Half-Marathon

My half-marathon was today, and I made it across the finish line in 2:29:38! Considering that I became a runner a mere 3 months ago, that's not too bad. It turns out that 13.1 miles is a really long way to run.

I've been so excited about my race, but Thursday night, I started freaking out a little bit. I was irrationally certain that something would happen to prevent me from running my race and all my work and training this summer would have been for nothing. i.e. I was worried I would break my leg an hour before the race, etc. I told you, irrational. I am happy to report though that I did not, and I can now claim "running a half-marathon" on my list of things I've done in life.

It was awesome to see my family waiting for me at the finish line and hear them screaming and freaking out/cheering me on when they saw me coming.

How did I celebrate this accomplishment? I went home and took a well-deserved 3 hour nap. :)

p.s. I know I look terrible in this picture, but give me a break, I did just run 13.1 miles.

p.p.s. Oh here is something funny: the second I crossed the finish line, my girls came up to me and said, and I quote "Mommy, I'm sooo thirsty! Can you get me a drink?!?" Um... YOU'RE thirsty?!? And a few minutes later, Emily told me that I needed to work out. LOL (I was stretching, and I think that is what she meant, but it was still hilarious)

p.p.p.s. This is my 99th post! Stay tuned for my 100th post giveaway!!!

Addison's birthday

Yes, yes, another birthday post. Figured I should get them done before it is Liah's birthday next week!

Addy's birthday was the 19th of July, but I did a little party for him on *gasp* the 17th! because my favorite sister begged me. She came and visited, but left the day before Add's birthday, so she convinced me to do his party early. It was hard for my Monk-ish mind to allow it, but I did it all the same. No invitations or piñatas (or guests) for this party, really just so thrown together, but it worked and it was cute all the same.

My babies always get their very own cute little cake to destroy on their first birthday. If you can't tell, it is supposed to be a sailboat. Original, I know.

...and all of my babies did not hesitate to destroy said very own cake. Except Addy. He is a surprisingly clean baby that very patiently waited for me to fork-feed him his cake.

We tried telling him to touch it... we actually put his fingers in it...

...phsyically lifted the cake for him to take a bite, which sort of worked...

...still wasn't really going for it....

...but since it was his party, after all, we let him have it his way.

Wall-E shoes from Aunt Lorie!

A coloring car from Gramma MacGregor. Addy loves taking the little characters out and putting them back in.

Happy birthday sweet little Adds! I love you!!!

Emily

Emily, age 5

This is a post I started a couple months ago that I was planning to post for Emily's birthday. On July 11. As you see, time has gotten away from me, but better late than never.

The best word I can think of to describe Emily is "spunky." This girl just cracks me up. You may remember the "grandma" post from December. Well she is full of these little gems. Here are a few of my favorites:

• "I just can't stop thinking about Ad! He's so cuuute!" (she will just randomly spout this off)

  
  
• "Liah always treats me like dirt. And she treats me like a shovel."

  
  
• "Mommy, what did I saaay??" (One time she said "Mommy, everytime I give you a kiss, you give me a kiss." So then randomly she would give me a kiss and if I didn't kiss her right away, she would say this.)

  
  
• Today we were feeding lunch to Addison, and we always call him a little piggy because he eats so much, and Emily started singing "He's a piggy" to the tune of "He's a tramp" from Lady and the Tramp.

I love this girl. LOVE her. She can definitely be opposite ends of the spectrum from one second to the next, but how she keeps life interesting!

Here are some pictures from her birthday party. She was very specific about who she wanted at her party (all THREE people) and what she wanted to do. I was happy to oblige.

Liah and Emily even made the invitations for Emily's party. It was pretty funny actually. Emily took a piece of paper off of her notepad and colored some rainbow stripes on it, and wanted to go give it to her friends. She was disappointed when I informed her that the invitation probably ought to have some words on it to let them know what, when, where, etc. "But I don't know how to write!" Liah stepped in and offered to help, and together they made invitations. They tried to have the party start at 9pm, but oddly enough I wouldn't go for it. So they eventually came up with the time 11:15am, and I allowed that. Funny girls.

She wanted 2 piñatas. Instead of saying no, and because I am cheap, all I did was staple together some pieces of cardstock and put snack bags of m&ms in them that I got couponing. Either way, she was delighted.

She also wanted to have lunch and watch a movie, so we made mini pizzas and everyone got to make their own. They watched the movie while each person made their pizza.

She wanted a cake in the shape of a heart. There was half a cake left over from my birthday party the night before, so I cut out a heart shape of cake and stuck it on a plate. She was thrilled with that as well.

The other activity she had planned was to "play in her room." This was by far the easiest party I have ever done.

Books from Aunt Lorie. Each page is a puzzle!

Princess castle sculpting set from Gramma Mac.

"HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL!!!" pajamas from Gramma MacGregor. She was just a little excited... and by little I mean a lot.

Seriously, this girl wanted an 8 pack of olives from Costco for her birthday. She was talking to Grampa later on the phone and she goes "I got OLIVES!!! 8 cans!!!"

Froggy purse from Liah

A fabulous make up job.

Happy Birthday little Emily! I love you!!!

Perspective

Okay, so it's a little ridiculous how excited I was for school to start again.... to ONLY have two kids at home during the day! I've been dreaming of all the things I could get done during school hours. When I only had two kids, two was sooo hard! But now that I have four, oh, it is beautiful. So I made the best of my week:

Monday: visiting teaching and coupon shopping
Tuesday: what else? coupon shopping...
Wednesday: I had MY friends over for a playdate and made rolls. mmm....
Thursday: cleaned my dining room carpet
Friday: boat loads of laundry

On Tuesday, Sean starts preschool! Just think of the possibilities of what I can get done with ONE child at home!!!


p.s. I am getting dangerously close to my 100th post and conveniently my blogiversary... and I have an awesome giveaway planned that you won't want to miss. I've been planning this one for a while...

iPod

I just bought one of these! I love it! I have to admit that I never really understood the point of these. When I was in high school (only one decade ago!), email was first becoming popular. Texting and iPods and all that was definitely after that, and I never really understood the value... until I started running miles and miles... suddenly I see the value of an mp3 player. It's nice to have something to keep you company for 11 miles at 5:30 in the morning. My sister has this exact same one and I love it. It is small and has a little clip on it so you don't have to hold it while you're running. I also just signed up yesterday for my half-marathon, so I guess it's official that I'm doing it! It is on the 19th and I am so excited!

So I have also found more uses for this iPod that I just had to have. I use it after the kids have gone to bed to have something to listen to while I clean the house... but my favorite use of all: my kids love to listen to it, too, and while we walk to and from school, they take turns listening to it, and so we walk in peaceful bliss. It is beautiful. I also love hearing Emily singing along to the songs and getting all excited when one comes on that she knows. She doesn't fully realize that no one else hears what she is hearing...

For the record, Liah is already begging me for an iLod. (no, no. No typo there, that's what she keeps calling it! lol)

My birthday

Yes, I know it was a month and a half ago, but I'm finally getting around to posting pictures from this summer.

As you all may know, I have the coolest sister on the face of the earth. Jeremy was out of town for my birthday, and my sister came to visit for a couple weeks. Lorie and my girls threw me a Hannah Montana birthday party complete with invitations, decorations and games. You know you're jealous.

and what would a party be like without some form of pin the tail on the donkey? We played "pin the Hannah-tail on the donkey" which is merely a Hannah Montana sticker on each donkey tail. It's Lorie's little way of making fun of me for doing some form of pin the tail on the donkey at every kid's birthday party: "pin the crown on the princess," "pin the spiderman on the web," etc.

I won (oh yes, and she also got me this birthday ribbon)

We also played Hannah Montana bingo and Encore.

Liah played Happy Birthday for me on the piano while everyone sang.

For the record, I turned 28, not 82, like Liah thought...

(thanks for the cake Kim!)

Don't I have the best sister ever??? I love you Lorie!!! I miss you!

Happy Anniversary!

Happy Anniversary Jeremy! 8 years and 4 kids later and I love you more than the day I married you.

Here's to forever...