

Charlie Brown?

I had to post this picture that Jeff took last week. I think the Brady Bug looks exactly like Charlie Brown in this picture - what do you think? With his big, beautiful, "bald", round head and his big, beautiful, brown eyes???

Random Thoughts at Midnight

It's past midnight at the leach household and I'm exhausted, but I can't sleep!! I have tried boring television but that's not working, so I decided to blog about things other than Brady for the moment!!

For as long as I can remember, I have lacked any power to stick to something. I am notorious for starting projects and not finishing them. I have huge goals and when I get started, I go strong for a few days and then I get bored, tired or just plain lazy and stop. This, of course, drives my goal-oriented husband crazy although I like to think that it has become an endearing quality about me that he loves! So several weeks ago when I decided to start a diet, I think he said to me (not in so many words, but this was the point....) "yeah right".

For those of you who have had a baby, you know that the majority of the baby weight comes off fairly quickly and easily. Those first few weeks home from the hospital I was losing the poundage like crazy. (Stick with me... this post is NOT about weight loss). But after a while, it slows down until it finally flat lines at a weight that is not the same as it was before you were preggers. Those last 10-15 pounds (for me it was 15) are the hardest to lose, or so I've heard. So.... after several weeks of being the same, I decided that I wanted to take action.

With the encouragement of some girlfriends, I picked up the South Beach book and began reading it. It made sense to me (especially since my food pyramid consisted solely of sugar and starches) so I decided I was going to do it. I told Jeff that I needed him to do it with me, not because he needed to go on a diet, but because I needed the accountability. This is when he told me, very kindly, not to get my hopes up because I had gotten on kicks like this before and not followed through with them. I know he was trying to protect me, but I was like "It's two weeks. The hard part is only two weeks. I can do two weeks." Sure enough... we did two weeks.... it was hard. So hard for me, actually. But it worked too! And now I've adjusted to make it part of a healthy diet... not boring, not too strict.... just balanced. Of course I'm not back to my pre-pregnancy weight, but that's ok. I'm happy that I've worked hard for something and I'm making progress.

So, with that all said.... it made me realize that I really CAN do things that I put my mind to and I CAN finish things that I start. (I know... I'm 26 and I'm just NOW realizing this. Sad, but true.) So I came up with a few goals of things I wanted to do before I'm thirty. Some of them are silly, and some are just things I've decided I want to do, so bear with me!!

First, I decided I want to run a 5K. A few years back, I made the ambitious goal of wanting to run the White Rock Half Marathon. After about a week of training I quit. It was miserable, I was miserable, and I really can't say anything more about that. Miserable. But, I've always WANTED to be a runner. As much as I hate to do it (because I'm lazy as all get out), I've always wanted to love it. My husband absolutely loves it. I want to love it. Enough said. SO, I have decided that I want to train for a 5K. Not a half marathon, but a 5K. Starting small. Kind of sad, I guess, that I have to TRAIN for a 5K, but I do... and I'm not ashamed. We've decided to do the Freedom Run in Dallas on the 11th of September and I want to be able to run the whole thing. I don't care if it takes an hour, but I'm going to run it. My precious husband is going to do it with me. Now, for him, it's not a feat to do this at all... he picked up after having not run for months, and ran 3 miles without stopping, no problem! He's just like that.... but he gets excited for me when I ran 1.25 miles without stopping last week. (In 20 minutes, I might add!) :) So, that's my first goal.

My second goal is kind of silly, and it's personal, but I want to write a book. Not sure what about yet, but I enjoy writing... not that I'm particualarly good at it, but again.. I want to be good at it. I was always horrible at english in school, so we'll see how this goes.... but again, it's just a goal. Jeff's funny about this too, because when i told him I wanted to do it, I thought he would just laugh at me, but instead he smiled and said 'Go for it!'. In fact, I'm going to be starting a creative writing class in the fall! (It's on-line continuing ed.!)

Those are my two big, defined goals for right now, but I also want to go skydiving at some point, read Pride and Prejudice, learn how to paint my own fingernails, take a photography class, learn how to paint, and transform an old, worn out piece of furniture into something completely new and unusual. I know.... this is all so random... but again, I can't go to sleep and it's almost 1 A.M.

So sweet dreams everyone.... I'm going to try to go to sleep now.