Reunion

 Every year, a bunch of us gather together for a (Biocic) family reunion. We have a few funny family traditions, but it's a lot of fun and I think it really holds us closer together. Some of the experts get up really early in the morning to begin roasting the lamb for our family lunch. My family has a special basting glaze and way of cooking it thats been passed down for many generations.

 All the little cousins

 This picture is so hilarious to me in more ways then one.

 My brother and sister were chosen to butcher the meat this year... I gladly took pictures...

It looks like an operating table.
I was able to have one of the first pieces. It melted in my mouth like butter. It didn't have that strong lamb flavor that normal lamb always has. SO GOOD. I had more than my share.

Life This Week(according to cellphone pictures) #49

Teeny rog, polka-doted rocks, Mr. Mud, goofing of, peanut butter oreo bars, making dinner, Ice Cream with Rachel, New backpack, Lovely flowers from a lovely lady, Weekend finds 1, and 2, finally pulling my books out of storage, dress designing for Red Rabbit, roasting lamb at our annual Family Reunion, polkadots and stripes, funny rules of #2.

Bringing Up Bebe

I forget… a lot to update about what's new with Everett. The things that are too insignificant to mention are probably the most memorable though. Like when we were hastily walking out the door early yesterday morning, he stopped, pointed at the shoes I had just put on and said, "I wike you shoes, Mama!" My heart melted…
So since it's really hard for me to keep up with all the little things this growing boy is going through, here's a quick list about what's current in his world:

•   Favorite foods: Hot dogs(turkey dogs) I think mostly because we always get to sing the hot dog song, blue berries, Lara Bars, hummus, cucumbers w/ranch… pretty much just a food lover in general.
•   Can count all the way through 1 to 12, if he's in the right mood. 
•   Can be entertained by books for hours on end. Total book worm. 
•   Hurts himself constantly and laughs about it. 
•   Is also gonna be a class clown, I can already tell. He will do ANYTHING to get a laugh out of you.(that's his dada too) 
•   Is pretty amazing with numbers, shapes, colors, and can already read his own name!(he also knows what it says when he sees the Chick-Fil-A logo on anything. A little obsessed with chicken). 
•   Practically anything his Dada eats, says, or does, he wants in on it. He drinks up any time he gets to spend with him. 
•   Loves cars, trucks, tractors, motorcycles, dump trucks and knows specifically what each of them are. 
•   Some favorite activities: long bicycle rides, playing in water, throwing rocks and balls… and recently toys down the stairs… yeah. 
•   Always asks to sing "Mazing Gwace" right before bed. 
•   Is afraid of NOTHING! Balloons pop, dog barks in his face, falls off things… nothing! 
•   Is turing two in less than a month! Crazy, crazy. He likes too tell me pretty often all the plans he has for his party. A few of his favorite things are involved including, pies, food, water, frogs, balloons, and candy.

1, 2, 3...

Everett's been really into counting lately. He loves to learn, but he gets super shy when he knows someones watching or listening to him. I caught a little of him, but as usual he was more worried about me video taping him than anything else!

What's Fair

This last weekend we decided to take a spur of the moment break and went to the fair. We ended up having a lot more fun of an evening than we were expecting too! We got to see lots of goats, sheep, cows, and a dog show. We spent a lot of our time watching the rodeo though. We all enjoyed it a lot, and it's crazy to see how good some of those REAL cowboys are! One of my best friends was working a vendor, and it was really great to see her since we hadn't seen her much after she started her 12+ hour shifts for the fair. Afterwards we splurged a little on some bad food, but I think it's good every now and then to splurge and just eat whatever sounds good! It was a real blast and definitely a great family time memory!

Life This Week(according to cellphone pictures) #48

You might have noticed, I've been abandoning my blog a little lately. Besides being busy with the never ending work on our house, I have a few things I need to work out and reorginaze before I can get back to my normal routine blogging. It just doesn't feel right to me to go so long without blogging, but at the same time it's been kinda nice. 

Onto a different subject, you might have noticed how I mentioned the way I've been eating. I call it eating VEGAN, but it's really more than that. I'm more leaning towards eating 100% fruits, veggies, nuts, and whole grains. I feel like we were probably always meant to eat that way. It's actually super refreshing and not as hard to do as it may sound. Anyway, I'm not super strict about it, try to eat that way whenever I can, and I feel much better about myself if I make it through the day eating only whole foods. I could go on, but I'm not going to make this post about that. I just wanted to explain a little before I go on. Here's some pictures from the last couple weeks:

my new favorite "vegan" breakfast, love going to my auntis shop, post nap hair, art, junior firefighter, balancing baby, #flashbackfriday, pickle sized cucumbers and tiny bowl of salt, love-hate relationship, abandoned roadway, rain collector, birthday boy, chipping paint, chase's new monitor, hot days, vegan nom noms, future hair-do, colorful sunset, ice cream truck goodies, debating on chocolate

Currently...

Instagram from a few days ago

Currently:

Reading… I'm actually finding a teeny bit of time some evenings to squeeze in some reading. I'm finishing up a couple books that have been taking a while to finish during all the moving and such. I don't have all my books with me yet though and it doesn't feel right that I can't just pick up one of my books and start reading. My husband is in the middle of making me a custom book shelf though and I can't wait to use it!

Obsessing Over…pesky beetles. I've always had really good luck whenever I've gardened in the past, but at our new place, my veggies are being raided! After close watch, I discovered that brown beetles, that only come out at night, are mutilating the heck out of my hard earned plants. I've done so many failed things to try and get rid of them organically that I've literally become obsessed with getting rid of them! With some luck though, recently, they've been slowly disappearing.

Working on… Sewing curtains and altering some vintage clothes.

Thinking about… How I'm gonna be an auntie to TWO new babies this early spring! I mentioned on Instagram how my oldest brother and his wife are expecting. And now we just recently discovered my other brother and his wife are expecting. Their due dates are about one month apart, and I can't wait to meet them!

Anticipating… My husband LOVES really any super hero movie. It has to be pretty bad in order for him not to go kinda crazy for them. I like a few but am really picky when it comes to the ones I like. I can't stand the cheesy ones and i prefer it to be a really thought out film instead of just action packed comedy cheese. With that said, I've probably never loved a comic book character based movie as much as I like Christopher Nolan's Batman films. This upcoming one will be his last one, but I'm certain it will be the best one!

Listening to… I've had all of Bon Iver's albums on repeat this ENTIRE week. I always forget how much I enjoy them until I hear one of there songs again.

Eating... raw coconut and fresh pineapple salad. It's so, so good! It reminds my of a pina-collata. I might have mentioned this earlier, but I started eating vegan after watching a documentary called Forks Over Knives. I'm not completely against meat actually(I think a small amount every once in a while is fine) but I just can't seem to touch it recently. I've been eating all just fruits, veggies, and whole grains. I also took out all processed foods, including sugar, and flour. Someone asked me if I noticed any difference and I really couldn't tell. I swayed a teeny after about a week, and after that I felt kinda miserable. I was out of energy and felt tired all the time, but couldn't even fall asleep as easily as normal. It was enough to make me realize how much I need to continue eating this way. I highly recommend Forks Over Knives if you haven't seen it already. Even my husband was super pumped after watching it! If you HAVE already seen it, let me know what your thoughts are on it.

Bebe Style II

Everett was surprisingly not in the mood to have his picture taken when I shot these, but I still managed to pull off a few!

 Outfit details: Newsboy hat: Zara Baby/// Cardigan: vintage/// V-neck: Zara Baby/// skinnies: Zara Baby/// Shoes: thrifted.

I've been seeing a few hipster baby LOLz out there and this one was too funny to not do.

Rocks and Mountains

A few more pictures from up in the mountains that I forgot about. While we were up there, it was pretty cloudy and rained(even hailed for a while) while we were up there, which was SO nice. We need more rain around here. We played with chipmunks, hiked, and saw some amazing scenery. Not to mention enjoyed the cooler, wetter weather.

For some reason, I've been forgetting to take videos. I did pretty good last year when Everett was in his wee years, so I hope to keep that up and remember to get my video camera out more often.

Life This Week(according to cellphone pictures) #47

Driving with my dad listening to metal :), "Down Reeber!", watching the sunset, a river full of ashes, Vintage overall and frog rain boots(his choice), a vintage outfit from bin-bin, replacing my catsup(and using a new photo app), revamped vintage TV cabinet, "peechers mama?" removing a stump with my own two hands.

Whole Food Goodness

{via}

Here I am, up late, on Sunday night(or Monday morning), thinking about health. Particularly the diet part of our health. So I hope you don't mind if I, yet again, get on my health soapbox.
 I don't know what generally first triggered my long time want to eat better and and find out more about having a healthier diet, but as my general knowledge grows, I always have a want to gain more knowledge about our food. I guess you could say… to eat more the way we were intended. Almost as if we were plopped on this planet with nothing but our bodies, minds, and the normal, natural, food around us. Could you imagine? Of course, luckily, that is not the way it is. We can easily drive to the super market and buy our food off the shelves that's already been picked, or prepared. As I've discussed many times on this blog before, the reasons I think it's important what we're eating, there are many other reasons out there. Let's take meat for a good example. There are SO many controversial things on meat. Some people believe meat is an important part of their meals. Some believe meat was never meant to be eaten. Some eat only meats that has been raised and treated naturally, while others just don't care one bit, as long as it tastes good. So many people have so many reasons on why they eat what they do. Some have been scared away by meat factory horror stories (like the popular chicken nugget one), but either way, I think I can assure you that there are many more untold processed food stories out there. With that said, I don't want to try and scare you into becoming a Vegetarian or something, but I believe that there are many, MANY untold things out there that have to do with the food we eat. Processing, bleaching, you really don't have any clue most of the time what exactly your foods have been through before you put it in your mouth. Why do people bash on one thing(like chicken nuggets) when most of our daily consumed food has been though so many things we have no idea about? And so many things added to our food too. Have you ever tried reading a box with a long list of ingredients? Either your eyes get too tired before finishing those tiny letters, or you get tongue tied by the many long words. Throughout the years, I've discovered that many of those big scientific words are disguises for unimaginable things. I'll never touch some foods again. But to tell you the truth, I'm not so concerned about knowing what every big word is on the ingredients label. What I want to know if it's something we can eat. Well, yes, I'm sure it's edible, but is it FOOD? Is it actually something that we were meant to eat? Something that came from the earth and wasn't genetically altered in some way. Why isn't it more simple? why can't most labels just have a few, simple, understandable ingredients on them? We weren't meant to eat this way. Really. There have been so, So many studies that have discovered the leading causes for cancer and heart disease is they way we eat. And eating a simple vegetable based diet will actually reverse cancer and heart disease in many cases. There are so many more reasons than just that of course, but our bodies are obviously meant to be fed by what we've always had here on the earth from the beginning. No bleach, no hormones, no big scientifically words, just plain and simply whole foods. I always say, "The less ingredients on the box, the better", which is definitely something I try to live by daily. There are so many health problems out there that could simply disappear if we changed the way we ate to simpler foods. I think we need to have a food revolution or something. I know I will be taking out some processed foods from now on and adding a little more whole food goodness! How bought you?

Our 4th

 Our 4th was pretty uneventful until the evening. We took the kids down to the parade which was really nothing great to behold. Fireworks, including the city firework show, was banned so we tried to make the best of the day still. After all the candy, balloons, and obsession of the fire truck passed we walked back and had a barbecue with a bunch of friends until late that night. It was a great time, and turned out to be a great 4th despite everything else.

Tank top boys

Little Lady Bug

We celebrated a special little ladies first birthday on Tuesday! Little Miss Ellie(my niece, Everett's cousin) had a cute little party thrown for her at the park. It was a perfect day too, no crowds, no bad weather, and pretty scenery. Elijah and Everett were pretty much inseparable the whole time, I think they're best buddies now. Here are a few pictures from our evening.