High tea with a princess

Miss C was invited to a tea party over the weekend.  Here are just a few pictures of the party guest princess.

 Here she is with her "BFF".  These girls have been in school together since Kindergarten :)

Lunch date

A little lunch date with friends after a hard day at soccer camp :)

We have a few new friends

Can you see what we see?  We have a couple of new friends that like to hang out in our backyard.  Usually they stay tucked in the woods, but today they decided to come right up to the grassline.  From what we can tell, we've seen a mama and two of her babies.  So cute!

First Pool trip for the summer

Happy almost summer!  We visited the pool today after school and I can't believe they actually went in!  The water (and air temperature) in my opinion was FREEZING!  But seriously after 2 full weeks of begging from Miss C, I finally gave in.  I did make them wait until the temperature outside was at least in the 80's (and not raining).  I think today's high was a chilly 81, well chilly for some swimming.  I told them I would take them, but under no circumstances would I actually get in.  

They actually swam for a little bit and then I made them get out when they started turning purple.  It was a successful first pool visit if I say so myself!  At least now they will get off my back :)

Swing batter batter....

Another great evening at the ball field!  We took a family trip to see our local minor league team play.  These games are so fun!  The field is really nice and it's not that crowded at all.  The best part?  Cheap eats!  We eat like kings during these games and don't really have to spend a lot.  I think the kids now like to go to the games just for the food.  Last night we managed to consume hot dogs, peanuts, cotton candy, funnel cakes and an adult beverage or two :).  Who wants the over/under on how many of us have belly aches in the morning?!

Is the world ending?

So the kids have been fighting quite a bit lately. I think daylight savings has really thrown a loop this year and the kids just can't seem to catch up on their sleep. I was hoping to actually put them to bed a little later in the hopes of having them sleep in a little bit, but of course that didn't happen! Little J was up at 6 a.m. this morning rarin' to go.

Anyway, I digress a little....in addition to the increased fighting, it seems that the kids have decided they don't need to listen to me anymore. The past week I've been pretty frustrated and it seems that most tasks (like getting dressed, eating, etc) end up in me basically losing my sh*t. I know it's mostly my fault. They have pretty much figured out that they have at least 16 chances of me repeating myself before I end up yelling. And even then, the yelling isn't so bad. I've been lax lately on the discipline and it's time for a little boot camp around here.

So this evening as we were driving home from dinner I casually mentioned that they would need to change into their jammies when they got home (because they were playing with side walk chalk and had it all over their clothes). When I said it, it was more of a simple mental note to myself. So when we actually did get home, I headed to the kitchen to pack lunches for the next day and the kids scurried upstairs to play a little before bed. After awhile, I called up and asked for them to get their jammies on because I was coming up in a few minutes to get them ready for bed.

And then I think I saw a bright light and heard angels singing. I must have been delirious because Miss C calls down, "we already have them on and we brushed our teeth too!" Wait, what?? Surely I didn't hear you right....

1:58:37

The time for my second half marathon! I'm proud of my sub-two hour time too. Quite an accomplishment! I trained for this one a little differently than I did the first one. I was already at the 5-6 mile mark when we started (as opposed to running barely 3 miles when I started training for the first one). My partner and I started training in January and the race was the end of March. We had a plan to run 2-3 times a week (around 4-5 miles at a time) and have a long run on Saturday. Each Saturday we increased our long run by 1 mile. We had so much time to prepare that we ended up running two 10 mile runs, tw0 11 mile runs and two 12 mile runs the last 6-7 weeks before the race. That's a lot of mileage when you add 4-6 mile weekly runs 2-3 times a week!

About half way through our training, we kind of half joked about being able to do it in under 2 hours (which is a little less than 9:10 minute miles). As we got closer and closer to the race, my partner thought that was a little unrealistic (most of our long runs were not averaging that pace) and we adjusted the goal to 2:03 (about 9:20 second miles). I'll be honest, going into the race, I was a little disappointed that we adjusted the time, but we were committed to staying together and I was ok with it. Heck, it was shaving over 4 minutes from my previous half marathon. At the end of the day, improving my time was really all that mattered to me.

Race day we were nervous but excited and I felt well trained. The course was supposedly relatively flat (we had never run it before) and we expected a good race. The first 7 miles or so, we ran pretty fast. Faster than our 9:20 expectation. I was supposed to be keeping pace and if we were going to fast, I was supposed to pace us back. Several times I did pace us back, but we were feeling so good we just kind of went with it. I think the first 7 miles were averaging a little under 9 minute miles. Then we hit mile 8 and I could tell my partner was starting to have some difficulties. We slowed up a little bit hoping for her to "recover" for a minute or two. We weren't going to stop and walk because no matter what, neither one of us wanted to walk. At about 8.5 miles, there was a big hill (it was relatively short, but very steep) and I started to run a little ahead of my partner. At the top of the hill, I looked back and she had stopped to walk a little bit. At that point, I wasn't sure what to do. I wasn't sure if I had pushed her too much the first 7 miles and she was going to have trouble the rest of the way or if she was just needing a little break. At that point, I made the decision to go on. As I did that, the course double backed and I had a chance to yell back at her to see how she was doing. All I remember her saying was, "keep going, I'm right behind you!" And so I went.

I felt really good through mile 9 and even 10 but then I could feel fatigue setting in. Not to mention, the second half of the course seemed to be uphill (at a slight incline). Mile 11 was kind of a blur, but it was the first time I realized that I could probably beat the 2 hour mark. I knew it was going to be close, but if I kept the pace I was going, I could probably do it. Then mile 12 came and I thought that was going to be it for me. I have never felt bad while running. Sure I felt fatigued from time to time on prior runs, but never bad. Well, this mile 12 was bad. I mean really bad. I thought I was going to be sick bad. But I pushed through and as I rounded to mile 13, I passed one of the girls I had trained with (there were 6 of us training together for various half marathons) and I heard her say, "you're going to do it! You're going to beat two hours!". I don't remember much for that last 1/10, but I remember crossing that finish line, stopping my watch and looking down and seeing 1:58:37 :)

Me and my adoring fans. I saw them at several points throughout the race and it was what kept me going :)

First loose tooth

Well, we haven't officially confirmed it with the dentist yet, but I think Little J has his first loose tooth! Ugh! I'm so not ready for this to happen! It was devastating enough when Miss C started loosing her teeth and now I have to go through it with my baby.

The pledge

Just being a little patriotic around here. Wrote this out by herself this afternoon :)

And I just love her toothless smile...

No training wheels!

I've known he could do this for months, but in true little J fashion, he just needed the time to figure out he could do it too. He zips around on his scooter already and has the balance thing down to a T. For some reason, he was just nervous (or stubborn maybe?) to give riding on a bike a try. As a parent, sometimes that can be so frustrating. But I guess they all just need to do it in their own time.

I was out for the afternoon and when I met up with the clan at Mee Maw and Goompas for dinner, Little J ran over excitedly and had some news he wanted to share with me. J told me that afternoon he practiced with him on a balance bike we borrowed from a friend. After 5 minutes, he had that thing down pat and was willing to try his bike without the training wheels. I think it was finally that little boost of confidence from the balance bike that did the trick. There's no stoppin' this kid now!

And again in true little J fashion, 5 seconds after he learns to do something he has to ramp it up with some tricks. Way to give your mom a heart attack.

And in true Miss C fashion, she just can't let him have his moment in the sun without upstaging with a few tricks of her own.