Nana's house

The day after Christmas we headed to Nana's house to celebrate with my family. Santa managed to make a stop there as well and the kids enjoyed opening presents for a second time.

The kiddos enjoyed the visit with their cousin. Little baby D got a kick out of the kids. He and Little J had fun "chasing" each other (and the dogs too). The funny thing is that they each thought they were the one being chased.

It was a great visit!

Christmas Day!

We had a great Christmas this year. I'm pretty sure the kids got way more than they needed, but definitely everything that they wanted. The biggest item they asked for was a scooter. Santa was happy to oblige. Other than that, there really weren't too many requests for toys. My kids are certainly hard to shop for because they usually don't have something specific that they really want. But we certainly made do.

Miss C on Christmas morning. She was the first of the two of them up. Of course, they decided to sleep in until a little after 7 (we were all up around 6:15 waiting for them). Figures that the one day we actually get up early they would decide to get up later than usual.

Yes, they had matching pajamas this year :)

I think he really liked his gifts! His favorite was the General Grievous from Star Wars and the Iron Man that Santa brought him.

Little J also got a new dino helmet to go along with his new scooter

Miss C showing her scooter skills. She was a total crack up that morning. She had to wear this outfit while riding. I guess in her mind, this is a "workout" outfit that you wear when exercising. She got it last summer when she attended a sports camp....so she associates it with physical activity. Kind of funny. I've been going to the gym a lot lately (and was running a lot while training for my half marathon) so she's very in tune with workout attire. That's my girl! You've got to look cute while exercising :)

Christmas Eve

So we're getting close! Almost to the end of the year :)

On Christmas Eve the kids decorated cookies for Santa and then wrote him a letter. The decorating went as expected, a huge mess everywhere. But the cookies turned out great and that is all that mattered.

They spent most of the time "accidentally" getting icing on their fingers....

Then I brought out the sprinkles. Big mistake. Huge. Can you guess what happened about 3 seconds after this picture was taken? If you guessed that he dumped the entire container of green sprinkles on the cookie, then you would be correct! Sure hope Santa likes sprinkles on his cookies.

I put this pic in here because this is the face I get about 95% of the time these days. I'm waiting patiently for the day that he starts to cooperate again (which was about 4 for Miss C). Until then, this is what I get. I love it though because as I was looking through these pictures today, I had a few good laughs :)

Along the lines of funny photos, anyone care to guess what the hell he's doing in this picture? I actually don't even have an answer for that one.

The finished product

After cookies, we wrote letters to Santa

He did this all by himself. It's a picture of him with Santa. The dots on the top are snow falling down.

And here is Miss C's (again, totally done all by herself)

It says:

"Dear Santa,

I am a gud grl. I wud like a big grl scotr for cristmis. Here r sum milc and cukes for you and your rander."

Pretty good if you ask me!

ginger bread houses

I'm not going to lie. I hate these things. You should have seen the mess trying to get the roof on these suckers. It sucked. Period.

But it made them oh-so-happy. So suck or not, it will probably be an annual thing. Next year I'll probably try to be a little smarter about it. Maybe by the time they don't want to do it anymore, I'll finally have it nailed.

i.did.it

Check this one off the bucket list....I ran a half marathon! I wish I would have chronicled my journey to get there because 6 months ago I never would have thought I'd actually do it. But I did and I'm so glad it's over! Before I ran it, I had fleeting thoughts of a full. But now that's it over, I can't imagine running another 13.1 miles on top of the 13.1 I had already run. Those people are nuts! I'm happy with the half, and who knows, maybe I'll do it again next year. I'd like to keep up with the running....it's done wonders for me. Sick to kind of say it, but I actually like it. It's my little break away from the chaos of daily life.

My friend J and I started running together about 5/6 months ago. When we first started, we struggled to do 30 minutes. I mean struggled. We were at about a 10:30 minute mile and once we hit 25 minutes, the excuses started. We generally pushed through to hit the 30 minute mark, but more often than not, we "convinced" ourselves that 28 minutes was close to 30 and we could go ahead and stop. I'm fairly athletic (in an average way), but running has never been my strong suit. Right about then, my friend "suggested" we sign up for a half marathon. She's done several over the past couple of years and thought I might be able to do it too. After the look of horror on my face subsided, I agreed. She had just had a baby 4 months prior to us starting to run and I thought, heck, if she can do it, I can do it. I mean, it had been over 3 years since I had a baby, and the excuses were not really valid any longer.

Over the next couple of weeks and months, that 30 minutes turned into 40 and then 50 minutes. That 10:30 mile became more of a 10 minute mile and we continually saw progress. I remember the morning I did 7 miles....a personal best for me. I think once about 10 years ago I ran 6+ miles at one time. But never more than that. That 7 was huge and it was one of the first times I actually thought I could do it.

That 7 miles became 8, then 9 and finally 10 (well officially 9.6) two weeks before the race (and I felt good after that long run). Our "short" runs were 5 miles (which I would NEVER have considered a short run before) and I was able to easily do those 3 times a week. About a month before the race, we were consistently doing sub-10 minute miles too. Heck, on flat surfaces, we were hitting 9 and 9:15 minute miles.

The morning of the race was nerve wracking. The most I had ever run was 9.6, so I still had over 3 miles to add to that to complete the 13.1. Everyone told me that if I could run 10, I could certainly do 13. Ignorance is bliss, I guess.

Here we are the morning of the race:

The first 4 miles were good. Our first mile, a 9:15. We tried to slow it down a bit as to not burn ourselves out and had a 9:50 for mile 2, a 9:30ish for mile 3 and I can't remember mile 4. About 5 miles into it, my friend J wasn't doing well. She was a bit nauseated and was having knee problems and wanted to drop back. It happened so fast, I didn't have time to think. I had always planned on completing the race with her...no man left behind. But I knew she would be upset if I stopped with her....she wanted me to complete the race. So I left her at the 5 mile mark and kept going. I knew this was going to make the race that much more difficult. I got used to running with her, and runs without her were so painfully boring. I kind of come to count on her to keep me going and we have come to be great running partners. After the race I learned that she stopped for a few minutes but didn't want to let me down either and picked herself up and kept going. I'm so proud of her! I just wish we could have finished together.

I did well through about mile 8. Mile 9 was pretty rough (and hilly) and I was allowing thoughts of needing to stop enter my mind. I had kind of said all along that I didn't want to walk, no matter what. But this race was much more difficult than I had expected (especially since I felt so good during the 10 miles I had run 2 weeks prior). Right before 10, the family was waiting to cheer me on. I'm smiling in this photo, but at that point, I felt like hell. I'm glad they were there then, because I was starting to lose steam.

Mile 11, 12, and 13 were total bitches. I'm not going to lie. They were tough and I did everything I could to just keep one foot in front of the other. My legs were starting to get sore (and they had never done this in training) and it became harder and harder for me to keep going. But I did, and I finished (without walking, no less!). I only wish I was kissing the medal in this one :)

Official time, 2:07:17 for an average of 9:40(ish) minute miles. I'm so proud of that time. I *think* every mile was sub-10. Although I can't be 100% for those last few miles. I was pretty much delirious the last 30 minutes!

A little celebratory pic with the family :)

Definitely one of my biggest physical achievements!

Bottom Left

Houston, we have lost a tooth! The bottom left tooth finally fell out after being wiggly for several months now. I think Miss C had a little something to do with how wiggly it got over the past couple of weeks....she just couldn't leave it alone! I guess when you are 5 and have a loose tooth, it's pretty fun to play with.

Over the past week, it really started getting loose. It had been bothering her when she ate, so I knew it was going to be coming out soon. The past 2 or 3 days it was so loose that it kind of started to freak me out. It was also started to slant to the side and looked out of place. I wasn't sure if we should pull it out or let it come out on it's own. I didn't want to risk pulling it out too early and having it hurt, but I also didn't want her to accidentally swallow it.

So today we were at a birthday party and one of other parents and I started talking about loose teeth. He convinced me that the tooth was really ready to come out and if I gave it a gentle tug, it would probably come right out. Well, Miss C wasn't going to let me anywhere near it once she heard "yank it out". So after a little gentle coaxing, I convinced her to pull it out herself. She attempted (weakly) about 4 or 5 times before I had her "practice" on my finger. I told her to pull the tooth like she had just pulled my finger and low and behold, it came right out! I couldn't believe she just pulled her own tooth. She was so surprised that it came out too. You should have seen the look on her face. That look was quickly replaced with a huge grin and an excited, "It's so little!" She was so proud of herself! Thank goodness we weren't near a mirror, but it did bleed a little bit. I knew if she saw the blood, she would freak out. So I tried to get it to stop without having her notice (which she never did).

She couldn't stop telling (and showing) everyone at the party. We called Mee-maw and Nana and told them the good news. She's upstairs sleeping right now probably dreaming of what the tooth fairy is going to leave her. For the record, it was 5 $1 bills (yes, I caved to the peer pressure) and her very own tooth fairy certificate. The tooth fairy probably won't be as generous next time, but hey, it's her first tooth and it deserves something a little special.

Here she is with the tooth fairy pillow that Nana made for her. It came last week just in time! It has her name on it, but I blocked that out to protect the innocent. She loves it!

getting our christmas tree

Hmmm....second week and February and I'm up to getting our christmas tree from last year....I'm probably going to post the rest of the year pretty quickly because I have a groupon for a blurb book (which I'm using to print this blog into book format) and the groupon expires next week. Eeek! Better get on it! I also had hopes of moving this blog to another host, but that has also taken a back seat. So much for resolutions!

Anyway, we got our tree this year the weekend of Thanksgiving (which is about 1-2 weeks earlier than normal for us). The kids were really into Christmas this year, so I wanted to go ahead and get our tree so we could enjoy it. We went to the same mom and pop store that we have gone to for the past 6 years....the only disappointment was that they don't have the huge red rocking chair anymore. We've taken pictures on that thing for the past couple of years and it's going to be missed. Wonder what happened to it.

Anyway, here we are selecting the perfect tree:

After "naps" we decorated it

Miss C hugging the tree