51 Facts That You May Not Know About Me:

First, let me start off with a quick shoutout to my childhood friend, Ashley, who runs her own blog, GRITS & Binkies, whom I stole this idea from. :) 

1. I am tired. Like all the time.
2. I am a mother to two gorgeous, insanely intelligent little girls.
3. I have more than seven years of college schooling behind me, which resulted in a Master in Criminal Justice, with a minor in Psychology and a certificate in Criminal Profiling. 
4. My career goals went something like this...International Popstar, Fashion Designer (a result of the upcoming Grammy nominations in my future), Psychologist, Criminal Justice Lawyer, Criminal Profiler, WAHM Baby Store Owner.
5. I am a stay at home mom and have been since the birth of my first daughter (but unemployed prior to that due to absolute SHIT economy.)
6. Did I mention that I am tired...all the time?
7. My husband taught me to sew.
8. I taught him to ride motorcycles.
9. I recently created a WAHM baby store called CushTheTush where I make and sell cloth diapers, toddler undies, adult undies, maxaloones, and other children's clothing items. 
10. In the next year, I plan to complete compliancy and open a second store, one making and selling baby carriers and accessories. 
11. I used to be a democrat (based on old standards.)
12. Now I believe that the party system should be abolished.
13. I am anti-abortion, pro-guns, anti-illegal alien and pro-equality. This includes gay, bi, trans, black, white, asian, etc. 
14. My favorite time of the year is fall and winter.
15. Rain makes me depressed, like literally. I cry and feel awful. 
16. I am one of the most Disney obsessed people that I know. I am happy to be able to now share that obsession with my daughters. 
17. I was born and raised in the small town of Titusville, Fl. Never heard of it? Yeah, most people haven't. Think SHUTTLE (at least until new generations forget entirely what that even is.) Thanks OBAMA *eye roll*
18. For years, we struggled to try and make it in Florida because that is where we were from, it's where our family and friends were. That didn't work, and truthfully we'd wanted to leave long ago.
19. This year I felt big changes were coming, and boy did they. We packed up and moved half across the country to Texas. 
20. I am genuinely happy here. There are very few places I would ever consider living in the future. Florida is not one of them. I hate Florida.
21. I love the outdoors. I love waterfalls and hiking!
22. I love to read, but never have enough time. I used to HATE reading because growing up, I had horrible reading comprehension. That changed when I started college at 15. 
23. I love to craft! Be it scrapbooking, crocheting (thanks to my MIL), sewing (my newest obsession.)
24. I have a fabric addiction. Like, baaaaad. I am obsessed with Disney inspired knits and I can't have enough of them. Help!
25. I am considered a "crunchy" mom. I cloth diaper, I breastfeed until at least TWO (oh, the horror!), I practice BLW, and I love to babywear!
26. I was adamant about homeschooling my children, even though I have strong fears that they will be so much smarter than me that I won't be very good at teaching. However, since moving to Texas where the schools are astronomically better, I may consider public school. The jury is currently out.
27. I'm addicted to reality TV. It's a sickness. But only certain kinds like Real World, Kendra On Top, Keeping up With the Kardashians, I am Cait, Project Runway, America's Next Top Model, True Tori (the whole line of shows), etc., others I judge. 
28. I'm also addicted to crime TV like Criminal Minds, Law & Order: SVU, Scandal, Madame Secretary, State of Affairs, How to Get Away With Murder, Scorpion, etc.
29. I LOVE pole fitness! It makes me feel so much better about myself, and makes me proud of myself physically.
30. I primarily eat the Paleo Diet, though am not as strict about it as I used to be.
31. I love everything pumpkin: candles, lattes, cookies, cheesecakes, donuts, etc.
32. Panera's Pumpkin Spice Latte's and Starbuck's Oprah Cinnamon Chai Lattes have changed my life.
33. H.E.B.'s cronuts are AMAZING!
34. I am a rape baby.
35. I too have been raped.
36. Because of this, it both drove my want to work in Sex Crimes/Criminal Justice, but also left me with a slight hole, that kills me that I won't ever know my whole heritage, my whole story. 
37. I really enjoy finding my family tree, it is however, excruciatingly tedious.
38. I have a sexy, beautiful, amazing husband whom I am terrible at always showing my love and appreciation for. It is a huge flaw in myself that I struggle with.
39. I have a very long history of depression. I used to be suicidal and anorexic. I have long gotten past that point with the help of medications, counseling, and a good support system. I do still have the occasional really bad day or two, but am significantly better overall.
40. Family means the world to me. Family does not however automatically equate blood. Some of my blood is dead to me. 
41. I love movies. Some of my favorites are Legend of Billie Jean, Legend, Willow, Sleeping Beauty, Twilight Saga (judge me all you want), Coyote Ugly, Crossroads, Clueless, Hocus Pocus, The Holiday, Nightmare Before Christmas, and Love Actually.
42. I have a slight thing for vampires...Trueblood was yummy (books & show) and I love the Black Dagger Brotherhood Series.
43. I have a love/hate relationship with ABCFamily. They reel me in, make me fall in love, and then pull all of my favorite shows out from under me.
44. I love to travel, despite that most of the travel in my life has been in recent years. I used to spend my summer's in Georgia with my now Dead to Me "family", and they were amazing. I also love Tennessee and Virginia, New York (Obsessed!) and Canada! I would live any of those places in a heartbeat. I look very forward to traveling in our future. Goals for the moment: Canada (again), Colorado, California, and Italy (the homeland!)
45. I drive a mini van. I was the girl who always said that no way in hell would I ever be the "soccer mom" in a mini van. I LOVE my Odyssey. I will not go back for as long as I have children. I am now screaming at my younger more ignorant self for waiting so long and not being able to get over the physical appearance in place of comfort and functionality. Mini van moms unite!
46. I modeled. I've been on countless websites, magazines, books, etc., including Playboy. Some may judge, but I am very proud of myself in that time of my life and the things that I accomplished. Any haters can suck it. LoL. 
47. I have an allergy to the cold. Yep, it's legit. I break out in hives and my joints swell.
48. I have always wanted a northeastern Christmas. Downtowny area, beautiful fluffy snow, sweaters, boots, hot cocoa, fires by the fireplace. 
49. Christmas starts in September in my life. We start watching Christmas movies, and start the prepwork for gifts and decorations. Christmas music starts playing in my head.
50. I LOVE food. Like, really love food! I am a serious foodie, especially those that I shouldn't eat. Haha.
51. I love football! My heart will always bleed maroon and gold! The Noles will always own my heart! We dress up every gameday, and make junkfood and FSU jello jigglers! 

11 Months & Family Update:

So I'm a few days delayed, but Rosalie is 11 months old! What!? That means that in less than a month, my tiny beautiful baby is going to be ONE YEAR OLD! I can't believe how fast this year has flown by! It's been amazing watching her growth and development and her personality come shining through!

This month w decided to take a day trip to San Antonio. We woke up the girls bright and early and surprised them. We did the Riverwalk and the Alamo, and stopped by the Missions. It's really beautiful there. I'm obsessed with the Riverwalk. We will definitely be back.

My Groupon ended for pole class, so we got me a membership. :) I haven't felt this healthy and strong in a long time. Between eating a lot better and pole 2-3 days a week, I've been losing weight and gaining muscle. It's been amazing! I've gotten pretty good and my teacher suggested I level up. I've already got 1/2 of the signatures, but I need a second instructor to sign off and won't see her until next Tuesday, but then hopefully on to level 2!

With the big trip to Florida coming up in less than a month, I've had so much to do! In just a few short weeks, we have my SIL's baby shower, my sister's bridal shower and bachelorette party. I finally got all of the invitations made and sent for the two that I am in charge of. I also found a delicious recipe to try, to make mock Panera orange scones, and OMG, these things are delicious and addicting! Call me crazy, but I actually like them BETTER than Panera's. 

David's work had a company party this month, and this time, it was at our local minor league baseball game! They supplied us with fajitas and drinks for dinner, and rented out the pool (yes! There is a POOL at the baseball field) at the Dell Diamond. It was Sophia's second baseball game, and Rosalie's first! I finally got to meet some of David's friends that I hear about every day when he comes home, which was really nice, and got to socialize with several of the wives as well. :) Rosalie even got her first fly ball!

We finally decided to give in, and went to the Austin Aquarium that is just a few minutes from the house in a shopping plaza. Our expectations were not high since it is a rescue driven small aquarium, but we had a coupon and gave it a go. It was actually a lot nicer than I'd expected. It's hands on, so I was allowed to pick up the horseshoe crab to show Sophia and she got to touch it, which we both really enjoyed, there were lots of fish, sting rays to feed and touch (she loved that too!), a play area, a fish tunnel and a fantastic gift shop. They even had a penny squasher machine! (we do these everywhere we go). It was a lot of fun!

Rosalie is currently still in size 12m clothing, but will likely be moving to 18m in the very near future. She is such a ball of energy and her curiosity is insane. As I've recently learned, a flaw in living in a rental is that we can't install our awesome magnetic safety locks for the cabinets (I don't think so anyway) and she has decided that the kitchen is exactly where she needs to be all the time! She's still on a break from walking, because she still believes it's faster to crawl, but I have no doubt that we will be back to walking any day now. She currently still just has the two bottom teeth, but we think she is currently teething again, so who knows? Sophia I'm pretty sure had at least 4 by this time. 

We've been doing our typical trail adventures, and have created a "nature" book for goose, using a really large old school magnetic photo album that I got on super clearance at Joanns. We collect flowers, leaves, feathers and any other really neat things we find on our adventures. 

This particular adventure lead us to an area that had at one point (probably Memorial Day weekend floods) under water, but due to no rain since then, the water had all evaporated, and what was left was all of the river rocks. However, we did find a very tiny, I guess puddle of sorts that had all of the wildlife that was left behind. There were TONS of tiny fish, a water snake (yikes!) and a crawfish!? What the hell!? I'd never seen one in the wild before, and this was a VERY weird random spot for all of this. There were actually two crawfish, but this one was particularly spunky and kept trying to claw at David. It was pretty amazing to see. 

As a special surprise for the girls, we last minute decided to take the girls to Legends, a Barnum & Bailey Circus! The cost was slightly hard to swallow, but I still have very fond memories of my first Barnum & Bailey Circus as a child for a gifted field trip to the Orlando Arena. I wanted that for my girls too! Even better, they had a unicorn and a pegasus! Those are two of Sophia's favorites! Unfortunately, Sophia was in a bit of crabby mood, but Rosalie loved it!

We also decided to go check out Austin's Annual BatFest! For those that don't know, Austin is very fond of its bats. Congress Bridge downtown is famous for its bats, so where else but Congress Bridge for the festival!? Sophia had a blast! They had bounce houses, rides, rock climbing...We tried waiting around for the bats to finish their assent but Sophia started with a tantrum again, so we got to see some of them, but not the big shabang. Unfortunately, that's the THIRD time that I've tried to see this happen. I guess it's just not meant to be. :(

With all of the fun things that we got to do the weekends prior, we decided it was time to do a few free things, so we headed back to the Play For All Abilities Park in Round Rock, and brought Goose's bicycle this time to practice a little with. Rosalie really enjoying playing in the giant sandbox area, and making music. 

As I'd mentioned early about pole, I've been losing weight, and I'm so happy! I finally reached my goal weight (pre-pregnancy weight!) Since this picture was taken, I've actually lost almost two more lbs. but it is very exciting to be able to look in the mirror and actually see the difference. I look more muscular and defined, and I now have a little bit of thigh gap (something that is very RARE for me). I'm really happy and proud of myself. On the downside, I'm going to need some new pants soon as my current go to bottoms are literally falling off of me all day long. 

Rosalie LOVES to eat! She definitely is different than her sister in this way! She eats anything and everything that we put in front of her! We recently let her try an Oreo cookie and she lost her mind in excitement! 

After a day of geocaching, we went home, ate dinner, and decided to head back down to downtown for the Austin PRIDE parade! I wanted so badly to go to the whole festival, but it was pretty costly, so instead, we opted for the free parade. We got there just in time! It was incredible! I've never seen anything like it! Apple alone took more than 5 minutes for their people to walk past! The turnout was amazing, and the parade lasted almost three hours! There was even a perfect, beautiful super moon that popped up behind the parade! So much love and beauty to see! We got candy, tons of beads, a fan, chapstick, and a tiny gay flag, which Rosalie happily waved! The girls had a blast! I wish so badly that my bestie could've been there with us though.

With chasing Rosalie around constantly, unfortunately, that means not nearly enough time is spent with Sophia and her schooling, but we've been trying to fit it in there when we can, and she is getting so much better! I am very proud of her! She writing her name has gotten soooo good!

We even made our countdown chain for our trip home in a few weeks!

Oh, and Football Season started! We may be Texans now, but my heart will always bleed Maroon and Gold! We won! Woo hoo! We made some yummy Texas Trash and cheesy pigs in a blanket and Goose helped me make FSU jello jigglers!

I started making some new products to sell, including these adorable maxaloones that fit both girls.

We finally got our butts up and made our way to the famous Round Rock Donuts! This Texas donut is just magical! It was piping hot and fresh, and did I mention, MASSIVE! I also had a delicious sausage, cheese & jalapeno kolache. So yum! 

Afterwards we decided to go check out some other trails and found some beautiful swimming spots and a ton of treasures for our nature book.

Sophia got some new shoes because she's finally outgrown all the lovely pairs that we'd gotten from her best friend, Mya. 

The next day, we went down to Bull Creek to swim for a little. Unfortunately, since there's been no rain since Memorial Day weekend, the water was insanely low, so all of those beautiful spots that we swam with my family were pretty much empty and left with not clear, somewhat stagnant water. Needless to say, swimming didn't last very long, but Rosalie really enjoyed her time in the water. 

We decided to try out a place that a father I met at an impromptu playdate at the Domain mentioned to me, called Mt. Playmore. This place was fantastic, and cheap! For about $6, the whole family got in, and it's good for all day with in/out privileges, and the parents can play too! It was unfortunately a little too small for David's large stature, but was perfect for Sophia and I, so we ran around and around the mazes for an hour or more. They also had a cute little baby/toddler play area that was perfect for Rosalie. She had sooo much fun! This place kicks Chuck E. Cheese's ass anyday! 

I also participated in a sew along, using a german pattern for a hoodie hood shirt with one of my favorite fabric groups, MK Designs, and I am absolutely obsessed with the outcome! It is sooo cute! I will be making matching pants in the next week!

It's been a really good month. It's had its stresses like any other time, but I really feel very close to my family, and am just really happy. I've been loving diving into these sewing projects, and exploring with my family. 

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to pin down Rosalie to get her height and weight, but she goes to the Dr. next month for her one year, so I guess we'll get her update then. Until then!