The Essence of .Me.: Happy Spring!

I think it's amazing that today is the first day of Spring and the flowers on our bush's bloomed TODAY and new leaf buds showed up on our tree in the backyard TODAY. What perfect timing, mother nature. I have to say that I am pretty sure that Spring is my new favorite season. I never had a favorite before. Just liked them all. But for some reason this time I am really seeing the beauty in it. I love seeing all the freshly bloomed wild flowers and the warm, bright sun just puts me in the best mood. Life just feels so fresh. I love it!

Today was so great. It was a perfect 78 degree's so we decided that today is the perfect day to go to the beach! I have been looking forward to this day since last summer. Max was too young during the summer to enjoy (or even notice) the beach. And I couldn't expose him to the sun like at all because of how young he was. So every time we went to the beach I'd just have him covered and usually asleep. So I couldn't wait until next summer so he would be a little older and able to actually have fun. Let me tell you, it was everything I hoped for and more! Max LOVES the beach! It took him some getting used to at first because he's never been exposed to sand or that much water before so he was definitely scared at first. Well, of the water. Not the sand. He was so intrigued by the sand and then ended up absolutely loving it. I'll get to that later, though. Sean took him to the shore and introduced his feet to the water. I was worried the water would still be too cold to go in, but was surprised to see it really wasn't. At least not to Max. When the little waves came up Max would fuss from just not knowing what the hell they were lol.

So then Sean put him down on the damp - but no waves - part and all of a sudden a switch went off and it's as if he just realized how open and free it was. He smiled big and took off crawling! lol it was so funny! Then he all of a sudden wasn't scared of the water anymore and took off towards the waves! So Sean watched over him while I snapped away with my camera (duh) and it was just such a blast. He got pretty pissed if Sean tried to pick him up, haha!

Then after a while of playing in the shallow water, he got drenched and had mud all over him. So we took him to get rinsed off and attempted drying him when he realized we were back on dry beach sand so he began kicking and whining so bad and we didn't know why at first. So we let him go and off he went onto the sand, lol! He loved crawling in the sand so much so we just let him be, though he constantly wanted to go visit other people on the beach so we had to keep dragging him away, lol. Then Sean took him down to make a sand castle...that was a no-go since every time Sean would start anything Max would just trample over it! lol! It was hilarious. So after playing some more I saw Max start to rub his eyes so I knew it was nap time even though he was for sure going to put up a fight. But me being super mommy now I would able to get the job done and he just knocked out. So he and I laid together on the sheet we put down on the sand while Sean went body-surfing. Max and I took a nice nap together. It. was. lovely. I love napping on the beach!

So that was our first family beach trip. I can't wait to go again! Here are a few pics from today -