it only comes once a year // my b-day in photos

the older we get, the less & less excited we get about our birthdays, amiright?  i'm pretty much at that age where another year older isn't really something i'm super excited about.  i'm legit in my mid-thirties now which is pretty much where i think i'd stay forever if i could.  the thirties are great.  but since forty is the new thirty maybe there's nothing to fear about seeing another birthday come & go.  and like my mom always says, "aging is a privilege."  so one might as well do it gracefully, right?

it's our tradition on birthdays to just do fun family stuff of the birthday person's choice.  for me that was a morning hike with my favorite adventure squad, lunch at por que no, some shopping, a quick photo shoot with the boys (we've done this three of the last four years & it's become one of my favorite "birthday gifts" from them) & of course, cake & ice cream.  it was a great day.

here's to growing one year older & wiser, too.

june // is it summer yet?

it sure feels like it!  splash pads, tank tops, popsicles, bbq, repeat.  not too shabby.

we're taking the boys on their first camping trip & we're all getting pretty excited.  their sleeping bags were out on our living room rug for days so they could practice & every trip to the grocery store now includes walking the camping aisle just to make sure there isn't something new & cool we need for our trip.  we'll see how this goes.

i have once again hit a wall in my working out & clean eating.  what even is that?  like life just gets busy & it's the first thing to go.  late nights, slow mornings & poor meal planning have all made me so unmotivated.  it's just so much easier to not do it all.  but ugh, i'm feeling sluggish & lazy & something's gotta give.  i just have ONE MORE WEEK of my kayla itsines 12 week workout guide & my body is just like "nope." i have to push through that somehow & just get it done so i can start it over or i will never forgive myself.  get it together amy!

i went to the ingrid michaelson concert last night totally last minute.  i had a friend text me literally on her way there to see if i wanted to go & it just so happened i had gotten dressed & done my hair that day so i thought why the heck not?  you can't waste a good hair day & i mean the alternative was flopping down on the couch & having a lazy tuesday night (not that there's anything wrong with that).   it was a blast.  i only know like three or four of her songs but i'm a music fanatic so obviously when we pushed our way down to the front row & were like ten feet from ingrid & her band & the music was amazing, i cried.  i'm such an emotional weirdo!  but sometimes it just feels good to remember you're a person who is more than a mom & you love love & somewhere deep inside you there is still a free spirit who loves concerts on the grass & whatever crap you're dealing with, it's all gonna be alright.  ya know?  it was good.

so now i'm surfing the venue's concert calendar for this summer to see who else i can catch there.  maybe becoming a groupie is still in the cards for me!  don't we all aspire to be that chick who's "with the band?" just me? ok.

have i mentioned our june has been a sun-filled blast so far?  enjoy some of my favorites from our (not quite yet summer) summer so far.

it's april // no foolin'

happy april 1st!

i haven't taken too many daily shots since we last spoke.  my goal for this year's p365 is to end up with at least as many photos for the month as there are days.  but not necessarily one photo per day.  i ended march with 37 photos for my p365 so i took a few days off.  i'm not sure this is the best way to do it though, because since i haven't shot for a couple days i kinda feel like i'm losing steam? i don't know.  i also overthink what i should take a picture of.  should it always be my kids? who am i shooting this for? for me to think it looks cool aesthetically or for them to look back on some day? or for my instagram followers who may or may not be so sick of seeing their faces.  ultimately it needs to be about what inspires me, right? it's my project.  i need to stop overthinking.

so now that we've gotten that out of the way, what else is new? i've started a 12 week workout guide & am on week 2.  i'm pretty excited about it! anyone heard of kayla itsines?  she's put out these 12 week workout guides that help you go from ok shape to freaking ripped.  i mean, ya know, results not typical or whatever.  but we'll see.  i'm feeling pretty motivated (says the girl who just ate a couple extra squares of dark chocolate) but seriously.  it's all about clean eating, high intensity circuit resistance training workouts & cardio workouts on the off-circuit days.

i've started an instagram account dedicated to my fitness journey.  i mean did you know this was a thing?  there are millions of fitness acounts on instagram & the supportive community is huge.  but i'm really scared to put this out there to the people who know me though... i've been pretty guarded about who i share it with.  i mean, i'm really putting myself out there here.  ya know, progress pics & sweaty selfies & all that.  it is what it is.  and what it is is a place for me to shamelessly track my progress, report my workouts & post lots of selfies of me flexing.  so there you have it, you've been warned.  if you're cool with that, i'd love to have you follow along! so come find me at @amylee.fit <-- boom.

and that's about it. hope everyone's spring is off to a bangin start & i'll catch ya next time!

getting in front of the camera // march

since there was approximately one picture of me in last year's p365 album, i've resolved to make it a higher priority to get in FRONT of the camera once in a while.  actually, i've decided that once in a while should be about once a month.  i figure my boys will want to look back & know i was around too, right?

getting comfortable in front of the camera is really hard for me.  i find so many reasons why today is not the day for a selfie.  my hair isn't washed, i'm not wearing makeup... or... ok, those are pretty much the main reasons.  but on monday evening i decided to forget those things & give it a go. i set the camera up on my dresser, gave the boys the remote & let the shutter fly.  they had a blast pushing the button, watching the red light on my camera come on & hearing it click.  who knew it even had a red light when it shoots?  maybe that's just a remote thing but it was new to me.  apparently being on the other side of the lens is educational, too.

hopefully this is the start of a year-long project.  it'd be so fun to have a collection of images with my boys for every month at the end of the year.  at some point i'll have to start getting creative with setting & poses though right?  i mean how many squishy boy cheek kissy photos can i have?  oh well. for this month it works.

so here's a few of the results of my first month of the getting in front of the camera project.  here goes nothing!

our life lately // my P365 & other random bits

hey look, it's my semi-monthly post!  the last few weeks have been full of sun, work & more sun.  it needs to never go away, ever.  we've gotten outside every chance we can & we're all working on some legit tan lines.  so far, so good.

i shot my first wedding of the season a couple weeks ago (check it out here!) & am pretty excited that it's all business pretty much every weekend from here on out til the fall.  i mean, it's good & bad.  when i'm busy with work there's this whole big part of me that gets filled up.  i still get butterflies before every shoot but when i walk away with a couple memory cards full of awesome images i practically float my way back to the car & then it's like a junkie needing their fix until i get on the computer to start editing.  weird?  maybe.  but photography is a huge outlet for me & creating awesome images is my fix.

my half marathon training is stalled.  let's be honest, i lost motivation.  thirteen miles is no joke, you guys.  the training requires you to run a lot & it just wasn't happening.  i'm running a five mile race this weekend & am pretty excited to test myself on this shorter distance rather than freaking out about my body lasting for thirteen.  but seriously, where has my motivation gone?  clean eating, cutting junk out of my diet & getting in shape have all been low on my priority list for months now & i gotta figure out why.  how do you get back on the wagon when being off is so comfortable?  aside from all that feeling a bit uncomfortable in your own skin thing, it's pretty easy to just eat junk & be lazy.  in fact, it's nice every now & then.  but ugh, it's gotta stop.  so here goes nothin.  today was clean eating day one & it was less than perfect but practice makes perfect, right?  that's what tomorrow's for.

and with that i'm off to bed!  i'm meeting my bestie/running partner/life partner for four miles tomorrow morning at 5:30.  aaaand that's gonna come early.  here's a little photo dump from the last few weeks of our goings-ons.  you can follow along in real time (aka: i update much more frequently) on both flickr & instagram.

enjoy!