15 months

Things are really starting to get fun. I love, love, love this age. Both of my kids have been so much fun around this time. The development is exploding, there is some independence, and personalities are shining. Fun, fun stuff.

Milestones this month

*Mason finally had a language explosion. It seemed like all we got for months was momma, dada, and bye bye but that has finally changed. He can now say uh oh, dokie (doggie or duckie, depending), ba (ball or Boo, the nickname of our dog Bailey), and yelo (hello). It is amazing how much he can understand and when his language catches up to his understanding we are in trouble, I do believe.
*He took his first step, but we are not 100% sure it wasn't an accident. He refuses to let go of things and attempt to move his feet at the same time. He can and will stand for quite a while by himself. He just prefers to move by crawling so we'll keep practicing and see what happens.
*He can climb really well, including climbing the stairs and the picnic table (more gray hair is sprouting on my head from watching this happen)
*Poor little guy had his first stomach bug/virus and it was terrible on all of us. Aubrey started with it Easter Sunday and was good by Wednesday just for Mason to start up that night. It was a long week that week.
*He has started some serious food strikes. The 5 major food groups according to him are waffles, PB&J, graham crackers, peaches, and milk. He pretty much refuses anything else and will promptly throw it to the floor for the eagerly waiting dogs.
*He enjoyed helping Aubrey find Easter eggs and playing with the empty ones afterwards.
*He had his first taste of sugary goodness this Easter and it was like watching an addict. He loved it.
*He is loving the warm weather and being outside. He gets so excited when we go outside. The only part of being outside he doesn't like is touching grass. He just outright refuses to touch it with any body part.
*I took him to his first visit to the airport overlook and he was giddy with excitement. I wondered if the loud sounds would hurt his ears, but he loved it.

Gma was helping him hunt for eggs.

Poor little guy was so weak and tired from the stomach virus, he just fell over and went to sleep.

1/4

As I was working on my 365-photo project, I realized we are now roughly through the first 1/4 of this year. That just seems crazy to me. So, I thought it was a good time to benchmark myself and how I am doing in reaching my New Year's resolutions. Yeah, I know most of the time they are out the window by now, but I've done a pretty darn good job of keeping mine going.

Let's talk about this 365-day photography project that is kicking my rear. It has been so much harder for me than I really thought it would be. I have been in a major creative rut and really haven't had much desire to get out the big girl camera. So, it seems the majority of my recent pictures have been taken with my cell phone. Which, in a way, has been a huge lesson in forcing myself to work on composition. I can't do as much with the settings on my phone (however I did find an app that will let me focus and set exposure separately, pretty exciting stuff) so I attempt to do more creative composition. Notice I said attempt. Some days, its still 10:00pm when I realize I haven't taken a picture and I force my dogs to do something crazy and I take any old picture and call it a day. I am really hoping that now that the weather is getting nicer I will get out of the creative rut and take some nicer pictures. But, for now I am proud that I have taken a picture every single day and so I can call it a success so far.

The other goal I had for the year was the weight loss goal. Well, I can proudly say I have met this goal. I finished the 30 Day Shred and eased back into Insanity and it kicked my rear for 60 days. It was a fantastic workout but I can honestly say I am glad to be finished with it. It became really monotonous at the end and I was tired of doing to same moves day after day, 6 days a week. However it pushed me when I needed it and gave me results. I started running again this week and even pushing Mason in the jogging stroller I have a faster pace than I did this time last year running by myself. I restarted Couch 2 5k at week 4, but it was too easy so I jumped to week 5. I am hoping to finally be able to run a sub-30 minute 5k and run a solid 4 mile race July 4th. 

So, between all of my workouts and calorie reduction, I have managed to lose a total of 24 pounds since Thanksgiving. That's a few pounds over my original goal and I am completely stoked. The downside is, most of my clothes are now too big and my limited budget hasn't allowed me to buy much to replace them. But, I guess it is a good problem to have and I'll take it. BUT, the most aggravating thing I'm dealing with at this point is the bridesmaid dress I have to wear in June is still a pain in my side,  literally. It will zip but it is totally not pretty on top and I can barely breathe and its now 2 sizes bigger than what I wear in regular clothes. My stupid rib cage seems to be wider than most and makes wearing any dress with a zipper a huge problem. I usually avoid dresses for this reason, but this is not a dress I can avoid. Soooo, I have decided to keep going on the weight loss and go for a few more pounds. I have until the middle of May before I need to get my dress altered so hopefully I can look a little more presentable in it or throw in the towel and have it let out on top. I am really kind of over the whole serious calorie restriction, 6 days a week of working out mode I've been in the for the past 5 months, but then I remember how hard I've worked for that long and realize 1 more month isn't that huge of a deal. 

So, I think I can call the first quarter of the year successful as far as my resolutions go. My next challenges are to maintain the weight loss, maybe lose a few more pounds, and keep my motivation up to keep working on my 365 project. I think I can, I think I can needs to be my mantra for now.